CHAPTER 30

With the warmth and calm that descended that summer also came a slight recovery for Mr. Kern, who could now talk a little, although he still remained helpless and required our constant intervention for even the simplest tasks. Given his gradual improvement, our walks now took us farther away from the house and stretched as far as the pecan groves on one side and the graves on the other, although we never quite reached the churchyard during those walks, stopping well short of the Missus’s grave. Mr. Kern and I spent hours in this refuge, drunk in the pleasure of bees and dragonflies under the shade of massive trees. It was in that contentment that Mr. Kern seemed the greatest improved, as he would bark madness that slowly formed into words and eventually served as complete sentences once he’d strung them all together. I would clap and then he would continue, entertaining himself as much as he did me for hours.

The railroad tracks sat high in the Delta, safe from those flooded fields and swamps that could overtake them with just the slightest summer rain. On both sides were the distractions of bright yellows and greens while the scorching crackle of brown rocks popped under our feet. The sky was a pleasant blue even though it was still hot, yet just when we’d suffered the worst that sun had to offer, a large cloud would come and shade us from its scorn and the winds would blow cool again in the momentary reprieve that touched our skins. By late afternoon would come the threat of those frequent thunderstorms fueled by the summer heat, filling the sky with ash-colored clouds that relieved none of the humidity in the air and somehow added to its misery. How during those moments every wind gust felt like rain and brought with it a heaviness like thick wool that made the air unbearable and impossibly difficult to breathe.

The insects grew louder, with a sense of cohesion in their croaks and chirps and whistles that climbed the tracks and encircled the trees and landed on us listlessly, lulling us back into our humdrum and wait. In the absence of the rain, the ground burned when touched, although it could rain every day out here and still feel the same way. At sunset, the tracks continued into the haze of trees that blurred into one vaporous mess out at the edge of existence as we knew it, that spot where we couldn’t see the continuing land or sky anymore yet knew the tracks continued on, straight as pencils, laid flat for miles alongside the steamrolled land. The tracks reflected the blistering up above in likeness to a peach slightly grayed on top of our heads and orange as fire in the distance.

We’d passed the shaded coves carved by the tress where we lay sometimes and those wicker bushes that were a burden to navigate if one ever became tangled, all of those quiet places where Mr. Kern and I found peace during our time away from the house that summer. Then I’d roll him onto the front porch, and he would sit there for hours taking in those sights not observed by younger eyes who knew this world awaited them day after day when they woke. Mr. Kern had no such assurance and, as such, sat consumed by each thing he’d seen.

Fletcher was a nod to his former self during this time, a reawakening of that spirit he once had, now positioned within an even handsomer body. He spared no lack of smiles or kind words. And like Silva, he also reaped the joy and energy that came from David’s presence. He treated the boy like his own, David’s soft eyes a reflection of Fletcher’s own kindness, the boy’s small hands and nose attributable to Fletcher’s own creation. Yet like any other occurrence that took place inside that home, there could be no good without the bad, and with David now absent more often than not from Silva’s company, she seemed to fade before our very eyes, her faint presence seen in that scarf tied around her head that loosely fell, her housecoat a lazy smock that reached just below her knees and sank with heavy pockets, her socks clinging just above her ankles in tired rounds, her shoes a worn mix of soft leather eased with saddle soap and cotton, her face a staunchness of years that showed, the narrowing of her right eye from the effects of glaucoma and its persistence over time. At the top of Silva’s housecoat was a white lace collar that matched the trim along the sleeves and those two pockets that sat along the front at her waist, this lace and trim the only prettiness that coat had to offer and indeed all that Silva bore.

