Granny had the hollers again last nite. Pa told us jus to ignore her but it’s gettin hard to sleep with all that noise. I mentioned it to Honey-gurl when she came over this morning to tend to Moma’s wounds, cause I knew that she was sorta sweet on me and that Pa is sweet on her. I figured that maybe she would put the thought into Pa to do sumthing about the hollers. Its gettin reel hard for me to work our fields, do my work for the Bullough’s, and then cum home to write in my diary without no sleep. Course, I guess it could be alot worse---we all could have the hollers.
***
Boy oh boy things are shure getting strange around here. If it weren’t for Moma needing me around to help with everything, I'd head off for the Dakotas at next sun-up. I heard frum Honey-gurl they still have clean water up out there, and don't have to worry about boars eattin all their crops and killing and eattin little babies, what few are left. But I can’t leave Moma, not at least until she gets better.
I need to start focusin on the main points if I want to sharpen my writing skills so that when I get to the Dakotas I can be a writer and not stay a farm worker. Two nights ago, after Honey-gurl was over, Granny started in on her hollerin again jus as me and Pa and Moma finished dinner. Moma got up to wash the dishes, but usually Pa won’t let her because her wounds open in the wash water and the dishes come out brown and smellin real bad. But this time he jus sat back in his chair and gave me mean sideways glances.
Moma finally finished the dishes and then went down to the basement to sleep. Down there you could close the big storm doors and not hear Granny screaming so loud. Pa watched Moma walk down the stairs, and when he was shure she was all the way down he limped into the smokin den and called me in with him. We sat down and he got out his big pipe and stuffed it full of dreamy-weed. I don't like dreamy-weed much cause it makes me feel like I'm floating around and dreamin even though I'm awake, but I took a few puffs anyway cuz Pa always offers and tells it's rude not to take somethin that's offered to you.
We sat for a while and my head started gettin all funny-feeling like it was floating off my shoulders. I put my hands on top of it to stop it from floatin away and Pa started laughing, and even though I wasn't happy I started laughin too. We sat and laughed until I thought I was gonna puke. Pa did puke but he didn't care, just sat on the couch and played with the green chunky puddle on the floor with his bare foot until we both got quiet.
"Not a real preety sight is it, a grown old man playin with his own juices," he finally said. I shrugged my shoulders and stayed quiet.
"I used be a strong young buck, sure as hell stronger then you," he continued on, his voice shaky but defiant, "but that was a long time ago, back when me and your ma were jus startin together, thinkin maybe we could make something' better for ourselves then our Ma and Pa, thinkin that maybe we all was over the time of the hollers."
He grew quiet again and I sat in the rocking chair, trying to get the thick fog out of my head frum the dreamy-weed, when Granny started her screams. Me and Pa both jumped, and then he started giggling. But it wasn't a happy sort of giggle, it was one like when you're real nervous and it made me nervous to hear him do it. I tried to get up and leave but his eyes got real wide and he stood up real fast.
"Did, did I say you could leave, boy?" he stammered. I shook my head no and quickly sat back down.
"I know what you're thinkin, that maybe your Pa is gettin weak in the head, that maybe he's cracking jus like this ol’ crazy world," he said, his scarecrow thin figure towering over me. "Well, maybe I am and maybe I ain't, but it doesn't matter, cause, sumtimes a man jus can takes so much and then he can't take no more." He stopped, and then did sumthing I never thought I'd see my Pa do. He broke down and and cried. Four what seemed like forever he cried like a little child and that made me even more nervous then his giggling.
"I'm okay," he blubbered after a couple more minutes, his eyes all read and puffy. “It's not an easy thing, this here life. Watching your Ma fall apart, not havin a wife to couple with when the urge comes over me." He stopped for a second and looked at me hard. "You been gettin those urges yet, boy?"
