Silo

To be read with a slow, southern drawl…

“Silo”

My eyes were drawn to it as I drove north toward Montgomery on Interstate 65. That old, cement silo attached to the barn that had been my place of refuge and solace as a little girl. There it stood, tall, antiquated but also with a look that was sort of apocalyptic. That ole silo had certainly not been made more efficient or practical over the years. Yes, that old silo just stood there with the vines of ages climbing and twining around it as if time had simply up and left it there. Even as dirt and dust kicked up behind my Buick, the wellspring of emotion from seeing that silo made me a veritable mess of sadness, despair, intrigue, and determination. There I was amidst a landmine of unresolved madness that made my heart race and my stomach churn. Yet again, that ole silo represented everything and nothing to me at the exact, same time. I had to keep moving that Buick toward it as opposed to the last time when I couldn’t push the gas pedal down hard enough to leave it in my rear view mirror.

I remember swearing I would never come back here and here I was. I swore I would sooner shoot myself in the head than recall the memories of this place and yet, damn it to hell, if I wasn’t driving up the gravel way towards it once more. The silo. The barn. The house. All of it coming into view more and more clearly as much as I didn’t want to see any of it. Damn him for making me come here, again. Damn him to hell.

I was named after the town where I was born. This is not to say that my mother was unoriginal, even though that is the absolute truth. Georgiana Caroline. And that is “Caroline” with a long ass “I”. God, even my mama couldn’t stand to call me that so the family just called me Dixie. Growing up, though, I wanted people to call me by my proper name, but nobody ever did. I never figured out if it was because nobody knew what my real name was or because they knew I hated to be called “Dixie”. Regardless, I hated those people and never answered any of ‘em, anyway. That was why I was paddled often at school, never one to listen. Me and my friend, Lu, would have far rather have been playing in that ole barn and climbin’ up the side of silo than ever sittin’ inside of some stale classroom.

Lu was my very best friend. We were born on the same day at the one and only hospital in Georgiana, Georgia. “Lu” was short for Tallulah. God, as much as I despised my name, that girl hated hers even more. Sometimes I had wished I had been born to Lu’s family instead of my own. Lu’s daddy always seemed so happy and was all lovey dovey towards her. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized that kind of lovey doveyness was not a good thing and that Lu’s daddy was a monster.

All the people smiled and waved at Lu’s daddy when he would come into town for groceries and doodads, but more times than not, I overheard them curse him as he left their store or establishment. Lu’s daddy went by the name “Jake”, but I knew that couldn’t be short for “Jacob” because that was a Bible name and that man was the devil on earth. I figure they all just called him that because it sounded reputable enough but not too uppity.

Lu’s mama was never anywhere to be seen. She had killed herself when Lu and I were twelve years old. I’m sure Lu remembers that day even though she wished forever to forget it. I remember the sun was goin’ down and we had been at the silo all afternoon just like always. Fireflies were startin’ to come out and blink that neon yellow light from their tails. Me and Lu loved catching fireflies. At first we were way more interested in squishin’ their tails off and rubbing that yellow glowy light all over our foreheads like we were aliens or at the very least, Indians. We stopped doin’ that after Lu’s daddy caught her with the glow all over her face and made her stay out all night catching as many fireflies as she could and then makin’ her smash ‘em all and pull off their tails and rub the glow all over her naked body. He stood on the front porch all night with his bottle of booze in one hand and his other hand waving up and down like he was some preacher man. Jake told her that killin’ just to kill was evil and that she should be ashamed of herself to rob those bugs of their lives just so she could play dress up. He was crazy, that old man. Crazy. Like he hadn’t driven Lu’s mama to kill herself or somethin’.

So, there we were, climbin’ down from the silo when Lu and I heard the most awfullest sound. Even to this day, I cannot find the right words to describe that sound. At first, I thought it was Jesus Himself and we were in the middle of the Second Coming, but I figured out pretty fast that wasn’t right at all since we were still standing there. Bein’ baptized and all, I knew Jesus wasn’t goin’ to leave me behind plus I never saw dead people risin’ up out of their graves and Lu was still beside me, and if anyone was goin’ to heaven, it was Tallulah Ashford. God may very well leave everyone else behind, but He would never leave Lu. I trained my eyes on her and she never sprouted wings, so there we stood, tryin’ to figure out what that sound was.

I guess somethin’ deep inside of Lu stirred because she just started to run toward her house. The Ashford’s house sat on our property, right close to the family graveyard. From what I understood from eavesdroppin’ at the top of our staircase, Jake Ashford owed daddy a lot of money that he would never be able to repay so daddy let him “work it off” for the duration of his sorry life. To this day, I still don’t know all the ins and outs of daddy’s relationship with Jake Ashford and honestly, I don’t even care to.


