Damnation Falls by Edward Wright

Author:Edward Wright [Wright, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

“HELP yourself. Don’t be shy.”

Sis Lawlor sat rocking gently in a chair that had worn grooves in the floorboards of her porch. Her aproned lap was full of walnuts, and she worked intently at them, breaking them open with a nutcracker, then carefully picking the meat out of the shell and depositing it in a bowl that sat on a small table between us.

I took a taste. It was delicious.

“Now’s the time to eat ’em, when they’re fresh. They’re full of oil, so if you don’t eat ’em soon, they’ll go rancid.”

Next to the bowl was a glass full of ice cubes and vaguely cranberry-colored liquid, and next to that was a tall, open bottle of 100-proof Southern Comfort, which had gotten me the invitation to join her on the porch. I cradled my own glass in my lap.

“These are real good walnuts,” I said. “You must grow a lot of your own food here.” I looked off to my right, past her Dodge pickup, where a half acre or so of land had been devoted to vegetables.

She nodded, intent on the work in her lap. “I don’t need much. We didn’t even get ’lectricity or water out here until, oh, about thirty years ago. My husband, Will, rest his soul, he liked bein’ independent, said we could get along fine on our own. But I wanted the ’lectricity so we could have lights and a refrigerator and a radio. He finally gave in.” The radio was playing somewhere inside the house, a man’s voice droning on about some kind of health remedy.

Sis Lawlor could have been an elder cousin to Mrs. Mullins, with the same rawboned country features. But she was a bigger woman, with the suggestion of physical strength in her aging frame.

As I looked around, it occurred to me that during my years in Chicago, I had almost forgotten how important a front porch is to civilized life in the South. Up there, I never spent any time sitting on one, because they’re scarcer than hen’s teeth. Some apartments have balconies, but most houses are porchless, because there aren’t that many months out of the year to enjoy one. Down here, though … well, hardly any self-respecting house, even the most humble, would lack one. There’s an old joke that goes something like this: The farther down the social ladder you live, the more dogs you’re likely to have shading themselves under your porch.

“Is that an old springhouse?” I asked, pointing over to the left, where the forest grew closer to the house and a dry creek bed ran alongside the trees.

“That’s right. Used to be, till the spring dried up. That was how we kept everything cold, milk and what have you. We’d just put it in jugs and sink it down in the spring.”

The house was small and made of stone. I’d heard of spring-houses, but only as part of a vanished way of life. “Can I see it?”

“Hon, it’s all poison ivy back there, and cobwebs inside.

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