Forever Never Ends (2 page)

“No, honey, that is a guarantee.” He dumped his work onto the sofa and sat down. He was already lost in Robertville, studying some advertising circulars.

Tamara knocked on the table. “Hello? Aren’t you going to ask about my day?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it? Hardware store wants to do a special campaign for Blossomfest.” He hummed an uneven jingle then said in his radio voice, “‘Spring has sprung and Windshake is blooming, time for scrubbing, mopping, and brooming.’ Catchy, huh?”

“My day was fine. I proved that ESP doesn’t exist.”

“Huh?”

“My husband can’t read my mind because he can’t even read my lips.”

“Sorry.” Robert put his papers away, went to her, and massaged her neck. “I’d be afraid to read your mind. But I can read your body like a book. Every single page.” He rubbed lower then stopped when Kevin came into the room with a load of firewood.

“More Gloomies?” Robert whispered to her.

She looked away and nodded. This was one of those times she wished her constitution enabled her to lie. His hands dropped from her shoulders, the room grew ten degrees cooler, and household chores suddenly seemed intensely interesting.

Tamara and Kevin sipped hot chocolate and built the fire while Robert started supper. After the meal, Tamara sat at the kitchen table with a stack of student papers she had to grade. But her attention wandered and her gaze kept returning to the window. The world outside was harsh, gray, and ugly. The rain ran down the glass in silver streaks, not merrily but angrily, as if it would like to come inside and make itself at home.

As if it were thin fingers scratching, scratching, scratching, searching for a fissure.

And the sound the water made:
shu-shaaa, shu-shaaa
.

She turned her chair around so that she faced the wall and put the weather out of her mind. A storm in Windshake was more the rule than the exception, especially at this time of year. She told herself that all was well, her family was safe and snug and soon to be tucked in.

Happy, happy, happy
.

But still the Gloomies swirled in her head and heart. The soft whispers played all evening and followed her into a restless sleep, crowding the three-foot gap of ice between her husband’s flesh and her own.

***

Ralph Bumgarner shook the Mason jar and held it up where the sunshine broke through the bare limbs of the oak trees. Ralph hardly had much face. He was mostly ears and teeth and nose, his head just an excuse to hold up a Red Man cap. He squinted like a scientist studying a test tube as he shook the jar again. Bubbles rose in the jar and clung to the glass at the surface of the liquid.

"Frog eyes, same as always," Don Oscar Moody said. "And it'll burn a blue flame if you light it. That's when you can tell a good batch."

"A man's got to be careful these days. Now, it's nothing personal, because I've been buying off you for six years. But everybody makes mistakes."

"Hey, I got
pride
." Don Oscar pounded himself in the chest twice with his thumb. His friends told him he looked like Mister Magoo, because he was round-headed and bald with a bulbous nose. So what if the veins in his face had blossomed and broken from a lifetime of taste-testing his product? He'd never put much stock in looks anyway, and at least he had Ralph beat all to hell in that department. "Family's been doing this for generations."

"And you do it proud," Ralph said, shaking the jar again. "But a fellow hears stories. People going blind and such."

Don Oscar stomped his boot into the mud.
Beggars ought not be choosers
. "Now, you just come here and look," he said, grabbing Ralph by the shoulder.

He led Ralph into the springhouse. The building's stone base was covered with thick green moss, and the slat-board siding was dark with rot. The two men blinked as their eyes adjusted to the weak light that spilled through the doorway. A sweet fog of fermenting corn mash crowded the room.

The springhouse had been built into the side of the hill. A stone reservoir was set high into the back bank, and a wooden chute carried water into the room, spilling silver dribbles from gaps in the planks. The earthen floor, soggy from the leaks, was a marsh of boot prints. A row of wooden-staved barrels lined one side of the springhouse.

At the center of the room sat a large contraption that looked like a stripped-down washing machine crossed with a UFO, plugs and coils sprouting from its metal body like hot copper worms. The coils wound into the channeled stream, and clear liquid dripped from the mouth of the pipe into a glass gallon jar at the far side of the room. A fire flickered under the rig, casting low shadows against the walls. The end of the pipe belched a puff of steam.

"Thing of beauty," Don Oscar said, beaming like a father whose son had just been elected to office. "Ain't a ounce of lead in that still."

