Brad Watson - The Heaven of Mercury

Sunday she asked to have the afternoon off, told Frank she was going to visit her aunt, and caught a ride into town with Mr. Earl, who dropped her off near the ravine. He said he’d pick her up again at five. She watched him drive off, then walked on in. Down past the old Case house, down the dirt road, which turned into the steep trail down to the creekbed, and it was good to be back in with the trees and wild shrubs, all the viny green. She came to the narrow clearing where the old cabins were and went all the way to the end, to the last one nearest the creek. Aunt Vish was sitting on her front porch in a rocking chair with her eyes closed, rocking. When Creasie stopped at the base of the steps, Vish said, — I smell somebody works for white people.

— Just me, says Creasie.

— Mmm hmm, what you want now, girl.

— Nothing. Just want to ask you something.

Vish just kept on rocking. After a while she said, — I got all day but I don’t know why you want to take it.

— I can’t have no babies, looks like, Creasie said. -I been wondering about that potion.

— Mmm hmm, Vish says.

— What was that potion you give me?

— Did what you wanted.

— Yes’m. How good did it work?

— Did what you wanted.

— Ye’m. But what all did it do, besides that?

Vish opened her eyes, put the toes of her ragged old shoes onto the porch boards and leaned forward, looked at Creasie. She leaned to one side and spat snuff juice off into the dirt.

— Potion can’t do but one thing at a time, she said then. -You want a remedy make a baby go away, that’s what it gon do. You want one make the babies come, then that’s another thing. Herb you taken might taken too good. That happen, I can’t do nothing about it. Risk you take.

— You didn’t tell me.

— Can’t give a body wisdom , Vish said. -You get that on your own.

— Can you give me some of that baby-making potion, then?

Vish looked at her a minute, then nodded.

— I can give you whatever you want, child. What you gon give me?

— Ma’am?

— What you gon give me, child! You never give me nothing for that remedy.

Creasie didn’t know what to say.

— I’m sorry, Aunt Vish. I thought, it being me — I didn’t know I was supposed to pay you for it.

— Didn’t know! What you think, I live on air? You getting paid, ain’t you?

— Ye’m. I’m sorry. I can pay you now. I can pay you for the baby potion, too. Me and Frank wants some babies.

— Say he does too.

— He wouldn’t mind. She only partly lied. Hadn’t said anything to him about it.

— Vish sat back and stared at Creasie a long moment, saying nothing, then closed her eyes and rocked some more.

— I can give you anything you want, child, but I expect that potion done took too well with you. She opened her eyes and spat and looked at Creasie long and from afar again. -You bring me something from the white folks’ house, I’ll think on it, see if I can come up with something.

— What you want me to bring?

— Use your brain, child. You’ll think up something old Vish can use.

Creasie stood there a minute, neither of them saying anything.

— I could use some new pots and pans, Vish said then.

— Yes’m. It might take a while.

— Like I said, I got time.

SO SHE WENT back to work. Made it seem like time was standing still. Time hung in the space between Frank’s coming and Frank’s going, she knew it would be just a patch of time that would disappear as if it never happened. Nothing but up in the early morning to cook for the Urquharts, then clean up and dust and wash clothes and cook again, dinner and supper, then make her way on back to her little cabin where Frank would be on the front porch smoking, his feet up on the rail, and waiting on her and a late supper for himself. He’d eat it out there, weather permitting, and then they’d go on into the cabin and to bed. She could see him getting bored, restless. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and she’d wake up at some point and see him sitting there beside the bedroom window, looking out. She loved the look of his body in the faint light from the window, just a shadow of the man, his shape, liked the way the memory of his shape stayed in her mind when she couldn’t see him, perfect like that.

— Don’t be sitting up, she said to him. -Come on back to bed, now.

— What is it? she said when he climbed back in silent and staring at the ceiling.

— Need something, he mumbled.

— I’ll give you what you need.

After a minute,

— Need something, I don’t know. I ain’t got nothing.

— You got me.

— We ain’t got nothing, woman.

She said nothing.

— I need to make me some money, one thing, he said.

— Well, who don’t.

— I got some ideas.

— Like what.

— I don’t know. Just ideas.

— We got a little money saved, she said.

— Nothing, he said. -I got more money in this tooth in the back of my head than you got stuffed in this mattress.

She’d every now and then take a pot of greens out to the cabin, kindly forget to bring it back next day, never the best pot, but one she’d used from way back in the cupboard, one Miss Birdie wouldn’t miss. One old skillet with rust spots she scrubbed down real good, reseasoned, and made the bread in then set in the windowsill empty and slipped back to the house to take it out the window from the shrub bed late at night. These she took on this and that weekend out to Aunt Vish, who took the item, held it before her at arm’s length to inspect it, nodded, set it down on the porch beside her. The Sunday afternoon she took the skillet out, she saw a twitch in the corner of Vish’s mouth.

— That’s better than the old one I got, she said, taking it and holding it in her lap to study it. She hefted it and set it back in her lap. -Bigger, too.

Then instead of setting the skillet down beside her feet she rocked a couple of times and launched herself feebly out of her chair with the skillet held before her and went into her cabin. Creasie, standing on the porch, heard her hard bare feet shuffling inside, heard the gentle clank of the skillet as she guessed Vish set it down on top of her stove. In a minute she came back out and handed Creasie a little snuff tin.

— Put just a pinch in a glass of tap water, pour just a little dash of vinegar in there, drink it first thing in the morning, she said. Seven days, she said. Don’t do it no longer than seven days, now, you hear me?

— Yes, ma’am. Seven days.

She took it home, started the next morning, using some vinegar she’d brought over from the Urquhart house in a little jar. She dipped water from the bucket of water she’d pumped at the well beside her porch steps, opened the snuff tin, and sniffed first. There was a light sandy-colored powder in there, like pale ground mustard or something, had no odor she could make out. She sneezed, blew her nose. Then took a pinch and dropped it into the cup of water, poured about a teaspoon of vinegar in, and drank it down. She stood there a minute, very still, but felt nothing but just a faint little ball of heartburn from the vinegar, which subsided. Went on over to the house to work. Same thing next morning, standing there, nothing. Same thing next morning. Frank standing in the kitchen door watching her, said, — What is that?

— Nothing, she said. -Just a remedy Aunt Vish give me.

— What’s ailing you?

— Nothing much, she said, unable to look at him. -Just a little ache in my bones.

Same thing the fourth day and the fifth. On the afternoon of the sixth day she was on her hands and knees in Miss Birdie’s bathroom scrubbing the tile floor and up out of her before she even knew she felt a thing funny came a quick gush of something yellow with little streaks and spots of red. She felt something lower down inside her then and quick got up onto the toilet, frightened not only of what was happening but that Miss Birdie might come back and see her sitting on her toilet and fire her right then and there. Same as up top, a little gush then fell from her into the toilet, and she was afraid to even look at it, her eyes tearing up anyway. She quick wiped herself and flushed, and it was only that she forgot to put the paper into the toilet and accidentally looked down and saw it in her hand that she knew it was a dull dark dried-blood brown, and she made a little cry and dropped it into the toilet, quickly cleaned up what she’d thrown up with toilet paper and then her scrubbing sponge, and wrung out the sponge in the tub, flushed the toilet, and scrubbed out the tub then.