Chaneysville Incident (6 page)

I didn’t say anything.

“Me,” he said, “I guess you could say I loved him. He saved my life moren one time. But I’ll tell you the truth—way Moses went about things, he was like to save your butt by kickin’ you in it to get you movin’ in the right direction. You mighta loved him for it later on, but right off you wasn’t likely to be too damn grateful.”

He had been hypnotizing me. He must have been, for somehow I found that I had left the door and was standing in the middle of the cabin, near an odd slate-topped table, and the door was shut behind me. I looked around for some other way out; there wasn’t any. I started to edge back towards the door.

“Don’t jest stand there, boy,” he snapped. “Siddown.”

I had to decide then whether to break for the door or not. There was no question about what I
wanted
to do, but my mother had told me to obey the commands of adults without question; besides, I was curious. So I moved forward towards a handmade hickory chair that butted up against the table. I pulled it out and got up on it, to sit with my legs dangling.

Meanwhile Old Jack had been busy, stirring up the stove, setting a kettle over an open hole. “You drink, boy?”

“Sure,” I said. “Everybody drinks.”

“Damn, son,” he said. “I don’t mean buttermilk an’ root beer, I mean do you drink whiskey?”

“Oh, no,” I said.

He peered at me. “Why the hell don’t you?”

“Why, because it’s bad.”

“What’s so bad about it?”

“Well…it’s bad for you, that’s all. It makes you do bad things. And it makes you sick. And…” I trailed off; I couldn’t remember any more of the reasons they had always given for avoiding Demon Rum.

He shook his head. “You been talkin’ to them Christians too much,” he said. “Hell, boy, you could say all those things about women. Bet you them old biddies didn’t tell you that, did they?”

“No,” I admitted.

“You don’t mess around with women, do you?”

“No,” I almost shouted, even though I didn’t know what he meant, precisely.

“That’s good,” he said. “Women’s got their uses, but you’re too young to ’predate ’em. You stay clear of ’em for a good while yet. And stay clear a girls. I know, kissin’ girls is fun, but you get to like the taste, an’ you keep on likin’ it you don’t notice when they stop bein’ girls an’ start bein’ women, an’ women do more harm to a man than whiskey ever did. But I bet you don’t even like the taste of whiskey.”

“I…don’t know,” I said. “I never tasted whiskey.”

“What?” He was shocked. “You ain’t never tasted whiskey? You mean to tell me your daddy never even give you a taste?”

“He didn’t drink whiskey,” I snapped.

“Lord,” Old Jack said. He left the stove and came over to the table. “Boy,” he said, “how old are you?”

“Nine,” I said. “Almost ten.”

“Then it’s time you learned the truth about a few things. An’ the first thing you better learn is that your daddy drank enough whiskey in his time to float a battleship, an’ he
made
enough to float the whole damn Navy. And the second thing you better learn is that you’re damn lucky he did, because otherwise you wouldn’t be eatin’ tomorrow, ’less it was by some white man’s handout.” He glared at me for a minute, and then turned and stomped back to the stove, stood with his back to me. “He cooked the meanest moonshine a man could ever hope to taste. And he tasted. And I tasted it with him. Folks said a lot of things about that, but when he done somethin’ for ’em, you didn’t never see ’em turnin’ the kindness away.” He whirled then and looked at me hard. “You go over to that Sunday school an’ let them holy-butted biddies tell you how bad whiskey is, but let me tell you somethin’: they never give back a penny a what he put into the collection plate. I don’t know why the hell he done it, but he did. He’d sneak in there durin’ the week an’ leave money for Sunday. They’d find it. They’d know where it come from. But they’d keep it. An’ then whatever dumb-butted preacher they had over there would stand up on Sunday an’ talk about how bad whiskey was, an’ take his damn five dollars an’ go home. Livin’ on whiskey money. An’ I’ll tell you somethin’ else they ain’t told you: that Jesus Christ they pray to was a moonshiner Hisself; He turned water straight into wine. An’, like Mose useta say, he didn’t pay no damn tax on it neither.” He came away from the stove then, and set a steaming cup in front of me. “That there’s a toddy,” he said. “Some folks makes ’em fancy. I make ’em the way Mose taught me, with hot water and honey. An’ whiskey. Right now, yours ain’t got no whiskey in it. I’ll put some in if you want it. But you gotta make up your own mind.” He stood there, patient and unmoving, while I made up my mind.

