The Bottoms (37 page)

Even Daddy and Mama and Grandma had come to believe it had been Red. It seemed reasonable.

Me and Tom kept our eyes peeled, expecting the return of the Goat Man at any moment. We figured he was just lying out there in the woods waiting till things settled down, till folks least expected it, then he’d strike.

But on the day of the Fourth, a day of ice cream, fireworks, and a picture show, we dropped our guard. We had dropped it before, of course, and nothing had happened. And how could anything happen on a hot Fourth of July with all the wonderful things we had to look forward to?

The town gathered late afternoon before dark. Main Street had been blocked off, which was no big deal as traffic was rare anyway. Tables with covered dishes, watermelons, fresh-churned ice cream on them were set up in the street, and after the Baptist preacher said a few words, everyone got a plate and went around and helped themselves.

I remember Daddy telling Mama that he was grateful the tables were well stocked, not only because there was plenty of food, but that it had hastened the preacher through his sermon. The Reverend was known to be an eager and accomplished eater.

I ate a little of most everything, zeroing in on mashed potatoes and gravy and mincemeat, apple, and pear pies. Tom ate pie and cake and nothing else except watermelon that Cecil helped her cut.

There was a circle of chairs between the tables and behind the chairs was a kind of makeshift stage. There were a handful of folks with guitars and fiddles playing and singing; the
men and women folks would gather in the middle of the closed-off street and dance to the tunes. Mama and Daddy were dancing too, and Grandma and Mr. Groon. Doc Taylor was holding Tom’s hands, and he was dancing with her. He was so big, and she was so small, it’s like when you pick a dog’s front paws up and make him hop around on his back legs. He looked happy, though rumor was he was fretting hard over Louise Canerton.

I kept thinking Mr. Nation and his boys would show, as they were always ones to be about when there was free food or the possibility of a drink, but they didn’t. I guess that was because of Daddy. Mr. Nation might have looked tough and had a big mouth, but that axe handle had tamed him, and Mr. Sumption had seen that word had gone around town about it, and long after my father died, there were still those who talked about that beating as if they had seen it, and in time it joined in with the story of Mr. Crittendon’s hogs and eventually attained a position in local mythology.

As the night wore on, the music was stopped and the movie was shown. It was an older one. Silent and full of cowboys and gunplay. The tent under which it was reeled was full of yells and hoots and young drunk men talking for the voiceless characters.

Finally, late in the night, fireworks were set. The firecrackers popped and the Roman candles and rockets exploded high above Main Street, burst into burning rainbows that pinned themselves against the night, then fizzled.

Tom had deserted Taylor, who had found a young woman to dance with—Miss Buella Lee Birdwell—and was sitting on Cecil’s knee, clapping and keeping time to the music, bouncing up and down, waiting for the next big slap of colors against the smooth night sky.

I remember watching as one bright swath did not fade right away, but dropped to earth like a falling star, and as my eyes followed it down, it dipped behind Cecil and Tom. In the final
light from its burst I could see Tom’s smiling face, and Cecil, his hands on her shoulders, his leg riding her up and down as it kept time with the music. And nearby, next to a table loaded with food, stood Doc Stephenson, hands in his pockets.

I had noticed him earlier, moving among the dancers but not dancing himself, just weaving through as if he were threading them with himself. Now he stood wearing his usual grim face, looking at Tom on Cecil’s lap, his face slack and beaded with sweat. Above and beyond him the sky exploded with color.

When we got home late that night we were all wide awake, and we sat down for a while under the big oak outside and drank some apple cider. It was great fun, but I kept having that uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

I scanned the woods, but didn’t see anything. Tom didn’t seem to be bothered. Mama, Daddy, and Grandma didn’t show any signs either. Still, that didn’t soothe me.

Not long after a possum presented itself at the edge of the woods, peeked out at our celebration, and disappeared back into the darkness. I felt a sigh of relief.

Daddy and Mama sang a few tunes as he picked his old guitar, then he picked while Mama and Grandma sang a couple songs together. From time to time Toby howled.

After that Grandma, Mama, and Daddy told stories awhile, Mama sitting in his lap as they did so. Daddy knew one about an old gunfighter who had been buried with his horse. Supposedly no one but him had ever ridden it, and when he was wounded while being pursued by the law, he killed first his horse and himself rather than be caught or have his horse ridden by another man. The posse found him buried him on the spot with the animal, and Daddy said he had relatives claimed there were times of the year when they could see that old bandit
riding his horse down the road at a dead run, and then when it got to where he and the horse were buried, it would disappear.

Grandma said her grandmother told stories of a pigeon appearing in a room when someone was about to die. And upon the moment of their death, the pigeon would fly up and away to the ceiling, and would cease to be seen, but for moments after you could hear the beating of its wings. Her grandmother said the pigeon came to carry the soul away.

Mama told one about how up in the Ozarks a panther had chased a woman and her baby in a buckboard one night. The woman could see the panther gaining on them in the moonlight. It ran right alongside the horses, nearly panicking them. Thinking quickly, the mother began throwing pieces of the baby’s clothing out along the road to distract it with its human smell. When the panther ceased to maul the clothing, and would reappear, running close to the carriage and the horses, the lady would toss out yet another piece. Finally, she was down to tossing out her own clothing, and finally she was able to gain pacing ahead of the cat. But when the lady, nearly naked, arrived at the house of a relative, she found to her horror the back of the carriage was scratched out, and the cradle where the baby had lain was empty.