I thought of Huney-gurl and how good it felt to have my pecker-head in her mouth, and I was thinkin how I would do jus about anything to have her do it again. But then I remembered how I caught Pa and her in Granny's bedroom one day when they was supposed to be changin her beddin, but instead Honey girl was sittin at the head of the bed, combing what was left of Granny's hair in one hand and pulling mightily on Pa's pecker with the other until he spilled his seed all over the floor. I didn't think they seen me peekin, but Pa always looked at me funny from that day on.
"No, sir," I said, keepin my eyes down so he couldn't see the lie in them. "I ain't been havin those urges yet."
"You will soon enough," he said, more quiet like now that he had quit crying. "Soon enough to make you realize why God brought all the bad that he did on us, soon enough to make you realize that sumtimes, a man has to do things that eats up his soul.” Suddenly, like she was agreein with him, Granny let out another powerful scream, enough to shake the foundations of the house.
"I can't fuckin stand it!" Pa yelled, real loud and angry like while shaking his fist at the dirty ceiling. "What more do you want, you fucker? Didn't we sacrifice enough for you? Didn't enough blood spill for you? What the fuck more do you want?"
He broke down and started crying again, and I didn't know if he was yellin at Granny or God. I shure hoped it was Granny, cause we sure didn't need any more wraith of God coming down on us. When I got up again to leave, Pa just stood there and didn't say anything, so I went into the my corner room and wrapped myself up tight in my blankets, hoping I could drown out Pa's sobbing and Granny's screamin and maybe get some sleep.
*** I shure hope I can remember all that has happened today, cuz when I finally get to the Dakotas one of these days I know these here ritings will make me alot of money, if people know the whole story. I shoulda known that sum mighty weird things wood be happening as soon as I opened my eyes and seen some brite sunlight beamin through the cracks in the ceiling. Seein as how Pa always gets me up at least an hour before sunrise I knew sumthin was up, and it wasn't long before I realized something else was different: Granny wasn't hollerin anymore.
Now I knew that ment one of two things, that either Granny had died or she had gone sumwhere, and that if she had gone sumwhere it ment somebody had took her. I knew this cuz even last month she really couldn't walk, just sorta crawl around real slow on her knees and hands, and I was pretty shure by now she couldn't even do that. This made me feel kinda bad, since I still could remember how Granny was nice to me when I was smaller, like givin me food from her plate even though she was skinnier then me, and like how she would stop Pa from beatin me.
I went up the stairs, and halfway up noticed her door was open. I preety much knew that she wouldn't be up there but I had to look anyway, so I went the rest of the way up and shure enough, no Granny, just some piles of clothes on the floor along with some piles of funny-lookin yellow stuff on the bed. I sorta wundered what it was, but I knew enough to let it be so I closed the door so the bad smells wouldn't cum downstairs and then went back down myself. I figured that maybe Ma wud know where Granny had gone, cuz I had already figured that it was probably Pa who had took her sumwhere.
I usually don't go down in the basement, seein how it's pretty dark since Ma got sum sorta sickness that makes her skin fall off in big clumps, an since it seems to get worse in the sun, Pa boarded up all the windows so it's real dark down there even in the day. I walked real slow and careful like down the stairs and stood at the bottom for a couple minutes so that I could see.
Ma was in bed and not moving at all, and I thought that maybe she was dying or even maybe dead, but then she let out a loud fart and I was happy cause that meant she was still alive. Just then, as I was gonna go over and try and wake her up to find out where Pa and Granny were, I felt a hand go under my legs and grab my balls and I damn near soiled my pants and screamed even though I didn't want to. Ma jus turned over and kept on sleeping, and I jumped back to the foot of the stairs and put up my fists even though at first I thought it was a devil come to take Ma away and would get me instead.
"Did I scare ya?" Honey-gurl giggled, holding her hand over her mouth, her eyes buggin out even more then usual.
"What the hell are you doin down here?" I said, my voice cracking and full of scared.
