The Promise of Jesse Woods (18 page)

“First of all, I didn’t come back to make trouble.”

“Your intentions don’t matter. You’re making trouble. That’s the point.”

“There’s history between Jesse and me.”

“And that history is over,” Earl said. “The page is turned. She don’t want nothing to do with you. She told me that. You think I didn’t ask her?”

I cocked my head.

“Everybody knowed you was sweet on Jesse. The way you and Dickie hung around her.” Earl looked down. He didn’t seem as menacing. “She told me she had feelings when you two was kids. She felt sorry for you.”

“She felt
sorry
for me?”

“You was fat and had big ears and didn’t have no friends. And you were a preacher’s son. So you had two strikes. And you were a Pirates fan.”

“That was the third strike.”

“That was a wild pitch,” Earl said, grinning. It wasn’t a bad dig, I had to admit.

“You was nice to her,” Earl continued. “You was one of
the only people who showed kindness. I thank you for that. I know she appreciated your family.”

“I was a lot nicer than you,” I said, my voice edgy.

He pawed at the gravel with one foot. “I won’t argue with that. I ain’t proud of a lot of things I said and did. To her and others. I’ve turned over a new leaf, though.”

“That’s a big leaf to lift by yourself.”

“I didn’t lift it on my own.” Earl looked up at me. “I love that girl. I love everything about her. And I want to give her a different life than the one she’s had. She never got dealt a full hand and the cards she did have were twos and threes. Nobody should go through what she did.”

“You’ve got no argument from me there.”

“But you coming back, when her future is right there in front of her, when we’ve got all these plans—that ain’t fair. Not for her. Not for me.”

“How did you two get over your . . . differences? There was history between you, and none of it was good.”

“That ain’t none of your business. But I’ll tell you anyway. And you should know that your daddy is the one who brought us together.”

That revelation sent my stomach churning. “And how did that happen?”

“I always thought church was something you did, like paying union dues. My daddy treated it the same as Blackwood—a country club you joined for all the privileges. After he died, Blackwood stepped up and helped us out. He became like my own daddy. So I followed his lead.
Somewhere along the line, I took a hard look in the mirror. I saw the man I’d become.”

If this had been a play, I would have easily been able to deliver the next line. In a dramatic production, you feed off the emotion of the other actors, take their intensity and volley it. You use the onstage chemistry, love or hate or indifference. I felt something genuine coming from Earl, but before I could respond with something snappy, he continued.

“Your daddy was preaching one Sunday about forgiveness. About coming to God all dressed and cleaned up when down inside things are dirty. He asked if there was anything hanging over us with somebody else. I was sitting there looking at the words in red and I remembered her. Her face just jumped right out at me. And I thought,
Poodle dog and apple butter—what is this?
I couldn’t get Jesse out of my head. The names I’d called her. How ugly I had been. And to that colored boy, too.”

I studied Earl’s face, watching for some slip in the performance. That he still referred to Dickie as “that colored boy” let me know that his racism hadn’t been washed in the blood.

“After what happened to her,” Earl continued, “you know the church helped her out. And Blackwood didn’t like it. So I went along with him and Gentry. There was ugly things said. Matt, I didn’t go back to her to do anything but apologize. And I didn’t really do it for her. I was doing it for me. To get the bad feelings out, you understand. So I went to the store . . . She was putting out meat
in the case and there was blood all over her white apron.” He paused at the memory. “I said, ‘Jesse, I’m real sorry for the things I’ve said. Names I called you.’ I just let it fly right there in the store. At first she turned away. She can be stubborn and bullheaded—you know that. But when I told her it was the Lord who convicted me, she turned around. I said, ‘The Lord has done a work in my heart. And I’m trying to make amends for things I’ve done.’ I told her she was at the top of the list of people I knew I’d hurt.”

I glanced at the house and saw my mother at the window. She turned and the curtain fluttered.

“Are you sure you don’t want some pie?” I said.

He shook his head and crossed his arms.

“What did Jesse say to you?”

The memory made Earl smile. “She told me to stick my amends where the sun don’t shine. Jesse don’t hold back. But when I didn’t cuss at her or yell, I think she saw I meant it. And finally she said she’d consider forgiving me. That’s what started the whole thing. We sat together in church. One thing led to another.”

It was clear there had been a change in Earl, and it struck me that all my conversations with Jesse growing up hadn’t yielded fruit, but this apology from an old enemy had. And it felt like I was looking from the outside in again on more than one level.

“You ever talk to Dickie?” I said. “You ever tell him you’re sorry?”

“I ain’t got to everybody I’ve hurt. And the truth is, the tally ain’t all in yet. There’s a long line waiting.”

His story sounded convincing. Poignant, even. Part of me wanted to get in my car and head north. But there was something still there, a paper cut in my heart that kept rubbing the wrong way and opening at vulnerable moments.

“I saw Jesse this morning. Did she tell you?”

His back went rigid and he set his jaw. “I ain’t talked with her today.”

“I got there early and waited in the parking lot. I wanted to hear it from her. If marrying you is what she wants, I’ll leave and never come back.”

“You told her that?”

“I didn’t get the chance.”

“Then I’ll answer you. She’s choosing me. And the only thing you’re doing is stirring up memories.” He shook his head like he had bitten down on a hot pepper. “Let sleeping dogs lie, Matt. Because if you don’t, them dogs will bite. And they bite hard.”

I searched for something to say, something that felt genuine. “Jesse made me a promise. And you know she keeps her word. I think it was her way of breaking the family curse and being different than her father.”

Earl curled his bottom lip under his overbite and blew air in a sigh. He stared at a spot on the hill like he was searching for a site for a deer stand. “She promised you something this morning?”

“No, it was a long time ago.”

