CZ Studio and Radio Verte presents The Wild Wind by Corey Zimmerman.
Chapter 9
The Wild Wind
Of the 128 trains per day that whistle through Grandview,
Not one brought to my doorstep a man in uniform like the show in the movies where he'd spin me round and round like a parasol.
And if not for his nosy mama finding my letters in his rucksack and if not for her semi-literacy and learning of Junior,
Richie's return from the full frontal attack in the winter of 1918 might have remained a mystery altogether.
Richie's paw arrived at the farmhouse in late February, nearly three months after armistice day and three times that since I last heard word from Richie.
A pit formed in my belly and my knees grew wobbly. I felt faint but forced myself to stiffen as I held Junior in my arms.
It was a god-awful cold one.
Out in the road, steam poured out of Autumn's nose as she blew. The old girl harnessed to an old rickety wagon that had seen better days itself amongst the ghostly backdrop of winter fog.
I gave Autumn a rub on the nose and she dug her shoe with the frozen grout as Rowan Beauty nade from the barn.
The journey was silent but for Autumn's hooves trotting along.
Sat amongst the field much like paws, Richie's farmhouse was much smaller and had hardly any paint left to peel, a pale bleached gray amongst the mist.
And I felt severe claustrophobia overwhelming as I yanked the gate shut on my heels.
Inside it was warm but cramped and smelled horribly of onions.
Richie's paw hollered at six or seven children to go out on a git scattering like roaches.
It was then I saw Richie sat in a chair in a corner near a smoldering log.
I ran up to him and wrapped my arms around him, our child snug between us, and I cried.
So blissful it was, I hardly noticed his silence, nor his limp arms as I sat Junior on his lap, only to watch Junior fall to the floor.
He didn't cry but sat up on his backside in shock and it was then that it hit me hard.
Something was terribly wrong.
His mom must have seen the terror in my eyes as I backed away, my hand over my heart and then my mouth as I tried not to vomit.
I had known that many who were returning from Europe were mysteriously altered.
Subject to sudden moods, temper, fits of profound melancholy, alternating with a restless desire for pleasure, moved quickly to passion that they'd basically lost control of themselves.
Becoming bitter in speech, violent in opinion, and downright frightening.
But no, this was not Richie, this could never be Richie, but the old man told me chicken bone in his throat.
A doctor had reported upon the long journey home, the coffins and the bodies within were pushed off planks in mid-seat, plunging into the ocean to drift away.
One morning when Richie was ordered to assist, his hands became so shaky that he dropped his end of the box, and the body of a young boy fell out at his feet.
Richie collapsed.
Furthermore, he succumbed to sitting silently in a corner of the ship's deck, motionless, with empty eyes.
Absent of mind, his face shriveled in the light of day while whispering into the darkness of night.
Utterly incoherent in speech, only moaning and muttering nonsense, spewing profanities at the sky, until he ceased to speak altogether.
His eschewed, hollowed eyes more adrift than that of death itself.
Death is simple and straightforward, while heart-wrenching it is quite unlike soldier's heart, which lies deeper in the shroud of the abyss of the strangeness of that of the mind.
But he should be back to his old self in no time, said his maw.
Can't even wipe his own ass, said his paw, and I scoured at the vulgarity of his words.
Richie sat stoic as marble, yet frail in appearance, much like an icicle, so much so that I was afraid to touch him again, for he might shatter to the floor.
The moment of silence grew longer, and the absence of songbirds grew dreary, and my left ear began to ring.
His maw went to the kitchen and returned with a platter of biscuits.
She offered me one, but I politely denied, as I could scent their charred bottoms.
When she placed one in Richie's limp hand, I watched as it tumbled to the floor, its blackened bottom facing upward, when an old mutt came out of nowhere and gobbled it down.
Doctor said you'll come around, ain't that right Richie, said his maw. While Junior giggled at the mutt, my heart trembled as I held onto the mantle for balance, before the shell of a man who could once break an apple in two with his bare hands, who now could not even grasp a burnt biscuit.
I looked into his vacant eyes, and the old mutt drooled on the floor.
I found myself before a frosted window, with a diagonal crack running from corner to corner, and I stared out into the bleak countryside, erased by the cataract of winter.
The room behind me shrunk even smaller, as Richie's maw said, that there's the window Richie used to climb out of, suppose when he'd sneak off to see the lax of you.
