Cullin Mitch - The Post-War Dream

“We're figurin’ you're Hollis,” the man drawled.

“Yes, sir.”

The threesome started toward him in tandem, although no one smiled as they moved closer, no one appeared overjoyed at the sight of him. Already they weren't the people Hollis was expecting — for he had fostered a Texas-size illusion of a loud, gregarious family decked out in cowboy boots and Stetson hats, patting his shoulders, hugging him like a long-lost brother after greeting his train; he had, on an unconscious level, imagined kinder, more agreeable versions of Creed. But when the man firmly grasped Hollis's hand, his face was austere and determined. “I'm Bill Sr.,” he said, “or Bill,” correcting himself, “and this here is Florence, my wife.”

“Hello,” Hollis said, nodding once at Bill Sr.; he then nodded once at Florence, whose blue eyes were busy scouring his face, as if searching for something to fix on.

“We've heard so much about you,” said Florence, her voice restrained, whispery. She managed to stare at him without meeting his gaze, extending a small hand, her fingers becoming lax in his palm, her skin soft and cold like oilcloth. “We're so glad you came, Hollis, but you must be exhausted. That's an awful while to stay cooped up on a train.”

“It wasn't so bad, actually. I slept most of the way.”

The boy was no older than fifteen, and he stood behind his parents like a shadow, keeping his head lowered. “Hollis, you've probably heard some tales on this one here,” Bill Sr. said, stepping aside, making room for the boy before pointing at him. “That's our Edgar.”

“Of course,” Hollis said, feigning recognition, except he wasn't familiar with Edgar, nor had he previously heard anything about him. The boy struck him as nervous, or scared, or painfully shy — it was hard to tell. Like Florence, Edgar couldn't quite meet his eyes; even when Hollis said, “Nice to see you at last,” the boy's lips seemed to move involuntarily, forming the word “Hi,” but hardly uttered a sound. Then Bill Sr. asked if he had any other luggage, and Hollis raised the suitcase, replying, “Just this.”

Bill Sr. took his son by the elbow, urging him forward: “Edgar, help him with his bag, will you?”

“It's okay, really,” Hollis protested, but the boy had already grabbed the suitcase handle, displacing his fingers.

Gently resting a hand on Hollis's arm, Florence said, “Edgar's got it, don't worry. You've had yourself a tiring trip, and you're our guest now. So let's get you settled in, get you something in your belly. Surely you must be starving.”

“Thank you,” Hollis said, feeling suddenly bewildered. “Thank you,” he said again.

Like a disorganized group of soldiers they marched from the platform, Bill Sr. leading the way and Florence taking up the rear directly behind Hollis. When they finally left the building — Bill Sr. pushing open a door at one end of the station so they could follow him into the blustery night — Florence's lilting voice drifted to Hollis, saying, “Welcome to Claude. We want you to feel at home here — it's important you do that for — ” Her sighing tone was cut short with a swift gust of wind and, it seemed, whisked away by the breeze.

But Hollis wouldn't see much of Claude that evening; rather it was an infinite void of darkness which drew his attention, making it impossible to figure out where the land ended and the sky began. And as he was driven farther into the night on a sparsely traveled two-lane highway, away from a smattering of city lights and toward the McCreedys’ farm, a faint rumbling became audible — a sound which increased with every mile, like the mass bellowing of a thousand agonized souls, a lonesome howling he would soon learn was only the West Texas wind crying through the deep, yawning Caprock canyons which lay just beyond the edge of the McCreedys’ property.

With the even light of midday, Hollis was able to get a better sense of his surroundings, to put himself in some context to his new environment when standing alone on the McCreedys’ rickety front porch. The isolated farmhouse was little more than a well-tended wooden shack — box-shaped yet freshly painted white, lacking a proper yard but with a fence enclosing it — dotting a vast prairie which spread out in every direction as a limitless landscape of scrub brush, wild grass, and reddish dirt. Aside from a run-down, slanted barn a few yards off and the spinning blades of a windmill rising up behind its roof like an oversize weather vane, there were no other structures or homes — or the city of Claude — anywhere in sight. But the wind remained a constant companion, if a less tumultuous presence than on the previous night. The slats creaked underfoot while he paced the length of the porch, his soles catching on nails which were slowly freeing themselves, and he peered forward, realizing that all around him, even nearby, were a million patches of earth which had never once felt the influence or weight of a single human being.

How unlikely, it struck Hollis, for him to have awakened there. How circuitous his life had become of late. Then, too, it was as if he had stranded himself on the moon with three strangers who were hard to gauge. Nevertheless, after he had slept contentedly inside their home, what had felt aloof during the first night was more forgivable in the light of the next day. For he had encountered the source of their collective reticence that morning, had caught glimpses from one side of the one-story house to the other. A walnut chifforobe sat in the middle of the living room like an altar, upon which was a folded American flag, three carefully arranged letters and envelopes, a Purple Heart which had been awarded posthumously, a handwritten copy of the Lord's Prayer, and — at the center of it all — a framed portrait of a teenaged Creed, an enlarged black-and-white high-school photograph with a sepia tint and cloudy borders: his chin lifted to accentuate the angle of his jawline, his teeth flashing white and perfect, his thick blond hair slicked back on his scalp, his skin airbrushed into an unblemished surface. Smaller versions of the photograph were scattered throughout the house (on a piano beside a large cross, on a hallway wall beside a dime-store painting of Jesus, on a telephone stand beside a King James Bible), while no photographs of Edgar, or Bill Sr., or Florence were displayed in any room — just that same image of Creed residing within inches of some representation of the Lord.

“Are you redeemed, Hollis?” Florence had asked him earlier, after Edgar had led him to the kitchen for breakfast.

“I believe so,” he answered from where he leaned against the doorway, but somewhere in his mind he thought: No, not really, probably not yet.

“That's nice to hear,” she said in her soft, maternal way, staring down at the stove while frying bacon. “It's getting harder anymore knowing who is or who ain't.”

Crossing back and forth between his mother and Hollis, Edgar had begun arranging five plates, five napkins, five cups, five forks and spoons and butter knives around the kitchen table, of which only four of each would be used. Once everyone sat down to eat scrambled eggs, pork chops, bacon, and toast, the morning prayer was given in complete silence — four pairs of hands clasped before four faces, although only three of the four heads bowed with eyes closed, shifting their bodies toward the unused setting and empty seat where Creed should have been awaiting his breakfast. The surviving McCreedys were, after all, grappling with the loss of either a beloved son or an older brother; they were, Hollis now understood, a family still very much fettered in a state of profound mourning, something they also had expected him to share. Most surely they were people in need of answers in order to assuage the grief, just as he, for less specific reasons, was in need of meaning for his life. That was why they had wished to meet him, he reasoned, and that was why he had decided to travel so far. For them, he was an accessible link to a tragedy which couldn't yet be laid to rest — and, maybe, with him at last present to them there was offered the possibility of acceptance, however meager the detailed truth and circumstances of their son's murder might get parceled.