Candlemoth (24 page)

    Sometimes
I get a little confused. I lose the sequence of things, dates become muddled.

    It is
only when Father John comes down and asks me about all these things that the
patchwork seems to mend. Things come back, things I haven't thought of for
years, and as they return there is a growing sense of realization about what is
going to happen to me.

    America,
the same America I turned my back on and betrayed, was now returning that favor
in kind.

    Father
John told me that a final date of execution would be confirmed within the week.

    I
thought of the cigarettes wrapped in paper and wedged down the side of the
sink.

    
Soon,
Nathan, I thought.

    
Soon
.

    They
did come down and weigh me. One hundred and fifty-two pounds. I had lost weight
and never noticed.

    I
made a joke, something like
Seems to me you'd only have to plug me into the
wall to finish me off with a body weight like that,
but the guy in the
white tunic didn't smile, didn't even look at me. He was either deaf, or just
numb to such things, going through the routine without ever connecting with
whoever was there ahead of him. Maybe he thought like Mr. West.
Dead meat.

    I
watched him leave. He didn't look at me. He walked with his head down, like he
was ashamed.

    There
were times when I believed I wished for nothing less than to talk with Father
John. Other times I looked forward to his visits as if they were the only
reason for staying alive. His job was to draw me out of myself, to have me
speak, to remember, to recount the other details, the things that were never
said in the myriad court appearances I made back then. Here was my opportunity
to understand myself, to gain awareness of why I was here.

    Father
John told me that we created our own destinies. He did not believe in the
ever-present hand of God. He told me he didn't believe our lives and fates were
bound by some ethereal and omniscient force. He said he wanted me to look, to
soul-search, to try and understand why I was here. He basically said that if we
were in the shit, then we got ourselves there.

    That
was something I didn't want to believe. For so long I had carried the certainty
that it was all because of someone else, that it was political, that there were
people who really believed that what happened was what
should
have
happened, and there was nothing I could have done about it. I believed I could
have been anyone, that purposes would have been served any which way. I
believed in bad luck. I
wanted
to believe in bad luck. If I could
believe in that then I did not have to take any responsibility at all.

    Father
John Rousseau knew how I felt, and he started to take it all away. For a while
I hated him for that, despised him for challenging all that I had held so
close. This was my belief system. He had his. I had mine. What right did he
have to challenge that?

    But
he did. Challenged it with ferocity. And as I watched that Jericho crumble
beneath the onslaught of questions and memories and recognition, I began to
remember more; details that had slipped away soundlessly, things that I never
believed it would be possible to remember. It seemed that everything was there,
every second, every heartbeat, every thought, and as I spoke of those things,
as Father John listened, I imagined that Nathan was there beside me, perhaps
seated at a third plain deal chair in
God's Lounge,
sharing Luckys and
shooting the breeze, smiling like he once had in Ma's kitchen, looking like he
had when he came with
the burden,
looking like the kid with jug-handle
ears, traffic-light eyes, and a mouth that ran from ear to ear with no rest in
between.

    Perhaps
that was the only reason I went on talking, for as long as I talked I was still
alive, and as long as I was alive I could still remember Nathan Verney.

    And
as long as I remembered Nathan then perhaps I could believe there was some
sense to it all.

    
There
wasn't, I knew that, but like Father John kept on telling me: You have to keep
on believing… you just have to keep on believing
.

    'South?'
I had asked Nathan. 'Are you fucking crazy?'

    Nathan
was seated. He didn't flinch, didn't move a muscle, almost as if he'd predicted
my exact reaction.

    'You
understand what's going on down there?' I asked, my voice incredulous. 'Hey!
Wake up, man! Smell the coffee for Christ's sake.'

    Nathan
glanced at me, his expression cold. Nothing justified blasphemy.

    'You're
a black man,' I said, 'a negro, an African-American… you don't go
south.'

    'Which
is exactly why we go south,' Nathan said quietly.

    'We
go south we get killed,' I said matter-of-factly.

    Nathan
nodded. 'We go south because that's the last place anyone will think we're
gonna go for exactly the reason you're saying. We go south because any kinda
nigger with half a brain would
never
go south, and that's exactly why
they'll look for us north.'

    'But
hell, Nathan, you gotta understand that with what's going on right now there is
no reason in the world you ain't gonna get yourself killed and dumped in some
swamp.'

    Nathan
looked up at me and smiled.

    'A
swamp here is better than a swamp in some country I never even heard of until a
few months ago.'

    I sat
down.

    There
was method in his madness.

    'Look,'
he said. 'You gotta take everything into consideration. We go north then
there's a greater chance we'll be identified. I don't know what kinda
arrangement they have for dealing with this kinda thing, people who just
disappear when their Draft Notice comes, but sure as hell they're gonna have
something. They'll think we're going north because it would be crazier than
shit to go south, and so we go south, make sense?'

    I
shrugged. It was too much. Too overwhelming for me to take everything on board.

    'Let
me make the decisions, okay?' he said calmly.

