Nightwoods by Charles Frazier Page B

empty Blue Ribbon cans and Wild Turkey bottles rolling on the living room floor and the radio too loud and her parents hollering at each other and sometimes snatching at each other’s persons under the influence of great conflicting emotions.
    In short, Luce suffered few adult requirements against her until the State dictated that she must go to school. By then, she had been free-range for nearly seven years. The first day of first grade was not bad at all, a certain joy to be had in milling about confused with the other children as the buses emptied. Overseen by a stern tall lady teacher in flashing metal glasses and dressed all in brown with a sprig of violets on her lapel. In the morning, they sat at desks and drew pictures with fragrant new crayons and sang songs, a few of which Luce already knew from when her father came home late at night in a good mood. “Camptown Races” and “Buffalo Gals.” Dinner was some kind of soft grey breaded meat and mashed potatoes drenched in white gravy, with green beans that squeaked when you bit them. And all the yeast rolls and butter you could eat. Good food.
    But for all that, even though Luce had sat in careful concentration all day to determine exactly what school was all about, when the three o’clock bell rang, she’d seen all she needed to see. The confinement was intolerable. One little room all day long. Everybody breathing the same tired air together. As the teacher began lining children up for the buses, Luce felt compelled to announce her judgment of school to all in attendance.
    —Just so you know, I’ll not be back.
    For a while afterward—as if that one day fell into the same category of frequency as a total eclipse of the sun, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence—Luce went back to doing what she did before school burst into unwelcome existence. Play with homebody Lily in the mornings. Then, in the afternoon, solo walks in the woods to watch the change of plants and their colors as the season drove forward toward fall. Study odd bugs and flowers. Throw rocks in the creek. Look at whatever birds and animals and reptiles presented themselves to her, and also the way weather goes always different from moment to moment and day-to-day, and the bigger circle-shaped repeated patterns of season and year. See whether or not she could smell squirrels in the trees on damp days.
    Put to it, her parents would have said they did indeed care whetherLuce attended school. Sure they did. It was just that fights and hangovers and sweet makeups intervened. In the specific misery of day-to-day life, they couldn’t wake up at six in the dawn and give a great shit whether she went that one particular day or not. But one day leads to another, and so on. No way around it. It’s that merciless thing that time does. And then suddenly the leaves are falling off the trees and it’s October. A tall man in a Harris Tweed overcoat and a tie comes knocking at the door to set matters right.
    The man didn’t talk to her parents beyond about three exchanges of questions and answers before he saw how things stood, how young they were, particularly Lola. He’d seen it all before. He pulled little first-grade Luce aside and leaned down and looked her in the face. He asked her in a low voice if she wanted to grow up to be like her parents. Even then she knew to blow air out her nose and say, Not hardly.
    —Then you need to go to school every day, the man said. He squeezed her shoulders and looked her in the eye and said, You go, whatever it takes. I’ll push them, and I’ve got the law on my side. But there will still be days where it will be up to you. And next year, you’ll have to help your sister.
    So thereafter Luce attended, whether her parents had yet roused themselves of a morning or not. Some nights, to save time and signify her resolve, Luce would go ahead and dress for the next day before she went to bed. And waking wasn’t a problem. Anybody can turn out the lights and think