Before the Sun Came Dawnin’

Cassie waddled the rottin’ pumpkin to the shore for there weren’t no stars and it was the season of everythin’ dyin’. It lay there caved in on one side like a raw mouth wantin’ to swallow the entire moon which was hauntin’ in the clouds like somethin’ lost. The black stick trees were wet through though there weren’t no rain, but washed over in that grey mist that float out from the lake when things were just so. And things were just so. She waited for somethin’ to happen but nothin’ happens when she’s just lookin’ straight at things. There weren’t no mosquitos because Halloween were over and they all died somewhere invisible behind rocks and tree stumps where all small things go to die.

She bumped the pumpkin with her little shoe. “Do sumthin’” she spoke, but she knew it weren’t the pumpkin that needed to listen. Out-n’ the waters the ripples were gentle, like the wavin’ shards of the moon were all broken up on the surface and she wondered if there could be more moon than moon? Sky moon and lake moon all shatterin’ down here and she pursed her lips in figurin’ it. Then she had a mind picture of her dolls all dancin’ without clothes around the black lips of the lake that faded out to nuthin’ and she thought that a funny mind picture.

“Cassie? Cassie? Cassie!” Her Mama’s echo voice more than Mama herself as she huffed down the ridge and stared at her confounded. “What’s wrong with ya, baby girl? Out here in the crumbs. Why didn’t ya answer me?”

“’Cause I knew ya’d find me.”

Mama blank stares in disconcert and moves a string of hair behind her ear, shakin’ her head to all points, then stares. “Ain’t that our pumpkin?”

“Ain’t no more.”

Mama closes her eyes, lookin’ down without really lookin’ then makes scoopin’ motions. “C’mon, c’mon. We gettin’ back right now. Don’t fuss. Why you keep starin’ at that thing?”

“Papa mushed it.”

“I know Papa mushed it but it ain’t nuthin’ no more. You get all crossed up in the head around these times and I cain’t figure, like yer bread ain’t done bakin’ or sumthin’. C’mon now. Yer Pappa’s gone be cross.”

“Pappa’s always cross,” she whispers. They mount the low ridge and the house be a-glowin’ some two-hundred yards out and there weren’t no night birds. “I want Bumpa come back.”

“Bumpa’s gone, baby girl. She in the stars with Jesus now.”

“I ain’t know what that means.”

Mama takes her hand and sqeezin’ her fingers all tender like. Cassie looks back, and then again, and there weren’t no pumpkin no more.

The porch was all grey like with weather, some boards given up and curved, their nails stickin’ down like rust fangs. Wine bottles, the gallon kind, crowd the far side like bloated glass sheep. “Rustic Red” they called. All of ‘em to the bottle. The rest are knick-knocked in the yard, their labels long wrinkled away, blanched by sun and rain that gives no nuthin’ for nuthin’. The grass grown tall and wild among them, fer none moved them fer the grass cuttin’ and none never will.

They nudge the worn door open but like in the way you didn’t want to make noise but always did. Pappa was all grumpled in his chair, his legs spread to avoid the spring pokin’ through the middle. The Rusted Red was a third gone and restin’ precarious like on the lamp table all crowded with papers and loose change.

“She all plumb down by the lake again weren’t she?!”

“I’s right here in front of yer eyes,” Cassie retorted.

“I ain’t talkin’ to you! I don’t want you’ns down there.”

“I was just lookin'’”

“Lookin’ fer what?! What ya lookin' fer?” Cassie just frowns. “What ya think you gonna find? Huh?”

“Leave her be! And how much you had? You’s eyes all swoll. You on your second jug, ain’t ya? I can tell.”

“We ain’t talkin’ ‘bout this! I’m sayin’ that land all scald now. Everythin’ dead and it ain’t used to be dead. And that there’s just some bad portend and you ain’t gonna find nuthin’. And if I find her down there ‘gain I’m gonna belt her I swear.”

