The Truest Pleasure (34 page)

He kicked the covers partly off. I reached to pull the sheet back and he pushed my hand away. But his eyes was still closed. He didn't know what he was doing. “You got to stay covered up,” I said. I felt like Tom was a little youngun I had to look after.

I nursed the baby at midnight, and carried her around the living room until she belched. The house was still except for the creak of wind pressing the roof. I still smelled like smoke.

After I put Fay down I went back to the bedroom. As soon as I brought the light into the room I saw Tom had his eyes open. “You ought to sleep,” I said.

“Ain't nobody going to stop me,” he said, looking around the room as if he didn't even see me.

“Nobody is trying to stop you,” I said.

“I ain't going to quit,” he said. His voice was vague, as though he was saying one thing and thinking of something else.

“Quit what?” I said.

“I'll get a dollar for wood and hew more crossties,” he said.

I saw he was out of his head. It was a new plan he had to make money that winter. The railroad had advertised it would buy crossties a dollar each if they was made from sound chestnut wood. It took a day to hew a good one, but in winter there wasn't any other way to make money. He had bought a new ax that fall.

“Ain't nobody going to stop me,” Tom said again.

I pushed the covers back to his chin. The cholly morbis seemed to be over. I guess the burnt whiskey had stopped it. Or the blackberry juice. The old-timers had knowed what would work. But Tom had took some kind of fever. I figured he had got so weak and overheated something else had attacked him besides the cholly morbis. He was red hot. I could smell fever in the room.

“I'm going to get two dollars for the molasses and split some more rails,” Tom said.

In the fever his worries was all magnified and multiplied. I guess he was remembering his fears. “Mama, we got fifteen cents and a gallon of cornmeal,” he said.

“I know where they's a rabbit,” he said.

The anger and spite went out of me. Looking at Tom laying there I thought I'd be sick myself if it would make him well.

I tried to think what to do for fever. There was still whiskey in the jug. And there was pneumony salve, but I didn't know if it would help. I tried to recall what folks said about fevers. The Indians made willow-bark tea. But I didn't have any willow bark. I went to the medicine shelf to see what was there.

Pa had tincture of lobelia for snake bites. And he had some powders for when his back was killing him. There was kidney pills Dr. Johns had give him, and yellow root I give the younguns
for worms. There was a bottle of camphor, and cough syrup of honey and raspberry juice. There was Epsom salts and mineral spirits.

I got a pan of cold water from the kitchen and took it into the bedroom. The only thing I could think to do was sponge Tom off. There wasn't anybody to ask for help, and nobody awake but me. I turned the lamp up a little and pulled the covers back. Unbuttoning his nightshirt, I washed off Tom's chest like I had before. But this time I went slow, using more water to cool him.

“I'll take fifteen cents for the rabbit,” he said.

I washed his arms, wetting the undersides and the insides of the elbows. I wet his wrists, because I knowed you could cool yourself off by chilling your forearms.

“Tom,” I said, “roll over.” I figured if I could wet his back and the back of his neck that would cool him off more than anything. But he didn't hear me. He was so heavy I didn't think I could turn him over by myself.

“I won't give a cent,” he said. “I wouldn't give a cent for such carryings-on.” He was talking to me, or about me. He was still thinking about the money I had give to the preacher.

“Turn over,” I said. But he didn't pay any attention. He kept muttering like he was dreaming, but his eyes was open. I thought maybe if I could get a hold I could turn him over. I needed something to brace my foot against. I needed a place to grab him. I got on the other side of the bed and pushed my foot against the wall, and I stuck both my hands under his shoulders. I raised the shoulder some, but not high enough to roll him over. He fell back and his belly quivered. He was heavier than a big sack of meal.

“Roll over,” I said. I tried again, and still couldn't get him turned. There was no way I could lift his shoulder. I was going to have to give up. Then suddenly he turned over like somebody rolling in their sleep to try a fresh, cool side of the bed.

