Chapter 69

“Oh!” (. . . by telling Joe Ben that the crowd was not lusting for my blood, after all, but for his ...) Les Gibbons pops up beside us with strawberry preserves all over his mouth. I wonder who he got to tote him across so he could make it in. He shakes hands all around and orders a beer. (. . . and making it clear that the awaited lion was the sworn challenger I had so often heard mentioned: the illustrious Biggy Newton.) “Hank,” Lee asks me, “what precisely is your relationship to this illustrious Mr. Bignewton?” “It’s a little hard to say, bub... precisely.” Les pushes in. “Big he says that when Hank—” “Les,” Joe says, “nobody ask you”—which shuts him up. Joby never has cared a whole lot for Gibbons, but lately he’s been a damn little wildcat on him. “You might say,” I tell Lee, “that our relationship is one of these things where this here town ain’t big enough for the both of us.” (So I was once more without benefit of any logical reason for my presence in the bar—puzzled and perturbed, and at my wit’s end to find an explanation for my apparently pointless paranoia.) A lot of people standing around whoop and laugh at this. But Les is very serious. He turns to Lee and says, “Big, he says that your brother here took advantage. In a motorcycle race.” “That ain’t it,” Joe Ben says. “Big is mad, Lee, purely because he says that Hank violated a girl friend of his three or four years back. Which is a ball-face lie in my estimation, because this girl had long before that been violated.” “Will you listen to this, Lee. By god, Joe, where do you get off tryin’ to discredit some of my prime trophies? Unless”—I give Lee a wink—“unless perchance you got some first-hand facts as to who copped little Judy-girl’s cherry?” Joe turns red as a beet, and, with his face, that’s a sight to see. I always rib him about Judy because she used to be so hot for him in high school before he got cut up. Everybody laughs some more at what I say to Joe. I start seriously trying to explain to Lee Biggy Newton’s real and deepdown reason for hounding me, when, right in the middle of my third whisky and what I consider a pretty goddam honest and eloquent explanation, in stalks old Big hisself. (It was some minutes before the key to solving this puzzle presented itself.) Ray and Rod finish off a song. (It walked into the bar, the key did...) It hushes down a little in the bar, but not much. (. . . or, more accurately, it stalked in—like a Kodiak bear someone had succeeded in partially shaving and getting into a dirty sweat shirt . . .) Every one of them in the whole bar knows that Big’s walked in, and that here comes the whole reason for getting out in the weather tonight with the old lady’s teapot change for beer, and every one of them knows every other one of them knows it. But do you think they’d ever let on to the guy standing next to them that they got anything on their mind tonight but a glass of beer and maybe a game of checkers? Got any but the noblest intentions? Not a word of it, not a word. The music starts back up. Candy kisses, wrapped in pay-per, Mean more to you, than any of mine.... I order me another shot. Four’s just about right. Evenwrite comes in, looking constipated; there’s another man with him in a suit and a clean-shaved, intelligent face, like he thinks he’s going to be entertained by a string quartet. Big turkeys around the floor awhile like he always does. Playing the game, too. Never letting on I’m on his mind. In fact, the only guy in the whole place saying anything about what’s in the air is that guy mocking me from the mirror there behind the bottles—sucker. He wants another whisky, but I know better. Four’s enough, I tell him. Four’s just right. I look at Big and he’s black and grimy from construction work and big sure enough. A huge round-shouldered hulk of a kid, built a lot like Andy is built, only bigger than Andy. Six three or so, thick eyebrows powdered with road dust, heavy beard, greasy black arm hairs every place but the palms of his hands. Slow-looking But not so much as he used to look stomping around in his corks Watch out for those; he put those on; he don’t wear corks on road work and tin pants and a hard hat Mistake there, Big ol’ boy; I ain’t going to conk you but I might jostle that topper down over your eyes just a bit and one of Teddy’s rum-soaked crooks sticking out of his teeth. (This prehistoric biped in a sweat shirt made a preliminary circle of the ring before he confronted Hank. Hank went on drinking after the entrance of this challenger—a prehistoric biped and an extremely proficient-looking pugilist.) Yeah; four good shots is just about right. (Brother Hank didn’t look in the beast’s direction, or openly watch him make his lumbering preliminary circle around the arena.) Pretty soon ol’ Big he ambles his way over to us. . . . (And even after he had walked over to us and made his challenge, Hank pretended to be surprised by his presence.) “Hey, by gosh! Biggy Newton! What ya say, Big, babes? I didn’t see you come in. . . .” Hell, I seen every dirty inch of