Heartland, page 2
–Man could I use me a shot of your best jungle, he hollered, as up rose swiftly a bottle of colourless liquid, with Mervyn, behind the counter, grinning from ear to ear.
–’Bout time you’d arrive, Mr Munley, if you don’t mind me saying so, because some of your companions they were starting to just get that little bit worried – ain’t that the case? Wouldn’t you say that’s true? Wouldn’t you say, fellers, that that, perhaps, might be the situation?
The nerves in my stomach were all but shot to pieces, watching Hackett as he stood in the centre of the room.
‘Sunny’ Sonny, in his worn black Wranglers and Cuban-heeled boots had to have been close on six-foot-four – and with them spindle shanks, he might have been a scorpion walking.
He looked like hadn’t shaved for days.
–Yep, he nodded, I really must say that I got to admit that I, for one, am in agreement with that there statement. No, in my mind ain’t no dispute about that at all. So thank you for that, good brother Mervyn.
The barman smiled as he stood back a little, folding his arms.
As Sonny Hackett raised his glass and sighed.
‘Sunny’ Sonny – no description could ever have been more inappropriate.
–Cheers, you fucks, Sonny growled as he emptied another shot, man does that bug-juice taste sweet or what …
Then he suggested it was time to inspect the new arrival.
As Red Campbell stood looming over Jody, temporarily removing his greasy camo cap and running tobacco-stained fingers through a rug of tight, greasy copper curls, gravely stroking a spry thatch of chin beard as he flicked a ball of saliva past the new arrival’s ear.
–So, he snorted, seems like we got ourselves a brand-new guest. You reckon that I maybe got that right?
–Correct, replied Sonny.
–Abso-one-hundred-per-cent-lutely, nodded Hughie.
With the two palefaced twins just standing there louchely in their loose-fitting tracksuits, holding a cue apiece, on either side of the pool table.
–Not that it ain’t like we been waiting long enough, hollered Campbell as he wrenched a brace of fantails from the tyre-circled dartboard.
It was all I could do not to throw up whenever I saw Jody’s face – bruised beyond all recognition.
–Jesus fuck! I heard him plead. Is there anyone out there please who can help me?
–You know what I think I hate more than anything? announced Campbell. Folks as get above their raising. I mean, look at this specimen right here, fellers. Born a gypsy in the open air under canvas and somehow still can’t learn how to know his place. It’s a disappointment, that’s what it is.
–Help me, Jody repeated, please for the love of God!
No one said anything.
As, behind the counter, Mervyn Walker, the proprietor, gave a little weary sigh, absentmindedly humming a soft little tune.
Chapter 3
The American Eagle
There was no excuse sufficient – every last thing was down to me – no debate or equivocation.
The hell with you, Ray Wade, I spat, only for you this nightmare would never have taken place.
Might never even have begun.
I had arranged our rendezvous for the One Tree Crossroads – with the New York tickets bought and paid for, long since.
But by going back to the attic, still so roasted I couldn’t remember where I’d left the bonds, I’d gone and fucked whatever chance we might have had.
Yep, Brother Wade, you’ve gone and done it now, I said.
Now I was history.
Dead meat as soon as Tony Begley arrived.
With the thing about Begley being – he actually liked it, what it was he was known for.
Ending people’s pain, as he described it.
Especially whenever he felt justified in his actions.
Which he certainly would now.
I found myself on the point of weeping as I heard a sudden noise below and the tiniest of cries escaped my lips.
That’s it then, I said, I’m finished now for sure.
But nothing happened.
Maybe if I hadn’t known what it was they were capable of.
But that was the problem, because I very much did.
Oh yes. Knew only too well.
Because, once upon a time, we had all worked in the factory together.
Back in the ‘old times’ when the troubles were at their height, and bodies turning up in a condition similar to that of Jody’s would have been a routine occurrence.
Yes, way back when – when we’d all been employed on the killing floor of Glasson Meats, apart from the twins who had the good fortune not to, as yet, have managed to get themselves born.
Me and Jody would have been fifteen at the time.
I shivered a bit as I looked down at Mervyn – standing behind the counter, tall and erect – seeming inscrutable as he stared at something far away. With those long arms folded, impassive, as always, with the bearing of an American eagle.
He was odd, all the same, that old Mervyn Walker.
There was just something about him that …
Then I heard Red Campbell guffawing.
–Thought you had it all figured out, didn’t you Jody? You and Wade – thought you could just up and leave the sinking ship. But we’ve been ahead of the pair of you all along. You see, we been watching old Ringo – and you too, Jody. We followed you all the way, right out as far as the One Tree Crossroads. And we got you fair and square – with the only pity being that we didn’t lay our hands on that other backsliding no-good. But don’t worry, we’ll get him. We’ll get him all right. All it is is a matter of time. That’s all it is, gypsy boy – just a sweet little matter o’ time.
The clock ticked and the fire burnt low.
The bar was the same as many another mountain establishment.
With a couple of high stools scattered here and there – and, in the corner, a massive oaken table.
Sawdust covered the greasy black and white tiles.
