Jacksonville: Chapter Seven
September 12, 2006Lathrop House and Barn.
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A faint and far-off heartbeat struck his sleep
from down below. He felt his sense, a captive
to the Toledan sky of dreams, reach through the starry
space and felt, conversely, sense from outside
make its way to him. It’s like the rain
that seeks in falling on the ground to touch
the parched tongue of a young stem that, growing from a seed
through the self-same soil from the other side,
struggling up to meet it. The rain makes
its way an inch or two below the surface
and with a mighty yearning pulse the tender
stem of knowing strikes a subterranean
drop and-Fire!-breaks the earth in a mighty
but unseen heave to drink-Fire!-Fire!
*
Jack grabbed up his pants and, stumbling for
the door, he pulled them on. He thundered down
the stairs to the front porch. He pulled the gently
beating door wide. A deep blue dawn
silhouetted the dark and shaking figure who shouted
on the lintel, “Fire!”
“Where?”
Johnny pointed
to the glowing shack.
“My God. No! Nick!”
He ran across the cool damp grass
with Johnny Barnum tottering behind. He ran
inside the shed.
“Good Christ! It’s sweltering here.
But…where’s the fire besides these lanterns and candles?”
Johnny Barnum leaned his still-heaving
frame against the shed.
“Out…” and pointing,
“Your brother…”
“God, Nick! Help me, kid.”
“He cut his head. He.. .was talking.. .nonsense,” Johnny
said, bending down to help Jack drag
his brother from the shed.
“My God,” said Jack
“It’s done. The painting. Is it done then, Nick?
I think it is.”
Johnny glanced again
nervously at the painting. They dragged Nicholas’s body
out and stretched him in the dew. The day
was breaking-no-not breaking-forming, from
the inside out. The blue was shifting like
a singer warming up with scales, testing
out the shades and depths and hues
the day could need. The move awoke the pain
and Nicholas groaned and then began to sing
and Jack, his brother, grabbed him up and held
him to his breast. He pressed his handkerchief
against the cut on the back of his brother’s head
and held it cradled him like a baby, rocking him.
Ah, Nick, my brother, years ago I ran,
Which is to say, my soul’s a sail, Jack,
from such a sight as now I see so close,
the world’s wind arises, snaps it taut
all folded in my arms. That winter night began
and drives my body’s boat through fume and wrack
with stars that fell like snow. The river flows.
to open sea. The port is rarely sought.
It took me far from you, from where you cried,
Out there the water’s still, the sky is blue
alone above our father’s fallen form.
and bracing, unseen fishes tense and roll
Like yours, his head was split, his tongue was tied
and just beyond the ear the seabirds mew:
he lay alive within a silent storm.
It’s there that God breathes gently on my soul.
I left you cold, I’m sorry Nick, I know
So every storm describes it own frontier,
a little boy is easy prey for wind
inheres this turning acre’s ardent calm,
and angry seas will quicker dash the boat
but storm is wind and wind is born of fire,
on rocks than bring it safely home again.
there, in love, where man becomes his psalm.
You have trapped the wind inside a bag
I’ve come to know the day inside the night.
while I have tried to fly it like a flag.
I am the frame. I still am not the light.
The bleeding stopped as did the song
and Jack, still pressing his brother’s head, set his legs
and stood slowly up. He swayed slightly,
because of sleep but more because his brother,
grown to man, was heavier than he remembered.
He turned to Johnny.
“Doctor Rand, and quickly.
Run ahead.”
Johnny found the strength
he’d lost and lit out like lightning down the road
of packed dirt. It’s then Jack noticed
birds had taken up their song and wove
the sweet and gracious arabesque of water
through the field of morning he walked in, holding Nicholas.
The sky was brilliant blue. The muscles were knitted
in his chest. His breath came short in dragon plumes
of steam. He turned on California, saw
a doorway two blocks up, the doctor, Rand,
pulling his suspenders up, setting
his glasses on his nose and peering up the street.
