I awoke late the next morning and spent an hour in bed reading a novel that had won the Man Booker Prize. It was typically British, meaning that it moved at the speed of a crippled snail. Heresy, I know, for a professor of comparative English literature.
After breakfast I started driving. I had no plans, but apparently my subconscious did, because when I reached the entrance to the old Shackelford place, I stopped. What sixty years before had been a rutted lane ending at a farmhouse in need of paint, was now a two-hundred-foot blacktop driveway to an antebellum-style mansion. This was sacred ground. Rosemary Shackelford, the first woman I ever loved, lived where that elegant home now stood.
Until this moment I had never really considered the move from Kentucky to Indiana as a watershed event in my life. Once in Indiana, however, I found myself excluded from the mainstream community, especially when it came to girls. I had exactly two dates in high school. The girl’s name was Kendra and I had just gotten my driver’s license. We had fun, but when I asked her for a third date, she refused and said her father didn’t think it was right for her to go out with a boy who wasn’t Christian. That was a moment of real pain. Since I wasn’t a good athlete and was considered a hillbilly, I was pretty much at a loss for male companionship as well. I retreated into our farm and into reading, which I came to love because books afforded me a form of friendship and gave free rein to my imagination. During my senior year, one of my teachers insisted that I apply for a scholarship to an elite New England liberal arts college known as Collingwirth. How I got accepted is still a mystery to me.
My luck with girls was no better in college than in Indiana. Collingwirth was populated by the children of the rich. There were five Jewish kids there, all rich except me. And all male. I didn’t have a date in two years and eventually quit trying. Then a miracle happened.
Cheryl Marie Smith was a waitress at Tulley’s, my college town’s least favorite coffee shop. Tulley’s was perfect for me because it was devoid of Collingwirth students, whom I detested. It had four tables, twelve red plastic counter stools, two waitresses, one cook, and few customers. Cheryl was blonde, cute, divorced, a part-time student at a local college, and about twenty-three. I frequented the coffee shop as often as possible, sat at the counter chatting with her and trying to work up the nerve to ask her out on a date. One day she asked if I had seen the movie at the town’s only theater. I hadn’t, and she said, “If you’re free tonight, let’s go.” I had three papers due in two days. “Not doing a thing,” I answered, and a few hours later I indulged in the first non-self-administered sexual experience of my life. I almost didn’t. Apparently none of Cheryl’s previous lovers had been circumcised, and while guiding my clumsy attempts at penetration she squealed, “Oh my God, part of it’s gone!”
I thought she was referring to size and became instantly flaccid. A few minutes later Cheryl remedied that malady and I declared my manhood. I was a novice but a fast learner. Of the now nine Jewish kids on campus, I was comforted by the belief that I was the only one getting laid. Then tragedy struck!
I was dating Cheryl on Wednesday and Saturday nights. One Monday evening I had exciting news to impart. I raced to her little apartment with a bottle of cheap wine, quietly used the key she had given me, and entered. Sounds emanated from her bedroom. I was certain she was struggling with someone and burst through the bedroom door to rescue her, only to find Cheryl and my philosophy professor deeply involved in hedonist studies.
I received an A in philosophy that semester.
The good news I had been in such a rush to tell Cheryl concerned reviews on a paper I had worked on for an English professor. As a research assistant, I was studying the effect of Charles Dickens’ visit to the United States in 1842 on his future work as editor of the British newspaper, The Daily News. During that trip Dickens had become bitterly opposed to slavery and shifted the direction of the newspaper after he returned to England. That was well-known, but little had been written about the effect of the American trip on Dickens’ later work. My observations were not totally new, but offered my professor an exhaustive review of the topic. The academic accolades got him tenure and he wrote me a glowing recommendation for NYU’s graduate program. A few months later, I met Nora.
I was jarred from my musing about Collingwirth when a man of about forty came out of the mansion that had replaced the Shackelford farmhouse and walked briskly toward me. I exited the car. Once he saw my age, he dropped his aggressive posture.
“Can I help you?”
I laughed. “Not unless you can tell me where Rosemary Shackelford lives.”
It was obvious from the look he gave me that he found this a little strange. I quickly made an effort to remedy the problem. “I’m revisiting places I lived as a child, and the love of my juvenile life lived where your house now stands. The family name was Shackelford.”
The man smiled. “Carry a torch a long while, don’t you?”
