BLUE AND GRAY & BLACK AND GREEN

Alethea Kontis

 

Keeping to the tradition of oral history in the hills, this story works best when read out loud, preferably to children around a campfire.

 

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Daniel was seven-and-three-quarters. He'd been seven-and-three-quarters forever. Daniel resided at Green Bottom, the one-armed General's big house on the river in Virginia. He liked tin whistles and marbles, especially the red ones. He liked his room at Green Bottom—he woke up every day in the same bed facing the window where the sunset shone through the trees. He liked the peppermint sticks the blue soldiers gave him when they rode through on their horses, though he missed the taste of candy. He liked the horses, too, the way the wind whipped through their manes and tails even when there was no wind. He liked the crazy Egyptian Lady, who wasn't really Egyptian but loved all things Egyptian and was still crazy and a Lady either way. He liked Mrs. Green, his sort-of nanny who kept the house. Daniel saw her as a thin woman with a white apron and bunned hair. The Shawnee saw her as an old woman with clay-red arms and eyes like stars. The slave children saw her as a fat woman with dusty hands and big white teeth. No matter what skin Mrs. Green wore, she always smelled of roses, which made him think of soap and summertime. Daniel liked summertime, and soap was so long ago he couldn't really remember it, but soap made things clean and he liked clean things, so he guessed he liked soap too.

In a way, Mrs. Green was the house, constantly herding the old spirits and ushering in the new. Daniel was one of these spirits, but Daniel had not died at Green Bottom. Mrs. Green told Daniel that he was a stone memory, a time of happiness and laughter that the bricks of Green Bottom held inside themselves so that they might draw more times of happiness into the house. Happiness does not want to stay in a place that is dark and lonely, so part of Daniel's job was to keep things from being dark and lonely. Mrs. Green was very wise.

Mrs. Green let Daniel play with the white children, the Shawnee children, and the slave children alike. Chieska, Young Fox, and Cold Water were best at stone tag. Polly, Suky, and the twins Isum and Eadom were best at jackstraws and scotch hoppers. Betsy was good at scotch hoppers too, and Thomas and William always played him at marbles. Daniel was best at playing hide-and-seek among the outbuildings. His best place to hide was the outhouse, since it had a window. He could peek through and see the other children coming through the wavy glass. He could see Mrs. Green through the window too, but he never hid for much longer after that. Mrs. Green did not suffer silly spirits. When it was time to come in it was time to come in, and Mrs. Green would not have him getting swept away in the river. Daniel did not like the river, with all its noisy rushing and pulling and grabbing. Daniel also did not like the black soldier.

He wasn't sure the black soldier was a soldier to begin with. Daniel had felt something watching him, and awoke to find a dark, swirling man-shaped mist by the window. Daniel said hello to the new spirit and invited him closer, but it just stayed that way, the tall shadow of a heavy object, though there were no objects standing by the window. Daniel tried to guess his name. He asked where the man was from and where he was going and if he had any family and if he missed them. Daniel talked to the shadow until he didn't feel like talking anymore. The shadow never moved or talked back. Until one day Daniel heard footsteps. He opened his eyes. The shadow had come closer.

Each time the shadow moved closer, Daniel could make out more details about his shape. The first thing Daniel noticed was the frock coat. There were two rows of buttons down the front, which meant the man was important, like General Jenkins. There was a sword belt and a buckle, but Daniel could not see the letters on the buckle. Too bad. Mrs. Green always gave him high marks on his letters. Daniel decided not to tell Mrs. Green about the soldier until he knew which side the soldier was on. If he was a blue soldier with the cavalry, Daniel would ask him for a peppermint stick. If he was a gray soldier, that meant he was mean, and Daniel would run and hide in his best hiding place and never look back.

The soldier grew a long black beard around his mouth that never spoke and his hollow eyes with no whites watched Daniel, always watching, but he never turned blue or gray. His clothes were black and stayed black, and his skin was blacker than Polly's and Suky's and Isum's and Eadom's put together, like a starless night, and the wind whistled through the cracks around the window but his hair never budged, and every time there were footsteps, he moved a little closer.