“He really drank whiskey?” I said finally.

“Indeed he did.”

“I’ll take some.”

He nodded, went back to the stove, and returned with another cup and a bottle. “This ain’t your daddy’s whiskey,” he said. “I ain’t got much a that left, an’ it packs a kick. This here’s good enough for now.” He reached out and dribbled some whiskey into my cup. Cheap bourbon, but the smell of the steam that rose to my nose was wonderful. “Stir, it with your finger,” he said, “an’ take care you don’t burn yourself.”

I did as he said, burned myself anyway, but didn’t say anything. Then I cautiously raised the cup to my lips and tasted. It was mostly water, but I could taste the whiskey, and in a minute I could feel the warmth growing in my stomach.

“It’s good,” I said.

“Course it’s good,” Old Jack said. “Hell, why you think them Christians don’t want nobody to drink it?”

We sat there for a while, drinking the toddies. I found myself getting sleepy, but I struggled to keep my eyes open. Presently he got up and mixed another toddy for each of us. By the time I was halfway through it, the room was starting to swim, and the heat from the stove was becoming thick.

“He liked you,” Old Jack said suddenly.

“What?” I said.

“Your daddy. He liked you. He was proud a you. An’ he was worried about you. That was jest about the last thing he said to me; probly the last thing he said to anybody.” He took a sip from his cup. “He come over here with a jug; guess that’s the last jug a Moses Washington Black Lightning left. He come in here an’ we talked for a while. He was talkin’ about you. Said you was too much your mama’s child. Said he was worried you was gonna end up bein’ a preacher or a sissy or somethin’, on account a the way that woman carried on around you, fussin’ with your clothes an’ fixin’ you food an’ things that a man oughta be able to do for hisself. Said he wasn’t worried about your brother, there wasn’t enough woman in him for it to be dangerous. But you was different. He said there was a lot a woman in you. He didn’t mean nothin’ bad by that—jest meant that you was the kind that trusted people. Kind that believed there was always gonna be somebody to help you get through things. It ain’t jest women that thinks that way—there’s a lotta panty-waisted fellas runnin’ around these days, get into trouble an’ all they know to do is to pray to Jesus or the government—but women’s the only ones that can afford it, on accounta they know that there’s gonna be a man around somewheres to haul their wagon outa the mud, and that when the whistle blows they get first crack at the lifeboats. I ain’t actually sayin’ it’s wrong for a man to believe that, but it’s damn dangerous. On accounta he can’t afford it. A man can’t carry hisself, folks laugh at him. The women won’t have nothin’ to do with him. ’Cause what they want is a man that can haul their wagon outa the mud.

“Anyways, that was what your daddy was afraid was gonna happen: you’d spend so much time with women that the woman would come out in you and you’d end up rubbin’ your hands an’ cryin’ ’stead a doin’ what needed to be done. He was afraid your mama would do for you so much you wasn’t never gonna be able to do for yourself, wasn’t gonna end up fit for nothin’ ’cept gettin’ turned over to another woman an’ goin’ to work for a white man, an’ end up the kinda fool that can’t go to sleep lessen he knows ’xactly where he’s gonna get his pussy an’ his next pay. An’ he said that was all right for some, but not for you, on accounta you was special. That’s what he said. Special. Said you had a lot a woman in you, but you had one hell of a lot a man in you to go with it. He told me some a the things you done, things he was real proud of. You know what they was?”

“No,” I said, wondering how Moses Washington had seen me doing anything, since I had learned early on that the best way to get along with him was to stay pretty much out of sight.

“He told me ’bout them books you read. Told me how you go down there to the library an’ steal the ones they say you ain’t old enough to read, an’ how if you get one an’ you start it, then you by God finish it, even if you don’t know what the hell it’s all about, an’ how you read ’em over an’ over until you think you do. He liked that. Told me how when your brother give you a lickin’ you wouldn’t say nothin’ to nobody, you’d jest wait till didn’t nobody think you was mad anymore, an’ then you’d clobber that boy good. He liked that; he surely did. Course he did say he had to whup you for doin’ your clobberin’ with that there ax handle, but he didn’t mind you gettin’ the idea. Not at all. He liked all that. Course he jest about had to, on accounta that was jest the way he was.” He smiled at me. “You know what he said he liked best about you?”

“No,” I said.

