Nothing Gold Can Stay (10 page)

Denton looked down through the trees to see if he could glimpse the truck but didn’t see it. All Baroque and Marlboro had to do was sit and wait, that and lean on the horn if a ranger appeared. Even they would have trouble screwing up those directions. Then again, Denton wouldn’t put it past them to drive over to Bryson City for something to eat or a six-pack of beer, then forget where the hell they’d been parked. That was the worst of it. Most people were smart at something. There were guys Denton had known in high school who weren’t able to spell
cat,
but at least they could change their spark plugs or replace a blown fuse. Baroque and Marlboro didn’t even possess smarts like that. Having clogged up the commode three times, Marlboro, it was clear, couldn’t even figure out how to properly wipe his ass, and Baroque had driven the truck like a drunk ten-year-old the one time Denton allowed him to take it to town. Denton thought about calling them, just to be sure they hadn’t driven off, but then he remembered they would actually need
money
to buy a hot dog or six-pack. Still, Denton was beginning to feel uneasy about bringing them along.

He went on, breathing hard because he was climbing steep ground, and having to be more careful too, since ice was on the trail this far up. That was something else. He’d figured, wrongly, that the cold weather would drive Baroque and Marlboro back to Florida.
Florida
. Denton said the word out loud. What kind of name for a state was that? It wasn’t a word with any backbone to it, like the hard C in the first syllable of
Carolina
. You could look at Florida on a map and see that it drooped down from the rest of America like a limp peter. It was a wonder the founding fathers hadn’t just sawed the damn state off and let it drift away. A state where the most famous
person
went around pretending to be an eight-foot-tall mouse. Every kid in the state had probably been to see that thing, walked up to it, and shaken its hand or paw or whatever believing it was a real mouse. Growing up to think a big animal like that wouldn’t be dangerous. No surprise, then, that when the kids grew up they’d think piranhas and pythons and walking catfish were a good idea for pets, then go dump them in some nearby swamp or river, thinking that was
another good idea
.

And now it was as if the whole state was like those catfish, crawling up the Eastern Seaboard into North Carolina and taking over, because here in this very park there were people—people who were supposed to be in charge—who acted like bears were
pets
. Letting them wander along the roads so dumb-asses could throw marshmallows and french fries at them, like it was trick or treat and the bears weren’t real bears but idiots in costumes. Doing it even after some fool had nearly had his arm torn off by a bear he was feeding from a car window, and probably would have had his arm torn off if someone in the car behind hadn’t tossed out a bag of Cheetos. Denton had seen the whole bear spectacle firsthand just a month ago when he’d driven to Cherokee to see a client. The bears were actually lined up on the shoulder waiting for handouts. One had gotten out on the road in front of Denton’s truck and stayed there with its big red tongue slobbering, like it was owed a meal. That was another thing the Chinese had going for them. They weren’t big on pets. Hell, they
ate
their pets, or what passed for pets over here.

Denton finally saw his marker and left the trail. He paused but didn’t hear anything so, if the trap had worked, maybe the creature was already dead. Denton had to admit he was relieved. If he’d caught one and it was dead, all he’d have to do was cut off the paws and do a little surgery to find the gallbladder, which shouldn’t be that hard, since he’d seen the photos—greenish, shaped like a fig. If the bear hadn’t died, he’d have to shoot it. He’d grown up in a place where you were supposed to enjoy being out in the woods shooting things, but he had never enjoyed being outdoors. Denton liked being able to decide how warm or cold he was going to be, and having a toilet, and knowing exactly where everything was and knowing it was close by. But here he was, way up in the woods with a pistol and knife and trap like he was Daniel frigging Boone. And what if he got caught. Having Baroque and Marlboro as lookouts probably increased the chances about a thousand percent. He’d lose a good job at the least. Maybe end up in jail, because having the gun with him meant
two
federal crimes.

