Spinning Dixie (15 page)

I awoke to the most extraordinary headline in the Nashville
Tennessean
:

 

MT. ST. HELENS ERUPTS IN WASHINGTON STATE

VOLCANO LEAVES 57 DEAD OR MISSING

Dormant 100 Years, Explosion 500 Times Stronger Than Hiroshima

 

On the way up to the mansion, I passed Elijah. “My God, Elijah, it took off the top third of the mountain.”

“Somethin' else, son.”

“I'll never understand what causes those explosions.”

“Maybe it was that gammahoochin' you've been doing in that carriage house,” Elijah snickered.

Mortified. “I mean volcanoes.”

“Oh, I see, Jonah, I see.”

“I just don't understand what causes them.”

“Change, boy,” Elijah said, gripping my wrist. “I read up on these things once, being as how I love the weather. See, one big plate that holds up the land collides with another plate that holds up the sea. Now one of these plates is gonna win, see. One goes under the other and there's a weakness, a fracture in the surface of the planet.” Elijah now stood oddly close and whispered as if he were telling me something that no one else ever knew or could ever know.

“The fire underground, Jonah, has been building for billions of years. It senses that weakness in the earth and blows right through it. It's angry, see, it's pent-up. One plate goes over the other and, after it's done, the world looks different forever.”

I kept thinking,
We don't have volcanoes in 1980.

I drove one of the Polks' pickup trucks into town, ostensibly to pick up supplies at a hardware store in Columbia. My real reason was that I wanted to call Irv the Curve. I called the number he gave me and identified myself to the waitress-sounding woman that answered. She asked me for the number of the pay phone and I gave it to her. Within two minutes, Irv called me back.

“Howdy, Slim,” Irv said.

“Slim?”

“We can't call you by your name anymore. It has to be something folksy.”

“Slim it is.”

“What's with the girlie?”

“She's great, but there's a guy down here who's trouble.”

“With a girl like that, there's always a guy like that.”

I was in no mood to engage Irv about the laws of love, especially when I suspected that he might be right.

“His name is J. T. Hilliard and he doesn't like me. He's after Claudine.”

“Sounds like he's got the inside track,
boychik
.”

“He's from this old Civil War family.”

“What the hell does that mean, may I ask?”

“His name is J. T. Hilliard and he's from a big-time rich family.”

“Where are these old Tennessee families getting all this money? I, for one, would like to know. Cotton money didn't last long. Were the Polks into tobacco? That would make sense.”

“No cotton or tobacco. They grew hemp. For rope.”

“You sure they're not growing it for some other purpose?”

“No way.” I was offended as a Confederate, which I truly believed I had become in comparison to my gangster Union family.

“Just asking.”

“The Hilliards are in gas or oil or something.”

“They weren't drilling for it in the Civil War, Jonah.”

“I don't know. He came last night in this souped-up golden Camaro, with racing stripes and all.”

“A nice old-money car.”

“Weird, huh?”

“Weird. Did you provoke him in any way?”

“Yeah, I'm with the girl he thinks is his wife. Then he insulted me at the dinner table and, when he moved in his chair, it made this noise like a fart, and I suggested he get his natural gas under control.”

“Heh. But I imagine this silly kid feels like you cut him off at the hoo-hahs.”

“So what's next?”

“Keep your head low. Avoid him. Keep that implement your grandfather gave you close by your bed, but avoid any situation that would require you to use it. We don't know the law down there. This means, of course, that the Hilliards are probably more adept at subverting it. Keep in mind that their subversion of justice, Jonah, should be viewed as being immoral.”

“What about our subversion?”

“Justified. You read me?”

“Yes.”

“Call me back if you get ants in your pants. I'll look into these Hilliards. In the meantime, make sure that girlie doesn't tie you up anywhere you can't escape.”

“She doesn't tie me up.”

“I must challenge you here, Jonah. You are tied up, but not beyond escape. Keep your eyes open.”