Daniel wondered if the man might be his father—Daniel's father had been a soldier. Isum and Eadom said that fathers were supposed to love their children and keep them safe. The way the black soldier watched Daniel did not make him feel loved or safe. It made him feel cold and hopeless. The way the man watched Daniel made him wonder if he had done something wrong. Maybe Mrs. Green had sent the soldier to deal with him if he stepped out of line. So Daniel did not step out of line. He stumbled through the scotch hoppers and leapfrog. He was ham-fisted with the marbles and the jackstraws. He was the first to be found in hide-and-seek and the first to line up when Mrs. Green came out to call for the children. Mrs. Green's roses smelled of love and safety. Daniel did not just like Green Bottom—he loved it. He did not want to leave.

Daniel wondered what the black soldier might do to punish him. Where did spirits go when they died? For that matter, where did memories go who were not really spirits to begin with? Thomas and Betsy assured him that God took care of all his children, even the ones who were never born and had never died. (William said that the black soldier would swallow Daniel whole and doom him to forevermore, but William was mean, so Daniel beat him soundly at marbles.) Polly and Suky and the slave twins told Daniel that the river would take him and turn his skin to tar and send him far away. Chieska and Young Fox and Cold Water told him that an old Shawnee woman would come for him and turn him into a doll and he would ride her dog into the clouds. The Egyptian Lady told Daniel that memory spirits were like smoke from an extinguished candle, rising up to the sky like a prayer hoping to find a god who would hold it to his or her breast. The Egyptian Lady also gave him gold foil coins and wore peanuts for earrings—but Daniel cracked the window so his smoke might escape and never again closed it, and the footsteps came ever closer.

Daniel eventually stopped playing with the children all together and stayed inside listening to the thunder. His mother had told him once that thunder was the angels bowling—at Green Bottom it was just General Jenkins bowling in the attic on the days when he had his good arm. It was a comforting sound. Daniel tried to stay up so late that late became early and early became late and he was confused as to whether up was down and back was forth and fell asleep anyway. Daniel tried to fall asleep in other rooms, but he always woke up in the same bed across from the same window. The black soldier was clearer now. Daniel could make out the eagle on his belt buckle and the stitches on his shoulder straps. He could see the red flames in those dark hollow eyes with no whites and he could feel their fire. Daniel could see the hole in the black soldier's coat where he had been shot in the chest so neatly that the buttons had not come undone. He could see the ragged skin there and the bloody broken bones beneath, all the way through to the black heart that did not beat. Daniel could smell the black soldier's breath and the tobacco made him remember how unpleasant vomiting had been.

The soldier did not do anything to Daniel. He only watched him and said nothing and made footsteps and came closer until when Daniel opened his eyes he could not see the room or the window at all, only black and fire and more black beneath that. If the black soldier came any closer he would be inside Daniel. Daniel did not want that blackness inside him.

Mrs. Green finally found Daniel inside the east chimney. It was his new best hiding place but there were no windows to keep a lookout so he did not see her coming. She pulled him out by the ear.

Daniel apologized over and over until the words sounded funny. He begged Mrs. Green not to send him away. Mrs. Green looked surprised. Mrs. Green never looked surprised. Daniel explained about the black soldier, and how he knew he was in trouble for something but he honestly didn't know what, and if she would only just please tell him, then he promised to stop doing it or start doing whatever it was immediately. Daniel knew it was his job to bring laughter to the house, but he didn't feel laughter inside himself anymore, and if he couldn't do his job then Green Bottom would not want him anymore and forget him.

Mrs. Green was not interested in Daniel's punishment; she was interested in the black soldier. She asked about his hat and the buttons on his coat. She asked about his sword belt and the buckle there. She asked about his long black beard and his fiery black eyes. She asked about the shotgun hole and his unbeating heart and his rotten teeth and his smell of tobacco. She asked about the footsteps, and how many there had been, and how long it had taken him to get from the window to Daniel's side. Daniel told her about all these things, all the things he thought about when he was inside and all the things he thought about while he was outside and all the things he thought about in between, and even some things he hadn't thought about yet at all but would now haunt him forever. And when Daniel had finished telling Mrs. Green all these things she kissed him on the forehead, told him to get some rest and not to worry, and shooed him off to bed like a good little boy.

