Flowers Page 7

  Jerp had peeked once during the dinner prayer, and saw Grandpa looking out the window to the barn at the same moment he added the part that went, "And, please, dear Lord, spare us from evil."

  Jerp shivered with the memory of that word, evil, and the way Grandpa's voice had cracked just a little as he said it. Jerp put away the currying brush and feed bucket, but the chill continued down his spine. Because he heard a soughing, scratchy sound from the hayloft above. He looked up just as a few strands of straw fell through the cracks in the floorboards. He hurried out of the barn, careful to latch the gate just as he had promised Grandma before she died.

  Jerp had sat with her one night, when her spark of life was fading rapidly. She looked at him with burning, fevered eyes, looked past and through him to the window, to the long shadows of the barn.

  "There’s a season for ever thing," she had gurgled. "The gate..."

  Jerp thought she meant the Pearly Gates. He waited for her to say more. But she closed her eyes to the lamplight and slept.

  Now Grandma was dead but the scarecrow boy was alive. Last year's piglet had grown plump and earned its place in the kitchen while the scarecrow boy still had its own moldy bristles. The cornfield was a dry graveyard, with not a morsel for the birds to scavenge, but the scarecrow boy still played silent sentinel. In seasons of change, seasons of slaughter, seasons of harvest, the scarecrow boy had patiently held its ground.

  As Jerp reached the farmhouse at the top of a slight rise of meadow, Jerp turned and looked back at the barn. It sagged silently to one side, making a crooked face. The two loading bays of the loft were deep eyes and the barn entrance was a hungry mouth with a hay-strewn tongue and stall-posts for teeth. In a high lonely window, Jerp saw the scarecrow boy staring back at him through the chickenwire screen. Jerp's heart clenched as he went inside the farmhouse.

  Grandpa was pouring milk into a gallon glass jar so he could tell when the cream was separated.

  "Grandpa, do barns have souls?" Jerp asked. Skyscrapers didn't have souls, airports didn't have souls, but maybe barns were different.

  Grandpa turned and gave a look that wasn't the look, but it was a look that could be its cousin, one that said I swear to Thee, what'll you think of next? A boy who dawdles in daydreams ain't much good on a farm.

  "Barns have animals and hay bales and feedbags and potato barrels and a mighty load of cow patties. But I don't know about souls. That's for them who breathe on God's green earth, and them that's gone on to heaven," Grandpa said, his voice as smoky as a brushfire in an orchard.

  "Don't animals go to heaven, too? And if they do, won't God need barns to put them in when the nights get cold? And won't God need somebody to watch over the livestock and the gardens?"

  Grandpa finished straining the milk through cheesecloth and screwed the lid tight on the jar. "No need for food where people don't need to eat, Jerp. Up there, the Lord provides. Here, we have to help ourselves."

  He said it in a way that Jerp thought meant No wonder you couldn't stay out of trouble back home, what with these kinds of darn-fool notions. But he only added, "Now, how about some scrambled eggs before we work up some tobacco?"

  They had a filling breakfast, then went back to the barn. Grandpa opened the door to the corncrib and started up the stairs. Jerp peeked in from the doorway, hoping that Grandpa had seen the scarecrow boy while at the same time hoping the scarecrow boy didn't really exist. Daylight was now breaking through the window and flooding the corncrib, and a thousand specks of dust were spinning in the air. Then Jerp remembered that the scarecrow boy had been upstairs, where Grandpa was now. Jerp heard Grandpa's boots moving across the hayloft floor, causing needles of hay to fall to the packed ground below. Jerp held his breath and hurried up the stairs.

  One side of the loft was filled with dried tobacco stalks, speared on poles and hung upside down. The smell of the burley leaf was heady and sweet. Grandpa sat at the makeshift workbench he had made from a piece of plywood and two haybales. He pulled the lower leaves from one of the stalks until he had as much as his hand could hold, then wound a leaf around one end until the tobacco fanned out like a peacock's tail. He tossed the tied bundle into a wide basket, continuing the routine that had occupied them for the past week.

