Dogwood (18 page)

I had been home a few weeks, searching the want ads each day and going through the process of reclaiming the room of my youth, when I came upon an envelope at the bottom of a dresser. My name was on the front, nothing else. I opened it carefully, finding a baseball card that had survived our bikes—we used to tape them to the spokes to make it sound like we were riding motorcycles.

The card was a Pete Rose rookie, 1963. I examined it and figured it would bring a lot of money to some collector. Rose stared just to the right of the camera, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at it squarely. Or his attention had been drawn away, or perhaps someone had suggested he look away. He played second base that year and wore the white Reds cap only seen on retro days. He had the boyish look of a man following a dream, unaware that he would garner the most hits in the history of the game, 4,256, and that he would be banned from the Hall of Fame.

Along with the card was a note. My father’s handwriting. A little shaky and slanted to one side, but it was his. I closed the door quickly and sat on the bed.

Will, my son,

I think I managed to keep this from your mother’s eyes, and if you find it in your room, congratulations. She moves
my stuff around. My gut tells me she won’t come into your room. She likes to keep things as they were, not as they are, and I can’t say I blame her.

I didn’t want to send this to you because I knew you would need to hear from me when you’re out, and I’m confident that day will come. I’m just not confident I’ll be around. So here goes.

I was never able to give you what you needed when you were young. I’m talking about the words—speaking into your life. They’ve never really been my thing. I don’t know why, but it wasn’t because of you. I guess I didn’t have much for you or Carson, but I’ve learned a lot since you’ve been gone. In fact, I’ve probably learned more through your experience than all the good combined, so I should start by thanking you. You’ve helped change our lives.

You’re probably wondering why I put the Pete Rose card here. It’s because I want you to remember that character counts. You can be the best there ever was at something, but if you have no character, what do you have? On the other hand, if you have very little as far as accomplishments but you have character, well, then you’re all right in my book.

If you’re unsure of where to go and what to do now that Clarkston is behind you, don’t worry. It will come to you. Give yourself time. Good things come to those who wait, as they say. You need a place to heal the broken parts, and I’m hoping home will serve as that place.

If I had to describe what I’ve learned these past few years, and you would probably echo this, I’d call it “a death to illusions.” We all have our preconceived notions of what the world is about and what will make us happy.

At some point, everybody glimpses how hard life really is, and they either go into depression or they throw themselves into the illusion. Despair is what some call it. My
guess is, you’ve looked this full in the face and lived with it for a while.

As a young man I chased things that appeared to fulfill or excite me. It took a few years, but life beat the expectation out of me. For some people it never happens. They hang on to what they think life ought to give them. I lost that the day of your sentencing. It was a brutal feeling. I don’t bring it up to punish you but to learn from it.

To be honest, some deaths are good. Some deaths teach that chasing a mirage is useless. The mirage that a job or a car or a house or a person can make you happy. When everything good is taken and you’re left with a fading hope that the world was fashioned by someone who cares and loves you, you begin to understand how much you’ve hung on to what isn’t because you can’t stand the thought of what truly is. I’m not sure I’m making much sense, but I think what I’m saying is true.

You’ve died to the illusion that life is fair and that every story ends happily ever after. That’s why they call them fairy tales. You’ve died to the illusion that you can understand
why
. None of us knows the answer to that, and those who think they do are the saddest lot of all because they’ve never come to the end of their own understanding. It’s not faith to say that when something painful happens, when you lose and lose again and the hurt goes so deep that you don’t think you can take another breath, it’s all going to work out for good. Faith doesn’t explain. It doesn’t even need to know or expect a happy ending. That’s not what we’re promised. Faith is abandoning illusions. It rests in something bigger, something beyond us and our ability. And I suspect you know that now.

There are only a few things I know for sure. One is that I believe in you. That may sound shallow, and to anyone else it would be, but I think you know what I mean. I believe
there is another explanation for the awful thing that happened. When you walked away from us and into that courtroom, it seemed to me there was something we didn’t know. One day I’ll find out, but I don’t have to know the truth to say I believe in you. I’m proud to call you my son. I can say that with my head high and my chest out.
I’m proud of you.

