(2008) Down Where My Love Lives Page 5

  The owner responded, "Sir, we can build most anything if you can give us an idea of what you want." The next day they received an express package containing a videocassette.

  Want to guess which one? Handwritten instructions scribbled on a yellow sticky note told them to "take notes and furnish the nursery, minus the crib." The buyer paid them double to speed manufacturing and delivery, so the guys in the shop spent their lunch breaks watching the movie clip and then arguing over the drawings for Maggs's chair and cradle.

  Maggie wanted to thank Bryce without embarrassing him, so she cooked him a roast, smothered it in gravy, carrots, and potatoes, and bought him a key lime pie to satisfy his sweet tooth. She wrote a note, left the dinner at his front door, and spent the next two days swaying in that chair and nudging the cradle with her big toe.

  On the third night I waited until she fell asleep, then picked her up and laid her down beside me. When I woke the next morning, she was still there, but somewhere during the night she had carried that chair and cradle in from the nursery and slid them over next to the bed.

  DESPITE THE HEAT, I ROLLED DOWN MY SLEEVES, walked into my second-story classroom, opened the windows, straightened the desks into rows, and cleaned the chalkboard. Soon kids shuffled in, eyed the available seats, and chose ones that suited them. The room was hot, and proximity to airflow was prime real estate.

  The second bell rang, and I cleared my throat. "Good morning."

  Faces looked back at me blankly. The silence was heavy, but the nonverbals were raucous. The silence said, "Look, man, we ain't no happier about being here than you are, so let's get this over with."

  I let a few more minutes pass, thinking eager stragglers might rush in, but they didn't. Clearing my voice again, I picked up my roll book and eyed the first name. "Alan Scruggs?"

  "Here."

  In my first year of teaching, I established the habit of identifying students by their places in the classroom until I got to know their work and personalities. When Alan said "Here," my mental note sounded something like, Second row from the window. Center of room. Reading a book.

  "Wait, you skipped me."

  I looked up. "Who are you?"

  "Marvin Johnson!" The speaker leaned back in his chair. "See, Jcome befo' S."

  It doesn't take the class clown long to identify himself.

  "I don't usually start with the A's."

  "Oh, tha's cool." He looked around at the other students. "I's jus' lettin' you know. Thought you mighta forgot." My new friend smiled, showing a mouthful of white teeth.

  I returned to the roll. "Russell Dixon Jr.?"

  "Yeah."

  A deep voice came from my left. Against the window, front row. Big, broad shoulders. Sitting sideways. Looking out the window. Never looked at me.

  "Eugene Banks?"

  "Uh-huh. "

  Left side next to the window. Two back from Deep Voice. Looking out the window. Also never looked at me.

  "That was enthusiastic. Marvin Johnson?"

  "Yo." It was my alphabetically conscientious friend. Frontand-center and liking it. Smiling. Big ears. Sweatpants. Tall and athletic. Shoes in a tangle.

  The contrast between my non-air-conditioned room and his sweatpants room struck me. "You look like you just rolled out of bed. Aren't you hot?"

  "Who, me? Naw." He waved his hand. "See, dis' what I wear." The kid was a walking attitude, an uncrackable nut-or so he hoped.

  "Amanda Lovett?"

  "Yes, sir. Both of us." A sweet, gentle voice rose from next to the window. Front left, against the window, in between Uh-Huh and Deep Voice, and ...

  "Both?"

  She patted her stomach gently. `Joshua David."

  I admit it, I'm not proud of my second reaction-the one that questioned her morals. I thought it before I had time to wish I hadn't thought it, but it didn't last very long.

  `Joshua David?"

  "Yes, sir," she said again, holding her hand on top of her stomach.

  "Well," I said, recovering, "you make sure that young man makes it to class on time."

  She broke into an even larger smile that poked two dimples into the sides of her cheeks. "Yes, sir."

  Laughter rippled through the room. Somebody against the window said, "Yes, sir" in that mocking tone that kids are so good at. I looked up and waited for him to finish.

  "Kaitlin Jones?"

  "Koy," a voice from the right rear of the class said quietly.

  I looked up at a young woman whose face was nearly covered by a combination of sunglasses and long hair.

