Quartet for the End of Time (29 page)

V.

Douglas

THE BONUS TRAIL
.
ANNANDALE
,
VIRGINIA
;
JOHNSTOWN
,
PENNSYLVANIA
;
HARRISBURG
,
PENNSYLVANIA
;
WASHINGTON
,
D
.
C
.,
AUGUST
–
DECEMBER
,
1932—ALBANY
,
NEW YORK
;
WASHINGTON
,
D
.
C
.;
STAFFORD
,
VIRGINIA
,
1933—VARIOUS LOCATIONS ALONG THE EASTERN SEABOARD AND THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE WEST, 1933–1934—WASHINGTON
,
D
.
C
.;
WINDLEY KEY
,
FLORIDA, 1934–1935

E
ach day Douglas rode into the city with Chet to look for his father, hitching a ride with one of the farm trucks that drove in from Annandale every morning and returned every afternoon. Douglas would sit up on top, and more often than not Chet would tuck his long legs into the cab and sit talking to the man who drove. Sometimes there were two men in the cab, and then they would sit three abreast. When there were three in the truck, Chet would ride up top with Douglas. Douglas liked it best, though, when Chet rode in the truck and he rode on top, so that he was all alone up there for nearly an hour, which was the time that it took them to get into the city. In that time,
sitting up there alone, with the wind rushing by him, Douglas's mind would be blank and clear, as in the days, which now seemed so long ago, when he had worked beside his father and it had seemed that nothing had ever or would ever change, and the hours stretched as long and unbroken as the Kansas sky. When the only interruption he could have imagined was the look that would come over his father's face sometimes just before he'd take off running, Douglas after him. His heart pounding in his chest—bursting with the twin desires he could not separate in his mind: on the one hand, to overtake his father, and on the other for him to remain, as he always did remain. Just ahead. His strong back tilted at an angle to the flat field, the sweat on his neck gleaming—wetting his shirt in the
V
-pattern that birds make when they fly, all together, in a known direction.

Having until very recently known only the repetitive, instinctive rhythms of the seasons and of parental love—the latter interrupted only, also as if instinctively, by his father's habitual bursts of anger toward his mother and himself, and his mother's fiercely reactive affection, which she used against them both—it was strange to discover that there were countless other patterns, possibilities, and limitations to things, and that the endlessness that had so far defined his concept of the world in fact opened off onto something even more endless, which he was incapable of conceiving at all.

T
HEN THE TRUCK WOULD
lurch to a halt and Chet would say, All right, boy, and Douglas would jump down, and feel the heavy thud of his feet hitting solid ground.

They learned nothing of what had happened to his father and did not speak of it—or any other thing. When they returned in the evening, they would sit together in silence, staring up at the sky, and there would be only the clattering sounds of pots and pans, the intermittent shouts of men from the surrounding camps, and, once in a while, the high-pitched yip of a dog.

It was into the space of that silence, or near silence—just as the increasing weightiness of the night sky pressed its vastness and its mysteries
upon them, and its utter incomprehensibleness began to take—for each of them—the form of sleep that Chet told Douglas one night that he'd heard of a farm that was hiring. Just south of where they presently were, he said—and that he did believe Douglas stood a fair chance of landing a job.

Douglas was wide awake again, then, in a hurry. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Chet, who was sitting up, too—his hands on his knees, staring off in the dark.

You could start tomorrow, Chet said. I believe it's what your daddy would have wanted. Rather than hauling into town every day, risking trouble on his account—and half starved, too.

He looked at Douglas. The cut on the boy's forehead, received on the day of the riots, had healed, leaving a purple scar—just visible beneath his low fringe.

What do you say? Chet said.

But there was nothing to say.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
D
OUGLAS
woke early. He stood up, and stomped his feet to get warm. It had been a stifling hot summer and even the night before, as he had finally drifted off to sleep, he could still taste the sourness of humid air. But sometime during the night it had turned cold.

Chet was still sleeping and the whole rest of the world must have been, too, because there weren't many sounds—only the call of a bird here and there. Douglas rolled up his blanket and sat down on it, and as he sat there—waiting for Chet to wake—it seemed very certain to him that everything that had happened or was going to happen had already happened: that there was nothing unreal, or unrealized, in the world. That everything, instead, was material—existent before him.

The first tentative, almost plaintive notes of the birds he had heard when first waking had grown by that time into a terrific swell of noise, but it had grown gradually—so gradually that he had not attended to the transition, and so could not account for it now. He closed his eyes
and tried to hear each sound as it had first occurred, when each was still itself alone, independent of any other, and after a while it seemed to him that he could hear the way each note wove its way among the others. But then he was not sure whether it was the notes themselves he heard, or whether each, in intersecting with the other notes in the air, had already changed, and he could not help perceiving them that way.

He was wondering this, his eyes closed, when Chet woke—his voice (as he cleared his throat, swore out loud, then got up to shake his arms and legs just as Douglas had done, to get warm) interrupting and thus changing all the other notes around him once and for all. By the time Douglas finally opened his eyes, Chet was standing in front of him, looking at him. Then Chet turned, picked up his blanket and bag, and said, Let's get a move on, then.

So Douglas stood up and everything was as it had been and would be. The ground solid: stretching empty and cold in four directions. And the birds just noise overhead.