Beside him stood the boy, gesticulating,
soundlessly relating the accident as best he knew
it, adding some, no doubt, when real life
seemed stingy. As Jack made his way
up the boardwalk he remarked how old the doctor
had become. The barrage of words and gestures
from the boy were banging on the fog-caught
door of his waking understanding, clearing,
wisp by wisp, the sleep away. When Jack
approached him, completely.
“Doctor,” he had woken
up
“Jack. A fall?”
“A fall, Doc, sure.”
“Let’s bring him in. I’ll have a look.”
Nicholas moaned and turned his head and fell silent
again. The doctor saw the look in Jack’s
eyes.
“He’ll be fine. It’s just a cut.”
They passed beyond the door. Johnny heard
their steps and the stairs creaking that led to Doctor
Rand’s office on the second floor, that faced
the street, behind which he lived with his wife.
He held a moment there, caught between
his duty and his curiosity until that duty
won and sent him running for the cold
and sullen train on D Street.
An hour
passed. The street was waking, shops were opened,
a wagon clattered now and again as wagons
can only when the air is morning, still and cool.
The air was more than cool-it bit
almost. The door to Doctor Rand’s office
opened. Jack emerged with Nicholas, steadying
him by the shoulders. He’s head was bound with gauze,
a brilliant white that made him look a bit
raffish. Doctor Rand himself followed,
fully clothed now in his customary brown suit.
“You watch him now,” he said to Jack. “He should
be fine but watch for dizziness. His skull is sound
as I said but a hard blow like that can do
a man a bad turn inside the bone.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“Nothing to thank me for.
Just take good care of him, you hear me, Jack?
You two are all the Lathrop left, alright?
And, Nicholas, take care inside that shed, you hear?”
“Yes,” said Nicholas. The Doctor started at the sound
of a word in Nicholas’s mouth. Before he had
a chance to comment Jack took his brother
by the shoulders and steered him off across
the street and back toward home. The birds were singing
underneath the growing racket of the street.
The time they reached the comer proved enough
for Nicholas to right himself and walk alone.
They walked up Oregon shoulders touching. The sky
was blue in spots, the light renewed the street,
it fixed the broken cornices and patched the brick
that rotted in the buildings, painted over
peeling wood facades and gave the men
and women walking here and there a handsome
golden cast. The hills around were still,
the kind of stillness only autumn gives
and only in the morning. They looked as though
if touched they’d crush like the rime-edged blades
of grass that fringed them. An aureole of cold
wet air glowed around them like
a cloud of smoke around a gas lamp
in a crowded bar.
“Done? The painting I mean.
Is it done?”
They walked in silence. Nicholas
watched the road pass beneath his feet.
He shook his head. No.
“Goddamn it! ”
Jack shouted, not seeing Nick’s reply.
Nicholas raised his head. Jack was looking
across the corner to the house.
“What the hell
are all those people doing at the shed!
Hurry, Nick.”
They sped their steps across
the earth that lay between them and the crowd
who stood together chatting and peering into the shack
whose doors were wide. The mass that milled and pointed,
even trod, inside an almost temple,
reliquary of a family’s sacred artifact, that even
they did not exactly understand
although it touched them in their hearts, evoked
in Jack profound disgust and loathing. Outrage
seized his vision like a wall of flame.
“What great
perversions wrack this family?”
“Art? Why, this
ain’t no such thing, if art it’s meant to be.”
“Nonsense. He’s got talent. Ought to pack
him off back East, I say. Put this town
back on the map!”
“It’s up against the will
of God. It ain’t no holy thing.”
“Why, God
is in it sure. It’s powerful. No plain man
did this.”
“So this is where the old boy
went to get himself drunk as thunder,
eh?”
“Not been cleaned real recent either.”
“He ought to have a home. His brother’s almost
crazy as him.”
“Ought to be put in a home’s more like it.”
“Why his brother almost let him burn
to death alone in this dirty barn. That’s
what Johnny Barnum said at least.”
“You
don’t know a damn thing about it neither!”
“Don’t I?”
