Icy Sparks (27 page)

I stood up, placed my hands staunchly on my hips, and asked, “How can you be so sure? No one knows what another person is up to. Everybody's got secrets.”

“'Cause I know my neighbors. Nary a one of them would rob me blind.”

“Well, this time you're wrong, 'cause one of them already did.”

Patanni scowled. “Who, then? Poor old Mamie Tillman?”

“Someone you'd never guess.”

“Spit it out, girl! Say who you mean!”

I pressed my fingernails into my hips. “Clitus Stewart, that's who. He's the varmint stealing your chickens.”

Patanni made a fist and smacked his palm. “Icy Sparks!” he said, in a voice so full of rage that it cut through the air like wind wheezing around a taut, thin wire. “Why are you lying about my good friend's son?”

“I'm not lying,” I said, my voice also swelling with anger. “I'm telling the truth. If you're too deaf to hear it, then that's your doing, not mine!”

Patanni fisted his palm again and, red-faced, fumed, “Lately you been spreading your misery around like jam on bread, but never…” Fiercely, he shook his head. “Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have imagined you'd do this!”

“Do what?” I growled back. “Clean the wax out of your ears and make you hear the truth?”

“You got no right badmouthing neighbors. You got no right slandering a friend of mine!”

“Clitus, Jr., ain't no friend of yours,” I said. “Your friend was Clitus, Sr., and he's long since been dead and buried.”

“You better watch it, young lady! Just watch your tone with me!”

I removed my hands from my hips, pointed angrily at him, and said, “You best quit worrying about me and turn your energy to someone else. To that dear friend of yours who's about to cook your hens!”

“Why, you've lost your head!” my grandfather shouted. “Spreading such stories!”

“My head's on straight as ever!” I declared, thrusting out my chin.

“Young lady!” My grandfather glowered at me. “I'm getting sick and tired of your nastiness. Darkness is the only thing you see.”

My voice shook, but, determined, I didn't cry. “I saw him with my very own eyes,” I said. “I was out walking and saw him. All high and mighty. Tying two plump chickens from a wire stretched between two tulip trees. All the while, he bragged to that son of his how he had stolen two of Lincoln Newland's plumpest hens, how he had killed one on the spot and left the innards behind. All the time, he went on about himself, called himself a crafty ole fox. Then he swung that knife of his and cut their throats. As sure as God is my witness, he sprayed the yard with blood. That's the truth.”

“If you're so honest, why didn't you come right home and tell me?” Patanni asked. “How come you've been so quiet?”

“If you want to believe a thief, that's your privilege and your right!” I cried. “If you think Clitus, Jr., is so good and I'm so bad, so dag nab different, so be it! If you feel that way, I don't want to be your kin!” And with those words, I broke down and began to cry.

Patanni made a guttural sound, took one step toward me, snatched my hand, and said, “Come on. We're gonna settle this thing. Once and for all.”

W
hen Patanni drove up to Clitus Stewart's place, it was still light. No vehicle was parked in the back, and the house seemed empty. “I don't see anyone,” my grandfather said, slowly opening his door. “No people and no dead chickens.”

“They'd be in the front yard,” I said. “Away from the road.”

“Open your door,” he ordered. “Let's go and see.”

I wiped my nose with my palm, unlatched the door, pushed it ajar with my foot, and stumbled out. “The tulip trees are in the front,” I said, “away from the road, overlooking the valley.”

“I hear you,” he said coldly, walking quickly toward the front yard, way ahead of me.

When he rounded the corner, I heard him. Even before I saw him, I heard him. A sad, low groan, like the bellow of a sick cow, came to my ears, and I knew then that he had seen them, that he had seen Henrietta and Bonnie dangling from that wire, blood—like droplets of rain—scattered over the ground. Quietly, I came up behind him. “That's them, all right,” he said in a shaky voice.

But I didn't say a word, just turned around and briskly walked back to the truck.

“I
've always been a yaller dog Democrat,” Patanni said, when he heard President Eisenhower speaking as we listened to the evening news on the radio in the parlor. “Old Ike helped us whup the Germans, and I respect him for that, but he's still acting like a general, not a president, and in all this time, he ain't done nothing here at home. Eight years of doing nothing is eight years too long.”

As he spoke, he nervously tapped his large foot against the floor, all the while stealing looks at me, all the while turning into a stranger. I saw him changing, once grabbing his arm, shaking it like it had died on him. I heard him complaining of dizziness, of punishing headaches. He was laying low, not working as hard, getting thinner, but I couldn't make myself be kind to him. Some fierceness of pride had come over me. The more I wanted things to be like they were, the worse I behaved. The worse I behaved, the more I hated myself and the nastier I became. In my grandfather, I saw every person who had ever hurt me. He became Mrs. Eleanor Stilton. He was Wilma. He was Peavy Lawson. He was every snicker I had ever heard and the million staring eyes that excluded me from the flatland. He stood for judgment and intolerance, the aisles of townspeople parting. He was a red heart pumping normalcy; he was a Bedloe. I was a Sparks.

