The Good Brother

9

After work the next day, Virgil cashed his paycheck and closed out his bank account in Rocksalt, asking for the cash in hundreds. The teller had been skinny and old when he was a kid and now she looked the same. She never gossiped or misspoke.

“How’s your mother?” she said.

“Pretty fair.”

“And your sister?”

“Not much changes with her.”

“More kids?”

“Says she’s done.”

“How about Abigail?”

“Got herself a promotion.”

“I heard that.”

She counted a few thousand dollars onto the counter and slid it into an envelope.

“Here you are, Virgil,” she said. She smiled without showing her teeth, a sly expression that drained twenty years from her face. She winked. “Hope you young people luck.”

Virgil was astonished at the wink. She’d heard that he and Abigail were getting married. The story had probably gotten back to Abigail by now and he felt bad that he’d not seen her in a while.

He strolled the familiar sidewalk of Main Street, passing people whose faces he recognized — as Boyd put it, men he’d howdied but never shook. Teenage boys outside the pool hall stood very close to each other. As they got older, they would move farther apart. Old men in front of the courthouse owned a segment of space that surrounded them like a web. He tried to think of the changes since he was a kid coming to town once a week for groceries with his mother. The drugstore had moved across the street. A new theater had been built, its carpeted floor providing enough static electricity to create fingertip shocks. The small stores were still operated by the same families. There was absolutely nothing to miss.

At a realtor’s office, he transferred ownership of his land and trailer to Sara. He explained that it was a surprise gift, and the realtor promised to keep the transaction a secret.

He drove to his sister’s house at the head of Bobcat Hollow. The dirt road crossed the creek several times, and in spring the two mixed freely. At the top of the ridge, trees glowed with autumn colors, but near the creek, the leaves were still green. Two dogs loped around the house and barked. A young billy goat with one horn stared at him through a fence, the only penned animal on the place. Sara stood in the garden behind the house. Her legs were spread as she bent from the waist among the furrows. A lard bucket filled with stove ash sat beside her.

“Lord love a duck,” she said. “Look what the dogs drug in. Will miracles never stop?”

She stood straight and rubbed her lower back.

“You know, Virge, sometimes I’d rather sort cats than hunker in the dirt all day.”

“Best wear welding gloves for that chore.”

“They’s some to cut the claws off a cat. Did you know it?”

“It’s untelling what people will do to an animal.”

“I’ve seen them treated better than kids.”

“How’s yours?”

“Susie wants to wear lipstick and Jeannie wants to play basketball. Them boys fight bad as roosters.”

“Ary a one here?”

“They’re in the holler somewhere.”

Sara walked primly between the farrows to the porch. She settled into a metal glider with rust spots showing through white paint. Virgil sat in a chair he recognized from his mother’s house. It fit the contours of his body like an old coat.

“Wondered what happened to this chair,” he said.

“You came around more, you’d know.”

“That’s sort of why I came by today.”

“I kindly had the idea you had something to announce.” Sara’s grin was sly. “I know you.”

“Do you, Sara? I don’t feel like the person everybody thinks I am.”

“Abigail knows you good enough.”

The glider creaked in a steady rhythm that reminded him of bed-springs while making love. One side of the hollow was in shadow. By morning, there would be frost on the dark side of the hill.

“Turning off cold overnight,” he said.

“Reckon you came to talk about weather.”

“Look, Sara, I know I don’t visit enough to suit you. And I got no excuse for it. I envy what you and Marlon have. This is a good place for you all, a peaceful pocket,”

“You could have it, too, little brother.”

“Maybe, maybe not. That ain’t what I’m here over, either. The thing I’m trying to say, what I want you to know. It’s just that. Well.”

He suddenly recognized the safety of living in a hollow, the security of flanking hills with one route in. There could be no surprises here. Everything came at you straight on. You gave up sunlight but you were shielded from rain, wind, and ambush.

“I know we didn’t always get along, Sara. And I know you think I never liked Marlon, but that’s not true. I wish. I hope. Well, what I’m trying to say. Sara, I’m glad you’re my sister.”

“I love you, Virgil. You’re a good brother.”

Virgil wished everything could be that simple for him. He was unable to say those words, let alone reduce the complexities of family to such acceptance. What he was planning had everything to do with family but nothing to do with love. He stood. He wished she would stand so he could hug her. He faltered slightly as if tired. He wanted to leave before the kids arrived.

“You tell Marlon what I said. Hug your babies for me. Keep them warm. Tell them the truth about me, hear.”

“Why, Virgie, the way you talk, anybody’d think you were fixing to elope on us.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it.