But there was no bear. The store-bought ham he’d hung from the limb was gone, the trap sprung. Denton looked closer, saw two silvery-brown nails and a few hairs. The bear had leaned over the trap as if reaching over a counter. Dumb luck on the bear’s part, Denton knew, but at least the damn thing might be scared enough now to think twice before going after human food again.

Screw it, Denton thought, bear, medicine, and, most of all, the brothers-in-law. Denton had eighty bucks and a credit card in his billfold. He’d take Baroque and Marlboro to the bus station in Asheville. And buy two one-way tickets to Florida. They might eventually wander back, but it’d take those two screwups months or even years to get enough money to return. Susie had sent them money to come the first time, but there was no way in hell that Denton would let that happen again.

As he began the walk back, Denton suddenly felt better than he had in a while. Everything was going to be all right. Even freezing his tail off on this mountain had been worthwhile. That was another thing the Chinese believed, or at least the Buddhists among them, that you went up a mountain to gain wisdom. And he damn sure had, finally realizing what to do about the brothers-in-law. Denton made his way back down the trail, going slow because the afternoon light was waning. He started thinking about how he’d deal with Baroque and Marlboro if they didn’t want to go. Just as he decided if it came down to the pistol he wasn’t above that, Denton tripped on a root and his ankle veered in one direction and the rest of his body in another. He didn’t stop tumbling until he was off the trail and into the stream, ice shattering around him as he entered the tailwater of a wide, long pool face-first. Soaked from his head all the way to his waist, Denton crawled up on the bank. His teeth chattered and he could
feel
his hair turning into icicles. He knew that whatever else bad had happened in his life—embalmed wife, deadbeat bears, brothers-in-law—this was worse. A whole lot worse.

He took off his gloves and pulled out the cell phone, praying it would still work. The cell phone, unlike him, had been totally immersed, but by some kind of miracle it wasn’t dead. Denton’s fingers were numb but he was finally able to press the right numbers and the call went through. On the eighth ring Baroque picked up and Denton explained what had happened, or at least as best he could, because his brain was clouding with every passing second, and his words didn’t match up with his thoughts the way he wanted them to. It felt like years passed before Baroque understood.

“We’re coming,” Baroque said. “How far from the truck are you, timewise?”

Denton didn’t speak for what felt like a full minute. The connections of time and space were not so clear anymore.

“Maybe thirty minutes,” he finally answered.

Denton heard Baroque speak to Marlboro, then the sound of truck doors slamming shut.

“We’re on our way,” Baroque said. “But we need to know if you feel cold or hot.”

Denton realized that though his teeth chattered and icicles had formed in his hair he actually was, if not hot, at least warm.

“Hot,” he said.

“You got to get back in the water, then,” Baroque said. “You’ve got hypothermia. A boy on one of the shows fell in a pond and being under that cold water was all that kept him from freezing to death.”

Denton tried hard to figure out if Baroque knew what he was talking about. It seemed Denton had heard of such a thing, maybe on the news, and the fact that Baroque had learned a word as long as
hypothermia,
even pronounced it correctly, struck him dimly as some kind of progress. Besides, the water would cool him off.

“You can’t wait any longer,” Baroque said. “In a couple of minutes you won’t be able to move. We’re on our way.”

Denton looked at the pool, covered in ice except around the falls. Somewhere deep inside him an alarm bell went off, but it was so soft Denton couldn’t figure out quite what the warning was. Baroque was still talking, telling Denton he had to do it now. Denton set the cell phone on the bank. Baroque’s words were blurring. It seemed Baroque was talking real fast, though maybe that was because Denton was starting to think real slow. Breaking the ice to enter the pool seemed too much work, so Denton crawled onto the rocks above the waterfall and slid feetfirst into the pool, going in smooth as an otter.

At first they didn’t see him, just the cell phone’s blue-tinged screen.

“If he crawled up in the woods, he’s a goner for sure,” Baroque said.

Then they saw Denton hovering in the pool’s center. The ice was so clear it looked like Denton was part of a magic trick.

“His eyes are open,” Marlboro said.