“If Ike don't like that vice president of his,” Patanni went on, “why should I cast my vote for him? Anyhow, that young fella Kennedy did just fine when he was politicking in West Virginia. Even took it upon himself to go down deep into a mine shaft where he almost got himself kilt on a high-voltage line. Story goes he talked to the miners like they was family, never puttin' on airs, never preaching at them, just asking them about their work.”

“None of that excuses the fact that he's a Catholic,” Matanni added, “and I don't want some Pope telling me what to do.”

Surprised, I perked up. “A Catholic?” I declared, turning to look at my grandmother.

Matanni bit her lip, nodded, and continued to crochet.

“He was baptized in the Catholic Church just like you was in the Baptist,” Patanni said, fixing his eyes on her. “That's all it means. Ain't no one taking orders from the Pope.”

“Mercy me, I hope not!” Matanni shot back.

Patanni cleared his throat, pulled a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket, and spit into it. “Why are we always badmouthing someone who ain't like us?” he asked. “Ain't we learned nothing from our own trials and tribulations? We, who are poked fun at and judged harshly every time we leave these mountains.”

I thought for a minute about what my grandfather was saying, but I had been brooding too long to care. “Mrs. Stilton's mean as a rattler,” I declared, disregarding his words, “and I'll tell you why.” I enlarged my eyes, raised my eyebrows, and pointed my index finger at nothing in particular. “'Cause she's a Catholic,” I stated, “and the Pope is always telling her what to do.”

Patanni scowled at my grandmother. “Tillie, you know that's plumb foolishness!” he snorted. “Mrs. Eleanor Stilton is mean 'cause she's mean. If she was a member of the Baptist Church, she'd still be mean. People have their natures. Hers happens to be ornery.”

“Well, I guess that's my problem, too,” I said to Matanni. “Being born a Sparks, I ain't able to shed that ornery part of me.”

At that moment, my grandmother jumped up, glared at me, then at Patanni, and exclaimed, “God help me! I can't take this bickering anymore!” Then, flinging her needle and thread upon the sofa, she stomped out of the room.

“Look what you did.” I leaped up from my chair and faced my grandfather. “You and your Pope-loving heart have upset my granny!”

“No, missy! Your false pride is the culprit.”

“That ain't true! I only want you to love me, to believe me when I tell you something.”

“But I do believe you,” Patanni insisted.

“Not till I showed you,” I said, shaking my head. “Not till you saw the truth with your very own eyes.”

“But for weeks you was acting up,” Patanni said. “Carrying on like a sick hornet.” He pressed his hand against his forehead, then looked up and anxiously caught my eyes. “Icy, honey, you had me all confused. I didn't know what to believe.”

“And you been sulled up,” I said, “not talking to me. Treating me like I ain't nothing, just because I got Sparks blood in my veins.” I lowered my head. My shoulders heaved. “If you don't love me, I don't want to be a Sparks anymore.” My voice quivered, and I began to sob. “If I don't have you,” I moaned, swiping at a string of mucus that dangled from my nose, “I—”

My grandfather rose quickly from his chair. “Icy, my sweet child!” he protested, taking a step toward me. “Why, you're the only grandchild I got!” His fingertips touched my shoulder. “You got gallons of Bedloe blood in you.” Putting his hand beneath my chin, he lifted my head. “'Cause you're stubborn, every damn bit as hardheaded as me.”

Awkwardly, I reached out to him. “Oh, Patanni,” I said. But just as he leaned over to hug me, a tic rippled through my body and jerked me to one side.

Surprised, he pulled back, and we both looked at each other. Then, cocking his head and squinting his eyes, he folded his arms over his stomach; and, with a confused expression on his face, he walked away.

As had been his habit, Patanni had hidden each new will in their bedroom in the wardrobe behind Matanni's dresses. When my grandmother found the two pieces of folded-over yellow paper, scrunched into the toe of one of his bedroom slippers, she put on her glasses, dangling from a silver chain around her neck, unfolded his last will and testament, and before reading his words aloud, said, “Virgil enjoyed doing this. It was a game to him.”

Then she walked over to the huge oak bed and tentatively fingered the quilt. “It's called Eight-Pointed Star,” she said. “Your grandpa picked out the pattern. In all our years together, we never slept apart. No, we always slept with each other—right here in this big old bed.” She touched the wooden carving on the headboard. “It belonged to my mama,” she explained. “Her daddy was a furniture maker, and he fashioned it.”

A week earlier, I'd found a woolly caterpillar, and when I saw it, I had known what to expect. A very cold winter, deep snow, the dark trunks of frozen trees.

Now, as I looked at Matanni, I saw the true coldness that awaited us. I remembered how I had called out her name when I heard glass breaking and her screaming down below. In my mind's eye, I could still see myself skidding down the stairs, rounding the corner. She had been standing by the stove, whimpering, “Virgil! Sweet Virgil! Virgil, my love!” A jar of canned apples lay broken and smeared on the floor at her feet. Cautiously, she had walked toward him. His body was slumped over in his chair; his hands, still neatly clasped on the table. “What have you gone and done?” she'd said.

