The Gravity of Summer

The Gravity of Summer

Josie woke in an eerie darkness, where neither starlight, moonbeam, nor sunshine ever entered. The only light is fashioned to the Red Hermit’s head. Grudgingly, he’ll exchange this bottomless darkness for another form of gloom - by dying - by poison.

Josie says, “What's that sound?” The Hermit jerks his head. Carbolic light transits away from Josie’s face. It pierces and then hovers like a UFO in the cavernous vault of deception.

Something is there. Frozen. In a side drift. A rat? No. It’s a pareidolia articulated from bits and pieces of their worst fears.

Smears of guano glisten in the light. Smooth. In contrast to rust-stained quartz and limestone. The abyss gives up no revelation, only murky reflections of gray light. The Hermit's search for the ruckus comes up void.

She says, “I’m scared. I want to go home.”

The Hermit snuffs out the headlamp. Waits in the dark for visual purple to illuminate. But it doesn’t. Softly, he says, "You can't."

…

The psychosis that haunts Josie Jo Joleen stymies her; she safely cocoons from her terror by wrapping herself up in a mummy bag of catatonic sleep. Surprisingly, the ringing chatter of an old rotary-styled phone does not wake Josie Joleen. In the corridors of her slumber, she inspects her lacquered fingernails. Bored, she taps them impatiently, waiting for the inherent static of the black Bakelite receiver to subside. Her ‘well…who is this?” echoes. Her voice is weepy with the lonely tone of midnight drear near the edge of ‘end-of-life.’ Her childhood, long ago, frittered away, scattered in a strange darkness creeping in and out of time.

Her father’s voice sieves through the static, “Joleen, Uncle Bud passed in his sleep.”

“The Hermit? When?”

“Alone in a shanty behind his brother’s house. He’d come to the main house for breakfast and said, 'There's a face in my toast.' He didn't come back for lunch.”

That place. It’s on the outskirts of a derelict, forgotten mining town, misplaced in the lore of places gutted for gold, cinnabar… and silver.

Evidence indicated her father’s uncle departed unwillingly. His lungs had panned out; he had sat upon a three-legged stool and spit out a tobacco-colored-gag of mercury and silica from his sluggish lungs. Chin, resting upon his chest, a wheezed cough had strained through the pickled porosity of his lungs: a kind of shrill complaint sloughing from deep inside. Coughing up tissue the color of infection and consistency of granular phlegm, he’d spit out host tissue, clumped like cottage cheese riddled with coffee grounds and marked by hypoxic events and cannibalized wormholes lined with nurse cells.

Joleen’s eyelids sputter. She puts down the receiver, hangs up on the light of the future, and dials up the darkness of the past.

…

Josie breaches her cocoon. It’s still dark. A pang of déjà vu'.

“Did you hear that?"

“I can’t see.”

“It’s the lamp in your eyes.” The phosphorescent limelight peals away from her face. “Josie, something’s up there, or something’s way down below us.”

The sound of wood splintering surges. The Hermit stiffens. The door is getting bludgeoned. “Josie, Diablo’s in the line shack.”

“It’s caving it. It’s coming for me. Don’t leave me.” But he does. Abandoned in the darkness, Josie drops the pneumatic shank. Pus-colored dust billows, mixing with the thud and clang, liberating the residual smelt of burnt cordite and fine fibers of dynamite casement. With a wave of her ungloved, creamy white hand, she fans away crystalline nodules of silicosis and moves to the main shaft. Beams of light from the Hermit’s headlamp go ricocheting off stones. Light splinters. Some slivers are caught up in the naked lightbulbs dangling from a frayed electrical wire strung from topside and down the entire length of the down-shaft. The bulbs sparkle like fireflies in a bottle. Dust mixing with topside light and downside darkness creates a halo. Through which the Hermit tunnels.