  "Koy?"

  "Koy"

  "I could see you better without those sunglasses."

  She half smiled. "Probably." She didn't move a finger.

  Uh-Huh, Deep Voice, and Front-and-Center laughed, but I didn't push it. The first day was not the time to draw lines. I finished the roll, noted the changes and preferred nicknames, and leaned back against the desk. There I was again, in the front of a classroom. Roped in by Maggs and Amos.

  "My name is Dylan Styles."

  Marvin interrupted. "Professuh, is you a doctuh?"

  "I am."

  "So, we should call you Doctuh?"

  I checked my seating chart, although I already knew his name. "Marvin, my students have called me Mr. Styles, Professor Styles, Professor, or Dr. Styles. Do you have a preference?"

  My question surprised him. When he saw that I was serious, he said matter-of-factly, "Professuh."

  "Fair enough." I paused. "My wife ..." Bad way to start. . calls ... me Dylan, but school administrators don't usually like students and teachers operating on a first-name basis. So the rest of you can pick from the list. This is English 202: Research and Writing. If you're not supposed to be here, you may leave now, or if you don't want to embarrass yourself, just don't come back after class is over. I suppose if you don't want to be here, you can leave too."

  A voice from the back, next to the window, interrupted me. Its owner wore dreadlocks down to his shoulders, and when he had passed my desk on the way in, I was hit by a strong smell of cigarettes and something else. Maybe cloves. Whatever it was, he had been in a lot of it. His eyes were glassy and looked like roadmaps. "Professuh, ain't none us want to be here. Why don't we all leave?"

  A wave of laughter spread across the room. Yo high-fived Uh-Huh and then slapped Deep Voice on the knee. I checked my seating chart and started again.

  "B.B., I understand. But the fact is that `not wanting to be here' is what landed each of you in this particular class a second time. Do you really want to make that mistake again?" Scanning the room, I said, "Anyone?"

  Quiet replaced the laughter. Watching their faces straighten, I thought, Maybe that was too much, too soon. From the far right middle I heard somebody say, "Uh-umm. That's right too." I checked my seating chart. Charlene Grey.

  From the middle of the room someone asked, "Professuh, was yo' granddaddy that farmer that everybody used to talk to in the hardware store? The one that raised all the steeples? I think they called him Papa Styles."

  "Well, a lot of farmers fit that description, but yes, I called my grandfather Papa, he made a lot of friends in the feed and seed section, and he had a thing for steeples."

  Marvin sat back in his chair, tossed his head up, and pointed in the air. "Yo, Dylan, answer me something. Why they send the grandson of a steeple-raising farmer to teach us how to write? I mean"-he looked over each shoulder, garnering support, and then pointed at me-"you don't look like much of a professor. What makes you think you can teach us anything?"

  The class got real quiet, as though someone had pressed an invisible pause button. Three minutes in, and we had reached a silent impasse.

  What struck me was not that he asked the question. Except for the gold-rim glasses I wear when I'm reading, I look more as though I should be riding or selling a tractor than teaching an English class-cropped blond hair, oxford shirt, Wranglers, and cowboy boots. No, it was a fair question. He could have phrased it di
fferently, but it was fair. Actually, I had already asked it of myself. What surprised me was that Marvin had the guts to express it.

  "I don't know. Availability, I suppose. Mr. Winter's probably got an answer." I was losing ground. "Okay, English 20-"

  Marvin interrupted again. "But I don't want Mr. Winter's answer. I asked you, Professuh."

  Sneers and quiet laughter spread through the room. Marvin sat low in his chair, in control, on stage and loving it.

  I walked to the front of his desk and put my toes next to his. To be honest, I was too scattered to have said it the way I should. My body may have been in that classroom, but my heart was lying next to Maggie.

  I took a deep breath. "Marvin, if you want the title of Class Clown, I really don't care." I waved my hand across the class. "I don't think you'll get much of a challenge. What I do care about is whether or not you can pass my class. Your ability to make everybody laugh is secondary to your ability to think well and learn to write even better. Do we understand each other?" I leaned over, laid my hands on his desk, and put my eyes about two feet from his.

