David Gates - Jernigan

1

I ended up driving all night. The snow eased off after a while — or, more likely, I’d driven past the edge of the storm — and I just kept going. Stopped for gas where you get off the interstate, then followed the state highway on up through the woods and through the open lands and through the empty little towns as it began to get light. Church steeples. The first human, in a red plaid jacket, bending over to scrape his windshield, blowing out clouds of breath in early-morning sun. Two more towns to go. Then, in the center of the second town, a left at the church and up that road for probably five miles. And at what must have been eight or nine o’clock I finally got to the place where you turn off the town road to get down to Uncle Fred’s camp. Just a gap between fenceposts. Blinding sun by now; this absolutely blue sky and snow all around. And so silent when I turned the engine off. This was as far as I could take the car: they hadn’t plowed down to where the camp was. So I just pulled as far over to the side of the road as I could, passenger door scraping against the snowbank. And I thought, Before it snows again you better get a carlength of that track cleared so you can pull in there off the road. Otherwise, next time the plow comes through here, I don’t know, no need to finish the thought.

My God it was cold when I opened that car door. Inch or so of gin left in the bottle, but then I thought No, save that for when you get the stove going and the trailer good and warm. I’d finished all but that last inch on the way up. Just drinking to keep drinking: it didn’t make me any drunker. Or I guess any less drunk either. It wasn’t supposed to be a good idea to be drunk and out in the cold, that was a common misconception. I mean, the misconception was that it kept you warm. Just hoped to hell there was some wood, and some paper to get it going, and maybe something lying around for kindling so I wouldn’t have to try splitting logs in this kind of shape. Provided they hadn’t stolen the God damn woodstove out of there too. Get that stove going and wash down about four five more Pamprins with the last of that gin, boy, and sleep the sleep of the just.

Now if only Danny had come along — I’d practically got down on my fucking knees — he could’ve been carving out that carlength of snow while old Dad was humping the wood inside and building the fire and getting the trailer warmed up for him to come in to. Heating up a can of beans if there was a can of beans. See, I would have had him sleep most of the way up, and then he could have stayed awake to feed the fire while old Dad took his rest. But, of course, stayed awake to do what? Oh, practice his guitar for a while, I suppose. Playing it through his Rockman so as not to wake old Dad. Well, fine, okay, but after a couple hours of that? So it might’ve been just as well.

The trailer was maybe half a mile in from the town road, down a pair of ruts. Though with the snow the way it was, all you could see was a gap in the hemlocks or whatever they were. Just pine trees, probably, but I had that thing going in my head—

And the hemlocks and the peacocks

And the peacocks and the hemlocks

— or however the hell it went. That Wallace Stevens thing about the peacocks and the hemlocks. Then I tried to make up some joke, in my head, about the hemlock maneuver. And then the hemlock remover. A chainsaw: that could be the hemlock remover, although how would you set up the joke? Some inner life, boy. That’s about what it had come down to. At any rate, I grabbed a book of matches out of the dash, got out of the car, shouldered my shoulderbag, then reached in back and started trying to work the suitcase out between the front seats, banging it around the gearshift and the steering wheel. All the time thinking Fuck, wouldn’t it have been easier just to bend down, release that little catch and flip the driver’s seat forward?

So I started down through where I knew the road had to be, right up over my knees in all that God damn snow. I could feel it going down into my shoes. But at least nobody else had been down through here: the white surface ahead was utterly smooth. And so bright that the shadows under the trees were grateful to the eye. I wished right then for another storm to come and cover my tracks, if wished isn’t too strong a word. And so quiet here. About halfway through the stand of hemlocks (I’m just going to go ahead and call them hemlocks) I stopped, let my breathing slow down to normal again, then held after an outbreath and started dropping into a silence without bottom. Though of course you can’t drop far before you have to gulp in another breath, and there you are, back up in the old one two one two again. So I let that new breath out — you could see the big cloud of it linger; not for long — and went on again into the white.

At the bottom of the slope the trees ended and I looked out across a field of snow. I don’t know acres, but say the size of two football fields. Once this was somebody’s cornfield. Up in this part of the world they used to graze cows on the hillsides and plant corn in the bottom land, still do, there’s some folkways for you. In case you’re thinking, Well, Jernigan, fuck him, he just lives inside his own head. All around, hills forested in now-bare hardwoods and ever-dark evergreens. I remembered the shape of every hill. At the far end of the field, near the edge of the woods, sat Uncle Fred’s trailer, a faded blue, with snow halfway up to the doorknob and a white hump of snow on top, a stovepipe elbow poking out of a window. It seemed to be floating like an ocean liner. What do you know, white sea, blue ocean liner. Huh.

I started making my way around the edge of the woods instead of cutting straight across the field and fucking it all up. When I’d circled around behind the camp I could see firewood stacked under the lean-to that ran along the back of the trailer. A roof of green corrugated fiberglass propped up with two-by-fours. Weathered, wedge-shaped ends of split logs, stacked as high as my head the whole way along, except for a gap where the two-by-fours braced the logs away on either side so you could get in and out the back door. I had long since stopped holding Uncle Fred in contempt for being provident — no I hadn’t — but right then and there I started praying Dear God, please bless Uncle Fred and thank You too, dear God. Praying like a five-year-old. I mean, bless? You picture somebody with this pile of things heaped on his back and still more things getting heaped on.

So I came out from under the trees and crossed the open snow to the back door. Stood under the lean-to, in the greenish shade, smelling that good sour wood smell. Then I tried the door. It was unlocked, as Uncle Fred had guessed it would be. I stepped inside, where the air was even colder because of no sun, and smelled musty. And the first thing I saw was that good old sheet-metal chunk stove, like a big old pencil sharpener standing up on end. The stovepipe still hooked up too, going outdoors through the sheet of galvanized metal in the window. And right next to it, the big old woodbox, with a few logs and a jumble of broken tree branches. And a stack of Sunday Timeses about yea high. Thank You, dear God. And that book of matches right in my pants pocket. I patted and made sure.