Sinners

It was a Friday they set to hang Johnny Romans. 

The moon was out past midnight like me, winkin’ down from the sky like he was in on the joke of life. His light made me blush. Hanging white and bare that way seemed indecent to me, like he oughta cover up, like he oughta be ashamed of his beauty. It was the kind of night I liked best, a night for lovers— though I ain’t ever been a lover yet, only seen ‘em, running through the moonlight with light feet and sweet faces.

I was only out anyway to put the cow away. Pa liked to graze her in the moonlight, because his granddaddy taught him that moon-grown grass made sweeter milk. Sounded like fairy tales to me but it musta worked, because Polly’s milk was the sweetest I’d tasted. I put Polly in her stall and I stroked her brown flank to get her to low at me before closing her stall.

Outside the barn, fireflies was dancing in the air, bowing to their partners and then twirlin’ up like they wanted to join the stars. World felt alive, like she was tremblin’ in the arms of the moonlight. A breeze shook some white blossoms off the apple tree and made it look like World was quiverin’ with joy. I had to look away, feeling like the last body left alone in the whole wide everything.

That was when I saw it— a foot, peeking out from the haywagon. It paralyzed me, a spare foot sticking out of the hay where there was usually a hay fork. So dirty and bare, that poor ragged foot, that I almost wanted to kiss it, and put it in a pair of strong boots. I don’t know what took hold of me, but I found my hands picking up my skirt as my feet backed me into the shadows. Waitin’ for what I couldn’t say nor name.

He musta thought I’d gone, 'cause a minute or so later out he came from the hay, shaking bits out of his dark hair and looking around to make sure nobody was watchin’. He didn’t see me, but that old moonlight caught his face and it hit me like a slap who he was. Except it couldn’t be, because everybody knew Johnny Romans was locked up, had been for months. He was to hang today at sunup. Everybody thought they might as well go ahead and do it. There was no getting him off, no way around it: he was guilty as sin, killing that poor ol’ Widow Proctor from up the hill. He looked guilty, too, standing there under the white moonlight like the blackest sinner, his eyes dark shadowed. There were lines on his face I never seen on a man of twenty-two before, lines put there by guilt and suffering. That, I thought to myself, is the face of a lost man.

I got my breath ready to call for Pa and the shotgun. Then that old moon played his hand, and shined his light at Johnny’s eyes. I swallowed my breath. His eyes were lost alright— lost like a little boy who’s just seen his pup kicked hard by a horse. Something gave way inside me like an old floorboard.

The light shifted again, and he saw me. I felt a thrill go through me when his eyes snapped to mine, like when I seen a mouse in the pantry or a snake in the garden. He looked scared, too, a lit firecracker ready to go off.

“If you run, I’ll scream,” I said, real quiet. “My Pa can run fast, faster’n you. And he’s got a gun.”

“If you scream, I’ll kill you,” he said, and I almost believed him. 

I started shrinking back into the shadows, but then I remembered the moonlight. What had sagged and broken inside grew firm and new again, and I knew that whatever I did next wouldn’t bear no resemblance to the proper thing.

“I won’t scream,” I said.

“I won’t run,” he said. “You know who I am?”

“No,” I lied. “Who are you?”

He paused, just long enough to let the crickets know that what he said next would be a lie. “Jack,” he said. “Call me Jack.”

And I did. Lord help me, I called him Jack.

“Jack,” I said. “You look hungry.”

He looked me hard in the face, searching for some kind of evil or some kind of good, and I let him. I imagined then that he could see all the true things, the prayers I said and the prayers I didn’t say, and when I helped Polly birth her calf that came feet-first and when I didn’t stop them boys from drowning the kitten in time, and when I snuck a dime out the collection plate in church since I didn’t like what the preacher-man preached, about Bessie Lee and her baby being abominations, 'cause the daddy was a carnival man came and went last Spring. I just held real still and let him find what there was to find on my plain face.

“I ‘spose I could do with a bite,” he said. 

He followed me into the barn and I fed him a bowl of Polly’s sweet milk and an end of bread. Polly stirred and lowed in her stall, blinking her brown eyes at him. He ate like a stray dog, shoulders up, ready to fight off anybody who wanted his soggy end of bread. But he was beautiful. Sharp jaw and cheekbones like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, his blue shirt hangin’ from his shoulders. Beautiful like a sunset you won’t see but once. 

“You’re bleedin’,” I said, when I noticed the wine-color stain on the side of his blue shirt.

He looked down at his side. “I ain’t even noticed.”

I fetched a clean white cloth and a bandage out of the old trunk in the barn, and a tin of salve for patching up cracked hands in the winter. 

“Pull your shirt up and lemme see,” I said.

He knit his brow. “Why’d you wanna help me?” 

His voice was thick and mistrustful, and I couldn’t blame him. I was half-sure I was full-crazy myself, and I had nobody more solid than the moon to blame for it. My conscience pricked me. What would Ma think of me now, watching from heaven?

“Ain’t you one of god’s creatures?” I snapped. “Ain’t that reason enough?” My heart was pounding in my throat and I felt stubborn as an old mule. 

He didn’t ask me no more questions, just pulled his blue shirt over his head and sat lookin’ at me like his fate was in my hands. I set my jaw and got to work on the cut, ‘fore I could think how I never been this close to a man without his shirt on before. I rinsed the jagged gash with some clean water and dabbed on the salve, then pressed the folded white cloth on top and wrapped the bandage all around his chest a few times to keep it in place. The whole time, he didn’t make no sound or move a muscle, except to let the bandage under his arm. I leaned back and lay my tinglin’ fingertips on my knees to see how it looked. 

It looked like a man with a fine, muscled chest and a pair of strong arms, wearing a good, clean, bandage, and looking back at me with eyes gone still and easy.

If you’ve ever been a fool, ever felt the riptide of a firefly night pulling you down to another body, then I don’t suppose you need me to tell you what happened in the barn that night. If you ain’t ever been a fool, and always done what was sensible and right by what the preacher says, then the telling would only shock your sensibilities. 

When it was done we lay in the hay with his arm around me and my head on his shoulder, my fingers tracing the bandage.

“There’s lace on this bandage,” he said.

I laughed into his skin.

“Where’d you get such a soft white bandage out here?” he asked.

“My hope chest,” I said.

“Why’s it in the barn?” 

I leaned up on my elbow a little so I could look down at him, my loose hair swingin’ in the space between us.

“I ain’t had much hope,” I said. “Before.”

He touched my cheek before settling me back against him. I knew in the morning, he’d be gone, runnin’ from those out to hang him. But the sin, and the hope— those I’d carry with me always.

Go on, pity me for being such a foolish sinner, and I’ll go right on and pity you, too. I couldn’t say if what I did was right or wrong. I ain’t got a head big enough to pretend to know what that means anymore.