Short Story: Delia Gone

Delia Gone

By Jody Rathgeb
QuailBellMagazine.com

It seemed fitting that Old Lucas came with a song and a story. He was the complete package. If I’d been directing a movie about this island, about Ben and me moving here, I’d have cast him on the spot. He was so perfectly the colorful old islander imparting wisdom to the American newcomers: long, angular face like an African carving, one silver tooth in a mouthful of crags, hands like garden rakes. He even kept his green workpants on his skinny frame with a piece of rope that also tied a machete to his waist.

We actually did hire him on the spot, as our yard man. The local builders had left chunks of concrete, nails and asphalt shingles among the rocks and scrub, so getting the place into shape was going to be a big job, and Ben would be busy setting up his tech firm. Lucas happened along at the right time.

“I know dis place. I born over der.” He waved one of those big hands vaguely. “An’ I knows de plants what will grow.”

Ben looked at me, and I shrugged a yes. The island wasn’t big enough or developed enough for landscape companies, so we had to move on instinct and trust. The old guy seemed strong and capable enough. Ben hired him, they agreed on a price and Lucas was told to come by in the morning for instructions. But Lucas wasn’t ready to leave just yet.

“Yeah, dis spot ready for growin’. Dis where Delia shot, you know.”

He said it so cheerfully that I couldn’t help being intrigued. “Someone was shot? Here? When?”

“Yeah, yeah. Long time. Dey was a bar here, a illegal bar. An’ Cooney was here an’ Delia found ’im.” Lucas straightened, dropped his arms to his sides and began singing:

            Delia found Cooney

            On a Saturday night.

            She cut him such a wicked tongue

            He said he’d have her life.

            Delia gone, one more round, Delia gone.

            First time he shot her,

            She took it in the side.

            Second time he shot her,

            She fell down and died.

            Delia gone, one more round, Delia gone.

He stopped and winked at me. “I sing you more another time. An’ I bush man, too.”

And then he left. I would learn that he never bothered with goodbyes, but at the time it was startling. Ben and I wondered if we’d hired a character or just a nut, and doubted he’d show up the next day.

He did, though, and proved to be a hard and faithful worker. So much so that I began to feel guilty watching him from the house. As he cleared debris and hoisted rocks, I noticed how really old he was. This was like asking my grandfather to do hard labor. I put on my gardening gloves and joined him.

He scowled at me as I bent over and began tossing rocks into his wheelbarrow.

“No, no! My job! You no want to hurt baby in you.”

I blushed. “I’m not pregnant,” I stammered, wondering where he’d gotten the idea. People were always telling me I was too skinny, so I knew I didn’t look pregnant.

“Maybe not yet. But you want a baby.” He smiled at me in the way all the medical people had, full of vicarious hope and encouragement. I could feel my face get even hotter. How dare they smile that way when it just wasn’t happening? How dare he? And how could he have guessed?

Reading my anger, Lucas turned his attention to the rocky yard. We both worked in silence a while, and then he began to sing.

            We all called for the doctor.

            He came dressed in black.

            He did all those doctor tings,

            But he couldn’t bring Delia back.

            Delia gone, one more round, Delia gone.

Curiosity overcame my snit. “So who are these people? Is the story real?”

This was apparently the opening he wanted. He straightened from his task and smoothed his hair. “Oh, yeah, it real. Happened long time ago, when there were a village here. Plantation people gone.”

Ben and I had learned early on that our land was once planted in cotton by American Loyalists, who then, because of weevils, abandoned both the plantations and their slaves—no doubt Lucas’ ancestors. But there’d been no mention of a village and I saw no evidence of one.

“What happened to the village?”

Old Lucas pointed at the rocky ground around us. “That part of the story. Delia been tryin’ to get up all these years.”

“Get up?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   He began to sing again.

            Now Cooney in the jailhouse,

            He got his plate and cup.

            But poor Delia in the graveyard

            Tryin’, tryin’, tryin’ to get up.

            Delia gone, one more round, Delia gone.