In the weeks that followed the eruption of Mount St. Helens, ash covered Rattle & Snap. At first, I thought it was pollen because it had a yellow-green tint, like pulverized tennis balls. It never occurred to me that one event could scatter residue so far, clouds and ash moving in hyperspeed from Washington State to central Tennessee. God wanted to remind us that his fingers reached forever.

Since our night in the carriage house, Claudine had pulled away from me. We held hands, took walks and kissed, but she was distant for a few weeks. I could tell that her eyes and her mind were somewhere foreign. Once, I tried to inquire about her mood, but it annoyed her. I began to feel a familiar emptiness that took me a few weeks to identify as being that orphaned feeling. It was the precise sentiment that I felt after my parents died.
You are alone, Jonah.

“She's got the faraways, huh, boy?” Elijah said one night when I collapsed on the front steps of the mansion after a long day's work on the church.

“Yeah.”

“She gets that. Has since she was little with her daddy and all, I suppose. Can't touch her during those spells.”

“So it's not me?”

“Naw, it's not you. She's work, that one. You've got a heart the size of the Smoky Mountains, boy, don't you? Bless your heart. You're all right, son. And you've been doing great on that church, too. Mmm-mmh. You work at it like it was yours. That's where you pour what you've got inside. It goes into a craft of some kind. That's good. That's good.”

“I'm glad I've been able to help.”

“Aw, you have all right. I get to come in a bit early from the sun and take my notes in this diary here.”

“It looks like you've had a lot to say lately, with all that ink.”

“Yes. Yes. Sometimes I don't think things are a darned bit better, I swear. That J.T. and his slave-house talk—heh, heh, heh—did I ever write about that, and how you sassed him. Loved your gas talk there, did I ever. You're all right, son. Wrote that down the night you said it. A bright spot. Then there's things that aren't so bright. They evacuated seven hundred families from this Love Canal up in New York State. They said there's all kinds of poison people are eating and drinking. They shot a man name Vernon Jordan yesterday. You know him?”

“A civil rights guy, right?”

“National Urban League. Shot taking a walk. By a white man. He'll live, though.”

“That's good.”

“Yes. That's good.”

“Unbelievable that it happens today.”

“Not so unbelievable, son. It is what it is.”

“I guess.”

He read me pretty well and could tell I was down.

“Claudie, always Claudie, right, Jonah?”

“Right.”

“You know, you're smart to focus on your work. You have to focus on a thing, a task, not what you feel about her. Do something, son.”

Elijah was right, and it was a lesson I never forgot. Do a thing. Don't sit. Maybe that's why the Polks built up America—they had longed for someone they left behind in Scotland, so they bided their time by creating a nation. Activities were seldom about their stated purpose.

I returned to St. John's Church and admired what I had accomplished. The church would be used soon enough. I wondered if I would ever get to sit through a service.

I slipped behind the rear wall to a small room that overlooked the cemetery. I had been in this room before and vaguely remembered Elijah telling me that it was where the clergy used to change clothing and prepare the service. When I stood on a wooden plank against the back wall, the ground felt hollow. I tapped my foot on the floor and the plank loosened.

I retrieved my tool kit from the church's entryway and returned to the little room. The plank wasn't hard to dislocate, and I managed to kick up the one next to it with my work boot. I peered beneath the surface with a sawdust-covered flashlight and noticed a tin box. Had I dug up a grave? I shuddered and caught my breath. I ran the light against the box and saw that it was much too small to contain a body. Relieved, I reached down to grab it. My invasion startled a few gruesome little mice that actually spoke the word “eek!” as I withdrew my hands and shuddered for a second time.

I found a broom, the same one that Claudine had flown in on a few weeks ago, and used it to wedge the little box toward me. More eeks from the mice. Shut the hell up, I thought, and jammed them away with the broom. If they found me so terrifying, why did they insist on hanging around? Creatures bring so much upon themselves. Once the box was close enough, I lowered my legs into the hole and straddled the open ground with my palms lifting the box out with my feet. It jingled.