  "Tops for cigarettes, bottoms for cigars," Grandpa said, motioning for Jerp to sit down. They bundled in silence for a while, the air around them thick as snuff. When they finished the pile, Jerp went to take another pole from the rack. Each pole held about ten stalks of tobacco and had been too heavy for Jerp to lift back when the leaves were green and sticky and full of grasshoppers. But now the stalks had dried and Jerp could lift them by reaching from his tiptoes and sliding until the pole fell down into his arms.

  Jerp put his hands between a row of stalks and parted them like curtains, trying to see how much more they had to do before they could load up the bed of the red Chevy truck and drive to the warehouse in town. His hands were already cracked and rough and his fingers ached. He looked down the long rows that meant days’ more work. Something crackled among the brown leaves. The scarecrow boy was standing among the stalks, staring at Jerp with eyes as dark and unreflecting as tobacco juice.

  Jerp froze, his hands gripping two stalks as if they were prison bars. The scarecrow boy didn't say a word, but its mouth turned up in a smile, stretching its pale skin even tighter across the limp bones of its face. It motioned for Jerp to step forward, slowly waving one flanneled arm. The scarecrow boy's fingers wiggled stiffly, like white artificial worms.

  Jerp could only shake his head back and forth. His throat felt like a boar's head had been shoved in it. He sucked for air and drew only dust. Suddenly his limbs unlocked and he ran to Grandpa.

  "What is it now, boy?" Grandpa said, and didn't say, but didn't have to, I thought you were finally learning how to work, finally getting some use out of those hands God gave you, hands you were wasting on piano keys and poetry and shoplifting, hands that couldn't make a tough enough fist to keep the bullies away.

  Jerp said nothing, just looked at the knot-holed floor.

  "We're wasting good daylight," Grandpa said, and Jerp heard between the words, They burn them lights twenty-four hours a day in the city, but out here we work at God's pace. Out here we ain't got time for made-up monsters and scary stories.Busy hands touch no evil.

  Jerp swallowed a fistful of grainy air.

  "Well, sit down and I'll get it myself," Grandpa said, and he really meant And this weekend, it's back to the fancy boarding school that my son spends a fortune on, the school where the teachers make too much money to complain about a no-account troublemaker like you. And from now on, you can eat ham that's wrapped in cellophane.

  "No, Grandpa, I'll bring it," he burst out, hoping his voice didn't sound as airless as it felt. "I just wanted to let you know that we're almost finished and we'll soon get it to market."

  Grandpa nearly smiled, showing the yellowed stumps of his few remaining teeth before he caught himself. "Good boy. What ye sow, so shall ye reap," he said, trying to quote from a book he had never learned to read.

  Jerp went back among the tobacco and closed his eyes and hauled down a pole. He was carrying it to the workbench when suddenly he was hurtling into space.

  He had fallen through one of the square holes that Grandpa used to toss hay down to the cattle. The pole was longer than the haychute and caught on the edges, bending like a bow but holding Jerp's weight.

  He heard Grandpa yelling as if they were miles apart. He kicked his legs, trying to find purchase in the empty air. Crumbs of tobacco leaves trickled down the back of his shirt. His hands, toughened by a season in the fields, held onto the pole until his body stopped swaying.

  "Hold on here, Jerp. You okay, boy?" Grandpa's voice came from somewhere above.

  Jerp felt as if his arms had been ripped from his shoulder sockets, the way they had felt when he grabbed the electric fence to see how strong the shock was. He looked down at the barn floor fifteen feet b
elow. The scarecrow boy was standing there, grinning like a turtle eating saw-briars even though its eyes were cold and dead.

  "Lordamighty, it's a wonder you ain't broke your neck," Grandpa yelled. Boots drummed down the loft stairs, then the crib door banged shut. Then Grandpa was underneath him, telling him to let go. The scarecrow boy was gone.

  Jerp relaxed his hands, and the balls of his feet drove into the dirt floor. Pain shot through his ankles. Grandpa caught him before he fell over.

  "You sure you're okay?" Grandpa asked, holding Jerp's shoulders.

  Jerp nodded numbly. Accidents happened on a farm. Timber fell on legs, snapping them like dry twigs. Horses kicked out blindly, causing concussions or worse. Plows and harrows sometimes turned more than red clay, sometimes making furrows in flesh and blood.

