Velva Jean Learns to Drive (61 page)

Beach told us that after he finished his work on the Scenic he had roamed up to Kentucky. He had gone into Virginia and Tennessee. He had worked on the railroad and traveled by rail, and he had written on trees and rocks and barns and walls wherever he felt like it. He was in Del Rio when he got the urge to come home. He said he somehow knew we needed him.

He found his way at first by the train and then by the trees he had marked: “Jesus Weeps.” “Jesus Mourns.” “Jesus Grieves.” Before pushing on through the woods toward home, he took time to carve another: “Jesus Heals.” That was when he heard the voices and saw the fire. He said that from far away it looked like Devil’s Courthouse was burning.

When he got done telling us all this, I said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand. Where was Daddy?”

Linc said, “What do you mean, ‘Where was Daddy?’ ”

I said, “I thought I saw him once when Harley and I went to the CCC camp to preach. I didn’t get a good look, but there was a man there that looked like him.”

Beach said, “Daddy was here. But now he’s not. I reckon Daddy’s down at Soco Gap now or maybe up in Virginia. There are some parkway sections starting work up there soon.”

“Why didn’t he come home?” I said. “All that time he was up here.”

Beach said, “He came as close as he could. Why do you think he wanted to work on this particular piece of the road, Velva Jean?”

I thought of Daddy nearby, all that time—how long was he here before he’d left again? And then I thought of Daddy off somewhere, walking on those mountaintops. I pictured him buck dancing against the sun.

When morning came, we walked over to Granny’s for breakfast—eggs and bacon and grits. Aunt Bird brought fried pies, and Aunt Zona brought mint jelly, and the twins and Ruby Poole made cinnamon rolls that fell apart in our mouths. Sweet Fern—her lips painted a rosy pink, a flower in her hair—came up from Alluvial with the children. For the first time in a long time, we were all together, all but Johnny Clay. It was like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Afterward I walked up to the Wood Carver’s house. He was gone just like I knew he would be. It was like he had never been there at all. There were just four walls and a dogwood tree that had survived a tornado and would survive much more.

Inside, the little cabin was bare. His books were gone: burned in the fire. The bed was stripped bare; the shelves emptied. Only the little camp stove remained to remind me that anyone had been there. I stood in the middle of the room for a minute, listening to the great silence, feeling the emptiness of the space, which weighed down on me until I couldn’t breathe. And then I walked outside and closed the door behind me.

I picked through the ruins of the fire, but there were only bits of wood—scraps that used to be a cane or a carving or a dancing man or a birdhouse. In the ashes, something glinted—a flash of silver. The only knife I had ever seen the Wood Carver use. I picked it up and rubbed the blade clean on my skirt. I polished the handle. I worked that knife over till it shone like it was new, then I laid it on the step where he used to sit, where I’d first seen him all those years ago, just in case he ever came back.

The sun was up and blazing by the time I came down the mountain. I stood on the shores of Three Gum River and heard my mama’s voice.

I walked into the water until it covered my ankles and then my calves, washing up over the scar where the panther had got me, and then my knees. My skirt pulled me toward the bottom but I pushed on till I was standing waist deep in the river. The water felt cool and calm. The sun beat down from the great wide sky. I opened my arms as if I could take it all in, as if I could hold it and carry it and pull it close. There was blue but no clouds. The storm had passed.

I fell backward and let myself float. My skirt billowed up around me and then filled with water and sank back down. My hair sailed out around my head like seaweed. I was a mermaid. I was a girl captured by the cannibal spirits, made to live below the water, looking at the world from my watery home.

Floating, I felt like I was ten years old again. I could almost hear and see the people on the shore—Johnny Clay thumping his guitar, Linc and Beachard clapping, Sweet Fern standing up the bank with Danny, Granny dancing like a wild bird, Daddy Hoyt and Clover and Celia Faye. I could feel Reverend Nix sending me under and pulling me up again, the snakebite scars on his hands and arms. I could see my mama’s face and hear her voice as she sang to me.

I went under. I wanted the water to make me feel fresh and new, like I did when I was ten years old, back when I was saved the first time, before anything bad had ever happened. I wanted to come back up and see my mama and Danny Deal and Butch and Aunt Junie and the Wood Carver, standing off in the distance, and my daddy too. I wanted to see Johnny Clay standing there with his arm around Lucinda Sink while Janette Lowe danced up and down the shore with Daryl Gordon and Straight Willy Cannon. I wanted Harley to be there, his face dirty from coal dust, pinching the end of a cigarette and wrapping it up in his handkerchief for later.

I held my breath as long as I could. When I could no longer breathe, I came up to the surface and filled my lungs as quick as I could, short and gasping at first, and then taking long, deep breaths until I was breathing normal again. The shoreline was empty. I was alone.

I smoothed my hair back off my face and waded out of the water, feeling heavy from the weight of it, but peaceful and clean.