As Lu ran toward her house, she had this look about her, in her eyes, especially. Her eyes were focused and mean and even a bit scary. She was flying like some crazed vulture about to swoop in on a new, dead carcass. It was terrible. I kept my mouth shut although I did want to call out to Lu and ask her to stop, that maybe we shouldn’t be runnin’ toward the noise, but away from it. But I knew better. While Lu was always the quiet one, when she made up her mind, there was no talkin’ her out of somethin’. This was one of those times so I just ran as fast as I could and tried to keep up with her. My chest was burnin’ as I gasped for air. We ran everywhere back then and I was pretty fast, but not that day. No, not trying to keep up with Lu. She was hell bent on gettin’ to that ramshackle house and I wasn’t gonna let her go alone. It was never good when Lu was alone in that place…

Lu threw the screen door open hard, jarring it off its hinge and I watched it in a kind of slow motion as it toppled down onto the porch. I had to step on it to get to through the doorway and to Lu. I smelled it right away. You don’t ever forget the smell a gun makes when it is fired once you have smelled it. Daddy fired his gun all the time, usually at imaginary birds he thought were flying around when he was drunk, but this time, this smell was eerily different from daddy’s gunshot. I reckon it was the smell of gunpowder mixin’ in with Lu’s mama’s blood. It was everywhere. That woman had taken perfect aim to kill herself with one shot and she absolutely did. She was dead before her body even slumped over and hit the floor. I think it was pretty obvious that Lu’s mama didn’t want any mistakes or to be revived.

The gun was still in her hand and the way her body fell to the floor you could tell this was on purpose. It wasn’t some sort of gun cleanin’ accident or anything of that sort. This was intentional. Lu’s mama wanted it to end, so instead of waitin’ on Jesus like the rest of us, she went ahead and pulled the trigger herself. Lu’s mama had placed the letter for Lu far away from where she knew her body would land. I always imagined her mama to be considerate like that. Makin’ sure no blood got on Lu’s letter because surely Lu would keep it forever. I don’t know why I had any kind of feelings one or another for Lu’s mama seein’ as how she never said a word to me. Maybe it was just obvious that she was a sufferin’ soul, placed on this earth to gather up the sins of others. Not sure but that’s what my own mama had always said about her. I just never thought it right to have to gather up other people’s sins so I felt kind of sorry for Lu’s mama.

I didn’t know what to say to Lu and she didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to say anything to me, but I did want to make sure she saw the letter from her mama. Funny how you just know some things even though you have no reason. Like, I knew as soon as I saw the letter, that is was from Lu’s mama and it was written for Lu and only Lu. I snatched it up and stuffed it in my pocket thinkin’ that maybe later would be a better time than right now for Lu to read her mama’s last words. Right now, Lu was just standing over her mama’s dead body. She wasn’t cryin’ or yellin’ or nothin’, really. She just stood there. Kind of like looking at her mama but not seein’ her, if that makes any sense. I didn’t know what to do after I snatched up the letter, so I just stood there, too, waitin’ on Lu to make some kind of move or say somethin’ or for her mama to wake up or just anything at all. The smell of the blood and gunfire was beginning to make me sick to my stomach, but I dared not complain or move an inch.

I am not sure how long Lu and I stood there before Jake Ashford came runnin’ in. You could tell he had been out drinking because you could smell the alcohol as it mixed in the air with the gunshot fire and all that blood. Even as hard as he had been runnin’, Jake Ashford never dropped his bottle. I heard him running up the porch steps and just as I turned around, there he was. He started yellin’ at Lu to get out and stop starin’ and he was cussin’ a blue streak about the mess. Yes, the man was gripin’ about the mess made on the floor. That’s what I remember…Jake bitchin’ about the mess and Lu turning around and walkin’ out. She never said a word to her daddy and she never said a word to me, but I followed her on out. For a moment I thought Jake Ashford was gonna hurl his liquor bottle at the wall or maybe even Lu’s dead mama, but he didn’t. He wasn’t about to waste good liquor so he just guzzled it instead.

Lu headed back to the silo and started climbin’ up. I was right behind her, never sayin’ a word. We didn’t run this time, but it was a rather fast paced walk. I guess she was thinkin’ about her mama bein’ dead and all. Without her mama, this would just leave Lu and Jake Ashford. Honestly, the thought of Lu doin’ the same, exact thing her mama did wasn’t too far from my mind.