  Marvin half nodded and looked away. I had called his bluff, and everybody knew it. I had also embarrassed him, which I wouldn't recommend. For the first time that hour, no papers were ruffling, nobody was trying to outtalk me, and nobody was looking out the window.

  I let it go.

  I backed up, walked to my desk, and leaned against it because I needed to. I then made a few procedural announcements and mentioned the syllabus. Everyone followed along. Point made. That's probably enough for one day.

  My introduction had taken, at most, four minutes. Once finished, I said, "It's too hot to think in here." I gathered my papers and began packing up. "See you Tuesday. Check your syllabus, and read whatever is printed there. I have no idea because I didn't write it."

  My class beelined for the door, shooting glances at one another and whispering as they left.

  Funny. What had taken ten minutes before class now took less than thirty seconds. Maybe it was something I said.

  The only student to stop at my desk was Amanda Lovett. She rested her hand on the top of her tummy. "Professor, are you the one who's been at the hospital the last week, sitting next to the coma patient on the third floor? The pretty woman, um ... Miss Maggie?"

  When I first learned to drive, I always wondered what it would be like to throw the gear shift into reverse while driving down the highway at seventy miles an hour.

  "Yes, I am."

  Amanda chose her words carefully. Her eyes never left mine. "I work the night shift at Community as a CNA. I ... I was working the day you two-I mean three-came in." She fumbled with the zipper on her backpack. "I'm real sorry, Professor. I help to look after your wife. Change her bed linens, bathe her, stuff like that." Amanda paused. "I hope you don't mind, but when you're not there, I talk to her. I figure, I would want someone to talk to me, if... if I was lying there."

  I now knew how the emperor felt with no clothes.

  "Professor?" Amanda asked, looking up through her glasses, her face just two feet from mine. I noticed the skin right below her eyes. It was soft, not wrinkled, and covered with small droplets of sweat. It startled me. I saw beauty there. "I'm real sorry about your son ... and your wife." She swung her backpack over her shoulder and left.

  I stood there. Naked. The only comfort I found was that she didn't even realize she had done it. Her eyes had told me that.

  Going out the door, she stopped, turned around, and said, "Professor, if you want, I won't talk to her any more. I should've asked. I just thought ... "

  "No," I interrupted, rummaging through my papers. "You talk to her ... anytime. Please."

  Amanda nodded. As she walked away, I noticed that the shirt she was wearing was one Maggie had tried on in the maternity store. I sat down at my desk, stared out the window, and felt absolutely nothing.

  FEW FOLKS KNOW THIS, BUT BRYCE MACGREGOR IS probably the richest man in Digger. His dad invented a gadget, something to do with how railroad cars hook together, that made his whole family a bunch of money. I know that doesn't sound like a gold mine, but Bryce said that every train that's been produced in the last fifty years uses this contraption. I guess that would add up. Bryce gets a royalty check about once a week. Sometimes more than one.

  Three years ago I was in his trailer and saw a bunch of envelopes scattered about. One of them had been opened, and its contents lay on the floor. It was a check for twentyseven thousand dollars. Bryce saw me looking at it and said, "Take it. You can have it. Most of 'em are like that. Some are more. Some less." A few minutes later, Bryce passed out. One beer too many.

  I couldn't find a pillow, so I wadded up a couple sweatshirts and propped up Bryce's head. He was snoring pretty good and could have really used a bath, so I opened a few windows and didn't bother to shut the door behind me. Nobody ever went up there anyway. The breeze would do him more good than harm.

  I don't think Bryce ever remembered that night, but I did. There was more than a quarter of a million dollars on the floor in checks made out to him. I left that check, and all the other checks, right there on the floor. I didn't want Bryce's money, and the secret of his trust fund was safe with me. But I didn't want him taken advantage of, either. And there are enough money-grubbers in Digger, small town or not, to rob Bryce blind.

  So a few weeks after that, I got to thinking about Bryce while harrowing a section of pasture. What was a half-naked drunk, probably the richest man in South Carolina, doing, living in a trailer next to a drive-in movie theater that had been closed since the early seventies? I said to myself, "This is just not right. This could turn out real bad if someone doesn't start taking care of Bryce." So I went up to the Silver Screen and gathered up all those envelopes. Bryce showered once a week, and I made sure that once a week was that day. Once Bryce was smelling sociable, we loaded up my truck and the three of us-Bryce, Blue, and I-drove to Charleston to talk to the man who Bryce said handled his trust fund.