Which wasn't true. Don Oscar had used lead solder to secure the pipe joints. But compared to the poison that a lot of his competitors brewed up using car radiators as condensers, Don Oscar practically deserved a seal of approval from the FDA.

Don Oscar pointed to the black corners of the springhouse ceiling. "And here's my latest little addition to the business. I done divided up the stovepipe into four, so the smoke gets spread out a mite better. Them Feds got helio-copters nowadays. Two of the pipes go into the bank about twenty yards and come out under a laurel thicket. It's a bitch to clear the ash out of those pipes every few months, but the smoke'll never give me away."

Ralph nodded in admiration, his Andy Griffith ears cutting a faint breeze in the air. "Feds are out hunting for dope these days, now that the hippies finally wised up enough to plant the shit out in the wilderness."

Don Oscar winced at the mention of his other competitors. "I smoked that stuff once, even thought about getting into it myself. Hear the money's real good. But who the hell wants to deal with a bunch of stinking hippies?"

"Well, they say a man's got to change with the times."

Ralph flicked his tongue beneath his beaver teeth, his small eyes shining in the darkness. "But I'm a believer in tradition myself."

"Amen to that, brother." Don Oscar took a Mason jar from the shelf that ran under a boarded-up window. Ralph didn’t disguise his desperation as Don Oscar's hand tightened around the lid.

"Let me show you something," Don Oscar said. Ralph let his stringy muscles sag in disappointment. Don Oscar led him over to one of the barrels. As he did, a low rumble rolled through the mountains, shaking the springhouse walls.

"Thunderstorm sure moved in fast," Ralph said. "And me on foot."

"That ain't no thunder. Them boys are dynamiting over on Sugarfoot again. Gonna knock that whole blamed mountain down to gravel if they keep it up."

Don Oscar lifted the plywood lid off the nearest barrel then let it drop back down. A cloying stench clubbed the air of the room.

Better not let Ralph see THAT
, Don Oscar thought.
Damned possum crawling in there and dying like that. Hell, it'll cook out. At least it died happy.

He moved to the next barrel and pulled off the lid, then stood aside so that Ralph could see.

"Looks like either runny tar or soupy cow shit," said Ralph.

"That there's prime wort, my friend. That's what gets cooked down to make that joy juice you like so much."

"What the hell did you show me that for?" Ralph said, drawing back and crinkling his rodent face.

"So you'd appreciate the product. And not bitch about the price. Now, if you want to get messed up—and I don't mean stoned, I mean
stone
, like a rock, where you can't hardly move your arms and legs—then you dip your tin cup into this and take a gulp."

Ralph leaned closer, hesitant, gazing into the murk of the fermenting mash as if divining the future in its surface.

"It's all science, see,” Don Oscar said, loquacious from the sampling he’d done. “Convert sugar to ethanol, distill to stouten and purify, slow-cook to perfection or else you get it too watery. Yep, I could write a book on this stuff."

Ralph looked like he didn't give a rat's ass about the how or even the why of grain alcohol. Right now he seemed worried about the
when
. The first faint tremors worked through his limbs and sweat oozed from the pores of his sallow skin. Ralph needed a drink soon or he'd go into spasms right there on the muddy floor of the cookhouse.

But when you're buying on credit, especially unreliable credit, you better rein in your horses and bite your tongue and nod at all the right times. I'm calling all the shots here. Hey, that's pretty damn funny, all the SHOTS here, ha-ha.

Ralph pointed to something, a pale powdery thread that branched out like a tree root down the side of the barrel into the wort. "What the hell’s that?"

Don Oscar bent down and looked, pressing his soft belly against the rim of the barrel. "Some kind of fungus or dry rot, I reckon. Won't hurt nothing. It all comes out in the wash."

"Dry rot when it's so wet in here?"

Don Oscar reached into the barrel and touched the tendril. It squirmed spongily and crumbled. Don Oscar rubbed his fingers together, spilling motes of green and white dust onto the surface of the wort.

"Smells funny," Don Oscar said, whiffing like a
maitre d'
checking a vintage.

"Whatever you say, buddy. Can I have my jar now? You know how I get the shakes."

Don Oscar knew perfectly well how Ralph got the shakes. That was why he was making Ralph wait. There wasn't a lot of entertainment out in the sticks, especially here on the back side of Bear Claw twenty miles from nowhere in either direction. "When can you pay?"

