John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

He doesn’t want your ghost to escape from the ground either.

You want the community to come together and know us?

We’ll take this trailer as our own, thought Wayman.

What if it were Cobby dying? Why are you in love with your own destruction?

He’s just saying it for my sake, said Cobby. You should do what you want.

You know we love you more than anything.

But you’ve been together longer. It’s more important to you.

Wayman embraced Kip. I don’t want you to be a ghost.

I don’t want to be a ghost either.

But he should have hugged Cobby first, because Cobby had come up with an excuse for Wayman’s terrible feelings, and other things. They clung together at the grave’s edge until Virginia’s pale light rose through them skyward so it was too late to fill the hole again, except to hide the coming stench of death. And because Wayman was inextricably joined to his family, they fell with him when he slipped in the mud. Each man had to pick another never to abandon; if not one, none; and Wayman chose, covered as he was in the aftermath of the storm, which felt good to him, so that he was moved to take off his shirt and dig into the pile of mud.

This man’s mother is my father’s son, said Cobby.

That’s not even what he said, said Kip.

But it’s like us, said Wayman.

When will he come back? said Cobby.

He may have departed our lives forever.

Should we do something? It’s getting dark.

But it’s clearing up, said Wayman. Look at the moon. He was glad it stood watch above them as they scooped mud into the hole. Its face was white and furrowed like Virginia’s, which darkened as they covered it, but the moon’s grew only brighter when Wayman saw it ever-higher above the hills. People were lucky to have it buoying them. The magician’s world was a moonless world where the blood of the folk knew no tides. It was lonely walking the tracks endlessly without moonlight, but it was a great thing to see new hills, and how they rose, and not to fear them. The crickets cried for mates at sunset, cloaking distant blows of engine steam so he would think he was alone. The wind hit him, but he didn’t know it howled. The air was dry, but he was never thirsty, because if he was immortal, it didn’t matter how long he went without soothing his parched throat: he’d continue to live.

This was Lonzoe’s papaw, he was dead when I was born. They built the national park because they wanted Clayton off his land, most everybody knew it. He got hisself some brand new land, he got a Colt, he got a side-by-side.

If I shot every ranger just one gun I’d get awful bored with that one gun.

His boys was big enough to farm, he didn’t farm no more. He’d just turned sixty-five when Lonzoe’s daddy come, he laughed just like a hoot owl off the mountains. He rocked his chair and thought on what they’d took, the more he thought the more he couldn’t stand it, same as Lonzoe. Park starts up the Old Time Days they wrote to Clayton asked him would he come. The fuckin nerve. Now Pa. They want me up there at that mill and play my banjo for the tourists. Well don’t do it. Well I ain’t. He sits and whittles corn like it was wood. He gets this grin from ear to ear, he grins so hard he might of been an ape. Never told nobody what he’d grinned. Old Time Day it come along and Clayton got inside his Dodge and headed up the cove and gave his daddy’s grave some corn and drove around to Cable’s Mill.

I come for the Old Time Day.

They told him what was goin on, it must of been a hundred ten degrees, they was a crowd and they was Esau Tipton. Everyone this here’s my buddy Clayton. Clayton got that grin but then his mouth went straight and Esau finished up the fiddle, shady grove I’m gone away from here. Clayton sits beside him on the porch. Everybody’s watchin when he tells em how you hunt a deer and how you farm and how you hunt a bear. How to build a cabin with your hands. How lightnin hit him up on Parsons Bald, it took a day across the hills to get to town and his own pa made him run the thorns without no clothes on when he said he’d seen a plane.

If you’d of been there you’d of thought that someone else was in that chair but him.

Clayton talks and talks and Esau Tipton says has the old fart had a stroke. Clayton waves his hands and shouts his hair’s on end, the babies that was bawlin all shut up. His cheeks was like a steak was up inside of it, just talkin on and on. It wouldn’t end, but then he stops and spits a wad of juice down on the wood, it smacked down on the boards just smack.

Everyone was real uncomfortable.

Fuck shit ass bitch cunt, Clayton yells.

Come again, says Esau Tipton.

Dick suck fuck twat, whore cock ass. Cunt lick cock suck pussy.

His voice went off Rich Mountain, folks was all confused, it was a sight. These folks was from all walks of life, all kinds of states, you couldn’t tell. They covered up their babies’ eyes, you didn’t hear those words as much back then. They tried to shut him up but was they supposed to cover up his mouth? Tit cock twat, he’d slowed it down but every little bit you heard another shit and folks stayed quiet till he shot that gun up in the air, he laughed that laugh like groundhogs in his guts. Get out of my cove. Go home and suck your daddy’s dick. You ain’t shit, says Clayton, all yuns ain’t.

Esau walks up front. Put down that revolver, go back home. I am home you old fuck. Home to Laurel Valley. Your mama died up here you buried Clara out behind your house. Clayton that was forty years ago. Esau I bet you give it up for free, I bet you told em rape your daughters too.

I hope you rot in hell.

Folks knew Clayton wasn’t gonna shoot no one, they headed toward their cars but Clayton throws the gun at Esau’s head, they turn around and Esau’s right to sleep. This little bitty ranger grabs the gun. Clayton stick your hands up in the air. You put em up. No you put em up. You got my gun you peckerwood.

Clayton goes and spits tobacco in his face they just stare.

Shit bitch kike prick gook ass nigger twat fuck.

Ain’t nobody knows what Clayton said to that head ranger with the carrot hair but Clayton put the fear in him I’d say.

Esau stands, I guess he wasn’t hurt so bad. They wasn’t no arrest, it pissed off Esau good. Clayton stops at Townsend Store for five fried pies, he ate em all. They still put on the Old Time Days but Clayton he don’t go no more, he had a stroke and then he couldn’t talk period. He got a cane he busted Lonzoe’s pa upside the head most every day. He ate potatoes breakfast lunch and dinner. He died out in the rows of corn. He never fell, he only stood there dead, just grinnin at the birds like a beat-up scarecrow.

Sam, his father said to him on the way home from Christmas, we’re gonna stop up here real quick at the grocery and get some more money, okay?

Okay, Sam said, and he checked the battery in his new walkie-talkie to make sure it was pointed the right way, so they could communicate while his father was getting the money. His father said Sam was the best sidekick since Tonto. Back at the Gulf station in Soddy-Daisy Sam had been Ground Control, his father Major Tom, and Sam had watched out the Chevette’s rear windshield for blue lights while his father was inside. Ground Control. Come in, over.

Sam held the red button down and spoke into the circular receiver. This is Ground Control.

Tell your mother not to hold her breath anymore.

Why’d you close the blinds inside the gas station?

Say over.

Over.

Tell her we’re good.

We’re good, Sam said.

I heard, said his mother in the front.