She then asked if she could hold Junior, and I picked him up, but found it hard to unclench my hands from his tiny ribcage.
I am not sure why, but it was not until then that I noticed that Richie's maw was pregnant.
Yep, lucky number seven, said his paw, the one that makes the riches. A poor man will have many children, I thought.
We all faced Richie sat in his chair, Junior leaning back against the pregnant belly of his grandmother.
As Richie's paw said, it's a good thing Richie made it on back here in one piece, wouldn't have wanted to be out in this cold at a funeral.
He then flicked Junior's nose and tugged on his ear, and Richie's maw gave him a burnt biscuit, and I watched in horror as Junior shoved the blackness into his little mouth,
and I wondered how many of her other young ones lied in the ground, crucifix hung from a nail on the wall just above Richie's head.
In a Bible that sat open upon a small table beside Richie's chair, Psalm 13, Richie's paw had a red wrinkled neck,
and it reminded me of my own paw, and I thought of the aching back he must have had as well, being a toilier of the earth and all.
Richie's paw was then handed to Junior, and he bounced him upon his knee a few times, but quickly yawned and sat Junior up on his feet, putting a penny in his palm.
Junior ran straight for the door, but Richie's maw stopped him in his tracks by his bridges, and I never saw that penny again.
I walked over to Richie and knelt at his side as his paw asked,
As the boy falling out of bed yet? No, I said, as I ran the words of Richie's letters through my mind, trying to understand the dullness in his eye.
Lifeless, a reality as hard to swallow as a burnt biscuit.
The wind whistled through the crack of the window.
Richie's cheeks were sunken in. It looked like he hadn't eaten in months.
His eyes were wrapped tight in dark circles, lips thinner than I had remembered, not those I had kissed beside the river.
War is real, very, very real, I realized.
Yeah, I stitched that quilt up for the new one. Figured Richie could use it for the time being, said his mama.
I stared deep into those eyes of his.
Those eyes once sparkling in sunshine, now a window frosted over with ice, creaking in the unforgiving wind, howling with no mercy upon the bleak frozen fields of time.
They say hell is burning hot, but they are wrong. Hell is cold.
Once a boy warm with the blood of youth and passion rushing through his veins.
Rosey cheeks, hell is purple fingers and purple toes.
I took off Richie's socks and rubbed his feet warm. His ma looked over at me in disbelief, and I believe it was at that moment exactly that she had relinquished her duties to her son.
I saw it in her eyes as she sat back with a sigh, rubbing her belly in resignation.
Anyhow, the train may have carried Richie off to madness, may have lured his reasoning away, spitting out an empty shell upon the frozen ground.
But I sat on that chilled floor and I rubbed Richie's purple toes.
For the first time noticing his great toe was shorter than his second.
The more I rubbed, the pinker they became, returning to life.
I thought to warm his fingers next and then aim for his heart, and I knew those rosy cheeks would soon be blushing once again.
Those hazel eyes would soon be glistening as the sun broke through the winter mist.
I put his socks back on and snuggled his feet up in the quilt, and then I shivered as Richie's paw placed his cold hand on my shoulder, saying,
Do everything by our means to help you raising the boy, seeing we as cannon on.
He then leaned back and I heard him mutter under his breath.
The boy must have saw himself a crowd in the nude, way he done.
When it came time to leave, we left through the same door we had entered.
But I felt the hoodoo nonetheless.
It was hard to leave Richie behind, and at the front door, Richie's ma said to me,
Yadnaut 1 let Junior suck his thumb like that, duped teeth just like his grandpappy, like a mule.
And it finally made sense to me that Richie's perfect teeth and warm heart differed from this world.
And I never heard or saw the other children again, and I knew deep down in my belly the burden was too much for any of them to bear.
As America demanded he return to normalcy, Richie's ma and paw had him committed to the hilltop.
And that's how he ended up in Ward E with the other war veterans.
It was a Friday, Hangman's Day.
I followed as the nurse pushed Richie in a wheelchair to the last room on the left.
She left him next to a window with a view of the thicket beyond.
And although he wore a wool robe, the chill of winter remained.
Richie's ma and paw sat with him for a while, and I watched as they briefly struggled to find the words.
Guilt-filled excuses, spoken in creaky voices, frogs in their throats, sounding like the breaking of frozen branches in the thicket.
It was unbearable to witness.
I wished to shove cotton in my ears and tear out my eyes as she hung that crucifix upon the wall, sealing Richie's fate.
