Brad Watson - The Heaven of Mercury

Toward the late afternoon she banked the stove, closed the cabin, and walked back up the trail and waited at its head for Earl and Junius to drive up. Pretty soon they did, she got in the back, they drove back out. She thanked Earl for the ride. He said he’d see her at breakfast, that Miss Birdie had some supper fixed for him.

— You need anything to eat? he asked her. -Papa’s staying here tonight, I’m going to call it a day, take him home in the morning. You can come in and get a plate.

Junius was asleep in his seat, snoring.

— No, sir, I had something, she lied. She wasn’t hungry.

She went to her place and took the little pouch from her coat pocket and put it up on the shelf in the kitchen beside her coffee tin. She went to bed early.

LATE NOVEMBER, WHAT was left of a hurricane down on the coast come through, cracked off the tops of two pine trees at the pasture’s edge, pushed down one of the old oaks in the Urquharts’ front yard, big roots exposed and clods of red dirt hanging from them. Mr. Earl hired some men to come out and saw the tree up to season for firewood, and Creasie had thought how Frank would be doing that, had he stayed. The chain saws whined and muttered for two days, and unsplit cordwood stacked up out on the north side of Creasie’s cabin, under the shed along the fence line. And December then. She went to town on Christmas Eve and did some shopping for herself. She bought a little wristwatch with a gold band, and set it by the clock tower at the Catholic church, and she took a late supper at the bus station. It was a breakfast supper, scrambled eggs and a piece of sugar ham and toast and coffee. Then she hailed a cab as it was rolling slow past the monument. The driver got out to let her in, an old colored man wearing a cabbie’s cap with the short plastic bill.

— Yes, ma’am, evening, ma’am, he said, closing her door and getting back into the driver’s seat. -Where to?

She settled herself, touched the wristwatch on her arm, put her hands in her lap.

— The Urquhart house, out on the Macon highway.

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror a second.

— Yes, ma’am, he said. -Yes, ma’am, that fare might be a mite steep.

— Yes, sir, I know it, that’s all right, she said. -It’s Christmas Eve.

He smiled and laughed, put the old station wagon into gear.

— Yes, ma’am, all right then, he said, and drove her on out, the radio tuned to a station playing Christmas music.

— Going to spend Christmas with your family, then, ma’am? he said.

— Yes, sir, Creasie said. -I am.

— That’s nice, he said. -Me, too. He looked at her in the mirror, but she looked away, and he didn’t talk anymore, and let her off in the dark driveway of the Urquharts’ house. She paid him.

— You sure this all right, ma’am? he said. -Looks like nobody’s home.

— Yes, sir, they just out for the evening.

He touched his cap in parting and drove off. She watched the headlights swing back onto the highway and stood in the darkened driveway a few minutes. Miss Birdie and Mr. Earl were in town with their children and grandchildren. They’d come in later, then get up in the morning and go over to Alabama, see old Junius. Then come back later that night.

From where she lay on her bed awake she saw their headlights swing into the driveway and then the garage. She kept no light, didn’t want them to know if she was out there or not. Was a still night, and cold. She huddled under the covers in her clothes, shoes beside the bed. Woke up the next morning late and tired, and the Urquharts’ car gone. She ate some cold cornbread with buttermilk, went back to bed. Late in the afternoon she went over to the Urquhart house and made some vegetable soup, ate a little, and left it on the stove warm for when they returned. She saw the car pull in, headlights on, heard the doors open and shut. A little later a knock on the door. She got up and spoke through it. It was Mr. Earl.

— Just checking to see if you’re all right, Creasie, he said.

— Yes, sir, I’m okay. She mustered a little chuckle to reassure him. Oh yes, she was a happy nigger.

He said, — You have a good Christmas?

— Oh, yes, sir, I went to see some kinfolks in town.

— I didn’t know you had kin in town.

— Yes, sir. Distant.

— Well, good, good. Well, we’ll see you in the morning then.

— Yes, sir.

After a moment he said, — Merry Christmas.

— Yes, sir, she said. -Merry Christmas to you, too.

And next morning she was up, washed, and cooking breakfast for Mr. Earl, who went in to work early as usual, for the after-Christmas sale. And Miss Birdie up early, too, already had the coffee going when Creasie got there. She did some cleaning up. And through December, and January, no visit from Mr. Junius, until the end of the month one afternoon Mr. Earl announced he was going to get his papa and bring him over, he’d been feeling poorly, and was going to let him rest up awhile here and eat well, and visit with Levi and Rae and Merry. Next morning he went to get the old man and came back with him in the afternoon.

Old man had lost weight, was kind of ashy pale. Stayed in the guest room in the back for most of that evening and the next day, not much left in him she figured, but enough to blow on out like a bit of dust on the windowsill. She offered to take him some soup but Miss Birdie said no, she’d take it back to him. Offered to take him some coffee the next morning, Miss Birdie said — No he likes me taking care of him I think, getting sentimental in his old age. He finally came out of the room for dinner that day on his cane, walking slow and wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, shuffling his way down the hall and through the sunporch and dining room to the kitchen, and sat down at the kitchen table to have lunch with Miss Birdie and Mr. Earl. Creasie served them and went into the pantry to eat. She sat down and set her plate on a shelf and put her fingers into the pocket of her apron, where she had the little pouch Vish had given her. Brought it up and sniffed at it. It was a tangy rottenness in there, like some kind of noxious mushroom dust. She heard them clattering their plates, heard that die down, heard more talking. Got up and went back into the kitchen, poured coffee for Mr. Earl and Miss Birdie, took it to the table.

— You want some coffee, too, Mr. Junius, she said, no expression on her face.

— No, no, none for me, he mumbled, gruff and not looking at her.

She went back into the kitchen, stood by the window looking out.

— You sure you don’t want a cup of coffee, Mr. Junius?

— I said I didn’t. She heard him grumbling to them about her.

— I think I’ll go over to the lake for some exercise, Mr. Earl said. -Cut some wood from that tree that fell last year.

— Earl, don’t tax yourself, Miss Birdie said. -We got plenty of wood from that tree that fell in the storm.

— That’s still green, won’t be dry till next year, Earl said. -And we’re a little low on seasoned wood here at the house. That tree’s been down more than a year and I imagine it’s ready. I just feel like getting out and doing it, anyway. Need some fresh air.

— I’d go with you, I was feeling better, old Junius grumbled, and headed shuffling back to his room.

Just her lot to live here, wait on these people, live in that shanty out back of their house, be at their beck and call. And nobody but them, anyway. Mama dead since she was so little, her daddy she didn’t know where, gone off, could be dead, Vish never said. She stood at the window. She saw, out on the side lawn and in a flat dull ray of winter sun angling over the hedges through the junkyard across the road, the endless days of nothing but the same, and being nothing but a nigger in the world.