“You don’t have to tell me nothing,” Sara said.

“Keep in mind you said that,” he said. “Don’t you ever forget what you just said.”

The glider swayed. As he walked away he knew that he’d never be here again, a thought that was a bludgeon. He backed the car in a half-circle, honked twice, and headed out of the hollow. He wanted to memorize every piece of it, the old fence post covered with vine, a willow that dangled its fronds in the creek. He reached The Road, grateful not to have encountered Marlon or the kids on his way out. Bobcat Hollow stretched toward darkness in his rearview mirror, just another dirt road that followed a creek into the hills. It was behind him now and always would be.

He sat on his trailer steps and listened to the sounds of evening in the woods, the rustle of animals, the call of owl and bobwhite. A strip of scarlet lined the horizon. He was perceiving the world with greater appreciation, like someone who’d nearly died. He lay awake a long time, running through his plans.

In the morning he drove to work for the last time. At the end of the shift, the sound of the time clock hitting his card was a familiar comfort. He lifted the card and dropped it in the hole again. He punched the clock several times until someone yelled behind him, and Virgil placed his card in the rack and joined the flow of men moving down the hall, through the door, and into the sunshine. His car sat between white stripes with the others in the lot. He belonged.

He stopped walking and the men moved around him like water parting for a snag. The old ones plodded to their cars while the young men flicked one another’s caps to the ground. The air held an autumn snap. The sky was crisp and clean. This was the time to lay in wood for winter and turn the earth with fall plowing. It was the season to hunt.

He waited for Rundell by his car. The two of them leaned against the hood.

“I know I ain’t been much good here lately,” Virgil said.

“You work.”

“It ain’t like it was.”

“Live long enough, Virge, you find out nothing ever is.”

“You’re a good man, Rundell. Best boss I ever had.”

Rundell was quiet.

“I’ve learned a lot off you.”

Rundell nodded.

“I’m fixing to make some changes, Rundell.”

“Change is good for a man.”

“I don’t see no way around it.”

“You won’t be so alone either,” Rundell said. “Best thing about it for me was kids. Now I got grandbabies.”

“That ain’t exactly it.”

“I ain’t saying she’s pregnant.”

“You don’t understand, Rundell.”

“Work buddies see each other different from family and regular friends.”

“Maybe so.”

“You’re a good man, Virge. You ain’t afraid of work and you ain’t mean. Ever what’s eating at you will go away. Just start eating it back.”

“Might be that don’t do no good.”

“Then go on a diet.”

Rundell laughed, the lines of his face etched hard but gentle. Virgil reached in his pocket for a small knife.

“Here,” he said.

“That’s your knife.”

“No it ain’t, it’s yours. No sense in me walking around with another man’s knife in my pocket. Take it, now. Go on and take it.”

Rundell accepted the knife. He opened the Made, spat on his forearm, and shaved a patch of hair to test its sharpness.

“Good steel,” he said.

Virgil walked quickly away and drove out of the lot. He was giving away all his goals at once — his father’s cabin, a life with Abigail, becoming a crew boss. There was little to life but work and family, and he was throwing them over the hill. He cut down a side street and parked beside Abigail’s car. Virgil climbed the stairs to her apartment door and she let him in.

“Hidy,” she said. “I thought you died in a wreck.”

“Ab.”

He stepped into the room, slightly dismayed as always by the furniture. Abigail had received a touch of sophistication in Ohio, and every surface was made of chipboard covered by woodgrain vinyl that glowed with a perpetual shine.

“Sit down, Virgil. You look peaked.”

“I’m all right.”

She brought him a bottle of Ale 8, Kentucky’s native soft drink, with a distribution limited to one end of the county. The dark green bottle chilled his hand. He took many small sips because he didn’t know what to say. He admired her chin.

“You looking at my chin again?” she said.

“Reckon.”

“That’s why I put up with you, Virgil. You’re the only man to think it makes me special.”

“When we were kids, you were pretty much all chin.”

“And you were one solid cowlick.”

Abigail laughed, a familiar sound, and he wondered if everyone’s laughter stayed the same, like a fingerprint. He suddenly realized that he’d not considered the leaving of fingerprints. The only gloves he owned were heavy work gloves, not suited to handling a pistol. He wasn’t sure if it was a necessary concern since there’d be little question as to who he was. He supposed a man could wrap rubber bands around the joints of his fingers and use a razor blade to carve new prints.

He realized that Abigail had been talking and was now waiting for a response. He felt as he had in grade school when a teacher called on him and he hadn’t been paying attention.

“What,” he said.

“Now I know what folks are talking about,” she said. “I heard you were out of it half the time. Somebody said you were smoking pot, but I said no.”

