You Are My Everything Read online

  A pause hung over the table, then Easter looked at his hand, which was still on hers, and smiled.

  Westmore had been oblivious. He pulled it away and removed his pen and notepad. "Let me write some of this down. Governor Bridge Road is where the house is? And what town?"

  "Luntville, sort of. Out off the back roads, things get kind'a mushed together."

  Westmore scribbled, frantic. "And you say he died of a heart attack roughly fifteen years ago... Can that be verified? His name never came up on the Social Security Death Index."

  She gave a casual laugh, still fanning herself. "Westmore? There ain't no Social Security nothin' 'round these parts. If'n someone die, they'se get buried. But I know the boy who buried him—Waldo Parkins— er, well, he ain't a boy no more, more likely closer ta my age now. See, he worked for Crafter, drove him 'round in his big fancy car, did the yard-work, run errands..."

  Pay dirt, pay dirt, pay dirt! Westmore kept scribbling.

  "And I'se good friends with Waldo's Aunt Ida-Waldo live with her near Crick City. Just you tell Waldo you'se a friend'a mine, they'd be happy to talk ta ya all about Crafter. It's Waldo who found Crafter dead'n buried him. Buried him right on his grounds, even made a little wood plaque fer a tombstone, he tolt me."

  Perfect! Perfect! Westmore couldn't write fast enough. He could take a picture of that plaque! "Now, now, uh," he stammered. "How do I reach this Waldo Parkins?"

  "Just call him up. I gots his aunt's phone number written down at the house."

  Westmore could've swooned. "Easter! You really are a Godsend! His phone number?"

  "Uh-huh. We ain't got a phone ourselfs but if'n we need ta make a call, we use the pay phone down at Hull's. But after I show ya where Crafter's house is? You'll'se need ta drive me back ta my shack 'cos that's where the phone list is. And you'll have ta find it yer-self off the list—it was Grandpop'n Noot who keep the list'a neighbor's numbers. See, I cain't read myself."

  "That's no problem, Easter, no problem at all," but then he realized, Shit, I'll have to meet her husband. Oh, well... "I look forward to meeting your husband."

  "Aw, well, that cain't happen 'cos my wonderful husband Noot—he died."

  Westmore froze up. "Easter, I'm very sorry to hear that—"

  She flipped her hand. "Don't be, Westmore. Like my Grandpop Orne used ta say, death ain't nothin' but the spirit movin' on ta someplace else."

  "Yes," he replied for lack of anything else. Then he thought of something, and took out his cellphone. "If the Parkins number is listed, I might be able to find it here..."

  Her eyes thinned in curiosity. "What's— Oh, that one of them cellphones I keep hearin' "bout."

  Westmore nodded. "And I can go onto the internet with it." He pulled up AOL white pages, then typed in the name Parkins. "And what town do Waldo and his aunt live in?"

  "Crick City."

  GREAT name for a town. In a few seconds he found it. "Parkins, Ida. That's got to be it."

  "Amazin', all this teck-noller-gee these days."

  "It's a great convenience and a great pain in the butt," he said but in the stasis, he realized that the sheer excitement of her revelations, along with his dense attraction to her, had left his penis painfully erect and leaking. I've got a loke for the house, a phone number, witnesses... It's the motherlode! Grinning, he set his pen down to take another sip of coffee, but—

  click

  —his pen rolled off the table.

  When he stooped over to retrieve it, Easter, in a motion almost mechanical, uncrossed her legs and parted her thighs.

  Westmore stared.

  A plenteous black nest of hair sprawled at her crotch. The parted thighs looked creamy-white. Westmore stalled on a breath in his chest; he could just make out the delectable twist of flesh hidden in the fur, and in a fantasy he saw himself crawling over there beneath the table and burying his face between her legs...

  Get up!

  He grabbed the pen and retook his seat. Had she done it on purpose? No, that was just more gutter-minded fantasy. Easter immediately kept talking as though completely unmindful...

  "And when yer talkin' ta Waldo? Be shore'n ask him 'bout Crafter's basement. All kinds'a nekker-manser stuff down there, he say. Get him after he have a couple'a nips and, believe you me—he'll tell ya some things."