    
Have
already, I thought. Hell, Nathan, you have already
.

    I gave
Nathan Verney control of my life at that time. I let him lead the way, I let
him direct us both, almost as if there was one spirit and two bodies. I had
cheated him, I knew that. Cheated him into thinking that going with him had
really been my decision too. I felt guilty for that, for lying, for all my
slight deceptions, and yet now I was here there was little I could do. I could
not turn back, that would have been worse, and so I followed… quietly,
obediently, I followed.

    We
took a bus out of Greenleaf and headed first for Augusta and Macon, and then
down through Cordele and Albany towards the Florida state line.

    I
remember that journey, the hours we spent with our knees up against the backs
of the seats in front, the endless road ahead, the fields and trees, the sky
like a roof on the world. It rained at one point, rained for maybe ten, fifteen
minutes, and through the rain-spattered window the world was distorted enough
for it to be a new place.
If only,
I had thought,
if only the world
had changed its face that day and become something else entirely.

    At
first Nathan said little, he was subdued and internal, and I wished so hard I
could have read what he was thinking. Every once in a while he'd turn and smile,
almost as if reassuring me that everything would be alright. I didn't believe
that for a minute. And then he seemed to ease somewhat, to relax a little, and
for a while he talked of things that had happened when we were kids.

    'The
fish,' he said. 'You remember the fish?'

    I
smiled; I remembered it like it was yesterday.

    Nathan
shook his head. 'I remember when we were running down the street away from
Benny Amundsen's place, those kids chasing us… Christ, you looked like you were
gonna shit yourself.'

    'Me?
You shoulda seen
yourself
. And then when Eve Chantry appeared you nearly
fainted right there in the street.'

    Nathan
laughed. 'You were the one who thought she was a witch. You were the one who
told me she'd eaten her freakin' husband.'

    'Everyone
thought she was a witch, not just me.'

    Nathan
shook his head. 'No, man, you were the chicken- shit one, Danny, as chickenshit
as they came.'

    'Go
fuck yourself,' I retorted.

    Nathan
pulled a face, a face like a scared weepy kid. 'Oooh, the witch is coming,
Nathan,' he whined. 'Watch out for the witch who ate her husband.'

    I
turned to look out of the window, feigning indignance.

    Nathan
nudged me in the shoulder.

    'Eat
shit, Nathan,' I said.

    'Eat
shit, Nathan,' he mimicked in a simpering voice.

    I
turned suddenly and thumped him hard on the upper arm.

    Nathan
started laughing and rubbing his arm simultaneously. 'Fuck, Danny, that hurt!'

    'Ooh,
ooh, Danny, that hurt,' I replied.

    And
then he was laughing so much the woman ahead of us turned and looked at him
like a reprimanding school- ma'am.

    She
turned back and Nathan pulled a face, pouting like a spoiled child. He pointed
at the woman and mouthed
witch.

    And
so that journey went - laughing like we possessed not a care in the world.
Perhaps a pretense, a brave face for the world, but it didn't matter. Whatever
that world was, it felt like we were driving away from it, and that was fine by
me. We stayed in Georgia the first night, in a motel outside of Waycross, but I
did not sleep, can neither remember closing my eyes nor ever really forgetting
for a second why I was there. I sat up at one point, looked out through the
window towards the fields beyond the highway, and somewhere within those fields
I saw shadows moving, shadows like people, and I imagined they were out there
looking for me, looking for us, already aware of our betrayal and plotting our
capture and return.

    I
asked myself if I should go back. I asked myself if I would have ever actually
received
the burden
myself. That was a question that would never be
answered until I did go back.
If
I went back.

    I
remember walking back from the window and sitting on the edge of Nathan's bed.
He slept soundly. I watched him for a while, and I realized that he slept so
well because this was his decision. He had been committed and realistic, he had
determined his course of action, and would have carried it through regardless
of my agreement or presence. He had been true to whatever ideal he possessed.
That's why he slept. And that was why I could not.

    For a
time, seated on the edge of that bed, I felt like nothing, with no more
substance than one of the shadows out there in the fields beyond the highway.
Perhaps those shadows didn't see Nathan because he was real. And perhaps Nathan
would not have seen them either.

    They
were my ghosts, destined perhaps to follow me until I finally made a decision
of my own.

    My
own private ghosts, neither taunting nor threatening, neither questioning nor
scolding, they were just there.

    I
remembered the candlemoth, the small wooden frame that still hung over my bed
back there in Greenleaf. It was a fitting gift from Eve Chantry, something that
was trying so hard to be something else, and failing to recognize its own worth
it kept on trying to be something else until it died.

    As if
in echo of that thought I remember looking to my left, and there, right there
against the window, there was a flutter of wings. A single moth. It was beating
its wings against the glass to come inside. It wanted the light. Wanted to
reach the light. Wanted the light so much it would die to get it.

    I did
not open the window. I merely pressed my face against the glass to watch that
thing tirelessly attempt the impossible.