Dogwood (20 page)

I had a question about ten minutes into my solo flight and found him asleep on the couch in Seeb’s office. Those first six hours were the longest of my life, and I felt worse than a new driver navigating rush-hour traffic. There were so many things to do at once. Things to say, not to say, when to start the music, the time, the temperature, promoting the next songs and on and on.

“You’ve got real talent.” Vern yawned after my shift was over. “Good voice. Personality. Humor. You’re teachable, which is unusual. You probably can’t stand the music, but I wouldn’t know that listening to you. That’s good.”

He told me some things to work on, like pronouncing my
w
’s
correctly. “It’s not
dubba-you
. It’s
double-you
.” He wrote it out on a three-by-five card,
Double-you DGW
.

After a month of working with him and after receiving my official license, which meant that I could really fly solo, I was deemed ready for on-air work alone.

Vern came by after sign-off to get his show for Sunday ready, telling me what he liked and didn’t about my shift. He carried his own set of headphones instead of using the community pair in the control room. He sat on the secretary’s desk, the logbook propped against his leg. “I want to tell you something important because I think you should know.”

I squinted at the book. “I did a legal ID at the top of every hour.”

“It’s not that.” Vern smiled. He had a mustache that was the most neatly trimmed I had ever seen and jeans that were always pressed and crisp. “A few years ago I realized something and it scared me. Something about myself. And then I tried to talk myself out of it, but it kept coming back.”

He paused—whether for effect or searching for a thought, I didn’t know—but I wasn’t about to interrupt.

“Will . . .” Another long pause, then he looked straight at me, locking eyes. “I’m gay.”

Vern let the news sink in. Looking back, it took a minute for me to even realize the ramifications of what he was saying.

“Okay,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

“That doesn’t bother you?” he said.

“Why should it? You can still teach me radio, can’t you?”

Vern smiled again. “I thought you’d freak out or something. Most people around here do. Seeb took me off the Sunday morning shift when he found out because there are some groups who come in and do live shows. Guess that’s your domain now.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad we can still be friends.”

Two weeks later Vern tried to massage my neck without my consent, and I jumped up from the control room chair so fast the
needle popped off a Merle Haggard tune. He ran from the room with his hands in the air, like someone had held him up at gunpoint. He never tried to get physical again, but the teaching ended with that episode. I was on my own.

“Eighty-one beautiful degrees at Classic Country 16, WDGW,” Clay said. He rolled his
w
’s like a pro and I felt intimidated. He named the last five songs that had played from memory, read a Red Cross liner about blood donation that sounded like he was making it up on the spot, and pointed at me.

I hesitated, then remembered the button I needed to push. A series of commercials began highlighting the latest specials at Foodland and Mohr’s Tire Farm.

“So you really think you’ll be able to work here and not have people know it?” Clay said.

“I stopped caring what people think about me a long time ago. I know seeing me or hearing my name brings back the hurt, and I’m sorry. Believe me, if I could turn back the clock and change what happened, I’d do it. Or if I could take the place of those kids, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t. I guess I’m choosing to live rather than retreat.”

He waved a hand at me and I turned on his microphone. “Classic Country 16, WDGW. Coming up, the Cash man, Barbara Mandrell, Waylon, Willie, and to get started in this superset, here’s Ronnie Milsap.”

Clay hit the post, Ronnie sang, and I turned off the mic.

“Guess you’re right to go on with your life, but a lot of folks wish you’d do it someplace else.” He walked into the sales office and closed the door, and I saw the first phone line light up.

I began my career with weekends and returned doing the same. The same couple who had done a live service each Sunday still showed up at 6 a.m., the wife strumming a guitar and singing, the
husband preaching. They went for a half hour and at the end gave the same invitation I remembered from high school.

“And if you’re listening in radioland, anywhere within the sound of my voice, and you do not know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, we invite you now to ask him to forgive your sins and wash you clean.”

Behind him, his wife began strumming lightly and singing, “Softly and Tenderly.”

“I don’t care if you’ve been running from God for years. You may be listening now from this very radio station, wondering if God loves you. Well, friend, he does and he’s calling to you. Reach out and receive his mercy and grace, and I promise you on the authority of the Word of God that he will save you and sanctify you.”

I segued an appropriate song out of some spot announcements, figuring the preacher and his wife wouldn’t appreciate “Whiskey River” coming on the heels of his message. After I had everything set, I walked them to the door.

“Were you touched by the Lord this morning, Will?” he said.

I was surprised he remembered my name. “Yes, sir. I remember when I used to engineer for you. Brings it all back.”

His wife gazed at me, steely eyed.

“Brings back things for a lot of people,” the preacher said. “And we said a prayer for you when you went away.”

“I appreciate that. There were probably a few praying I’d get more time.”

“Did you find the Lord inside Clarkston, son?” he said, maneuvering the guitar out of the way of the swinging door his wife had just exited.

“I found a lot of things, Pastor.”

Work is a gift for body and soul, if you choose to look at it that way, and I slipped into the easy habit of overnights, sleeping after breakfast and waking midafternoon, ready to tackle the
roadwork that consumed me. By the end of July I had made enough money to buy seventeen truckloads of gravel, and I borrowed our nearest neighbor’s skid loader to more easily distribute it. He had his reservations about lending it to me, but my mother convinced him.

The woman I replaced overnight moved to evenings as Seeb situated the on-air talent. Shirley had moved from Roanoke, Virginia, and had landed in the middle of Dogwood without a job or much of a radio pedigree, but she was another of Seeb’s misfits who turned out to be surprisingly good. I made sure she got safely to her car each night at midnight and also made sure I was gone in the morning before Virginia strolled into the office.