The other thing I know is that I won’t be here when you return, and that breaks my heart. Some people probably think I dread that day, and we’re ashamed. I won’t lie to you and say it’s easy to feel the stares and hear people whisper, telling their kids who they’re walking by. But I could not care less what those people think about me or you or anything else. They just know us from a picture in the paper and what some newshound printed. The only thing that matters to me after you clean out the barn of life, after you strip away all the illusion, is that I love you. That’s it.

I can’t imagine what you’re thinking as you read this rambling letter. I suppose you’re in your room or on the hill by the trees, and if some developer hasn’t gotten to it, there’s woods that will explode with color come fall. I wish I could be there right now. Maybe I am somehow. It eases the pain a little bit to think that I am.

I do have one prayer for you, Son. One thing in my heart I want to give that I hope you’ll remember. I pray you will let go of what isn’t and hold on to what is. It’s going to be a big adjustment coming back, and there may be part of you that just wants to move on, move away, and start over. If so, I’ll understand. You deserve a fresh start. But no matter where you go, no matter how far away from these hills your path takes you, I hope you’ll let go of the dead things, the illusions, and hang on to the hope you know is true and good and real.

I am so happy to call you my son. I wish we could go to
a game together and share a hot dog or two. Possibly a beer if you promised not to tell your mother. Maybe you can take Carson to a game and talk about me and laugh a little.

Never underestimate your heart, Will. Never underestimate the things you can accomplish. You have given a lot, but there are
no
limits on what love can do through a man with a good heart.

I love you with all of mine.

Daddy

The spring luncheon came and went without Ruthie. I tried to talk her into sitting on the periphery of the room, but she said her bones ached and she couldn’t “abide” being there. I honestly thought she was trying hard not to disappoint me, but in the end she couldn’t bring herself to face all those people.

“There will be another spring and more luncheons,” she said. “I’ll eventually work up the nerve.”

For someone who could push me into a penitentiary and face a notorious citizen, I was surprised she couldn’t sit and chew on a rubbery piece of chicken, but I guess there are stranger things in the world.

During my waking hours, I poured myself into caring for my family, trying new recipes and dishes, and staying busy. But in the quiet hours, when I was left with my own thoughts and nothing else, I thought of
him.
These were guilty times. I was responsible for my own thoughts, and if they kept going to
him
, if my mind kept wandering, something was wrong.

The speaker at the luncheon had shared her story of being depressed and how God had helped her through desperate times when she felt like she was losing her mind. A nice story, but I
wanted to ask so many questions.
How
had God rescued her? What was the process? Did she feel as stifled as I felt in our church? Was there hope? And what if you’re plagued by thoughts of other lovers? Does that make you bad or just normal?

There were nights when I’d drift off, only to wake up in a sweat, having dreamed of Will’s face. I was under his spell, even though I didn’t know what that spell was.

God,
I prayed,
deliver me. Protect me from myself.

I cleaned everything I could find at home, mowed the hillside and yard, planted some corn and beans in the upper garden, and took my mother for midnight grocery runs to avoid people. After a few weeks I decided I needed something more constructive, something that would pay and keep my parole officer happy.

I had received a modest check from Earl, the man who took away the part of the barn I hadn’t burned. It was enough to begin buying materials for my project. Using my father’s tractor, I graded a road from the barn to the hilltop, winding through the junipers and dogwoods as best I could without taking too many out. Now I needed enough gravel to fill the road, which would take more truckloads than I wanted to think about.

“What are you doing up there all day?” my mother asked after I came home sweaty and hungry and sat down to dinner. She had begun the long decline of widows, making dinners that were supposed to be for others but eating them herself. She cooked fried chicken livers twice a week, and the smell lingered long after.

“Just staying busy,” I said.

“Why don’t you talk with your brother about that job? He said he could find something for you.”

The distance between Carson and me had widened. We both knew it, both felt it. He rarely called to check on her, and when he found out I was doing something on the hill, he called even less frequently.

My mother had long been the safe one of the family. What my
father gave me in an adventurous spirit, taking chances and grabbing life by the horns, she had wrestled from me with all her might. She had more reasons not to do things than “Carter’s has pills,” as she would say. Still, I figured if she’d lived this long, unable to change, there was something to be said for that lifestyle. I attributed it to a tenacity of spirit, only in a different, inward direction.

“I was thinking of applying at the radio station,” I said, avoiding her question about Carson. “Is old Seeb still around?”