“You ain’t speakin’ ‘bout her like that! Baby girl? Why don’t ya head upstairs. Pappa and I needs to talk.”

Cassie drifts up the stair all cat quiet and goes to her room, but not fer sleep but fer listenin’. Her dollies all there with clothes on and huddled all in a heap which she called Stuffy Mountain. Mags was her close friend and she plucked her up by her red yarn hair and carried her such to the top of the stairs where she plunked down quiet but not so quiet as Pappa barked up from below. “You shut that door! This grown talk!”

Cassie makes hard her steps to let them know she was walkin’ and then slammin’ the door all big like to say, There! See?! Her back slunk to the door, her knees drawn up as Mags stared back. Mag’s mouth sewn straight ‘cross makin’ it all hard knowin’ whether she sad or happy. But tonight, sad was in her lookin’. Cassie was listenin’ but it was all muffled like, like hearin’ through cotton air.

“You cain’t be talkin’ to her like that! She just a young'un. A little girl still who missin’ her Bumpa with no ‘splanation’ a what happened.”

“Well, she ain’t been the same in the head since. She act like she know sumthin’ no one else do.”

This time Cassie was the real kind of quiet. Ghostin’ her door open and crawlin’ down the hall on all fours, her knees slidin’ beneath her as Mags mopped the floor before her. The door weren’t far. The one ain’t no one allowed in.

Mama yell,“You ain’t been the same neither! Ever since the mill…and I know! I know that weren’t yer fault, k? But you’s been hole up here in yer chair with yer Rustic Red and you jus’ was more once.”

“What you sayin’? I ain’t done nuthin’ wrong!”

“I know you din’t! Sush, listen. But we ain’t never talked ‘bout that night. When Bumpa wandered off. And you been keepin’ her room like a museum ever since.”

“We ain’t talkin’ ‘bout this! It ain’t my fault she took to wanderin’. I made that latch, that one right there! And there ain’t no way she coulda lift it. I watch her try. You blaimin’ me?”

“Ain’t no one blamin’ ya! She was your mama. But we also ain’t never find her neither!”

“I’s out all night lookin’. You saw!”

“And we ain’t tole nobody ‘cause there’d be a trouble, you sayed. Not police, no nuthin’. We ain’t even got a death paper. And then all them livin’ things started dyin’ out there. How you figure that? Them leaves all fell like birds hit by lightnin’ so’s even spring could’t put ‘em back.”

“And I tole ya we ain’t talkin’ ‘bout this no more! I mean it. No! Don’t even dare open yer mouth now!”

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut as she turned the knob and the door whispered open as if it made itself so. Bumpa’s room. Smell of dust and relics grown old as if the air had turned them to bakin’ paper.

Bumpa’s bed still turn’ down like the night she left. The bureau all set with photos in milky glass like still frames from some old movie where them actors just sat there the whole time and ain’t never spoke.

Cassie drew her hand gentle ‘cross the bed and it came up grey like it was burnt on a stove. Shouts from below grew up more fierce and then she grimmed hard and pound the bed with both hands as clouds of dust rose like dark talc so heavy that when she pressed her hands to the sheets it look like they was smolderin’.

Mama then screamed and the crash of somethin’ shatterin’. The heavy thuds of Pappa’s boots on the stairs like leather rocks all clumsy and angry and comin’ down the hall. Then Cassie realizin’ the door was open. She knew it was too late, but rushed the door shuttin’ it and pressed her back to the wood. The pound against the door came hard as it bounced and the sound of Pappa hittin’ the floor all crazy. A scuffle against floors and walls as a vase broke as he stumbled profanin’ down the hall till a door sorta slams then slams again right ways.

Cassie breathes heavy and waits, then picks up Mags all dust straked and open the door. At the top of the stairs she sees Mama standing there whisper like in the wallow of glass and wine. It soakin’ like blood into the couch and sprayed up the wall like murder. She bleeds from a gash on her forehead like a third eye torn in. She glance up, her daughter cryin’ down at her. She wipes her nose across her sleeve and smiles.

