Sarah and Stan

Behind the sink on the kitchen window sill were dusty dead bugs that died there once it got so cold—cold draughts of wind flew over their wings and stirred the empty sink. Stan rinsed out a dirty glass from the cupboard and took a drink of water.

He looked out the window behind the sink and saw clouds and a quiet grey stretch across the way. Winter birds chirped out in the trees and the sun was going down. The ending day crackled. He could hear when some small creature skimmered over the ground and the past few days had been bitter.

Tufts of smoke plumed through the wood stove's steel door when the winds blew right. The chimney pipe rose up from the top of the stove then turned right to go through the wall. Old blue jeans were stuffed around the pipe and the hole in the wall. He threw some firewood on the coals in the bottom of the stove and slammed the door back shut.

In the bedroom room were his good blue jeans. He put them on over his longhandles. He put his shirt and coat on, too. His boots were under the bed and felt frozen when he pulled them on. He brought the flaps of his hat down over his ears and sat on the side of the bed.

Outside, blackbirds flew down the hill. He watched them out the window.

There used to be a garden out there.

It was dead now but once it was alive. Though a failure, his mother always tried to make that house her own. When she was alive she kept that flower garden outside.

He stayed in the house with his father after she was dead and gone and the nights and days grew around them. Sometimes in the summer, at night long ago and while his father was sleeping, he'd lay outside beneath the garden leaves and listen to the skies rush by above him.

His mother's flowers he never knew their names—but he did know the yellow tulips came back every year. Orange wildflowers grew wherever they wanted to and on nights when the moon burned orange those flowers were the same color. They smelled like old wine. Those nights he'd lay out there in the garden listening to the sky and put his head close to one of them so he could smell them and become wine-drunk.

His father tried to carry on after his mother died. Outside was still the rusted barbed wire fence and the old black crows. His father stayed alive but his mother was dead and gone.

He grew the garden but didn't pick the tomatoes. The squash grew but nobody ate it. Watermelons overgrew and rotted in the late summer and past the fall and cold winters they turned to dirt.

Beer cans filled the wheelbarrow. Wild honeysuckle swallowed the old garden. Amongst tulips and wildflowers the undergrowth of dead lovers was sometimes too much.

Blackberries choked the waterwell. Birds nested on the windowsills.

When evening would fall, cicadas and hoot owls would hoot 'n cry, hoot 'n cry, hoot and down drunk among the pine trees his old man laid on needles laughing as the moon came up.

And his drunk old man was dead now, too.

Down, down at the bottom of the field, facing the woods, Stan hung a scarecrow. The birds came in and out of the woods sometimes screaming at his old scarecrow but the old buzzard never turned away. He didn't need the scarecrow but he made him anyway.

He'd dressed him in old clothes of his dead father's. His father had no use for his old clothes anymore. His mother, dead, too—he put one of her old floppy hats on his scarecrow's head to make it come alive. He thought a lot of that scarecrow and his button eyes did see.

When the winds blew outside those pine trees swayed and their branches moaned. In the woods there were soft-footed thieves heading down the old logging roads to 411 highway. Murderers looked for the train tracks and sometimes those crazy black crows would scream to echo some woman's wildcat voice out from the dark hollers, hollering for a man who was not there. Children moaned in the cold and the cold crawled in little rat steps while his scarecrow stood out there and watched them all the time.

Nobody was out there but he'd hear them all the same.

 

Sarah lived alone with Stan in that old house since everybody was dead. Nobody knew about them anymore. Nobody knew about him. Some people remembered him but nobody knew about them. They lived alone in his old house.

Thunder turned outside the window and the wind blew up high. He sat on the edge of the bed by the window.

She went to the closet and rummaged inside. She looked over her shoulder at him then back into the closet.

Don't do that, she said.

He turned to her. Don't do what?

She went back inside the closet. What you were about to do.

Why?

Because I dont want you to.

Why?

I just don't.

He laughed a humorless laugh and looked back out the window.

The trees and their leaves whispered out loud. The old swing tied to a branch beat against the trunk. White sheets hanging between two wooden crosses coughed. With the wind clouds of dead leaves rose and exploded silently into the side of the house—no one saw that square of yellow light that fell from their window onto the ground outside.