“Not hardly.”

“Virgil the hophead.” Abigail laughed. “No, it just don’t fit.”

“People talk, Ab. I know what they been saying, too. I hope you don’t let it get to you too bad.”

“I don’t listen at it much.”

“There’s something I want to tell.”

Her eyebrows rose and Virgil recognized her listening face. When she became truly interested, a vertical line formed between her eyes. He hadn’t planned on the visit, let alone what he would say.

“Ab,” he said. “Ab.”

She nodded. Late afternoon sun refracted through the window, soaking her face and hair with light.

“Ab. I know I’ve not been close lately. I mean, sort of distant.”

He glanced at her and she nodded.

“So what I want to tell you is that it’s going to get worse. A lot worse.”

He shuffled his feet, wishing he smoked so he could spend a good two minutes lighting a cigarette.

“Now, Ab. You know how I feel about you, and us and all. That’s what you’ve got to remember. Always know that. But I want you to promise me something.”

She was very still, as if poised to leap.

“Ab, if anything ever happens, don’t you wait around. There’s plenty of men in this county to treat you right. You know what I’m saying.”

She shook her head tightly. Her fingers were gripping the chair arm, Virgil became aware of a terrible tension in the room and he didn’t know what to do.

“Now, Ab, I ain’t saying I don’t, that I don’t want us to be, you know, together. I just want you to know that if something ever happens to me, you’ll go on. You know?”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“No. I mean yes. What I said.”

“Who is she?”

“What?”

“Don’t get cute, Virgil Caudill. I don’t see you for weeks and your family don’t see you either. Then you come up here and tell me to go find a new man. I ain’t stupid. It’s that little bitch who works in the office at maintenance.”

“Who? No.”

“Don’t say it ain’t. I know where she lives, down on Lower Lick Fork, off the interstate. I heard you been driving out that way couple times a week.”

Virgil shook his head. He couldn’t believe how fast this had gone bad. Abigail’s face was red. Her voice had risen steadily, controlled and hard, fury at its edges.

“Don’t you sit and shake your head, Virgil Caudill. I won’t be treated this way. I ain’t your whore to let go of when you’re done.”

“I know you ain’t, Ab.”

“Listen at him. He knows I ain’t no whore. Thank you. You’re pretty nice for a son of a bitch.”

“Abigail, it ain’t any of this.”

“No? Then what? What is it?”

“It’s me. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” she yelled. “There ain’t no that’s all to it. I’m part of it, if you didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“Then tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing. I mean, I can’t.”

“Which is it? Nothing or you can’t?”

“Both.”

“Bullshit! It can’t be both. Don’t lie, Virgil. You never lied to me, so don’t start now. Just tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“You know how many people have asked me when the wedding date was? Do you know what it’s like to answer those questions when I haven’t seen you in a month?”

“I’m sorry, Ab. People do me the same way. They ain’t got no life of their own so they want to mess with yours.”

“I have a life, Virgil. It’s a pretty good one, and you’re in it, right? Tell me I’m in your life,”

“Ain’t me being part of yours enough?”

“Tell me I’m in yours.”

“Not just now.”

“Get out!”

“But there’s nobody else,”

“Go on and get!”

“Just remember that I came over here, Ab. You’re my best friend.

I wish. I… I.”

Virgil rose and walked awkwardly to the door and stopped. He loved her as much as ever, but he didn’t feel it now. He couldn’t.

“Get out!” she said.

She was beginning to sob and he knew that she wanted privacy, that for him to see her cry would be another wound. He went out.

“Who are you?” she screamed from the door. “I don’t know you anymore. Who are you!”

He descended the steps in a daze. The door muffled her voice, but he knew that she would run through the apartment, slam her bedroom door, and cry on the bed. He sat in the car, feeling terrible.

At his trailer he undressed and lay in bed, unable to sleep. All of his planning ended at Rodale. Afterwards he’d drive to Cincinnati, but he wasn’t sure whether to take the interstates or the old state roads. They all ran the same direction, roughly parallel to each other. He could make better time on the interstates, but he’d be more visible, easier to trap. The state roads were private, and offered many routes of escape if he was chased. He was reminded of a question he and Boyd had often asked as children — during a slight rain, did you run to get out of it sooner and risk hitting more raindrops?

He began to worry about the noise that his pistol would make. He wondered if Rodale had a dog. He wondered if he would be able to do it. Sleep was far away. Boyd had always told him that instead of counting sheep, he should talk to the shepherd. Virgil tried but the man transformed to his brother and then to his father. This was not the night for them. He was in it alone.