Visitation of Spirits, page 23
He reread his favorite books, the classics that had brought him joy and an answer, but neither Ahab nor Gatsby nor Holden Caulfield nor Hamlet nor Bilbo held the key to the door. He turned to his comic books; perhaps there he could discern the way out—among the friends he had made years ago when he first learned to read. So he escaped with Clark Kent, slipping into phone booths and emerging powerful and all-knowing; he followed Bruce Wayne, and he too need only change his clothes and put on a cloak to mask him and give him honor and nobility.
His loneliness led him into careless and loveless liaisons with men who cared only for his youth, and though he pretended not to care, he worried more and more for his soul, and his increasing confusion took on a harsher guilt and self-loathing.
Word came to him that Gideon had taken his place in the group. Gideon had won this scholarship, and Gideon is being courted by that university, and Gideon has won thus-and-such award. And Horace’s grades mysteriously slipped. Why, Horace? Why? All you do is sit at home and read. You were such a good student, such a promise. All through school your grades were excellent . . . how could you make a D-plus in History? a C in trig? you failed Spanish?—Horace? What can we do? Why are you doing this?
He sat and read and in his reading sought a way out. And while reading the Bible one day it suddenly came upon him. Sorcery. Had not the prophets battled magicians in the courts of kings and pharaohs? Didn’t Saul die in the tent of the witch of Endor? Had not Jesus spoken of such things as demons and conjurers and men who walk in the way of magic? Why would witchcraft not work for him? He rushed after the hope like a man into quicksand after a will-o’-the-wisp. He had one hope, one faith, one reason, and would warp and distort and realign endlessly to fit his purpose.
He stepped through the trees into the sunlight, now yellow and sparkling off the dewy grass, and at the opposite end of the lawn, for he was behind the Tims Creek Elementary School, was Jimmy. But Horace did not know it was Jimmy. Horace was no longer there.
“It is time,” he said.
Old Gods, New Demons
Subjunctive ( sǝb jungk´ tiv), Gram.-adj.
1. (in English and certain other languages) noting or pertaining to a mood or mode of the verb that may be used for subjective, doubtful, hypothetical, or grammatically subordinate statements or questions, as the mood of be in “If this be treason.”
Horace Thomas Cross
Confessions
I remember the first time I saw Granddaddy kill a chicken. I remember it, dirty-white and squawking, and Granddaddy putting it down on a stump. I remember him telling me to hold it still. I remember the way the chicken made a high-pitched kind of purring in the back of her throat and scratched at me in an annoyed sort of way, and Granddaddy telling me to step back and bringing down the axe on the hen’s neck. I remember seeing the blood, beet-juice red, and I remember the chicken hopping clean over the top of the magnolia tree, flapping its wings, and then hitting the ground hard, the blood not squirting but flowing from its neck, and it jumping up again, this time not to the top of the tree, but almost halfway, and then up less high and less high until it couldn’t jump no more. It just flopped about, and then it just twitched. I remember looking at the head sitting there on the stump by itself and thinking that it looked kind of funny, like something off Saturday-morning cartoons, a filmy kind of eyelid half-closed and a long orange tongue slung out of its orange beak. I remember sometimes when Granddaddy would kill a chicken it didn’t jump but it would run and run fast, in a kind of womanish strut, as if somebody had told it some bad news and it was trying to run away and not hear it, all the while running with no head and blood just a streaming red over its dirty white feathers.
I remember Grandmamma didn’t chop the heads off. She would take a chicken in each hand by the neck and swing them around and around like small sacks and then let them loose, and they would flounce about, flapping their wings, their heads drooped down like balloons half full of water, turned around, beating against the chickens’ breasts, beating a rhythm. I remember a time a chicken jumped up into a old chinaberry tree and Grandmamma had to knock it down with a broom. I remember Grandmamma let me wring a chicken’s neck one time and it pecked me.
