The next morning at breakfast, I told A.P. that I’d like a few days off.
“I need to take care of some things,” I said.
A.P., buttering a biscuit, barely looked up. “Sary told me. Esley and I are staying here, fixing up songs, so I guess we won’t need a mechanic for a little while.”
“Or a car,” volunteered Esley. “What do you say, Doc? Could he take yours?”
A.P. shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”
I’d been planning to ride the rails again, but having Sue Dean on the trip had complicated things. Now, suddenly, it would be simple.
We packed a few things and headed out later that morning. I felt good driving the car by myself, and even better having Sue Dean along. The car was like our own little world.
“What are you thinking?” she asked as we headed down the road.
“It’s sort of like the cabin,” I said. “Just you and me.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked out the window. For me, the cabin was the two of us, heads together, listening to the crystal set. For her, it might be something different—a note, a goodbye never spoken.
We drove west along the base of the mountains, then turned south. After a while we joined up with Highway 11, which took us through Abingdon and on into Bristol, from the Virginia side.
We arrived late that afternoon. The first thing we saw was the Bristol sign, bordered by electric lights. A good place to live, it said. Maybe it was for some. We drove down State Street, along the border that divided the town. It was just a line on a map, but it was real. I felt it.
I guided the car into the neighborhood where we had lived, past the cemetery and toward the vacant lot where the big yellow tent had stood. Some boys were using the lot to play baseball, yelling and kicking up dust. I pulled over, and we watched them for a minute. So much of my early life had taken place on that lot, but I didn’t claim to understand it. The boys didn’t care. They laughed and hit and ran the bases, trying to reach home.
Next to the vacant lot was the little white house where I’d grown up. The paint was fading, and the place seemed smaller. I parked in front. Sue Dean and I got out, went up the front walk, and knocked on the door. It swung open, and a boy stood there.
“Arnie?” I said.
I’d been gone just a few months, but he had changed. He was eleven years old, though looking at him you’d think he was older. His face was lined. His shoulders were hunched, and his hands were curled like claws. His energy and spirit, which Mama had wanted to bottle, were nowhere in sight.
He smiled, but it was more like a grimace. “Nate!” Stepping forward, he put his arms around me. They felt stiff and awkward.
Pulling away, I said, “You remember Sue Dean, don’t you?”
He eyed her warily. “I thought you left.”
“I did,” she said.
I asked Arnie, “Are you…okay?”
He glanced down at his hands and shrugged. “I look like an old crow.”
“What happened?”
“Beelzebub,” he said. “Like Daddy said, he won’t let you go.”
“The snake?”
Arnie nodded. “After you left, I started getting pains in my hands and arms. My shoulders drew up. My body ached. Doctor said it was the snake. Rattler bites can hurt for a long time.”
I remembered the day when Arnie had walked down the aisle with Beelzebub coiled around his neck. Once again I wondered what would drive anyone to do that. Whatever it was, Daddy had it and so did Arnie. Maybe it changed over time, the way Arnie’s body was changing—twisting up, curling in on itself.
He held the door open, and we stepped inside. Sniffing the air, I caught a whiff of floor wax and cornbread, along with the candles Mama lit before bedtime. It was the smell of my house, my family, my life from before. At the time, I’d barely noticed it, at least not any more than I’d noticed Daddy’s weird, shouted prayers or the way Arnie whimpered in the night.
Arnie led us into the kitchen, where Mama stood at the stove with her back to us.
“Who was it?” she called to Arnie.
“Hello, Mama,” I said.
Turning around, she launched herself at me, grabbing and holding on tight. When she pulled away and looked me over, her cheeks were wet.
“I wish I could have done that before you left,” she said. “You didn’t give me the chance.”
“If I did, I never would have gone. I needed to leave.”
“Where did you go?”
“It’s a long story.” I spotted potatoes and string beans on the stove. “Could I tell you over supper?”
Mama asked me to set the table as if I’d never left. Sue Dean helped. Halfway through, Daddy came in. He grabbed me too. Our family had its share of problems, but hugging had never been one of them. Daddy hugged me so tight I didn’t know if he had missed me or wanted to kill me.
I was all set to dive in to the mashed potatoes when Daddy took hold of my hand and I remembered. Before eating, we always clasped hands around the table and prayed—or rather, Daddy prayed.
This one was a doozy. It was your basic Prodigal Son theme, with some Children of Israel mixed in. It seemed that I had run off, staggered through the desert, spent time in a pigsty, then been welcomed home to eat the fatted calf, or in this case, cornbread and black-eyed peas. Daddy might not have a big audience anymore, but his pipeline to God was still open.
A week later, when the prayer ended, I took a gulp of sweet tea and told them what really had happened—no desert, no pigs, no food. Trains and the people who rode them. I described Bill and his band of angels. I told them about the jungle, leaving out the girl who stole my pack. I took them on a trip to Gate City and into the home of the woman named Dolly.
“What happened there?” asked Arnie.
I took a deep breath. I had come a long way, and I wasn’t about to stop.
“Music,” I said.
Daddy glanced up sharply. Arnie and Mama looked away.
“We don’t talk about that here,” said Daddy.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” I asked.
Mama put her hand on his. “Let him talk, Wilvur.”
He lowered his head, and she nodded to me. I told about the Carter Family—how Sue Dean and I had met them in Bristol, how I’d heard their records at Dolly’s house, and how the records had drawn me to Poor Valley, where I’d found Sue Dean.
“We work for the Carters,” I told them proudly. “Sue Dean watches their children. I keep their car running. I’m a mechanic.”
Daddy looked up again. “That’s quite a story.”
“You haven’t heard the best part.”
He cocked his head, and I almost felt sorry for him.
“I went to a church in Kingsport,” I told him. “A man said he had heard you.”
“That’s good,” said Daddy.
“You weren’t preaching. He said you sang and played the banjo.”