A couple of pictures hung sideways upon the wall.
A football team.
A butcher’s calendar depicting a blocky heifer turning incuriously towards the camera.
And a dusty Woolworth’s portrait of a little toddler holding a bear – sitting on a potty with a silver-blue tear in his eye.
–It’s bye bye, I’m afraid, Jody Kane, I heard Red Campbell whisper softly, releasing an extended plume of smoke. By the time Mr Begley gets through with you, I’m afraid you ain’t gonna be around no more. Ain’t that the case, wouldn’t you say, Mr Grue?
Big Barney came lumbering over, hitching up his trousers over his built-for-diesel girth, his three hundred pound bulk bursting out of a red and black lumberjack shirt, eyes blazing above that rusty foot-long straggly beard.
Standing directly above Jody Kane, wheezing as he tugged nervously at his whiskers, speaking in a voice close to falsetto.
As he grabbed Jody roughly and yanked back his head, sweeping his fingers through his mop of bloodied black curls.
–I guess, said Barney, yep I guess I got to say that you’re right. That you are exactly one hundred per cent right there, ol’ Red, and I reckon too that that old Tony he ain’t gonna be long. No sir, not long at all.
–Never mind all that, barked Hackett, losing patience, for it seems to me that you fellers are starting to fall in love with the sound of your own voice. Way too much speechifying already. So take that sumbitch out to the shed – and leave him there – because I’m just about through having to look at him!
–Fourth pocket, shouted Shorty.
Ker-plunk went the yellow.
As they made their way towards the outhouse with their quarry, from deep within its bowels, I heard the most abject howl.
One which filled me full of self-loathing – how could it not?
As a matter of fact, even now, all these years later, as I sit here alone in the dim light of a single bulb penning these words on a rickety old wooden table, even yet I can feel my face burning. With the shame spreading out, right across my neck and shoulders, I swear.
Still clinging to the hope – that, maybe in the long run Jody Kane did forgive me.
Because I’d do almost anything if that could possibly happen. And which is why, no matter where I go, or in what condition I find myself – I always make sure to carry this bundle of letters with me.
I’ve got a couple of them here in front of me right now as I write.
This particular one dates from the very late nineties. I happened to be going through it earlier on – just to refresh my memory and help me with all of my recollections – as I do my best to get them down on paper.
I don’t know how many times I’ve read it, to tell the truth.
I just can’t describe how good it makes me feel. So hopeful, you know?
213 Cypress Grove
Sweetwater, Georgia 15309
USA
March 18 1998
Dear Ray,
I guess when you open this and realise that it’s me that you’re gonna be surprised after all this time.
And, to be honest, I got to admit that the truth is, Ray, that you’re far from being the only one.
For after I left Glasson County, in the aftermath of what happened to us both that terrible night, every time I thought of it I found myself getting all tore up inside, the way any reasonable human being ought to when they cast their mind back to that hellhole and what was done.
And by nobody more than you yourself, Ray, I’m sorry to have to say – and which is the reason all these years why I’ve carried so much bitterness in my heart.
But things change, don’t they, and I’m proud to tell you that since coming out here to Sweetwater, fortune has smiled on me and I’m now, in spite of any past transgressions, welcomed in a manner you would expect to be exclusively reserved for close kindred.
With the sweetest wife you could ever dream of looking after me – and who keeps on insisting she loves me, although sure as hell I can’t for the life of me figure that.
For, after shipping for the last time out of Glasson County, I didn’t feel like I’d ever come back to myself again and that, when all was said and done, I was worth less than nothing.
To tell you the truth, what had happened was I’d become what you could only call a drifter, rambling in a daze from one drinkwater town to another.
Before finally landing here in Georgia – in what can only be described as God’s own private kingdom, where they still got themselves a claim on their own souls and where the talk, I guess you’d say, is kind of slow and syrupy, like molasses in the wintertime. They like their sour mash and football here, let me tell you, and they got no objection to chasing after the odd judy maybe. The town we’re living in is a good way off the beaten track – with a body shop, a pool hall, a honkytonk and a livestock sale barn. Most folks work either on the land or in the textile mill, which has been there, they tell me, since Old God’s time.
And which I know you’d love – and maybe, at least I’m hoping, after you receive this letter there might be some way we could patch up all our old differences. Yeah, once and for all lay to rest them ghosts, all the memories of that dreadful night. There really are some great people, Ray, and whose company I know you would enjoy and get to love. Hell, in that old Courthouse Square, whenever they get started, I swear to God, it’s all the old times and the code of the hills just like we ourselves have lived by and know. In a country where history runs so deep you could almost cut it up with a chainsaw. In the Courthouse Square, you can still hear some of the old timers wail at the destruction reaped by Sherman’s March to the Sea. Maybe with one small difference, though, and that is that these people, Ray, more than anything what they hold dear is family and you ain’t gonna find so many Sweetwater fellers cutting loose so much and howling at the moon over a grievance or some battle long ago, chaining themselves to the jug and the Mason jar. But that ain’t to say that they don’t know how to enjoy themselves, for that they sure can do. With their country dinners at noon and evening suppers of chicken fried steak, milk gravy and black-eyed peas. And when the sun goes down there’ll be a little drinking and conversing but after they’ve sipped their share and are kinda tired, it’s then that the bandstand will become a pulpit, and the pages of the most important thing to them all are turned – and that’s the Good Book, Ringo Wade. Yes, they gladly turn em, one by one. Just like I do myself these days, because if I’ve learned anything since coming here – yup, if I’ve picked up anything during my time with all o’ these decent here people – it’s that we’re all sorry bastards but that God above loves us, each and every one, Ray Wade.