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Be out there in front of the public?”

“You can be pretty anonymous on the radio. Change my name. My voice is different since I worked there as a kid. And Seeb did say some nice things about me at the trial.”

“He did. Didn’t seem to help much, though. Everybody wanted blood, as if enough hadn’t already been spilled.”

We clinked our silverware a few minutes.

“Mrs. Spurlock called earlier and asked about you.”

“She heard anything from Elvis?”

“Not a thing. It doesn’t look good, Will. I think he might be gone.”

“As in gone away or dead?”

She shook her head.

“Didn’t he have a steady job at the Exxon station? He wouldn’t have just left that, would he?”

“That boy was scarred inside and out.”

The Spurlock house sat on a postage-stamp-size lot near the interstate. Shingles hung off the roof. The same cinder blocks I climbed as a kid were used as steps into the house. Attached to the back of the house was Mr. Spurlock’s workshop. Claude had been a perpetual welfare check recipient ever since his accident with a coal company. He coughed like he didn’t want to and drank like
he did. He’d fix shoes or carve figurines or do almost anything to pick up extra cash, but black lung got him a few years ago.

Elvis’s truck sat near the house, parked as if it waited for his return. The tires and wheel wells were caked with dried mud. I opened the door and looked inside. It was full of Coke bottles and cans and candy wrappers. Elvis once told me the blast had burned everything but his taste buds. I found a
Hustler
magazine under the seat. There was nothing else of interest, so I reached to close the door and noticed something on the back of the seat. Little flakes of dark red, dried, like a watery pizza sauce or something worse.

“Can I help you?” a woman drawled behind me.

I heard the familiar click of a shotgun and turned.

Doris Jean stood in the doorway, propping it open with a shoeless foot. Her hair looked like something had nested in it overnight. She wore a man’s T-shirt with a pocket over the left breast. I immediately recognized her, though she was thinner and older, but she had more trouble with me.

When I spoke her name, she pointed the gun at the ground. “Will? Is that you? Mama, it’s Will Hatfield.”

My mother had told me that Doris Jean was working as a waitress in a bar near Charleston. It was widely believed, she said, that she did more than wait tables, and from the circles under her eyes and deep lines in her face, I believed it. Her eyes looked vacant, and next to her mother she looked skeletal. Of course, next to her mother most people would look skeletal.

“Will, it’s so good of you to come over here,” Mrs. Spurlock said. A cigarette dangled from her mouth, and she waddled out to hug me and kiss me on the cheek. She smelled like a tobacco factory, and I was glad when she pulled away for a better look, her eyes shining. “How long have you been home?”

I knew that my mother had answered every one of her questions about me, so I just smiled and asked if we could go inside.

“Goodness, I haven’t been able to clean up in so long, but come on in. I can get you something to drink if you’d like.”

“I’m fine. Did the police go over Arron’s truck? take a close look at it?”

“I had to go get it from the Exxon station a couple of days after he disappeared,” Doris Jean said. She nodded toward an old Toyota, the bumper nearly rusted off. “Mama won’t let me drive it till we find out what happened.”

Flies seemed to be trying to get out of the house rather than in as we walked through the screen door.

“What happened to your dogs?” I said.

“Oh, after Claude died, the only one who kept up with them was Arron, and since he’s been gone, they’ve been runnin’ the hills. You might see them over yonder at your place before long.”

“Want a beer?” Doris Jean said.

I politely declined without pointing out that it wasn’t even 9:30 a.m. Once a server, always a server, I guess.

“Doris Jean has a real good job up in Charleston,” Mrs. Spurlock said. “She’s a dancer.”

“Oh?”

“I’m just fillin’ in for a couple of the girls who are sick. That drafty old place, it’s a wonder they all don’t get pneumonia.” She handed me a blue business card that said “One Free Entry” on the back. On the front was a silhouette of a nude woman standing by a pole. “I’m usually just a waitress, but the owner said I could fill in if there wasn’t nobody else who could dance. I’ve seen your brother up there a couple of times. You wouldn’t want to bring your mama, but you’re always welcome.”

I nodded, thanking her for the card, and turned to her mother. “About Elvis. Did the police say anything about leads? where they thought he might have gone? tracking a credit card?”

