Donald Pollock: The Devil All the Time

“Who the hell is Miller Jones?”

Willard looked out the window as the hazy top of Greenbrier Mountain started to appear in the distance. His hands were trembling, his brow shiny with sweat. “Just some poor bastard who went and fought in that war they cheated you out of, that’s all.”

WILLARD WAS JUST GETTING READY to break down and crack open one of the pints when his uncle Earskell pulled up in his rattly Ford in front of the Greyhound station in Lewisburg at the corner of Washington and Court. He had been sitting on a bench outside for almost three hours, nursing a cold coffee in a paper cup and watching people walk by the Pioneer Drugstore. He was ashamed of the way he’d talked to the bus driver, sorry that he’d brought up the marine’s name like he did; and he vowed that, though he would never forget him, he’d never mention Gunnery Sergeant Miller Jones to anyone again. Once they were on the road, he reached into his duffel and handed Earskell one of the pints along with a German Luger. He’d traded a Japanese ceremonial sword for the pistol at the base in Maryland right before he got discharged. “That’s supposed to be the gun Hitler used to blow his brains out,” Willard said, trying to hold back a grin.

“Bullshit,” Earskell said.

Willard laughed. “What? You think the guy lied to me?”

“Ha!” the old man said. He twisted the cap off the bottle, took a long pull, then shuddered. “Lord, this is good stuff.”

“Drink up. I got three more in my kit.” Willard opened another pint and lit a cigarette. He stuck his arm out the window. “How’s my mother doing?”

“Well, I gotta say, when they sent Junior Carver’s body back, she went a little off in the head there for a while. But she seems pretty good now.” Earskell took another hit off the pint and set it between his legs. “She just been worried about you, that’s all.”

They climbed slowly into the hills toward Coal Creek. Earskell wanted to hear some war stories, but the only thing his nephew talked about for the next hour was some woman he’d met in Ohio. It was the most he’d ever heard Willard talk in his life. He wanted to ask if it was true that the Japs ate their own dead, like the newspaper said, but he figured that could wait. Besides, he needed to pay attention to his driving. The whiskey was going down awful smooth, and his eyes weren’t as good as they used to be. Emma had been waiting on her son to return home for a long time, and it would be a shame if he wrecked and killed them both before she got to see him. Earskell chuckled a little to himself at the thought of that. His sister was one of the most God-fearing people he’d ever met, but she’d follow him straight into hell to make him pay for that one.

“WELL, WHAT IS IT EXACTLY you like about this girl?” Emma Russell asked Willard. It had been near midnight when he and Earskell parked the Ford at the bottom of the hill and climbed the path to the small log house. When he came through the door, she carried on for quite a while, grabbing onto him and soaking the front of his uniform with her tears. He watched over her shoulder as his uncle slipped into the kitchen. Her hair had turned gray since Willard had seen her last. “I’d ask you to get down with me and thank Jesus,” she said, wiping the tears from her face with the hem of her apron, “but I can smell liquor on your breath.”

Willard nodded. He’d been brought up to believe that you never talked to God when you were under the influence. A man needed to be sincere with the Master at all times in case he was ever really in need. Even Willard’s father, Tom Russell, a moonshiner who’d been hounded by bad luck and trouble right up to the day he died of a diseased liver in a Parkersburg jail, ascribed to that belief. No matter how desperate the situation — and his old man had been caught in plenty of those — he wouldn’t ask for help from on High if he had even a spoonful in him.

“Well, come on back to the kitchen,” Emma said. “You can eat and I’ll put on some coffee. I made you a meat loaf.”

By three in the morning, he and Earskell had killed four pints along with a cupful of shine and were working on the last bottle of store-bought. Willard’s head was fuzzy, and he was having a hard time putting his words together, though evidently he’d mentioned to his mother the waitress he’d seen in the diner. “What was that you asked me?” he said to her.

“That girl you was talkin’ about,” she said. “What is it you like about her?” She was pouring him another cup of boiling coffee from a pan. Though his tongue was numb, he was sure he’d already burned it more than once. A kerosene lamp hanging from a beam in the ceiling lit the room. His mother’s wide shadow wavered on the wall. He spilled some coffee on the oilcloth that covered the table. Emma shook her head and reached behind her for a dishrag.

“Everything,” he said. “You should see her.”

Emma figured it was just the whiskey talking, but her son’s announcement that he’d met a woman still made her uneasy. Mildred Carver, as good a Christian woman as ever there was in Coal Creek, had prayed for her Junior every day, but they’d still sent him home in a box. Right after she heard that the pallbearers doubted that there was even anything in the casket, as light as it was, Emma started looking for a sign that would tell her what to do to guarantee Willard’s safety. She was still searching when Helen Hatton’s family burned up in a house fire, leaving the poor girl all alone. Two days later, after much deliberation, Emma got down on her knees and promised God that if He would bring her son home alive, she’d make sure that he married Helen and took care of her. But now, standing in the kitchen looking at his dark, wavy hair and chiseled features, she realized she’d been crazy to ever pledge such a thing. Helen wore a dirty bonnet tied under her square chin, and her long, horsey face was the spitting image of her grandmother Rachel’s, considered by many the homeliest woman who ever walked the ridges of Greenbrier County. At the time, Emma hadn’t considered what might happen if she couldn’t keep her promise. If only she had been blessed with an ugly son, she thought. God had some funny ideas when it came to letting people know He was displeased.

“Looks ain’t everything,” Emma said.

“Who says?”

“Shut up, Earskell,” Emma said. “What’s that girl’s name again?”

Willard shrugged. He squinted at the picture of Jesus carrying the cross that hung above the door. Ever since entering the kitchen, he had avoided looking at it, for fear of ruining his homecoming with more thoughts of Miller Jones. But now, just for a moment, he gave himself over to the image. The picture had been there as long as he could remember, spotty with age in a cheap wooden frame. It seemed almost alive in the flickering light from the lantern. He could almost hear the cracks of the whips, the taunts of Pilate’s soldiers. He glanced down at the German Luger lying on the table by Earskell’s plate.

“What? You don’t even know her name?”

“Didn’t ask,” Willard said. “I left her a dollar tip, though.”

“She won’t forget that,” Earskell said.

“Well, maybe you ought to pray about it before you go traipsing back up to Ohio,” Emma said. “That’s a long ways off.” All her life, she had believed that people should follow the Lord’s will and not their own. A person had to trust that everything turns out just as it’s supposed to in this world. But then Emma had lost that faith, ended up trying to barter with God like He was nothing more than a horse trader with a plug of chew in his jaw or a ragged tinker out peddling dented wares along the road. Now, no matter how it turned out, she had to at least make an effort to uphold her part of the bargain. After that, she would leave it up to Him. “I don’t think that would hurt none, do you? If you prayed on it?” She turned and started covering what was left of the meat loaf with a clean towel.