The Year the Lights Came On (17 page)

Brady Dasher escaped death three other times that day, and each challenge was more spectacular than the one preceding it.

He climbed out on the struts of his plane and waved to the crowd as his four-year-old son performed graceful turns above the airfield. (Aubrey Hill later told us that Brady was actually flying the Piper Cub by manipulating wires attached to the elevators and rudder.) Brady’s landing on the World’s Smallest Runway was perfect, as his Piper Cub and the 1947 Ford, driven by Harold, hit exact speeds and Harold carried the plane to a gentle stop. A parachute jumper flirted with death by refusing to pull his ripcord when Floyd assured us that a split-second delay would be disastrous. Floyd Alewine was more dramatic than John Barrymore with his description of the parachute jumper, and he had people screaming, “Pull it! Pull it! Pull it!” before the parachute streamed open, saving the miserable fool who had seriously misjudged his closing distance to the ground.

*

“Yessir, boys, there’s nothin’ on earth as good as a roasted hot dog,” Dover declared, sloshing ketchup on the charred, lumpy hot dog bedded like a black stick in its bun. “One time I had me some French food in a New Orleans hotel and it was hog slop next to a roasted hot dog.” He gouged relish out of a jar with his fingers and sprinkled it across the ketchup.

Dover was not an authority on foods, but he knew how to appreciate the spirit of an occasion and the hot dog roast at Wind’s Mill was a splendid way to close a day of marveling at airplanes performing reckless, childish games in the skies. The hot dog roast made a special day a lingering day, and we celebrated each thrill again and again, easing into absurd exaggerations by the mutual consent that seemed always to begin, “Yeah, that’s right…” By the time we had finished two dozen hot dogs, four bags of potato chips, the leftovers of Dover’s cabbage slaw, and two cartons of Dr. Peppers, Paul and Otis had decided to join the Air Force and Dover was determined to take private flying lessons as soon as he made his promotion to lineman for the REA.

Night calmed our bragging and our exuberance, and night drove its soft darkness between us, separating our bodies and leaving warm, orange faces sitting in a circle around the fire. It was the feeling I liked most about roasting hot dogs at Wind’s Mill. I knew the rhythm of language, the long, lazy lapses between Yeahs and the occasional quiet laugh, and I knew that Dover or Freeman would soon tell again the ghostly history of Wind’s Mill, and their telling would be orchestrated by a gurgling swirl hole below the shoals in Beaverjam Creek, and by deep-voiced frogs, and by katydids and owls and whippoorwills.

Wind’s Mill had been a gristmill even before the Civil War. Its great paddle wheel was pushed by water that had been diverted from Beaverjam Creek and forced into a narrow race made of oak planking. The wheel had rolled over and over for more than a hundred years before farmers stopped bringing their corn and grain to be mashed to pulp under the heavy stone. The water was no longer diverted and the race had filled with trash. The great paddle wheel was stilled. Some of the paddles were splintered and cracked, but Wind’s Mill was a monument and the level, clean grounds with outcroppings of flat, gray surface granite had become a favorite picnic spot of everyone in five communities.

It was true, too, that Wind’s Mill was more than a picnic spot. There were the stories, and as time changed whatever truth had existed, the stories became wonderfully romantic—grand speculations of legendary proportions.

Wesley and I well knew the stories. They were part of our heritage. Once, it had been Wynn’s Mill. But the W-Y-N-N spelling had been mutated to W-I-N-D. It was even spelled W-I-N-D in church bulletins and in the social columns of local newspapers, where religious and civic activities were chronicled. The change of name—sounds alike, different spelling—was not deliberate; it was the impact of folklore.

During the Civil War, in that final, desperate gesture of defense against northern forces, one of the sons of the Wynn family became obsessed with the fear of dying in battle, so he made a hiding place behind the great paddle, beneath the flooring of the mill, and there he stayed as Confederate troops rode through and enlisted farmers to fight for the honor and heritage of the South. Fear and shame made a hermit of the deserter. No one really knew what had happened to him, but the stories had him dying in his hiding place, and his spirit condemned to that same prison. At night, the wind moaned through the paddles and there were those who swore it was the dead man’s spirit begging to be released. That is when the name changed to Wind’s Mill—because of the wind and the dead man’s spirit. Skeptics would make pilgrimages to discount the dead man’s pitiful cry for forgiveness. “There’s nothing to it,” they would say, standing on the steel-beam bridge crossing Beaverjam Creek. “Nothin’.” But you could tell by the tightness of their voices that none of them would spend the night alone at Wind’s Mill.