  "I-I will," Westmore said. He felt half out-of-breath from the private glance. Were his hands still shaking? "Easter, I can't tell you how much you've helped me—

  Another dismissive laugh. "I say, you act like I just tolt ya where the end'a the rainbow is. Crafter weren't nothin' but a nutty ole man—"

  "This info is better than the end of a rainbow. Look, let me pay you a consulting fee—"

  "Oh, you hush now, Westmore; I don't take money from friends," but just then her eyes drilled into his, and then she reached over and touched his hand. "Ya been so nice givin' me this here li'I machine but... could I ask ya to do me one more favor?"

  "Name it," he said.

  "See, like I just tolt ya, I cain't read, but I need someone ta read somethin' for me. I mean, I'se could get someone else ifn it's too much of a imper-zishun..."

  Westmore didn't quite get it but he said, "I'll read you anything you want, Easter."

  "It's, well, it's somethin' special, 'n'fact it's what I need this li'l recorder for in the first place. I got these words I need ya ta read, but I need ya ta read 'em out loud"—she touched the memo-coder again—"into this."

  Westmore shrugged. "I'd be happy to. But...what is it, exactly?"

  "Oh, I guess you could call it a prayer, like, a good-luck prayer."

  "Fine. I'll do it right now if you like."

  Her lips thinned. "I thank it'd be a sight better if ya do it someplace more private, like maybe in yer car..."

  ***

  From the old rucksack, Easter produced an equally old cloth-covered binder whose tarnished rings secured typical lined paper filled with scrawl. "This were Grandpop Orne's special book." she informed him from the passenger seat. Westmore's eyes flicked from the book to her bosom, the book to her thighs settled in the seat, the book to her radiant white legs. Even the barely perceptible veins in her thighs he found exotic and attractive. Fuck, came the abrupt thought. He could only hope she hadn't noticed the arousal in his pants. The woman seemed rapt on the book, bearing that constant gentle smile; Westmore thought of a mother flipping through a photo album of her babies.

  He'd turned the car on at once, to run the a/c, and when he did so, he took a stray glance at the dashboard and saw that the sizeable blue-bottle fly that had been buzzing around earlier now lay dead. No doubt, the heat had killed it. Good riddance...

  "Grandpop Orne were such a fine man. I just miss him so..."

  Westmore noticed some loose and oddly hued sheets beneath those bound. "What are," he began but then she pulled one out.

  "This is it here," she said. "Be careful now."

  Holy smokes, he thought, knowing immediately by its look and feel what it was. "Easter, this is parchment or maybe even vellum."

  "Huh?"

  "It's got to be very old. This is what they used for paper before paper was invented. It's actually animal skin shaved and cured a special way."

  "Oh, I know it's old. It come from way back my side'a the family. Them sheets come from Europe; my Grandpop's rellertives're actually part'a the first colony ta come here, someplace called...somethin' Choo-sit's bay." She winced. "Well, I cain't remember it all."

  But Westmore remained fixed on that first sheet of vellum. Nothing at all semblant of an alphabet could be found on the cramped lines of whatever ink its author had access to. The gradients in each stroke told him that a stylus rather than a primal pen had been used Just...a bunch of odd characters, like pictographs and logograms. Interspersed within were other, stranger characters—wedgelike but not cuneiformic— that seemed more like geometric diagrams. Each diagram had been inscribed with great precision, and each angle of each wedge was unequal in a man
ner he felt sure was deliberate. Anti-epicyclic, he thought. Angles in place of numerals? But then he winced at a passage that had clearly been highlighted in modern magic marker. Vandalism, he thought. A collector would howl...

  Nevertheless, he'd never seen anything like it. "Easter, I know a bit about ancient writing systems, but"—he shook his head. "I couldn't tell you in a million years what this is."

  "Oh, I know that. Grandpop said this writin' here, is writin' that existered, well, a long time before folks learnt ta write themselves."

  Westmore let the ballyhoo pass; of course, her grandfather would be given to tall tales. "What I mean is, I can't read this for you—"

  She laughed as if amused. "Oh, Westmore, no one could who don't know it! Only Grandpop could read it; but what he did, see, is he wrote down somethin' ta go along with that there page. A... tranzer-lay-shun."

  Westmore looked at her. "Really?"

  "And the way he write it is so—well there's a word fer it but I cain't remember. He write it down the way it sounds."

  "Phonetically."