We both laughed. I recognized his accent. “Have you lived here long enough to trade in your Red Sox tickets for field-level Cincinnati Reds?”
The man shook his head. “I plan to have my ashes scattered in Fenway’s outfield. We’ve lived here three years and I don’t know any of my neighbors.” He smiled and started to turn away, then turned back toward me. “Sorry I can’t help you with Miss Shackelford, but I’m sure you’ll meet another girl soon. Have a nice day, sir,” and he walked toward his house.
I backed out of the driveway thinking about Rosemary. I wondered if she was still alive. If she had children. If her life was happy with the man she had chosen. The words of my undergraduate psychology professor ran through my mind: “You never forget your first love.” Apparently, he was right.
What was I going to do today? I had no idea, but then it didn’t make any difference. I was retired. An abandoned derelict floating on an irrelevant sea. I decided to go back to my hotel and spend the day soaking in the swimming pool.
As I started driving, I looked to my left toward the ridge where our tobacco barn had set. I found myself upset by its absence and felt an urge to explore where it had stood. I parked at the fractured old gate, then walked to the top of the ridge and followed the creek toward the volcano hill. When I was abreast of “our house,” I began my search. The bluegrass was so tall that what I felt with my feet was as important as what I saw. I wandered in circles until I tripped over the remnants of a ventilator panel, one of many such planks that could “open the barn up” to the air. This would aid in curing the tobacco after it had been harvested. When rain threatened, of course, it could be closed. It was obvious to me where I stood. In 1946, I would have been standing in (or beside) the tobacco barn. I searched, but found no further remnants.
The distance between the tobacco barn and the sheep barn was perhaps two hundred feet, and I walked toward the site. Halfway there I discovered part of a weathered, creosoted plank. The distance from both barns put it exactly in the neighborhood of the corncrib. Perhaps this piece of wood had witnessed an event that deeply affected my life on Berman’s. At the time I was having difficulty coming to grips with Rosemary Shackelford’s engagement. Indeed, I . . .
. . . didn’t want to be around anybody but Ben. Every morning I’d take off across Cummings Hill to the Big Bend bottoms. Finally, I just left my fishing pole at his cabin. That ten-mile round trip was the only bad thing about visiting Ben. It was worth it, though. I could be lower than a snake’s belly and Ben would make me feel better. Third or fourth time I visited, he brought up the crazy man and about my talking to Dad. I told him I wudn’t up to it at the moment and it would have to wait until I was over my problems with women. He grinned and said I’d better not figure on waiting that long. I told him it shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks and he really laughed.
We talked about all sorts of things, or sometimes just sat on the riverbank and fished in dead quiet. Man, did he know stuff. He talked a lot about his family . . . he was the youngest, same as me, and had the same kind of troubles with one of his sisters I had with Naomi. He’d even been in love with a girl Rosemary’s age when he was eleven, and the same thing happened to him that happened to me. Everything was going great until one day I asked where he got the clothes he had lent me. He got quiet, but it wudn’t like our usual quiet. When I left that evening I took my fishing pole.
Truth was, I was getting lonesome for a friend my own age. That was a problem because I didn’t want to see Fred very often, and Lonnie didn’t come over. Mostly, I just took my slingshot and wandered the hills. I was a good shot, boy. I was better than Fred now, and a couple times in the past I let him know it by plunking a sparrow at forty, fifty feet. Fred never said anything, but he never took a shot unless he was sure he wouldn’t miss.
You can learn a lot wandering hills if you already know some and Fred had taught me lots. I’d go down to the creek in the morning and study tracks. It was fun putting together what went on during the night. Like one day I found the tracks of a mama coon and some little coons that had come down for a drink. The babies wandered ahead, and suddenly there was a set of fox tracks moving on the other side of the creek. This went on until they come to a narrow spot and the fox made his play. There was mud tore up all over the place with lots of gray-red fur and just a little coon fur and some blood. I could see where the fox run off limping. He must have been a young fox to be dumb enough to tangle with a mama coon. Ain’t a fox in Kentucky can lick a mamma coon with babies.
One day, I decided to follow Cuyper Creek. It was awful hot and when I got to a deep hole I shucked my clothes and went for a swim. When I got out, my clothes was gone. I was shook up because I thought maybe a goat got them. I couldn’t go hunting for them since I was naked as a jaybird. Then I heard somebody laugh and Lonnie stepped out of the bushes.
