Brambleman (19 page)

Friday, Charlie was painting walls. Mrs.
Wetherbee’s TV was blaring in the living room, so he didn’t hear
his cellphone at first. When he realized it was ringing, he nearly
kicked over a can of yellow paint in his haste to take the call.
“Charlie Sherman here.”

“Mr. Sherman, Joshua Furst. You’re a hard man
to get hold of.”

“Uh … sorry. I’ve been busy.” Charlie was
perplexed, since he’d been anxiously awaiting this call.

“I wanted to talk to you about the Forsyth
book.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“One of our authors lives in Atlanta. Arden
Davis. She marched in Forsyth in the eighties. Anyway, she e-mailed
me an article about you along with your phone number. Were there
really twenty thousand people there that day?”

“Not counting the Klansmen.”

Joshua laughed. “It’s a great idea for a
book. Can you tell me more about it? You’re finishing a professor’s
work, right?”

Charlie explained what he was doing, or
rather, what he
should
have been doing.

“How soon can you send me three chapters,
along with an outline?” the editor asked. “Let me have an exclusive
look at it, and I’ll get back to you in four weeks. I’m looking
forward to seeing it.”

“OK. I’ll get it in the mail to you.” Even as
he said this, Charlie wondered how long it would take to make
Talton’s prose presentable.

* * *

Saturday morning, Kathleen expressed shock
and outrage that Charlie was charging her friends to paint rooms
and install ceiling fans. “You don’t need the money,” she told him
as he drank coffee and ate toast she’d paid for. “Your job is to
edit Thurwood’s book, which you’re not doing. You should be sending
something to that editor you told me about.”

“I assure you I do need the money. I’ve got a
family and bills to pay. It’s always tight this time of year, and I
have to help with the mortgage. Don’t worry. I can do both
jobs.”

“I’m paying too much. I don’t plan to give
you all my money.” She shook a finger at him. “Virginia Wetherbee
said you’re charging four hundred dollars for painting two small
rooms.”

“That’s a bargain.”

“She could have hired a painter.”

“She
did
hire a painter!” Charlie said
in exasperation. “Hey. Did you take your meds?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with
it.”

“Take your meds.”

“It’s not your business.”

“Angela said it was.”

Mentioning her daughter put Kathleen in a
foul mood but also forced her to act. After pouting for a while,
she got some bottles from the kitchen counter. Charlie watched her
take her medication to make sure she didn’t palm the pills—a
favorite trick of hers, according to Angela. As soon as he turned
his head, he heard the garbage can’s lid go up.

“Kathleen!” he yelled. “Did you just throw
away your meds?”

“Of course not. And I’m not taking them
twice!” she yelled back. “Do you want to kill me?”

* * *

Charlie finished his painting job Saturday
shortly after dusk. With his paycheck safely tucked in his wallet,
he slipped in the dungeon’s back door. After cleaning up using
gritty mechanic’s soap, he put on clean clothes and went upstairs,
where he found Kathleen kneeling in the living room by the
fireplace. The lights were off and a dozen candles burned brightly
on the mantel, their light reflected in the mirror above it. Photos
of Thurwood were all over the room: standing on the floor, lying on
the couch, sitting on the coffee table—dozens in all. Kathleen wore
a baggy old black cardigan sweater. Her faraway eyes danced in the
firelight. Was she holding a séance? “Kathleen.”

She snapped out of her reverie. “Where have
you been all day?”

“Painting Mrs. Wetherbee’s bedroom. I
finished.”

She looked around and laughed. “You must
think I’m silly.”

“No.”
Silly
wasn’t the word he was
thinking of.

“I wanted to spend some time with Thurwood.
He died twenty years ago this month. We were married forty years.”
She sighed. “Sixty, now. I miss him every day.”

“I understand.”

“Sit down,” she said. “Talk to me for a
while.”

Charlie glanced at his watch, then looked
around. “Where can I sit?”

“I’ll make a spot.” She picked up photos from
the couch and placed them on the coffee table. When they sat down,
she held both his hands. “Thurwood wants you to get back to work on
the book. He knows you’re having trouble, but it’s going to be
OK.”

