The School of Beauty and Charm (10 page)

The oldest thing on the farm was the cave. It ran under the road in a narrow wet tunnel and broke open in the corner of the back pasture. I went there after Grandmother called me a lady, slipping through the barbed-wire fence and sprinting across the rough field to what looked like a pile of rock. When Florida was a girl, the county had blown the cave up with dynamite, to make the road, but there was still a round, dry room with stalactites hanging from the ceiling like light fixtures. On one wall, you could make out the sketch of a tail and a hind leg, carved by Indians. Florida, who had seen the whole wall before it was blown up, said that it was a deer. Every year, for as long as I could remember, Roderick and I had collected arrowheads in the field; we brought home jars of them, but they always got lost. I found one that day, lodged into a crack in the wall, and held it in my fist as I cried. Everything was old but me.

After a while, pressing my thumb into the smooth cuts of the flint, I began to think about Mr. Rutherford, and how we might live here together, as Indians. I'd pour some more sand on the floor, and sweep it smooth every morning. He'd let his hair grow and braid it. Our skin would be dark and smooth, our eyes black and clear and smart. We'd wear short, soft deer-skin skirts and cook our venison on sticks. At night, in the blackness that sucks your breath out, we'd kiss.

I looked at the back wall of the cave, into the black hole that
led to the tunnel under the road. From far away, out in the pasture, I could hear Florida calling. I rubbed the arrowhead, gunning up my courage, then I tossed it to the floor and went headfirst into the hole.

It was as black as a Kentucky night. I couldn't see the walls or the ceiling or my hands as they slapped against the wet rock. Immediately, I lost my sense of direction. As I crept forward, the ceiling lowered, forcing me down further on my knees until my head scraped, and I had to slide onto my belly. I squirmed along until I hit a wall. Then I panicked. I felt the walls at my elbows slowly squeezing in, felt how they would crush my ribs together. There must be, by now, a road on top of my head, maybe a cattle truck rumbling over it, and my head ached, as if I held it all up. What if I got stuck?

Gingerly, I tapped one hand along the slimy floor, bracing myself for the squish of a snake, or the knock of bones. All I could think was,
No air! No air! No air!
My muscles tightened, ready to spring, but I couldn't move. Gradually, my arm found an opening, and I pulled myself through it. I pulled with my elbows, scraping my knees, and then I turned a corner. Suddenly, there was light. Florida stood in the weeds, clapping.

“There you are, you little bugger. I didn't know how I was going to get you out. Thought for sure a snake had gotten you. Like to scare your poor mother to death. Didn't you hear me calling you?” I stood up. We were on the other side of the road.

T
HE NEXT DAY
Daddy-Go had a stroke. He was sitting in his chair in the parlor, eating from the box of chocolate-covered cherries Florida had brought him, when he suddenly clutched his chest. He called out, “Momma!” which is what he
called Grandmother. The fingers of his free hand clawed the air until they caught Roderick's sleeve. Roderick stood, white-faced, while Daddy-Go twisted his shirt back and forth, gasping for air. We thought he'd choked on the candy.

“Spit!” yelled Florida, running to him with a cupped hand. “Spit it out, Daddy!” The old man rocked back and forth, pulling Roderick with him. For almost five minutes, they gripped each other across the chair, struggling with the ghost of death, while the rest of us pressed in, pushing, crying out cacophonic instructions. Finally, Roderick said calmly, “Call a doctor.”

On the party line, Florida screamed, “My daddy is dying! Emergency! Emergency!”

Beside her, Henry repeated firmly, “Give me the phone. Florida, give me the telephone.”

In the end, someone on the line ran next door to get Dr. Kimball, who told Henry to bring Brack to the emergency room. With Henry on one arm, and Roderick on the other, Daddy-Go could walk to the car, but Grandmother had to be hoisted into the back seat. She was a whirling dervish, screaming and crying, waving her arms everywhere.

“Hush, Mother,” Florida cried, “or the doctor will have to put you to sleep!” When the sound of the engine died away, Roderick and I went back into the silent house and stood in the parlor, looking at Daddy-Go's chair. He had spent two-thirds of his life in that chair, and it was completely molded to the form of his body. When other people sat in it, they felt as if they were sitting in his lap. The cuckoo clock struck noon, the door sprang open, and the yellow bird shot out, saying “Cuckoo, cuckoo,” but we were outside long before the twelfth cry.