David played out back around the shed and stables on this day, where Jesse could keep watch while Silva rested inside, the boy’s feet perched on top of a tire positioned alongside the wall so that he could better peer over that short barrier and into the pigpen where Jesse worked. The boy was all legs, his linen shorts having been hemmed so that they easily grew with him and could be lowered as needed, and anyone could see that it was definitely time again for the stitches to be popped and resewn. Jesse held the catchpole while one of the workers who had been released from his field duties for these few hours restrained the fighting hog. The worker placed his weight on the pig, using both knees to press down at its throat. Jesse then grabbed the ring and secured it to the pig’s snout. David was unimpressed by this struggle, having viewed it many times and, as such, losing interest as soon as the pig was released from their care. He stood there for some twenty minutes in this vacillation before he finally tired of barn chores and hopped down from the tire to return outdoors where the sun awaited him.

The light emerged in one burst, over and under and through until his blinded sight finally made out Floyd’s tall stance, the boy’s hands shading his eyes as he ran to Floyd in the nearby field. Floyd’s jumpsuit showed a faded thinning of years and had changed from a khaki gray to that color of cinders from a fireplace in winter. His starched white shirt peeked from his opened collar, just barely, and his shoes sat caked with mud, crumpled at the toes as if they were able to become wrinkled like a shirt or a wadded piece of paper. In his eyes was a distant sight known only to his mind, a sadness that caused me pain to ever consider what thoughts he might have pondered as he stood there with the stick in his hand and his hair peppered gray and this life on the plantation with Mr. Kern and Miss Lula all he had ever known out here in the Delta. David reached him, grabbing the bottom of his pants just below his knees, which woke Floyd from his dreams and revived whatever life he had left. Floyd embraced the boy lovingly, his large, worn hands placed around the boy’s shoulder as he gathered up the youngster and placed him onto his shoulders.

David screamed, howling like some coyote in the fields with his sights set on the barn.

“Ya got away, huh?” Floyd said, snickering with his jagged teeth. “Well, let’s see if we can pet tha cows.”

Floyd now carried the boy toward a black cow, its temperament calm when compared to those massive bulls he kept in the pen opposite the shed. The cow backed away just as the two of them approached, its black eyes following them each direction they turned as Floyd eased closer while cooing to the cow as if speaking to a baby. Floyd then tapped his stick onto the ground and reached with his free hand to rub the cow’s ears gently, which caused the cow to stand completely still and allowed the boy to reach down and do the same.

“Ya got ’er,” Floyd encouraged him.

Floyd’s gaze was always wise, his mouth always pursed and his eyes always peering around him in omniscience at the things he had seen. He held no judgments yet offered lessons as outright as a preacher, which we all heard as often as the next during his rambles. Seeing that wise expression, I recalled how he had stood with those men at Daddy’s funeral, all of them dressed in white shirts and trench coats, their hats removed and their voices raised in song. No man’s suit matched from top to bottom other than the preacher, although those men were just as put together as anyone else, Floyd included. Some with their canes and others choosing to slouch without any support at all, they stood, their voices singing loudly around the open pit until, with their arms raised and their eyes closed tightly out of fear of viewing this world while in consult with God, the women joined in and the spirit took hold of some and made others scream out in long cries, while others fell to the ground in fits that no one dared disturb as we praised God for this man who had raised three children alone after the loss of his wife and taught them truly the Word as best as he could. We sang until the crying stopped and then Floyd poured the dirt into the open grave and Gloria delivered a final song, as she had been known to have a lovely voice.

With a child now present on the plantation, the laughter no longer stopped at its edges, refusing to touch the house in journey from one farm to the next. It now exuded from all sides, as David was truly an excitable child, always running from one shiny thing to another. In typical fashion his laughter rose once more as Floyd returned him to the ground, and the boy ran wildly amongst the cows, slapping their hind legs with his stick and fleeing their retaliation while the dust trailed behind.

“David,” a voice soon called from the house.

David stopped, looked up, and ran.

Within the living room, David practiced his letters, the boy’s voice reaching us on that porch where I sat with Mr. Kern in the sun’s residual heat, left after the red-hot day, the remaining warmth quelling any exaggerated movements we had or even thought of exhibiting. The boy’s words lingered in my ears as he sat, reciting the same letter over and over, as he had learned no other letters besides that one that started them all.