I asked his paw about Autumn, but the old man told me, I got her lined up for sale to pay the doctor.
I knew this to be a lie, as Dr. Zola sternly believed accepting payment countered the power of healing.
And the man never again could yawn with Junior upon his knee, for the words spoken in their farmhouse that day were as tasteless as burnt biscuits, as empty as a penniless palm.
And the creaking wheels of the poor old wagon descended down the bluff to never return.
Along with so many other families, they had abandoned their son, from one room to the next, sat next to windows and wheeled chairs in view of the frozen thicket beyond.
I sat alone by Richie's side, knowing I must keep my thoughts pure, as I warmed his purple hands and my own, until a nurse brought in a steaming cup of broth.
I blew on it after requesting some chamomile tea for the nerves and some peppermint tea for the belly.
I fed him one spoonful at a time, the soup running down his lips.
I cleaned him up with a rag and concentrated all my love into each spoonful.
Through the steam of the broth and the peppermint tea, the glow from the window gave the slightest spark to his eyes.
Until they grew dull at dusk and the day was lost, as the nurse returned to inform me, I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over.
I gave Richie a kiss and told him not to worry, for I shall return the following day and the next.
As two nurses then lifted him from his chair and laid him about the bed, I reached out my hand as if there was something I could do.
I have everything under control, said the nurse, and reluctant to turn my back, I asked to give him one last hug.
And neither nurse noticed as I pulled a pair of sewing shears from my handbag and took a clipping of his hair.
Walking down the long hall, I looked into the other rooms as I passed by, at sons, paws, husbands, and long-lost lovers.
Those as still as death, those unable to sit still, fluid with nerves.
Screams of terror and moans of pain, dreadful silence, missing limbs, bandaged eyes, the blind wondering how they found themselves in such darkness.
Such howls of agony, such pain, such great loss.
And so little found, such is the price of war.
A price paid in full, full of anguish, unspeakable anguish.
And by the time I threw open the door to Ward E. into the evening, I gasped for a breath of fresh air.
Brisk and pure, not stinking of misery and doom and seasoned steamed vegetables.
I walked down the hilltop and slid down the icy bluff to the river, believing if once hair clippings in a stream can drive a sane man mad.
Just possibly, a man already stricken with madness may have his thoughts flow back around toward reasoning.
What do I have to lose, I asked myself upon a sheet of ice.
The stars obnoxiously and inappropriately shone bright.
And after I tossed Richie's locks into the river, I made my way back to the farmhouse.
When I entered, I stomped the snow off my shoes with frustration and the eyes around the dinner table all looked over at me.
Eyes sparkling in the light of Junior, who sat at the end of the table enthroned like a little king.
Sweet potatoes all over his face.
His hazel eyes aglow and as wide as his smile.
I wrestled the night away, thinking of Richie and Wardy, until I wheeled my feet across the chilled floor to my desk.
Outside, the rain drizzled as my eyes could no longer.
Yet I cried from the heart, words and lyrical prose, a bridge to cross the divide.
A crevice, a canyon, an abandoned sun.
An unforgotten lover, I cried to be heard from the unhealing crevice of my heart.
When the sun rose and the birds in the old oak tree sang, and the madmen came out to dance.
And the women twirl and the rats scurry off from the dark corners as the piercing sun caught their jet black eyes, I gave my poem to you, Sam, to read.
You put on your reading glasses, borrowed my pencil and made a few grammatical corrections to my run-on sentence, and handed it back to me saying,
It's marvelous, Sarah, simply marvelous.
After tea, I walked briskly across the hilltop toward Wardy, the strong breeze trying to set the sheets free, blowing my dress between my legs, my hair and my eyes.
The wild wind stopping short of a twister, yet I knew my way by now.
Sure-footed, I clenched the pages in my hand, and step after tiny step, I made my way at a pace as those sheets carried me across the void, like sails.
Richie sat as hopeless as yesterday, yet I hoped the same as yesterday, that Richie might step out of his chair, grab me, and hold me tight while looking deep into my eyes.
But as he sat silent and empty-eyed, I fell to my knees before him, my savior.
With pages in my hand, I washed his feet with my words, words having bled from the unhealing preface in my heart.
I read aloud passionately, letting the warmth of my words bleed into his palm.
