Cuyahoga Page 10

  The nature of the work made me feel him keenly though. Like he were right there next to me adding his own bits to the tales and occasionally scattering the cats with a brass laugh. Even as I imagined Big next to me, I knew there were something missing from the hundred Big Sons I had written down.

  Big did not simply wake up of a morning and know where to find feats. Folks put ideas in his ear. Sometimes it was a dire crisis and others it were only a chore someone wanted done. He would take up after anything at all. Runoff milch cows. Wells run dry. Wagons stuck in mud. Harvest hands needed. Graves wanting digging.

  There were only one feat Big would not get after.

  You might guess which.

  Recall the night Samantha kicked Big in the head, and what were on his drunk brains at the moment of fate. Consider the last fright to cross Big’s mind before coming into his spirit. That the night pigs would catch us and eat us.

  This fear told somewhat. If you mentioned the nuisance of the night pigs to Big Son he would take up a new topic of talk quick as he could. He would chatter on town gossip or horse races or Vanburen or the price of corn – matters he had no care for – only to get you to forget the pigs.

  I confess I teased him some on this account.

  Big you would die of fright if the night pigs come for you

  or

  You would climb a tree and chop it down underneath you

  or

  You would run to the top of Pike’s peak to watch in every direction for the pigs

  or

  You would run off just like Cloe

  His reply varied with his mood. He might toss me up a tree. Or only tease back quiet It were your poor aim that got me kicked in the head

  But his fear were real. He could not keep it hid under clobbering or a ready joke or Vanburen. I minded him whenever the pigs was spoken of and marked how he went tight all over. His whole person cinched up like he wished to disappear.

  Once when I were needling him on the matter of swine, he let out a confession. He believed that his spiritedness owed somehow to the night pigs. That if he were to bust the pigs up it would bust me up too

  I did not know just what he meant, but allowed this were nothing to wish for.

  I sometimes thought on how Samantha might have kicked me instead of Big on our raft ride home. Or how Cloe might have won the race and the apples, if Big had not had the advantage of a Samantha. Would the apples have done their sorcery some other way?

  If I were a spirit, how would I go? Would my hair shine? Who would write my tales?

  If Cloe were a spirit, who could court her?

  These thoughts pinched like small shoes and made poor traveling. But I could not leave them alone. I did sometimes want to possess his spirit, just once. That I might mind the difference between us less. I do not mean TWO BIGS OR NONE  Only that sometimes I thought I might like to have a feat of my own.

  * * *

  Big were not the only absence at the Stiles homeplace. Miss Cloe Inches remained run off since the last days of July. I would like to amend the record somewhat regarding Cloe. It is true that she were given to running off, but she were just as given to running back. She did not have a monopoly on flight. In truth, running off were something of a catching disease in the western country, and Cloe were admirable in that she bothered to return. Folks absconded for every cause you could think of. Bankruptcy and shame and ruptures. There was a whole dictionary of reasons for flight.

  To ABSQUATULATE were the scientific term for departing with haste.

  You already learned what it meant to SWARTHOUT.

  To SPURGEON were to run off from obligations of family. After Hiram Spurgeon, the blacksmith, who had quit his kin after he had ten daughters and no sons.

  To STRANG were to run off from your own wedding, a type of special SPURGEONing. After Miss Sarabeth Strang, the maid.

  Sometimes we liked to say that the night pigs had eaten the vanished party. She is with the pigs now  or  You will want to ask the pigs about him

  * * *

  Cloe rastled some in her heart about what we owe each other. I had that straight from her. Once as we sneaked a smoke behind the barn she had talked on the golden rule from the Bible, of doing on others as you would be done on.

  Meed if someone does poorly on me I should still act kindly on them?

  That is how I take it to mean

  But the swap is poor for me

  I allowed she had a point but that we were not to see it as a swap, only you had to let evil chew you up as much as it likes and not bite back

  Cloe stared at the planks of the barn side. What about the other conduct that chews us? What if I would prefer you to leave me alone but you would prefer to drown me in foolishness? What if folks come around slapping work out of my hands and trying to marry me up?

  I had a notion which folk she meant.

  If I would prefer to be left alone  and so I left you alone  And you paid me back different I am not to mind  The whole rule is brambled

  I wondered if she meant more than Big’s courting. If she meant the whole world to leave her be.

  * * *

  The wisdom of Do unto others puzzled Cloe. But Dog were not stumped at all. If folks sinned on you, pay them back double. If you only suspected folks had sinned on you, pay them back without asking. It is good manners.

  He had no wish to swarthout on what he seen as his debt to Cleveland.

  Dog never admitted he done the first bombing of Clark’s bridge, but said that it were only meant as a demonstration. Not meant to destroy the bridge, only to scorch it some. To show Cleveland that Ohio city’s grievances were serious. And besides, are you sure he would ask that the bombing were not the work of Clevelanders dressed up as Ohioans to paint us guilty?

  He were lying on top of lies. I believe he had always meant to blow the bridge apart. He only regretted that he should have used more powder.