Lets go outside, he said.

No.

Why?

Because I dont want to.

Why?

Because it's cold.

He stood up. Put on a jacket. It's not that cold.

I don't want to.

Why?

Because I'm afraid of you.

What are you afraid of?

I dont know.

Put your coat on.

No.

She walked to her dresser and looked in her mirror. Pulled her hair back with a rubberband.

They lived alone in that old house.

Sarah wanted her daddy. She thought of an old tune he used to sing and hummed it inside her. She wondered if her daddy still thought of her, if he thought of her when she was afraid of Stan.

Her father sang that song a lot when he hung around his toolshed when she was a child. Her father sat on a plywood toolbox in his shed, mindlessly wiping grease off tools and she played on the dirt floor at his feet. He smelled like grease leather. He never spoke to her. Cats were in the yard. Her mother was sick in bed and the world was alive—bees buzzed through the grass and crickets chanted at dusk and oh, some things dont matter now.

Let's go, Stan said.

She closed the front door behind her and the wind blew dead leaves all around. Soft thunder moaned but it was dry and dry, silver lightning flashed sometimes. He stomped down the front steps and across the yard. She put a lock of hair behind her ear, sighed silently, and followed him. He made her.

She followed him past the edge of the yard, down the grassy road past the fence and into the edge of the woods.

Far-off dogs barked and the wind still wanted to blow. She wiped hair from her eyes and followed him through the woods.

Sarah, do you remember that house you grew up in? Is it the same one now? Remember the fires in the fireplace, and the way your father sang to you there? Do you remember animals? Sundays or the gardens? There were roads about—do you remember them?

Do you remember the boys you once loved or your bedroom when you were a child? The sound of your fathers voice? Maybe you remember dancing, or laughing after nightfall?

No, but I've stood in front of the ocean and felt something inside me. I was sick maybe but didnt see nothing but the way the earth curved out there. I've looked in photo albums and wondered who I was.

The day Stan asked for her they'd been walking down that same grassy road behind the house. Things were slow then—she held his arm watching lazy summer light fall like dust through the leaves. He'd just started growing a beard, and she laughed about it.

There was the pond out there and that old grey church falling behind them. Arms of late summer sun stretched down and insects danced through like english fairies from an old children's comedy. A rabbit, hidden in the grass across the way, breathed fast.

You know, your eyes look like nighttime.

Well, and her face turned red.

And nobody can see at night.

I cant either.

The light turned grey and the summer evening cooled. They lay on the grass until the stars came out, talking of tomorrow and the days after. The rabbit in the grass went home and everything breathed easily.

When night fell, it was quiet.

He was sleeping on the ground beside her, breathing slow. She watched him and wondered what he dreamed as the warm blackness crawled over them. She kissed his forehead and tasted salt then looked up through the trees and the warm night's sky.

She was the same girl she always was. Her father's girl.

But he was somebody else.

And that was long ago.

Now, imagine that dark night and hurried winds blowing. Imagine cold dry grass. Imagine the muddy pond with leaves floating they passed, and the smell of pigs. The cemetery was in the distance and the forgotten wooden church falling down. Niggard trees dropped shadows and gravestones stood in unruly formations. Brown leaves fell like snow. A stone statue of the savior looked down upon the dead.

The night flashed silver and shouted out there.

They walked through the old churchyard. Crooked trees pointed at her and he pointed back. Dead things came alive. What are we doing out here, she asked.

I'll be right back, he said, and walked into the darkness. She stood there, cold and afraid of being alone. She watched him walk away then slowly followed after him. She soon found herself before a crumbling tombstone. She'd been there before.

In 1879 a girl was buried there. Arabella Concordie Sumerour. She died when she was seventeen years old and was buried out there.

She heard his feet stomping through the leaves and felt a little reassured. She knelt down and ran her fingers over the carved stone words. Is this how it is for you all the time, she asked. It's cold out here. She rubbed her hands together then lay on the ground over Arabella's grave, holding herself and looking through the grass on the ground.