She laughed. “Arron didn’t have no credit cards. I cut ’em up
for him when he racked up a big bill. He paid it off, though, before he left. Every penny.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“It was something like fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Where’d he get the money to pay it off?”

“Saved it, I guess. I don’t know. Heck, Will, you’re askin’ more questions than the police.”

“I don’t mean to pry. I’m just concerned. I figured he’d be waiting for me with a fishing rod when I got out. Or a hunting dog or two.”

“Well, that’s what I figured,” Mrs. Spurlock said. “He was always talking about when you came back and all the stuff you two were going to do.”

Doris Jean moved into the kitchen but was still listening. I noticed her mother glancing her way a few times.

“Mind if I have a look in his room?” I said.

“If you think it might help,” Mrs. Spurlock said. The fat on her arms hung down over her elbows as she wobbled toward the back of the house. The floor creaked, and the house smelled of mold. She opened the door, stepped in, then closed it behind us.

She whispered quickly, as if someone was following us. “I didn’t want to say anything Doris Jean could hear. I think she may know more than she’s letting on.”

“Like what?”

“She’s mixed up with more than those people up near the capital. There were some rough characters nosing around after her a few weeks ago, just before Arron took off.”

“So you think those guys are why he ran?”

“I don’t know what happened, but I can tell you they were rough. That’s why I keep a loaded shotgun at the door. I don’t think Arron would have come back with them nosing around. There was a bust up at the end of the hollow of an old farmhouse. They were making some drugs there.”

“Meth?”

She nodded. “I think so. It was in all the papers, but I don’t think they caught the fellows who were actually making the stuff.”

“Sounds complicated.”

The floor creaked outside the door. “Mama, you two all right in there?”

Mrs. Spurlock clouded up, scrunching her face and getting emotional. “Oh, honey, it’s just that being in here brings it all back up.”

“I know, Mama,” Doris Jean said through the door. “He’ll be back.”

“I hope so. We’ll be out in a minute.”

“You missed your calling,” I whispered. “Should have been an actress.”

She put a meaty hand on mine and gave a knowing look. “With hips like these, I would have knocked ’em dead.” Then she turned to her son’s bed. That he still lived at home at his age was troublesome, but who was I to talk? “Arron is a good boy. He’s just a trouble magnet. Everything he touches or that touches him goes wrong.”

“Why don’t you talk to Doris Jean? ask her what she knows?”

“I’m scared, Will. If those people have anything to do with this, they’ll hurt Arron and maybe Doris Jean too.”

“Or you.”

“I don’t care about me.” She glanced at the floor.

“Maybe if we find those guys who run the lab, we’ll find Arron. Maybe he got hooked.”

“I don’t think he would have touched the stuff, but I can’t say for sure.”

The phone rang and Doris Jean answered. “Mama, it’s for you!”

“Be right there.” Then, to me, “There’s something else. I
haven’t told a soul this since Arron left. He left something here for you.” She bent over and reached under his mattress. “When he went missing, I opened it. I hope you don’t mind. It’s a will, but it also looks like there’s some kind of message for you. I don’t know what it means.”

I stuffed the envelope in my pocket and followed her out.

She talked on the phone, laughing loudly, as Doris Jean walked outside with me. “You find anything in there?”

I shook my head. “I can’t figure it out. Why would he just leave?”

“I don’t know. Any more than I know about why you killed those kids.” Doris Jean leaned against the house, bending a knee and putting a foot behind her, puffing on a cigarette. A car passed and she stretched to see who it was, exposing more of her body. I had to get out of there.

She watched me drive away, then moved back into the house.

I pulled to the side of the road and opened the envelope. It had nothing on the front, but on the page inside was my name and the date, one day before Arron went missing.

I don’t know if anything’s going to happen, but if it does, I want my mother to get all my worldly goods. If she wants to give them away to somebody else, that’s fine, but she gets first choice. That goes for the truck too.

I have only one other thing of value, and it should all go to Will Hatfield because he’s probably as
tired
of the police around here as I am. He’ll know where it’s at, and I think he’ll know what to do with it.

Sincerely,

Arron P. (Elvis) Spurlock

I read the note again. It was Elvis’s handwriting, no doubt. It was written just like he talked, just like his thought process. There
was something here, but what? I knew nothing about a thing of value Elvis owned nor where to look.