Jewelweed (33 page)

Several days later, Blake's release agent called the shop to tell him to come in for another drug test. Blake explained over the phone that he didn't want to live with his father any longer. Not long after this exchange, Jack Station's blue Mercury arrived. He climbed out, walked past the half dozen or so people standing around in the lot, and came inside, his eyes narrowed into slits.

“Home not good enough for you?” he asked, laughing without humor.

“It's not that,” said Blake. “My father's got his own life. I've got mine.”

“What do you know about this?” Station asked Jacob, stalking to the other side of the shop and standing with his hands in his pockets. “Did something happen between Blake and his father, something no one bothered to inform me about? Was there some kind of altercation? What do you know about it?”

“About what?” asked Jacob. The people in the lot moved closer to the open door, smoking, drinking soda, and listening.

“Did you know he wanted to change residences?”

“He mentioned it.”

“Did you explain to him that any change of residency is contingent upon my approval? Without my personal authorization Blake can't do anything—not so long as the state bears responsibility for him. Did you explain that to him?”

“Not exactly.”

“What's ‘not exactly' supposed to mean?”

“It means I didn't.”

“That's what I thought. It's not likely he could find a place, you know, not one he can afford.”

“I've been out almost two months,” Blake said.

“Have you found a place?” demanded Station. “Have you?”

“Not yet. I thought I better talk to you about it first.”

“Where exactly do you want to live?”

“Maybe I could find a room.”

“Not likely. You'd have to tell the landlord you're an ex-con. You know that, don't you? Your landlord would also have to be informed of the conditions of your release, the felonies you were convicted of—transporting drugs, assaulting an officer of the law—and your record of uncooperative behavior while you were incarcerated. They'd have to know all that.”

“Of course.”

“And you were intending to come clean on every detail. Right?”

“Of course.”

“Just a minute.” Station stepped outside, unfolded his cell phone, and dialed a number. The people gathered there moved away. Then he came back inside. “I can't believe this. There's no service here. I can't believe it. What kind of a place is this—something out of the Dark Ages?”

“The hills,” said Jacob.

“I need to use your phone.”

“It's on the wall.”

Station dialed, talked for several minutes, hung up, and scowled.

“Guess what?” he said.

Silence.

“The department is no longer funding tracer bracelets for release programs in rural areas.”

Blake and Jacob remained silent.

Station stepped outside and stood for several minutes, looking in. “Don't forget to come give us a urine sample,” he said. “Before six o'clock. And if you find another place to stay, give me a call and I'll come look it over.”

Then he walked back to his car and left.

After he was gone, Jacob asked Blake if he'd told his father about wanting to move.

“Not yet—in case I couldn't find a place or that bastard Station wouldn't allow it. Besides, it might hurt his feelings, and then if I didn't get to leave anyway, I mean—”

“Good point,” replied Jacob. Just then a pickup pulled into the lot. There were two white-bearded men inside it, and a lawn mower in the back. Upon its arrival, the younger people who had been gathered in the lot drifted off. “You and your father still getting along?”

“It's impossible not to get along with my father. He enforces getting along. Sure, Dad and I get along just fine, but he needs more room and so do I.”

Three days later, Jacob drove Blake to an abandoned farmhouse one mile out of town.

“What's this?” asked Blake, standing in the weedy yard.

“This is a house you could rent,” said Jacob.

“Whose is it?”

“It used to belong to a friend of mine, July Montgomery. Now it belongs to a trust set up by a couple—a Madison lawyer and his wife—who are both dead now. Their children sold off the farmland a couple years ago, before the economy turned sour. They kept the house as a summer place, but the inconveniences of living in the country didn't appeal to them, so they never used it. There's a For Sale sign around here somewhere, or at least there used to be.”

“You talked to them about renting it to me?”

“Winifred did,” said Jacob, watching as a crow descended from the sky, landed briefly on the chimney of the house, and then flew away.

“And the family was okay with, you know, the ex-con stuff?”

“I guess they were. Winifred is fairly persuasive, so long as she can avoid antagonizing the people she's talking to.”

“So this is where July Montgomery lived?”

“This is it. Do you remember him?” asked Jacob.

“Can't say I do,” said Blake, staring up at the brick house.

Weeds, vines, and bushes grew riotously around the foundation, as if they were trying to pull the house into the ground. The windows needed caulk and paint. The bricks had been worn down, rounded by many seasons. And the roof's integrity was questionable.

“I heard about him, though,” offered Blake. “My dad hauled cows for him several times and they went to auctions together. I guess Dad and July once unloaded silo blocks together until they couldn't move their arms.”

“Sounds like something he'd do,” said Jacob. “He liked to work.”

“My dad's like that too,” said Blake. “There was a guy in Waupun who used to talk about July Montgomery a lot. According to him, when July was a little kid he survived for a long time—maybe ten years or longer—in an underground room. That's what he said. Later, his wife was murdered by the government and July hunted down the perpetrators and killed them one by one. Then he came here. It made a good story, but I never knew how much of it was true. Most of the stories you hear in prison are like that.”

“All stories are like that,” said Jacob.

“You knew him pretty well, then?”