She hesitates to follow. To do so, she’ll have to cross a vertical shaft. When with the Hermit, he ties a rope to her and coaxes her to scoot across the extension ladder. She heard it creak a moment ago when the Hermit crossed. She calls out for help. “Come back.” But he doesn’t. He’s gone.

Midway across, the ladder creaks and wobbles. Small pebbles disappear into the vortex of black. Cries of a fallen tin can ping; a tinny - ting, ting, and lesser tings until it’s too far away or stuck on a ledge or hit bottom.

The misanthrope is absent when she reaches the fusion between the line shack and the mine shaft. Outside sounds of struggle burst past the busted door. That’s hanging askew. The lowermost hinge of hairless cowhide has jagged edges where it’s ripped in two, on a diagonal going end to end.

Pale and dusty, Red comes walking, comes talking. "What do you have there in your hand? Let me see. Gold? Give it up."

"No.”

"No, what?

“Not Gold.”

“Then what?"

"Silver."

He pries Josie's hand open. “Thought I trained you better." Ruthlessly, he tosses the cuboidal galena onto the roadway. “Worthless.”

His willowy form sways, arcing toward Josie. Ground level, his eyes draw her. He's crying. She looks away for fear that she’ll begin sobbing. And he’d turn vengeful.

"I'm sorry," he says, "Gold did it. Not Gold itself, but the love of Gold. For gold is good. It's the love a man has for it - that's what's bad. It blackens your heart, like Loretta. Women are like those lizards that move all jerky-like—doing fancy one-handed push-ups. They have graven eyes in robotic orbs that move independently of one another. One eye is slyly looking at you while the other is winking at 'Sancho.' "

 "I don't know no 'Sancho.' Are you going to hurt me like she got hurt?”

“'Sunshine,' Loretta didn’t get hurt; she just went missing. Now, Sancho, that's another animal altogether. Sanchos are chameleons, another lizard that looks you in the eye like he's your best friend. But he’s something else. Pray you don't come across one. But you will. Go through life unbent by the wind, unburnt by sun rays, and unspoiled by nits, fungus, or greed. Then, in one sideways glance, it's over; you're sick. No. I’m not going to hurt you."

After loading high-grade ore, the Hermit moves about as though nothing happened. As though what happened on the tailings was merely a passing circumstance that never entirely became fully formed. As they drive off, Josie looks behind at the tailing's edge. The ore cart rails spiked out into the valley, a tram at the end of the line. It's quiet. It's calm. Perhaps nothing had happened.

The Hermit gets a flash of Loretta, and though the Jeep’s on the downside, he steps on the gas. Josie braces. The truck trudges over a stout clump of sage, and careens into a badger hole. “You, okay? You’re bleeding.”

“I’m okay. ”

“Saw something in the road. Tried to speed around it.”

Wheels spin. “Are we stuck? Getting dark."

“No, not stuck." Madly clutching, shifting, gassing, and braking the truck rocks. Dust, bark, and burnt rubber sting Josie's eyes. "There, see. Not stuck. Satisfied?"

"Yes."

They remain silent until the headlights of his WWII Willy truck highlight shrubs, divots, and adolescent profiles. “There they are.”

Since they were toddlers, they have spent their summers here.

In a twitch, the Hermit’s bent finger points out scattering figures, "Yeah, your kindred..." his fingers twitch again, "Ah...my grand nephews, and that twice removed weird kid, 'Rabbit.'"

"Cousin Steve."

"Gives me a queer Heebie-jeebies.”

The outlines do not move from their infant campfire. Red shrugs and moves away from her. He struggles with canvas bags of 'high-grade' ore. He drags and rolls each off the tailgate. Josie watches him rub his left arm. It dangles listlessly as his right hand gives up the pain to palpitate scraps of yellow legal paper tucked in his breast pocket. He gazes at the ore sacs. He gasps for air and hangs the sigh in long barbs that litter nights like this. Resting on the Jeep's running boards, he indulges a long drag and flicks the butt of his home-rolled burner out from his shadow and into a gutsy fire set by fearful little boys.