“Hell, no! ”
“Look at all the wax.
I bet he’s out here worshipping the Devil, candles
arranged like that.”
“The devil is it now?”
“The Devil, yes, the Devil. Look at that
and tell me that’s a holy thing. A curse
is on this family.”
“He used to draw
a lot when he was young, remember? He’s got
his father’s blood inside his veins, a making
blood is what it is. We should be proud.”
“Someone ought to tell the Father!”
“Father?
Someone ought a tell ol’ preacher Hollis!”
“Hell! Why then you’d see a burnin’ barn!”
“Ha ha!”
Jack all but broke into a run
while Nicholas, hurrying at first, began to dwindle
until his hurry frayed like the end of a bad
rope and left him fidgeting in the yard.
Jack erupted into the middle of the milling
crowd that stood before the shed, waving
his arms and almost screaming.
“Out, you disgusting
bunch. Out! You have no business here!
Take your dirty eyes and hands and out!
Out of the yard, out of the shed, you ugly
hens, you leprous cocks! Go cluck and peck
the dirt another place. Your own yards
have higher mounds of dung to pick through! Out!”
The crowd began to stir and blow away-a
heavy wind had blown the seeds and now
they scattered. Women wore their indignation
like masks, their men with suddenly expanded chests
withdrew sullenly. A few were slow to move,
a couple of crones and crones to be, a few men
swollen like poison with their own weaknesses, pugnacious,
confrontational.
“Who are the hell are you
to tell us what to do? You city boy!
You ain’t been back in years. This town is ours.
This street is public property.”
“Then stand in
it. And get the hell off our lot!”
“Or what?”
“You ought to be ashamed to let your brother
put himself in danger so and for
such evil games as this. It just ain’t right.”
“Then hurry off to church and pray. But not
for Nick. Your own shrunken stricken dirty
souls are in greater danger than the Lathrops’.
Now off! Out! You! I’ll snap you in half
before your women. And you, ladies! How’d
you like to spend a night in Sheriff Johnston’s
iron jail? Dignified enough for good
Christian souls who scorn this earthly life.”
The women shrank away. the men were slower.
One, a broad and bearded lumberman
was slowest of all. It’s he who grappled first
with Jack’s loud edict.
“Out indeed,
and you to snap me is it?”
Thurmond pushed the crowd aside that cluttered
up the street like dingy nervous birds
that kept so close to a lion hoping for a chance
at what he left behind.
“Jack! I came
as soon as I heard that you were having trouble.”
He lumbered up to Jack’s side. Thurmond
nodded to the broad lumberman by way of greeting.
“This your friend?” asked the man in a surly voice.
“Surely, yes.”
“He’s full of wind!”
“Apparently
so. It seems as though he’s swelled your sails!”
Thurmond laughed a huge, open-mouthed
laugh, throwing his head back. “Apparently!”
He roared. The lumberman tensed. His hands formed fists.
“Now friend,” said Thurmond gently, “everyone
has got a certain private right and you are
stepping past polite and decent bounds.
You are now to leave this yard.”
“Your wife’s
a whore!” the lumberman snarled.
“I have no wife,”
replied the Dane, his barrel torso twisting
as he stepped his left foot up. He unwound like an iron
spring, his right arm shot a massive fist
against the lumberman’s left cheek. Despite
his ready stance he spun and stumbled, found
his feet and braced in time to feel Thurmond’s
arm shank strike him hard across the temple,
felt it bruise. He got a quick punch off
across the belt-line that robbed Thurmond’s left
of the force it started with. It glanced off
the lumberman’s right arm. He came up left
again a little harder at the ribs, a jab that gave
the Dane a pause. The lumberman’s head rang.
Thurmond kicked but his goal was frustrated
by the lumberman’s knees. With the Dane’s foot up
the lumberman struck right and down overhand
and took him right above the eyes. He staggered
back. The lumberman dove, knee-first,
straight at Thurmond’s crotch but missed and struck
the pelvic bone. Thurmond rolled into a crouch
and popped up a sharp hook that split the lumberman’s
top lip. The lumberman rocked back
then swung roundhouse. Thurmond caught it left.
