The Promise of Jesse Woods (26 page)

“So you saw the trouble I was in and you tried to help,” she said.

I nodded. “Jesse, how does this end? Are you going to be Daisy’s mom the rest of your life?”

“Somebody has to be.” She looked out the window at a car passing, the dust leaving a brown coating on the leaves. “I need her to get stronger so she can fend for herself. Maybe till she gets our age.”

“That’s a long time to keep a secret.”

“You’re right. But it’s not too long to keep a promise.”

SEPTEMBER 1972

Dickie and Jesse and I planned an end-of-summer bike ride on Labor Day. We were riding to the end of the road no matter what the weather, and Daisy rode in Jesse’s back basket. I don’t know how Jesse pedaled up those hills with the added weight, but she did.

“You think he’ll be able to do it?” Dickie said as we walked our bikes up the biggest hill. They were a little ahead of me and I hurried to catch up.

“Who will do what?” I said, intruding on their conversation.

“Jerry Lewis,” Jesse said. “You think he’ll be able to stay awake until the end of the telethon?”

“He always does,” I said.

“Yeah, and then he sings that song at the end and cries every time,” Jesse said, throwing back her head and singing, “‘I did it my way!’” She had a surprisingly good voice.

“Do you think that crying is real or fake?” Dickie said.

“It’s not ‘My Way,’” I said. “It’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ It’s from
Carousel
.”

Dickie ignored my correction. “I think he cries because he’s exhausted and wants to go to sleep but people expect him to sing.”

Jesse looked straight ahead as she walked. “I think it’s because he sees all those sick kids and wants to help. I’d cry too.”

The road went for miles. I had never ridden my bike to the end. My father had told me about families who had lived in the hills for generations, only coming to town when necessary. There were a few nice houses on the ridge, but most looked similar to Jesse’s, old and ramshackle.

Dickie had gone to Blake’s store before the trip and bought four Three Musketeers bars and distributed them. (He swore he didn’t steal.) Daisy held on to hers until it was a gooey mess inside the wrapper. Dickie carried his in his shirt pocket, and as he traveled a little fast on a downhill slope, the bar popped out and landed in front of me. My front tire hit it right on the
M
and Dickie slammed on his brakes and circled.

He picked up the candy bar and looked like he wanted to curse but held back. “This is a bad omen. A tire track
in the middle of a candy bar is an awful way to start a new school year.”

“Just eat around it,” Jesse said, winking at me. “That’ll make it good luck.”

At the end of the road was a house Dickie swore was haunted, and from the bend in the road where we could finally see it, I felt he was right. It hung on the horizon through the trees. Jesse whispered that ghosts had been seen at the windows. Daisy whimpered and I took a picture with my Polaroid. Shutters hung at odd angles and barely covered shattered windowpanes. Vines grew on the side of the house, and briars and brush surrounded it. The place gave me the creeps in the middle of the day and I could only imagine what it looked like at night. The house in
Psycho
had nothing on this one, though I hadn’t seen the movie, just a picture of it in one of Dickie’s magazines. Daisy whined that she didn’t want to go any farther but she didn’t have a choice.

We rode past the house and up a little hill where the road ended at the cemetery and parked our bikes by an iron gate. We ate our lunches and Daisy smeared the candy bar all over her face while we stared at the crumbling tombstones. She wandered off into the cemetery, chasing a butterfly.

“If the road ends here,” I said, “where does that go?” I pointed to another gate that looked like it was to keep cows in. A two-lane path led into the woods.

“My dad said it goes all the way to Gobbler’s Knob,” Dickie said.

Jesse cocked her head. “That road don’t go to no Gobbler’s Knob.”

“Does too. They closed it to keep people from taking the shortcut.”

“Shortcut, my eye,” Jesse said.

“What’s Gobbler’s Knob?” I said.

Dickie pointed. “It’s over that way—hard to get to.”

“I got kin on Gobbler’s Knob,” Jesse said.

