Velva Jean Learns to Drive (41 page)

His eyes lit up at this. He held his hands out, spreading the fingers so I could see the nicks and cuts that went right up his arms. “I went into the mountain, down deep in the dark, and hit that vein so wide open, you’d a thought someone left it there just for me.” He fished something out of his pocket. “I brought you one. It’s a sapphire. It ain’t as dark as the others I found. To me this one looks like the blue of Mama’s eyes or the sky over Sleepy Gap just after it rains.”

I held the stone and turned it in the light. It was rough but in the sun it shone a clear, bright blue the color of asters. I thought of the emerald Daddy had brought me long ago, still rugged and uncut in my hatbox.

Johnny Clay grabbed my hand. “I got to show you something.”

“Don’t pull me so hard,” I said, but my heart was pounding. I was so happy to see him, so happy to be home, I thought I might start crying.

He yanked me around the yard and toward the barn. “You won’t believe it,” he said.

“This better be good, the way you’re pulling my arm right out of the socket.”

He dropped my hand and dragged open the barn door. The light was dim and I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes. He pushed me inside. “Go on,” he said.

I could make out two headlights, a grill, a silver bumper, a dark red hood. “What have you gone and done?” I said.

He laughed and took my hand, guiding me. He opened a door and sat me down and then he sat down next to me and threw the package in the back and turned on the engine. I felt the wind and sun in my hair as we drove out of the barn. “There’s no top, Johnny Clay!”

“It’s called a convertible.” He laughed again. The car was smooth, not bumpy and loud like the truck. He drove it this way and that around the yard. It was beautiful—creamy insides, dark red outsides, the color of skin and blood, only inside out. Skin on the inside, blood on the outside. It was fancy and shiny and sleek. “It’s a Nash LaFay ette,” he said. “Get out and I’ll show you something.”

He turned off the car and we walked around back and he opened up a little hatch. “That’s called a rumble seat,” he said.

“That’s the cutest thing I ever did see,” I said. And it was. “Johnny Clay, how on earth did you afford this?”

“I told you. I’m rich. I reckon I’m richer than anyone else on this mountain next to the Deals. I told you I was going to make something of myself.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I said. “How’d you get home?”

“Butch came and met me and drove the truck back. I rode on the Scenic, Velva Jean. It ain’t close to being done, but it’s the most incredible thing I ever saw. You ride across the mountaintops just like you’re in the clouds.”

“Did you see Beach?”

“No. But you wouldn’t believe it. There were people driving on that road, people from around the country, here to see these mountains—our mountains. You could see the whole wide world up there.”

He was climbing in and out of the rumble seat. He was telling me about something called a travel bed, where the seats folded down and window screens could be slid into place and attaching tents could be purchased for added living space, but I had stopped listening. I was staring at Danny Deal’s truck and wondering what he was going to do with it.

“Velva Jean?” he said. He knocked me on the head with his hand.

“Sorry.”

“You want to go for a ride?”

“Sure.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I was just wondering.” I tried to keep my voice casual. “What are you going to do with the truck?”

He looked at the yellow truck. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I could give it back to Sweet Fern.”

“She don’t want it,” I said. “She told you she never wanted to see it again.”

“Well hell’s bells, Velva Jean, I don’t know. Do you want it? If you want it, it’s yours,” he said.

I looked at that yellow truck. There were little dings in the doors and scratches in the paint. It was still in good shape, but it looked its age. Johnny Clay had promised Danny to take good care of it. I thought: If he could see his truck, Danny Deal would roll over in his grave.

“Yes, I want it.” I wanted it more than anything. I wanted it almost as much as I wanted Harley, even more than I wanted Nashville, which I never thought much about anymore anyway. Sometimes I loved and sometimes I hated that part of myself that was like my daddy, that couldn’t be content to sit still and quiet and be happy with the way things were. If I had that truck, I could go anywhere. I could get out of Devil’s Kitchen and go to Alluvial or come up here to Fair Mountain to see Granny and Daddy Hoyt. I could even go to Hamlet’s Mill. But you can’t drive, a voice inside me said. What on earth are you going to do with an old yellow truck?

Johnny Clay handed me the keys. “Just so you know,” he said, “I ain’t giving it to Harley or to you and Harley. I’m giving it to you.”

I nodded.

He said, “What am I giving you the keys for? You can’t drive. I guess I’ll have to drive you home now. Just hold on a minute while I put the Nash back in the barn. Then we’ll drive that truck up to Devil’s Kitchen. We’ll take the Nash out some other time.”

“Is it hard—to drive, I mean?” I said.

“It ain’t bad,” he said. “I been doing it for so long. The instruction manual’s in the visor. It tells about how to run it, about the care and operation and all that.” He climbed back into the Nash and turned on the engine. He grinned at the sound. “You hear that?” he said. “Like music.”

“If you drive me, you’ll have to walk home,” I said. I was already thinking about that truck, about how I was going to learn to drive. I would teach myself. I’d already decided.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m so goddamn happy, I feel like I could fly.” He was already aiming the Nash toward the barn. He yelled, “One thing I learned when I was up there on that skywalk and up there on the Scenic, crossing all those mountaintops—there’s a great big world out there, Velva Jean. It’s so beautiful and big, it made me cry. What we got up here is only a little part of it. It’s a good part, but it’s just a little part.”

Harley said, “That’s real nice of you, Johnny Clay. But we already got a car.”

