Clay's Quilt (15 page)

Your aunt Easter is the only person in this world who knows what I have just told you. I didn't care what people thought of me, I just didn't want them knowing my business, so I never told people who your daddy was. It was my story to look back on, and I didn't want anyone else sharing it. Your aunt Easter is a good woman and not a hypocrite like most. Always be good to your Easter, for she would lay right down and die for you.

I hope to God that you never doubt how much I love you and how close you are to my heart. You are my whole life. I see your daddy in your looks, but I see myself in you. I see me in your actions already. Maybe it's a bad thing to wish on somebody, but I hope you are as filled up with living as I always was. As I write this you are three year old, so you may not be able to remember me. But I have wrote these words down for you in hopes that they will give you a sense of who I am. I can't set here and list all the things about me that make me Anneth, but I think through reading the words I have wrote to you, you can gather a lot about me. If there is anything that I wish you could keep of me, it would be my voice to play in your head—I wish I could leave you beautiful words to come to mind when it is a mother's gentle voice that you need.

I guess I ought to wind this letter up now. There is so much more I need to say, but I don't know how to get it into ink. I'm setting by the open window and I've just now heard a whippoorwill calling. I have always loved their songs. There's a piece of me you can hold on to.

Mommy—12 May 73

Clay put his face into his hands and began to cry the long, mournful weeping of true grief. He felt as if he had just sat down and talked to his mother. Easter ran her hand over his hair and down his neck. They did not speak. The rain pounding on the house sounded like blood drumming in his ears.

The phone was ringing, and even though neither of them got up to answer it, the sound seemed to break some sort of spell. Easter slowly took her hands off Clay and sat down on the chair arm beside him. He kept his head down, ashamed for her to see his tearstained face.

“I never thought I'd feel like that,” he stuttered. “I can't explain it.”

“There's lots of things in that box,” Easter said. “Take it home and look at it when you have plenty of time. And after that, if you have any questions, I'll answer what I can.”

“Seems like that letter brought up more questions than it gave answers,” he said. “I never even knowed of no man called Glenn.”

“He was your stepdaddy.”

“And she quit him over me? Did he beat on me?”

“Naw, he never touched you as I know of. It was just his mouth. One thing I remember in particular because I was up there when it happened. Anneth had done told me she was fed up with him, but I never had seen nothing out of him until that day. That day he come home from work and Anneth had a big supper cooked for him, but he wouldn't eat a bite of it. Said he had been craving a bacon sandwich all day and that's what he wanted. You loved mayonnaise sandwiches better than anything, and you had eat up ever bit of the mayonnaise. When Anneth said they was out, he turned the kitchen table over. He throwed the empty jar against the wall. He screamed and went on and said if he ever caught you eating it again, he'd kill you.

“That evening, I went to town and bought four big jars of mayonnaise. I took them up to your-all's house and set them on the coffee table right under his nose. I told him, I said: ‘That's for Clay. If I hear of you touching it, I'll come in here and slit your throat while you asleep.' He knowed I wouldn't tell a lie.”

Easter stood up and went to the window. “It was things like that,” she said.

Clay didn't want to hear any more now. He didn't even want to think about going through the box. His scalp crawled and his body jerked all over, like he had been up for days. Knowing how the letter had affected him, he couldn't imagine what the contents of the box might do to him.

“Just take your time with it,” Easter said, and put the lid on the box. “It's just little things she always kept.”

W
INTER WAS LONESOME
. The hills were black and shrunken, as if they were hugging themselves against the cold. The sky lost clouds and became one whole, slow-moving mass of casket-colored gray. The waters of the creeks and the river acted as if they had given up their will to move on and were covered by a burial quilt of brown leaves, left behind by autumn. The cemeteries became ramshackle and looked forgotten: plastic flowers cracked in the cold, and brittle branches piled atop the headstones. The air smelled like smoke and metal.

