Sweet Song (37 page)

Vomit crept into his throat. He scurried into the open. Throwing up near a tree – amidst the familiar odors of pine needles and loam – is where the hole in his memory tore wide open. His sickliness as a child had not been that of a weak body, but that of an innocent one torn by an evil he had been too young to understand.

He tensed. Memory exploded. He retched, coughed, and retched again. Bob fell to the ground, his elbows holding him up, his face close to his own vomit. Dry heaves leaped in and out of his throat. His lungs burned. Images of his mother fondling him burned like flames licking at his mind’s eye. He had never understood why he hated the tickling, the touching. He never fully felt the pain and pleasure so keenly. His mother’s hand squeezing his balls, rubbing his erection until his pain burst, his body jerking and squirting its fluid, the wrong in it, the evil in it, all coming down on him. Vomiting at the side of the shack or in a bucket became his way of erasing what had happened.

How Big Leon lived with him and Bess was a mystery. The mental torture that man must have gone through. Yes, Bess was Fred’s favorite: they shared a tenderness that excluded Big Leon. The only way to keep Big Leon away was to disgust him. Was that it? Or was it that Bess struck out at both men? Was Martha sympathetic to Big Leon or did she love him? It was a fact that he could not have children. Were he and Martha lovers?

Bob rolled onto his back. The sky opened as the day closed. Twilight turned to starlight before his eyes.

He would never know the answers to all his questions. But he was alive. He was real.

Bob’s skin cooled. Evening breezes turned to night winds. Mixed clouds shifted and moved, turning into new shapes. Between the clouds, stars flared up and came close enough for Bob to reach out and touch.

He shut his eyes and images of his past fell before him, the curtain drawn, the catastrophe of his life playing out. He’d watch awhile, detached by the feel of his own skin, the scent of the ground, and the hoot of an owl. When the play in his mind became too horrible, he’d open his eyes and breathe in his present life. When nearly elated with just being alive, Bob would close his eyes again.

That is how he spent the next few hours, turning his memory on and off, reminding himself of the difference between a life past and a life being lived. For years he wondered who he was, and how he should live his life. Would he ever know the answer?

As the night wore on, his tears dried. His shoulders relaxed. His jaw let loose its tension. Knowing what he had held all those years allowed him to release it. The memory might remain, but the emotion fell away. The emotion would return, but he’d be ready for it. He was no longer innocent. He was no longer that child that could be manipulated and abused. He no longer had to blame blacks or whites; he no longer had to choose black or white as his savior. They were merely people back then, individuals, most of whom were gone now. He alone had escaped.

Bob unrolled his blanket and moved back into the hollow of the pine grove and underbrush. He stretched out and put his hands under his head. He was not out of hot water yet. He knew that much. But he felt real, more real than he’d felt for years.

By the time he dozed off to sleep, it was only a few hours before morning. His dreams were sweet and free. His body fell into the earth and disappeared. He slept whole. He slept completely, but he woke with a start.

The voices took a long time to feed through his deep unconsciousness, but when they did, he recognized them. His heart raced. His blood built pressure as it rushed to his brain. His eyes opened. Jimmy and Jerry Finch kneeled next to Hugh. Their faces big as the opening Bob had crawled into. His first thought was that Hugh had betrayed him.

G
et the hell out-a there,” Jimmy said.

Bob rolled to his side. Sleep held to him like dew held to the morning grass. He felt the gun under him and his hand closed around it.

“Come on,” Jimmy said.

Bob stretched his legs and slipped the gun under his blanket, then began to roll them up together. He wanted the pistol near, but not seen, not threatening.

The three men backed up and let Bob slide out from the brush. Once Bob was on his feet, Jimmy Finch cold-cocked him and he fell back down. The bedroll dropped from his hands. He saw Hugh scoop it up. As he got to his knees, Jimmy hit him again.

“You said he’d be safe,” Hugh yelled out.

