Facing Down Demons

Ray City History

Peace or not, Lewis and his comrades brought back ghosts of war when Armistice Day, November 11th, on the 11th hour, at the 11th minute, 1918, proclaimed the Great War, the War to End All Wars, had ended. 

But, each major battle slaughtered hundreds of thousands young men, while survivors hoisted rucksacks, a rifles, and wool blankets and made their way back to home.

By 1918, 38 million people had been killed and wounded in WW1, making it the deadliest conflicts in world history thus far.  While men coming home safe and sound, their injuries were carried in their hearts and minds for their entire lives.

In his own rucksack Lewis also lugged war with its battles, screams, blood, and pain. Home. Home. I will find peace there.

But today, today Lewis walked away, to do another battle.

Marie had watched Lewis disappear in dark woods, rifle in hand, rucksack over his shoulder, and prayed that he would release some of pain that chased him.  Let him find peace here.  Peace here.  

Marie turned from trees, now dripping golden leaves and red.   

Up on Harper's Hill, Lewis set up a camp with supplies Marie had placed lovingly in the rucksack.  He climbed the highest tree, gazing out upon farmland, recalling trenches dug in farmland just like this.

Climbing down, then dropping onto damp grass, Lewis groaned.  He had been younger back then, joints didn't hurt then. 

He took off his boots, now drying with mud and forest debris. His boots in France had been lathered with blood at the end of each day. Hard crusted mud and blood over stiff boots crackled and fell off as each remaining infantryman scrubbed and then oiled leather.

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"You dog-faced men! You gotta keep these cleaned and ready: rifle and boots.  Y'all will be face down, if'n you don't have these." Each night, while men huddled in freezing water in their own trenches, General Pershing's sergeants yelled this, knowing they would all go over, leaping out of trenches with terrible roars.

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Trenches would be there, stretching out across open land, beyond the horizon, if I could see through smoke. 

Sweeping his hand across the rich farmland stretching out to the Big River,  Lewis recalled how the barbed wire would roll out mile after mile, covered with bits of clothing, how the helmets had been left where bodies had fallen. 

Screams stopped only when there were enough helmets, enough sacrifices.

If Lewis closed his eyes, he would see fragments of bodies scattered over French farm land.  Cows once grazed here, wheat grew in that field over there.  Someday, it'll all be plowed under and replanted.

Over there and there, that's where Max died and Tom lost a leg...behind his eyes, he envisioned their bodies yet. Max's laughter still echoed in his mind, and Tom writing to Katie, promising to be home soon. Bitter tears burned his eyes, but not like that mustard gas.  That got me, too.  Lungs.  

Trenches between battles

Be home soon.  Soldiers down the line wrote those same words, day after day. Lewis had no such expectations. There was no magic in the world or God's hand that could save any of them .

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Clutching his unloaded rifle in hands, with straps wound around his shoulder and elbow, Lewis dozed and awoke, dozed and awoke. Safe.  I will be safe. Up here on Harper's Hill.

Before children awoke with sleepy eyes, Marie had already baked two apple pies, peeled potatoes and kept them in a pot of cold water in the cellar. She had dusted the parlor, changed the sheets on their wedding bed, and only then she holler up the stairs. 

Wake up!  Time to get up!

A pot of hot oatmeal steamed on the oven, cream and butter was on the table, with sticky honey in a pint jar. All waited for sleepy girls.

"We have a lot of work today.  Your daddy'll be home tonight." I hope. Lord, please Lord, bring him home, leave his devils behind on Harper's Hill.

Minerva caught Marie’s eyes, and knew this meant that Mama and Minerva had chores to do while Rosie and Irma blew away dandelion fairies.

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Today was Chicken Day.  A God-awful day was chicken day.

Bubbling hot water bubbled in a wash tub over outside on their fire pit, ready to do its job.  Rosie and Irma locked Henry in the tool shed. “Make sure you lock it tight.  That dog would tear these apart.” 

Rosie and Irma squealed, chasing chickens around pen until they were out of breath and chickens worn, slowly picking at invisible corn.

Marie chose three plump hens, those whose eggs had become fewer and fewer, and handed two over to Minerva. “Hold these tight, yes, upside down.”

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With that, laying one chicken on a weathered stump used for just this, Marie brought a sharpened hatchet down on the first one, throwing it aside. Thwack! Thwack! 

It raced around, headless and bleeding; while, on the blood streaked grass, its eyes still blinked, its beak opening and shutting soundlessly.

Minerva, with eyes large and wide open, wordlessly handed the next chicken victim to Mama. Minerva had never been so close, been a witness to carnage.