With the mighty current of time flowing before us, with its abundance of life, geese and ducks, its shores lined with willow, birds and furry creatures nestled below,
deer frolicking through the thicket and into the prairies upon which stretch endless dirt roads, and winding old Indian trails,
trails the deer now follow, of which you and I once followed, as we sought out our secret place to plant and nurture our romance,
and fall in love as the autumn breeze blew the leaves away to decay.
Yet our love not only survived the changing of the seasons, but left the impression of our love-making upon the fresh layer of snow.
As large flakes, as individual as our fingertips, melted into one another,
melting between our kisses, the pure white prairie, as pure as our union.
Will thrives and continues on, round and round, sprouting with the rebirth of every spring bud.
A nurse then interrupted, Excuse me, it's time for Richie's bath.
I insisted she let me bathe him, but she refused, wheeling him from the room, leaving me crinkling the bloody pages in my fist.
Using what energy was left in my limbs, I crawled into Richie's bed and let out a mighty cry into his pillow, one drowned out by the orchestra of the madness of Ward E.
Sam, you could see it in my eyes. You lifted Junior from your lap and set him upon his feet before wrapping your arms around me, and I buried my teary eyes into the nook of your shoulder.
Did you hear that, you said? What, I asked. Oh, nothing, you said.
I grabbed a few apples and brought Junior along with me to the barn to give Rowan Beauty a much needed brushing. Sweetish pancakes, you asked, with fresh strawberries?
I brushed Rowan Beauty and kept an eye on Junior playing with the horseshoe in the teary reflection of Rowan's eye.
When I held Junior up to feed Rowan, the horse's lips quivered gently as he took an apple from his tiny hand, and Junior giggled at the crunch of his huge comical teeth.
Midnight scared up the hayloft, the poor old cat, as I gave Rowan Beauty a pat down, and he gave out a loud blow, perpetual tears falling from his cheeks like arrows to the earth.
Look, Mama, said Junior, reaching down for a bird's nest. But I stopped him, saying, if you touch the eggs in a bird's nest, their mother shall never return for her young. We wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?
They wouldn't have a mama no more? The smell of Sweetish pancakes then caught Junior by the nose, and he took off for the house ahead of me.
I cringed as the screen door slammed shut on his heels, throwing my hand in the air as the mama bird flew just before me.
Junior stood frozen just inside the screen door, and on the other side of the kitchen table, I saw a pair of shoes, heels up.
I grabbed Junior by the shoulder and the plate of steaming pancakes with fresh strawberries off the table, and took him into the living room and sat him down.
I rushed back to the kitchen, where I kneeled down next to you, Sam, your right cheek upon the floor with a slight breath.
I was to go get help, but your large hand grasped on the mine, and you looked up at me with eyes as blue as the sky, and the most powerful smile I'd ever laid eyes upon.
And then like that, Sam, you were gone.
I ran the back of my fingers across your cheek, still blush, and whispered your name, oh Sam.
My palm upon your face, I shut your sky-blue eyes forever for the darkness of night.
Come down meekly, come down lowly. Come down all the way. Let go to glory.
You will be free, Sam. Tra la la, tra la la.
I laid at your side, still holding your hand, and I closed my eyes.
And together we laid as still as the dead.
Rowan Beauty wasted his nasal blow with his prophecy of doom, as you knew you were destined to die here,
and be buried here, far away from your paw and your maw.
Rowan hung his head low and dug nervously at the ground with his hoof, as all across the hilltop, trees full of birds sang in glory.
Hallelujah.
A slight breeze carried on until the evening. Junior's hands and face were sticky with jam, red with strawberry.
Richie sat freshly bathed in his chair by the window until evening, dreaming a dream within a dream.
As the whistle of an arriving train at the depot spooked off the geese, who batted their mighty wings,
their furrowed feathers rising from the surface of the river, forming a perfectly symmetrical arrowhead,
the grandfather clock expressed the passing time, moment to moment, listening to the honking of geese back from where they had come.
Mama washed Junior's face with a washrag and called on Paw to fetch the doctor.
And I laid at your side, Sam, until evening, until they pried our hands apart and took you away.
Just beneath the graveyard elm, your stone read, 4848.
Officiated by Dr. Zola himself, I placed two horseshoes upon your grave, along with a note that read, Sam, more than anyone,
if even for a time, more than you may have ever known, in a world in need of courage, you are the greatest hero of all.
Love eternally, your dearest Sarah.
Words written with a rusty nail in the sky.