This particular winter, the season's mood had no effect on Clay. He spent long shifts in the mines, thinking about Alma. He had not even thought it possible to have so much to feel. His love affair with Alma was not instant—it did not bloom before his eyes like a flower opening in a time-lapse film. It moved slowly and steadily, subtle and quiet as the rivers of winter, and it was best that it happened this way for the both of them. They fell in
love without much fanfare and before either of them had even realized it had happened.

Being with Alma felt like standing atop the mountain at Free Creek, breathing in the cool, crisp air that seemed to heal him.

Most of the time, they took long drives, listening to music and talking. They drove the curvy roads between Black Banks and Virginia or sped down the smooth parkway toward Knoxville or Lexington. Alma was still nervous about her separation and insisted that they only do things outside of Black Banks and preferably out of Crow County altogether. Clay's face began to fade from the usual roster at the Hilltop.

“When's your divorce going to be final?” Clay asked every time they went on a long drive.

“I filed three months ago and he still ain't signed the papers. He's got up to a year to sign em. I swear, I pray every night that he'll sign em. After he does, it'll only take about three more months.”

They were driving slowly over a winding road toward Cumberland Gap and came over a hill to find the road crowded with cars on each shoulder. Cars were parked bumper to bumper, so close to the road that it had been made into one lane. On one side of the road sat a small church with no sign to announce its name. A piece of cardboard had been nailed to one of the porch posts. It read
REVIVAL HERE TONIGHT
. The parking lot was full of cars.

Alma rolled down her window as they eased by. Cold winter air shot into the cab, and along with it the loud, powerful voice of a woman singing “Wayfaring Stranger.” Clay couldn't count the times he had heard Easter sing this same song, and in the same lonesome, mesmerizing way. Many times when he hadn't gone to church, he had sat in the creek across from Free
Creek Pentecostal just to hear her sing. It seemed as if every church he knew of let voices creep through their walls and spread outside.

“Let's pull in there,” she said. “Do you care to?”

He backed up and pulled into the church. There was nowhere to park, so he just rolled right up to the porch, blocking cars in. Nobody would be out for a while, anyway.

Alma scooted across the seat and put her arm through his. She spread his coat out over her lap and sat as close to him as she could. Clay left the truck idling so that the heater would pump out its steady stream, but the January air slid into the car and settled on their faces. They sat very quietly and listened to the woman sing.

I'm just a poor, wayfaring stranger
traveling through this world of woe.
There'll be no sickness, toil, or danger
in that bright land to which I go.

The woman's voice carried out on the tight air so boldly and clearly that it seemed she was singing from all around them. Clay was sure that his goose bumps were from the singing and not the cold air that was streaming into the truck. Alma lay her head on Clay's shoulder and closed her eyes, listening to the music. They had never sat so close to each other, and Clay was embarrassed at the erection he felt instantly at such a small thing as her sitting beside him. He could smell her good, clean scent and feel her soft hair against his cheek.

“I wish that people would accept a fiddle in church,” she said when the singing had stopped. “Can you imagine how good a voice like that and a fiddle would sound together?”

“I can't imagine what it would be like to create something
that beautiful—to be able to sing in such a way, or play the fiddle like you do. It's like your own little moment of complete creation. That must be the best kind of satisfaction. The kind you can taste.”

Alma looked at him without smiling. “God awmighty, Clay. Sometimes when you talk, it's like words falling out of a book.”

He didn't know what to say, so he just kissed her. He wrapped his arms around her so tightly that he could hear the bones in her back popping. He was aware of everything: the preaching that had started inside the church, the cold, dry air, the crinkling of her leather coat. He ate at her mouth, sucking her lips and running his tongue over her straight teeth. She put her hands up into his hair and then held them over his cold ears.

When they stopped kissing, he felt words pushing at the back of his teeth, fighting to get out. “You know I've done went crazy over you, don't you?”