Had she known Arabella the two of them would have played together. If they were young girls they'd make believe. They'd each choose a man to love and to marry.

Arabella's man would be funny and dress like a dandy. He would hold Arabella's hand and walk her through town, defending her against all the crude men and bragging about her to all the gentlemen. He would be a much better man than hers.

But, No no no... Sarah's man would take her to the country. He'd have horses and water and they'd live by themselves. He'd work and bring himself home and they would love each other alone. They would be each others.

But they'll be good friends, Arabella said. Theyll visit each other. We'll go for walks while they talk in the afternoon.

We'll pick flowers and look at the horses. We'll lay flowers in the graveyard.

They laughed at each other. Wind hissed through the dark trees.

Arabella said, Maybe its a ghost you followed out here, Sarah. Thats your man in the woods and its not the wind youre hearing, you know.

No 'bella, you're the ghost.

Ya ya ya... Arabella made a funny face and they laughed.

Sarah looked out across the grass and at the church.

Stan was further away. He knew where Sarah was, kept an eye on her. She was all right, he knew, while he was looking up at the stone Jesus statue.

He watched leaves shake around and the wind.

Something he couldn't see moved in the trees and why am I here why am I here why am I here why am I here...—he hurried back to Sarah, afraid.

Sarah sat up when he came and Arabella ran away. What are we doing out here, she asked.

Nothing.

Then why are we here.

He sat beside her. His old boots dug into the ground and he coughed a little.

It's cold, she said.

It's not that cold, he said.

I'm cold.

Stan laughed a little, then opened his jacket. Come here, he said.

She folded under his arm. The cold didn't matter to her then. She felt his fear but he was never afraid. What are we doing, she whispered.

I don't know. He laid back on the ground and she followed him down.

They lay in silence and he listened to the sounds around them. Ghosts were surely those things in the field out there. An owl sang an old flute song above them and he wished he could see with its eyes. He wished he knew what was past the edge of the dark—there was something there he could not see. There was something there who knew who he was and was waiting—there was something there that longed for him and though he was drawn and wanted to go toward it, he was afraid.

She felt his fear and shivered beside him. But he was never afraid.

Whipporwills rolled sounds over by the frozen pond and the moon broke free sometimes. He looked at her face and it shone pale blue. He couldn't see her eyes but could smell her—the woman of her. He pointed behind his back where she couldn't see to the crooked pointing trees and she came closer beside him. Her breath was warm. The leaves beneath them cried. The air was still when the first sounds of passion came from her mouth—her voice would not harmonize with the music in the night and she held the back of his hair. The side of her face touched his and she turned her back to the sky. Her forehead was on the ground when she whispered softly to the earth—

Fuck me.

And against the ground their bodies grew. The wind talked of death and forgetting and a faint, never-heard symphony rose from the dark trees. Their bodies trembled and her colors deepened. Her eyes danced and saw things his could not. She imagined silhouettes in blizzards and prayers on holy ground. A great ghost rose unseen them then came down like a scarlett blanket. Their voices whispered savagely and they never thought that a herd of passing beasts, with golden hair and big eyes, would pass by watching them. And they never did. Only a dry chrysalis, on a tree nearby... When her fingernails made wounds in his body he turned to his back and she rose above him—whispered something he could not understand—opened herself—and clothed him in the warm silk of her trembling skin. From under windy trees sleepy animals watched.

There was song in the night. Melodies of rebirth. Hot slumbers and sweat, and things away. Wind and leaf. Harvests and hunger and violins and barns. Haystacks sweating. Her mother and father, rapt in conception. The flowers over there: yellow and brown. Migrations and returning—the movement of birds and they sing? Willows should be before palaces and springs overflowing...

Their bodies in motion and she laughed. The quiet of continuance. The absurdity of continuance and the hope of morning children. Mourning children and she laughed again.

Sunday school in summer and hot churches. Blown kisses to the sky. Haley's comet and dinner at night; in the evening: a funeral. Closing eyes and darkness. Fluttering eyes and darkness. His pale blue eyes and a dog barking through sleep and, once again, laughter.