“Of course they are,” Baroque said, “and he can probably see us and hear us.”

“He’s not blinking.”

“That’s because it’s like a coma, everything’s shut down but his brain. His heart, I bet it’s less than one beat a minute by now.”

“I didn’t think he’d be that blue,” Marlboro said.

Baroque took a football-sized rock and threw it into the pool above Denton’s head. The ice shattered, but Denton’s body drifted only a few feet before it snagged on more ice.

“We’ll have to go in and get him,” Baroque said.

Marlboro looked at the water reluctantly.

“I guess so.”

“Let me get his cell phone first,” Baroque said. “He’d be mad at us if we left it. Anyway, we’d better get him to the hospital. I’ve been thinking more about that show. The announcer might have said fifteen minutes, not fifty. I don’t guess you remember?”

Marlboro shook his head.

Baroque picked up the phone and put it in his pocket and they waded in, the water over their ankles as Baroque set his hands beneath Denton’s shoulders and Marlboro lifted his feet. Once on the bank, they set Denton down. Marlboro parted his legs and positioned himself between them as if hauling a stretcher.

“His being stiff does make it easier,” Marlboro said.

They made their way down the trail and arrived at the parking lot. As the day’s last light fell behind the mountains, they leaned Denton against the truck.

“Should we put him in the middle?” Marlboro asked.

“We can’t do that,” Baroque said, “not unless you want to drive all the way to town without heat. A human can’t be thawed out but once.”

Baroque opened the tailgate and they slid Denton in feetfirst, placing two cinder blocks one on each side so he wouldn’t shift as much. Marlboro took the lid off the Styrofoam cooler and wedged it gently, almost tenderly, under Denton’s head.

“And he can still see and hear us?” Marlboro asked when they’d finished.

“Sure.”

Marlboro stared at Denton.

“I can’t think of anything to say to him.”

They got into the cab and after a couple of tries Baroque found first gear and they made their way down the dirt road.

“He’s been pretty good to us,” Marlboro said. “He can be grouchy but he has let us stay with him.”

“I’ve been thinking maybe we haven’t really held up our end as much as we should have,” Baroque said. “Next week I’m going over to the community college to see about that med tech degree. What we’re doing helping Denton makes me feel useful.”

Marlboro nodded.

“If you do that, I’ll go see about an orderly job.”

The road went downhill and the woods thickened. Everything was shadowy now and at the bottom of the hill was a bridge. Baroque knew from movies this was not the kind of place where anything good ever happened. A maniac or a man with a steel hook for a hand or a mutant could be hiding under the bridge. He risked shifting into second gear and found it and the truck sped up and rattled on across. Baroque let out a grateful sigh as the road rose again and the woods opened up.

“If Denton is okay, do you think they’ll put us on one of the medical shows?” Marlboro asked.

“Probably,” Baroque said.

“And they’ll give us medals?”

“I don’t know about that,” Baroque said, “but if they do they should give Denton one too. The way he got himself under the ice—that was real smart.”

“What do they need to get him going again?” Marlboro asked. “It doesn’t have to be a special kind of hospital?”

“No, they’ve all been trained to do it.”

“That’s good,” Marlboro said.

The dirt road ended at an asphalt two-lane. The truck stalled when Baroque shifted into reverse instead of neutral. He didn’t try to turn the engine back on but simply stared out the windshield, unsure which way to go. Baroque looked in one direction, then the other, but he couldn’t see much because it was real dark now. The headlights would have helped, but he didn’t know how to turn them on.

Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven

T
he Shackleford house was haunted. In the skittering of leaves across its rotting porch, locals heard the whispered misery of ghosts. Footsteps creaked on stair boards and sobs filtered through walls. An Atlanta developer had planned to raze the house and turn the thirty acres into a retirement village. Then the economy flatlined. The house continued to fold in on itself and the meandering dirt drive became rough as a logging trail. So we’ll be completely alone, Lauren had told Jody. When Jody mentioned the ghost stories, Lauren told him she’d take care of that. Leave us the hell alone, she said loudly each time they stepped inside. They’d let their eyes adjust to the house’s gloaming, listening for something other than their own breathing, then spread the sleeping bag on the floor, sometimes in a bedroom but as often in the front room. He and Lauren would undress and slide into the sleeping bag and whatever chill the old house held was vanquished by the heat of their bodies.

