Virginia Reeves - Work Like Any Other

“You ever been in a tunnel sucked clean of oxygen, Ross?”

“You know I haven’t. If I had, I wouldn’t be alive. Why’d you make Jenny come with your request about Charles?”

“You telling me to shut my mouth?”

“Yes.”

He smiled at that. “It’s good having you here. Moa and I both feel that way. It’s surprised her.”

I threw my own silence into the mix of communication.

The ground firmed up round the pole. “Thanks for your help,” I told Wilson. “The last one’s shorter. Imagine I can get it in on my own. Gotta wait till tomorrow anyway.”

“You sore?”

“I am.”

“Hard work, setting poles.”

I moved past him, and he followed me awhile before turning toward the big house. I felt him at my heels. I heard his breathing and the fall of his steps in the dirt and grasses, not so different from Taylor on his horse.

Ihad just lowered myself into the tub when Maggie let loose with whines of excitement. Visitor, she said. Someone at the door . I still hadn’t fixed its slant.

It was hard to leave the hot water. I’d been boiling potfuls for the past hour.

“Quiet.”

Maggie shushed and sank to her haunches. I’d wrapped a rough towel round my waist, expecting Wilson, ready to talk more. I knew I would listen, just as I would listen again while he held the third pole the next day. I’d listen with my head down and my arms and hands aching, both my arms, both my hands. He’d tell more ghost stories of black damp and cave-ins, and I’d think about Stevens’s side blown to bits from Hughes’s shotgun or that single piece of shot in Jennings’s kidney that had poisoned his blood.

“Mr. Roscoe?” It wasn’t Wilson’s voice, but Jenny’s. “Am I disturbing you, Mr. Roscoe?” The door creaked open.

“A minute!” I shouted. “Wait outside just a minute, Jenny.” I went back to retrieve my clothes, the same filthy ones from the day’s labors, stiffened a little from lying on the floor. I felt damned by the warmth in my stomach.

It’s nothing, I whispered. I’d been naked and ready to bathe and then a young woman had come to my door. Of course I was shaky. Quiet, now.

I remained barefoot, my hair damp.

“I’ve disturbed you,” Jenny said when I opened the door. “You were settling in for the night. My apologies, Mr. Roscoe. I have dinner and the writing supplies you requested.”

Jenny had been so small before I left, Moa and Wilson’s youngest, a child who played with Gerald at times. I had so few clear memories of her alone — chasing the chickens and then, outside this same cottage, festooning a tree with ribbons. Now, she was my only visitor with a history that didn’t indict me directly.

“I’d rather eat than settle in. I’ll light some lamps.”

Jenny closed the door as best she could behind her.

“You have a pencil?”

She handed me a yellow stick worked halfway down, likely stolen from her daddy’s workshop. I dulled the point quickly etching Fix into the wood of the door.

“Now you’ll always think it’s broken.” Jenny set food on the table, enough for two, even three. “Figure you could use a little extra.” She dumped meat into Maggie’s pie tin, tugging one of Maggie’s ears as the dog set to eating.

I could remember the feel of Jenny’s arms around me.

I started swallowing down Moa’s beans — not so good as Marie’s, but good all the same — and I called for the paper Jenny had brought.

“We’ll write to the deputy warden, Taylor. He’s the one who gave me the dog.”

“Papa thinks ill of you getting a dog on your release.”

“I worked those dogs for years,” I told this girl who has no business hearing, who had no guilt to own, no part in Kilby or Flat Top.

Jenny set her hands flat on the table. “I’m sure you know what to say in the letter, Mr. Roscoe. Charles Emit Grice. That’s his full name. Papa gave him Mr. Emit’s name in the middle there. You probably already knew.”

“No.”

“It was so hard to lose Mr. Emit, but Mama always says every hardship has its blessed side, and she knew it was the truth because you and Ms. Marie came then, with little Gerald. She tells such stories from those days. Corn reaching to the tops of the pecans and the peanuts growing three and four to the pod. Everyone growing bellies, and the farm growing taller and wider every season—”

“That isn’t true. The farm struggled until we got electricity.”

We sat quiet for a moment, Jenny’s lips shining in the weak light of my lamps.

“Charles Emit Grice,” I finally said. It was only Jenny and me there in her parents’ old cottage, this girl and me and my prison dog.

Dear Deputy Warden Taylor, I wrote. I was polite and direct, stating our request simply. I said please . I was asking for a favor, and I treated it as such. Just before I signed my name, I wrote, Thank you for sending Maggie with me. I signed Roscoe T Martin, and only upon seeing my own name in print did I realize I’d written a letter to an illiterate man.

I couldn’t tell Jenny. I couldn’t tell her I had failed in this endeavor before we’d even handed the letter to the postmaster.

I’d memorized the prison’s address from all the letters I once sent, and it was strange to switch the numbers and roads, to send from here to there. The letter I wrote with Jenny was the first Kilby’d seen from that house.

“I’ll take it to the PO in the morning,” Jenny said. “Papa is going into town.”

I had a hard time giving the envelope away, a sad-sick murmur in my gut. It might go unanswered, an old, gnawing fear.

“It’ll be a little while before we hear back, don’t you think?” She seemed as scared as I was. “You said you’d wait until we hear. Even if it’s weeks, right? Months even?”

“Yes, Jenny. I’ll wait.” With the poles in, it was good to have another excuse. Though I’d thought about Jenny’s idea of this being my home, I was still convinced that I couldn’t stay.

“Thank you, Mr. Roscoe.”

I anticipated her walking round the table to embrace me in gratitude, but instead, she moved toward the door. Over her head I read, Fix . The light outside was still enough to catch her figure through the windows, that letter bright white in the dusky air.

Ifeared I’d forget pieces when I started working on the lines. The power flowing in came in alternating currents at a higher voltage, and the company’s new transformer on the main line from the road stepped down that voltage for domestic consumption, bringing it to another that lined up with my new poles.

Wilson took me to town for supplies, straight to Bean’s Hardware. Electric lamps hung from the ceiling.

“Wilson.” Bean paused on my face before slowly drawing out my name. “Roscoe T Martin. I’ll be damned.”

“Bean.”

“Welcome back.” He came round the counter to shake my hand. “Was a real shame how everything happened.”

“I see you relented.” I nodded toward the ceiling lights, their solid glow.

“Hah!” Bean laughed. “You remember how dead set I was against all that electrical nonsense of yours. Well, when they brought power to the block, suppose I just couldn’t hold out any longer.”

“How’s it treating you?”

“Still makes me nervous as hell, but I’ll admit to the ease it brings. What is it I can do for you gentlemen?”

“Insulated copper wire,” I told him, “five hundred yards’ worth, and fifty of sheathing.”

Bean looked to Wilson.

“It’s all aboveground now, Bean. Honest work. Ross here is electrifying the cottage, doing some fine improvements to the property.”