Usher's Passing

RIX GAZED OUT HIS WINDOW AT A VISTA OF TOBACCO FIELDS. IN THE distance a farmer urged a horsedrawn wagon along a dirt road, the rising dust leaving a shimmering haze in the air. Edwin was driving toward Taylorville at a leisurely pace, enjoying the beautiful scenery - scarlet forests, meadows ripe for the scythe. They passed heaps of pumpkins in one field, being loaded into the back of a truck for market in Asheville. For some reason they made Rix think of a picture he'd seen of a Vietnam battlefield: disembodied heads piled up and rotting in the sun.

The question was in Rix's mind again. He'd asked it of Edwin before, and had always gotten the same answer. Asking it meant walking on swampy ground that could pull him down without warning at any second. Still, he had to.

"Edwin," he said finally, "when you . . . talked to Sandra that night, are you sure she didn't. . . you know . . . sound like she was . . ." He trailed off.

"Disturbed?" Edwin asked mercifully.

"Yes. Disturbed."

"No, she didn't. Not at all. She sounded very happy. She told me you'd sold Congregation to Stratford House, that you had just finished Fire Fingers, and that you and she were going out to celebrate the next night. I had no idea that anything was wrong."

"There was nothing wrong. Oh, maybe a few little things. Money was tight, the dishwasher was broken down, the car's transmission was slipping, she was under some pressure at the insurance company - but Sandra was a strong woman, Edwin. Strong mentally. We'd gotten through tough times before. Hell, she was the one who kept me going." His hands had become fists, and when he opened them, they were stiff with tension.

"Sometimes people do things for strange reasons. I never met your wife, of course, but whenever we spoke on the phone, she sounded very happy and very much in love with you." His gray brows knitted together. "You have to let go of it, Rix. It's the past."

"I can't let go of it!" His voice cracked, and he had to wait a minute before continuing. "I've tried. There was nothing wrong, Edwin. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't the type of person who just gives up and cuts her wrists in a bathtub!"

"I'm sorry," Edwin said gently. "I wish I could tell you that she did sound disturbed, if that would help you. But when we spoke on the phone that night, Sandra seemed very happy. I was as shocked as you were when it happened."

Rix had telephoned Edwin at Usherland four years ago, when he'd found Sandra lying in the bathtub. All that blood, all that blood! The water was red, and Sandra's head had slipped down so her hair floated like the petals of a bruised flower. The razor she'd used lay on the tiles, smeared with blood where her veins had jetted.

Rix was in a state of mindless shock, and Edwin had told him to call the police and not to touch anything until they got there. He had flown down to Atlanta the next morning to be with Rix, and had stayed through the funeral.

Afterward, Rix's nightmares of being lost in the Lodge again grew worse, and the attacks descended upon him with a new virulence.

The night before it happened, she'd told him that Edwin had called while he was out. They'd talked for a while about Rix and his writing, about the new book he was starting, about the possibility that they would come to Usherland for Christmas. She seemed happy about the future, and hopeful that she could continue to help Rix deal with the guilt he felt over his family's business. He'd always told her that she was his safety valve, that without her he might never be able to channel his feelings into another book. There had been many long nights of talks about his childhood at Usherland and his need to make something of himself apart from the family. She encouraged him in his writing, and had an uplifting optimism.

Four years after her suicide, Rix still couldn't make sense of it. He'd loved her very much, and he'd thought she loved him. In his brooding over her death, Rix found only one possibility -  that somehow he had contaminated her, had driven her into a depression that was carefully and tragically masked.

"She'd told me before how much you meant to her," Edwin offered. "I believe that whatever drove her to take her own life was in her mind long before you met her. I think it was unavoidable. You're not to blame, Rix. No one is."

"I wish I could believe that."

Edwin slowed the station wagon and turned off the main highway, following a dirt road that wound through the tobacco fields. On a hill stood a curing barn and a modest white house. Next to the house was a small clapboard shed. A white-haired woman in a gingham dress sat on the house's front porch, shelling peas into a metal pan. The screen door opened as Edwin stopped the car, and a tall, balding elderly man with a luxuriant white mustache came out. He was wearing overalls and a flannel workshirt, but he carried himself with Bodane dignity.

Rix got out of the car with Edwin as Robert Bodane approached. His wife set aside her peas and came down from the porch on plump legs.

The two brothers shook hands. "Do you remember Rix?" Edwin asked the other man. "I think he was about this tall the last time you saw him." He motioned with his hand about four feet off the ground.

"Rix? This is that same little boy? My Lord!" Robert looked stunned. His face was heavily weathered, and he was missing a couple of lower teeth. When Rix shook his hand, the strength of the man's grip amazed him. "I guess you don't remember meetin' me, do you? I came out to visit Usherland."

Rix didn't, but he smiled anyway and said, "I think I do. It's good to see you again."

Robert Bodane introduced his wife, Jeanie, and talked to Edwin for a minute or two about the bumper crop he was expecting this year. "Ought to go into farmin' yourself," Robert said with a sly grin. "Get some good dirt under those fingernails, makes a man out of you."

"I expect to have Florida sand under my feet in about three months, thank you. Is Logan ready?"

