And so the story starts with a 15-year-old boy waking,
and his father is at his bedroom window.
And he's been cut in a fight because he's had
this altercation on the road.
I think the only thing else you need to know
is he's had the 15-year-old boy help him carry this body out
through the woods because he's too injured to carry the body.
And that the father is just, not too long ago, back from war
and is struggling to assimilate back into civilian life.
And I think that's all you need to know,
so this is from "Smoke."
Y'all ready?
Yes.
All right here we go.
"Bright light bloomed as the tunnel abruptly turned,
and Vernon crawled through a narrow chute
to enter a stalactite cavern.
The center of the cathedral roof had
eroded into a natural and perfect oval, and blazing sun
poured through.
The walls and floors shown like polished pearl.
His father sat on a slab of gray stone, one of three slabs
amongst all that wet, glowing calcite.
And Vernon sat on a slab and hugged himself.
The sweat from the climb had soaked his clothes
and now gave him a chill.
I want you to know me as I am, Vernon, his father said.
I don't want you to see me as good no more.
A man who would kill someone ain't no good.
His father leaned against a damp wall and studied the sky.
You remember that long road we took
to get to the Miller rigs, that long dirt
road that went on forever?
Yes, sir, Vernon said.
And he remembered driving an hour on a thin dirt road.
He remembered nothing but oil pumps and flat fields
and a horizon that didn't buckle.
Well, another truck came along that road yesterday.
Seven years, I ain't never seen a soul on that road,
and here comes some shiny truck like it ain't never been dirty.
And you know how steep them ditches are.
Well, me and Mr. Augusto come nose-to-nose with our trucks.
I don't know who built that road.
Don't know what kind of man makes
a road ain't wide enough for two trucks to pass.
Surely weren't Christian, whoever he was.
His father ran his good hand through his hair,
resting his palm against his forehead.
Mr. Augusto weren't backing up for nobody, he said.
I ain't never seen the man in my life,
and told him he didn't have no right on that road, how
it was company land and how I was the foreman,
and he should just back on up before I had him
put away for trespassing.
I know you've been in fights, Vernon.
I don't keep my head buried like you might think.
You know fighting's a bad thing, right?
I guess so.
Well, it is, Vernon, his father said.
But when two men don't agree, well then,
there's nothing left.
We could talk in circles for days
and them trucks would still be nose-to-nose.
And I had that tire iron just for show.
And before I knew it, he had a knife on me and cut me bad.
And then something come up in me,
and I hit Mr. Augusto acrost his skull.
He fell like someone switched him off.
Weren't but one hit.
I thought a great deal about it last night.
When a fire goes out, there's a smoldering and a little smoke
left to trail.
And this man weren't snuffed like a fire.
I switched him off like a house light.
And it just don't seem right.
And Vernon thought of the homes in town
with electricity, of the diner and picture
show, of how their windows glowed in the dark night.
I wonder where he was heading.
Yeah, I wonder about that too, his father said.
I sure been wondering about a lot of things.
I wonder if Mr. Augusto has a wife and children.
There ain't no photos in his wallet,
but ain't none in mine neither.
His father filled his lungs, and exhaled, and closed his eyes.
I wonder if hell is real, he said.
You think hell is real?
It wasn't a question that Vernon had ever studied.
I don't know, Pop.
I've been thinking a great deal about hell, Vernon.
I don't want to go there.
I don't know if it's a real place or not,
but a man can't take his chances.
You ought to lay on that bench over there, Pop.
It's in the sun a little bit.
You oughtn't stay in the shade with those wounds.
I've been thinking about Jesus too.
I figured Jesus wouldn't have got nowhere if he was always
backing down a road.
Even Jesus had to stand and take his licks.
And that man stabbed you, Vernon said.
He might have killed you
Oh, he's got a name.
Don't call him 'that man,' his father said,
and opened his eyes and rose and walked to the dry bench
in the sun.
Mr. Augusto surely weren't going to back down,
but he weren't no different than me.
He laid back on the bench and covered his eyes with his arm.
Vernon.
Yes, sir.
You know why I believe there's a God?
No, sir.
I feel a powerful tenderness for Mr. Augusto.
That don't make no sense otherwise.
A man who would come after me.
A man I don't know from Adam.
Yet, I'm still very sorry for him.
If you wrong someone and still want to do good by him,
I believe that tenderness is God up in you.
I feel more tenderness for Mr. Nory Augusto than any man
alive.
I believe God is full up in me.
Well, maybe the devil was in you when you did it, then.
Oh, I don't know, he said.
What's better anyway, Vernon?
To have the devil in me or to have it be me alone?
Aw, you ain't a bad man, Pop.
His father shook his head.
We are what we do.
Aw, you ain't bad.
I believe in that.
Now, Vernon, his father said, don't be confused.
I'm about as bad as they come.
Now just go on and bring Mr. Augusto in here.
I need to lay still and be quiet a while.
But Mr. Augusto would have killed you.
Yeah, then he'd be the bad man, his father said quietly.
Now leave me be a while, Vernon.
Gather wood for a fire.
We'll need lots of wood.
And Vernon studied his father in the milky light,
searching for something in his face
or the way he held his body that was evidence of the good man he
knew as a child.
If God didn't want Mr. Augusto dead,
why'd he let Pop kill him?
And what, with all the killing in the world,
did one more man really matter?
And Vernon crossed the room, and crawled
from the shimmering cavern.
Maybe awful things is how God speaks to us,
Vernon thought, trudging up the lightless tunnel.
Maybe folks don't trust in good things no more.
Maybe awful things is all God's got to remind us he's alive.
And Vernon pushed on toward the light of day.
He stepped out onto the ledge and into the heat.
And it felt like leaving the theater after the matinee had
shown a sad film, and the glare of sunshine
after the darkness far too real to suffer.
From the ledge, Vernon could see for miles.
Knobs of red buds, poplars, and dogwoods, and the sky
was slashed with smoke.
The woods below had been slapped by drought
but were still generally green.
And in the heart of this green was
a circle of bare-branched hickory,
leafless, as they might look in winter.
Vernon climbed carefully down the cliff
and began gathering wood.
His eyes were parched knots and his stomach churned,
and soon he was inside the circle of barren hickory
he'd seen from the cliff.
The dirt was stark and crabbed.
The trees with the color of ashes and limbs like bones
stretched into each other.
The air smelled of fire, and Vernon
noticed threads of smoke leap from the flayed bark
of several trunks.
And he stared at the sky, at heat waves
rippling from the tips of black branches.
And then Vernon squeezed a bundle of sticks on his
shoulder and ambled off again through the forest,
singing what words he could recall from "Heigh-Ho Little
Dogies."
He took his time gathering more wood as he went and soon
was back at the honeycomb rock.
And then he stopped singing, and tied the bundle
and began to climb, the song gone in the rocks
so hot he had to spit on his palms
to keep them from burning."