Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston

Author:Andrea Hairston [Hairston, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Chicago World's Fair—Fiction, African-American Migration—Fiction, African-American History—Fiction, Hoodoo--Fiction, Early Movie-Making—Fiction, Folk Medicine—Fiction, Lynching—Fiction
ISBN: 9781933500669
Publisher: Aqueduct Press
Published: 2011-06-30T04:00:00+00:00

In the bedroom, Aidan sang “Running won’t set you free” and strummed his banjo rather poorly ’til Iris fell asleep. He set his banjo on Aunt Caitlin’s heirloom trunk, tucked the sheet under Iris’s chin, and stood a moment listening to her breathing. He kissed her forehead and slipped out the room into the kitchen.

Sitting at the table, Aidan pulled out his journal. It’d been a while since he kept good counsel with hisself. The orchid Garnett had left on his rocking chair was pressed in the center. In four years, the flower hadn’t dried out. After scratching one word on a blank page, his head ached. His skin burned and itched. He stopped writing and stared into the dancing fire. The cavorting flickers and shadows jumped him — fire imps, jabbing his body with red-hot pokers, laughing and hissing. One big fellow with a boar’s head and stubby gator legs took to clubbing Aidan with a burning birch log. Setting down the pen, Aidan pushed away from the table. Pain blasted his body. He closed his eyes, hugged his chest, and shuddered. The stabs of pain weren’t so bad if he didn’t also have to watch the fire imps.

“Jesus,” he groaned out loud and then bit his tongue so as not to wake Iris.

If some god could spare Iris from two deadly afflictions, Aidan had figured he could put down the jugs for good. He just hadn’t figured how hard it would be. After the fever and cough epidemic, he’d stuck to colored Peach Grove where the neighbors smiling in his face hadn’t set torches to Garnett’s feet. In fact Aidan thought of settling down with a good colored woman, Subie’s grandniece, Luella, if she’d have him. Luella was a handsome, strong gal he could respect. Whenever he checked in on Subie, Luella was there checking on her too. Luella could make a man nervous, eyeing him with a crooked smile and devilish hips.

Could such a fine woman want a busted-up drunk? The imps laughed in his ears. Aidan opened his eyes. The big guy with the boar’s head just kept clubbing him with the burning birch.

“Luella be trying to make me fat with her pies and jars of jam!” Aidan told them. Luella had lost her husband, Bubba Jackson, to the coughing sickness. Seeing her dragging ’round, so sad, tugged at his heart. Singing at Iona and Leroy’s one night, Aidan did a song ’bout losing the one you love, just for her. Ever since, Luella looked back at him with hope. She was nothing like Redwood of course, but they could raise Iris, have a few sweet babies of their own, and turn a profit with his farm. That would make a good second life. Yes, sober in Peach Grove would be all right once he fought through the delirium tremens. Sweat streamed from his head, stinging his eyes. Demons didn’t look tired of tormenting him.

Shaking and wheezing, he stumbled to the door and stood in a cool night wind.

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