his ninety-board-foot body ...and we talk it over a little like a couple high-school kids. (They greeted each other with sweet smiles and salutations, as friendly as rabied wolves.) “Haven’t seen you in some time, Big; how’s it hanging down Reedsport way?” I wonder... does the kid see? (Then, just before the eruption of the actual fight, I noticed Hank glance in my direction.) “Ah, not too bad, Big, how about you? How’s your daddy?” Does he see, I wonder, how Big outweighs me a good thirty or forty pounds? (Hank had just the barest suggestion of a smile on his face, and a look in his green eyes that asked again the question: You want to see how the woods folks deal with their hassles?) “Yeah, you’re lookin’ right in the pink, Biggy.” (And it then became quite obvious to me: Hank wanted me to witness first-hand the wrath to come should I continue my advances toward his wife. SEE? I TOLD YOU. RUN WHILE THERE IS TIME! My paranoia was exonerated.) I sip my drink and shoot the bull with Biggy, like we’re enjoying the best of relations. “You been around Harvey’s cycle shop much lately, Big?” Big ain’t a bad old boy. You see, Lee? In fact, it comes right down to it, I think a lot more of him than three-fourths these other niggers in here. “I been tied down pretty tight of late, Biggy, maybe you heard...no chance to go cycling.” You see, Lee? You see? He’s a damn sight bigger’n that punk trying to mess you up in the surf this afternoon . . . “Yeah, pretty tied down, Big. But I’m glad to see you, I sure am.” Hm. That goddam crazy feeling again: some galoot about to knock my brains out, and I feel like I want to play patty-cake with him. “Had a lotta cats to kill, Big, lotta logs to cut.” . . . But you see, Lee? I ain’t running out to sea from him, I don’t give a shit how big he is: he can whip my ass but he can’t run me out to sea!” “Ah, now, Big, don’t be like that. . . .” That crazy feeling; I got to keep telling myself he’s just waiting to kick my frigging teeth down my throat or I’m liable to throw my arm around his shoulders like he was my best buddy. “You know how ol’ Floyd likes to blow things up; I ain’t keeping you out of work. As a matter of fact I hear they’re jumping up and down for men out at WP. I hear there was a bunch of fellows walked out on a strike or something like that, y’know?” Look here, Lee; you think I’m gonna let him run me, I don’t care how the fuck big he is? Even he’s my best buddy, you think I care I break his grubby neck? Ain’t he looking to break mine? “So you could get mill work if you was a mind to, Big.” But ain’t they all Look here, Lee looking to break mine? “Course, if you’re partial to swinging a pick . . .” So you think I care I scuff a few noses Look here, Lee, he can whip me but he can’t run me! while I’m defending my own? Even my best buddy? “You don’t say so, Big. My, but that’s a shame. . . .” I have to keep telling myself And if he don’t run me he don’t ever really whip me, do you see? You think I give a shit I blind I kill the dumb bastards? Any the dumb bastards, best buddies or no? I owe it to them not to give a shit do you see? They all come out all hope to see me get my neck broke get killed! “. . . if that’s how you feel about it, Big, ol’ buddy, then I’m ready any time you are.” (I watched as Hank stood, strangely peaceful, and let the challenger deliver the first blow. It was almost his undoing. He was spun completely around and into the bar; his head struck the wood with a thick sound and he fell to his knee RUN FOOL! WATCH OUT! and the Bignewton was on him before he could rise . . .) You see, Lee? All every one dirty whining sniveling pricks vicious red-sweater cunts grubby faces far back I can remember blame me Me, Lee, do you see? (this time hitting him high on the cheekbone and rolling him face forward on the floor) assholes who couldn’t pour piss outa a boot is my fault—Oh Christ, Lee, do you see? (and from this position he twisted his head toward me WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT! seemingly to make certain of my presence) all yelling stomp him stomp the hardnosed motherfucker—Oh Christ, Lee! (He looked at me from the floor, his head twisting back, asking the question now with one green eye WATCH OUT RUN! the other blinded with blood . . .) all yelling kill him because I won’t run the sonsabitches Lee! you bastard! (. . . and, before I could think—because of the noise, the beer I’d drunk, perhaps because I wanted him beaten further—WATCH OUT, HANK! I heard myself shouting encouragement right along with Joe Ben GET UP, HANK, GET UP GET UP GET UP!) sonsabitches you think I care please let me hate them Lee you see I can (and, as though he had been waiting for my signal, he rose GET UP trailing blood HANK HANK and an awesome war cry . . .) YOU you think I care hate I please them! owe them not run (. . . to prove himself HANK YES HANK HANK! every bit as primitive...) please hate! care do you? them sonsabitches! (as the prehistoric biped) THEM NOW do you? CARE please KILL THEM! (and even more proficient YES HANK YES a