The Evening Hour (9 page)

“Good to finally meet you,” he said, holding out his hand, wedding ring shining. His grip was firm. “It's a hot one,” he said. “Brother, is it hot.”

Cole let him go on a while longer about the heat. He was glad his grandmother wasn't here; she might feel pressured to invite him in for coffee. Cole and his grandmother did not talk anymore about it, if they should sell or stay, but the questions and worry lingered, underneath everything, like the land itself.

“I've talked to your grandma a few times. Your aunts, uncles. Everyone but you.”

“Well, they sent other guys around,” Cole said. “My answer is still the same.”

“Once your grandmother sells, it'll just be you.”

“She ain't gonna.”

“Now, son.”

Joe's voice deepened, a business voice. He talked about the benefits of coal mining. He talked in figures—they were willing to pay thousands more than what the land was worth, he'd have more money than he'd ever imagined. He gave Cole the spin on helping his community, providing jobs and a steady income. All lies. Cole lit his second cigarette this morning. He just wanted to be left alone. Needed coffee. Sleep. To get laid. Cool air.

“I know you gotta do what you gotta do. But I'm not leaving. That's all I got to say.”

Joe smiled, then seemed to check himself, and pulled a more somber face. “Listen to me, what I'm offering you is a chance you don't want to pass up. This is an opportunity. And believe me, there won't be many more after this. This may be our last offer, Cole. It's a gift. Don't refuse a gift. You'll regret it later.”

“Been nice talking to you,” Cole said, thinking, This ain't no kind of gift.

He sat on the dusty porch steps and watched the SUV back out onto the road. How much longer he could hang on, how long could any of them? He breathed deeply. Closed his eyes. It's fight or flight, he'd heard one of the activists say on TV. He didn't want either one. Just wanted to be.

“How much longer you think he's got? Will he last through the night?”

The aunts surrounded Cole, wanting him to do something. Two days ago, his grandfather had been rushed to the hospital where he was expected to die, but he held on and was transferred back to the home. It was that way with most of them—desperately clinging, even the ones who'd talked with joy about meeting the Lord.

“Y'all should go on home,” he said. “You must be exhausted. I know I am.” Cole was pulling a double. It was almost midnight.

“I had a vision.” His grandmother said she'd seen her husband standing on the crest of a hill, with a beautiful golden light shining on him. “It spread out in front of him, like a river, like a path going right up to heaven,” she said. She squeezed Cole's hands. “I think he'll be all right till morning, don't you?”

“Probably.”

“I'll be at Esther's. Make sure you call me when he gets close.”

“Sometimes things happen. He might just go.”

“I already said my good-bye.” She looked at him. “But you need to make your peace.”

The room smelled like death. Where was the divine healing? Once, at a revival, Cole had watched a little crippled boy walk down the aisle, and a few years ago, after a spot had been detected on Rebecca's lung, the people in the church had put their hands on her, and the next time she went to the doctor, the spot was gone. Cole stared at his grandfather's sunken eyes, his face no longer a face but a skull with skin. He had always expected his granddaddy to leave this world in a dramatic, fiery way. Not this lingering between worlds, this wasting away. His grandfather stirred, blinked his eyes open. He looked at Cole, and could see everything that was wrong with him. Cole's heart raced, and it was as if he'd lost all ability to speak. But his mind was sharp with scripture.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
His grandfather was thin and light and rising to heaven.

But Cole was heavy, and he sat in the chair next to the bed and switched on the lamp and turned it toward him so that a yellow beam of light fell over the crinkled pages of the King James and illuminated the words that he and his grandfather knew so well. He summoned his voice and read quietly, without stuttering. His grandmother had wanted him to do this months ago. He turned the pages of Acts and read the part when Paul leaves for Jerusalem and tells his followers good-bye:
And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more.
His grandfather's breaths were shallow and ragged. He moaned until a shot of morphine dripped into his veins.

His grandfather did not fear death, but he worried that his grandson was one of the many who would burn up in a lake of fire. Bastard child punished for his mother's sins. No devil horns or six-fingered hands or clubbed feet; instead, God forked his tongue. His grandfather believed in fire the way he did the serpents. He said the world would be destroyed by fire. “It's not going to be the bomb or war or anything else man-made. God made this world, and He'll end it. You better be ready,” he'd say with delight, “he's fixing to burn it all up.”