Lauren had always spoken her mind. You’re not afraid to show you are intelligent, most boys from out in the county are, Lauren had told him in their first class together. She’d asked what Jody wanted to major in at college and he said engineering. Education, she answered when asked the same question. Ninth grade was when students from upper Haywood were bused to Canton to attend the county’s high school. Unlike the other boys he’d grown up with, Jody didn’t fill a seat in the school’s vocational wing. Instead, he entered classrooms where most of the students came from town. Their parents weren’t necessarily wealthy, but they’d grown up in families where college was an expectation. As Lauren said, he’d not been afraid to show his intelligence, but first only when called on. Then he’d begun raising his hand, occasionally answering a question even Lauren couldn’t answer. The teachers had encouraged him, and by spring he and Lauren both were being recommended for summer programs at Chapel Hill and Duke for low-income students.

The boys he rode the bus with no longer invited him on hunting and fishing trips. Soon they didn’t bother to speak. During the long bus trip to and from school, Jody saw them staring at the books he withdrew from his backpack, not just ones for class but books Lauren passed on, tattered paperbacks of
The Catcher in the Rye
and
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,
books from the library on astronomy and religion. It was an act of betrayal to some. One morning near the school year’s end Billy Rankin tripped Jody in the cafeteria, sent him and his tray sprawling to the floor. Billy outweighed him by fifty pounds and Jody would have done nothing if Lauren hadn’t been with him. He went after Billy, driving him onto the linoleum, praying a teacher would break it up quick. But it was Lauren who got to them first. By the time a teacher intervened, Lauren had broken off two fingernails shredding Billy’s left cheek.

As he left the blacktop, Jody found the dirt drive more traveled than a year ago. Less broom sedge sprouted in the packed dirt, and fresh tire prints braided the road. What’s left of her is at the Shackleford place, Trey, Lauren’s brother, had finally told Jody. The dirt road straightened and climbed upward. Oak trees purpled with wisteria lined both sides. Dogwoods huddled in the understory, a few last blossoms clinging to their branches. The drive curved and the trees fell away. Bedsprings appeared in a ditch, beside them a shattered porcelain toilet and a washing machine. The debris looked like a tornado’s aftermath.

Each time they’d driven here their senior year, Lauren had leaned into Jody’s shoulder, her hand on his thigh. Those moments had been as good as the actual lovemaking—hours alone yet awaiting them. Afterward, they stayed in the sleeping bag and made plans for what they’d do once Jody graduated from college. We’ll live in a warm faraway place like Costa Rica, Lauren would say. When he said it was too bad they’d taken French, Lauren answered that learning another new language would only make it better.

More debris lay scattered on the drive and in the ditches—beer and soft drink cans, plastic garbage bags spilling contents like burst piñatas. One last curve and the Shackleford place rose before him. Next to the porch, a battered Ford Taurus appeared not so much parked as stalled in the wheel-high grass. The house’s front door stood open as if he were expected.

Jody stepped onto the porch but lingered in the doorway. First he saw the TV set inside the fireplace. A rock band filled the screen but the sound was off. Shoved close to the fireplace was a bright-red couch, occupied, three faces materializing in the dusty light. The odor of meth singed the air as Jody stepped inside. Mixed and cooked by Lauren, he knew. In high school Billy and Katie Lynn hadn’t attempted Chemistry I, much less the advanced courses he and Lauren passed with A’s.

“Come to get the good feeling with us, Mr. College?” Billy asked.

“No,” Jody said, standing beside Lauren now.