pugilist!) let me do you THEM kill NOW NOW NOW ...! The lightning has left, leaving in its wake a spasmodic black mist that darts fitfully from hilltop to valley and back again. The old boltcutter walks mournfully up the path from his garage to his cabin; he doesn’t even bother bringing along the case of wine... Lee rides home in the back of the jeep while Joe Ben drives silently. They have left the pick-up at Joe’s house with Jan. The erratic rain whips at them and Lee holds his face out in the wind left over from Halloween, hoping his mind will be blown clear of the beer and whisky he drank after the fight. He sits in the back of the jeep on one side of Hank, supporting him when he lists toward the floor. Hank hasn’t spoken since they left the bar, and though his eyes are closed, it is difficult to know for certain if he has passed out completely because, in the flickering little dashlight that is fixed openly to the front of a jeep’s dashboard, his face appears to be animated—alternately going blank, then smiling at some humorous memory. Lee studies the obscure expression, wondering, Is it an actual conscious smile, or just a swelling of the lips? . . . It was hard to be sure, considering the condition of the rest of brother Hank’s face—it was like trying to read a letter after recovering it from a muddy bootprint. In fact, the whole evening was difficult to read. I was less positive than ever about what he had hoped to accomplish by taking me to the debacle. But one thing was certain: If he had wished to show me—as I half suspected—that I had better watch my step in my relationship with certain female parties because, if provoked, he was capable of violence . . . then he had at least proved his capabilities in that area most successfully. “I have never,” I said to no one in particular, “in all my life, witnessed anything, anything nearly so vicious, so brutal . . .” Hank didn’t move, and Joe Ben said only, “It was just a fight, a plain old fist fight, and Hank whipped a fella.” “No. I’ve seen fist fights before. It wasn’t that. . . .” I paused, trying to clear my head enough to phrase my feelings. I had drunk more than I intended after the fight, trying to blot the scene from my mind. “It was like...when that man knocked him over the chair, then, like Hank went insane, berserk!” “Big is a pretty big boy, Leland. Hank had to come on pretty strong to take him. . . .” “Berserk! ...like some kind of animal!” And wished I had drunk more. The car drums through the night. Joe Ben stares solemnly ahead. Hank slumps against Lee’s shoulder, appearing to sleep. Lee watches reruns projected slow-motion against the dark, rain-glutted clouds that sweep overhead, and wishes more than ever that he had spent the day home in bed. Joe Ben parks the jeep outside the garage on the gravel, to make less distance to carry the drunken Hank to the boat. Hank mumbles and groans all the way across. At the dock in front of the house he rouses himself enough to awkwardly kick the pack of hounds aside so he can walk to the end of the planks. There he strikes a match and sways out over the oily black water to study the depth marker on the piling. . . . “Not tonight, Hank.” Joe took his elbow. “Let’s leave it go tonight. . . .” “Now, now, Joby ...the rains’ve commenced. We got to be ever on the alert, you know that. ’Ternal vigilance is the price.” He cupped the match’s frightened little flame and bent close to the dark mark that indicated the water’s peak. “Ah. Just two inches from last night. We’re in God’s pocket, men. Carry on.” They guided him on up the incline as he kicked and shouted at the overjoyed hounds. . . . The boltcutter climbs into his bed without taking off his wet clothes. It has commenced. He hears the rain on the roof, like soft nails being driven into the rotten wood. It has commenced, all right. And it’ll go on now for six months. Indian Jenny recalls a prediction and regards the rain as an omen, but falls asleep before she can remember the rest of her prediction or interpret the omen’s meaning . . . In his cold room at the end of the long meandering hallway old Henry lies, quilted over by old odors of sweat and fungus, of ointments and sour breathing—“A man he can keep hisself ”— grinding his two-teeth-that-meet against each other in his sleep. He has been disturbed by the dogs’ barking. He grumbles and frets, fighting to hang onto the sleep and keep back the pain that pounds like the surf all day against the woody shore of his body. He doggedly refuses to take the doctor’s sleeping medications—“Smearin’ up my vision”—and sometimes goes for nearly a week before he passes out. Now he grumbles and curses in an in-between fog that is not quite sleep, not yet consciousness. “Damn the goddamn,” he said softly. “Grab a root an’ dig,” he said. The barking ceased and he became calm and still and stiff beneath his green blankets, like a tree fallen and covered where it fell by a spreading moss . . . Joe Ben stands alone in his room, wondering if he should stay the night or go back in to Jan and the kids; the