It was Freeman who told the story of the dead man, with Dover gravely nodding his appreciation and saying quietly, “Uh-huh. That’s right. That’s what folks say.”

Somewhere far off a dog bayed and Dover thought about Bark.

“We better be goin’, boys,” Dover said. “Bark’s not been fed.”

“Yeah,” agreed Freeman. “I got to work in the warehouse some tomorrow.”

“On Sunday?” asked Wesley.

“On Sunday, Wes. You do what you supposed to.”

“Freeman, you are bound to get in trouble workin’ on the Lord’s day,” Dover joked.

“I am bound to get myself fired if I don’t, and Old Man Hixon didn’t do no cartwheels because of my run-in with Dupree. He done warned me.” Freeman laughed easily. “I must be leadin’ the world in bein’ warned by the Hixon family.”

“You better watch it, that’s all.”

“I always do, Dover,” answered Freeman. “I always do.”

10

BEFORE SHE MARRIED and moved
from our house, my sister Susan would cover herself with a quilt in a corner of the middle room when it rained, or thundered, or when lightning staged its primitive dance across the skies. She would not move except to breathe. In our very, very young years, we thought Susan hid as a game and we delighted with wiggling in and out of that dark quilt cave as thunder lashed its terrible complaint outside. But as we grew older, we realized Susan was not playing games; she was afraid. The loud voice of thunder was the loud voice of demons and it was advisable to cover your face and close your eyes and not anger the demons—who were angry enough if you knew how to translate their popping, cruel language.

We missed Susan when she married. On days of storm, the middle room seemed lopsided, out of balance, and unnatural, without Susan.

It was lopsided, out of balance, and unnatural on the Sunday following our afternoon with the Dasher Brothers Flying Circus and the hot dog roast at Wind’s Mill. It had begun to rain in early
morning, the kind of rain which would fall through the day, into night and into sleep. High, black clouds boiled up and tortured Earth with lightning, spreading like witches’ fingers, and Earth (or the demons) screamed and trembled with each painful jolt.

We crowded near the radio in early night and listened to Sunday gospel quartet singing. Mother lit the huge kerosene lamp we reserved for company and placed it on the rolltop desk. “Just for warmth,” she said.

My mother had a gift for warmth. It was in the way she spoke, in the way she touched, the way she surprised us with gingerbread and hot chocolate; it was in the way she yearned to hurt when we hurt and rejoice when we rejoiced.

“Remember this rain,” she told us. “Remember sitting here and remember how warm a kerosene lamp can be. Soon, it’ll be different every time it rains. When we get the REA, we won’t all be bunched up in a corner like this.”

“Why, Mama?” asked Lynn.

“Because there’ll be a light in the middle of the ceiling and it’ll make the whole room bright, instead of just one little corner, and you’ll all be playing by yourself instead of sittin’ together.”

“If Susan was here, she wouldn’t be playin’,” I said.

“Well, maybe not Susan, but that’s all right,” answered Mother. “We’re all afraid of something. It’s just that Susan’s afraid of thunder.”

“Well, I’ll be glad when we get some electricity,” said Louise. “Maybe we can get us a radio that doesn’t have static all the time.”

*

It had stopped raining on Monday, but it was a gray morning and there was a fine, chilling mist, part fog. Wesley and I went
to the corn crib after breakfast and began to shuck corn, stacking the ears in neat, yellow pyramids. It was hateful work, and frightening. My father always kept a king snake in the corn crib. King snakes loved to feast on rats, but king snakes were not poisonous. It didn’t matter. We knew that somewhere, warm and cozy under the heat of corn shucks, a king snake was curled, waiting. Garry absolutely refused to go near the corn crib, and, once, my sister Frances had accidentally sat on a king snake and she gave a horrible description of snake fangs sinking into flesh.