I remember my Grandmamma and my Great-Aunt Jonnie Mae and my Aunt Rachel and Aunt Ruthester and Aunt Rebecca tending great big pots of boiling water, and they would dip the dead birds into the scalding water and turn them over a few times. I remember the stink of the wet, hot chicken and the smell of the feathers that fell in the fire. I remember them hauling the birds out with sticks and yanking the feathers out. They would come out easier after being scalded. I remember Grandmamma letting me pluck a chicken. The feel of the wet feathers. The feel of the hot and cooling bird. The feel of the pinfeathers, stiff close up on the skin that was pale pink and white and beige.
I remember music. Aretha Franklin. Diana Ross. Al Green. Bruce Springsteen. Pink Floyd. The Jackson Five. Elton John. Roberta Flack. Smokey Robinson. Fleetwood Mac. Marvin Gaye. I remember What’s Going On, What a Fool Believes, It’s Over Now, Freebird, The Wall. I remember television. I remember I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, The Wonderful World of Disney, Julia, The Flip Wilson Show, The Andy Griffith Show, American Bandstand, The Flintstones. I remember watching the news and asking my grandfather where Peking was and him telling me overseas. I remember watching a movie with my Great-Aunt Jonnie Mae and her turning off the set when the people got into bed together. I remember my first G.I. Joe and wondering if he could feel pins when I stuck him. I remember getting a toy robot for Christmas and it being broken before New Year’s. I remember show-and-tell in kindergarten and bringing my first record player and listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.” I remember blowing bubbles.
I remember finally playing sports in high school and enjoying it. I remember sweat and breathlessness and a burning chest. I remember playing volleyball and soccer and basketball and tennis. I remember winning and feeling good and sorry for Terry Garner cause he never won; I remember losing and the coach telling me that I had to lean forward more when I ran the 220 and swing my arms more. I remember tripping one day and skinning my knee so bad that it hurt for two weeks and left a big scar.
I remember Batman and Superman and the Human Torch and the Thing and Wonder Woman and the Black Canary and the Green Arrow and Spider-Man and the Avengers. I remember wanting to be a superhero and first trying to design a suit like Iron Man’s so I could fly and then a costume like Batman’s so I could look tough, and I would think I could hide it under my clothes and come to somebody’s rescue, mysteriously, when something went wrong. I remember trying to build a shield like Captain America’s and finding out that there was no such thing as adamantium. I remember feeling tricked. I remember wanting to be rich and white and respected like Bruce Wayne and invulnerable and handsome and noble like Clark Kent. I remember my first Avengers comic book and that the Black Panther was in it and that he was the first black superhero I had ever seen and how he was angry cause they were making him be nice to a white man from a country called Rhodesia. I remember asking my grandfather where Rhodesia was and him telling me overseas.
I remember watching men, even as a little boy. I remember feeling strange and good and nasty. I remember doing it anyway, looking, and feeling that way. I remember not being able to stop and worrying and then stopping worrying. I remember the sight of men’s naked waists. I remember the abdomen that looked sculptured and the sinews’ definition. Solid. The way the dark hair would crawl from the pants and up the stomach toward the chest. I remember looking at arms, firm arms, with large biceps like ripe fruit. I remember the thrill of large, thick bare feet, clean and full and warm and powerful with round plump toes like grapes. I remember thighs, the way they looked like mighty columns, steel bundles of fiber, covered with hair like down. I remember the way my neck would prickle and my breath would come shallow.
I remember the first picture I saw of a naked man. I remember feeling ashamed. It made me hard.
I remember fear. I remember dark nights at home, looking out near the woods. I remember hearing crickets, owls, frogs, howling dogs, turtledoves. I remember thinking about unexplained snapping twigs or rustling leaves. I remember sleeping with my head under the covers. I remember worrying about claws or paws or just hands reaching out from under the bed and taking me away. I remember my grandfather saying, Just say your prayers and the angel of the Lord will protect you. I remember saying back, But I can’t never see it, and him saying back, But you can’t see God neither, can you? and I said, No, and he said, But you believe in him anyway, don’t you? and I said, Yeah, and he said, Well then, and I said, But I’m still scared.