Soon the voice came again as David trotted off once more toward the sound that called from the other room, my ear leaning to the door as he ventured farther inside the house. When no sooner did he return to that front area with that unmistakable tap of his feet did he run away again, rushing off toward the sound of that voice calling. A swell rose in the cotton bloom that pushed up the white heads row after row until that wind finally shoved the collected dust toward the front step where we sat. The dry ground smelled of rust and grit, all those years of being tended and ruffled now taking its revenge in the form of that vicious sting, that smell I had gotten used to, like my grandmother’s lavender perfume when I was younger, that smell of Mississippi I knew so well in the back of my mind.

The sunlight was a twinkle left in that part of the sky that refused to retire as we sat outside by ourselves on that country road and watched the wide side of America give way to the rising moon, craters and all. Mr. Kern could sit for hours in this heaven, living each day in the tidings it gave with nothing more than the sight of his farm and vast amounts of cotton spread before him, the last of his wishes having come to pass before he died—at home with his son and his land. It was there that I left him to his dreams and returned indoors to assist Silva with whatever preparations were still needed in getting dinner to the table. The house was dark, and the light that did enter from the outdoors was less than substantial to make clear the pathways I walked. From the hallway I could hear Silva’s constant stirring within the kitchen and smell the aroma of sweet rolls, I was sure, as that recognition came blessed with what could only be the potency of pot roast and potatoes and carrots and onions keeping warm inside the oven. Her voice caroled through a song, low and husky. “Steal away,” she sang, “steal away, steal away, steal away home. Steal away, steal away, haven’t got long to stay here …”

David’s voice was a recurring sound amongst Silva’s song, as through the sweet refrain of her vibrato that sailed then soared then whispered around me, came his indecent howl. His voice emerged again—a tyrant, a brute, a harlot who did not concede the call to worship and instead sang over it with his own song, his voice screeching throughout the halls of the house like children’s voices often do, his calls ringing out like some game of hide-and-seek where David was the seeker, counting in preparation for the subsequent chase.

I turned my eyes into the kitchen but did not see him, witnessing only Silva as she stirred the pot on the stove, her hip a protruding mound on one side, where her hand rested, as her face now settled like old clothes that show their wear over time. I returned to the hallway where that dimness sat as a soothing presence at the end of the day yet unsettled my mind as I now considered the boy’s likely whereabouts. When I’d finally found him, he was indeed seated on the floor of the parlor with his book spread before him and Fletcher seated in the rocker on the other side. Fletcher flashed a smile in my direction as I approached, a victorious grin that ate away at my conviction that God had somehow touched him and removed all of those cunning ways from his heart. We watched the boy continue his letters, silently and deliberately picking each other apart as Fletcher would look to me then I to David and David to Fletcher as the boy would glance up from the page for reassurance then return his sights to that crayon-marked inscription and all of those doodles added by his own hand. He was Fletcher from every detail of his being, some humorous trick God had played on Silva, given the boy’s likeness to that dreaded son. The boy sat on the floor like a gentleman, not sprawled out or tossed on his stomach like other children but instead seated in a cross-legged position as he leaned slightly toward the floor and used his arms to support himself. Fletcher had not ruined the boy yet—on the contrary, he had made him into a sophisticated young boy, David becoming increasingly unrecognizable, especially when compared to his father, who was of a rougher stature and made for work in the fields.

“David, it’s supper time,” I interrupted.

The boy yelled, protesting with his pounding fist and his eyes toward Fletcher to back him up.

“David!” I scolded.

“Miss Bernie says it’s dinnertime, and so it is,” Fletcher insisted.

And that was all it took, the boy soon standing from the floor and dragging his body as he reluctantly gathered the book into his hands and paced toward the door. He relinquished his pouting for just a moment to stop at Fletcher’s side.

“Can I come back after dinner?” he asked with his eyes a blank slate.

My stomach knotted, turning over itself violently, although I attempted to inject a sense of calm in my voice, saying, “Come on, silly boy,” pulling his arm a little harder than any adult should, and indeed hearing him offer a slight whimper, yet it had to be done, and Fletcher did not argue any differently.