“That road will take you to them,” Dickie said. “Otherwise you got to get on the interstate, take the next exit up, and wind back around. Roads are closed anytime it rains hard. We drove it once and I got carsick. Hung my head out the window and—”

“Please,” I said, my stomach turning. “I’m eating.”

“Sorry, I forgot you’re squeamish,” Dickie said.

“I never knowed you could get there this way,” Jesse said, studying the gate.

“Is it your mama’s kin or your daddy’s?” Dickie said, obviously knowing the difference it made.

Jesse frowned. “My daddy’s. I never knowed them as well as his other relatives. I don’t think they liked him very much. They stayed on their side of the mountain and we stayed on ours.”

I thought about Jesse’s family, her house, and Carl underneath it. When there was a lull, I said, “Why do you keep your dog on a chain?”

Jesse took a bite of a pickle and pimento spread sandwich I had packed. “Blackwood.”

“He chained him up?”

“Might as well have. Carl would wander over there and chase cows and chickens. Eat the food put out for Blackwood’s dogs. Mama chained him up because Old Man Blackwood said he’d shoot him if he caught him again. Been that way since I can remember.”

“That’s sad,” Dickie said. “That’s like chaining the wind. Dogs are supposed to be able to run free.”

The conversation stayed on Old Man Blackwood for a while. When Gentry came up, Jesse bristled and changed the subject. She asked Dickie how his mother was doing since the funeral and he said she was better.

“She don’t talk much,” Dickie said. “Sometimes I catch her crying and I try to cheer her up. When anything comes on the news about the war, she shuts it off. I’ll tell you this, though. If my number ever gets called, I’ll go.” He looked at me. “What about you?”

“What
about
me?”

“If you were drafted, would you go to war?”

I glanced at Jesse, then at my sandwich. “Sure. I guess.”

“Can you imagine Matt with a gun?” Jesse said.

“I can imagine him with a Polaroid around his neck taking pictures. You could become a famous war photographer.” Dickie paused. “I wonder what would happen if the Mothman’s draft number ever got called.”

“One day they’ll draft women,” Jesse said.

“No way,” I said.

“Don’t you think we deserve equal rights?”

“Women don’t belong on the battlefield,” Dickie said.

“And where do they belong? In the kitchen?” Jesse said.

Dickie winked at me, knowing he was pushing her buttons. “It’s okay for women to be nurses and cook food and stuff, but they shouldn’t be carrying grenades and shooting at people.”

“And why not? I can shoot just as well as you can, and I can carry—Daisy, get back here!”

“See. You’d be out in some rice paddy, looking for a land mine or a trip wire, and some little kid would come along and you’d yell at them to watch out and you’d get blown up.”

“I can do anything you two can do and probably better. There’s no reason I can’t fight in a war.”

“You’re already fighting one with Blackwood,” Dickie said. “I’d concentrate on winning that before you ship out.”

“My dad’s fighting a war with Blackwood too,” I said.

“How’s that?” Dickie said.

“My dad likes to do expository preaching. And Blackwood—”

Jesse scrunched her face and interrupted. “Suppository preaching?”

Dickie laughed. “I’ve heard messages like that. Ones that make you go find the bathroom till they’re over.”

“
Expository
means you preach the Bible verse by verse. You explain what the words say instead of jumping around and doing one topic this week and another topic the next.”

“And Blackwood’s got his underwear in a bunch over that?” Jesse said.

I wadded the wax paper I’d wrapped our sandwiches
in and stuffed it in the paper bag. “He wants my dad to preach more about the dangers of rock music and talk about prophecy and how the world’s going to end.”

“How does your daddy think it’ll end?” Jesse said. “Is somebody gonna set off a nuclear bomb and make it explode?”

I shrugged, unable to think of an answer before Dickie spoke.

“There’s a preacher on the radio that says the Beatles are trying to hypnotize us and turn us all into Communists. I was listening to ‘Hey Jude’ the other day and I had the urge to move to Cuba, so there might be something to it.”