I washed his back, and held the cloth to the back of his neck. I figured that might cool him a little. It seemed to work. He quit muttering and closed his eyes. After I took the pan to the kitchen I felt his forehead and it was cooler. His face was still red, but not as splotchy. He was asleep and not talking to hisself. I was so tired I set down and closed my eyes. After I drowsed a while, I got on the bed myself and went to sleep.

The next morning Pa brought me a letter from the mailbox. It was from Locke. I set right down by the bed and read it.

“Dear Ginny,

“You know my big mouth always has trouble squeezing itself into the point of a pen, like a camel going through the eye of a needle. But I wanted to write, as much as the rich man probably wants to go to heaven. I meant to write soon as I got your letter, but then they transferred us to California. And no sooner had I got here than we had an earthquake and nothing has been the same since. I've read your letter several times in the past few months, and I've tried to think of something useful to say. Maybe your letter has helped me more than I can help you.

“The night of the quake I started to write, but was too tired to concentrate. I had worked a twelve-hour shift at the hospital here. We've had a bad run of flu some say the soldiers brought back from Manila, and I've been working extra hours. The wards are full of sick soldiers and we are more shorthanded
than ever. I had the tablet of paper and pencil on the table beside my bed, but I couldn't get started with my letter. I sleep in an annex of the hospital. I was so tired I kept going over your words, but they got twisted up with the faces of boys I'd been tending. Seventeen had died in the past week, and we had another hundred who could die. The flu kept spreading through the barracks.

“Finally I gave up and turned out the light. I must have slept four or five hours, dreaming of your letter and Pa and the place on the river. I thought I heard Mama speaking. You know what a deliberate voice she had. But she was talking about the flu and the boys in the ward. She was saying prayer alone wouldn't be enough. And as she spoke I was sliding away. I washed up and away on a wave, then rocked the other way. It felt like the building and earth under was melting. That must have been when I woke and heard the roar. It sounded like a train going underground and through the hospital. Timbers and brick walls crumbled. But I couldn't get out of bed. I was caught in a fluid that pushed this way and that. The bed slammed against one wall, then the other. I was scared as a baby would be if its mama had a fit. The solid stuff of the world had turned to plunging, shoving jelly.

“After a minute the awful rocking stopped and I let go of the bed and tried to find my clothes. There was screams and sounds of the building crumbling. It was dark and I tasted dust. Through the window I saw fires. A gas main exploded and lit up the sky.

“Ginny, I won't go into details about what followed. You can imagine how the hospital looked. Some of the walls and floors
had fell and the wards was full of sick and dying, terrified, confused about what had happened. Many died that night of shock, or thirst. I worked eight hours straight carrying patients out of the rubble. I was lucky to be alive myself. Four nurses in a room next to mine got killed by a falling timber.

“Ginny, your letter has helped me more than I can ever help you. Your words reminded me of the family and the
peace
fulness of Green River just when I needed them most. I have been weakened by the earthquake, and by the horror on the sick men's faces. To somebody in a fever an earthquake must seem like the flames of hell itself unleashed on their face. Everything that is solid and certain gives way. Earth has lost its firmness.

“Only now are things beginning to calm down. The electricity and water was restored to the hospital in less than a week. But it will be longer before the burned and collapsed sections are replaced. I feel weak as somebody with the flu. Worrying about the patients instead of myself has kept me going.

“Now that I've started I might as well tell what I've been thinking. You know what a binge talker I am. I think the biggest problem we all have is our fear. We live in fear of sickness and pain, and big losses. That's natural, the most natural thing. And in the mountains we are afraid of snakes and flash floods, spiders and panthers. We fear lightning and hailstorms. We are afraid of outsiders and strangers, of the law and government, and of change. We live in terror of damnation and hellfire.

“The special thing that humans have is thinking. We remember the past and plan for the future. But that knowledge of the possible makes us fearful and anxious. Almost everything
we do is for reassurance. I guess what Mama feared most and Tom fears most is loss of control and reason. It scares them to see a husband or wife go out of control. If somebody that close to them can lose their willpower and dignity then they might also.