“You go to bed, baby girl. I be fine. No go. I’ll get this read-up quick so’s you cain’t tell. No...no no no don’t do that. Mama’s fine. Listen here, Mama’s fine. So you…so you go git, k?”

But there’s some ruin you cain’t sweep. Not for the world, not for anythin’. And there’s some nights that just be filled with tinks of broke glass, sharp as fangs and there ain’t no magpies in the whole damned world.

In her dream Cassie there floatin’ in the moss green waters of the lake like a lost doll wearin’ her Bumpa’s slippers and there weren’t no up or down. The brush of thorns growin’ thick but with the cut off fingers of babies which thrummed the waters as if they was playin’ some instrument portendin’ destruction as blood from her head spiraled in the water like squid ink. She didn’t know if she was breathin’ or not but somethin’ took her hand and it look like Mags but it weren’t really but was Bumpa lookin’ like Mags and they loved each other very much.

But now she knew she weren’t breathin’ and a dyin’ was comin’. And in the above now were a rainbow and it sayed to her without speakin’, “Be fast, baby girl.” And so fast upwards she did but it weren’t fast enough and she woke drownin’.

It was rainin’ and the air cold as she gulped at what was not dream water. She looked ‘bout the room and somethin’ was amiss but she couldn’t figure. Then she saw. Stuffy Mountain was all gone and so was Mags.

Fear sliced in’r like ice as she leapt from the bed. Lookin’ down below, Mamma was sleepin’ on the wine couch. Did Pappa take ‘em? as she began to cry. Then she gandered the hall and Bumpa’s door was a crack open and she had a knowin’.

Inside and there they all was.

The bed now full read-up and her dollies in the center in perfect rings as if they placed there by the stars, and Mags on Bumpa’s pillow behind. They faced all center and in that center was a mind picture and in that mind picture was the truth and in the truth was the real knowin’.

Shakin’, she rushed to fetch Mags but all clumsy like from dream drownin’ and bumped the bureau sendin’ the glass movies to shatterin’ on the floor. Momma called scared up from below, “Cassie, that you?! You alright?” Not darin’ to speak, she rushed to the door closin’ it tight. But Pappa was already at the door.

His fist sent her flyin’ back and her head filled with stars that weren’t there and her eyes floated there all alone, ‘cause her body din’t feel there no more.

“Why you in there?! What ya move?!” Mama now mounted the stairs grabbin’ Cassie.

“What ya do?! What ya do to yer little girl?!”

“If I find jus’ one thing outa place, just one, I swear I’ll kill ya.”

“You come near her and I’ll slit yer throat,” as Mama pulls her back.

Cassie shakin’ now with them dollies all in there strange like with no splanin’ to be done.

Pappa force the door enterin’ as Cassie squeezes her eyes waitin’ for the bad, but then ain’t no bad came. She cracks her eyes seein’ her room. Them dollies all back in their Stuffy Mountain just like they once was. Pappa glarin’ the room just as it was, slammin’ the door and not knowin’ the better.

“Baby girl, we goin’ downstairs now…”

“Nah, she ain’t! She gotta say why. Why she in that room? Why you’s in that room then?!”

“She ain’t gotta answer nuthin’ to you no more. We goin’,” as Mamma hustles Cassie to the stairs.

“You gone leave this then?” as he picks up Mags by her yarns.

“Nooo…nooo…” bellows Cassie. “That’s Mags! Bumpa made her! Don’t! Pappa don’t!”

“Then says why,” as he grips the yarns tight twisten’ Mag’s head sideways, but Cassie can only whimper.

“You stop! You stop this!” screams Mama.

But Pappa yanks hard, tearin’ off a clump as Cassie screams. Then rips the whole top off Mags with the sound of tearin’ sheets and pulls the yellowed cotton out lookin’ like a cloud that gone dead.