The box was about one and a half by two feet. It was entirely rusted over and creepy looking. It had a lock on the outside that wasn't hard to crack open with a screwdriver. Light from a decorative window shone through and stung my eyes. A mosquito flew into one of my eyes, and I said, “Dammit!” but then apologized to the folks out in the graveyard for talking like this in a church.

The first thing I saw inside the box was a blue velvety cloth. It was a bag, actually. Inside was…a book. It had no title. I opened the book, careful to keep it out of direct sunlight. The pages were a dark tan, which didn't offset the black writing terribly well, but well enough. The opening page read in beautiful script:

 

NOTES BY GEORGE WASHINGTON POLK

 

The Holy Grail, I thought. Every entry was dated, beginning with descriptions of the architectural planning process in the early 1840s. I sat for two hours alone, just God and Jonah, reading what the master of Rattle & Snap had written. Toward the middle of his diary, I honed in on the word “meteor.” It popped out at me just like that mosquito had. The passage had been dated July 18, 1856, and read:

I gently placed the book back in the cloth, and heard the jingling again. Then I dumped out a handful of gold coins and ran crazy-fast west toward the mansion. From the gazebo, Six, who had E.L.O.'s “Don't Bring Me Down” blasting from his transistor radio, called, “What do you have there?”

“Follow me,” I said. I must have looked like a mental patient running up the hills with this noisy rusty box. J.T.'s golden chariot was in the driveway. I burst into the mansion. Claudine was walking up the stairs. J.T. must have been lobbying Petie.

“Eew, what's that, Jonah?” she asked.

Out of breath, I pointed to George Washington Polk's portrait. “It's…his…diary.”

Claudine's mouth fell open.

“His diary! Mother!”

Petie Polk and J.T. emerged from the great living room, the one with the portrait of Family Friend Andrew Jackson and Will “Scowly” Polk, who must have been talking about what a non-bullet-catching-in-his-teeth pansy I was. Indy Four came charging down the stairs.

“Mother!” Claudine shouted, “Jonah found G.W.'s diary!”

“Where, Jonah?” Petie asked from the living room.

“Under the church where I was working.”

Now all of the Polks had gathered around, plus Sir Golden Jaw, J.T. Indy Four set the book down gently on the dining room table. His eyes filled up, the tears magnifying behind his lenses.

“My Lord, boy, what have you found? What have you found?”

After five minutes of feigning interest in Polk history—and perhaps his own—J.T. slipped out the front door when Indy poured the gold coins onto the table.

 

A long overdue return to the loft of the carriage house with my quilt-totin' Polk. This was why I lived. Claudine and I wrestled, occasionally flinching at the straw's abrasive edges. It was a contest to see who could pin the other first and get in the most kisses. I let Claudine win, although I think she liked it better when I didn't. I counted the vertebrae on her back with my fingers as she leaned far back above me. The arch of the heavens, I thought.

While she showered back in the mansion, I grabbed a piece of her stationery in the kitchen and I wrote a note in verse, sealed it in an envelope, and placed it beneath a pillow on her bed upstairs:

Claudine and her mother had to audition a band in Nashville for a party they were planning for Rattle & Snap, so I was on my own on this midsummer Sunday. As I slid into the driver's side of the pickup truck, Six planted himself in the passenger seat. He was decked out in a sport jacket, tie, and khaki pants. His collar was aflutter, but there was something about his caste that conveyed neatness nonetheless.

“What about church, Six?” I inquired.

“
You're
not going, Jonah.”

“I'm not Episcopalian.”

“Well, I'm not going, either. Nobody'll care. Where are you headed?”

“Into Columbia to take a bunch of laundry to the cleaners. I found a seven-day-a-week place.”

“Let's go.”