“We never understand another person's ecstasy. Watching intense joy in somebody else is repugnant to us, even somebody eating with extreme relish or drunk and singing to themselves. Somebody else's sexual pleasure is unsavory to us. And a fit of ecstasy at a service, the loss of control in speaking in tongues or rolling on the ground, must seem embarrassing as watching somebody in the spasms of sex. It could be seen as a loss of humanness, of the faculties that make us human.

“For somebody like Tom that is a price too great to pay. All his life he has felt little control over anything except his work. Sister, no one wants a spouse to escape to a place of their own, separate and sufficient, where they can't go themselves. It is a kind of denial of marriage. Would you be pleased if Tom had another farm he went to at times to work and cherish? Would you resent it if he loved to hunt as much as Joe does, and vanished for days or even weeks into the woods beyond the Long Holler? I don't know the answer, but it is the kind of thing you could think about. What if he had a passion for prospecting and was gone looking for minerals, though he never seemed to find anything but the enthusiasm for searching?

“But I think your kind of joy is a gift too. Not everybody can experience such pleasure, even if they wanted to. I'm not sure most of us have the capacity to feel what you do at the services. You and Pa and Joe must be blessed that way.

“You know as well as I do there is no greater pleasure than in giving, and in finding out what we have to give. That's where we find our asylum from the horror all around.

“Now here is my idea, Ginny. I want you to think about what Tom has give you. Think of where his joy is, his enthusiasm. Think of what he has brought to the place, and to Pa, to you and Jewel and the younguns. Consider what his talents are, and what his truest pleasure is. And if you think where his strength is, and his greatest fear (for they are close related, wouldn't you guess?) then you might see if you have been resisting his gifts. Have you been so busy that you have refused to accept what Tom has offered? Have you wanted to give more than to receive?

“This is my idea of the moment. Maybe I will have another one tomorrow. You know how I tear on once I start. Right now I have to go on my shift. The California sun is bright after a little rain. That's all the weather we get here, a rain from time to time that washes down dry streambeds and makes flowers bloom along the banks. It has made me feel better writing to you, and thinking about the place there on the river, and the family. Now I must get to the ward before the sergeant comes looking for me.

Love,

Locke.”

That morning Tom still had a low fever. I give him spring water and sassafras tea. But the fever wouldn't go away. I knowed as the day wore on he would get hotter. All fever patients are cool in the morning. Whatever Tom had was still working in him. But the fever was hiding in the morning.

I sent Pa for Dr. Johns before dinnertime. I didn't know what else to do. The doctor and Pa come back in the doctor's buggy just as I got dinner ready.

“Looks like you had a little fire,” the doctor said.

“It was fighting fire that give Tom cholly morbis.”

“And he ain't got cholera morbis now?”

“He's got fever now,” I said.

The doctor frowned. Doctors hate it when you tell them what's wrong with a patient. I guess they're afraid they'll have to disgree with you.

“He'd be dead by now with cholera morbis,” the doctor said.

“He got over it,” I said.

“But he's still sick?” the doctor said. When we talked it was as if we was still teasing each other, the way we had when I was a little girl. I invited him to have some dinner, but he went on into the bedroom. I took the jug of whiskey back in, for I knowed he would give Tom some and take a drink hisself.

The doctor bent over Tom and listened to him breathe. He sniffed his breath like he was a cook sniffing soup. “Take a drink of this,” he said to Tom.

When the doctor come out of the bedroom he turned to me. “He has typhoid,” he said.

“It's too late in the year for typhoid,” I said.

“It's been a warm fall,” the doctor said.

I felt I'd been slapped. “Typhoid comes in summer,” I said.

“Typhoid comes when it comes,” the doctor said and drunk from the jug. I set down, and couldn't think of anything to say.

“Typhoid is different every time,” the doctor said. “It can last three days, or months. It can be walking typhoid, or it can kill you.”