Billy pointed to a felt-lined church collection plate on the floor, among its sparse coins and bills a glass pipe and baggie.

“Well, you can at least make an offering.”

Katie Lynn laughed, her voice dry and harsh.

“Come on, buddy, have a seat,” Billy said, making room. “We can have us a regular high school reunion.”

Jody stared at Lauren. Five months had passed since he’d last seen her. He was unsure which unsettled him more, how much beauty she’d lost or how much remained.

“I think he’s still sweet on you, girl,” Katie Lynn said.

Lauren looked up, her eyes glassy.

“You still sweet on me, Jody?”

He studied the room’s demented furnishings. A couch and TV but no tables or chairs, the floor awash with everything from candy wrappers to a tangle of multihued Christmas lights. In a corner were some of Lauren’s books,
The World’s Great Religions,
Absalom, Absalom,
a poetry anthology. Her computer too, its screen cracked. An orange extension cord snaked around the couch and disappeared into the kitchen. A generator, Jody realized, now hearing the machine’s hum.

“Get the fire going, Billy,” Lauren said, “so it’ll be cozier.”

He changed the disk in the DVD player and orange flames flickered on the screen. Billy’s linebacker shoulders were bony now, his chest sunken.

“Want me to turn up the sound?” Billy asked.

Lauren nodded and the fireplace crackled and hissed.

“We got room for you,” Katie Lynn said, patting a space between her and Lauren, but Jody remained standing.

“I want you to go with me,” Jody said.

“Go where, baby?” Lauren asked.

“Back home.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Lauren said. “Bad girls don’t get to go home. They don’t even get prayed for, at least that’s what Trey says.”

“Then go with me to Raleigh. We’ll get an apartment.”

“He wants to save you from us trashy folks,” Katie Lynn said, “but we ain’t so bad. That collection plate, we didn’t break into church and steal it. Billy bought it at the flea market.”

“You ought to save us from Lauren,” Billy said. “She does the cooking around here, and just look at us. We’re shucking off weight like Frosty the Snowman.”

“Save us, Jody,” Katie Lynn said. “We’re melting. We’re melting.”

“Come outside with me,” Jody said.

Lauren followed him onto the porch. In the afternoon light he saw the yellow tinge and wondered if they were using needles too. Hepatitis was common from what he’d read on the internet. Lauren’s jeans hung loose on her hips, her teeth nubbed and discolored as Indian corn. Jody imagined a breed of meth heads evolving to veins and nose and mouth, just enough flesh on bone to keep the passageways open.

“No one would tell me where you were,” Jody said. “At least you could have.”

“This is the land beyond the cell phone or internet,” Lauren said. “Isn’t it nice that there are a few places left where that’s true?”

“You could have called from town,” Jody said. “Didn’t you think about what it was like for me, not knowing where you were, if you were okay?”

“Maybe I was thinking of you,” Lauren said, averting her eyes. “But you’ve found me. Mission accomplished so now you can move on.”

“Why are you doing this?” Jody asked.

The question sounded lame, like something out of a book or movie Lauren would mock.

“Oh, you know me,” Lauren said. “I’ve never been much for delayed gratification. I find what feels good and dive right in.”

“This feels good,” Jody said, “living out here with those two?”

“It allows me what I need to feel good.”

“What will you do when you can’t get what you need?” Jody asked. “What happens then?”

“The Lord provides,” Lauren said softly. “Isn’t that what we learned in church? Has being around all those atheist professors caused you to lose your faith, Jody, like Reverend Wilkinson’s wife warned us about in Sunday school?”

Lauren moved closer, leaned her head lightly against his chest though her arms stayed at her sides. He smelled the meth-soured clothes, the unwashed skin and hair.

“Does being here bring back good memories?” Lauren asked.

When Jody didn’t answer, she pulled her head away. Smiling, she raised her hand to his cheek. The hand was warm, blood pulsing through it yet.

“It does for me,” Lauren said, and withdrew her hand. “You know I would have called or e-mailed, baby, but out here there’s no signal.”