I remember Dracula and witches and Frankenstein and the mummy and the werewolf and the Headless Horseman and Bigfoot, but mostly I remember Dracula and vampires and the fear of him coming after me late at night and grabbing me in his arms and me not being able to get away and him breathing hard against my neck with his yellow teeth shining and biting my neck and sucking away my life.
I remember Star Trek and rushing home every day after school to see it. I remember Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock and Bones and Lt. Uhura and Scotty. I remember the song at the beginning and the sound of the ship zipping by. I remember wanting to be like Mr. Spock and wanting to become a physicist, just like him, and maybe one day being chief science officer on a starship. Maybe even commander. And I remember asking my science teacher in high school about starships and I remember her laughing and saying that I might not live to see one, let alone live on one, and I remember being so mad that I vowed to build one one day. I remember beginning to design a matter/antimatter reactor and finding out that I needed to learn calculus, then finding out that I didn’t know enough trig to study calculus yet. I remember deciding to invent teleportation instead.
I remember reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and wanting to live in a hole in the ground with a perfect round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. I wanted to smoke a pipe that was larger than me and talk to wizards and elves and travel around and slay dragons and wargs and hobgoblins and trolls. Perhaps ride on a giant eagle. I remember being disappointed to find out that J.R.R. Tolkien died before he could finish the Silmarillion. I remember he lived overseas.
I remember studying Einstein’s theory of relativity and I remember reading on my own about time/space and Maxwell’s equations and quantum dynamics and black holes and time/ space warps and white dwarves and neutron stars and supernovas. I remember the equation N = Rfneflfel and working out the equation again and again to see how many populated planets there probably were in the galaxy if-this-were-true or if-that-were-true. I remember never knowing if I was working the equations correctly.
I remember food. I remember chocolate cakes and strawberry shortcake and pork chops and barbecue and fried chicken. I remember my grandmother’s pound cake, though I don’t re- member it too well. I remember my Great-Aunt Jonnie Mae’s pecan pies and her blueberry cobblers and her carrot cake. I remember my Aunt Rachel’s spaghetti with ground hamburger and onions and mushrooms and garlic and how she would let it simmer all day. I remember my Aunt Rebecca cooking chitlins, fussing about the work it took to clean them. I remember the stink they made in the house and everyone complaining and then eating their fill. I remember my Aunt Ruthester’s chocolate-chip cookies and how she would make an extra batch for me. I remember them best hot, the chocolate pulling long when you broke it in half. I remember the way it made my mouth happy, dissolving almost as soon as I ate it, buttery and hot.
I remember finally touching a man, finally kissing him. I remember the surprise and shock of someone else’s tongue in my mouth. I remember the taste of someone else’s saliva. I remember actually feeling someone else’s flesh, warm, smooth. I remember the texture of hair that was not mine, thighs that were not mine, a waist that was not mine. I remember the gamy smell of pubic hair. I remember being happy that I was taking a chance with my immortal soul, thinking that I would somehow win in the end and live still, feeling immortal in a mortal’s arms. I remember then regretting that it was such a sin. I remember the feeling I got after we climaxed, feeling hollow and undone, wishing I were some kind of animal, a wolf or a bird or a dolphin, so I would not have to worry about wanting to do it again; I remember worrying how the other person felt.
I remember church and praying. I remember revival meetings and the testifying of women who began to cry before the congregation and ended their plea of hardships and sorrow and faithfulness to the Lord with the request for those who knew the word of prayer to pray much for me. I remember taking Communion and wondering how the bread was the body and the grape juice was the blood and thinking how that made us all cannibals. I remember worrying that I was not worthy of taking Communion because I was unclean, no matter how much I prayed and asked forgiveness. I remember wondering what God looks like and I remember after a time stopping wondering what he looked like and wondering more who he was, thinking it was surely possible that he did not like some people so much, despite what my grandfather and the Bible said. I remember wondering what he would tell me if he ever did want to break his centuries of silence. I remember deciding that I would find out if I lived right and finally went home to heaven. Then I remember the day I realized that I was probably not going to go home to heaven, cause the rules were too hard for me to keep. That I was too weak.