Mamma rushes Cassie down the stairs as Pappa clomps behind. Settin’ quick by the front door, Mamma grabs Cassie’s jacket.

“Baby girl, I want you to run. I want ya to run as fast as ya can. Find the Dixon’s down Peterson Road you hearin’ me?”

“But, Mamma…”

“Don’t Mamma me. Now git. Git!”

Cassie caterwauled down the porch, down the ridge, down lookin’ out over the lake whose sight froze her death like.

“The trees is all gone…”

*

Mamma standin’ by the door now with a metal poker and holdin’ it with a killin’ face.

“Ya struck her! Ya struck our little girl! Why, ‘cause she know sumpthin’? Sumpthin’ out by that lake?”

“There ain’t nuthin’ by that lake!”

“But there is. You know there is and Cassie know it too! But it weren’t sumthin’ ma mind could figure then - And don’t ya budge or I’ll knock all memory from yer head.”

“I am four of ya, woman. And I mean ya to drop that.”

*

Cassie stood there all numb upon the ridge for there weren’t no land below no more. The lake had swoll to twice its size eatin’ all that once stood and what’s left was runnin’ black with sorrow. The mist now swirlin’ - like a cloud got shot from the sky and was now dyin’ on the waters.

And then she had that mind picture which sit in the bed - The front door undone and Bumpka in her slippers lookin’ for Pappa, who was sittin’ and cryin’ in his chair drinkin’s hard watchin’ her drift into the rain, and havin’ done such, close up the door behind her, throwin’ the heavy latch in place, crumpled down and wept in failure for everythin’ he once was.

And before the sun came dawnin’, he made sure his mama found the lake.

*

Mamma weepin’ now.

“I know what ya did now. I know.” Pappa glowers, his eyes all charcoal. “Ya just got tired, dint’ ya? It were that stupid simple weren’t it? Jus’ too weak and chewed up by booze to take care of yer mama no more.”

“I took care a her! I went searchin’!”

She lowers the poker shakin’ her head slow. “Nah... Ya let her. Ya did. Your mama out there drown callin’ yer name in the black and you just’a coward.”

And then the fist was too fast to stop.

Pappa bursts from the house like a derecho. “Cassie?! Baby girl, I’s sorry!”

And then Cassie ran.

The black mud slick where feet don’t catch and slidin’ in the filth of things gone, she stumbled around the dark arc of the waters. She knew he seen her and there weren’t no road to the Dixon’s no more. He vague now into the fog and holdin’ Mags all empty headed and there weren’t no more forward fer her, fer it was all wet hill.

“I sees ya! It alright. I got yer Mags. I fix her, promise.” And all Cassie could do was go small and crunch into a ball like the rocks where the small things died.

The wind drove cold down the far slope and the fog blew thick ‘cross the mud and no one could see nuthin’ now.

“Cassie? Baby girl?!”

“Oh…” Pappa sayed surprised and speakin’ like he was two people.

“There ain’t no yonder…”

“Cord wood stacked ‘gainst the barn. I made it so. I did. See?”

“No weaklin’s or mama’s boys in this country, I say. Heh. That a funny.”

“No, cain’t say fer sure. Nah, I cain’t see no yonder turns out, why you askin’?”

And that was all that he sayed and if he sayed more, then it was beyond hearin’

*

Mamma pushed herself up from the floor. All things ringin’ and tin like and there was a kinda overness in the air. Like things was done but which way she couldn’t figure. The door open and she reached for the poker and everythin’ was hazy and the figure all fuzzed in the haze.

“Mamma?”

“Baby girl?”

“I hear there gonna be a spring sometime.”

“Where’s your Pappa?”

“The lake were a secret, but it ain’t no more.”

“I don’t know what yer sayin.’”

Cassie takes a ponder moment. “I cain’t say no more.” Mags hung from her little fist as new as the day she was first sewn up. “It don’t need to make no sense.”

And somewhere in the hidin’, magpies called in their choruses and some things just felt settled now.