What you got to remember, too, and maybe most of all, is that these Sweetwater folks have got their pride and don’t take too kindly to folks as maybe got a tendency to maybe undervalue ’em. What they’ll always tell you is that the Yankee just don’t get it – even yet, with too much reason still binding his head and allowing him little space to record and recognize the value of southern intuition. Because here we prize the imagination and the dream, they’ll tell you – here in Sweetwater, God and romance will always be in the ascendant.
And if anyone figures that ain’t the case then they ought to come down some Saturday to the Courthouse Square and seat themselves on the bench beside that old bronze Confederate general. And watch how, out of nowhere, if even the slightest slur is cast, how right out of nowhere a Cain-raising fury can erupt like a thunderstorm. So you got to be on your guard just in case things like that happen. But then, we got some experience of that, don’t we Ray? And how a perceived injustice can set alight a ring of the most furious fire.
I don’t mind telling you that my partner Greta Mae, the love of my life, is a genuine, high-toned Christian woman – can you believe that she goes to church every Sunday, and that I go along with her and her father Otis, whose folks originally come from Africa. Otis will often tell me that, for him, stepping back into the past is like a dream world that once was real and now is gone. Where you find yourself remembering the old people you used to talk to and you wish you could talk to them again, he’ll often say. People don’t seem to sit on the courthouse benches the way they used to, he said to me only yesterday. That’s because all the old men who used to sit there and talk are probably dead. People are too busy these days. Life tends to move faster now. With it being a long way from the slumbering little village he was born and raised in – where life was lived out in the soft light of a tree-shaded street on a summer afternoon, to the soft clip-clop of horses, the drone of bees and cicadas, the clink of ice in the lemonade pitcher, the creak of the porch swing. And, further out in the country, you can find the farms and the cows and the vegetable gardens, boats in the racks of pickups, watermelon stands in summer, coonhounds in pens.
A time of pause and prosperity, he calls it, Ray. When even Old Glory was contemplated in a more relaxed way, with time devoted to lying beneath a shade tree, watching the cottony clouds drift in the hot blue sky. ‘But though a lot of things are gone,’ he says, ‘and you can see this every morning of the Sabbath, if you’ve a mind to go along to our little White Church in the valley – one thing around here remains stubbornly firm and solid, Jody my new friend – and that is the ideal of family as identity. Because that’s the unshakeable country belief – that, simply by being born into the family, love and self-esteem are simply and unequivocally conferred upon you. And, by extension, one’s home town is a community to which one belongs by birth. Simply by your very presence, you belong – thereby having something larger than yourself to which to cling. You try to tell the younger folks about your own childhood but it’s like another planet to them.
So you can see where it might come from, Ray Wade my friend, what you might call my ‘new persuasion’. Or ‘conversion’, if you got yourself a mind to go that far ha ha. And which is something that I know you and me would have laughed at in the past. But when you been running all over hell’s half-acre like we have in our time, maybe eventually you get to see – you come around to a different way of viewing things. You and me we got lots to talk about regarding that subject, Ray. And that is what we are gonna do just as soon as you get yourself on that plane and make your way out here to see us. Because everyone here would, really and truly, love to meet you. I’ve told them everything, Ray, you know? About the orphanage and our time there. You just wouldn’t believe how much she understands – that’s why I want you to meet her so much. Because she, and the people around here, they get it, you know? Especially about folks like us, Ray – you and me.
Especially that it’s all about forgiveness in the end.
And if we don’t have that, we have nothing.
I hope you don’t find this too forthright or intrusive, old buddy, but I been in touch with one or two people, and they been tell me that you been hitting the hooch mighty hard in recent times – is that, in fact, the case?
Anyhow, I know you’ll tell me in your own good time – that’s if you decide that it’s any of my business, Ray. But what definitely is my primary concern is seeing that things get fixed up between you and me. And if we can somehow do that, return you and me to the days when we was true, gentle partners – fellers who would do most anything for each other – before the shadow of misfortune fell.
Because I won’t lie – I still get the sweats and the horrors when I think about what they did to me.
But that’s all history now and there ain’t no point in going over much more of that old ground.
It’s beautiful here, Ray, it truly is a sweet and bonny land. You can see the blood orange sun going down behind the hills as I sit here composing these few words on the front porch.
I’ll be maybe writing to you again after this – that’s if I hear from you, which I really hope I do.
Because I still got some problems with my nerves, I guess you might call it, and can often find that setting my thoughts and emotions down on paper like this, that it kind of helps me in a way I can’t really say.