“He said he liked the way you hated him.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He didn’t mind; most folks hated him. I hated him some myself. He was a real hateable man. He wanted things his way all the time, an’ if he didn’t get what he wanted, he took it. He wasn’t kind to people ’less it suited him; all he cared about was what got him where he wanted to go. He didn’t give a good God damn about anybody in the world. Oh, he cared, but you knowed that if it come down to a question a him or you, it woulda been you, an’ he mighta been sorry, but that was all. Matter a fact, the only time I ever seen him do anything to make me think he cared much about anybody was when he come over here an’ ast me to take care a you if anything was to happen to him, to make sure you learned, how to be a man. What he said was, says, ‘Jack, if anything happens to me, you take that boy an’ teach him to hunt, an’ teach him to fish, an’ drink whiskey an’ cuss. Teach him to track.’ That’s what he said. An’ then the damn fool went out huntin’ groundhog.”

He paused, and I looked at him and saw the lamplight reflected in his eyes—they were glistening. “Hell,” he said finally, “you gotta be mighty hungry to eat a groundhog. Meat’s greasy an’ stringy an’ tough all at the same time. Seems to me if a man was gonna get kilt out huntin’, the least thing he could do was to be huntin’ somethin’ worth huntin’. I recall a time when Moses Washington woulda rather drunk warm water than be huntin’ a groundhog. Matter a fact, I don’t recall him ever huntin’ no groundhog before. An’ I don’t guess he’s gonna be doin’ it again. The damn fool.” He rose then, and went to the stove and mixed himself another toddy. The smell of it reached me, and I knew he was making it stronger this time. He drank it down in a few gulps without coming back to the table, without even turning around, and then he mixed another, just as strong.

“You don’t mind me talkin’ ’bout your daddy the way I do?” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “that’s good. An’ I don’t guess it changes nothin’ to speak of him. Everybody else is. They
been
speakin’ of him. Most folks, they gotta be dead an’ gone ’fore there’s a chance anybody’ll talk about ’em. Not Mose. They was probly talkin’ about Moses Washington ’fore he was ever born. Wasn’t nobody that knowed nothin’ about him, though. I knowed some. Josh knowed a bit, but he wasn’t the kind a man that set too much store by where a man come from, or where he went when he was outa sight. An’ he’s dead anyways. But not knowin’ facts don’t stop folks talkin’; hell, it just sets ’em goin’. Most folks’d a hell of a lot rather listen to rumors than go around the corner to see what’s what. And Mose helped ’em right along. He let ’em talk, an’ if they was to ast him a question—an’ there wasn’t many that had the nerve—he’d just smile an’ let ’em think what they wanted. Pretty soon you couldn’t go anywheres in the County without everybody knowed his name, an’ who run with him, an’ three or four stories about what we done. Wasn’t half of it true. Fact is, you found out somethin’ about Moses Washington, you knowed for sure either he wanted you to find it out jest ’xactly the way you done it, or it was a lie. An’ most times, it was both.” He stopped then, sipped at the toddy, and looked at me hard. It frightened me, and I stirred uneasily and looked over my shoulder towards the door.

“You goin’ somewheres?” he said.

“Well…” I said.

“You scared a the boogeyman?”

It must have been the lateness of the hour, making me cranky, or perhaps it was the whiskey. “Don’t you make fun of me,” I said.

His eyes grew wide for a moment, and then he nodded his head. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I forgot you was Mose’s boy. You want some more?” He gestured with the bottle.

“No,” I said.

“Hell, son, I said I was sorry. Now, when a man apologizes, you either take his hand or you let him be, but you don’t sit around takin’ little bites out a him all day long; that’s what women does. Now, you want some more or not?”

“I’ll take a little.”

He nodded, took my cup, and mixed the toddy. His hand was a little unsteady; he put in more whiskey than he should have. But I didn’t notice it. All I knew was that the taste was strong and sweet and good, and that the warmth of it moved through me like joy. I sipped with abandon, and put the cup down. He watched me, then came, bringing his own cup, and sat down across from me.

“You wanna know how I met your daddy?” he said.

I looked at him, or tried to; my eyes wouldn’t focus right, and all I could see was a dark face swimming in the darkness somewhere beyond the lamp’s glow.

“Do you?” he said. “You want a story?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, please.”

“Then fetch me the candle,” he said. “It’s there, by the door.”

He nodded to show me the direction, and I clambered down from the chair and felt my way through the darkness. I found the candle, a brand-new one, on a small shelf next to a flat, round coffee can.