Why the Tree Loves the Axe. Jim Lewis

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СКАЧАТЬ I walked back home from Eden View, I passed through Green River on my way to Old Station. I tried to take a different route every day, and once I came to a crossroads. On one corner there was an old hotel, a shabby once-blue building several stories higher than those that surrounded it, with dark windows and an unlit neon sign that read THE PIONEER. A red-and-green billboard showed a tin of chewing tobacco with a bucking stallion on the lid. Two men were leaning against the wall in the heat outside, one with a straw hat pulled down on his forehead, and the other shirtless and drinking a can of beer. They were in their early twenties and they had their eyes on me.

      As I passed, the shirtless one began to sing in a high, clear voice:

      

       Jole blon

       From Louisiana

       On the bayou

       In the moonlight

      I didn’t look back, although I wanted to; I knew that if I did, I would see him standing there, with his arms open wide and a look of devotion on his face. I turned the corner like she-to-whom-all-praise-is-insufficient: I could feel my steps swaying, I could hear him following me. When I was about halfway down the block he started singing again.

      

       Don’t leave me

       Don’t deceive me

       Stay beside me

       Make me happy

      What a pretty melody. What a sentiment to sing on a sunny afternoon, in this sad part of town. At last I glanced back and saw him ambling up the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and his elbows out at his side, so that his entire being was fanned out behind him like the harlequin tail of a peacock. His voice was beautiful, and his pride was a sight, but at the last moment I thought of the word pussy, and I turned away.

      Oh, come on, he said. Don’t be like that.

      But I just kept on walking.

      

      The way from the bus stop to Eden View the following night. The weather was so hot and humid that it was impossible to tell if the sky was overcast or clear; the air was thick, the light was slow, in the privacy beneath my clothes I was perspiring. I walked down the middle of the empty street, watching the voodoo music that hung down from the canopy of trees overhead. When I reached the parking lot, I found it empty, the windows of the place were dark, no birds did sing.

      In the door, then, and walking down the main hall. A few of the residents were out of their rooms, slumped over in their wheelchairs and staring down at their bare, bedsore legs, like images from old paintings of the sufferings of man. The walls were hung with grandchildren’s drawings, their bright lettering laughing in the half darkness; the air smelled of weak medicine and cleaning solution, the slight sound of voices drifted out of the lounge. Someone was trying to convince someone else, softly, so softly, that there was no way to tell the words.

      Judith and Bart were playing cards in the game room, or rather, they sat with a deck of cards between them and talked in low voices, thin lips to great ears. He bet her that she was an alien from outer space, and she went through the deck and named the cards, numbers and suits, to try to dissuade him; but her words came out in unearthly syllables. See, Bart said. You’re a Martian, just like I said, maybe from Neptune, maybe, I don’t know. They should have been put to bed an hour earlier, and I went in to gather them up. Together they rose and followed me down the hall toward their rooms—Judith’s was first, and she went in without a word. Bart said, Humph, yes. Are there mountains beneath the sea? I nodded, and he made his way across the floor to his bed, moving his mouth softly.

      Down the bare halls I saw darkness coming out of the rooms, a coffin-shaped stretch of shadow that reached through the door of each one. Good night, good night. Old folks in bed. Good night. There were dusky moons on the hallway ceiling and a grey penumbra down at the end, a mirage that had settled in before the door of the dining room. Good night. There was no more sound.

      Billy came fully dressed out of his door, shut it softly behind him, and started down the hall into the unlit lounge. When he saw me he stopped and shouted, Hey! You there! Girl!

      Billy, I whispered. Shhh. He scowled and retreated back into his room, where I found him standing stiffly beside his impeccably made bed. On his night table I saw a gold watch and an uncapped silver pen. Caroline-the-Candle! he announced. Do please sit down—he gestured to his windowsill—and we can get started. He had become very polite, but I couldn’t decide whether it was because he felt polite or because he was mocking me. I went automatically to turn down his sheets. Don’t, he said, and instead of lying down, he began pacing the distance from the head of the bed to the foot and back again. I took the chair by his desk. He stopped and smiled, in his unsmiling way. Out the window I could see the lights of Texas, spread like steady, pale orange stars along the floor of the valley.

      So tell me, how are you? he asked.

      All right, I replied.

      What did you do today?

      Not much.

      No, goddamnit, he said, instantly glaring at me. So he had been mocking me, or else he had changed his mind. What exactly did you do today?

      I ran a few errands, mostly, I said. Then I went home and read for a little while, and then I took a shower and got dressed. Talked to Bonnie on the phone.

      Where did you go, on your errands? What did you read? Who is Bonnie?

      I didn’t want to play, but I didn’t feel like fighting, so I played along: To the bank to deposit a check, I said. To the drug-store to get some soap and shampoo, to the hardware store to get lightbulbs. I read a magazine. Bonnie is my friend.

      Caroline-the-Candle! he said again. And … Bonnie-the-Bottle. How did you meet her?

      In the hospital, I said. And before he could ask: I was in the hospital because I had a car crash. That’s how I wound up here, with you.

      Who knows you’re here? he asked.

      In Sugartown? In Eden View? I don’t know. No one.

      No family?

      No.

      Children?

      No.

      No boyfriend?

      No.

      Caroline has no one but her friend Bonnie. I’d like to meet this Bonnie.

      Maybe someday, I said.

      Well, all right. Do you want to know what I did today?

      Sure.

      While you were reading magazines and doing nothing, I was out, he said. I have been roaming all over the country. I have been practicing my arts. I have had a very busy day indeed. First I went to Kentucky and I collapsed a coal mine; and don’t you know, they’re still trying to dig the poor men out. Then I spread my wings and flew up to Detroit, where I started a small fire, I did. And when I was sure СКАЧАТЬ