“Come with me right now; don’t even go back in there,” Jody said. “You don’t have to pack a thing. I’ve got money to buy you clothes, whatever else. We’ll go straight to Raleigh right now.”

“I can’t leave, baby,” Lauren said.

“Yes, you can,” Jody said. “You’re the one who showed me how to.”

Katie Lynn came to the door.

“We need you to do some cooking, hon.”

“Okay,” Lauren said, and turned back to Jody. “I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll be back,” he said.

Lauren paused in the doorway.

“You probably shouldn’t,” she said, and went on inside.

Jody got back in the truck and drove toward town.
If we make good enough grades, we can leave here,
Lauren had told him. For the first three years of high school, he and Lauren made A’s in the college-prep classes. They shared the academic awards, though Lauren could have won them all if she’d wanted to. Their junior year, she made the highest SAT score in the school. That summer Lauren cashiered at Wal-Mart while Jody worked with his sister and mother at the poultry plant. He used the money for a down payment on the pickup. They’d pile it with belongings when he and Lauren left Canton for college.

In the fall of their senior year, Lauren completed the financial-aid forms Ms. Trexler, the guidance counselor, gave them. She and Jody continued to work afternoons and Saturdays, making money for what the scholarships wouldn’t cover. Then one day in November Lauren told him she’d changed her mind. When neither he nor Ms. Trexler could sway her, Jody told her it was okay, that an engineer made good money, enough for them both. All Lauren had to do was wait four years and they could leave Canton forever, leave a life where checkbooks never quite balanced and repo men and pawnbrokers loomed one turn of bad luck away. Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they’d died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they left behind.

Soon after he’d left for college, Lauren got fired for cursing a customer and took work at the poultry plant. Jody drove back to Canton once a month. Though phone calls and e-mails kept them connected, it seemed forever before Christmas break arrived. That first night back home, he’d picked Lauren up at her mother’s house and they had gone to a party on Cove Creek. Jody expected alcohol and marijuana, some pills. What surprised him was the meth, and how casually Lauren took the offered pipe. When Billy asked if Jody wanted to try it, he shook his head. Once back at school their e-mails and phone conversations became fewer, shorter. He’d seen Lauren only once, in late January. She’d lost weight and also lost her job. At spring break, Trey told him Lauren was in Charlotte and could have no visitors. Then Jody had heard nothing.

When Jody entered Winn-Dixie, Trey was helping a customer. He finished and came over to where Jody waited. Trey offered his hand after wiping it on his stained green apron.

“So you’ve finished your semester?”

“Yes,” Jody answered.

“I bet you made good grades, didn’t you?”

Jody nodded.

“Maybe you’ll inspire some kids around here to have a bit of ambition,” Trey said. “What about this summer?”

“The school offered me a job in the library, but I think I’ll live with Mom and slice up chickens.”

“Why the hell do that?” Trey asked.

“Tuition’s up again. Even with the scholarships, I’ll have to get another loan. No rent and better pay if I stay here.”

“They don’t make it easy for a mountain boy, do they?” Trey said.

“No,” Jody said.

“How’s your sister?” Trey asked.

“Okay, I guess, considering.”

“I heard they got Jeff for nonsupport,” Trey said. “What a worthless asshole, always was. When Karen started going with him, I told her she was setting her sights way too low. You and her both tended to do that.”

Trey turned to see if a customer lingered in his area.

“I went up to the Shackleford place,” Jody said.

Trey grimaced.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I thought you had sense enough not to.”

“I hadn’t heard from her in over two months,” Jody said.

“So now you’ve seen her and know not to go back,” Trey said.

“Can’t you do something?”

“Like what?” Trey said. “Talk to her? Pray for her? I did that. I’m the one who went out there and got her in February, drove her to Charlotte. Three weeks, five thousand dollars. I paid half and Momma paid half.”

“The law, they’ve got to know they’re out there,” Jody said. “I’d rather see her in jail than where she is.”