At the end of his shift, Cole filled a plastic bucket with warm soapy water. He pulled the blankets down from his grandfather's withered body, and gently moved him so that his feet hung over the bed. The first red glow of dawn peeked through the window. When Cole unpeeled the little socks from his grandfather's feet, he showed no response. Cole felt queasy. He had never liked this part of the service. Men washed men's feet, women washed women's. Cole did not like touching anyone's feet, especially his grandfather's, which were callused and horny like hooves.

Now they had shrunk and softened, soft like a baby's, but the toenails were yellow and hard like they'd always been. The ankles were as white as teeth, the skin corded with wrinkles. His grandfather had never cared about the flesh:
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.
Cole took a breath, holding the icy feet. What was it he wanted? Did he believe his grandfather would lay his hands upon him and give him salvation? Was it forgiveness he was after? Love? Once when he was a little kid, he and his grandfather had sat on a ridge overlooking a misty valley and his granddaddy told him to listen.
God talks to you, but He don't talk to your ears, he talks to your heart.
Cole wanted his grandfather to tell him that he was not alone.

He trickled water over the ankles and toes, and the old feet tightened and Cole looked up from where he kneeled on the floor and saw his grandfather watching him. This was his moment to say good-bye. He was afraid.

The wheezing grew louder, harsher. The old man's mouth began to work itself in some strange, ugly way, half paralyzed and without any teeth, gumming and spitting, his tongue pushed out over his bottom lip like a worm.

“Ruby,” he gasped.

Cole jerked his hands away and his grandfather's feet flopped in the water like bloated frogs. The old man shuddered, said her name again, his eyes open and radiant with love. Said her name a third time, not with venom, but like some kind of prayer. The color in his face disappeared, but his eyes stayed open, gazing into some other world. The rising sun shone over him and the light looked just like his grandmother said it would look.

Chapter 7

It was a beautiful September day, blue skies, sunshine. Cole's aunts sniffled and wiped their eyes, but his grandmother stood dry-eyed, her arms crossed over her chest. It was a strangely rigid and quiet funeral. Usually there was more wailing, more swaying, but it was as if they were waiting for his granddaddy to tell them what to do. When the preacher spoke the last words, everyone hung their heads and said amen. There was no fancy casket or tombstone; the old man would have disdained such fanfare. “We're gonna do this as cheap as we can,” his grandmother had said, shocked by the funeral costs. Cole paid for most of it, told her not to worry.

Two nights ago had been the viewing, shaking hands with family and strangers,
Thanks for coming, good to see you
. For a moment Cole had stupidly thought that maybe Charlotte, Reese, or even Terry would stop by. Who were his friends? Old people, drug addicts. But then Lacy Cooper had walked in, wearing her Wigwam uniform, and she kissed Cole's cheek and told him she was sorry and he could hardly talk, but when she left, he stood for a long time at the window gazing in the direction where she'd gone.

After the service, everyone headed to the house, but Cole still stood there, alone, in the little family cemetery, not far behind the wrecked church. A few weeks ago, the roof had finally collapsed, and now it was nothing but a pile of cinder block and rubble. The aunts and uncles had argued about burying him in such a precarious spot, but his grandmother wouldn't budge. It's what he wanted, she said with finality. Cole looked around at the mildewed, crumbling tombstones, the fading family names that could be traced to the living.
Everything's a fucking mess,
Taylor Jones had said, and this was true. One day there would be nothing left but upturned earth and black sludge and broken remnants of their family.

A four-wheel-drive pickup with a shovel attached to the front pulled up near the gravesite, and two guys, friends of the twins, jumped out. They wore work pants and dirty shirts; they were waiting for him to leave.

Someone tapped him from behind.

“You're jittery,” Kay said. “How are you holding up?”

“Okay.” He handed her a cigarette, lit one for himself. Smoking in front of his granddaddy's casket. The old man had said everything counted. Tobacco, alcohol, dances, ball games, all of these were worldly things. He had preached on it: “I ask myself, would Jesus be watching that old TV, or would he be off helping the less fortunate?” Cole exhaled smoke. What did it matter anymore?

“You look nice.”

“I'm about the only one in a suit,” he complained. All the cousins had worn jeans or khakis, short-sleeve polo shirts. He tugged at his tie, felt like he was being strangled.

“Yeah, and you're the only one who looks like you got any sense.”

“So how's college?”

“It's different,” she said. “There's a lot of drinking and whatnot.”

“You can get that right here in Dove Creek.”

She exhaled smoke. “You were with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Was he in pain?”

“I think so.”

“Did he know you?”

“I don't know,” he said shortly. “I don't know what he knew.”