I remember me.
April 30, 1984
7:05 am
Someone once said that if man is but a figment in God’s mind then the characters in men’s imagination are no less real than we are. Perhaps. No one can say for certain. But we cannot deny the possibility.
Consider the demon. Regard him with awe and loathing, for he is what men despise. Or think they despise. Themselves. That day the demon, if indeed he existed, was there all the while perched on the boy’s ear whispering words for him to say. He would have made him say: Fuck you. Now it’s my turn, preacher-boy. This is the new order—no order. The new day—night.
He could have put hate in the boy’s mouth as easily as he put the fantasies in his head; he could have caused him to clutch the gun for lo those many hours. He could have . . . if he did indeed exist.
Perhaps he heard the man say:
“Horace. Why? Why are you doing this? Why?”
And the boy answer: “It’s like the boy wants off the rollercoaster ride. He wants his money back. See. No fun. Poor Horace. He don’t like life, see. Too many fucking rules. Too many unanswered questions. Too many loose ends. You see, life the way Horace wants it ain’t condoned, you know what I mean? And condonation—if that’s what you call it—is what he wants. So—”
“I can’t believe this. You’re too intelligent, Horace, to fall for this crap. It’s a copout.”
“Save it. He knows. They tried hard already. He ain’t going for it. He made his choice, see. He chose not to play in this ball game.”
“You have so much of life ahead of you, Horace. I don’t understand. Why would you even think of such a thing?”
“See, he has this image of the world as it should be, and this ain’t it. This ain’t the world he ordered. So he thinks he’ll get a new one.”
“I can’t believe this. This is a joke, isn’t it? I—”
“Joke? I don’t think so. Les you laugh at funerals.”
“Horace, let’s talk about this.”
“Talk. Talk. Talk. Nothing to say. You keep on talking. Hear? I’m exiting. Watch.”
Whether or not the malevolent spirit existed is irrelevant, in the end. For whether he caused it or not, the boy died. This is a fact. The bullet did break the skin of his forehead, pierce the cranium, slice through the cortex and cerebellum, irreparably bruising the cerebrum and medulla oblongata, and emerge from the back of the skull, all with a wet and lightning crack. This did happen. The blood did flow, mixed with grey brain matter, pieces of bone and cranial fluid. His entire body convulsed several times; it excreted urine. Defecated. The tongue hung out of the mouth and during the convulsions was clamped down upon, releasing blood to be mixed with the ropes of saliva stringing down. His heartbeat slowly decreased in pressure and intensity, soon coming to a halt; the arteries, veins, and capillaries slowly collapsed. The pupils of his eyes, now tainted in a film of pink, stopped dilating, resting like huge drops of ink surrounded by brown liquid in a pool of milk. Finally the eyes themselves rolled back, staring up, as though examining the sun through the canopy of tree limbs. In awe and respect. These are facts. Whether or not the demon was a ghost of his mind, or a spirit of the nether world, this did happen. And the man screamed, a helpless, affronted, high-pitched, terror-filled scream of disbelief, of anger, of disappointment. His screams shifted into a sobbing, moanful wail, unconsolable and primal. This is true, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence of dybbuks, djinns, or demons.
Most importantly, the day did not halt in its tracks: clocks did not stop. The school buses rolled. The cows mooed. The mothers scolded their children. Plows broke up soil. Trucks were unloaded and loaded up. Dishes were washed. Dogs barked. Old men fished. Beauticians gossiped. Food was eaten. And that night the sun set with the full intention of rising on the morrow.
Ifs and maybes and weres and perhapses are of no use in this case. The facts are enough, unless they too are subject to doubt.
REQUIEM FOR TOBACCO
You remember, though perhaps you don’t, that once upon a time men harvested tobacco by hand. There was a time when folk were bound together in a community, as one, and helped one person this day and that day another, and another the next, to see that everyone got his tobacco crop in the barn each week, and that it was fired and cured and taken to a packhouse to be graded and eventually sent to market. But this was once upon a time.