  And accidents happened in the city. Gunmen drove by and filled the street with random hot lead. Drug dealers knifed rib cages because someone looked like someone else through angel-dusted eyes. Airliners sheared off rooftops and spread carnage like confetti. Misunderstood boys were labeled maladjusted and sent to juvenile hall where they learned nothing except how to be real criminals instead of amateurs.

  "I'm sorry, Grandpa, I just lost my step," Jerp said as his wind returned. "I'm all right now. Let's get back to work."

  Work was the answer. Work would keep evil away. Work would keep thoughts and daydreams and made-up monsters away. Work would make Grandpa happy.

  "You sure?" Grandpa asked, and this time there was no threat in the words, only real concern and tenderness. Jerp nodded again and walked to the corncrib door, trying to hide his limp. They went back up to the loft and Grandpa lifted the pole that spanned the haychute.

  He let out a liquid whistle and said, "Boy, lucky you fell just right. This thing mighta speared you like a frog on a gig."

  The scarecrow boy could have made it happen that way, if it had wanted. But Jerp would work harder now.

  They bundled tobacco the rest of the day, until the pile of sheaves was taller than Jerp. Grandpa complained about having a headache, and by the time they had cooked and eaten supper, the headache had turned into a fever. As night rose like a cliff made of coal, Jerp built a fire and Grandpa sat by the hearth, a shawl across his knees.

  He looked miserable in his helplessness. "Jerp, I ain't up to doing chores tonight. You think you can handle them?" he said, his voice as chalky as his face.

  "Sure, Grandpa." Jerp was anxious to make up for dropping that egg basket, forgetting to slop the hogs that day two weeks ago, and burning the cabbage bed by broadcasting too much fertilizer. "I know what to do."

  "Don't forget to put up the cows."

  Put up the cows. In the barn. With scarecrow boy riding herd.

  "Something wrong, boy? You ain't afeared of the dark, are you?"

  Dark wasn't bad. Dark was only black, suffocating stillness. Dark didn't walk. Dark didn't smile.

  "No, of course you ain't. And remember to latch the gate when you're done," Grandpa said, his attention wandering back to the fire which reflected off his rheumy eyes.

  Jerp put on his coat, his fingers shaking as he fumbled with the zipper. He took a flashlight from the ledge by the front door and went out into the night, under the black sky where stars were strewn like white jackstones. Crickets chirped across the low hills. Jerp's flashlight cut a weak circle in the darkness, and he followed the circle to the gate.

  The cows had come in on their own, following the twitching tail of the mare who was smart enough to know where food and shelter could be found. They were milling outside the pen, rubbing against the split locust rails. Jerp walked through the herd, grateful for the warmth the animals radiated. He lifted the latch and they spilled into the barnyard, annoying the sow into a round of grunting. Jerp slid back the barn door and the animals tottered inside. So far, so good.

  But now he had to go to the hayloft. Now he had to go through the corncrib and up the stairs and across the loft that was littered with square black holes. Now he had to meet the scarecrow boy on its home turf.

  He almost turned and ran back up the hill to the light and safety of the farmhouse, almost let his legs betray him by becoming a whirling windmill of fear. But then he pictured Grandpa asking if all the animals were put up and fed and the chores done proper. And Jerp heard the words that Grandpa had been waiting to say.

  I was hoping to leave this farm to you, to let you carry on the tradition that your father abandoned. I was hoping someday the soil would lay claim to you, because busy hands touch no evil. But if the dirt's not in you, you can't plant there.

  Jerp squinted in the moonlight that spilled into the barn. He kicked a horse chip across the ground. He took a pitchfork from the wall and walked to the corncrib. He would be part of the farm, not a big-city sissy.

  Jerp banged the wooden handle on the door to warn the rats and the scarecrow boy that he was coming and had work to do. Taking a deep taste of air, he slammed the door open so hard that the sweet potatoes rolled around in their bins. He ran up the steps with one hand clenched around the pitchfork.

  The haybales were stacked like bricks on the far end of the loft. He tiptoed through the tobacco that hung like long sleeping bats, around the hole he had fallen through earlier, and past the workbench. He was among the hay now, walking down an aisle between the silent stacks. Jerp turned the corner and there was scarecrow boy, sitting on a bale and grinning at him, a straw jabbed between its teeth.