T
HAT SUMMER
D
REW
had gone to the prestigious Berry Hill Camp for Girls in Virginia. I don't know what it cost to attend Berry Hill for eight weeks, but when I had suggested to Henry that he sign me up, Florida said, “Oh honey, we can't afford that.” Henry was never so blunt about money, but when I showed him the brochure featuring a circle of girls in sailor shirts in one photograph, and in another, a girl on a horse jumping a fence, and in yet another, kayaks of Berry Hill girls broaching a waterfall, he glanced at the tuition and snorted. “That's the price of a year at Bridgewater!” he exclaimed, shaking his head over the lineup of tanned girls in striped one-piece suits, perched to dive off a rock. Drew left on a plane.

From her letters, I extracted every detail about camp life: The sailor suits (you purchased three and had them dry-cleaned) were not really stupid; they were a uniform. I had never cared for uniforms before, but now I wanted one. When Drew sent me a photograph of her cabin—five tanned girls in sailor suits—I looked deeply into their eyes and saw that they were better than I was. It wasn't their fault. They were in another class. At the time, I didn't know about trust funds, but I suspected a vague magic in their lives, a delicious exemption from drudgery. I put up a feeble fight: all you get for an evening snack is four saltines and half an orange?

They don't want us to get fat, Drew answered. I saw the girls in their Lanz nightgowns, nibbling at oranges on their cabin porch. Someone was watching their weight. Horses— Red Cavern was full of horses, but they were different from the horses at Berry Hill. A Berry Hill horse was named Maverick on the Run or Apple Blossom Annie. It spent each summer with one camper, teaching her equestrian arts. Our
horses, with names like Bob and Star, hung out with cows; they were covered in flies; they bit children. Florida wouldn't let us ride because she said Grandmother would worry herself to death.

Everything we did on the farm worried someone to death. If Roderick and I built forts from bales of hay in the barn loft, jumping from the height of rafters into the roofs of the enemy fort, Florida had a conniption fit over his asthma. Henry wouldn't let us near the tractor, for fear we'd start it, and Grandmother was certain we'd lock each other up in the springhouse and mysteriously fall down the well. Added to these restrictions, and the knowledge that I was missing out on some very important training at Berry Hill, was the fact that Roderick suddenly perceived himself as being too old to play with me.

We were only a year apart in age, but this year, Roderick was out of my league. I'd seen the signs of burgeoning adulthood— a dull glaze over the eyes, a tendency to sit still for long periods of time, an interest in money—but when Daddy-Go went to the hospital, the difference between us was clear. Roderick sat on the swing in the yard. He sat and sat. In the afternoon sun, his hair took on a white glow, shimmering like a halo around his head. When the fireflies came out, he sank into shadow. Finally, I asked him, “What are you doing?”

“I'm waiting,” he said.

“For what?”

He looked at me slant-eyed. “For them to get back,” he said.

With my head down, I trudged out to the back pasture. Insects buzzed in the dry, course grass; I slapped at a gnat. In the distance, a cow lowed and then a dog began to bark rapidly,
snap, snap, snap. The clouds hung in thin gray wisps, like Grandmother's hair. I felt sick to my stomach, as if I'd eaten too many M&Ms, so I sat down on a flat gray stone at the edge of the lily pond. It was a large puddle, really, covered by green scum, and the lilies were disappointing, floating up like soggy sponges left in a bathtub. Once Roderick and I had found a half-empty whiskey bottle, and another time, a turtle who stretched out his wrinkled neck and looked past us with tired, ancient eyes. Stirring the murky water with a stick, I thought about Roderick sitting on the swing. He'd sit there until dark, waiting, growing older every hour.

Suddenly, I saw the snakes. They were the same greenish brown as the water, almost as thin as worms. There must have been a dozen of them, squirming together so that I couldn't tell where one ended and another began. Were they baby snakes, or was it something turned inside out? Shaking violently, I leaned closer to see. The brackish water stank. Then I saw the mother and ran.

I ran as hard as I could, not stopping to open the gate but pushing through the barbed wire, tearing through the tomato plants in the backyard, skidding to a stop in front of the swing where Roderick still sat. He frowned.