“Then forget it.”

When I didn’t respond, he took a step closer. “Look, I know what kind of family I’m from. I don’t want to wind
up like my daddy or Blackwood. I’m trying to turn things around.”

When he didn’t say anything more, I leaned in. “About the basketball at the picnic. Was that on purpose?”

“I didn’t mean to bloody your schnoz, if that’s what you mean. But that’s another thing I’m sorry about.”

“Then it’s good I came back. You can get that off your tally.”

Earl took a breath and lowered his voice. “I don’t wish you ill, Matt. But there’s something you ought to know. Not everybody around here has seen the light. Blackwood is spending a lot on the wedding ceremony.”

“He hated Jesse. He hated her family. Why would he be for this?”

“He thinks he can finally buy her property and get her out of the hollow.”

“Did he put you up to this? To get her land?”

He clenched his teeth. “I told you—I love that girl. I don’t want nobody hurting her. And people won’t be happy if you mess things up.”

“So I’m not invited to the wedding?”

He ignored the question, which was meant to be ignored.

“If Jesse can convince me this is what she wants, I won’t stand in your way. I might throw rice a little harder at you. But there’s still something not right and I don’t know what it is.”

He bit his cheek and narrowed his gaze. “I’m going to tell you something nobody knows. I’m telling you because
I believe you care about her. I really believe that. And I think you’ll keep this between us.”

The look on his face concerned me, and the tumblers in my mind spun. Was Jesse addicted to something? Did she have a life-threatening illness?

“Jesse’s pregnant,” Earl said.

The basketball to the nose was nothing. This was a sledgehammer to my heart. I felt pale, like the blood had gushed from some wound.

Earl put a hand on my shoulder. “Now you know why it’s important to leave. Do it for her. Just go on and get out of here.”

He went to the other side of the truck and got in and drove away.

JULY 1972

Dickie and I took a load up the hill at dusk, and he set up the tent. I cleared the fire pit and arranged the rocks, then gathered firewood. Crickets sang as we made a final trip for sleeping bags and food. Frogs charummed and croaked in the creek and ponds. The whole world came alive after the sun slipped below the hills. We found Ben’s sleeping bag in storage, on a high shelf in my grandmother’s garage. Just pulling it out and smelling it brought memories, and I wished Ben were there. He would have loved Jesse and Dickie. I harbored the dream that he would walk up the driveway one day, just like Dickie felt about his father.

My father came from a meeting at church and climbed
the hill carrying a flashlight. He helped us get the fire started and brought out two potatoes wrapped in tinfoil that we put at the bottom of the fire. We assured him we would be all right.

“No staying up all night,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He looked at Dickie. “That’s a fine tent. I can tell you’ve set it up a time or two.”

Dickie smiled. “Yes, sir. Mostly in the backyard when the landlord says it’s okay.”

My father smiled and looked out over the twinkling lights of the community below. It reminded me of the verse that said Jesus looked at the people with compassion. There was something about Dogwood that felt white unto harvest, at least to my dad.

Watching him walk down the hill, the light flashing on the path in front of him, was exciting and lonely. It was my first night away from them since moving to Dogwood. Part of me felt sad. What would happen when I went to college? I’d never had these thoughts but they came in waves as we popped the tops on sodas and ate the rest of the ham and cheese and chips.

Dickie began singing the words of “In the Year 2525” and making comments about life twenty, thirty, and a thousand years in the future. He spoke of UFOs and pointed out constellations. He was a big fan of
Star Trek
and had seen every episode that ran for the three seasons it was aired. He believed within ten years we would all have communicators.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, a way to talk to each other.”

“Like a phone?” I said, not having watched much
Star Trek
. “How are you going to get a wire long enough to go to the store?”

“You won’t have wires with it. You don’t have a wire on the radio and you can hear people talking, right?”

“So everybody’s going to have their own radio station?”

“It’s not like that. And it won’t just be a phone. You’ll take your blood pressure, your temperature. You’ll push a button and order a pizza. Call your family anywhere in the world.”

“Sounds like the Jetsons.” It was too wild to believe but Dickie could see it like he could see the fire in front of us.

My mother had put marshmallows in the cooler, unbeknownst to us, and we cut branches with Dickie’s pocketknife and sharpened them and roasted the marshmallows over the fire until they bubbled. Dickie held one in too long and burned it. When we’d eaten plenty, we burnt the rest, seeing what kind of glop they would make on the firewood.

It was just before midnight when we crawled into our sleeping bags. It was too hot in the tent, so I pulled my sleeping bag outside by the fire and stared at the stars.

“Hey, we didn’t eat the potatoes,” I said to Dickie.

“We’ll have them for breakfast,” he said, yawning. “Now if Mothman comes, you wake me up.”

All the Mothman and UFO talk revved my imagination. The flickering fire made the field and tree line swim.
Soon, Dickie was gone and the light snoring became a gale force wind. My mother conjectured that Dickie had a broken nose that hadn’t been repaired.

At the edge of the fire, mosquitoes and gnats were chased away by the heat. Fireflies swirled from the earth, but as the night wore on, their numbers dwindled. I watched the sky, hands behind my head, and wondered if there was life on a distant planet. I wondered if Ben was looking at the same sky. Did he miss us? Would he ever come home?

Something moved along the tree line and I sat up. There was something down there. Maybe a deer. It looked too big to be an opossum or raccoon. I peered into the darkness, wondering if it could be a wildcat. The fire would keep it away, I reassured myself. Someone said a bear had pillaged trash cans the previous summer. I also knew from
Old Yeller
that animals with hydrophobia acted irrationally. My father had told me about a man from his childhood who had been bitten by a rabid dog and said it was a horrible death. He’d never filled in the details but my imagination ran wild.