The knowledge of my identity escaped listeners, probably because there were few at those hours of the night. I found the work comforting. Instead of lying awake all night, I could work myself to exhaustion and fall asleep during the light, then do it again, a routine that felt natural and eased the ache I carried.

Plus, and this will sound strange, I felt closer to Karin. On those starry nights when I had a twenty-minute set of Classic Country ready, I’d prop the back door open, take a fresh cup of coffee outside, and sit under the blinking red light of the tower and look at the moon’s reflection in the river as it curved below. There weren’t many streetlights in this part of town; it was mostly pasture, wilderness, and housing developments.

There were a few motion sensor lights that came on with the skittering of dogs and raccoons across driveways. A few lights in people’s houses burned through windows and dotted the undulating landscape. A cool, swampy breeze blew through, and the night was filled with chirping insects and the
garuump
of frogs. It was peaceful, and the steaming coffee helped keep me awake.

I wondered what Karin might be doing at 2 or 3 a.m. Did she know I was on the radio? Each time I spoke, I pictured her listening, the way she had done in high school. She would call and
help keep me awake or ask for a song, even though she couldn’t stand country music any more than I could. I thought about sending her veiled messages. The urge to speak to her, to give her a message only she would understand, was too strong. With her current situation, I couldn’t call her up and ask her to listen, so I resorted to the request line, cajoling her into responding, hoping and pleading for her call.

After a set of six songs, I would backsell them, telling the listeners whom they’d heard, as if they didn’t know these artists better than I did. Then I’d launch into something more personal, a chance at a connection. “Hope you’re doing well this Tuesday morning, wherever you are. If you’re listening at work, I hope I can help you stay awake. Or maybe you’re passing through on your way east or west—welcome to wild, wonderful West Virginia. Or maybe you’re just having a little trouble sleeping tonight. I understand that—it’s one of the reasons I took this job. So no matter what state you’re in, you’re welcome here, and thanks for making us a part of your night.”

I’d usually throw in the phone number and say, “And if I can play something special for you this morning, let me know what you’d like to hear.”

There were the requisite number of lonely women with smokers’ voices who called to tell me how much they loved my soothing tones and ask what I was doing after I finished. One woman gave me her phone number and address and said her friends tell her she looks an awful lot like Heather Locklear. By the way she coughed, I figured the “awful” part was closest to the truth. She sent a picture of herself in a skimpy outfit near the entrance to a bar, and though she wasn’t ugly, she looked to be on the wrong side of fifty.

There were nights when I’d sit outside and a car would pass slowly on Route 60, or I’d hear the gravel crunch in the parking lot at the front of the building. I kept the front locked, but I wondered
if some night the woman or someone like her might knock on the window seeking more than a favorite song. Or if someone who knew about my past would burst through and try to end my life.

A week before I was hired, there had been a raid on a meth lab. A couple of months later the chief told me to check out a report of some new activity—someone who lived nearby had seen strange lights over there, and the place was boarded up. The house was at the end of Benedict Road, a winding, paved road that turned into dirt and ruts, and was so secluded that the cruiser was covered in dust and needed a new muffler by the time I made it back there.

An old Chevy Impala sat along the road, and at first I thought it might have broken down. When I saw a man moving at the back of the house, past the yellow tape strung around the place, I jumped out and pulled my gun. Other than cleaning it, this was the first time I’d taken it out. My heart accelerated, and I thought about the Kevlar vest I’d mentioned a few times to Chief Buret. He still scoffed at the idea. “Too expensive and do you know how hot those things will be in summertime?” I kept after him but I don’t know why. Lots of studies have shown that the vests save lives, even in small towns, but he was as closed to that as paying a decent wage to his new officers.

“Stop right there and put your hands in the air!” I yelled.

The man immediately raised his hands and came toward me.

“I said stop!”

He did; then he got down on the ground like I asked. “Officer, I live down the road. I was just up here looking for a friend of mine.”

I hopped over some scrub brush and asked if he had a weapon. He shook his head and I asked for his wallet, but I recognized him before he handed it to me. “You’re Will Hatfield, aren’t you?”

“In the flesh.”

“Who were you looking for?”

“It’s kind of a long story. There’s this guy Arron Spurlock and—”

“Elvis?” I said. “There’s a missing person’s report out on him.”

“Right. I thought he might have been mixed up with these meth people in some way, so I came out here to have a look.”

I put my gun away. “What makes you so interested in this?”

“I told you, he was a friend. And I need all the friends I can get.”

“You thought it would be different coming back here?” I told him he could get up and gave him his wallet. “I heard you were back.”

Will shoved his wallet in his pocket and studied me. “I know you, don’t I?”

“Bobby Ray. Karin’s brother.”

“Oh yeah.” He reached out and shook my hand. “I didn’t know. I still remember when you were this high. Looks like you did all right for yourself. How are your parents?”

I stepped toward the cruiser. “The less I say to you, the better as far as they’re concerned. As far as anybody’s concerned. Why don’t you get back home? Leave this place alone.”

“All right. But would you look into this Elvis thing? He wasn’t the most upstanding citizen in the county, but he didn’t make a habit of running off and scaring his mother half to death.”

“I have looked into it. Talked with the Exxon station owner. Talked with his mother and sister.”

“What about the people running this place?”

“Can’t talk to what you can’t catch. My guess is they cleared out and Elvis went with them.”

He pursed his lips. “Doesn’t sound like him. It feels wrong.”

“Well, now, I guess you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

Will nodded and returned to his car. The dust from him driving away lingered in the air a long time and settled on the trees and plants below. I waited until then to head back to town.