Rosie and Irma watched from their apple tree, mouths in an O, big gasps with each chop. 

Marie grabbed now still hens and hung them by the clawed feet on the clothes line, tying the feet onto a bent wire.  “Pick these heads up, girls.  Help your sister!”  The heads were tossed to hogs, their snouts raised, smelling blood in the air.  Blood meant food, good or bad.  Just food.

Now all girls and Marie sat around an empty tub in the center, wondering What are we ‘sposed to do?  What?

Marie dipped each hen, now still and blood drained, into boiling water.  Once, twice, three times.  She tugged on a wing pinion, and when it could almost pull out, Marie gave Minerva a chicken.  Then one for herself, then one for Rosie and Irma.

“Pull the feathers out like this.  Put them in that empty tub, so we can use them to fill pillows.  Keep plucking them out, out and out, until they are all gone.” 

Marie grasped and then tugged feathers out by handfuls.  Pulling and tugging, Marie demonstrated to her girls what to do with dead chickens, headless chickens.

Minerva comprehended, copied Marie. Grab, pull, grab, twist, pull, that’s all you gotta do. Irma and Rosie gagged, grabbed feathers, and then gagged some more. 

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When gagging headed toward puking, Marie sent them to collect firewood.  

Three naked chickens later, Marie carried carcasses into a clean kitchen, slapping them down into a deep sink.  

She held her breath, chopping off the "parson's nose" and wondering how anyone, anyone at all could eat this fatty tail glob.  

Processing chickens meant pulling out guts, gizzards, livers, hearts and washing the cavities out with salt water.  

It meant dismembering legs, wings, breasts, and all, then rinsing them in water. 

It meant rinsing until the water was clear of blood.

Scraping and scooping the offal into her dish pan, Marie carried it to the hogs. Blood, favorite food. 

Minerva, Rosie, and Irma eased into the kitchen, staring at Marie’s back in wonder. Who is this lady? 

“Go out back and scrub yourselves hard.  Clean nightgowns, put them on. Supper ‘l be ready soon.”

Marie floured and salted each piece, then carefully put them in an iron skillet, sizzling with hot lard.  Piece by piece.  Mashed potatoes somehow appeared, and sweet peas, too. Marie moved in a blur.

Her clean babies, wet hair still dripping, chewed and swallowed one chicken ravenously.  Legs, wishbone, and breast meat, all fried crisp and steaming hot, the result chicken-slaughter, weren't connected to all that went before. 

Visions of silent chickens running until hearts ran dry was now just a memory of afternoon work.

Then her babies were in bed, worn out emotionally and physically.  Marie kept frying two chickens, mashing more potatoes, and then creaming sweet peas.  Two apple pies sat on a clean kitchen table with tea towels draped over them.

Placing supper in a warm black iron stove, Marie inspected her clean kitchen before stepping out onto the kitchen porch. Only then, did Marie poured buckets of cold water, drenching her. Marie washed down, scraping and sudsing off smells of chicken and sweat.

Other buckets were pumped and full, waiting for Lewis, waiting to baptize him, waiting to heal a tired body.

Finally Marie eased her tired body down into her mother’s old rocker and waited.  A full moon hung by an invisible string right over her house.  A string, I can see it. Moonlight slanted over her house, over the trees, over her.

Trees leading to steep climbs and rises rustled and Lewis broke through.  Shoulders slumping, dirt smearing his face and clothes, Lewis struggled out into streaming moonlight. Tear tracks were erased by love beaming from a worn-out face.

 Lewis! Home! 

She did not race into his arms.  Instead Marie poured buckets and buckets of cold water down over him, rinsing him clean of mud and leaves.  Marie stripped him bare and took more buckets with soap, scrubbed him from matted hair to blistered feet. 

She gently dried him, dried him like he was a baby, whispering,"You're home now.  You're safe here."over and over. 

Marie pulled on clean clothes, combed his hair, and then enfolded him with a woman’s arms.  Lewis wrapped her with his own arms, sobbing into her hair.

Chicken, potatoes, all of her labors of love disappeared silently, completely. Then they crept into their bed, naked body to naked body.

I’ll clean the kitchen tomorrow.  It isn’t going anywhere.  But, Lewis is home.  He never left me, he came home.  To me.  Lewis came home…

World War 1 ended with signing of Armistice agreement on November 11, at 11:11 a.m., 1918.  It was a peace agreement, which did not insist or demand  the surrender of Germany.  Twenty years later, rise of Nazism with Hitler at the head began.  

This year honors the 100th year since the end of WW1.