Excerpt 1—Darkness
Mary and Josie sat atop the hill, waiting for the sun to fade behind the mountains. Unlike games their schoolmates noisily played in the bright light of day, Red Rover or Hopscotch, theirs relied on darkness and silence. Mary’s and Josie’s game did not have a name; it was not bound by rules, teams or scores. It required only two commonplace items, a spool of twine and an old purse. Mary raided Debbie Mom’s kitchen junk drawer for the twine, and Josie snuck the purse out of her aunt’s closet.
They looped the twine five times around the stiff straps of the black leather purse and placed it in the center of two-lane Jericho Road at a sharp bend locals referred to as Dead Man’s Curve. Anyone rounding the curve would naturally let up on the gas pedal, unless they were drunk, and might see the purse reflected in their headlights.
Back in their positions at the top of the hill, Mary and Josie crouched and waited, taking turns holding the spool end of the twine, the soft light of the pink and blue Belt of Venus their backdrop on the horizon. As twilight melted into night, they heard a car backfire.
“Someone’s coming,” Mary whispered. “Get ready.”
“It sounds like Lettie Johnson’s car,” Josie said.
Lettie slammed on her brakes and got out, approaching the dark object cautiously, not knowing for sure what it was. Her heart beat a little faster, and not because of the danger posed by a tiny woman like herself standing in the middle of Dead Man’s Curve on a moonless night; as the purse came into focus, the shiny black patent leather pumps she’d admired, on the mannequin in the window of Dalton’s Department Store, flashed through her mind. For a second, she imagined herself with shoes and purse to match, or close enough, walking into town, her head held high.
Lettie stooped to take a closer look at the purse, brushed her fingertips across its cool, damp surface, then jerked her hand away. Had it moved ever so slightly? As she lifted the purse off the ground, she felt a gentle tug, followed by a steady resistance. Mary reeled in the purse, like a hooked fish, and watched it flop side-to-side, up the hill and beyond Lettie’s reach.
“I didn’t plan to steal it, just wanted to see who it belonged to,” Lettie yelled into the darkness before driving off.
She avoided Dead Man’s Curve whenever possible now, hoping to forget the guilt and shame she carried home that night, instead of a new purse.
A single-bulb light socket dangled from the ceiling of Debbie Mom and Daddy John’s bedroom at the end of the hall. The cracked glass globe that once concealed it lay on a side table waiting for Daddy John to take it to the hardware store and buy a replacement. With no cover to obstruct it, the bulb’s yellowish-orange light slithered through the door’s gap and crept under Mary’s door in no time. Unable to sleep under the invasion of artificial light, Mary blocked the imposter by folding and placing a faded mermaid beach towel lengthwise across the bottom of her door.
The beach towel came from a ubiquitous seaside shop during a rare family vacation to Myrtle Beach, when Mary was five. After seasoned sunbathers and serious sandcastle aficionados were forced off the beach by heavy rain, they swarmed the tiny shops, browsing a myriad of items useful only on a sunny day, suntan lotion featuring the iconic Coppertone girl, plastic buckets and shovels, lounge chairs and beach towels.
Exhausted parents, at a loss to dream up any rainy day activities to placate their whiny children, bickered with each other as they dragged their kids from one shop to the next.
“Weren’t we here before?” kids complained.
“You were in charge of just one thing, checking the weather!” exasperated mothers said to their husbands.
Because it rained the entire week, the mermaid beach towel was the sharpest memory Mary carried home. She was certain she pulled it off the shelf accidentally. A heavy woman, in a one-piece bathing suit, charged into her while chasing after a little boy squirting a water gun. Mary reflexively grabbed the towel for support, knocked over a rack of post cards and landed on the floor.
The mermaid beach towel cloaked her head, and dozens of Wish You Were Here in Beautiful Myrtle Beach post cards lay scattered around scores of bare, sand-caked feet, inches from her face.
“You knocked my baby, down,” Debbie Mom yelled at the woman.
Then, “You know better than to pull things off shelves,” she screamed at Mary.
Her other memory of the trip was Debbie Mom and Daddy John bickering over where they should eat dinner.
“Let’s go to Howard Johnson’s,” Debbie Mom said.
“I prefer Dairy Queen,” Daddy John said. “I like their hot dogs.”
“Why would we travel five hundred miles to eat at the same restaurant we can eat at back home?” Debbie Mom said.
Nobody asked me. We ended up at Howard Johnson’s.
“We should have stayed home and gone to Hillbilly Beach at Jordan Creek,” Daddy John mumbled.
Before she arrived on earth, Mary floated in a black sea far-removed from Myrtle Beach. She was alone, yet not alone, in the depths of the wet darkness. Lured by a siren’s song toward a beacon of light onshore, a steady, rhythmic force propelled her through the rough waves.
Growing up, Mary’s life was filled with music between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m., and again between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m., when she and Debbie Mom were home alone. Debbie Mom was especially fond of Doris Day, gliding across the kitchen floor, clutching a mop or broom, singing along; it’s not easy to glide on cracked linoleum. She placed the mop or broom in the corner, just long enough to pour herself another cup of coffee, or flip the record.
Mary’s favorite Doris Day song was Que Sera, on the A side of the 78 RPM record. She admired its array of real-life questions about what lay ahead, Will I be pretty, will I be rich? but its withholding of pat answers, Whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera. Still, coming from Doris’s lips, it sounded as though everything would be wonderful. Mary recognized that it made Debbie Mom happy to believe this.