  The man's name was John Caglestock. A skinny little man with rosy cheeks and round glasses that hung on the end of his bulbous nose. Legally, the man had no actual control over the fund, but he was careful to make it his daily priority. His firm made some good commissions from handling Bryce's affairs. But Bryce could be intimidating when he wanted to. Whatever Bryce said, Mr. Caglestock did.

  After our meeting, due in large part to the way Bryce talked about me, Mr. Caglestock did whatever I said. Bryce called me his brother, and the man brought out some paperwork and had me sign it. I told him I wasn't anybody's brother and I wouldn't sign anything, but Bryce told me to do it. That way I wouldn't have to "drag his butt" down here again.

  So I read it, got the gist of it, and signed it. From then on, the firm had to run every transaction by me before it did anything. Bryce's orders. In essence, I couldn't spend any of Bryce's money on personal matters, but I could look over the firm's shoulder and see where it wanted to invest it. And Bryce thought that was good.

  About once a month Mr. Caglestock would call me, and we'd have a real polite conversation in which I approved or denied every transaction he wanted to make. The more time I spent with Bryce, the more I realized that behind the drunk facade, Bryce had moments of lucidity in which he really knew what he was doing. I guess he knew the day I took him to Charleston.

  In the three years since I've been talking with Mr. Caglestock, Bryce has made a pile of money. He's more than doubled his fund. Looking back, I realize that has more to do with the market and Mr. Caglestock's research and advice than my input. Caglestock knows his stuff, and he taught me a lot.

  One day Maggie asked me if Bryce had a will, and I said I didn't know. I started doing some digging and found out that he did not. And he had no one to leave anything to. That worried us, so I went up to his trailer one afternoon and asked him, "Bryce, if you were to die tomorrow, who would you want at your funeral?" Without batting an eye, he said, "The bugler."

  That didn't g
ive Maggie and me much to go on. Just whom do you leave forty or fifty million dollars to when the guy who owns it isn't saying? We decided that while we had no right to play God, we could do a better job than the state. So we had Mr. Caglestock draw up a will that left the whole kit and caboodle to the children of the men who had served with Bryce in his unit in Vietnam. Most of them never knew their fathers, but Bryce did. He kept their dog tags in his ammunition box. About fifteen in all.

  So why did I do all this if I didn't want the money? I guess because Bryce couldn't, or at least didn't, and I didn't want him getting taken advantage of by a bunch of Charleston lawyers who found him incompetent to handle his own affairs. And since Bryce's fund has doubled, they can't accuse me of that. Besides, between Caglestock and me, they've made good money. I'm not sure even Bryce knows how directly I handle his fund. It's an odd thing. Caglestock will call me, we'll move two to three million dollars from one stock or fund to another, and yet personally, I'm scratching to pay the taxes on our property. Bryce makes more money off the interest in his investments in one week, or sometimes even a day, than I'll make all year.

  A TORNADO BOUNCED OVER DIGGER LAST NIGHT. IT PICKED up a couple of houses, disassembled them piece by piece, and scattered the remains for miles. I didn't hear it, but those who did said it sounded like a really mad freight train. After a phone call reassured me that the hospital hadn't been in its path, I wanted to see the damage, so I loaded up and drove across town. It was an odd thing. On one side of the road, everything was exactly as it had been the night before. On the other side, it looked as though God had taken a two-mile razor to the earth's face. One man woke up to a neighbor phoning to say his tractor was sitting upside down in his tomato patch more than a mile from where the owner had parked it the night before. Others didn't wake up. There were three of those.

  I finished my chores around the house, cleaned the yard and then myself, and drove out to Bryce's. By the time I crested the top of the hill by the Silver Screen, it was late in the afternoon. Bryce was standing in a kilt and wearing combat boots, holding bagpipes in one hand and a beer in the other. "Morning, Dylan," he said with a smile. His white barrel chest glistened in the afternoon sun. Bryce had quit wearing a watch long ago, and sometimes, if his nights ran long, so did his mornings.