strain of indecision knots his features. He wishes somebody would give him some advice on these heavy questions. On the bureau the jack-o’-lantern, half covered now with fine gray-green hair, has sunk into a puddle of clear, viscous liquid. It watches Joe struggle with his problems and grins a mildewed grin, looking like a happy drank exhausted by his revels but not yet completely passed out; if the pumpkin has any advice, he is just too shot to give it. In his room Lee lies, hoping he will not be ill. The last three weeks wheel around his bed in full carrousel gallop. “Whirlies,” he diagnoses, “pot hangover.” Every event, every bruise and scratch and blister comes cavorting past, all made with intricate detail by a skilled Swiss woodcarver. They pass in review for him like a carved cavalry. He lies dreamily in the center of the wheeling display, trying to decide which steed he will be riding tonight. After some minutes of careful scrutiny he chooses “That one there!”—a high-prancing filly with slim flanks and sleek withers and a flowing golden mane, and leans to whisper in her lifted ear: “Really, you should have seen him . . . like a primitive animal . . . brutal and beautiful all at once.” And at the other end of the hall Hank sits slumped in a straight-backed wooden chair with his shirt and shoes off, breathing loudly through a clotted nose while Viv dabs at his cuts with cotton dipped in alcohol. He flinches and jerks and giggles at each touch of the cold cotton, and tears flow red down his cheeks. Viv catches the bloodstained tears in her cotton. “I know, sweetheart, I know,” she croons, trailing her slender fingers over his arms, “I know”—caressing and rubbing him until the tears stop and he lurches upright. He stares blankly about him for a moment. Then his eyes clear and he slaps his belly. “Saynow.” He grins. “Why, look who’s here.” He flips the buckle of his belt and works at the buttons with swollen hands. Viv watches, aching to come to the aid of those drunken, fumbling fingers. “ ’Fraid I might’ve tied one on tonight, did Joe Ben tell you? Was compelled to kick the tar outa Biggy Newton again. Oh ...you an’ Andy get that tally sheet for the booms? Fine. Oh lord, me for some Zs.” He drops his trousers and falls into bed. “I’m sorry, honey, if I was any trouble to you....” She smiles down at him—“Don’t be silly”—shaking her head. Her hair sweeps out with the movement and she catches a lock in her lips. She stands looking fondly down at him, watching sleep slacken the jaw, loosen the lips, until the face of Hank Stamper is replaced by that of a long-lost somebody—the Somebody she fell in love with, the face she first saw lying unconscious and bleeding on a dirty cot in her uncle’s jail—tired, and tender, and a very vulnerable face. She pushes the annoysome hair back from her face and leans close to the sleeping stranger. “Hello, honeybunch,” she whispers, as a child whispers to a doll when she doesn’t want anyone to hear because she is too old for such baby stuff. ...“You know? I tried to remember the words of a song today, and you know, I couldn’t remember? It goes: ‘Away up yonder, top o’ the sky . . .’ and I can’t remember what else. Can you? Can you?” The only answer is the labored breathing. She closes her eyes and presses her fingertips against her eyelids until the dark is filled with whirling sparks, but the bubble beneath her breasts remains cold and hollow. She presses harder, making her eyeballs shoot with pain, and harder still . . . While Hank dreams that he is at the top of his class and nobody is trying to pull him down, nobody is trying to push him off, nobody but himself even knows that he is up there. A curious, bizarre, diabetic ex-anatomy prof who now runs his own curious curio shop on the coast highway near Reedsport, to vend his own bizarre brand of hand-carved myrtlewood anatomy, substitutes for forbidden liquor kicks the little gray-blue tomb-blue berries gathered from the deadly-nightshade vines that grow near his shop....“Just a sort of belladonna cocktail,” is how he allays the shocked concern of his beer-drinking friends. “One man’s poison is another man’s high.” Teddy, the part-time bartender and full-time owner of the Snag, though he might have been compelled to take open issue with the woodcarver’s choice of cocktails, would have been, of all the men in Wakonda, the man most likely to believe in the woodcarver’s principle. For the town’s leanest days were inordinately Teddy’s fattest, the town’s darkest nights his brightest. He turned more liquor Halloween night at the crowd’s disappointment than he would have sold if Big Newton had knocked Hank Stamper’s head off ...and the Halloween rain that brought a deluge of despair down on the striking loggers the following day brought a jingle of joy from Teddy’s till. Floyd Evenwrite’s reaction to the rain was somewhat different. “Oh me, oh me, oh me.” He woke late Sunday morning, hung over and suspicious of the effect of last night’s beer on his bowels. “Look at it come down out there. Dirty motherin’ rain!