  * * *

  Dog had silent friends in Ohio city. I suspected Handerson and Panderson for their business suffered from the bridge. Barse and Eli must have did some of the work, as Dog were too old for all of it. Ozias come in for suspicion as well. He were sore at paying tolls to do his teamstering.

  * * *

  In the night between the 15th and 16th of September, under a chilled rain, Dog put a wagon full of whiskey under gum blankets. He climbed aboard the borrowed cart and drove right down to the bridge. The sentries was alarmed to see the notorious Dog. But surely a bomber could not be so brazen. Who would pay the toll to cross a bridge they meant to explode?

  Dog handed down a gift to the sentries before he gone across. A jug to keep out the damp for you boys.

  The sentries gave Dog their compliments and turned their concerns to the jug. Dog rolled the wagon across the wet timbers. There were no guards minding the Cleveland side – only the moon behind rainclouds.

  During the night of the 15th, unknown parties attempted a second exploding of the bridge connecting this city with the City of Ohio. As a result of these ineffectual depredations, women and children were compelled to flee their beds in dead of night; a stone of the supposed weight of 200 pounds was forced into a neighbor’s house of ten rods’ distance, and the lives of families and individuals jeopardized.

  Mayor Willey has ordered that the city Marshal and his Deputies keep a sufficient armed guard at said bridge to protect the same from added injury, until further ordered by the council—that the Sheriff of Cuyahoga county, and all peace officers, and all good citizens be invited to aid in the preservation of said bridge, and in ensuring the safety and lives of individuals.

  —CLEVELAND DAILY ADVERTISER

  * * *

  I am regretful said Dog.

  He were reading over the ADVERTISER account of the second bombing. He did not regret the lives of families and individuals jeopardized any. Only that this second bite had not got the apple.

  I should have waited out the weather

  He gone on r
egretting.  Placing the powder right up next to the stones  muffles the violence some  Like a pillow  A point to remember  he said, almost tender.

  * * *

  My green thought – that I wanted a feat of my own – stayed cinched up. I kept after the work of writing about my brother. Mr Job said he hoped to have the almanac printed not too far into October, to sell as entertainment for the coming winter.

  So I would have to speed some. I sat there with my imagined Big next to me, asking him what he thunk of the various tales – how he would embroider them – which he would cut out – whether he preferred a certain feat tamped down and mostly honest – or would he have more stretchers?

  Big had practice in telling lies on himself.

  I recall a day several years prior when he come home with his face scratched all over, his hair full of leaves and sticks, his blouse all tatters, his neckerchief spun around with the knot at the back. Folks gawked to know who had abused Big so.

  Big Son announced that he had met a gang of one hundred man-sized weasels in the woods  And heard that they was plotting to secede from the republic and start their own nation  And he went right after them and smashed up their plots  But only after a keen fight  Biting and clobbering and every kind of rastle  But what a good scrap  Worth the death of a good shirt!  Then a peculiar laugh.

  Up in the attic that evening Big told me the truth. As he washed out his cuts, he swore me to the utmost confidence. Which I am busting only now. He had not met any hundred weasels or even one weasel. Out on a ride with Agnes he had been spooked by a sudden flight of doves and fallen down a bramble. Then he made the matter worse by flailing, and by the time he got free he had bloodied himself and ripped his blouse to ribbons.

  * * *

  Handerson and Panderson and every other emporium had been touting readymade Newyork shirts all summer. This were a new idea entirely – a shirt not stitched at home but for sale like fruit or medicine. One morning at the grocery the debating society took up these readymade shirts.

  Barse said he would like to get himself such a shirt. He could dispense with mending or washing off messes. Only put on a fresh one every month. Eli said a month of Barse’s stink would wear five shirts out. Barse cussed Eli some. Dog put in that readymade shirts was for fools and that you could trust a shirt made by a wife or neighbor but a shirt from Newyork is liable to go bust same as a bank  I had never before known Dog to have views on shirts but he liked an argument.

  That put me in the mind of Big and his famous weasels. I could just picture him there in that ruined blouse. I asked him what he thought of Newyork shirts.

  I were startled when he spoke back out loud.

  * * *

  His reply were not eloquence. I heard bits of cussing and lamentation in his speech but altogether it did not add up to meaning. His aspect were wretched all over. He seemed to have fallen into a porridge and let it dry on, and then lost a dozen rastles for dessert. His eyes were pink as puppies and his shirt were only a row of buttons hanging from the collar. Flies buzzed from out of his snuffed hair and there were a hundred cuts all over his person. He smelled unchristian.

  Before I knew what to think, Mr Job shonked a jug on the table beside us.

  His Agnes rode up the Detroit road just now with this sorry article asleep on her back

  * * *

  Once Big had been baptized several times in the horse trough and doctored with refreshments he come out with an accounting for his absence—

  I were swimming in the lake and took distraction and all of a sudden I had swum all the way to Canada  I thought it is time America invaded anyway  And I met with Joe Mufferaw there   he is a fine spirit up north  and we got to drinking and fooling  We were smashing maple trees over each other’s heads to get at the syrup inside—

  Mr Job had on his cloak of doubt in the utmost.