We were in Columbia within minutes. Across the street from the cleaner's, two guys with slicked-back hair were reading a paper and smoking. They both wore off-white painter's outfits. A black family dressed in their Sunday best passed by the painters. I felt tingles of paranoia on my scalp. My pistol was strapped to my ankle. Six and I each carried a pile of laundry and a bunch of used wire hangers into the cleaner's. We deposited everything on the counter and I took the stubs.

In the mirror's reflection, I saw J.T. with two of his friends walking by on the opposite side of the street.

“Six,” I said. “Don't turn around. Just look in the mirror and tell me if you see J.T. and two guys with him.”

Six stiffened in the mirror. “Yeah, that's J.T. The big guy is Phil Tewkes. I don't know who the guy in the yellow is, but I've seen him around. They keep staring in here.”

“I know they do.” I slid the pile of wire hangers toward the woman behind the counter, but I held one of them back. I began to twist it loose.

“They're just waiting over there,” Jonah.

“I know, Six. They're waiting for me. I think you should just stay in here.”

“No, I'll go out with you.”

I was transfixed by Six's big, soulful eyes. His face was all angles, angles that would have been seen as masculine in a Ralph Lauren advertisement for beachwear, but not on the Boardwalk. Six's angles were mild, the way mine were when I was nine or ten, but I had lost mine by the time I was his age.

“No. You shouldn't see this kind of thing.”

“J.T. won't hurt me.”

“That's right, he won't.”

“He thinks he owns Claudie and all of us.”

“I know he does. Look, just stay in here, Six.”

“We can call the police.”

“J.T. probably owns the police.”

“Why are you smiling, Jonah?”

“I'm not.”

Maybe I
was
smiling, the way Old Will Polk had when he caught that bullet in his teeth.

We both stepped back from the counter. I continued untwisting the hanger until it came undone. I held it by the hook and let the sharp edge of the twisted end stick out.

“You're grinning. Right there, I see it. You've fought like this before, haven't you?”

“Six—”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Use a weapon,” I said.

“That?”
Six asked, pointing to the hanger.

“What do you think J.T. and his friends expect will happen out there?”

“They expect to beat you up, Jonah. You said so yourself.”

“Right. That's my weapon,” I said, hopefully. “What they expect.”

“I don't get it.”

“Listen to me,” I said, loosening my heavy silver belt buckle. “They're not going to hurt you. If you won't stay inside, do this: Pick up some gravel from near that tree. Bend down like you're tying your shoe. When I say, throw the rocks as hard as you can at the guy closest to you. Right in his face. Then run to the truck.”

“What are you gonna do?”

I knelt down, making certain that my Indian belt was loose. I felt down my ankle to make sure that my gun was still there. It was. “My grandfather told me once that nothing shocks a man as much as the unexpected sight of his own blood. Who's the toughest of these three do you think?”

“Probably Phil. I don't know about the guy in yellow.”

“Then you throw the rocks in Yellow's face when I say so, not before.”

My heart galloped like Shpilkes herself was in my chest. It was more than just raw fear, although that was part of it. I felt my gums throbbing. I
wanted
to hurt these guys. I was glad they were here.

Six and I left the cleaner's. I held the hanger, folded, in my right hand so the boys couldn't see it from across the street. Six bent down, as instructed, and picked up a handful of gravel.

“Hey, it's Jonah the Prophet,” J.T. shouted.

I did not answer. We kept walking toward the truck. J.T. and his gang crossed the street.

“What are you, deaf?” J.T. said. “I'm talking to you.” The boys pursued. They were no more than fifteen feet away.

“Six,” I said under my breath. “Stop when I do, but don't turn around until I do. As soon as I turn around, you hit Yellow with those rocks.”

We stopped walking and waited until the footsteps were upon us. I bent open the hanger, turned around, and swung the sharp tip at Phil's face. I hit him somewhere near his eye. I swung at J.T. and hit him on his neck. He was stunned, but not badly hurt.

“Damn,” Phil shouted.