The lumberman threw his left arm across
Thurmond’s neck and hung all his weight
from it. Thurmond bowed. The lumberman dropped
and pulled the Dane down with him. Falling, Thurmond
clawed and caught him in the mouth and seized.
He landed on his right shoulder. The lumberman
sprawled across his other. His back was struck
a couple of times. He felt his right hand
hold fast to the lumberman’s cheek, his first
three fingers inside, thumb and little finger
out. He twisted around and threw
his legs out wide behind him and then rose on knees
and left elbow. A hard one right across
his neck made him wince. He grabbed at the lumberman’s crotch
but missed and took ahold of fabric, tore,
and left his ass exposed to air. The lumberman
jumped back. The fabric tore some more.
Thurmond let it go and grabbed again
and tore it down the leg. His right secure
in the lumberman’s mouth and bowing him, like an alder
sapling bent into a snare and straining at the stake.
Thurmond stood again, braced himself
and caught a left in the ribs and grunted. He heaved
a mighty left himself and pegged the jaw
between the ear and where his fingers clutched
the cheek. It knocked the lumberman down sideways
out of his grip. He felt the cheek tear,
slipping out, tearing where the jellied
fibres held the flaps of flesh to the bone.
Ropes of blood, thick and mucal, hung
from the lumberman’s choking mouth as he struggled to rise.
The Dane kicked at his head but, tired, struck
a glancing blow across his forehead. The lumberman
punched up and struck the underside of Thurmond’s
thigh and hit a muscle that almost made
him buckle, the leg coming down on top
of the lumberman’s arm. He rolled across it, like stepping
on a loose branch and wound up straddling the fallen
lumberman but quick he brought his right boot heel
back across his torn cheek and made
him howl. He kicked again across his bruised
temple raising a dust of blood from his torn
mouth. Thurmond dropped his knee, his other
leg out, a flying buttress for balance.
He took a breath and right across the jaw,
again and blood like dust, again, the lumberman’s
free left hand clutching, again,
again, Thurmond’s tired but powerful fist,
again, again…The lumberman broke the thin
curtain of pain that hung between the light
and lack, broke the rope and fell limp.
Thurmond stood braced and drawing painful
breaths, his battered ribs stretching the bands
of bruised muscle.
“He knocked him out!”
A woman
screamed, “Someone help him! Get him out
of there.”
A couple of men crept forward,
giving Thurmond a wide berth and grabbed
the lumberman under each arm and drug
him to the road.
“Tom! Tom, wake up!”
Jack came up to Thurmond to take him around
the waist and help him to the house but the Dane
quickly turned his arm away and walked
slowly, wincing with him through the yard.
Nicholas stood blinking, shaky.
“Come
along, now, Nicholas,” Thurmond invited, rubbing
his aching neck. “Let’s up to the house. You got
a glass of whiskey for an old man here?”
Thurmond asked Jack. Jack looked at Nicholas. Nicholas
shook his head and glanced down. They stepped
up the porch.
“No whiskey,” Jack answered.
“Coffee, though.”
“Coffee’s good,” said Thurmond.
*
Nicholas shut the door behind them. Thurmond
sat down in the dining room. Jack drew
the curtains back. “They’re hauling him off now. He’s got
his feet again.”
“Well, a tough man sure.” A pause.
“I hope to hell that Nicholas is done in the shed.
It’s a place that ought to be shut up-no
good but evil followed came from there.”
“Say, Nick,” said Jack. “That painting. Is it done?”
Nicholas turned and stopped. He held the blue
enamel coffee pot in his right hand,
in his left, the brown sack of coffee. The doorway
to the kitchen framed him. He looked at Thurmond, then
at Jack. He slowly raised his head. He looked
at Jack from beneath his eyebrows. His brown eyes’
simple circles had caught some blazing flecks
of gold light and thrown them around.
“No.”