  "Yeah! That's it." Now she ruffled through the bound sheets of normal paper. "He got scraps from a lotta old books'n such but that un there he always say's the most important." Her fingers isolated a sheet, but she paused and looked outward. "Manner-somethin'. Manner-skrit..."

  "Manuscript," Westmore corrected.

  "Uh-huh, and it was the-the..." She chewed her bottom lip. "Mot-ik, er, krotik, er, puh-not-ik." Her bare shoulders stumped. "Dang, I don't know the actual name he calt it."

  Westmore reached forward as if eager. "I'd like to see that phonetic translation, Easter."

  She unsnapped the metal rings and withdrew a single leaf.

  He couldn't imagine what this could be. And why would she be so intent on Westmore reading it? The tape recorder, he remembered. Something about a good-luck prayer... Only a few lines comprised the phonetic rendering. Simple. He picked up the memo-corder. "Okay, Easter. Here goes," and he pressed the record button, trained his eyes on the transcribed lines, and read aloud, "Guh'narl'ebb, druh'nug lee eye snub negg add'uk zynn...ee'uh, ee'uh, fuh'tay'gun, nem'blud duv...yog'saw'thoth..."

  He released the record button. "There ya go, Easter. Anytime you want to hear the good-luck prayer"—he pointed—"just press this bigger black button."

  Her eyes widened, fascinated, as he played the strange muttering back for her. A tear rolled down her cheek; the simple and rather absurd task left her choked up. "This means more ta me than ya can know, Westmore—" suddenly her hand was on his thigh, then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  Fuck, Westmore thought again. Just the feel of her hand so harmlessly on his thigh made his penis cringe. "No problem at all," he said, trying to act unaffected. After I take her home...I'm jerking off. Big time. He looked at the vellum once more before he returned it to her. "This is really very interesting, Easter. If you like, I can give you the name and number of an antique book dealer. He'd probably pay a lot of money for that sheet, as well as whatever else you've got in that book."

  She looked taken aback. "Oh, but—my! I could never sell it. It's what my Grandpop left me, been in the family fer hunnerts'a years, from even before they come here."

  Westmore smiled. "Easter, you and your world are so enviable. In my world, everything's about money. People do anything for it; money's their god. That's all they live there lives for. It's so refreshing to meet someone like you; you act like you don't even care about money."

  She replaced the sheets, then put the binder back into the rucksack. "Ain't never had much use fer money. Wouldn't never wanna have ta rely on it. The more folks get ta needin' money...the less real they is."

  "Well said."

  "Among hillfolk, if anything, money's like a disease, and it's the things folks want it fer that messes 'em all up or even destroys 'em." Did she gulp? "'S'what happen ta my fine husband, Noot." She was staring out as she spoke. "I got me a daughter— Linette's her name—and I'se afraid Linette's one'a them people who were just born bad..."

  Kind of an odd thing to say about your daughter, Westmore mused.

  "Noot were a wonderful man, and I'se loved him so much. Married over twennie years, we was. He was everything ta me... But then it was Linette who got herself all inta this stuff they call meth. Lotta folks gettin' inta that. Used ta be it were the moonshine that turn folks lives inside-out, but fer the younger ones? It's the meth."

  "It's stuff like that that's ruining the whole country, I'm afraid."

  She nodded blankly. "And it were Linette, mine'n Noot's flesh'n blood, who got Noot 'dicted to it too. Then, see, all of a sudden-like, they start ta needin' money to buy it. And the meth? It's that damn stuff made my own husband up'n fall in love with my daughter..."

  Holy SHIT! This is getting real heavy, real fast!

  "It's the way it make 'em feel Westmore, that make 'em turn bad. So, Noot, he start sellin' stuff 'round the house, solt a lot'a the gold things Grandpop left, and jewels been in my family fer ages, and Linette, it were far worse things she do fer the money. Thing's I'd be ashamed ta tell ya..."

  Westmore didn't have to wonder. He struggled for some consoling words but all he managed was, "Easter, don't dredge up things that upset you."

  There, again, she smiled oh-so-gently. "Aw, I ain't upset. Noot, like I tolt ya, he's dead now 'cos of her, but like Grandpop say, death is just the spirit movin' on ta the next place it's s'posed ta be..."

  "Of course," Westmore blabbered.