His hair frazzled, his grim frame and distorted features depart obscurity. He complains, "A fire, that's not good...I use propane...well, now... I only need a few coals for my squaw tea. An enormous fire...any fire draws too many things out from out there. Darkness kills, and darkness gives birth. The father of all kinds of violence. And mistakes. Josie, didn't you tell them, ‘No fires.'"

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

“They don’t listen to me.”

They smirk, 'Ha ha ha, Josie is in trouble.'

He jabs at the thin air. Eyes widen. Bad behavior leeched white and clean by the campfire. He says, "You think it scares things away - well, I tell you, it doesn't." He charges toward the cowering hutch of tangled arms and pleas. "Shut up. See, flames bring them here. You think the desert dries you out - well, sometimes it waters you, but now, a little spark can set her into a horrible craze."

Huffing and puffing, circling the fire like a basement train sparking and smelling of oil and burnt hair, he gives Josie a sour look. He stomps off and returns with a battered coffee pot. That he places upon a ridge of coals. Again, he plods off, snatches a stand of dead squaw brush, and throws the thistles into the blackened pot.

Squatting, he pulls a stick from the fire and lights a back-rolled cigarette twisted into shape by his knurled fingers. His thin lips tweezer the home-rolled burner, which dangles in agitation as he resumes his reprimand. "You thought you were all smart by building your fire here. I must give you credit for building it on the far side. Too bad you couldn't be on the far side of tomorrow, then you wouldn't be here today... didn't Josie tell you about fire?”

"No.” They lied.

“Josie, it matters."

He checks the squaw tea. Thumping his chest, he sighs before going on. "Now - about hiding the fire from the view of the roads - that's what you wanted to do. I see that - so you built your fire on the roadless side - didn't' you? Have you ever wondered why there are no roads on one side? This side. Let me tell you. We are on the far side of nowhere. It would be best if you learned we're under the influence of Death House. That is where we are. What is out there? Why are there no roads out there? What do you think your bonfire is drawing out from that roadless sage?" He wipes spittle from his lips and ash from his eyes. "I can see it like the night it happened: moonlight caught in puffy snowflakes like a groom's clumsy fingers caught in a fluttering bridal shroud. The ground is like sugar. Everything cloaked in a veil of hoarfrost from that warm spring marsh, downwind of that Death House." He points toward the roadless landscape, where no one goes.

He tilts his head. Josie thinks the crazed prospector is trying to catch a voice or release one. Casting his hand in all directions, the old man says, "Ssh, do you hear that?”

He’s livelier than ever.

"What is out there at this very moment? Just like this burnt toast, I see the crucified face of Christ. Crying out. But her mouth is bound. Nonetheless, she’s crying out from there. Wants you to join her and her young one. Now, before what's out there gets here, let us pray.” He bows, “Dear God - have mercy.”

“God have mercy.”

His lips quiver as if massaging a world into existence. "Now, secrets hate silence. Secrets are killers of conspiracy. Cause secrets lie. Saying hush when they want to talk. We all have secrets to keep that fit like prosthetic words and feel like re-attached limbs. That doesn’t function well. But better than nothing. Misery is just another thing to take to the grave. You can only bury your Frankensteins once you have all the pieces. Secrets, of desires, I’ve stitched into the heart of the body. And if you all listen up, I will tell you all about the secret of 'Death House.”

They nod.

“It begins with being alone with an infant. At this moment, she's battered and bruised, moaning in the wind, separated from us, down there in the house skirting that experimental wheat field. The place is strange, with mud and stone walls made not to reach the ceilings. Beams that now look like broken arms. Rafters now litter the site, like the skeleton of a horse dead a long, long time. Bleached and weathered rib cage, scattered vertebrae. Broken glass - chipped into the size and shape of teeth—shards of English-China.

