Shelter (1994) Read online

  "And this is our honeysuckle?"

  "Sure it is." And he grasped a leggy branch within his reach, bending it to break it off and make her take it.

  "Hold on there. You don't pick honeysuckle, why it wilts right off if you pick it. Wilder than you are, and that's saying something." She took the blossoming branch from his fingers and bent to look at the lacy flowers, holding them so they were just near Buddy's face. "You know 'honeysuckle' was one of your first words? Nearly three before you talked, and you come out with a big word like that. I figured you was going to be a late-blooming genius."

  "What's a genius?" He ran a finger along a flower, parts so small he couldn't feel them—small like a hair, like an insect's leg.

  "Oh, someone who's different from other folks." She straightened up and let go of the flower. "And I reckon you are different, ain't you."

  Sometimes she said a question but it wasn't a question. He made the branch nod like a leafy wand. "Is Dad a genius?"

  "What? Not likely. No, genius means you know more, out of nowhere, but you might only know about a certain thing." She paused. "Like you know about this road, and the woods around here."

  Buddy snapped the end off the long spray he held. "Look, you can wear it to church. It'll last that long, I know it will. I'll fix it on you."

  "All right then, Buddy." She bent down till she was his height and he fixed the flower to the top buttonhole of her white blouse, her good one she always ironed for church, and the pale spray curled up around her collar.

  "You know there's a Jesus story about honeysuckle?" She pulled off one of the flowers and touched its parts. "These three long petals at the top, they're Jesus' head and arms spread on the cross, and this one petal going down, that's His legs bound together and nailed to the wood. And this long, thin neck of the flower, that's because He was so far from God in His Agony."

  Buddy pointed to the delicate threads outflung from the center of the bloom.

  "That's the spirit flowing from Him when His soul went up to heaven." She touched the flower to Buddy's mouth.

  He tasted an orange dust. Now she was funning with him a little and he wiped his lips and spat the dust away, relieved. He looked into her eyes that were so known to him, her flat hazel eyes with their green flecks like lights shot through them from behind. Like she was hiding in her narrow eyes, behind her white face that was round and smooth as a big bald moon. "Was Dad there when I said that word 'honeysuckle'?"

  She kissed his lips a quick hard kiss and stood, then turned to keep walking. "No, he wasn't there."

  "Was he in jail then too?"

  "No, he just wasn't there. He didn't come to be your dad till after that."

  "Well, who was my dad back then?"

  "Nobody. Was just you and me then. You and me playing on the road and back of the house and in the stream..." She was walking away from him. "Step it up now, we'll be late for service."

  But they wouldn't be late. Even this far away, he could hear the singing, the night was so quiet. And the singing always kept on until the preaching started. The songs were mournful from far off, but stronger and scarier as Mam and Buddy got closer. They could see the church in the clearing; like a dead thing come alive, the church could wear different faces. In summer dusk a yellowy, jack-o'-lantern light crept across it and the white building with its whitewashed steps looked illumined against greeny brush and bushes and honeysuckle bloom. By day the windows with their little square panes looked blind and blackened. But inside, light fell amongst the singers like blue smoke, a smoke with no smell, a smoke like the dead would make if they were burning. Now, at night, the cold ice was burning up in there. The different preachers talked about the dead, and how to be safe from burning. Buddy thought the dead would burn in the river, where no one but the dead could catch on fire. They would be burning in Mud River, under the same rattling silver bridge the school bus crossed on the way to Gaither, and Buddy thought they started to burn as Mam walked up the steps to the double doors of the church. Mam's skirt was orange and her haunches moved the whole broad surface of the silky cloth. Black leaves on the cloth moved too, and her feet in their white sandals trod the steps so heavily that Buddy felt the wood shake as he made his own reluctant ascent behind her.

  ALMA: THE BLACK FIELD

  She could hear them falling asleep to the right and left of her, going out like glowlights across the narrow aisle between the cots. The metal springs stopped their minuscule, responsive squeaking. Just at full dark a lone bulb would come on outside with a buzz and a click, shed its umbrella of yellow light into the upper eave of B wing. The light fell through the high window in bars that stopped and started; Alma knew it was for Delia, who'd cut her lip sleepwalking. Tonight McAdams, their counselor, had looked in on them twice before she left them alone, as though watching them or interrupting the dark could stop Delia from getting up. Really, it was Alma who stopped her. Now the bulb outside began to buzz on its gooseneck fixture, five electric instants to which Alma counted by thousands. The light erupted and softened midair, falling across bodies that seemed anonymous, motionless forms; none of the faces showed. Alma pursed her lips to breathe, pretending she sucked the oxygen from the air in a slender column, a shape maybe as wide as the pencil McAdams kept tucked behind her ear during chores.