Six winged his rocks on cue at Yellow's face. Yellow muttered something unintelligible, and drew his hands up around his eyes. I switched the hanger into my left hand. I whipped my belt off and swung the heavy buckle at Phil's head and hit him square on his lips. Phil staggered backward, registering pain. J.T.'s mouth fell open and he swung his head, confused, between Phil and Yellow. I swung the belt at J.T. and connected near his temple. I whipped Yellow with the belt twice in his head. The metallic thunks betrayed connections with bone. Six, bless his heart, then jumped on top of the woozy Yellow and began pummeling him.

Phil was crouched on the ground confirming that the moisture around his mouth was, in fact, blood. I kicked him as hard as I could in the nose with the heel of my boot. He fell back, groaning.

“You dirty—”, J.T. started shouting, more narcissistically wounded than incapacitated. I whipped him hard with the belt buckle and he fell back against a parked car. I moved toward Yellow, who had pushed Six off of him. As Yellow tried to stand, I swung at him again, hitting him on the side of the head with the belt buckle. As he fell back, I kicked him hard in the mouth. He rolled into the street, spitting teeth. I kicked him in the crotch twice. My man Six jumped back on Yellow and got to work.

J.T. tried to stand, cursing. He was dazed and couldn't tell where I was. I cut behind him and kicked him in the ass. When he turned at the insult, I punched him in the nose. As soon as I saw his blood flow, I pounded him in the mouth. As he fell, I kicked him in the chest.

I should have run, since all of the men were down. I did not, an acute memory that haunts me.

I brought my right leg up and began to lift my cuff to go for the gun. I envisioned the expression that J.T. would have as he saw the bullet rocketing toward him. But I put my leg back down once I felt the cold metal. It was my fear of becoming my grandfather that did it, and what that stark reality would do to Claudine and me. I didn't want Mickey breaking us up.

Instead, I threw my belt around J.T.'s neck, beneath his hateful jaw, and began to tighten it. As I drew the belt tight, I envisioned this scene from above. I saw J.T. gasping, but I was not the strangler, at least not completely. It was Carvin' Marvin's face, but my hands. “I want you to just die,” Marv's mouth told J.T. But it was my hands that stopped the moment I saw J.T.'s eyes soldered open. I opened my eyes wide and let J.T. fall to the street.

Townspeople had emerged onto the sidewalk. Six followed me, walking fast, but not running, to the truck. I was breathing heavily as I slipped my belt back through the loops of my jeans. The two painters who had been reading the paper across the street when we had entered the cleaner's were now standing near the wounded J.T. & Co. I could have sworn they sent approving smirks my way. It was chilling because I didn't know whose side they were on. They moved toward J.T., but they didn't help him. Then came the wacky smirks, but the painters didn't approach me. The churchgoing black family stepped aside, along with vague expressions that I did not know how to register.

On the ride back to Rattle & Snap, Six was giddy. “Like a mongoose,” he kept saying to me, admiringly. I was scared. On the street I was fine; now I was scared. “Tell your grandfather what happened, but Claudine can't know, Six,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I don't want sympathy. I don't want it from her, and I sure as hell don't want J.T. to get any.”

“But he came after you!”

“I don't want her to know, Six!”

Before Claudine returned from her day in Nashville, I called Irv the Curve at Masada. I told him what had happened. Irv reminded me that I was not hurt. But I almost was, I explained. “You will not be hurt,” Irv assured me like Obi Wan Kenobi. What did he know?

I told Indy Four what had happened myself. I apologized for taking Six with me, but he brushed away my repentance. The old man listened lucidly and then apologized to
me
. He complimented me, laughing a little, on my “intestinal fortitude.” Then he angrily promised me, a quiver in his voice, “This is not
my
South.” Indy Four then disappeared into his bedroom to conspire with ghosts.

In the evening, Indy Four explained to Claudine and Petie that there had been threats made against me. Claudine hugged me. Petie looked appalled.

“One final thing,” Indy Four announced, rising, general-like. “I have invited Mr. Price to Rattle & Snap. He and Mrs. Price will arrive tomorrow.”