After the stories we took turns going to the outhouse, Tom having Grandma walk out with her, and me wanting her to walk with me, but being too proud to ask. I did my business quickly, in the dark, in the stink, an owl hooting somewhere, a Sears and Roebuck catalogue clutched in my hand.

Finally, we washed up, said our good nights, and went to bed.

As I lay on my pallet that night, I decided to slide over and put my ear to the wall. I hadn’t done that in some time, but this night I wanted to hear my Mama’s and Daddy’s voices; I wanted to feel that they were once again connected, and that all was right with the world.

I listened for a while, and they talked of this and that, then they begin to talk softer and I heard Mama say: “The children will hear, honey. These walls are paper-thin.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Of course. Sure.”

“The walls are always paper-thin.”

“You’re not always like you are tonight. You know how you are when you’re like this.”

“How am I?”

Mama laughed. “Loud.”

“Listen, honey. It’s been a while since I been right … You know … And really, you know, I need to. Don’t you want to?”

“Sure.”

“I want to be loud. What say we take the car down the road a piece? I know a spot.”

“Jacob. What if someone came along?”

“I know a spot they won’t come along.”

“Well, we don’t have to do that. We can do it here. We’ll just have to be quiet.”

“I don’t want to be quiet. And even if I did, it’s a great night. I’m not sleepy.”

“What about the children?”

“It’s just down the road, hon. Grandma’s here with them. It’ll be fun.”

“All right … All right. Why not?”

Thunder rumbled. I heard Mama say, “Oh, Jacob. Maybe that’s a warnin’. You know, we ain’t supposed to.”

“Be fruitful and multiply.”

“I don’t think multiplying is what we need.”

I heard Daddy laugh, and Mama giggled.

I lay there wondering what in the world had gotten into my parents. Their room went silent, and not long after I heard the car start up, and glide away down the road.

Where could they be going?

And why?

It was really some years later before I realized what was going on. I had begun to learn about sex, of course, but I wasn’t so well versed in it that I understood what was going on between grown-ups, especially my own parents. I just couldn’t imagine that, them making love. I suppose the main reason they drove off that night was that the idea of doing something a little different, making love in a car appealed to them. That way, for a moment they were just two lovers enjoying each other’s bodies in a romantic setting.

I contemplated it for a time, then nodded off, the wind turning from warm to cool by the touch of oncoming rain.

Some time later I was awakened by Toby barking, but it didn’t last and I went back to sleep. After that, I heard a tapping sound. It was as if some bird were pecking corn from a hard surface. I gradually opened my eyes and turned in my bed and saw a figure through the screen door. It was just standing there, looking in.

Though it was cool, the storm was still in the distance, and there was no cloud cover, and the moon was bright. In that moment of awakening, in the glow of the moonlight, I realized there was a huge hole cut in the screen and that the latch had been undone.

It was then that sleep wore away completely and I realized it wasn’t a dream. I sat bolt upright on my pallet, looking at the shape beyond the screen.

It was dark with horns on its head, and one hand was tapping on the screen’s frame with long fingernails. The Goat Man was making a kind of grunting sound.

“Go away!” I said.

But the shape remained and its gruntings changed to whimpers. The wind blew, and the shape seemed to blow with it, coast to the right of the screened porch and out of sight.

I jerked my head toward Tom’s pallet, and saw she was gone.

I got up quickly and ran over to the screen, looked at the hole that had been cut in it. I pushed the screen open, stepped out on the back steps.

Out by the woods I could see the Goat Man. He lifted his hand and summoned me.

I hesitated. I ran to Mama and Daddy’s room, but they were gone. I dimly remembered before dropping off to sleep they had driven off in the car, for God knows what.

I opened the door into Grandma’s room. “Grandma!”

She sat upright as if jerked up on a string. “What in hell?”

“The Goat Man, he got Tom.”

Grandma tossed back the covers and rolled out of bed. She had on her nightgown and her long hair fell well below her shoulders, framing her face like a helmet.

She ran out on the porch. She saw the empty pallet, the cut-open screen.

“Get your Daddy,” she said.

“He and Mama ain’t here.”

“What?”

“They went off in the car.”

Grandma was considering that, trying to put it together. I said, “Look Grandma, out by the woods.”

The Goat Man was still there.

“Keep an eye on ’im. I’m grabbin’ my shotgun and my shoes.”

Moments later Grandma reappeared with her shotgun, her shoes on her feet. I had slipped into my overalls and pushed
my feet in my shoes while I was waiting. The Goat Man had not moved. He was waving us on.

“The sonofabitch is taunting us,” Grandma said.

“Yeah, but where’s Tom?” I said.

I could see Grandma’s face drop, and there in the moonlight, netted by the shadow of the screen, she suddenly looked ancient, almost hag-like.

“Come on,” she said.

She pushed open the screen door with the stock of the rifle, started racing toward the Goat Man. She moved very fast. The wind caught at her white gown and flicked it about her and the moon danced blue beams off the barrel of the shotgun. She looked like a wraith burst loose from hell.