Charlie grinned. “You talked to him, did
you?”

“No, of course not. I can’t speak to the dead
… he spoke to me. In my dream.”

“Oh.”
That’s different
.

“He said there aren’t any major problems with
his book.”

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t want to talk
about it right now. Look, I need some time to myself.”

“You have more time to yourself than is good
for a person. If that’s what you are. I think sometimes that you
come from a far place, from—”

“You’re getting me confused with the guy I
came in with.”
The one I killed with the rat trap
.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Look, I’ll work on it in the
morning. I gotta go.”

He left to eat dinner and hang out at the
coffeehouse. When he returned at midnight, the house was dark. He
slipped in the dungeon door and climbed into his sleeping bag.
After a few minutes of tossing, turning, and fretting, he fell
asleep.

* * *

The sun was shining and sweat beaded his
forehead when he saw her in the distance, walking along the
cornfield fence. She wore a white dress and a red ribbon in her
curly shoulder-length auburn hair. As he stumbled clumsily along
the fence row, he realized she was the rich girl. Her daddy owned
several hundred acres of bottomland. “Martha Jean!” The name came
easily to his lips. She turned toward him. Even at a distance, he
could see her eyes twinkling. She was pretty. “Wait up!”

She kept moving. He persisted, even though
something was wrong with his foot. He huffed like an old man as he
shambled up to her.

“Daddy kill you if he see you runnin’ after
me.” Her hard tone belied her soft features.

“I gots to tell you. Doan go down to the
crick today.”

“What do you mean?” She wrinkled her nose.
“You stink.”

“It ain’t safe down there,” he panted.

“It ain’t been rainin’. The snakes won’t be
out.”

“Not snakes. It’s …” He couldn’t remember
what to warn her about.

“It’s what?” she asked.

His thoughts, already dim, grew darker.
“Nuthin’.”

“Say ‘ma’am,’ you stupid nigger. Leave me
before you get in trouble.”

He looked around fearfully, then relaxed.
There wouldn’t be no trouble except what she caused. “Doan—” He
could feel the anger rising, and there was no use in talking. Words
never did him much good, anyhow. He stood and watched as she turned
and sauntered down the path, swaying her hips. He felt confused. A
terrible urge rumbled through him and stuck down there, chasing
away all fear. It wasn’t right she should put him in trouble just
because she was a white girl. There was that other thing, too. He
could tell she needed it.

And then something turned inside him. He
pulled the new mirror from his pocket. He looked into it and saw a
misshapen black face, dull-eyed and thick-lipped. He dropped the
glass and reached down to grab a chunk of granite twice as big as
his fist, then chased after her as fast as he could, his
determination growing.

* * *

When Charlie woke, he realized he’d had a wet
dream—a consequence of living as an ascetic. And now he knew things
that had never been written, having seen the outrage, seen it
whole. More than that. He’d lived it. He’d committed it. He’d given
that little bitch what she deserved.
Whoa. Steady, Charlie
.
He shook his head to clear it of that nasty thought and groaned at
the repulsiveness of what he’d experienced.

It had been more than a dream. It was all too
real. He sat up and considered taking a cold shower. Too late for
that
. He pulled the chain on the bare bulb, then stood up to
stretch. It was 4:00 a.m. He stripped off his soiled sweat pants
and stumbled to the can. He gave himself a cold-water wash, toweled
himself off, and threw his clothes atop the sleeping bag on the
cot. He would have to wash the whole mess.

Usually he didn’t give a second thought to
his dreams, but this time he recalled everything and couldn’t go
back to sleep. Something burned inside him. He slipped on jeans and
tiptoed up the creaking stairs to the kitchen. He groped for and
found the red bag of coffee beans on the counter. He started to
fill the grinder, then realized he’d wake Kathleen. He took the
coffee downstairs and poured beans into his palm, tossed them in
his mouth, and chewed them like peanuts. He fired up his computer,
then took a swig of water from the bottle he kept in the cooler
beside his plastic milk crate. He sloshed the liquid around to wash
down the grounds.