“That’s for hurting my sister’s feelings.” Jimmy rubbed his fist with his other hand. He glanced at Hugh. “Had to do it.” Hugh’s interruption had changed the tone of attack. Jimmy looked as though he was getting ready to hit Bob again. Instead, he turned to Jerry, who looked equally surprised at the attack. Rather than swing at Bob, Jimmy pulled a gun.

Bob’s eyes opened wide. He looked at Hugh holding his bedroll. “I just told her the truth,” Bob said.

“I don’t care what you did. She cried half the night.”

Bob lowered his hands and stared into Jimmy’s eyes. Jimmy wasn’t going to shoot him. Bob could tell. Drooping eyes and a slack mouth indicated that the man burned with sorrow, not with anger, for what his sister had been through.

Jimmy waved the pistol for Bob to get up and move in front of the three of them.

“I didn’t know,” Hugh said to Bob.

Bob nodded. What had Hugh told them? How much more did Jenny know now? How much did Jimmy and Jerry know? He questioned himself, but knew that he wouldn’t get an answer until Jenny appeared. The thought hurt his chest. How would she look at him? What would she see?

As the four of them walked down through the north end of town, children came out to watch. Jimmy held the gun on Bob like a false security against him running off.

Mathis Williams, one of the more outspoken Negroes who had run abolition meetings long before the war, stepped out into the street. Bob recognized him and knew that Jimmy’s parents had helped him get from Virginia to Pennsylvania and into Williamsport a long time ago. “What’s goin’ on here,” Mathis asked Jimmy.

“Private matter,” Jimmy said.

“When there’s a gun in the street, the matter ceases to be private, my friend.”

Jimmy swung around to Mathis.

Bob stopped walking and watched out the corner of his eye.

“This is a
private
matter,” Jimmy said. “We’ll be off the street soon enough.”

“Son,” Mathis said.

“No, Mathis. It has to do with family. You understand.”

“Be careful, son. Holding a white man at gunpoint when you’re already a Negro sympathizer might not sit well in this town. You got enough trouble.”

Jimmy thanked Mathis, who stepped back inside his house.

Bob didn’t want to bring pain to yet another family. Everyone he touched got caught in the storm of his evil.

Whether Mathis got through to Jimmy or his sadness for his sister eased, he slipped the gun into his shirt and patted it with his hand.

Bob had no intention on running.

When they reached the house, Jimmy shoved Bob inside. Bob tripped over the door jam and landed on all fours.

“Shit, Jimmy, take it easy.” Jerry said.

Bob could see into the parlor down the short hall. Jenny sat with a handkerchief to her nose.

“In there,” Jimmy said.

Bob glanced back. Jimmy had put his hand over where the pistol was tucked into his shirt. Jimmy should have finished him off in the underbrush. That certainly would have been better than facing Jenny like this.

“Get!” Jimmy said.

Bob jumped up and went into the parlor. He braced himself against another shove, which didn’t come.

Jenny looked up. “Oh, your face.” She stood up.

“Sit down,” Jimmy said to her. He handed Bob a bar towel. “He’ll be fine.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Jenny said to both men.

Bob touched his burning cheek with the cloth. There was little blood. At least he hadn’t been hit with the pistol. He felt lucky in that.

“Leave us alone.” Jenny sat back down.

Bob remained standing.

When the others were gone, Bob said, “I only wanted you to know the truth.” The words were harder to say than he had imagined. His lips quivered. He could, rightfully, be hanged for what he’d done. That wasn’t what appeared to matter though. It was Jenny that mattered. He had not wanted to hurt her. “I thought,” he whispered, “that getting the truth out now would let me love you better.”

“You’ve carried your secrets long enough,” she said. “I can see that.”

Bob thought back. He didn’t even know whether he kept secrets or merely kept silent. That, too, has its own link to deceit, but it’s not the same. It never felt quite the same.