Ralph’s eyes were dark as salamanders. "Got my disability coming at the first of the month, same as usual."

"And what's my guarantee you won't blow it all on that factory beer at the Moose Lodge before I get mine?" Don Oscar rubbed his fingers against his flannel shirt. That mold or whatever it was had made his hand itch.

"I promise, Don Oscar."

Don Oscar smiled in secret pleasure. He didn't care much if Ralph paid or not. He ran a healthy small business, with low overhead and tax-free profit. He allowed himself a helping of mountain generosity. “Here you go, Ralphie.”

Ralph grabbed at Don Oscar's hand, pried the bootlegger's fingers away, and held the jar to his chest as he ran for the door, slipping on the dark, damp floor.

Took it like a chipmunk grabbing an acorn
. Don Oscar watched from the springhouse as Ralph struggled with the lid and tipped the jar bottom to the sky. Ralph's Red Man cap nearly slid off, but the adjustable strip stuck to his collar. The bill of the ball cap jutted cockeyed toward the treetops. Some of the liquor streaked down Ralph’s stubbled chin and wet his shirt as he gulped.

Ralph wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve and headed into the woods. Ralph disappeared among the pale saplings and gray-mottled trunks of the oaks. Don Oscar listened to Ralph's feet kicking up dead leaves for another minute, until the sound grew fainter and blended with the warbling of Carolina wrens and the chattering of squirrels.

Don Oscar checked the pressure gauge on the still and added some hickory kindling to the fire. The batch would hold for the evening. His hand itched like crazy now, and a headache was coming on like a thunderstorm riding fast clouds. Maybe he'd better get to the house and lay down, let Genevieve make him a hot bowl of soup and maybe take a Goody’s powder.

He closed and locked the springhouse door and headed down the trail to the house. By the time he was halfway home, his head felt as if it had been crushed between two boulders and his mind was playing tricks on him. The trees seemed way too green, and the new March growth shivered without a wind. Maybe that last batch had been a bit too powerful.

***

Genevieve Moody looked up from her quilting and out the window to see if her husband had finished his business deal. She didn’t trust Ralph Bumgarner a bit. But Donnie could take care of things. He always had, and he’d sold to rougher folks than Ralph.

It was the tail end of winter, the trees deader than four o'clock and hardly any blooms to speak of, but still the fresh smell of jack pine rosin came through the screen door. The woods were going to bust with green any day now, with scrappy black clouds pushing another storm. It was God dipping His waterspout to tend His garden, priming it for another spring.

That last stitch is a mite loose, but after all it's a quilt. It’s the wrinkles and loose threads and whatnot that gives them character. And the handmade look sells so good down at the antique shop.

Maybe she’d give this quilt away instead of selling it. To Eula Mae or one of the Mull kids, Lord only knew they needed all the help they could get. And it's not like she needed the money, what with Donnie doing so good.

Okay, now, Mister Needle, don't jump at my old fingers like that. A body'd think you lived off my blood the way you act.

She didn’t see Donnie yet. Ralph might have been trying to pull a fast one, make a horse trade, though Ralph was plumb out of horses. Ralph had big ears, and mountain lore held that was a sign of a long and enduring lover, but she didn’t see how any woman could ever stand to put him to the test. This was one of those times she didn’t like Donnie’s being a moonshiner. Because of the company it drew.

But, she had to admit, she liked store-bought groceries and the new Wagoneer and not having to keep up pole beans and yellow squash like her sisters. Donnie had promised a satellite dish come summer. And he was right proud of his work.

“Family tradition,” he called it, and his cheeks got all puffy and cute when he smiled.

Well, family is family, after all, and I'll stand by my man come heck or high water.

Maybe the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and maybe one bad apple spoiled the whole bunch, and maybe the worm turned, but Donnie had never lifted a hand against her. She knew for a fact none of her sisters could say the same about
their
good-for-nothing husbands.

And Donnie got respect. His customers came from all walks, not just the down-and-outers like Ralph and his kind. Chief Crosley was kept greased up and shut up with a monthly case and Chester Mull was regular as prunes and oatmeal. Half the Moose Lodge were customers. Even some of them snooty Lion's Clubbers weren't above a little illegal pleasure. And that old preacher, not Blevins, but the one before him, Hardwick, paid a call every Monday come rain or shine.