“Sit,” he said. “What happened? You're bleeding.

“No need for that,” he said, when I had told him about the nest of snakes, and begun to snuffle. “You're sure you didn't touch one? Okay, you're fine. They're probably just some harmless water snakes, but you can't be too careful about these things. Now, what are you crying about?”

I didn't know, but I wanted him to keep looking at me, so I told him about Christmas-in-July, an annual event at the Berry
Hill Camp for Girls. “They get a real tree and decorate it. They give each other presents. They have stockings.”

When I envisioned the circle of tanned girls around an enormous fir in their crisp white sailor shirts, I imagined giant snowflakes swirling against a hot yellow sun. The rich had the power to change the season.

“Huh,” said Roderick, unimpressed. “Drew's over there this summer?”

“She goes every summer. It costs as much as Bridgewater.”

“Well, I'll say,” he said with a mocking curl of his lip. “Christmas in July.”

B
RACK'S HEART
, D
R
. K
IMBALL
concluded, had indeed skipped a few beats and didn't have much mileage left. He did not, however, insist that he spend the night in the hospital.

“He'd die right here out of orneriness,” he said.

Brack, unable to speak, pointed a trembling yellow finger in the direction of home.

N
EWS OF
B
RACK'S
stroke spread up and down the party line. By sundown the next day, half of Red Cavern had stopped by the house to check on him. Evange Lyle Deleuth, the famous evangelist, arrived after supper with a pineapple upside-down cake and his Bible.

Lyle had read the Bible through, from Genesis to Revelations, every year since he was saved at the age of thirty-one. He knew the big shaggy book by heart but he carried it everywhere he went; it was part of him, the way that Brack's hat, unnecessary and even unsightly, was part of him.

He carried it under his arm as he stepped into the dim parlor, smiling with a band of big white dentures. Though he was older, he looked several years younger than Brack as he took his trembling hand and leaned over him on the bed.

“Well hello, Brother,” he said. “I hear you're feeling poorly.”

“Set awhile and visit,” said Grandmother, pushing him toward Daddy-Go's chair. They were both big men, and Lyle's large square head fit into the indention in the back of the chair.

“My wife sent that cake over. She had to stay home and tend to her mother, but she says howdy to y'all and hopes Brack gets to feeling better.”

“We thank you, kindly,” said Grandmother, bobbing beside him as she wiped her hands on her apron, then took it off. “This is my young'un here, Florida, her husband, Henry, and their chirren.”

“I know that lil' ole gal,” said Lyle with a chuckle.

Henry shook hands, but Florida remained glued to the love seat. She was put off by the Bible.

Evange Lyle Deleuth was tough competition for anybody with religious leanings. He was a radio evangelist with his own show and the author of several books and tracts, which he had personally distributed around the world. He had saved the soul of one of Hitler's bodyguards. When people in Red Cavern saw him coming, their sins flashed before their eyes. He could talk the chicken off the bone, and what's more, he could sing. The only person immune to his charm was his little brother, Brack.

“My brother here has never come to hear me preach,” he said as he accepted a glass of iced tea from Grandmother. “You come on out, Brack. Once you hear me up at the pulpit, you'll
buy all my books and tapes. Then go out and bury them in the backyard somewhere.”

Brack leaned over and spit a stream of tobacco juice into the empty coffee can on the bedside table.

“Just like Daddy,” said Lyle, leaning back in the chair. Then, catching my stare, he grinned at me. He didn't look old at all, except for his white hair. Looking around the room, he said, “I love people.” It sounded like a confession, and we were all quiet, focused on him. “I never learned to get along with all people. Most people I don't get along with too good—like my brother here. I don't know why. Some people say it's my preachin'; some people say it's the way I act. But I always thought I was nice.” The cuckoo clock ticked loudly.

“You're good people,” said Grandmother mournfully. “You're a good man, honey.”

“I'm a loving soul,” said Lyle. “I love people. Chirren. Old people. I see some people I'd like to smack in the face, but I love ‘em, I really do. A few times when I get mad, I think, Man, I wish I was something besides people. There's times I wish I was a bullfrog.” We sat in silence, as if he'd cast a spell on us. Looking around the room, I saw bullfrogs.