Holy city, p.10
Holy City, page 10
“I don’t know, Floressa. I’m worried. He ain’t the boy who used to hang around with Sam.”
“Yes, he is,” she said. “He is too. You leave him to me.”
They heard the keys approaching.
“All right, Mrs. Hathom,” Buddy said. He was a little scared of Floressa.
“All right what,” Floressa said.
“That fifteen minutes is up.”
“Shoot,” she said, turning. “Why are you here, anyway? Where that Seems boy?”
“Suspended,” he said, smiling. “Thought everybody knew that.”
“Suspended!”
He showed his teeth now, partially rotten. Sugar definitely, meth maybe.
“Traffic violation.”
“Traffic violation!”
She stood and blew Zeke a kiss and followed Buddy down the hall toward the main office.
“Sheriff pulled him over and gave him a choice,” Buddy said, talking back over his shoulder at her. “Suspension or a ticket. He took the suspension. You ask me, that boy ain’t got more sense than your old man.”
“Maybe he got sense enough,” she said, a little out of breath. “One of these days, that badge going to bite you.”
“I’m a sworn-in bona fide deputy of the law.”
“Y’all got problems. Sheriff pulling over deputies instead of fighting crime. Only people you ain’t catching are the ones who need to be where my husband at right now. Don’t you touch me.”
“I got a mind to put you back there.”
“I dare you.”
As she moved out through the door, she couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Will Seems taking that suspension just to spite the sheriff, but it bothered her a little too. That wasn’t going to get them anywhere. She thought of him out there, alone with all his thoughts, living out there on his family’s property like a hermit, and she wondered . . . She worried about him, remembering the way his mother had passed. Her own heart had gone out to the boy as if he were her own. Boy had some redemption in him, something his mother had also had. That was a sad business. Her heart ached with the memory of all that had happened, all that had been lost between the two of them.
WILL’S GRANDMOTHER CALLED and invited him to Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Dawn, which his family used to attend regularly. “We’ll come by and pick you up.”
“I’ll meet y’all down by the gate so you don’t have to drive up,” Will said.
“We’ll be by at ten thirty and have a picnic after the eleven o’clock service.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The Episcopal church was a mighty brick edifice surrounded by magnolias and pines in an open area at the end of a gravel drive. As had hunt clubs, churches had stayed segregated, not by mandate or really by choice but just because that was the way things had always been, and people didn’t want to swap churches. There may have been twenty people attending in a church built for over two hundred. Most of them were old. The youngest, aside from Will, was middle-aged. Will remembered playing in the courtyard here with his sister, who was now living up north in Chicago, and with the other young kids, most of whom had since moved away.
After a service in which the bookish priest focused on the tired theme of forgiveness, Will’s grandfather said, “We’ve been thinking about you, son. About that man y’all took. Wasn’t he Mrs. Hathom’s husband?”
“Yessir.”
“It was all in the Southside Telegraph,” his grandfather said, shaking his head.
“Horrible,” his grandmother said.
She had packed a wicker basket with fried chicken and coleslaw. She spread out a blanket in the grass, but Will and his grandfather stood leaning against the tailgate. They had taken off their jackets and could feel the sun on their white button-downs through which sweat showed like grease. The old man was someone Will respected but pitied. He was the kind of man who had a strict sense of honor, someone who might actually challenge someone over an insult. But those days were long gone. The world had never stood still enough for him to find a way to live in it.
“It’s terrible seeing the way things have become,” the old man said. “It’s no better in Emporia. Son, why didn’t you just stay in Richmond? You had everything.”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“I’ll never understand your generation,” he said. “It’s never enough. Everybody seems to bounce from one thing to another. Anything but plant their feet where they are and stand tall.”
“Jed,” Will’s grandmother said, but he didn’t stop.
“Somehow it’s all changed. What used to be a good countryside to raise babies and grow them into servants of the state and the country is now . . . Well, just look at it.”
“What are you doing about anything, Jed?”
“Surviving, Gale. Goddamnit.” A strange moment of silence passed before the old man said, “Should’ve brought us some fishing poles. Why the hell did you come back to this place? We’re old—no use us leaving just to die. But you. You got your whole life to live for.”
Will knew the only thing that would satisfy them. “I was called back.”
His grandfather nodded. His jaw moved, as if determining whether he could swallow what was in his mouth.
“Sure enough? Well, you got to keep in line with Him, pay attention to signs. You see the young folks these days. There’s no God in anything. And what do we got now? Empty houses, empty people, but a fine spread of crime. I can’t see what use the Lord would have for you to be back here.”
Will was sick of this kind of talk. He understood that his grandfather was afraid. It was the fear talking. He knew the real reason, and they were circling it. Bitterness could only mask it for a time.
“You look tired, honey,” his grandmother said, touching his cheek. “Are you liking your job okay? I worry about you. It’s a brave job.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m on unpaid vacation.” His grandparents didn’t understand. He said, “Suspension.”