Daniel went to bed, but he did not scoot there like a good little boy; he walked like a man to the hanging tree. He did not get any rest and he did worry. Daniel worried more right then than he had in his previous seven-and-three-quarters years and all the years after that combined. This would be his last night, his last day, his last moment. The black soldier would come and open his fleshy mouth with those rotting teeth and he would swallow Daniel whole, just one big gulp, and whatever was left of Daniel would be consumed in fiery blackness of forevermore. Daniel didn't like forevermore. Daniel liked Green Bottom in the springtime and running through the rooms and on the rooftop and spitting in the river and his old hiding place and his new hiding place and he was pretty sure forevermore had none of these things. It occurred to Daniel to be sad, and the feeling was so foreign it scared him all over again.

The black soldier opened his stinking rotten mouth, and opened and opened, and his jaw dropped and dropped and his head tilted back and back…and back…

And then Daniel saw Mrs. Green behind the soldier’s head, her strong knuckly fingers around the hair at the back of his neck. She made mention of his rudeness, and how visitors in a fine house should always introduce themselves properly. And then she tore his face off. Flames engulfed Daniel's hands, but they did not hurt him so he did not scream, but that was okay because the soldier screamed enough for them both. His skin split as if it were made of spun sugar, the halves of it shredding apart at the rend like cobwebs. Despite the blood in his wound there was no blood in the heart of him, nor was there the neverending fiery darkness of forevermore as William the Meanie had suggested. But there were teeth and wiry hair and tentacles. Lots and lots of slimy tentacles, reaching and throbbing and flailing. And suddenly Daniel did know him.

Daniel had not recognized the face of the soldier, but he recognized the monster inside him. That monster had lived in his closet when he was much younger than his seven-and-three-quarters years. It had lived under his bed, and it had lived in his dreams, and if the Daniel he was now existed because the bricks of Green Bottom had kept a happy memory, how had he brought the irrational fears with him? But there was no time for that now. They could talk about that later when there wasn’t a giant writhing monster full of teeth screaming and roaring and sliming the floorboards and mussing Mrs. Green’s perfect hair.

Mrs. Green’s other hand reached inside the mass of tentacles and somehow silenced the creature. Daniel could now hear what Mrs. Green was saying. She calmly explained that benevolent spirits were welcome and chaotic spirits were not, and that the monster was free to haunt anywhere as long as that place was not Green Bottom. She reminded the monster never to follow Daniel’s spirit thread back through the ether, and that the ghosts of Green Bottom were going to destroy him now. No hard feelings, of course, it was just the way they did things here. Green Bottom looked after its own.

The General was the first to appear, both arms intact, and after shooting the monster without hesitation he pulled free his sword and removed whatever tentacles managed to come within reach. The Shawnee came with their arrows. The slaves came with their scythes. The Egyptian Lady clawed at its eyes, when there were eyes. The children amassed behind Daniel and threw marbles at the beast. William pushed a handful of marbles into Daniel’s fist and, with a war cry, Daniel joined them. Piece by piece the monster came apart, and when the black shadows pieced it back together, the ghosts of Green Bottom took it apart again. Daniel wasn’t sure the fight would ever end…and then he heard the horn of the cavalry.

The horses made quick work of the beast; slime became foam on their nostrils and flesh melted into fog beneath their hooves. Swords sliced tentacles sideways and teeth fell to the floorboards like rain. Soft rain. Happy rain.

The next day, Daniel enjoyed waking up across from the window in his shadowless room. He lost to Betsy and Suky at scotch hoppers, and beat William soundly again at marbles (though William might have let him win), and when it was time for hide-and-seek he crawled up into his new hiding place in the east chimney. It might not have had a window but he was surrounded by bricks, the bricks of Green Bottom that remembered his happiness so fondly, and he felt safe as houses.