  —and I had a cup too much drink and went looking for a place to sleep  I found a dry cave that suited  I were sticky all over with the syrup  I woke up to a dozen cub bears licking at my hide  I took startled  The cubs turned ferocious when they thought their sugar meant to abscond  And I hollered at their little sharp teeth – which woke up the mother bear  and I come in for an awful chastening from her as well  The next I knowed I were here

  With the tale concluded Big put his head down and tumbled back into a wretched sleep.

  Not even the worst fool in the grocery believed a word of what Big had said. He had been absent for six weeks. Such a saga as he told were a week’s doing at the most.

  I wished I could ask Agnes for the truth. But I put Big’s version down in the almanac anyhow.

  Mr Job and I loaded Big into the coffin-wagon and brought him home, with Agnes prancing behind in worry. At the homeplace Mrs Tabitha tidied Big up as best she could – washed his wounds and combed the knots out of his hair. He had no clothes to wear after we burned his soiled rags, so we wrapped him in blankets and Mr Job and I worked together to lift him up to the attic.

  * * *

  Big slept for three days laid out on end. I worried over him a considerable deal. I worried whether he would ever wake, and what awaited when he did. He were still snoring thunder when I climbed up to the attic on the third night. It should have been a comfort to simply know where my brother was after his long absence. But I did not rest easy once I bedded down. In fact I itched all over, like there was wood from whittling gotten into my drawers.

  I decided then that I knew the origins of my discomfort. I had always lived in the shadow of Big and I had grown accustomed to the cold. I had made small rebellions. Perhaps you guessed that I wrote down the measurements wrong for Big’s bridge. I confess it. Now, after a season spent on the almanac, without Big’s company but still in his shadow, I were too jealous for such petty revolts.

  I were absent from my almanac, from my own life. I had written down a hundred and one stories of my brother and not a single one about myself. I would make my mark, such that folks would have to remember Mr Medium Son.

  * * *

  Only one feat would do.

  I would do what my brother could not. I would chase the night pigs out of Ohio.

  I could taste the praise. Folks would say We have a second spirit  O ho what a wonder!

  How would I go about it? My mind sawed away, same as Big’s brrrghhg.

  How does a person do miracles?

  It is not science but a work of sentiment. Simplest is best. How would Big have done it – if he were not scared so bad of pigs? Thrown them all into a sack – hopped in and pummeled every last one into good behavior or bacon. I turned and tugged and put some brain grease to the knot, and finally it come undone. It were not a question of how Big liked to do – but how a night pig liked to do.

  * * *

  I known pigs here and there – how they acted and how they tasted to eat. But the only pig I were ever on personal terms with were Nicholas, who lived in the mudhole behind the Frewly homeplace. Nicholas were beloved – always making his manners around town – visiting for a scratch behind his folded ears – a smile in his eyes. He were more a four-legged dog than pig.

  I recall when the Frewlys finally ate Nicholas and how they invited folks for the barbecue – how we all shared fond memories of the departed even as his head sat on the table – the smile in his eyes not entirely gone.

  What I remember of Nicholas apart from his good manner and good meat were that he were awful easy to fright. A loud startle, even an axe thwink or hammer churrk at a surprise moment, would set him to running with a skweeent and you might not see him for days.

  * * *

  At the very deepest part of night, I crept out under the snores of my brother and snuck into the homeplace. Going like mice, I borrowed Mrs Tab’s rubbish pail full of bones and rotten vegetables. Back in the yard I seasoned the rubbish with all manner of filth – crap from the animals – corncobs from the privy house –
I thrown a few eggs in as well. The stink of the bucket were thick enough to float a duck. Before I marched off I gathered up some cakes and my pipe and some lucifer matches, and stowed them inside my shirt.

  So armed, I took to the silent lanes. A lamp glowed here and there, but no one minded me save for the curious moon. He followed me all the way to Monroe-street graveyard, the home of wondering pigs.

  * * *

  Even with the moon for company the burying yard were fearful lonely. My fright does not need apology. I do not see you visiting any graveyards at the rear cleft of night. The work put some whalebone in me. Even if my courage failed, the smell of the terrible bucket might have kept me brave. I went under the branches of the oak trees at the center of the graveyard, where the moonlight come through as freckles.

  At the foot of one burly tree I poured out the bucket of filth in a neat puddle. With the banquet served I shimmied up the trunk and sat myself on a sturdy sidelong branch. It were a fine night – cool and dry – owls hooting and crickets fiddling. In the peaceful air the thrill of my adventure flickered some with waiting for the pigs. So I made myself a pipe to pass time and drown out the stink. It took nearly all my lucifers to get a smoke going.

  About as soon as I were enjoying my pipe I heard stirring from the Umbstetter place across the lane. A door thrown open – slow footsteps. This corner of the city were thick with Pennsylvania Germans come west. Somehow despite my stealth Mr Umbstetter had seen me. Perhaps his German nose were keen for tobacco. Or he had marked the snikpf and flash of lucifers. Or I were not as quiet as I thunk.

  Halloa  halloa

  Mr Umbstetter had not featured in my plan. This seemed a step sideways.