She sat back against the seat and looked at the church. “I know it, but you shouldn't be. I'm afraid this is all a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Because I know that Denzel will never let me have this,” she said.

“After he gives you your divorce, they ain't a damn thing he can do about it.”

“That man will never let me be happy. I know him like a book. If he ever does sign for the divorce, he'll never let me have no peace.”

“That's foolish talk,” Clay said.

“No, Denzel is crazy. I swear, Clay, it's untelling what he'd do if he knowed I was in this truck with you. I stay scared to death of him.”

Inside the church, the preacher was screaming out about the wrath of God and pounding his fist on the podium. People yelled
out “Amen, brother!” and “Hallalujer!” Clay and Alma sat listening to them for a long time without saying a word.

Finally, Clay said, “Well, what's the deal?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Do you care for me, or not?”

Alma started crying.

Clay should have seen right then what was going to happen, but then again, it wouldn't have mattered if he had. He was never going to let go of this.

C
AKE HAD NEVER
gone more than two weekends without having his best friend by his side at parties or at the Hilltop Club. He started to drink more and hung out in the parking lot, sharing a joint with some girl he had coaxed outside or with Frankie the doorman. He would grow angry when people jokingly said, “Clay's plumb quit you, hain't he?” but he never would say anything against Clay, although he felt abandoned and betrayed.

On Saturday night at a party, Cake was half-naked with Janine Collins, a girl who had been trying to lure him her way for months now. She was very drunk and managed to get her blouse and bra off more quickly than Cake thought possible. As she slowly unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off him, he realized that he couldn't contain himself any longer. He wrestled Janine around on the bed, trying to get her off him, but she thought he was playing with her. She giggled, her mouth capped over his, and pressed her warm breasts against his bare chest. Finally, he pushed her off and onto the floor. She pulled the sheets off the bed to cover herself and screamed “Bastard!” over and over while he pulled on his Levi's. He left the room, slamming the door. He carried his shirt in his hand and slipped on his leather coat as he rushed down the hall. Everyone was in the living
room partying and dancing. Only one or two people noticed him leaving, and they called out to him. He did not pause long enough to say good-bye.

He drove away with his foot pressing the pedal all the way to the floor, grinding gears all the way up the winding road. He put in a CCR tape and managed the steering wheel while he smoked a joint.

The pot was harsh and he could feel it burning his throat. It tasted sweet in his mouth, though, and he loved the smell of it. He wet his fingers so as to stop the fire from burning in jagged little strips around the tip and nearly ran off the road, so he put the joint in the ashtray to burn out. There was no traffic at all, and he sped around the curvy road holding on tightly to the steering wheel. His palms were sweating profusely, as they always did when he smoked pot, and he was well aware that he could easily drive off one of the curves and hurtle into the Black Banks River.

He slid into Clay's driveway and nearly sideswiped Clay's truck. He ran up the stairs two steps at a time and was surprised to find the door locked. It never had been before. He beat on the door so hard that the glass rattled in the panes.

“Cake,” Clay said, sleepy-eyed, standing in the door in his underwear. “What in the world you doing?”

“I come to see what in the hell your problem is—” Cake pushed Clay aside and made his way into the living room, which was well lit by the slants of moonlight falling through the windows and the open door. Alma lay on the couch, motionless, acting as if she were asleep, although Cake was sure his knocking had woken her up. Cake stopped when he saw her bathed in silver. “What the hell?”

“C'mon, brother, let's go out on the porch. You want me to make you some coffee?”

“Shit no.” Cake walked backward across the living room, studying Alma, then slipped out the door like a breeze.

Clay grabbed his Levi's off the living room floor and shook his legs down into them once he got out onto the porch.

Cake pulled a pint of Jim Beam out of his inside coat pocket and took a long gulp. He sucked in a huge breath of night air and shook the bottle in front of Clay's face. “Remember this? Or have you forgot Kentucky straight?”