We climbed back up the silo and just kind of sat there. The sun began to sink below the Georgia mountains and the sky turned all shades of blue, purple, and orange. I loved sunset then and I love it still. As the sun set that evening, though, I felt change in the air like a heavy blanket being pulled over my body and head. I knew Lu’s life, as horrible as it had been before, was about to become even worse and for the first time in my ten years, I didn’t like Lu’s mama very much for making it this way.

The evening chill fell upon our farm and I never did know if I should mention the sun setting or not but there was hell to pay if us girls were out past dark. I sat there with Lu, kind of just waitin’ on her to say somethin’ or move or even look at me, but she never did. I started to get cold because even on August nights, you can catch a chill quick as lightening when you lose the sun. I fidgeted around in pocket and pulled out the letter that Lu’s mama had left far from the blood spatters. I cleared my throat and tried to sound like I was matter-of-factly tellin’ her that I had a letter from her dead mama, like it happened all the time.

“Lu? I know you might not wanna talk right now, but I have somethin’ for you that I think you will want. I think it’s a letter from your mama. I saw it lyin’ on the table and your name is on it. It’s got a heart drawn on the envelope, Lu, so I know it’s gotta be from your mama. You want it, Lu? You want the letter?”

Lu never looked up and she never said a word. She held out her hand, though, and I just slid the letter into it. She didn’t open it, not with me then, anyway. Lu never looked at the letter, which even at twelve years old, I found to be odd. She did, however, crumple it up inside her fist. At first I thought she was doin’ that because she was mad but then I thought maybe she was just holdin’ on to it for dear life. Like that letter would be the reason she kept on livin’ or the reason she could kill herself, too. Either way, I wasn’t gonna judge Lu and I decided that whatever the reason was for her to ball up that letter, was reason enough for me.

Night fell and the stars came out one by one. It was chilly and my nose was beginning to run but I sat right there. Occasionally we heard Jake Ashford yellin’ for Lu but she never answered and neither one of us moved. I did feel like I should go to my house when I smelled my own mama’s pot roast and potatoes wafting through the air, but I didn’t. However, the colder I got, the more likely I was goin’ to answer my daddy when he started hollerin my name. Seemed like an awfully long time before anyone called my name, but eventually daddy did. By then, my nose was runnin’ and my feet were near froze as me and Lu had run through some wet grass on the way to her dead mama. Jake Ashford had left the water hose on and a whole bunch of water had pooled up in front of their house and sure enough if Lu and I hadn’t run smack into the middle of it on the way in to see what the noise was and now my feet were almost numb with cold.

Like a knife piercin’ a piece of meat, so was my daddy’s voice when he came home from workin’ the farm and I wasn’t in the house. I could make out his silhouette as he had gotten down off the truck and went inside the house. The porch light cast was enough for me to see him walk right back out after my mama undoubtedly told him I wasn’t there. When my daddy yelled for me, I went. It was that simple. I went outta my way to have him not yell my name, so when he did, I ran out of sheer fear. As it turns out, I ran that night, too. I told Lu I was sorry for havin’ to leave her but my daddy was callin’ and I had to go, dead mama or not.

Lu stayed up the side of silo all night, I reckon. I heard Jake Ashford yellin’ for her throughout the night. The coroner came right after my family had finished up supper. I could tell it was the coroner because of his name on the side of his van. On one side it said “Tom Dancey – Coroner” and the other side read “Tom Dancey – Attorney At Law”. Mr. Dancey had pulled his van in so that the side with “Coroner” on it showed toward the road. I reckon he had an awful lot of times when he was needed to be both coroner and attorney in the great town of Georgiana. There was always a lot of drama in Georgiana and most times Mr. Dancey would come into it as one but would leave as the other. Sometimes Mr. Dancey would stop by our house and daddy and he would step outside to talk in private. One time I heard Mr. Dancey say that he just couldn’t stand judgmental people and he hoped they all rotted in hell for it. Then him and my daddy laughed real hard.

And here I was again, only after having sworn to never return. It had been a good twenty-five years since that night when Mr. Dancey had his coroner’s van pulled up in Lu’s yard. Not exactly sure how a quarter of a century can be so fleeting, but it had been.

Lu eventually came down from the silo the next day and from all accounts she still had her mama’s letter ground into her tight fist. After the news spread, and boy it spread like wildfire, I wasn’t allowed to play with Lu too much anymore. If we did play together, it was in front of our house, and never the silo. My mama wanted to keep an eye on us girls. My thoughts were to protect us from Jake Ashford but as it turned out, it was to protect me from Lu.