  Jerp held the pitchfork in front of him. If the scarecrow boy was stuffed with straw, Jerp was ready to pierce its flesh and shred its muscles and rake its insides out. If the boy had a ragball heart, Jerp would make the heart stop beating. Jerp's own heart was racing like that of a crow that had eaten poisoned corn.

  The scarecrow boy looked at Jerp with eyes that were beyond life, eyes that neither flinched nor twinkled in the flashlight's glare. Eyes that were as black as good bottom soil, black as manure. Eyes that had seen drought and flood, lush and fallow fields, harvests both meager and bountiful. Eyes that were seeds, begging to be planted and given a chance to take root, to grow and bloom and go to seed, to spread on the winds and in the bellies of birds, to propagate among the loess and loam and alluvial soils of the world.

  "You've been waiting for me," Jerp said. "Always."

  The scarecrow boy nodded, its head wobbling on its shoulders like an apple tied to a kite.

  Suddenly Jerp knew whose farm this was. It had never been recorded on a deed down at the county seat, but some laws were unwritten and universal. Rights of ownership went to the possessor.

  And Jerp belonged here, belonged to the farm and to the scarecrow boy.

  The scarecrow boy spread its musty arms as if to hug Jerp. Jerp let the flashlight drop to the floor as the scarecrow boy rose like smoke and drifted through the tines of the pitchfork. Jerp tried to draw back, but he felt as if he had a splintery stake up his spine. His arms went limp and he itched, he itched, his hands were dusty and his mouth was dry. The pitchfork fell onto the planks, but the clatter was muffled, as if he were hearing it through layers of cloth. Jerp tried to stretch the threads of his neck, but he could only stare straight ahead at the boy in front of him.

  At the boy with the smile that curved like a blackberry thorn. At the boy who had stolen his face and meat and white bones. At the boy who was wearing his scuffed lace-up boots. At the boy who was looking down at his hands—no, MY hands, his cobwebbed mind screamed—as if the hands were a new pair of work gloves that needed to be broken in.

  Then Jerp knew. He had forgotten to latch the gate behind him. Even though Grandpa had told him a thousand times. But Jerp had been so afraid. It wasn't his fault, was it?

  Jerp tried to open his mouth, to scream, to tell the boy to get out of his skin, but Jerp's tongue was an old sock. He strained to flap the rags of his arms, but he felt himself falling into the loose hay. He choked on the cotton and chaff and sweetly sick odor of his own dry-rot. And still he saw, with eyes that w
ere tickled by tobacco dust and stung by tears that would never fall.

  Jerp watched as the boy now wearing Jerp's clothes bent to lift the pitchfork. The boy tried out its stolen skin, stretched its face into new smiles. Then the boy who had borrowed Jerp's body stepped between the haybales and was gone. Minutes or years later, the barn door slid open.

  Jerp tried his limbs and found they worked, but they were much too light and boneless. He dragged himself to the window and pressed his sawdust head against the chickenwire. Jerp looked out over the moist fields that would now and always beckon him, he listened to the breezes that would laugh till the cows came home, he sniffed the meadows that would haunt his endless days. He wondered how long it would be before the next season of change. Already he ached from waiting.

  Jerp looked down into the barnyard and saw the boy who wore his flesh walking toward the farmhouse, the pitchfork glinting under the moon, perhaps on his way to punish someone who had shirked the evening chores.

  The boy remembered to latch the gate.

  ###

  LUMINOSITY

  Born half in darkness, half in hazy light, Kate started out different and stayed different.

  Even in ninth grade, when all the girls had grown strange shapes and the boys had started sweating.

  Even in a world where ordinary girls were all the rage, when you had to have three silver rings in your ear and another one in a secret, pierced place somewhere beneath your clothes. Somewhere to keep the boys guessing and sweating.

  And somewhere for the other girls to wonder about, just in case their rings weren't in as cool a place.

  But Kate wore no rings. Kate was brighter than silver, though her eyes were brown. She was so different, she had never dyed her hair. She was so different, she was a princess who had never kissed a frog in hopes of turning him into a prince.

  Well, never kissed a frog if you didn’t count Jeremy as a frog. Because Kate had just kissed Jeremy. Under the moon. A moon she had built, looked up and said, "Give me a moon," and there it was, white and blue and cold, and there was Jeremy, big and cute and maybe his eyes were saying hello.