  "Ever mornin' of ever day I wake up, I'd say ta Noot, 'You are my everything,' and I'd have done anything for him. Anything. And it were true, and he knowed that. And then..." The long pause was worse than if she'd sobbed. "I lost it all."

  This was tragic. Westmore barely knew her but he couldn't help feeling for her. However, even after all she'd let out, she still had that tiny smile.

  It was the worst part of all: the smile was all she had now to counter her life-upheaving loss.

  She was looking at him; not out of self-pity but something as simple as curiosity. "You ever love someone that much, Westmore? So much ya'd do anything fer 'em?"

  Westmore felt staggered; he could scarcely answer, and with this he found that he envied her even more. He answered rigidly, and in a tone that he hoped sounded only half-serious: "I'm afraid the avenues of love are something I've never found room for in my life..."

  "Aw. That's too bad. 'cos when it's real, like me'n Noot—it's the most wonderful thing." Her voice lowered. "Guess I got as 'dicted to my love fer him as he got ta that meth...and Linette..."

  Westmore put the car in gear, desperate for a subject-change. "Well, now that your prayer's recorded, you can show me the Crafter house, then I'll drive you home." He pulled out of the lot, then followed some preliminary instructions from Easter, and then they were off.

  The one thing he would never notice was this: the tiny carcass of the blue-bottle fly was no longer on the dash. Instead, the insect was walking around now on one of the rear windows.

  ***

  Only minutes had lapsed before they were out of Pulaski and on some main semi-rural road. Pastures and farmland passed by as the late-afternoon sun threatened to bring on early evening. "Now just take this next turn here," she said, "onto the Tick Neck Road—"

  Westmore laughed. "Now that's a name for a road, Easter."

  She seemed not to hear him, instead relaxing back into the rental's plush seat. That gentle smile had never left her face. She seemed to be reflecting inner thoughts, and Westmore could only presume they were nice thoughts in spite of what she'd implied earlier. Incest, he thought. Was it a cliche, or something more?

  Just another tainted facet of humanity. Not just rednecks, not just backwoods people and trailer parks. It's everywhere—the pursuit of the forbidden. Addiction, lust, lies, incest, greed... None of it picks favorites, we just PRETEND it does.

  It was forcible mental insistence that ordered him to keep his eyes off her body, yet all
the while, his penis stayed three-quarters erect.

  When the a/c was too much, he turned it off and lowered the windows. His next cigarette felt euphoric.

  "Been a spell since I'se rode in a car," she said. Her black hair sifted in the breeze.

  "I wish I didn't have to own one. Flat tires, insurance, road rage, traffic jams." He shook his head. "I almost wish I lived out here."

  She chuckled. "Depends on how's yer made up. Hill-life ain't fer all folks, but I'm fine by it."

  "You've lived in the area your whole life?"

  "Oh, yeah, an so's my whole family since just after that war they calt, I think, the Civil War. But the land's given us dang near everything we ever need."

  His eyes looked through her window, partly to gaze at the sweeping farmland but also to steal a cringing glance at the formidable nipples printing against her top. "It's really a treat for me to see all this: farms, pastures, graze land."

  "Well, enjoy it while'se ya can 'cos it'll be behind us shortly, and we'll be in the deep woods. In fact"—she leaned forward, squinting. "This next turn comin' up, but be careful."

  More excitement of the non-sexual variety stirred in Westmore. He was about to see the Crafter house. He turned into the narrow lane which seemed compressed by centuries-old trees on either side.

  "This here's the Governor's Bridge Road..." She was leaning forward again. "And...and—here! This turn."

  The car slowed into the opening of what appeared to be a long, dirt-paved driveway that proceeded up. E. CRAFTER, read the large metal mailbox, but time and weather had reduced the letters to near invisibility. Gotta snap a pic of that too. Westmore's palms were sweating. "How much farther?" he asked, but the next blink answered his question. At the top of the incline, the house loomed.

  "And that there," she said, "is the Crafter house."

  The tree-walled road emptied into a tree-walled clearing in which the house sat. Classic semi-Georgian and Edwardian architecture struggled to stand out from sheer dilapidation. Great bow windows swelled from the first story, garrets studded the second, while the higher turret on the north wing seemed somehow to invite inspection. Oddly, though, no windows had been broken, and the great stained-glass tympanum remained intact as well. Was the house actually leaning? Westmore studied the second-story and thought he spied a face in one of the dreary panes.