THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE

Saying Goodbye - 1954

69 1954 Saying Goodbye It is three o’clock in the afternoon of a stifling day in early August and I am going down to the river to say goodbye and to get my brains beat out. It is a ritual. I don’t know that it is a ritual—I would not realize it until many years later—but it is a ritual and there is no escaping it. There has been one at each stage of my life in this shit place called Crum, West Virginia, and there will be one now, just before I leave. There is no way out. But if I am going down to the river to get my ass kicked, by God at least they are going to have to work at it. This time they are going to have to pull out all the stops. The stench of the river finds me before I find it. With the water down to only waist deep in most places, the sluggish stream simply cannot carry the load of garbage piled up along the banks. The whole river stinks. At least six different guys have stopped by the house to ask me to come down to the river for a swim. They know it is my last day in Crum and they want to make sure I get a proper send-off. The bastards are there now. I can hear them splashing and shouting, the noises ringing sharp, loud, through the heat that layers the valley. I know they will be Lee Maynard 70 spread out, each waiting to be the first to see me as I top the rise of the river bank, each wanting to be the first to fall silent and to settle down in the water. Well, screw them. I am scared and they are the reason for my fear and I have always hated things that frighten me for no good reason. I don’t know about rituals, so I don’t know that they don’t understand what they are doing, either. I top the rise of the river bank and half-gallop down the slope. I paste a large grin across my face, wade into the water, and float and push my way out toward the middle. Time slows down. The sun beats on the surface of the river and reflects into my face, and I can feel the heat on my shoulders and back as I move into the water. The river is hardly flowing fast enough to make noise and the others in the river are silent for a minute or so. There are no clouds in the sky. It is one of those Appalachian August days when the heat is so intense that nothing moves, and everything bakes that’s caught in the narrow river valleys. It is one of those days where just opening your eyes makes your forehead sweat. The others are nearer the Kentucky side, lounging around the large rock that is our diving platform. Four of them sit on the top, three more bob around in the slow current. The water is about chest deep at most and the shallow parts only come up to my knees. I have spent the last week selling everything I own, everything except my old rifle. I sold the stuff quietly, trying not to stir up questions, holding off the poking and prying that I knew would come if word got around. But the word got around anyway, and so now I am going to have to beat it out of here before I had planned, just bug out without telling anybody. Slip away. Just me and an old cardboard suitcase. I forgot about the ritual, but it didn’t forget me. And here we are in the stinking Tug River, seven bodies and a victim. The Pale Light of Sunset 71 Things start pleasantly enough. It actually is sort of nice. Of course, nobody says “sorry to see you go” or anything like that. But then, guys don’t do that. We are just sort of loafing there, us guys who have known each other for all these years, just lollygagging around in the river, letting the sun beat down and the river wash up and talking about all those things that are usually talked about, like we’d done a thousand times. Ott Parsons is there, his big mouth spouting cuss...