“But first, this fire you children set. You feel safe in this little heaven of light. But it's a poorly lit purgatory closer to hell than heaven. Don't you hear those awful sounds? Voices. And gossip of people gone missing."

Though a high desert chill endows the night, he tilts back his Fedora and backhands some sweat from his brow that is white as a skull in contrast to a face burnt to a scarlet sheen and peppered with blackheads set in blisters as white as dolomite chalk - on asphalt. He grunts as he pushes a few ill-aligned barrier stones into the reef of coals with the toe of his boot.

"But you will know when the monsters come to choke the living fire out of you. For a while, you know it's upon you. You’ll see something leap from the darkness. Cause you have a campfire to see it. Leaving you time to SCREAM. But the fire; that’s your big mistake."

Long after his recollection of the Death House, Josie is counting backward. Still, she doesn’t fall asleep. And though tucked in her mummy bag, she sees herself walking about. Adrift in the pale approach of midnight, fully illuminated by a full moon. That rose before sunset. She fears the white globe will linger well past sunrise. Spying and chucking things into the shadows – skirting their camp. Gaining bravado, they prowl openly, cohabitating in the inkwell spilled upon the nocturnal blight. Conflicting thoughts go round and round in the frosty texture of moonshine.

There's something out there veiled in a scream coming from those abandoned. Josie cocks her head to hear the error found in the old man’s tale. Something ghosted in the whisper of her warning. ‘Will I live through the night?’

Time crawls. At dusk, she’s nudged by the smell of half-burnt exhaust and the sputter of the idle of a bipolar engine. She sits up when the squeal of a fan belt stops. ‘The Jeep is warmed up; he'll leave soon.’ The other kids are piling into the bed—the motor mounts worn to a wobble, protest by clang and clatter. The Hermit stands on the horn. All in, Jeep lurches out of the gully. They hope the contraption makes it eight miles to the gravity mill.

Even though he has no basketball-sized rubble to dump into the jawbreaker, he parks there. It's flat and free of rift raff, nails, and shards of torched iron. He's done all the work from the grizzly to the jaw crusher, to another grizzly to a conveyor that goes up, then down to the ball mill. The Hermit had hauled this relic from the Klondike. Left there after the gold rush of British Columbia. From there, the trough carries the sludge to the amalgam tables, where capillary action or some attraction happens, resulting in the quicksilver swabbing up the gold.

The children snicker at Josie as they head out to go 'prospecting.' She has to work for the Hermit. If lucky, the youngsters may find an arrowhead, a piece of one – which they call ‘partials.’ And there’s always the possibility of a semiprecious gem or a fossil. They'll likely find a depression-era can, which is only 30 years old. But that’s old to them.

The Hermit descends through a man hatch. Once in the gullet of the ball mill, he ignites the welding rods. This is where Josie poisoned the Hermit. She thought and behaved in a juvenile way.

When the youngsters return, the Hermit lay on the concrete floor. A milky drool runs down his shirt into his breast pocket, staining the yellow legal paper. Josie tells the youngsters what she has done.

No one has ever revealed her secret. Now that he has died alone in a shanty behind his brother's house, someone might talk about what happened that summer when they all more or less came of age by the magnitude of the tragedy. Josie thought she had grown up by confessing to the youngsters. But now she doubts it.

…

Joleen said goodbye to her father and laid the receiver in its cradle. Through the static of time emerges the Hermit’s voice, "What's that sound.” It echoes within a pattern that looks like a life frozen in a cavern. She understands she had not grown up 'strange' that summer. It was not the summer of change held dear. She is still a child, shivering with guilt. For the gravity of 'that' summer tethers her to an eerie darkness where neither moonbeam, starlight, sunshine, or forgiveness ever enters.

Epilog

As I lay the last word down of my last summer of childhood, I’m hopeful that I’ll be forgiven for leaving him alone in the darkness when I should have held his hand and said, ‘I’m sorry.’