“Not well enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“He died out here alone. He was a good friend to me and I should have been a better one to him.”

“Why weren't you?”

“I don't know. Mostly blind ignorance, I guess—not paying attention.”

“You were concerned with your own stuff,” offered Blake, somewhat surprised by Jacob's candid manner, and by his own response to it. He was usually more guarded.

“I suppose.”

“Memories like that drive you crazy in prison,” said Blake.

“They drive you crazy out here too.”

“It's not the same. Out here you can make up for things. Behind bars all you have are the regrets. Prison holds you in place while the regrets work you over. It's one of the many ways the system is set up to turn you into cinder.”

A dark silence radiated from Jacob. Blake felt him withdrawing.

“So, what was he like, July Montgomery?”

“Hard to describe. He didn't care about the things most other people care about. And when you were with him you didn't either. He lived an intensely private life, didn't even own a television.”

“Can we look inside the house?”

Jacob took the key out of his pocket and handed it to him.

“Aren't you coming in?”

“No.”

Blake took several steps, stopped next to a thistle, looked from the house to the key, and asked, “How did he die?”

“July was caught in a power take-off. Right over there.” Jacob pointed toward the wire corn crib, which rose up out of the ground beside the barn like a cylindrical rib cage.

“That's bad,” said Blake.

“Winifred and I found him.”

“No kidding. Right over there?”

“In some ways I never got over it.”

Blake felt compelled to say something meaningful, and his anxiety began churning away at gut level. “Did you ever think maybe there were some things you weren't supposed to get over? Things that would take the rest of your life to work through?”

“It's a fair thought.”

Blake felt relieved. At least he'd responded appropriately. And then he remembered what Winnie had said during one of her visits to the prison: unresolved traumas were gifts, she'd said. They were psychological chariots sent by grace, to be used for moving to better places. He wondered if he should tell Jacob. But perhaps he'd heard her say it too. Perhaps Jacob already knew that he was taking credit for something he had no right to, vulgarizing what had been a spiritual idea and presenting it drained of all religious content. Oh well, he thought, at least I recognized something good when I heard it. That counts for something. Besides, if people were required to use only original thoughts, it would take all day to simply say hello.

“You're hoping to ride your bike at night, aren't you?” said Jacob.

“I guess so.”

“That's a bad idea.”

“I know it.”

“You may not have noticed, but your release agent is hoping to give you enough rope to hang yourself. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” said Blake, staring at the house again. “Will you come in with me? I don't want to go in there alone, not the first time.”

They walked up to the house.

D
art and Amy Roebuck went to visit Pastor Winifred, and Ivan came along. On the drive over the two women talked about a dream Amy remembered. Dart didn't think it meant much of anything, but Mrs. Roebuck didn't think it meant nothing. Ivan considered saying something about dreams, but his mother had been unpredictable lately and he was afraid she'd change her mind about him sleeping over. Ever since she'd started looking at herself in the mirror in that new dress, she'd been hard to read.

They drove down the rutty drive and parked near the house. Dart told Amy to just ignore the junk in the yard, but from the way Amy stepped on the boards, tires, and pieces of rusted metal, it seemed clear that she wasn't at all bothered by junk.

Dart pounded on the door. When Winnie opened it she pretended she'd known Amy Roebuck all her life, and they all went inside. Ivan just stood there a moment, wondering why adults did that. It seemed false, totally wrong. No one below the eighth grade would ever do that. It would never happen. If you don't know someone very well, just keep your mouth shut, your eyes on the ground, and your hands in your pockets. Wait and see what happens. You might not want to have anything to do with them.

Inside, a pan of cinnamon rolls steamed on the table. Mrs. Helm poured coffee, then started in on how beautiful Dart's hair looked. She even persuaded her to take off her baseball hat. Amy joined in and the two of them roared off on how fabulous she looked, and how she should be doing more to show off how young she was.

It suddenly occurred to Ivan that he wasn't going to get one of those rolls. “Can I go find August?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Winnie. “He's been waiting for you in his room.”

Ivan waited until his mother agreed.

“Well, go on, Ivan,” she said. “You heard Pastor Winifred. Go on.”

Halfway down the hall, Milton came swooping out of August's room and made a couple swirling dives in front of Ivan.

“Hey, Milton,” he said, “You'd better stay out of the kitchen. Enemies down there.”

At the end of the hall the door was open and he walked in.

“Ivan!” August shouted, jerking his head up from a pile of papers and books. He rushed over. “Did you just get here?”

“Just about just.”

They looked at each other and Ivan got that feeling he always felt with August: anything could happen now, and when it does it will be fun.

“What are you doing?” asked Ivan.

“Writing my report on the White Nose Syndrome fungus,” replied August, and went on to tell Ivan about the new disease.

“Cripes,” Ivan said. “I'll bet you know more about that fungus than anyone else in the world.”

“Not even close,” said August. “I might hate it more than anyone else though. Oh, I forgot to tell you, tonight is the full moon.” Then he went on to tell Ivan about the jar of peaches, the Wild Boy, his meeting with the hermit, and the ceremony to burn the statues.

“Cripes, tonight!” exclaimed Ivan, surprised and a little resentful of all the things August had experienced in his absence.