Although he’d never been an artist, he
grabbed a piece of paper and, using his Waterman with black ink,
sketched Martha Jean’s face. It turned out better than he had any
right to expect, given his lack of skill. If he could find a photo
of her, he’d know whether he was on the right track. Going on what
he remembered seeing in the mirror, he drew a picture of Bernie
Dent, that ugly little bastard. Then he drew the rock, for good
measure.

After that, Charlie took a deep breath and
started typing. Rather than fading, the dream became more vivid
with every keystroke. It was exceeding strange, what was happening,
but he seized on the idea that the dream was divine compensation
for his recent loss—and just the break he needed. He didn’t like
channeling a mentally handicapped rapist, but who was he to
question such a gift? What else could he do?

He’d need further corroboration before he
could fully weave its details into the text, of course. And he’d
keep Talton’s footnotes in the manuscript, to lend authority to his
account. But the story’s telling was shifting now, and it was going
to be good. No, make that
fantastic
.

Dawn peeked into the dungeon as Charlie
finished transcribing his terrible dream’s rich detail of grit,
smoke, dust, lust, and pain. He collapsed on his cot, but after a
few minutes he rose and took his laptop upstairs. He made coffee
and migrated to the study, where he edited Talton’s manuscript for
another four hours, until bolts of pain shot from his fingertips to
his neck, commanding him to stop.

He wasn’t done for the day, however. Sunday
evening, after returning from the Y and refueling with coffee,
Charlie plunged back into the manuscript, his slate-gray shirt
sleeves rolled to his elbows, eyes gleaming with manic energy. For
another six hours, he attacked Talton’s lumps of coal, compressing
them into sparkling diamonds on the page. He could now see the book
clearly and whole, running like a river through his mind—from the
background of the attack on Martha Jean to Redeemer Wilson’s second
protest march in 1987, the one Talton didn’t make. At the rate he
was working, he’d have a package for Fortress in no time.

* * *

He breathed the dust of a commandeered 1910
Oldsmobile as it raced out of Gainesville with Bernie Dent
trembling in the back seat. He chased after the accused
murderer-rapist along with thirty-eight other mob members, whose
names he knew. The would-be lynchers yelled and screamed and kicked
rocks in a frustration bordering upon sexual. It took them a few
minutes to fully comprehend that their prey was gone. Then they
scattered, shouting curses and threats: “Damn nigger!”; “Next one
won’t be so lucky!”; “We’d be better off if they was all dead.”

Suddenly, he was someone else, trudging
through the September night into Cumming, the earth falling away
behind each footstep, hurrying him along, until he reached his
destination. He stopped and waited; the sun rose and burned his
face. He smelled rotting meat and swatted at a horde of flies
buzzing around his head. On a dusty street, he stepped over the
tobacco-spit that had spattered on the courthouse steps like
raindrops in hell, passing through a lingering crowd that longed to
do the devil’s work. Soldiers ringed the building, standing at
parade rest with fixed bayonets. He smelled horse turds and heard
stray dogs barking at a bitch in heat. He wiped his brow; his sweat
was muddy. He took notes for the piece he’d be filing on “The
Georgia Troubles” for
The New York Times
. God, he hated this
little cow town.

At 4:00 a.m., the courthouse door melted into
darkness. Charlie kicked out of his sleeping bag and started
writing. The power cord dangling from the overhead socket swayed
back and forth as he tapped keys, going at them like a jazz piano
player on meth.

Before he knew it, four hours had passed.

Upstairs over coffee, he told Kathleen to
take her meds. She angrily refused. “Those pills are part of the
control system Angela has,” she declared. “You shouldn’t be a part
of that.”

There was a special place in hell for the
controllers, he knew. “OK,” he said, having no time to argue. He
left her sputtering vague incantations, apparently trying to get
her smite back on.

That morning, Charlie drove the van up to
Forsyth County. The place grew uglier every time he saw its
malignant, incurable growth. Houses appeared like mushrooms after
rain. In Cumming, he felt a pang of doubt as he pulled into the
parking lot of the county’s modern, one-story library. He’d
traveled fifty miles like a heat-seeking stalker to find something
that in all likelihood didn’t exist. But his hunches had a
supernatural twist now, which made following them an adventure, no
matter the outcome.