Harley was sitting on the front porch, making notes in one of his notebooks. He had the Bible open on his lap. I stood next to him. My feet were practically dancing with excitement. The yellow truck looked even better from up on the porch.

Johnny Clay leaned out the window of the truck. He was tapping his fingers on the outside of the door, waiting. “Where should I put it?”

Harley sighed. He stood, picking up his notebook and his Bible and setting them down in his chair. “Park it over by the barn, out of view of the house.” Just like Sweet Fern, I thought. He turned to me, “What is this about, Velva Jean? We can’t have that bright yellow truck up here for all the world to see.”

“Why not?” I said. “I think it’s beautiful.”

Johnny Clay drove the truck behind the barn and left it there. He got out and walked toward the house. I noticed that he kind of swaggered now like a movie star or a cowboy, like someone with money. I thought, heaven help us all.

I said, “You want to come in and have supper?”

Johnny Clay said, “No thanks. I got to be getting back. It’s a long walk home.” He came up the steps and handed me the keys. “Remember what I said, Velva Jean. I’m giving this truck to you.”

“I remember,” I said.

Johnny Clay hugged me hard and fast and then took off down the porch steps, long legs flying. He bounded off down the hill, outrunning the dying sun, hair shining like gold.

“What did he mean by that?” Harley said.

“Oh,” I said, “he wants me to have that truck.”

“That’s silly,” said Harley. “You don’t even know how to drive.”

“I know,” I said. But I’m going to learn.

TWENTY-SIX

The truck sat by the barn. I walked by it. It seemed to be looking at me. I looked at it. I walked by it the other way. The truck seemed to be watching me go past. I stood in front of it and stared. We sized each other up.

I walked over to the window and stood on the running board. I rubbed the dirt and the dust off the glass and looked inside at all the gears and the knobs. I tried the door handle. The door opened. I set one foot inside and then pulled myself up and sat down behind the wheel. I sat up straight and tall because I had no choice, because that’s the way the seat was made. The windshield was right up near my face. The windshield frame was hinged at the top and could be swung out toward the hood. I opened this up and let some air in. I put my hands on the wheel. It felt cool and big and slick.

I reached across the seat and pulled the
Ford Truck Instruction Book
out of the visor. I opened it to the page that read “Owner’s Responsibilities.”

Comfortable and carefree sounded good to me. I kept reading. What followed were suggestions to assist in the operation of the truck, such as:

I tossed the book aside. “Comfortable” and “carefree,” my left eye, I thought. I might not learn to drive after all if there were that many things to remember. I put my hands back on the wheel and twisted it back and forth. I set my foot on the gas pedal, which looked just like an upside-down teaspoon with the widest part at the bottom. I moved the long-knobbed bar that came up from the center of the floor, the gearshift lever, and rested my foot on the brake, which looked like a little round rubber target. I pretended I was going for a drive.

I rolled down the window and let my hair down, just like it was blowing free. I thought of the people I would pass. I would speed up when I went by Alice Nix and Rachel Gordon. I looked in the rearview mirror and imagined their faces, staring at me.

I would wave at the people as I went by them. “Hello, Sister Gladdy!” “Hello, Sister Dearborn!” “Hello, Sister Oderay and Sister Pernilla!” Their mouths would pop open in surprise and shock. They would run to tell Harley: “There goes Velva Jean Hart Bright. Just look how fancy.” I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Some lipstick would go with this truck, I thought. A nice shade of red. Magnet Red. And maybe a pantsuit. That would really get the women talking. Then I thought: I could drive this truck all the way to Nashville. Just like that. I don’t know what made me think it.

Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped planning for the Opry and I’d stopped saving my money. I wasn’t exactly sure when or why it happened. I sat there and tried to think where the framed picture was that Johnny Clay had given me of the Opry stage, all those years ago. Was it at Mama’s? Had I brought it with me to Devil’s Kitchen? I couldn’t remember.

I stopped steering. I picked up the instruction book and put it in the visor. I pulled the windshield frame closed. Then I rolled up the window. I opened the door and climbed down, shut the door, and walked back into the house. I stood inside at the kitchen window and looked out, staring at that truck. I stood there for a long time before I let the curtain fall and started fixing dinner.

~ 1941 ~

—“Promised Land”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Damascus King, famous evangelist preacher, came to Alluvial on February 22. This wasn’t like the Glory Pioneers dragging their circus tent from one little mountain holler to another. This wasn’t like Reverend Nix or Reverend Broomfield leading camp meeting or even Harley preaching to the congregation in the Little White Church. This was the biggest name in religion since Billy Sunday. This was a man so charged with the power of the Lord that he had once saved fifty thousand people in a single night in a revival meeting in New York City.

When Damascus King came to preach in Alluvial, there weren’t fifty thousand people to turn out. There were maybe five hundred. We walked down the mountain, Harley and me, with the Harridays and Sister Oderay, and sat in the front row, so close you could feel that man’s sweat as it flew off his brow and see the lines of his muscles underneath his fancy white suit. After the sawdust had settled and the shouting had stopped and Damascus King had claimed to save each and every one of us, we walked home, me behind, listening to Harley and Brother Jim and Sister Gladdy and Sister Oderay talk about what a great man Damascus King was and what a great and dutiful woman his wife, Julia Faith, was and what a great and momentous day it was, how it had changed their lives.