"I'm just taking care of your Momma," she said back, walking two steps closer to me. I could smell her bad breath and see her yellow crooked teeth, but I didn't really mind her gettin closer cuz then I could see her tities better and the way they poked out frum underneath her shirt. "Maybe I should be the one askin what you're doin down here," she said, putting her hands on her skinny hips.
"I live here and I'm entitled to go where I please," I said, a little more loud since my heart didn't feel like it was gonna jump out of my chest anymore.
She moved even closer to me and started rubbin her hands up and down my chest. "Yeah, well I was thinkin maybe you knew I was down here and wanted to do some playin. Is that what you were thinking?"
I really hadn't been thinkin that at first, but when she was that close and rubbin on me I really couldn't think of anything else. I grabbed her shoulders but she pulled away and walked over near Ma's bed. Giggling, she took off her pants and even in the dark I could see her big patch of dark curly hair and I was damn near half crazy as she began to rub herself right there next to Ma.
"What's the matter?" she said. "Don’t you want to learn how to do me like your Pa does me?"
Now at that point I was gettin real wild, half of me wantin to do whatever she wanted, and the other half full of fear that Ma would wake up and see us.
"Why don't we go upstairs?" I said. "We, we can go up there and I can lock all the doors."
"I don't wanna go upstairs," she said real loud, and I was afraid that Ma would make up but I was gettin excited watching Honey-gurl work on herself so I didn't know what to do. "Now c'mon," Honey-gurl said, "you c'mon over here and after you do me I'll do you."
As crazy as I knew it was, I was ready to get down on my knees and start lickin on her honey-pie, but then I heard the upstairs door open and realized that Pa was home. I stood there like a stone, scared and crazy as I heard Pa start to bellow for me. Honey-gurl didn't do a thing except continue rubbing herself and let out little moans now and then. It was only when I heard Pa's footsteps on the top stairs that I made myself move, and the only place I could figure on going was underneath Moma's bed.
I guess one day I might rite a whole lot more on how I felt that afternoon, laying in the dust and mold underneath Moma's bed. How it was that Pa came down to see Honey-gurl gettin herself all wet and excited, and how he started lickin on her like a thursty pig lappin up water, all the while standing next to the bed with Moma snorring away. How when Pa was finished, they both started gigglin like two naughty little kids and walked upstairs. Yeah, maybe one day I'll rite a whole lot more on all the hurt and shame and hate I felt, but right now I think if I started in on it I would never rite anything else again.
I don't know how long I layed under the bed, but I knew it was a long time, as long as it took for Honey-Gurls musky smell to leave the air. I crawled from under the bed and I was pretty much hurtin all over from being crunched up all that time, and my pecker and balls hurt from stayin hard so long watching Pa and Honey-Gurl, and I guess all of that made me pissed off enough so that I went right up them stairs and into the livingroom, not caring if Pa was there or not.
He was up there all right, sleeping on the floor buck naked, a half-filled pipe of dreamy-weed next to him. Honey-gurl was nowhere to be seen, which was probably good cause I don't know if I could have held back my hate if I wood have seen them couplin. At first I didn't even try to wake him, but then I just went and kicked him hard in the ribs.
"Where's Granny?" I asked, feeling tingly and hot as he looked up at me with bloodshot eyes, and I knew he knew that it really wasn't all my worry about Granny that made me kick him but my hate from havin watched him and Honey-gurl.
"No, boy," he said, shaking his head slow frum side to side. I kicked him again harder, and I felt good and bad at the same time, almost like when Honey-gurl kissed and sucked my pecker-head.
Pa didn't even try to get up and fight me. He jus lay there with a look in his eyes that scared me and gave me strength at the same time. "All right," he finally said, his voice raspy and cold, "I'll tell ya, boy. I'll tell ya all the things," and suddenly I didn't want to hear any of it. I jus wanted to run out of the house, but I knew I hada stay cause it was my time to know.