“Lookin’ for these?” he asked, holding up my clothes.
We had a good time swimming and squirrel hunting with our slingshots. I got a couple and then Lonnie asked me to their place. I was kind of scared, but figured he wouldn’t ask me if he was worried about his pa.
We crossed Cuyper Creek and walked through the cornfields along the high bottoms. From where we crossed the creek it wudn’t far to the crazy man’s cave. That gave me the willies. After a while we come to a bluff. You could see a long stretch of river from there. The channel got wide, then the stream narrowed and deepened and started the Big Bend turn.
Just below the bluff we were on was another cornfield, and below that, in a little hollow, was the Miller house. It was small and white with the grass clipped short in the yard and some pink roses climbing along a wood-rail fence. Mr. Miller wudn’t there, but everybody else was. The house was neat and had some real pretty furniture, most of it made out of walnut. One of the kitchen chairs was sitting in the corner though and was kind of broke up. I wondered why it hadn’t been fixed because with five kids the Millers needed it. Turned out Mr. Miller made all the furniture and even built the house. I had dinner with them.
Before the day was out, it got tiresome. Lonnie just didn’t say much. Finally, I told him I had to get the cows milked before Dad got in and took off, leaving the squirrels for him.
When I got home, Naomi and Mom were standing by the cistern, and Mom said I had better get started doing chores because Fred had hurt his hand and Dad took him to the doctor.
“Hurt his hand? How?”
“He cut his finger off. He was acting meshuga with the corn sheller and cut his finger off,” said Mom, shaking her head. “Dad and Alfred took him to Dr. Culbert.”
I felt awful. “Dad said that Culbert’s a quack and Fred’s gonna die!” I yelled.
Then Mom and Naomi started talking to me together, telling me it was just a finger and you didn’t die from a cut-off finger.
I did the chores but I couldn’t get Fred out of my mind. Why the heck had I gone on so about the rabbits? Fred and them needed the rabbits and I just gave them away. I could’ve told Fred that I didn’t want them and he ought take them because it was a sin to kill them and throw them in a ditch to rot. He might have taken them. But no, I had to give them away to people who didn’t need them. Boy, I was dumb.
Dad got home as I was finishing milking and told us all about what the finger had looked like. That made me feel even worse. I wanted to go see Fred. Mom didn’t like the idea of my walking at night, but she didn’t want to upset me again so she let me go.
I was really feeling low. Fred and me wudn’t best friends anymore but he had been my best friend. He taught me everything I knew about slingshots and frogging and fishing and reading signs. I hated them damn rabbits!
The night was hot as I walked through the big field toward the hickory and locust thicket. The moon looked like a pumpkin, and swallows flitted in and out across the twilight sky. When I slipped through the barbwire gap, somebody come out of the kitchen door, saw me, climbed the hog lot gate, and ran my way. I could tell it was Thelma Jean by the milk-cow way she ran.
“Fred cut his finger off!” she yelled, when she got close. “Fred cut his finger off!”
“Yeah,” I said, and kept going.
Thelma Jean walked along beside me, jabbering as she gasped for breath. “In th’ corn sheller! You know how hit gets jammed with cobs . . . all plugged up? Well, Fred always reaches and pulls ’em out and today they was this one wouldn’t come and he reached in further and hit cut his finger right off! Spurted blood all over th’ corncrib! Bled like a stuck hog! Finger just laid there a-twitching. You ain’t ever seed so much blood! Hurt somethin’ awful. Fred was a-squallin’ and runnin’ ’round with his finger stickin’ out and hit just a-pumpin’ blood all over th’ corn! Some places hit looked like Injun corn! You shoulda heard him squall! Old Radar heard him down in th’ holler, I betcha,” and she kept on and on.
Poor Fred. It must’ve hurt terrible. He was always fiddling with that damn corn sheller. As we neared the house I kept going faster and faster and feeling worse and worse and by the time I got to the front door, I was nigh crying. Thelma Jean stood beside me while I knocked. Pretty soon, Annie Lee come to the door.
“Hidey, Samuel. Well, Thelma Jean, what you knockin’ for? Whyn’t you just come in?”
“I wudn’t knockin’. Old Sam there was a-knockin’,” and we both stared at her.
“Who is hit, honey?” Mamie called.
“Sam,” Thelma Jean yelled.
“Samuel,” I said, and went inside.