“Oh, Will,” his grandmother said. “That’s not funny at all.”
“You best keep your head down,” his grandfather said. “No telling what’ll come around the corner. For all you know, it’ll be Satan himself. I begin to wonder, if man’s made in God’s image, if we shouldn’t just be afraid of God Himself.”
They ate. His grandmother’s chicken, thickly breaded, seasoned with black pepper and salt and cayenne, cold and refreshing on a hot day.
“What’s your plan?” his grandfather said, licking his fingers. “You gonna go on staying in the house?”
“Yessir. I aim to fix it up. Start the farm back up.”
The old man chuckled. “That’s a lot of work for a full-time lawman.”
“I won’t be a lawman forever.”
“She’ll always be there.” The old man looked away quickly, as if surprised at himself for opening that door, and Will could see the twitching side of his face now. He held his hands to his eyes as if shading them. Will hated to see his grandfather sad, as he had seen his mother in those last months, not knowing how to save her.
“I think He called me back for her.”
Will felt bad about lying. God had called no one to do nothing. But he hoped it would bring them some comfort to think there was a purpose to it all.
“Let’s go see her, Jed. Will. Let’s go see your mother, Hannah.”
He tried to think of a reason they couldn’t go, something that would make sense, but they had a right to see their daughter’s grave. He could only hope Sam would stay out of the way. He had no way to warn him.
They packed up and rode out to Promised Land.
Will forced the key into the rusty Master Lock and lifted the heavy, dented metal gate so that it swung high enough above the earth and let it rest against the far fence post. His grandfather drove the truck forward, rattling over the cattle guard, the soft sound of hard dirt under the tires as Will got in the bed and knocked on the window, and the truck moved forward again, and Will couldn’t remember the last time he’d been a passenger somewhere, riding in the back of a truck, warm wind in his hair, the way they used to. He stared up through the trees, the skittering of cicadas rising out of them like heat waves over tar, the strong sun heavy white against the boughs of the cedars, and up at the house. He couldn’t see any sign of Sam yet. The truck pushed through the long heavy grass, leaving it compressed in two trails behind them like a wake in some green marsh, and came around to the back of the house—where they could see the manicured pathway to the slanted brick wall against the slanted hill, nothing higher around them—so they could see the fields angling away gradually like the sides of a tent from the peak.
His grandfather killed the truck motor, and the doors opened, and Will watched his grandparents, old but still agile enough, slide down out of the truck, beeping until the doors shut.
“Well,” his grandfather said. “Guess I didn’t need to bring that Weedwacker. You been keeping it up, Will. Good on you. Last time we was here—before you moved back—it was like she’d been forgotten.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Will said.
Will led the way, scanning for Sam and looking out for snakes in the sunny path or hanging over the wall. They came to the graveyard, and Will opened the gate with his father’s family name centered so that SE and EMS were divided when the gates opened. He held out his arm for his grandmother and led her in.
His grandmother cried when she saw it, her hand gripping Will’s shoulder.
“Oh, William,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
The headstone, indeed, looked wonderful, with fresh flowers lining it, some beginning to wilt, the grass throughout the walled graveyard trimmed neatly. There were many old, very old stones, chipped and covered with lichen and moss, darkened with time and difficult to read. All Seemses, dating back to the early 1700s, including the sixteen with the Southern Cross of Honor beside their headstones. (The current house at Promised Land dated back to 1819, the year the previous version, built in 1791, had caught fire and burned to the ground.) She had a bright grave, the words “Loved by all who knew her” carved underneath her full name, Hannah Elizabeth Lee Seems, and the years she had lived, 1956–2000.
“Oh, William,” his grandmother said again, her arm through his as if at a cotillion.
They stepped forward and offered the new bouquet, his grandmother taking the older flowers away, holding them in one hand, arranging the new ones before the grave. His grandfather crouched, his face closed, hand over his eyes again. Will heard him breathe through his nose, a sound like the tension of a screen door opening or like a doe blowing at a threat. They, like he, would never get over it, but Will was too angry to cry. It was a hate that filled him. She had done this to them, and Will knew in some way it was because of him. They would only learn and relearn to live with it, because there was no other way, but he also knew it would never be over. She would never really die.
His grandmother gripped Will’s hand. “I’m so proud to know she knows she’s loved. I’m so proud you keep it up. It means everything.”
When his grandfather stood, he was raw-eyed and weak-looking, as if he had just stumbled out of a bar or had been whipped good.
“Thank you, son,” he said. “You loved your mother very much. Not like your—”
“Jed.”
They turned to face the grave again, and his grandfather said a prayer to Hannah: “We don’t know why you did it, Hannah, but we love you just the same. The pain you felt is now over. We’ll love you forever. Think about you every day, sweetie. Every day.
Amen.”
They walked back to the truck, and his grandfather cleared his throat. They stood around the tailgate, looking ashamed. Will wanted them to go. He wanted to be alone in the dark empty house, alone with the dead fresh on his mind, alone with pain like a cat going to die, private personal griefs welling in his chest. He wanted to pull chaos out of deep shadows, make something out of it, rise from himself.