"His bags are packed. I s'pose the boy's wandered off somewhere. Hard to keep track of a rounder like that one. Hey, Logan!" he shouted toward the forest that edged up behind the house. "Edwin's here for you!"

"Prob'ly off runnin' with Mutt," the elderly woman said. "He's taken a shine to that dog."

"Hey, Logan!" Robert shouted again. Then he shrugged and said, "Y'all come on up and sit on the porch awhile. He'll show up directly."

A young man with curly hair the color of burnished brass peered out the window of the toolshed as his grandparents and the other two men walked to the porch. He knew the tall old dude in the suit was Edwin; the younger one might be somebody else who worked at Usherland. It wasn't nine-thirty yet. Edwin was here early. Well, the young man thought, he could just fuckin' wait, then.

Logan turned back to the worktable to regard the job he'd been doing. He was wearing the old man's barbecuing apron, the one that had I Ain't Pretty, But I Sure Can Cook written on it above the caricature of a chef burning hot dogs on a grill. He had done a very good job, he thought. It was something he'd been meaning to get around to for a long time. He replaced the hammer and hacksaw in their places on the tool rack, then carefully wiped his hands on a rag.

He took the apron off and draped it over the worktable. Then, satisfied, he left the toolshed, closed and latched the door behind him, and ambled slowly up to the house.

Rix saw the young man approaching, and instantly he decided he wouldn't trust Logan Bodane to shine his shoes, much less take over Edwin's duties at Usherland.

Logan walked with an arrogant swagger, his hands thrust into the pockets of his faded blue jeans. He wore a beat-up leather jacket over a gray workshirt, and he kicked at an errant stone with one of his scuffed boots. His longish hair framed a lean, ruddy face with sharply angled cheekbones, and as he came nearer, Rix saw that his deepset eyes were a chilly shade of blue. His gaze was remote and unconcerned - almost bored. He flicked a glance at all of them as he stepped up onto the porch.

"Been callin' you, boy," Robert said. "Where'd you go?"

"Toolshed," Logan replied; he had a deep, rough voice that grated on Rix's nerves. "Just messin' around in there."

"Well, don't just stand there. Shake hands with Edwin and Mr. Usher."

The young man turned his attention to Rix. When he smiled, only one side of his mouth hitched up, so the smile was more like a sneer. "Yeah?" he asked. "Which Usher are you?"

"Mr. Usher," Rix said.

"Are you gonna be my new boss?"

"No. Edwin is."

"Got it." Logan extended his hand toward Rix, who saw a red crust around the fingernails. Logan's smile faltered a fraction, and he drew his hand back. "Been workin' in the shed," he said. "Got some woodstain on me, I guess. Ought to be more careful."

"You ought to be."

Edwin rose from his chair to shake Logan's hand. Logan was almost as tall as he was, but much broader; the young man had wide, thick shoulders and the large hands of a laborer. "We should be getting back to Usherland," Edwin told him. "Are your bags ready?"

"Just take me a few minutes. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Usher.'' He smiled - the smile of a cunning animal, Rix thought -  and then went into the house.

Edwin was watching Rix carefully. "You're wearing your opinions like a red scarf," he said. "Give him a chance."

"Logan's a fine boy, Mr. Usher," the old woman offered, shelling her peas. "Oh, he's got his rough edges, but then again, all boys his age do, don't they? He's a smart one, though, and he's got a strong back."

"He's a rounder," Robert said. "Reminds me of myself, when I was his age."

"That was long before I straightened him out." She winked quickly at Rix, then let out a sharp whistle. "Mutt! Here, boy! Come on! Where'd that dog get off to? Heard him barkin' fit to bust before sunup."

"Chasin' squirrels again, most likely."

Rix stood up as Logan came out of the house, carrying two suitcases. Edwin took one of them for him. Rix said it had been a pleasure to meet the Bodanes, then walked on to the station wagon and climbed in.

Logan and Edwin slid the suitcases into the rear, then the young man took his place in the back seat. He rolled down his window as Edwin started the car.

"You be a good boy!" Mrs. Bodane called to him. "Pay attention to what Edwin tells you, now!"

"Hey, Gramps," Logan said, "I was doin' some work in the shed and forgot to clean up. I left kind of a mess, I suppose."

"I'll get it. You listen to Edwin and you make us proud of you, hear?"

"I'll make you real proud," Logan said, and rolled his window back up.

Edwin drove away from the house as Logan waved to his grandparents from behind the glass. "This thing got a radio?" he asked.

At the toolshed door, Robert Bodane stopped to watch the station wagon out of sight.

"Fresh peas for lunch!" the woman called. "You want some potatoes to go with 'em?"

"That'd be fine," he replied. The dust was already settling. He unlatched the door and went into the toolshed. The work his grandson had been doing was covered with an apron atop the workbench. There was a strong smell in the place.

He lifted the apron.

It took him a moment to realize that the mess on the workbench had once been a dog. Mutt had been decapitated and disemboweled, the intestines laid out in pools of thick, congealing blood.

He heard his wife calling the dog again, and he started looking for something to scrape the remains into.