The Road Home (4 page)

Jenny remembered the question she had asked her mother. “Has God given me a gift that I can use to bless people, Mama?”

Jerusha took the girl in her arms and held her close. “Your very life is a gift and a blessing to your papa and me and to many others. God has given you a quick mind and courage and determination. Soon He will begin to open doors for you to walk through. When He does, you mustn't hesitate, but you must do exactly as He says. Then you will discover who you are to be and what your place is in this world.”

Jenny realized she was standing in the middle of the path, lost in her thoughts. She wondered what someone who might come down the path would think about finding her standing stock-still and silent in the dark. She walked to the cooling shed and went inside. The ice blocks, cut from last winter's frozen pond and packed in sawdust, had kept the insulated building cool all summer, and Jenny often slipped in there on hot days to refresh herself. She usually loved this place, but tonight it seemed cold and dark. She looked around at all the produce and goods her family had set aside, some of it especially for the holidays that would soon mark the end of the harvest season. She found
the milk in the metal can, poured some out into the pitcher she had grabbed on her way out of the kitchen, and went back outside.

Jenny looked up at the night sky again, and suddenly her heart was filled with love for this place, for her parents, and for the ways of her people. In that quiet moment she decided she needed to put all the wondering behind her. She needed to get on with her life. The mystery of where she came from would just have to remain an enigma forever. She was Jenny Springer, and she was thankful for such a wonderful home. This is where her life was, and nothing could take her away.

Jenny turned and went back to the house. There! That was settled forever…no more thinking or dreaming—and then a thought popped unbidden into her mind.
What if I'm the daughter of a rich family and stand to inherit millions? Or what if my real father is a famous musician or—

“Jenny, stop it!” she cried out loud.

From inside the house her mother's voice called out to her. “Are you all right, Jenny?”

Jenny felt her face burning.
Wonderful! Now I'm talking to myself. The people in the village all know I'm pushy. Shall I now add
verrückt
to their opinion?

“I'm fine, Mama. I'll be right in.”
I must get hold of myself! This is the reality of my life. I will never find out where I came from or who my birth parents are, so I should just make up my mind to give up this hopeless dream!

When Jenny crawled into bed that night she couldn't rest. She drifted in and out of sleep, tossing and turning. She tried praying, but that didn't help. Finally around midnight she slipped into a troubled sleep. Her dreams were filled with strange places and people. She felt as if she were flying, and then a scene took shape in her mind. She was
in the backseat of a car, and she was very cold and hungry. The man driving the car was drinking out of a bottle as the car sped down the highway. He was yelling and singing and weeping, and the car was swerving and jerking.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaayyyy.”

Terrified, Jenny clung to the door handle with all her might. Suddenly the car swerved off the road. It started to run up on a bank, but the man twisted the wheel and the car shot back onto the highway.

“Mama, Mama!” Jenny screamed.

The man reached back and tried to grab her. Jenny held on to the door handle and screamed again. She felt the man's hand gripping her shoulder and pulling her toward him. She looked into his eyes. The pupils were like little pinpoints, and they terrified her. An evil grin spread across his face as he clutched at her.

“You want your Mama?” he asked. “I'll send you to her right now.”

The man was turned toward her, not watching the road. The car shot off the road and over a bank. Everything seemed to go into slow motion. She felt the car lift off the ground and begin to roll over in midair. There was a sickening crash, and then they were sliding down a steep bank. Everything moved so slowly, and the man's screams were low-pitched, as if someone were playing a recording too slowly. The car hit a tree and some rocks, but because everything was moving so slowly, it was all like a strange dance. Finally the car came to rest on its side at the edge of what looked like a snow-covered meadow.

Jenny had been thrown down between the front and back seats and then onto the side door, and she lay there, unable to scream or cry, frozen in terror. The man struggled around in the front seat, and his movements made the car roll over on its top. He fell heavily onto the roof and cried out. She was buried underneath the seat cushions and some clothing. The front seat had broken loose, and when the car rolled over, it fell down on the passenger side, blocking access to the
back of the car. She saw his legs thrashing around and heard him groaning. Then she saw his hand try to reach around the broken seat, but he couldn't get to her, so he started kicking at the front passenger door until it finally opened. A blast of bitter wind came in and chilled her to the bone. The man crawled out onto the snow, and as he did, the wind blew the door shut.

Jenny groaned and tried to make herself wake up, but she couldn't move or make a sound. She slipped back into her whirling dream. The car was upside down, and she was lying on the roof. She could see the man's legs outside the window. He had gotten up and staggered to the back door. Now his feet were next to the window. She heard him pulling on the handle and swearing. She lay terrified as he began to kick at the window. She could just barely hear him mumbling incoherently. The window didn't break, and then she could see him step back.

She saw him walk away from the car, and then she saw a piece of metal lying a few feet away. She watched him as he bent over to pick it up. Suddenly a hole opened up under his feet, and he fell into it. There was a big splash, and then he was up to his neck in water. He tried to pull himself up, but the edge of the hole kept breaking off. His face was only a few feet away from hers, and as she looked out the window of the car, she saw him sink beneath the surface.