His grandfather said, “Let’s look inside. I’ll help you see what needs doing. I got a little bit of time these days, and while you’re off at work, I can get Jerome Davis and Terrell Bloom to come over and help you get settled.”
“Some other time. It’s not ready for company.”
“I can see that,” the old man said, walking toward the house. “You might’ve at least removed the boards from the windows.”
“You’ll be needing some furniture,” his grandmother said.
“I’ve got the dining room table and chairs, the piano.”
“But you need beds, linens, coffee tables.”
“There’s no hurry,” Will said, calling after the old man. “Granddad, I don’t need help.”
“You been here close on a year,” his grandfather said, “and it don’t look like no one lives here. See you got a crop of tobacco in the ground. You raising it by yourself?”
“It doesn’t take all that much once it’s in the ground,” Will said.
His grandfather chuckled to himself, pushed open the heavy door to the house, a gasping sound of stale spirit air churning the motes of dust in the deep dark hallway. Will hoped it would be too dark to see anything much (only the back porch windows and cracks in the boards and the solitary unboarded window upstairs let in light), but his own eyes adjusted after a moment.
“It’s like a damn crypt,” his grandfather said. “You need some light, son. You need to pry off those boards.”
Will scanned for Sam, walked ahead of them into the parlor. When he turned, he heard the sound of a foot on the stairs and rushed back into the hallway to see his grandfather four steps up.
“Granddad!” Will said. “Come downstairs.”
“Hold on. I just want to take a look.”
Will said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be climbing the stairs in this heat, in this darkness. They’re not in great shape.”
But the old man kept climbing. “These stairs were built back when things were made to last.”
“Jed,” his grandmother said. “It’s hot enough down here. You got to worry about your heart.”
Will watched his grandfather’s back in terror as he saw him straighten and draw his M1911 pistol.
“Granddad!” he shouted, bounding up the stairs.
“Don’t shoot, Mr. Lee! It’s me! It’s Sam Hathom!”
“What in the hell?” Will’s grandfather said, looking at Sam standing against the hallway wall, white squares like tan lines where pictures had once hung.
The old man looked over his shoulder at Will. “He’s here by your design?”
“Yessir,” Will said.
“What, because of his daddy?”
“He’s just staying with me is all.”
The old man holstered his pistol. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, and I don’t want to know. I see now how you got that crop in.”
He turned, descending, pushing past his grandson like a stranger at a bar. Will could see his grandfather had sweat through his shirt.
“Granddad, I can explain.”
“I said I don’t want to know.”
He followed his grandparents outside to the truck.
“Granddad, Grandma.” They turned, and in their eyes he could see he’d lost something else. “Please. Don’t say anything about him being here. Not to anyone.”
“I don’t like this,” his grandfather said. “That boy doesn’t look well. Is he on drugs?”
“He’s sick, and I’m taking care of him.”
“Bull,” his grandfather said. “You’re lying, to us and to him.”
“You knew about his condition.”
“I’m not talking about no condition. You see the look on his face when I mentioned his daddy? Does he not know?”
“Please . . .”
Will’s grandfather raised his hand and turned away. Will kissed his grandmother’s cold, fragile cheek. She reached up and combed his hair with her fingers, looking at what she was doing rather than in his eyes.
“Will, I worry about you and the decisions you make. You can’t depend on good intentions to protect you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Please. Please, promise me you’ll keep this between us. No talk at book club, or at the grocery, or . . .”
“Okay, honey,” she said, a wariness in her face. “I won’t talk. But I don’t like it.”
He helped her into the truck and watched them jolting away, following the low patient contours of a hard, undulating land that had shaped them all, their bodies and their dreams.
Will found Sam upstairs, pacing. “I got to get the fuck out of here. What kind of dumb shit was that, bringing them in here?”
“I couldn’t stop them. Don’t worry. You’re safe. They won’t talk. I made them promise.”
“What Mr. Lee mean about my daddy?”
“I don’t know,” Will said.
Sam looked hard at Will, as if making a decision.
“I know how your grandma can be,” Sam said. “I sure hope she don’t blab at all. If she does,” he said, a little smile forming, “you gon’ be fucked.”
“Me? Me! What happens to me happens to you.”
“Nah, man. It ain’t the same. Who holds the drugs? You. Who got a job to hold? You. I’m living free as a crow, just floating over paradise. Ain’t got shit to lose.”
THE THREE WOMEN, Claudette and Bennico and Floressa, waited at the Hathom house for Will to arrive. He came in civvies and gave brief nods to the three women sitting at the kitchen table.
“Bennico Watts,” Floressa said, and Will reached out and shook her hand. “Will Seems.”
“What’s this about?” Will said.
Floressa said, “Sit down.” He slid the chair out, sat with his elbows on the table, hands clasped. “You want something to drink, honey? We got some juice, some sweet tea, some Coke.”