"It's kinda funny, you and me talkin here," Pa started out, "jus like me and my Pa talking a long time ago. Course, I was younger then you and had more respect for the commandments, so that I didn't go and kick the shit out of him." He stopped for a minute, maybe waiting for me to apologize or something, but when he seen I wasn't, he kept on talking.
"I never told you this before, boy, but my Pa, your Grandaddy, was there when it first all came down on us. He was just a youngin, but he remembered it all, back when men still could fly through the skies in air machines. He told me sumtimes he thought that's maybe why God sent the sickness down, cause man was gettin too close to God's own house. I used to think about those words alot and spent many a hour on my knees prayin about it. But I don't anymore, cause I think God is jus watchin us now to see if we learned our lesson, and now and then he still sends the hollers down to remind us it could all come back, every terrible bit of it."
“Back in your Grandad’s day it was a million times worse, cause back then there was a million times more people, and damn near most of 'em with the hollers. We’ve always been country folk, and your granddaddy thought that by bein in the country the hollers wouldn’t get to them. But he was wrong.” Pa pushed himself into a sittin position, grabbed his pipe, tried to light it, then gave up as he continued with his story.
"Maybe all that remembering don't mean a thing. Most all of the people are dead and we live like the old times and that's that. Cept of course when it comes back into your own home like it has to us, like to your Granny and I don't know--" He stopped suddenly and coughed, and I could see spots of blood in his yellow spit. When he was finally done he looked up at me hard. "So you really wana go see what anger God still has in him? All right then, boy," he said, his eyes never changin their hard stare, "go see her. Go see her and see what God does to show us who's the real boss."
Pa finally quit talkin then and stood up real slow, holding his side were I kicked him. He walked over to the old cabinet which stood in the other corner of the house and pulled an old brown piece of paper out of the bottom drawer.
"This here's a map of the Bullough's land," he said as he gave me the paper. "The red circle in the corner of the wheat field is where there are three old oak trees, probably older then the time of the hollers. The middle tree of them is the one where your Granny is."
I took the map from him and looked it over. Although I had never been anywhere far away from the house, I reckoned I could figure out where the tree was without too much problem.
"Hey, boy," I heard my Pa say, and I looked up and damned if he hadn't come up with the tree-splittin axe in his hands, and I figured that he was gonna pay me back for kickin him, but he just handed it to me nice and easy.
"Boars might be out tonight," he said quietly. "No need for you to give 'em an easy meal."
"Thanks, Pa," I said, and I wanted to say more, and part of me even wanted me to say that I loved him, but as soon as he gave me the axe he turned around an finally lit up his pipe, and so I headed on out the door, prayin that I wasn't gonna make an easy meal for the boars.
The sun had already gone under the horizon as I crossed our last field of rye and moved onto the Bulloughs land. Pa told me once that the Bullough family had kept this land for six generations, and during the time of the hollers had even formed their own army to keep the land, spilling alot of blood so it could be theirs forever. This made me feel kinda funny, thinkin that maybe I was walkin on somebodys spilt blood or maybe even their bones, but I tried to put it out of my mind as I kept on movin.
I'm not proud to say it, but I was gettin rite scared bout then, and even havin second thoughts about what I was doin. The winds had picked up so that they was blowin hard and makin all sorts of funny noises, and when I had crossed our creek I had found a pretty fresh pile of boar shit on the banks. It was gettin dark fast, with storm clouds hiding any sign of the moon or stars. Now, I don't think that I'm a coward, but as I was crestin the next hill I was jus about ready to turn around, so I dropped to my knees and started praying for strength like I used too when I was a child, and all of a sudden the sky got lit up as bright as daylight by a lightning bolt bigger then I had even saw before.
I think it was a sign frum God, cuz right after that lightning bolt I heard it, from a long ways off. I heard my Granny hollerin. The only thing I didn't truly know if the sign from God was for me to go to Granny or to stay away, but I figured I had come pretty far and so I might as well finish. I got up and went toward the sound of and pretty soon I could see a group of three trees in the distance, and I knew that it was on one of them that Granny was tied.