People gathered in the backyard, sticking close to the food. There was plenty of it: fried chicken, honey-baked ham, green bean casserole, pickled eggs, glazed carrots, baked beans, and macaroni salad. Another table displayed the desserts: rhubarb-strawberry pie, banana pudding, Jell-O salad, chocolate cake, and Oreo cookies crushed up in Cool Whip. As Cole fished a Mellow Yellow out of the galvanized tub of ice, a woman with fluffy red hair called him over. It was Connie Wilson, one of his aunts' many cousins. Thin and freckled, she wore a wild dress with black and green swirls, like something from the disco era. She threw her arms around him like he was her lost son, then stepped back, beaming. Her teeth were some of the whitest he'd ever seen.

“You look just like your mom,” she said.

He swallowed, didn't know what to say.

“You remember me, hon?” An old woman with dyed black hair smothered him in a cloud of gardenia perfume. His grandmother's sister, his great-aunt Pearl. “Lord, I know this don't sound right, but it feels like a family reunion, don't it?”

“Almost,” Cole said.

“Doesn't he look like Ruby, Mom?” Connie asked.

“He sure does.” Pearl sized him up. “Just like her, even with those goldilocks.”

Cole faked a smile, but he felt queasy. He wished everyone would leave, or that he could disappear, go lay down somewhere. But as the day wore on, people grew comfortable and settled in to stay. Shirt sleeves rolled up, shoes shucked. Cole peeled off his socks, and the grass felt cool and slippery between his toes.

He went behind the shed with his cousins and took a few nips of the twins' whiskey. They hadn't said anything else to him about buying pills since that night at the Eagle, but from their jittery hands and dilated eyes, he'd guessed they had found themselves another dealer.

“You were with him when he died?” his cousin Erik asked.

Cole nodded.

“That sucks.”

Erik was the oldest cousin. He'd fought in the first Gulf War and was always telling Cole that the army would do him good. Cole was not about to risk getting blown up. Most of Erik's friends were guys who were half crazy or missing body parts, guys like Taylor Jones.

His cousins talked jobs, football, hunting, the kind of talk that had been passed down from their fathers. They were even beginning to look like their old men, receding hairlines, ballooning drum-tight Dove Creek guts. Cole leaned against the shed, where his grandfather used to store the snakes. He would catch them in the mountains during the summer and cage them in flat boxes. Every year there were fewer and fewer serpent handlers. Most of the churches had given it up.

One time his cousins had threatened to lock Cole in the shed. He'd kicked and thrashed, his shrieks echoing down the hillside until his grandfather came upon them like a lion. He took a thin whip of a hickory and made the cousins line up; they pressed their small hands against the shed, faces squinted in dreaded anticipation, and one by one he whipped them and he did not stop until all of them were crying, even Lyle.
Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Then his grandfather had led Cole back to the house and with unexpected gentleness, said, “Don't weep child, do not weep.”

When Uncle Larry came around to the shed, Justin hid the canning jar behind his back, but Larry saw. “If your mothers find out,” he said. Then, “Here, give me a nip.”

Justin, grinning, handed him the jar. Larry took a swallow. “Whoo,” he said after. “Burns.” He passed it to Cole. “How you holding up?”

“All right.”

“I wish you'd talk some sense into your grandma about selling this place. Especially now that she's all alone.”

“She's not alone.”

Larry held his gaze for a second, then turned to Erik. “I heard you're gonna start working security at Heritage.”

“That's right. Maybe we'll be at the same site.”

“It's a good job.” Larry looked again at Cole. “ 'Course, Cole here seems to be doing all right being a nurse.” When Larry grinned, his mustache curled like a limp caterpillar. “Maybe I should look into that. You're doing real well there.”

“Larry the nurse,” Erik said, and snorted.

They all laughed, and Cole squinted at Larry. How much did he suspect? Did they all know? He would have to be more careful, and remind his grandmother to keep quiet about the money. “It pays all right,” he said evenly.

When he went up to the table for more food, his grandmother waved him over. She and the aunts, and other family and church members, were gathered in a circle of lawn chairs, passing around photo albums. More comfortable here, he pulled a chair up next to his aunt Esther, who was wiping away tears.

“I always loved to watch Daddy preach,” she said. “The way he'd roll those sleeves up, like he was about to get in a fight.”

Rebecca agreed. “It was like he was bigger than just a man.”

Cole's grandmother was at the center of things. Her silver hair, which she usually pinned in a tight bun, hung freely, flowing past her shoulders.