“If anyone finds out—”

“It could be bad.” She rubbed her eyes. “I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be totally accepted for who you are and not who your family is, or what your family had done. I wonder what would have happened in my life.” She laughed pitifully,
disingenuous. “But that is not what happened. That is not what led me to this moment. I know you could die at the hands of others for your truth – even what little I know of it. Passing as white should not be a crime, but it appears to be. Being black shouldn’t be a crime either. That’s what this town was built on. But you can’t change those who move in.” She put her hands into her lap and jutted her chin forward. “Is it worse to be lynched quickly or to be avoided and ridiculed much of your life? I only played with Negro children when I was small. There were plenty of other families who believed like my parents, don’t get me wrong. The boys? Well, no one cared what they did. Most of the girls grew up and left town for a new life. I swear what my parents did was the right thing for them and the Negroes they helped, but not the right thing for a little girl too innocent to know what she did.”

“I’m sorry,” Bob said.

“I grew up in a white family, but for years learned nothing but black ways. My parents were curious people, willing to learn anything new and to try it out on their own. When I started school, I didn’t even act like the other children. I didn’t talk like them or think like them. My brothers went to fight for what they believed in, and God went with them and brought them back alive, but sadder.

“I stayed home and helped Ma and Pa raise twelve Negro children whose daddies and older brothers went to fight. Just like my own brothers, the ones who came back were sad, different. They took their children, sisters, and wives, and left town like it was a bad memory. If you looked into their eyes, you’d see that their whole lives had become a bad memory.” Jenny lowered her head.

Bob waited. He didn’t know what to say. He slid down to the floor, his back against the door jam. He hugged his knees.

“I felt like I’d been left behind. Ma and Pa died. Jimmy lets me live here. You’d think with all the drink and laughter at night that this would be a happier place.”

Bob let his legs stretch along the floor.

“Then you come along,” she said. “Even with your own sad story, you brought something good. I thought that a white man would never love me. Until you. You didn’t care about all the
Negroes coming and going around here.” She looked up and tried to produce a smile. “Now I know why,” she squeaked.

“I’m as much white as black.” Bob tried to make her see that it wasn’t all a lie, that it wasn’t so bad.

“You’re sweet to say that.”

“It’s true. I have few happy memories with my black parents.” He thought about what more he could say, but came up empty.

“You must tell me everything. Your name. Where you’re from. How you lived.”

Bob froze. He’d have to run if he told her. He’d have to go far away if anyone knew the truth about him. He breathed deeply, opening his mouth to pull in gobs of air and letting the air out through his nose. He looked around the room. He could lie. He had become good at making up stories that sounded real. And what of his latest memory? What about the information he had just learned himself? How could he tell her something, out loud, that he literally couldn’t stomach even as memory? His lips pursed. His eyes filled with water. His nose ran. He sniffed. He knew he was going to tell her now. He waited for the courage to well up, to take over his body. He always knew long before his mouth could open that truth was about to be spilled, like the blood that had spilled over and over again in his life. His body began to sweat. His breath became hesitant. He drew his legs close and hugged them.

Jenny stared at him, with patient eyes, waiting for him to be ready.

“My name is Leon. I lived on the Fred Carpenter farm from birth. He was a kind man,” Leon hesitated, “and a cruel man. He loved my mother. He trusted my father with the farm. My father,” he raised his head. Tears slid down his face. “My black father tried to kill me when I was born and when he couldn’t, he killed himself, little by little, until he was shot, dead, by my, my—”

Jenny lowered herself to the floor and went over to Leon and sat with him just as they had near the river the evening before. She took his limp hands into hers. “You’ve got to go on.”

“I was born, so I was told by my Aunt Martha, during the Lord’s sweet song into night. When my black pa came home from the fields he tried to rip me out of my mama’s arms and she never forgave him
that.” Bob swallowed, then went on. He spoke of all the meaningful details including how he began to escape mentally by making up songs in his head. He walked Jenny through many of the stories of his life clear up to when the Carpenters came into town to sell hay. He explained how he recalled the awful truth of his mother’s molestation. To Leon, it brought all things to a point of clarity. He left out details only to hold back his own nausea.