Excerpt 2
Reverend Jim Slack wasn’t thrilled about having company that day, but he didn’t plan to go out, anyway. The news of John F. Kennedy’s visit to Jordan Creek was just one more reason to stay home. And, Arthur Ronan the third shouldn’t take long. If Art, which is what he insisted he call him, dawdled and showed any signs of wanting to sit and chat, he could always use the excuse that he needed to prepare for his sermon, the next day.
As it turned out, Art spent no more than about ten minutes standing at the rectory door, not even stepping inside. He appeared to be nervous about something; Reverend Slack didn’t dare pry into what that something might be. He thanked Art for returning the book and told him to drive safely.
What Reverend Slack hadn’t counted on was what happened moments after Art left. He’d just poured himself a snifter of Prohibition Edition Cutty Sark scotch, he liked it neat, settled into his recliner and kicked off his shoes, when the doorbell rang.
“Just a minute,” he said, hiding the snifter in a cupboard.
He didn’t want any more rumors to get started. He hoped it wasn’t Art returning, wanting to chat after all. Even worse, it might be a member of the choir or the Women’s Bible Group stopping by to ask some inane question.
“Who’s there?”
“My name is Doctor Thomas Silver,” the man said. “I was referred to you about a book.”
“Just a minute,” he repeated.
Now he prayed it wasn’t some hotshot theologian wanting to debate the Bible.
When Reverend Slack opened the door, he was surprised to see that the doctor was accompanied by a rather attractive woman and a skinny boy with wet hair.
“You mentioned a book.”
“Yes, if I could have just a few moments of your time, we’ll be on our way,” Doctor Silver said.
Doctor Silver held up a muddy copy of Myths, Legends and Folktales from the Hollers of West Virginia.
“Unfortunately, there was an incident down by the creek, and I dropped it.”
“I see,” the Reverend said. “Won’t you come in.”
“This is my wife, Margaret, and my son, Tommy.”
As soon as they were inside, he could smell it, a foul odor emanating from the boy, Tommy.
“Have you been swimming?” Reverend Slack said.
“I was swinging from a tree and fell in,” Tommy said sheepishly. “I didn’t get hurt though.”
“Well, good for you, but there’s some bad stuff in that water, so make sure you take a long shower when you get home,” Reverend Slack said.
“He’ll take one when we get back to the motel this evening,” Margaret said. “We drove down from New York.”
“All the way from New York? What brings you to Jordan Creek?”
Although he hadn’t wanted company, this portended something much more interesting than the Women’s Bible Group.
“This,” Doctor Silver said, as he held the book up, again. “I knew the man who edited it, and I’ve always wanted to check out some of his assertions.”
“Well, what do you know,” Reverend Slack said. “You just missed someone else who seems obsessed with that book.”
Reverend Slack walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out one of his copies.
“I loaned it to Professor Arthur Ronan the third, and he returned it not thirty minutes ago.”
“Who is he?” Doctor Silver asked.
“Hillbilly Heaven debunker is what I call him.”
He moved toward the cupboard.
“Can I offer you something to drink?”
He decided he might as well have that scotch after all. Doctor Silver and his wife, Margaret, appeared to be the sort of people who wouldn’t mind; maybe they’d even have one themselves.
Before they could answer, Tommy piped up and said, “Do you have any Coca-Cola?”
“Tommy, don’t be rude,” Margaret said.
“As a matter of fact I do,” Reverend Slack said. “And you, Doctor? Mrs. Silver?”
“Please call me Margaret.”
While these pleasantries were exchanged, Reverend Slack retrieved his snifter from the cupboard and pulled a bottle of Coke out of the refrigerator. Although brief, the couple exchanged a glance that had no doubt been honed over a span of many years. Her eyes flashed worry; his eyes registered defeat.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Doctor Silver said. He was already well aware it was something stronger than Coke.
“And you, Margaret?”
Reverend Slack liked saying her name. It sounded aristocratic. He was glad she didn’t use the nickname, Peggy.
“Nothing for me, thank you.” Never anything for me, she thought. I might have to drive back if he has too many.
As they drank their scotches, Reverend Slack provided as many details as he could about the Mountain Dew Gang, where they’d lived, the location of their production facility up on Spruce Hill, what had become of their families after the incident. He focused on Hillbilly Heaven and all the rumors that had flourished over the past thirty years. That was his bailiwick, he asserted.
Doctor Silver listened intently, even after his third drink.
“I’m just trying to get at the truth.”
“Why are you so interested in the book, specifically in Hillbilly Heaven?”
Reverend Slack was on his third drink, too. Margaret and Tommy spoke softly between themselves about the day’s events.
“I believe the guy who edited it, Anthony Caputo Senior, my former colleague at NYU, made a lot of it up just to sell a book,” Doctor Silver said. “I overheard him joking with one of his students about Hillbilly Heaven.”
The Reverend Jim Slack glanced down at the book in his lap. He had never believed in Hillbilly Heaven, and yet he preached about it most of his adult life. He didn’t see any harm in giving his congregants something positive to look forward to, a better life than many of them had in the present. And, he told himself, anything’s possible.
Doctor Silver was seeking the truth, but for his own selfish purposes, to discredit his archrival, Anthony Caputo Senior. Reverend Jim Slack always assumed he was peddling lies, but convinced himself it was for the good of others. Who would be judged more harshly, if at all?
It was dusk when the Silvers finally left; they stayed longer than planned. Instead of driving as far north as Fairmont, where they stayed on the way down, they stopped at a motel in Charleston. Doctor Silver insisted he wasn’t drunk. Tommy complained he wasn’t feeling well. Margaret said nothing, exhausted from trying to hold their family together.