  Boys did that with pencils, and shopkeepers did, women selling fabric, and men did. Wes did sometimes, at the dining room table, his big notebooks laid open in front of him while he smoked a cigarette. He held the cigarette instead of a pencil, squinting as he drew in, holding it in the flat of his thumb and two fingers, not tilted at an angle the way women smoked. Alma couldn't watch him smoke if he knew she was there. If he didn't notice her, she peered at him sideways, and thought of Delia's little brother, John-John. Mina Campbell had nursed Johnny in front of the girls. He'd grab on to Mina and suckle, moving his mouth in a long kiss; his hands would drift aimlessly across her shirt, onto her face. Watching her father smoke, Alma half expected Wes wanted to touch someone that way. He touched the glossy pictures of the big mining machinery he sold, brushing ashes off his brochures and manuals. Or he yelled out, Audrey! Bring me a Coke! If they were getting along, he wouldn't ask for beer. If he went away, he loaded a suitcase and all those blue manuals into the back seat of the Chevy, and Audrey carried on as though nothing were different, listening for a phone call.

  Times were bad, Alma heard everyone say so. Maybe Wes was gone because the mines were laying off and he roamed farther and farther to sell machines, to Kentucky or the Carolinas, maybe north to Maryland, often on tips from Henry Briarley, who owned Consol Coal and knew men everywhere. Audrey said Henry knew everyone and didn't care about anybody. Just your father's type, Audrey would say. But Henry was Cap's father; he must care about Cap, especially since Mrs. Briarley didn't live with them and it was the housekeeper who cooked and cleaned, and drove Cap everywhere. Cap cared about Lenny. She was always wanting Lenny to stay over, stay for dinner, stay the weekend. I'd like to know what that girl's going to do without you next fall at her fancy boarding school, Audrey would say to Lenny, maybe Henry would like to pay for you to go with her. But Lenny never took the bait; she only looked back at her magazine or her TV show. Her favorite was Fractured Fairy Tales; she and Cap did their homework every afternoon in front of Rocky and Bullwinkle. They'd call each other on the phone after the fairy-tale segment and speak in monosyllables, as though cartoons were some big secret. Wasn't Lenny scared because Cap was leaving? She never seemed afraid when Wes disappeared for days, but that was because she didn't know anything; Alma had never told her; At least Mina Campbell would never send Delia away to a school. Audrey said the Campbells were nearly penniless with Delia's father gone; they lived off Mina's sister mostly, money from the beauty salon. Wes could come back but Nickel Campbell never would. He had driven off Mud River Bridge, the same one all the girls from Gaither crossed in cars to get to Camp Shelter. Alma couldn't think of his face anymore; she only saw the murky water movin
g, at eye level, as though she'd been in the car with him. But she'd been in her mother's car on all those forty-minute drives to Winfield, nearly every Saturday since last summer. She'd never seen Nickel Campbell's car in Winfield, not even the first time at the bus station, when she'd seen Nickel Campbell himself.

  Alma heard music. Pearlie, the A-wing counselor, had turned on her pink transistor. She was probably shaving her legs or looking at the hairs in her nose with a hand mirror, wielding her metal tweezers. She was stupid; Alma couldn't read in bed anymore because Pearlie had taken away her flashlight. Alma had a pile of books but there was never any time to lie down and read. Actually they were Delia's books. Delia had given Alma nearly all of them. Every night in the dark at camp, Alma had used them to stay awake late, but now she could only lie and think, imagining the books in her footlocker, gleaming subtly at their edges like chunks of radium. The books themselves and the words in the books were charged with power.

  She used to read the books at Delia's house, at Delia's dining room table. Nickel Campbell worked for Henry Briarley at Consol Coal, and he was always gone in the afternoons, but on Alma's occasional overnight visits he sat reading by a bay window. The Campbells' living room looked out on railroad tracks and the overgrown athletic field of Presbyterian College. The small room was lined with bookshelves; books were always scattered and stacked by Nickel Campbell's chair, as though he were studying for a test. Delia and Alma sat in the square dining room where no one dined, where the table supported pots of Mina's lush, crowded spider plants, mail, magazines. Alma read Hucklebeny Finn or Kidnapped while Delia sat tracing whole pages of her comic books onto onionskin typing paper. A Motorola television glittered The Price Is Right in a corner, pots rattled in the kitchen. The baby, John-John, not walking yet, visible through the narrow door frame, sat on the linoleum floor and held on to the porcelain leg of an old-fashioned sink. "Delia," Nickel Campbell said without looking at them, "why don't you give Alma those old books. If you ever get interested, maybe she'd lend them back to you."