Having your mama commit suicide changes you. Having your daddy force himself on you, changes you, too. Both those things happened to Lu. I never found out what the letter from her dead mama said and I reckon I haven’t needed to know, but I have always wondered.

I will never forget Jake Ashford chasing Lu through the cornfields to the silo and her just running and laughing as she would snake through the stalks, emerging at the silo and climbing, climbing, climbing. She knew two things full well…

1. Jake Ashford would never catch her.
2. Jake Ashford would never drop his liquor bottle to climb up after her and with him being that drunk, he would surely need two hands.

As I became older and learned more about life in general and the evil things men do, I distanced myself from them. I graduated from Georgiana High School and went on to study Architectural Art and Design at Pepperdine University in California. I figured California was as far as I could go from Georgiana, Georgia, so I went.

My mama passed away right after I turned twenty-six. She never left me a letter with a heart on it so I don’t reckon I will ever know her last thoughts. My daddy hired Mr. Dancey to handle all the financial and legal affairs for selling the farm after my mama died. I never showed up for any of that. Hell, I never showed up after I boarded that Greyhound for California. There wasn’t anything there for me when I was a child and there was never gonna be anything there for me as a grown woman, so I stayed away.

Some people wondered where Lu ran off to the year after her mama died and if I knew, I would tell you. Seems to me she just up and disappeared one night never to be heard from again. You would think that she would have written to me at least once just to let me know she was okay or where she was in case I wanted to run away, too, but she never did. I figured maybe she just needed to get away from Jake Ashford before she set the house on fire with him and his liquor in it.

As for me, I am sure that in the small town of Georgiana, Georgia a few people wondered about that girl who had such an artistic flair and wavy, auburn hair, but I never cared enough to tell them. I never told them about my trips to Paris, France and living on the kindness of strangers who tossed francs at me as I sketched their portrait or that I had been the mistress of a mad scientist who considered me his muse and often asked me to stand outside on the hotel balconies while he sketched me in his science notebook for later perusal. I surely never had any inclination to tell them that I had more money than I would ever be able to spend after a spurned suitor found me to be an exquisite escape from his mundane life as an accountant who had embezzled over a million dollars and then killed himself. And lastly, I never in a thousand years would bother the grand township of Georgiana with the knowledge that Jake Ashford and my own mama had more in common than shared property with an old barn and a cement silo.

I viewed the vine-choked silo from my Buick Le Sabre and I counted to ten knowing that I when I reached “ten”, I would step out of my car, stroll up to that silo, and start digging. I knew Lu had to be buried there and I knew I had to allow her soul to rest in peace. So, I began digging…and digging, and digging. I heard the distinct “clink” of my shovel hitting glass. Before too long, I had unearthed at least two liquor bottles. Damn him!!! Damn you to hell, Jake Ashford!!!

My daddy never knew who it was that had purchased the farm. Some rich out-of-towner with more money than God and no useful way to spend it, he thought. Seeing as how the property lined up to the interstate, daddy sometimes entertained the notion that the United States government had bought up his land to build something that would save the town of Georgiana. No, daddy, it wasn’t the government or the President or even the local magistrate. My daddy took the money, wherever it had come from and had gone into an assisted living home where some of his friends had retired. He was able to play cards and smoke and knock back a few here and there as they relived their glory days at Georgiana High School and such. My daddy seemed happy to me during his last few years and I took great comfort in that. No man had deserved or even earned it more. You see, I had later found out through Mr. Dancey that daddy had known all along about mama and Jake Ashford. Mr. Dancey had explained to me that he loved my mama so much that even her infidelity couldn’t make him stop.

I can tell you it’s hard to be someone’s muse, the other woman, or even yourself, sometimes. These things I know and yet I never offered up one iota of empathy for my mama despite the similarities between her life and mine. Maybe she was as crazy or needy or just mistook sex for love. Maybe she was a sufferin’ soul like she said Lu’s mama was. Maybe, just maybe, my mama hated her life and herself enough to destroy everybody else’s she was supposed to love and care for. Maybe my mama did me a favor by livin’ the way she did ’cause I guarandamntee you that no man has ever had the ability to me make me love him and I consider that pure contrivance on my part. Regardless, my life is what it is and I have no regrets. I never gave my heart away to any man, only my body, and that ain’t nothin’ but a thing. And you know when all is said and done, I will come out the winner in that game because once you give your heart away, you never get it back.

So, it was me, daddy, I bought your land and now I am digging up the remains of my childhood friend on the same day that I have buried you.