*
The next day Bill was back at the store shooting his gab about the election. This time more people made a point to swing by and listen to him go on. Whether out of genuine interest in his politics or just for the sake of gaudy spectacle, Mary-Alice could not be quite sure. But spectacle was the word for it. At one point the man was standing on the bench in front prattling out his tirade.
“We’re all at the turning point here, boys. You see what them Fed’rals done back in ’67 when they had their way. You seen what they think of us plain folk down here in God’s country. See, they jealous of us. Jealous of what we got going for us down here. Boys, I can recall the day in this country when all a feller had to do was walk out his front doorstep and go not three yards and trip over a gang of fat rabbits or a hog or buckdeer or even an old buffaler.
“I recall when a man could head out to the river with a decent line in his hand and just start jerking fish out of the water so fast your arm was sore after half an hour. I can tell you that was the way it was for a fact. I lived it, sons. Me and plenty others. Well it was ruined slow and sure by northern aggression. These outsiders steady coming in with they paper mills and they textile plants and this and that and all the people running out to ‘em like they sent from heaven above. And what for? A dollar an hour wages and broke back? Sons, that ain’t a way to live. Not nohow. We got to stand up and take back our ways else they die out completely.
“You fellers know it won’t be long ‘til they’ve got us all chained down. They’ll have our numbers, boys. They’ll say ‘you owe such and such dollars down and we’ll have it or you go work it off on the farm.’ Sons, it’ll be just like them old days before we took this country out from under them English. They’ll have our number, by god, and they’ll have us working ourselves to death for their interests. Well, what about our’n? By heaven, boys, a man ought not have to work that hard in his life just to get by. Not with a country that’s just spitting grain and groceries. By heaven, boys, working ourselves to death ain’t the way. A vote for Bill is a vote for the way home!”
Mary-Alice stood and watched the old man nearly yell himself hoarse in the middle of the general store to a crowd of maybe eleven people. In this county, maybe that was enough. Maybe they would each tell a cousin or two who would tell a cousin or two and that’d be pretty much everybody.
Bill had such a fire in his eyes when he spoke that Mary-Alice could almost see the history in his face. She wondered what it must have been like to see those islands out in that Pacific Ocean, to fight toe to toe with those mean Japanese who she’d heard had rather gut their own selves than lose a fight. She wondered how it could be to see things change so in a single lifetime. Already in her own she’d seen the shift over from raising crops and hogs to working at the mill or the plant. Every month a new road was being paved with blacktop and now nearly everybody had a telephone number. Bill, she then realized had seen it all from horse and buggy through to a man jumping around on the moon. She just couldn’t imagine such a sequence of shock and change. Already, her own life seemed too much to bear some days.
Bill walked her and Tommy home again that day and for many days thereafter. Each day in the store was much the same, him clamoring on and on about this and that offense from the people running the industry and making the laws, with people standing or sitting sipping coffee and half listening. Even Maggie Smith started taking interest in what the man had to say about cutting tax for the farmer. Mrs. Maggie had always said she’d sooner be tending her peas and corn than tending store.
In Bill, Mary-Alice decided, she saw what Hank Grady might be some day if he could ever settle down and make a run at something worth a damn. It was what she saw in him from the first day senior year. She remembered it well, the way he looked walking in with those jeans and that hair like he owned the world and didn’t care about a thing—like he had it all figured out. He had been a great boyfriend through it all. He was never short of something fun to do. Liquor was in no short supply with him around. But, now they were well in their twenties and with a boy to raise and Hank didn’t seem to notice that time had moved at all. He was still the fine-looking boy with the fine-looking car out to cut up and get in as much trouble as he felt he could get away with. It had long lost its luster for Mary-Alice. She wanted a husband for herself, a father for her son. She wanted a man. Not a boy in girls’ jeans.
Still, as each day was similar, so were the nights. Mary-Alice found herself to have such an appetite as she could not readily remember. Every afternoon in the store she stole glances at the man they say had killed not less than thirty white people, and more than one time she caught him stealing glances at her—parts of her, at least. She didn’t know why but it stayed with her and she did her best to work it out on Hank, who, admittedly, was being rather a sport about it all. It was usually a once or twice every few weeks sort of ordeal with that man, which, ordinarily, was plenty for herself.
Mary-Alice had always liked the way Hank looked once she got him out of her clothes, but now she focused her glances only on him from the neck down. She’d now developed her habit of putting her hands down on top of his face while she worked. Hank would puff and sniff and do all he could to pry her hands at least enough apart to get his nose free and manage to not die from lack of breath. Mary-Alice, somewhere deep inside, tried to tell herself to ease up, but she just couldn’t—not ‘til it was over. And she didn’t want to see Hank during the affair. She didn’t even want him to touch her.
It was all well and good for her most nights until she finally, one evening, took it just the last bit further and sent Hank into a terrified frenzy. She’d been carrying on in the same way as usual, only this time, when he’d got a little excited himself and tried to grab her behind to brace himself, she jerked his hands off her and pinned them down. The man struggled for a minute to try to get himself loose, but she was having fun with him now and was strong enough it would not be easy for him to get free. She even giggled a bit at the fact she could make him jerk so.
That was when the screaming started. Hank shot out the most terrifying howls and ripped her hands from himself and flew out of the bed. Mary-Alice had snapped out of her trance and saw the look of horror on his face. Now Hank was the one long gone from the room. His eyes twitched and nearly sank all the way back in his head. He teetered and she thought he would pass out for a moment and jumped up to try and grab him. He flew back from her. He grabbed a pair of jeans and boots turned for the door. There was little Tom, staring at the whole scene and trying to make sense of who was doing what bad thing to who.
Hank stole out of the apartment and down the stairs to the car, Tom calling after his ‘papa’ all the while. The car squalled out of the barn that night coupled with the cries of the child and Mary-Alice sat dumbfounded on her bed. She’d only tried to play a little game with the man. Here again, she saw she’d never truly know him. But, now she at least had an idea why. He had made himself the creature he was to hide this thing about him away, to mask it in his silly hat and his glasses and foolish jeans and the outlandish vehicle. He had to show everyone he was something pretty, something flashy, something fast and tall and strong. All so they wouldn’t see this ugly thing, this sad and weak little thing that lived inside him. Now she’d seen it. Now she had seen enough of him to find him just close enough to human she could care about him again.
And now that he was real again to her, he was gone. For no telling how long.