“Blackwood said they might hire a preacher who will speak about that kind of stuff to come in and have a revival,” I said.

“I told you from the get-go about him,” Jesse said, frowning.

“I got a question for the preacher boy,” Dickie said. “My mama’s got this one Bible—some of the words are in red and the rest of them are in black. Why is that?”

“The words in red are things that Jesus said,” Jesse said. “Everybody knows that.”

Dickie nodded. “That’s what I thought. But what does that mean? Are those words more important than the rest?”

“No,” I said. “It just means those are things Jesus said.”

“Well, when the teachers write red stuff on my papers, it’s more important. If those words aren’t more important, why call attention to them?”

“Dickie, you ought to buy stock in the Paper Mate
company,” Jesse said. “With all the red pens teachers go through, you’d be rich.”

I had never thought of the red words of Jesus quite like this, and I put it on a growing list of questions my friends had posed. Was the antichrist alive? Where did the dinosaurs go? If God made only two people, how did all the rest of us get here? But the list was not just theological in nature. It was also practical, the biggest question being when we might be moving into the parsonage that was being prepared. That led me to wonder when my father might grow a backbone.

“What’s the difference between Protestants and Catholics?” Jesse said. “I’ve always wondered that.”

“I got that one,” Dickie said. “Catholics get to wear robes and swing incense and Protestants wear normal clothes. I think we’re partly jealous.”

“You’re Protestant, right?” Jesse said.

I nodded. “But how do you know about Catholics? There aren’t any Catholic churches around here.”

“I seen them on TV at Christmas,” she said. “Some big church and a guy with a big hat talking funny.”

“That’s the pope,” Dickie said. “The better question is, what’s the difference between a Baptist and a Pentecostal?”

I waited, wondering what might come out of Dickie’s mouth. Since he was of the Pentecostal persuasion, I figured he might have something snarky to say about Baptists.

“What’s the answer?” Jesse said.

“They both got their dos and don’ts. But a Baptist sings out of a hymnal and ends Sunday services at high noon.
A Baptist believes in the Holy Spirit, but only if he keeps quiet. They don’t yell or jump around, they just sit there and soak and try not to fall asleep.”

“And what about Pentecostals?” Jesse said.

“They do pretty much anything they want. You can holler or get all excited and they don’t call you down for it. The way I look at it, going to a Baptist church is like riding a school bus where they’re trying to get you from one place to another while keeping you quiet. And going to a Pentecostal church is like going on the same trip, only they make it more of a parade.”

Jesse jumped up and ran to Daisy, who was lying back on a tombstone with her arms and legs spread wide. Dickie and I followed.

“You can’t do that,” Jesse said. “You got to show respect for the dead.”

“Where’s Eva?” Daisy said.

“She’s over there.”

Jesse pulled her sister down and they walked hand in hand to a stone on a flat patch of ground. The grave had settled over the years and was sunken rather than showing a bump.

“Is that your sister who got polio?” Dickie said softly.

Jesse nodded, staring at the words on the stone that had worn and faded. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.

“I want Mama,” Daisy Grace whined. “When’s Mama coming back?”

“I didn’t know your mama was gone,” Dickie said.

“She went on a trip,” Daisy said.

“She did?” Dickie looked at Jesse. “To where?”

Jesse put her hand on the stone. “She’s with some relatives.”

“Is she feeling any better?” Dickie said.

“I reckon she’s feeling a lot better.”

I looked at my watch. “Hadn’t we better start back? We’re going to miss Jerry crying.”

“Yeah, I’ll pack the stuff,” Dickie said. “But when’s your mama coming back?”

Jesse looked at Daisy Grace, running toward the road. “Not soon enough.”

Dickie left, and Jesse squatted down among the graves. “Why does he let things like that happen? Why do little kids get polio? Why do little kids lose their mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, if there’s a God, of course, and he’s supposed to love us, why does he allow it all? If it’s to make us stronger, I don’t want to be stronger.”