T
HEY WALKED FOR ABOUT
a mile 'til they reached the junction where, on previous days, they had flagged down a ride into the city. This time they waited and let four or five trucks go by without waving or thumbing a ride. Then the same truck, a great big flatbed, that had picked them up the morning before pulled up. The driver was the same. A thin man, who kept glancing around him, as though he didn't want to get caught looking at anything.

This is the man can find you work, Chet told Douglas. The man leaned from his truck, gave them a nod, then let his eyes dance around for a while, asking them how did they do, and if the sudden cold hadn't taken them by surprise.

Without waiting for a reply, he ducked his head down to light up a cigarette, which turned out to be packed so loose that its flame leapt up and would have singed his long eyelashes if he hadn't just in time waved it like a match, so that at last it settled itself into a fierce and single glow.

All right, Douglas said. To Chet, who was standing with his hands out as if he had been asking a question.

Douglas shrugged his shoulders and shifted his bag—his father's name on its side, ablaze in red letters—from one shoulder to the next. He had a hard time looking at Chet, and Chet at him. Neither was looking at the other and there was nothing to say, but Douglas said anyway, I hope it won't be a very long while, and Chet let his hands fall down abruptly as if what the boy had said were the answer he was looking for.

No, no, son, it won't, he said. You can count on that. I know where to find you, so your daddy will, too. He cleared the phlegm out from where it had collected; as he did so, his Adam's apple reared in his throat. Then he reached out his arm again, and held Douglas by the shoulder, this time hard enough that Douglas could feel the pressure of it through his coat. Then Chet dropped his hand and said, Well, good luck to you— and Douglas turned and opened the door opposite the thin man, who had by then nearly breathed in the entirety of his cigarette, it burned so fast, and the door creaked on its hinges and made the most god-awful noise as Douglas got in beside him, clutching his bag tightly to his chest. Then the thin man flicked the still-burning end of his cigarette out the window on his side and gave a short wave to Chet, who stood, still shivering a little, by the side of the road, though the sun had come up by then—and they drove.

W
HEN THEY GOT WITHIN
a mile of the place, they could see that a crowd had gathered outside a locked gate.

The thin man drove up and tailed a group of men walking at the far end of the crowd.

What's this? he said. Though it was clear as day.

Hullo, said the man nearest to the truck as it idled beside him. Lemme guess, he said. You all lookin' for work?

Well, yes, sir, said the thin man. This boy here. I promised his daddy I'd find him some work, and that's what I am plannin' to do.

Well, let us know where it is when you find it, said another man without turning his head.

Yes, send us a postcard, said another.

But nobody laughed, and the thin man swore under his breath.

We've been crossed, looks like, he said to Douglas. Then he stopped the truck by the side of the road, got out, and kicked it. Douglas waited a moment and then he got out, too. He didn't know what to do or where to go or if the thin man would expect him to go along with him or not, or how he was going to wait for Chet or his father for very long at all if there wasn't any work.

The thin man appeared to be waiting for him, so he double-stepped to catch up and they wandered up the road, catching up with the stragglers they had spoken to a moment before.

Where you all headed, then? the thin man asked, and the near man swept his arm ahead of him, indicating a general direction.

Some of us is going on to Johnstown later today. They say the mayor there will put every man to work who comes.

Johnstown, eh? said the thin man.

There was no reply.

Well, yesterday I heard the same about this place, the thin man persisted. I bet you did, too.

Yesterday it was probably true, one man returned. But today ain't yesterday and they ain't hirin'.

We got here 'round six o'clock, the near man offered. Looked about like it does now.

Well, you figure there'll still be work left in Johnstown when you get there? the thin man asked.

Nothin's sure, the near man said.

It'll be yesterday again already by the time we get there, said the far man. But the way I figure it, it might as well be yesterday as today or tomorrow.

The thin man hesitated. His eyes danced as he walked, as though it were his eyes rather than his feet that were trying to keep pace. He glanced toward Douglas quickly, then away.

You figure you could take the kid? he asked.

They had slowed their pace just outside the gates where the crowd
gathered. The mood was dark but subdued—as though everyone had come just in order to be turned away, and no one had expected any different.

The near man said, What? Because he hadn't listened or hadn't heard.

I said, you figure you could take the boy? the thin man said, nodding his head in Douglas's direction. I promised his daddy I'd get him some work, but I ain't headed as far as Johnstown. If you took him along with you there, I figure he could get work just as right as anyone. He's young, and I ain't known him long but I could almost swear he's a good worker and wouldn't trouble you none.

He turned to Douglas. That right? he asked. You a good worker, son?

Douglas nodded his head, but the near man was already shaking his.

I ain't got nothing like a guarantee, he said. Still, if the boy wants to come along, I ain't gonna stop him.

The thin man nodded his head gravely, his eyes still dancing. The near man stretched his hand out to the thin man, who hesitated before taking it briefly in his own.

Much obliged, said the thin man.

I told you, the near man said. I ain't offerin' anything.

Much obliged, the thin man said again, not hearing. Then he turned to Douglas.

I'll let your daddy know, he said. I'm headed back that way tonight. I figure it's the best I can do for you and him both and that he can find you there just as well as anyplace. You can be sure, he said, when I see your daddy—

He's not my daddy, Douglas said.

When I see him—the thin man said again—I'll tell him where you'll be.