  There were ten books, in a set called Classics, hardbound, with yellowing pages, and "Nickel Thackery Campbell" was written in black ink on the inside back cover of each. Alma thought he must have signed them after he read them, not before; now she did the same to her own books, the ones she'd read, in a cursive script she practiced on a separate sheet. But she'd only brought the Classics books to camp, settled in with her clothes, instead of the boxes of crackers and chips Lenny had packed.

  "Alma, why are you still awake?"

  McAdams was leaning over her. At night McAdams wore a long T-shirt that came to her knees; it was striped blue the way the mattresses were striped with their sheets off, as though McAdams matched the cots.

  "I was just listening, like, to the woods."

  "Oh, the woods." McAdams sat on the edge of the cot, gesturing for Alma to shift her legs. "You wouldn't be waiting for me to fall asleep, now, would you?"

  "Are you Irish, McAdams?"

  "Are you asking? Of course I'm Irish, and I'm Catholic, and I'm tired. Any other questions?"

  "But you go to Presbyterian College."

  She shrugged. "Financial aid."

  "Catholics go to confession, don't they. And they have saints." There really were sounds in the woods. Alma heard the shrill pipings of crickets far away, like they were singing under a cloth. "Who was Saint Patrick, really?" she asked.

  "He was the one who drove the snakes out of Ireland. Except he didn't, there just weren't any snakes because Ireland is an island. Can you say that fast three times?"

  "Say what?"

  "Ireland is an island. It's a joke. You know, a joke." She sighed. "What's up with you, Alma?"

  "Delia's father was alive on Saint Patrick's Day. It happened the next day." Alma paused. "Did you drive over Mud River Bridge on your way to camp?"

  "No. I came from the other direction. My folks live in Bellington, but you know I go to school in Gaither. I've driven over the bridge hundreds of times. Most people drive over it without any problem. Her dad just had an accident. Right?" She waited for Alma to speak, then went on. "You feel bad for Delia. But Delia's going to be OK. She's lucky to have a true friend like you."

  Alma sat up, her hand at her throat. True. She thought she might choke on the word, even though she hadn't said it.

  "Hey, what's this? You crying?" McAdams moved to put an arm around Alma, but Alma had ducked her head and averted her face. McAdams grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her closer. "Like the song says, put your head on my shoulder. We gotta talk. Do you know if Delia sleepwalked before her dad died?"

  "I don't think so. I never saw her."

  "Listen, I want you to stop sleeping with Delia. It's not your job. I'm the counselor and I'm watching out for her. The door of the cabin doesn't lock, but it's latched—she'd never be able to open it in her sleep. There's nowhere she can go. If you see her sleepwalking, don't wake her. Just lead her back to bed, or come and get me. That's all."

  "But she hurt herself."

  "Only because she got outside and she tripped on the steps. That won't happen now."

  Alma was whispering. "I don't want them to send her home. It's better if she's at camp."

  "Delia's not going anywhere. Don't worry." She shifted her weight to help Alma lie down, and grimaced. "What is this thing under your mattress? Did you bring your own rifle to camp?"

  "No, it's my baton."

  "Hey, you a twirler?"

  "No, I just have a baton. I didn't want to leave it at home."

  "How about keeping it under your cot? She felt beneath the mattress and pulled the baton free. "Pretty tough, sleeping on batons. I'll show you some moves sometime. Now, go to sleep."

  McAdams walked away, disappearing up the aisle between the beds. Even Pearlie's radio was silent. In the quiet cabin, Alma could think about the Winfield bus station, how it smelled like peanuts and dirt. Audrey had said they were going to Souders Department Store to buy Alma a fall jacket, and they did go there, after, but first Audrey bypassed the wide main boulevard of Winfield and pulled into the bus station parking lot. Winfield was the only real city for miles around, a city big enough to have hotels and stores with elevators. Even so, not much came and went through the bus station. Atop the squat, yellow brick building stood a faded representation of a greyhound, a sign nearly as long as the buses parked at the back of the station. It was meant to be the usual sleek, anonymous image, but it was hand painted, transformed, made clumsy and real. The dog had an expression at once cartoonish and melancholy, and its form cast a shadow across the car as Audrey drove slowly past, easing into a space not fully visible from the street. "We'll have lunch here," Audrey said. "Here?" Alma echoed. Audrey regarded her, considering. "I might want to check on a ticket."