“That's how I first met him,” she said. “He was preaching all around West Virginia, the coal camps and what not.” Cole knew the story well, could hear it in his grandfather's voice:
Dogs chased me and guns were pointed at me, but I was walking with the Lord.
His grandmother continued, “He came up to Wolf Run and set up a tent revival. People was suspicious. Religion wasn't real big in that holler, was it, Pearl?”

Pearl exhaled a stream of smoke. She chain-smoked thin brown cigarettes, which her husband, Walter, lit for her with a plastic NASCAR lighter. She looked relaxed and happy in the sagging striped lawn chair, as if she were lounging at a pool. As she talked, she rested her hand on her Walter's knee. Cole wasn't used to seeing old people touch each other like that.

“Oh, no, it wasn't a real religious holler,” Pearl agreed. “But we were curious about this revival. Good God, all that tongue speaking, and Clyde up there hollering. I was scared, but Dorothy was taken with him.”

“Well, he baptized me.” His grandmother looked at Pearl, who must have tried to convince her sister not to run off with this strange preacher man, but she married him anyway and he took her back to his family's place, where together they built a church.

“You didn't get touched by the Holy Ghost then, did you?” a church member asked.

She shook her head. “That happened later. I was feeling so empty inside. We were flat-broke and Clyde was laid off, and I had nowhere to turn. I was right over there.” She pointed to a pile of dirt. “That's where the garden used to be, and I was staking tomatoes, then I just got this feeling. I dropped to my knees and started praying. Next thing I knowed I was speaking another language.”

“We all thought Clyde was crazy,” Myrtle interrupted.

His grandfather's sister, silent up until now, sat on a rocker that Cole had carried out from the house, and she looked like she'd already died and been dug up from the earth. Cole had never met her before today. She had brought several of her children and grandchildren with her, the men in faded jeans, T-shirts, work boots, and the women's dresses frayed with holes. Cole noticed their dirty hands. His grandfather rarely spoke of his kin except to say that he came from a family of unbelievers and Baptists. As Myrtle talked in a low, muffled voice, everyone leaned forward. She was missing several teeth, and her severe brow bone made her eyes look even more craterlike. They were the same blue as his grandfather's.

“Clyde went to the Baptist church with Grandma where he was baptized early on. He used to tell me I was going to rot in hell, so finally I got dunked too. But when he went to that holy-roller revival, he changed. He used to be a hard worker, but after he said he'd seen God's light, he didn't lift nary a finger to help on the farm. I reckon he was struggling with something—”

“The call to preach,” Esther explained, the others nodding in agreement.

Myrtle wasn't through. “Clyde left us high and dry. We moved to Kentucky after Daddy lost his job at the mines, and I didn't see my brother for many years after that.” She smacked her lips. “Maybe he was struggling with his calling. But I tell you what, God took him from our family.”

“Well, he thought of you often,” Cole's grandmother said softly.

“You think he would have come to my funeral?” Myrtle snorted. “It would have been a cold day in hell.”

There was an awkward silence, then Esther started talking about how good the food was and the others chimed in, as if Myrtle hadn't said a word. Cole admired the old woman for speaking up. He stretched out his legs and felt the sun on his face. Then he heard his name.

“I don't know what I would have done without Cole. When Clyde was sick, Cole took care of him.”

He opened his eyes, sat up. “I didn't do much.”

“You did.”

“Not enough.”

Everyone was looking at him, and he thought they could see the truth. He made up an excuse about getting more food, and everyone encouraged this, they liked to see him eat, he was too thin, they said. But his stomach felt tight as he stood in front of the spread. He thought of Connie saying that he looked like his mother. Nobody else had mentioned her.

Naomi came up next to him and sprinkled a handful of potato chips on her plate. Her hands shook. “Here goes my diet.”

“You okay?”

She paused, looked down at her hands. “Just a little nervous.” She set her eyes on him. “You look peaked. You better not do any more drinking.”

“What drinking?”

“Please, I know what goes on behind that shed.” She clucked her tongue. “Lord knows how I raised such heathens.”

“Well, you got a girl in college, that's pretty good.”

“That's true.” She smiled, but her eyes were searching him.

“You look like you want to say something,” he ventured.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, just thinking. Go on now, get you some more to eat.”

At the end of the day, as acquaintances and church members trailed out one after another, the quiet mood gave way to something wilder and unhinged. Kay said to Cole, “Granddaddy must be rolling over in his grave.” Dell vomited, and Erik and Justin looked awfully pale. The next time the jar was passed to Cole, he turned it down. They should have been hanging their heads and weeping. The last glimmer of sunlight vanished and Cole looked up at the blanket of stars and wondered if his grandfather was up there somewhere.