I had stared at the two of them—at my grandfather, swaying in my grandmother's arms. “Please, Patanni, don't leave us now!” I'd begged. “Please!” Then pressing my chin against my chest, I'd wrapped my arms around my body and fiercely hugged myself.

Matanni sighed. Looking beyond her, I saw Patanni's unfolded will in the center of the bed. “What are we going to do?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Right now, I don't know.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “But as the saying goes, ‘Time heals all wounds.'” Wearily, she closed her eyes. “With time, then, the answer will come.”

“I wish the hours would fly,” I said.

“Me, too,” she said, behind closed eyelids, “but backwards, way back to the beginning, to when Virgil and I first met, to when we were courting, before time had the chance to hurt us.”

O
n the first of November, three days after his death, we buried Patanni. Not many people came. Distant relatives, living in West Virgina, sent condolences but thought the trip too long to make, and most of Patanni's old friends had already passed away. Of course, Miss Emily, Johnny Cake, and Principal Wooten were present. Sam and Martha McRoy, Joel's parents, who lived down the road from us, and a few of Patanni's buddies from the barbershop in Ginseng also attended. Dennis Lute, the owner of Lute's Grocery—where Patanni always bought supplies when we couldn't make it into town—likewise decided that he owed it to my grandfather to come. All of us paid our respects to my sweet grandfather on that cool yet sunny November day. All of us stood beneath the crab apple tree and bade a fond farewell to Virgil Bedloe—loving husband, caring father and grandfather, good, loyal friend. All of us watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground and the rich soil of Icy Creek Farm was shoveled on top. But as each of us turned to go, Matanni, pulling on the tail of Dennis Lute's coat, was determined that we should stay. “Dennis,” she said in a clear, strong voice, “would you please read Psalm Twenty-three?” Then, before I could protest and remind her of Patanni's last wishes, she handed Dennis her Bible, looked me straight in the eyes, and said sternly, “Virgil had his ways. Now, I have mine.” Thereupon, Dennis Lute, in a loud, booming voice, began to read. And as I listened, I recalled what Patanni had written: “I've gotten shed of my broken down body, and my spirit, as light as a kite, soars free”; and, in that instant, I felt comforted, for it seemed to me that Patanni's words and the Twenty-third Psalm meant exactly the same thing.

“I
thank you for this,” Matanni said, as she slipped onto the front seat beside Miss Emily, who had come to pick us up to drive us to the voting booth behind Lute's Grocery. “Lately, I don't have the energy to drink a glass of water, let alone walk two miles to the grocery store.”

Miss Emily touched my grandmother's forearm. “Grief can make you sick,” she said. “But as the months go by, you'll feel better.”

“Right now, I keep thinking a part of me has died,” Matanni said, “and wondering how long it'll take to grow it back.”

“Time passes and the pain eases,” Miss Emily said. “One miraculous morning, you'll wake up and be ready to greet the day.”

“God willing,” Matanni said.

For the good Lord's sake, I hope so, I thought, feeling the familiar pain—its sharp teeth clamping down. No amount of sympathy seemed to ease it. Miss Emily had tried to comfort me; so had Mr. Wooten and, of course, Matanni. Even Maizy had written me a sweet letter of condolence. “There is a life beyond,” she had said. “God's empathy is greater than ours. So have faith, Icy. You'll see your dear grandpa and all your loved ones again.”

At first, I'd gasp to ease the hurt. But soon the gasping wasn't enough. That's when the croaking began. Low, despondent croaks would come from my throat like the moans of a dying person. Puffed up with grief, they grew like fetuses and cried as they were born. Same as a wild dog's loneliness, they howled through the house, then wailed in the woods. And, still, I hadn't cried.

“We best get going,” Miss Emily said.

“Before that shed gets full up,” I added.

“Before a long line of people fills the voting booth,” Miss Emily corrected me.

So the three of us, cramped together on the front seat of Miss Emily's car, headed over the bumpy road toward Lute's Grocery. Ten people were standing in line when we arrived.

“I'm a Democrat,” a bald-headed man at the end of the line said. “My daddy was a Democrat and his daddy was one, too. I come from a long line of them, and I ain't about to break the chain just 'cause the fella running is a Catholic.”

“It don't matter anyhow,” another man said, “'cause Johnson's one of us.”

I squeezed my grandmother's elbow. “You gonna vote for Kennedy?” I asked.

My grandmother, without turning around, nodded. “This vote belongs to Virgil,” she explained. “If your grandpa liked this Kennedy fella, he can't be too bad.”

“Well, you could do worse,” Miss Emily chimed in. “I voted early this morning, and I don't mind saying that I cast my vote for John F. Kennedy. Oh, no, I don't mind telling you one bit.”