I went back to Devil’s Kitchen and tried to act like nothing had happened. Harley greeted me at the door. He took me in his arms and held me and kissed me on top of my wet head. He said, “I missed you, Velva Jean. I’m glad you’re home.”

I sat with him in the front room and listened to him while he told me things would be different. “My eyes are open now,” he said. “I’m going to be better and more deserving. Calling or no calling, Jesus or no Jesus, I’m just an ordinary man. But there’s nothing ordinary about you. Sometimes that’s hard on a person. That ain’t your fault, though. That’s not what I’m saying. I just got scared. I just lost track. Like the Terrible Creek train. I think you got off track, too, but mostly it was me. I’m willing to own up to that. Well I’m back on track now. I’m here. And I may be ordinary, but I’m going to try to be as good as I can be for you. Just know this, Velva Jean. No man on earth will ever love you like I do.”

I listened and I tried to feel something. I felt bad about Butch Dawkins and bad about getting derailed myself, but mostly I thought: Why didn’t you say this to me months ago? Why are you saying this to me now? Why does it feel like—nice as those words are—I’m still being accused of something, like you’re blaming me for what’s wrong with you and us? Why should I believe you now, when you’ve let me down so many times? And what do you mean no man on earth will ever love me like you do? Why does that sound like a warning rather than something sweet and true?

Later that morning—the Thursday morning after the Wood Carver and the outlanders were run off the mountain—Harley went down to the church to talk to Brother Jim. They were thinking of holding a new revival, of traveling to neighboring cities. Harley said he missed life on the road. He said he thought things would be better if we went back to the way it was, just him and me, traveling like we used to, taking our music and our ministry to the people. He was all fired up about it. It was a Harley I hadn’t seen in a while.

I thought: Finally. It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for this, for you to take me out of here. Then I thought: But you waited too long. We’ve hurt each other too much. There’s too much built up between us. It’s too late now. And besides, Harley Bright, it isn’t enough to stay here and just drive my truck and write my songs. I do want more than this.

I spent the next two hours trying to do the same things I always did every single day of my life. I did my chores and I pretended that nothing had changed, that I was the same Velva Jean as before, and that Harley was the same Harley.

When I couldn’t stand another minute of it, I got into the yellow truck and drove to Sleepy Gap. I went first to Daddy Hoyt. I found him, as if he was waiting for me, on his front porch. He was sitting in his rocking chair, but he wasn’t rocking. He had his feet flat on the floor and his palms resting on the arms of the chair. His face was set in grief.

I stood on the step and said, “Where’s Granny?”

He said, “Hiram and Betsy Lee are having their baby.”

I said, “I was thinking about something the Wood Carver said, about how they’ve violated the sanctuary of his home and the spirit of who he is. I can’t get those words out of my mind. All I can think is that’s what’s been done to me. That’s how I feel. All I can think is that I must be an outlander, too, because unlike Harley and the rest of those people, I see that road as going out, not just coming in.” Down in Alluvial, I could hear the sound of a train whistle—a sound that made me lonely down to the very bottoms of my feet. But it was also a sound of possibility. I said, “I can’t stay here.”

Daddy Hoyt stood up. He touched his hand to his back where his rheumatism was bothering him more and more. He went into the house and then came out a moment later and handed me a coin purse.

“What’s this?” I said.

“It’s to help you on your way.”

I opened it. There was twenty dollars and fifty-five cents. I said, “I can’t take this.”

He said, “It’s yours to take. I’ve been entrusted with it.”

I said, “I’m not taking your money.”

He said, “It’s not my money, child. It’s your money. Your daddy sent it to me to put aside for you, just like all those years he sent Sweet Fern money to pay for things for you children. I got some here for each of you and that right there is yours. But if it’s not enough, Reverend Broomfield offered me one hundred dollars for one of my fiddles. Clydie Williams offered me one hundred fifty, but I’d sooner sell to a snake. I’m thinking of taking the reverend up on his offer. I could go to him today, Velva Jean.”

“I won’t let you do that. No more than you would ask me to give up my own music.”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Promise you’ll let me know how to find you if you ever want for anything. There are always more fiddles.”

I threw my arms around him and hung on. He was like a tree—solid and sturdy. But he was warm and I could hear his heart. I kept my ear against it, listening to the beating of it, trying to memorize it, trying to memorize the smell of him—cedar and pine and oak and the forest with a hint of Granny’s lye soap thrown in.

He put his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me away. He patted me on the back. He cleared his throat. He said, “You let us know where you are when you get there.”

I didn’t say anything because the lump in my throat was too big. The tears had filled my eyes. All I had to do was blink and they would fall. I kept them there, blurring my vision, keeping my cheeks dry just a second more. Then I blinked, and down came the tears and I couldn’t stop them. I ran away from Daddy Hoyt, my throat so sore I couldn’t swallow—and I was afraid I’d never be able to swallow again.