He came back up, and with one arm he grabbed the edge of the hole. He looked right into her eyes, and then she saw his face turn into a skull, and his bony skeletal fingers reached for her. Just as they touched the car door, the edge of the hole broke, and the man disappeared under the water once more. There was a thrashing underneath the surface, and more water splashed out. Then, finally, everything was quiet, and the surface of the water became smooth and still.

Jenny felt the cold creep into the car. Then somebody was with her in the car, and she felt as if she were being covered with warm feathers.
She turned to look, and she wasn't in the car anymore. She was lying on a bed in a small room. A woman was lying on the bed with her. Jenny tried to cuddle up to her and get warm, but the heat was gone from the woman's body. The man who had drowned was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, weeping. Ashtrays full of half-smoked cigarettes and empty bottles were scattered around the room. On a stand by the bed was a spoon with some brown liquid and a piece of cotton in it. The woman had something tied around her arm. Jenny was crying. Suddenly the woman's eyes opened, and she looked straight at Jenny.

“I'm sorry, Jenny,” she said quietly. “I didn't mean for all this to happen. I just wanted the pain to stop.”

The woman looked up at the ceiling. “Dear Jesus,” she prayed, “please look after my little girl.”

Then everything began to get all mixed up. She was back in the car, and then she was being carried through blinding snow. She was freezing, and then she was wrapped in something warm and soft. Now she was somewhere in a dark room. She was being held next to a warm, beating heart, and she felt moisture dropping on her face. She opened her eyes and looked up into the beautiful face of another woman. The woman was holding her close and weeping. Her body was shaking with sobs. It was Mama! And then as she looked, Jerusha's face turned into the face of the woman in the small room. The other woman's skin was cold and blue. Her eyes opened, and she looked at Jenny.

“Jenny, come find me. I'm lost, so lost,” she said, and then the skin began to melt off her face, and she was just bones and the bones were death, and Jenny fell into the water, and the man who had drowned came up from below and grabbed her leg with bony fingers and began to pull her down, down, down…

Jenny sat up in bed and screamed. “Mama, Mama, where are you? Come find me, Mama!”

There was the sound of hurried footsteps in the hall, and Jerusha
rushed into the room, holding a lamp. “Jenny, darling, what is it?” she asked as she came to the side of Jenny's bed.

“A dream, Mama, a horrible dream,” Jenny sobbed.

Jerusha put the lamp on the stand by the bed and sat next to Jenny. She took the girl in her arms and kissed her forehead. “I'm here, my darling, I'm here.”

Jerusha held Jenny close, and Jenny felt the beating of her mother's heart.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

Johnny

J
OHNNY THE
C
ANDYMAN WOKE UP
out of a deep sleep and sat straight up in his bed, moaning and holding his head in his hands. Strange images and faces and…horses, yes, horses and plows, like a weird kaleidoscopic farm movie, were all mixed together in his mind. Finally his dazed thoughts cleared, and he opened his eyes. As he slowly came back to reality, he shrugged and thought,
The drugs. It was the drugs I took last night
.

Johnny rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. The walls were brightly painted with clashing primary colors that strobed and flashed and made his head ache. Large posters of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi were pinned on the wall over the bed. The room was decorated in the quasi-Edwardian mode that was all the rage in the Haight-Ashbury.

An overstuffed brown, furry couch and a brass floor lamp with a shade fringed with strands of tiny golden beads sat against the wall. An expensive oriental rug lay on the floor. The stale smell of incense, Gauloise cigarettes, and patchouli oil permeated the room. On the back of the bedroom door was a hand-lettered poster advertising one
of Ken Kesey's acid trips. The letters seemed to swell and pulse—more of the lingering effects of the acid, he guessed.

His precious Gibson twelve-string guitar leaned against the wall, its case lying open on the floor beside it with a few dollars from his most recent panhandling foray still inside. His fingers ached from the hours of mindless strumming that had passed for music among his friends the night before.

The sound of automobile traffic rose up from the street outside. His bed was a mattress on the floor next to the wall, so he turned over on his knees, grabbed the windowsill, pulled himself up, and looked out through the tall window of his second-floor flat. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper headed west. It was time for Sunday morning football at Kezar Stadium, and a line of cars inched along as the straight folks drove down Haight Street to see the hippies. Unfortunately for the drive-bys, the hippies had been partying Saturday night, and very few of them were out on the street Sunday morning.

Johnny crawled off his mattress and groped his way to the pile of clothes heaped on the floor. He pawed through until he found the pieces that comprised his favorite outfit. He took hold of the couch and pulled himself up slowly, his head aching. He stood there for a minute until the whirling sensation passed. Then he pulled his clothes on. A thin cotton embroidered shirt, torn bell-bottom jeans, and green suede Beatle boots completed his attire. He stumbled over to the closet, pulled his leather-fringed jacket off a hanger, and put it on. He went to the mirror and stared at his pale complexion for a few moments.