Corn shucking was a wet-day ceremony, the always-something-else job. But there was one consolation, one promise: if we worked long enough to achieve my father’s predetermined goal of the number of bushels needed, we would be permitted to fish the swollen streams that fed into Beaverjam Creek. When it rained, catfish rallied by schools at the mouth of those streams, gobbling away at the fresh supply of land food washed into the inlets. We knew R. J. and Paul and Otis would be fishing one of the spots. We would find them, and if we were lucky we would find Willie Lee and his brother, who was named Baptist. They were the two funniest fishermen in Emery, and we loved to sit with them as they argued over the size of catfish nibbling the bait off hooks, or who had eaten the last can of sardines that Willie Lee’s wife, Little Annie, had packed for them. We seldom saw Baptist, except while fishing. He was a nervous man. He believed in ghosts and good luck charms and he was an encyclopedia of dos and don’ts in man’s efforts to solicit fortune from the spirit world. Baptist claimed to hold the world’s record in the number of times he had seen the Soldier Ghost floating in the trees of the old Civil War cemetery, but Willie Lee said Baptist was crazy and the only thing he had
ever seen in the cemetery was the moon shining on the leaves of the guarding oaks.

Wesley and I were talking about Willie Lee and Baptist and predicting where they might be on Beaverjam Creek, when Mother appeared in the doorway of the corn crib. She had driven to Emery to buy groceries and had promised to tell Freeman we would be fishing. Sometimes Freeman could beg off work, if the invitation to do something was irresistible.

Mother’s face was splotched with anger. “Boys,” she said, trembling, “Freeman’s just been arrested.”

Wesley stood. “What?”

“Freeman,” Mother repeated. “He’s just been arrested.”

I remembered what Dover had told Freeman, that someday he would get in trouble for working on Sunday.

“Why?” I asked. “What’s Freeman done, Mama?”

“Mr. Hixon said he stole twenty dollars from the store. He called the sheriff.”

“Freeman wouldn’t do that,” Wesley said. “Who said he stole it?”

“They did,” Mother said, releasing her anger. “Mr. Hixon said it was Freeman. Said Dupree and that little Haynes boy saw him take it off a counter.” Mother cared deeply for Freeman. He was her personal social concern, and she had spent hours prying into his personality and saying silent prayers for the welfare of his soul.

“Did you see him, Mama?” asked Wesley.

“Just for a minute. Mr. Hixon was holdin’ him in the back of the store for Sheriff Brownlee to get over from Edenville.”

“What’d Freeman say?”

“Not much, Wesley. He was ashamed to see me, I guess,” Mother
answered. “He did say he didn’t do it. Said Dupree was telling a lie, and asked me if I’d tell his mama that.”

Wesley sat on the floor of the corn crib and began to slowly strip the shuck away from an ear of corn. “I bet Freeman’s tellin’ the truth,” he said, finally. “I bet Dupree had somethin’ to do with it. He’s been tryin’ to find some way to get to Freeman all summer.”

“What’ll they do to Freeman, Wesley?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“They’ll take him over to the jail,” Mother said angrily. “He’ll be locked up with drunks and crooks and God only knows what else.”

“He’s not but fourteen years old,” Wesley said, almost as an afterthought.

“That won’t make any difference, boys. It’s a stealing offense and that means jail, no matter what age he is.” Mother was trying to contain her temper, but she could envision Freeman shoved behind bars with criminals who worked the road gangs in their striped convict uniforms.

“What’re we gonna do, Mama?” I asked.

“I told your daddy. He was up at the house. He said he’d go over there and see what it was about. Said something might be worked out. Maybe he could post bail for Freeman, or something.”

“Can we go with Daddy?” I pleaded. “Me’n Wesley?”

“No,” Mother answered sharply. “No. I’m sorry, boys, but it’s something you ought not be around.”

“Freeman’s our friend, Mama.”

“She’s right,” Wesley decided. “It’d just make Freeman feel bad, and I guess he feels bad enough already. If Daddy can do anythin’,
he will. If he can’t, it’s just gonna be Freeman’s word against Mr. Hixon’s.”