  Inside, the station was dusty and neglected, and a man slept noisily on one of the iron benches in the waiting area. Alma followed Audrey to the lunch counter, an outpost of booths and tables toward the rear of the building. Nickel Campbell sat at a table by the wall, a wall maybe the height of a man's shoulder, and beyond it was a cafeteria counter with a steam table. Audrey had walked right up to him, holding Alma's hand. He feigned no surprise and gestured to indicate they should sit with him. The chairs were metal, their seats covered with the same yellow vinyl as the Swensons' kitchen chairs at home. For a moment Alma was deeply embarrassed that her family owned and used objects similar to those found in a bus station, but she realized Nickel Campbell wouldn't remember. He'd been to their house only once, and that was to a barbecue, a week ago; Wes and Nickel had been the only men present, and they'd stayed on the porch while the women carried food in and out. People at the bus station got their own food on plastic trays. "Alma," Audrey said, "you must be hungry. Go ahead and get a tray, and I'll pay for your food when I come."

  Alma had walked away from them, around the partition of the little wall. People seemed to have appeared suddenly from nowhere, maybe a bus had pulled in, and there was a l
ine of six or seven customers, one of them dragging a recalcitrant toddler. Alma moved along the wall behind them, and realized she could hear Nickel Campbell's voice. He and Audrey were sitting just opposite. The wall was barely tall enough to obscure the top of Alma's head.

  "What possessed you to bring Alma?" he said.

  And then Audrey's voice: she'd had to, really, what excuse did she have to drive to Winfield on a Saturday or any other day, he mustn't worry, Alma would keep it all to herself.

  "What do you mean?" he said. "She's like sisters with Delia."

  Yes, but Alma was unusual, Audrey could trust her, she knew it, and there was no other way. Audrey would schedule lessons here for Alma, baton maybe, on Saturdays, Nickel was always in Winfield on Saturdays, wasn't he, on business for Consol?

  "Audrey..." he'd said in his wise, sad voice, and Alma had moved along the wall, then stared at her feet. She'd moved because the woman behind her was starting to edge past, and her mother had been right, Alma was starved.

  She was hungry now, too. Her belly ached with a feathery hurt. At suppers in the dining hall, Juniors were the oldest girls. The Seniors cooked dinner themselves in Highest camp, but Juniors and Primaries filed in at six P.M. to sit in rows at the long white tables, eat family style, and pass the job jar to pick a chore. Alma thought of Lenny then, always, safely above them all in the woods with Cap, while the tumult of the dining hall raged and the platters of spaghetti or fried chicken were passed. Every night, during dessert, a girl from each cabin had to give a two-minute supper speech about freedom and the American way of life. The speeches were supposed to reflect what they'd learned about Democracy and Communism in heritage class. Heritage class was really about secrets, but most of the girls talked about Betsy Ross or Mrs. Jefferson Davis, depending on whether the D.A.R. or the Daughters of the Confederacy had sponsored them. There was an applause vote on which speech was best. Usually the last speaker won; the girls couldn't seem to concentrate much on what was said amidst the clatter of forks. A diaphanous murmur of talk continued despite the counselors' efforts to maintain quiet. But Mrs. Thompson-Warner, the directress, ran heritage class, and she paid close attention; she even took notes on the speeches. There was a rumor that she gave some special, private prize to the girl she judged the best each night. Alma hadn't been able to eat much at supper; she'd been elected at noon to give the speech the next day. B wing expected Alma to win because she had a big vocabulary and was one of the few to listen much in heritage class. All the other candidates from their cabin had been A-wing girls, who were thirteen-year-olds. B-wing girls were twelve, but Alma wasn't twelve until next week. She'd almost had to stay in one of the Primary cabins, near the quad. Primaries had noon rest, like babies. Actually Alma liked the idea of noon rest, but she wouldn't be separated from Delia, and some of the younger kids were fourth graders. They gloried in all the rules and were delighted to proceed everywhere in lines. Frank the bugler and little Buddy, the fat cook's son, who was eight, were the only ones in camp who wore no uniforms and obeyed no rules. Frank obeyed reveille and taps; flag circles morning and evening were the only times the girls could count on seeing him. He was a secret too.