The moon was shining through the clouds by the time I got near enough to see her, an untill the day the earth swallows me up I'll never forget my first sight of seein Granny tied up on that tree. She looked like something out of my worst nitemares I got after smokin bad dreamy-weed. She was yellow, not a pretty sun-flower yellow, but a sick piss-dark yellow. Even as far away as I was, maybe fifty or even sixty feet, I could smell her, and it was a hundred times worse smell then even fresh piles of boar shit sittin in the hot sun.
The worst part for me was the way she was, well, all swelled up. She was swollen from head to foot, makin it hard to tell where just one part of her stopped and another started. She was just sorta one big mess of yellow stinkin and quiverin goo which moaned that crazy-sounding moan. Anyway, the more I looked an smelt, the more scared and sick I got. I felt so bad that I had to see her like that and how there was nuthin I could do, and then all of a sudden she started to talk.
I'll never figure how she could see or talk to me since I don't think she really had any eyes or mouth left. Sumtimes I try to tell myself that she really wasn't talkin to me, that maybe she was jus talkin crazy stuff to herself, but, well, the stuff she said shure sounded like she was talkin to me.
"Hep mah," was mostly what she started sayin, slow and quiet at first, but as I moved closer she started sayin it louder and maybe even a little clearer.
"Granny?" I said. "Granny, it's me, tell me how I can--"
"Ah Gah pleaz hep mah!" she said, louder and with more hurt in her voice, and I started cryin, not cause I'm a baby or anythin but because I couldn't help her.
"Just tell me how I can help you Granny, jus tell me how," I pleaded, and even though I said she really didn't seem to have no head, the part on top seemed to move toward me. She mumbled something that I couldn't understand, so I plugged my nose and moved even closer and that's when it all happened.
"Oh God Oh God jus help jus help jus help!" she hollered in a voice so loud and clear that it sounded like it was comin frum somewhere else, and then I realized what she meant or at least what I thought she meant, so I swung the axe meanin to cut the ropes which where holding her, but instead I sorta hit her and that's when she exploded.
I don't know how long I was passed out, only that when I came too the moon was already halfway down in the sky. I jus layed on the ground for a few minutes, my body pretty much hurtin all over. I finally sat up and noticed I was covered with yellow sticky goo all over, which I guess was stuff that used to be Granny. I looked over at the oak tree where Granny used to be, but there was only a few strands of rope and a lot of the yellow goo.
Maybe it's wrong, but as I got up and ready to leave, I really didn't feel bad about what I did. In a way, I think maybe that's what she wanted. I figured at least she wouldn't be in anymore horrible suffering like she was. All these thoughts made me feel a little better as I went lookin for my axe, and it was when I found it that I got my second sign from God.
Next to the axe, layin all perfect, was Granny's little finger. Maybe that doesn't sound like a sign from God, but it was on that finger that she wore a ring, a ring with a small piece of gold in the center, and I remembered Granny tellin me more then once that the gold was from a mine in the Dakotas.
So rite then and there I decided it was time for me to make my move. I wrapped up Granny's finger real careful like in a piece of shirt I tore off, placed in in my pants pocket, and headed off to the West, placing myself in the signs of God and Granny. I know the Dakotas are a long ways off, maybe even a hundred miles, and I know that I'm gonna miss my Ma and Pa and even Honey-gurl, but I guess I realized that in his own way my Pa was right about God jus watching us, seein what we will do and if we will make the same mistakes. I figureed my Pa made a mistake by not leavin with Ma when they was younger, leavin and findin their own place, and so maybe now God won't send down the hollers anymore, least not on us or me. I shure hope so, and I also hope deep down if he does send down the hollers on me, that one of my kin will do the same for me as I did for Granny.