He stopped as suddenly as he started and looked hard at me. “See, Delia had Cooney’s baby in her. She push up all these rocks. She tryin’ to get up and get the child born.”

My body seemed to fold in on itself, and the sounds around us became muffled. Afraid I would faint, I dropped to my knees and leaned awkwardly on one hand, feeling scraped and bruised by our barren yard.

Old Lucas had his arms around me so fast it seemed he’d anticipated my fall. He lifted me—so strong for such a skinny old man—and set me down on the porch lounge chair. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he crooned. “I bush man, I help. You gonna have baby. Delia gonna get up.”

Later, when I was recounting the day to Ben, it all seemed so ridiculous. How had I let a silly song and story upset me so much?

Ben talked around it. “Lucas sounds like a real card. I wish I’d been there. And that story –it sounds a little familiar. I think maybe he’s blending a song with a little bit of fancy, don’t you?”

I didn’t respond, so he went on. “Don’t dwell on it, honey. Relax. You’re here on this beautiful island, in this beautiful new house, and things are looking good for the business. Leave all that stress behind. And, you know, maybe something will happen for us after all.”

It took all my strength not to glare at him. How many people had said that? But I knew Ben meant well, and had fallen into the cliché to soothe himself as well as me.

Singing woke us the next morning.

            Delia, oh Delia,

            I go sleep in the bush.

            ’Cause all around my house now

            I can hear poor Delia push.

            Delia gone, one more round, Delia gone.

Ben stretched and grumbled. “That Lucas? he asked. “Man, there’s colorful, and then there’s annoying.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           “It’s time to get up anyway,” I said, pulling the curtain aside.

I was surprised to see our sole palm tree—the only one the builders had saved—lying uprooted. Old Lucas was moving rock, but putting them in other places on the ground instead of in the wheelbarrow. I watched, puzzled, as he stood back, looked at the stones and nodded. Only then did he turn his attention to the fallen tree.

By the time Ben and I dressed and got outside, Lucas had propped the tree on his overturned wheelbarrow and was tying ropes around it. Ben got the idea immediately, and the two men hoisted the palm and patted its roots back into the ground. Lucas looked at me and flashed his silver tooth in a grin. “Delia gettin’ there,” he said. I laughed, sure now that his obsession with the song was just an eccentricity.

“No, really, what caused that?” I asked. “There wasn’t any wind or anything.”

“It were Delia,” he insisted, and before I could protest, he added, “Lookee here.”

Two coconuts had come off the tree. Lucas picked them up, one in each huge hand, and shook them next to his ears. “They good,” he said.

With quick grace, he went down on one knee while drawing his machete. With a few quick strokes, he opened one coconut, forming a cup with a smooth lip. There was a fumbling moment as he tucked the machete under his arm, but then he presented the cup to me.

I drank. “Delicious!” I said, holding it out to Ben for a taste.

“No, no,” said Old Lucas. “That yours. I do t’other for Mr. Ben.”

As he cut the other coconut, I glanced at the ground. It looked like Lucas had been arranging the rocks in a triangle or arrow of sorts. But before I could ask about them, he took my coconut.

“You done drink? Then here.” With another whack of the machete he transformed the cup into a bowl lined with a creamy pudding. “That jelly coconut. Good for breakfast. Take and eat with a spoon.” He performed the same magic with Ben’s share and sent us into the house.

Coconuts became a daily ritual, at least for me. Our tree had some healing to do, but Old Lucas would bring an opened one to me every morning from somewhere on the island. After I drank the water, he’d refashion the shell and I’d enjoy scooping the “jelly” while he started the day’s work. Sometimes he’d bring in new plants or do some weeding, but always there were rocks to move. It seemed as if they grew up from the ground overnight. And always he was humming or singing that same strange song. I’d even catch myself humming the tune.

It was an idyllic time, and I felt I truly was in paradise. Things were going well for Ben. I was decorating our new house, exploring the island, occasionally helping Lucas and learning the local lingo and lore from him. I became tan and put on some pounds, probably from all that jelly coconut.

We were in the euphoria of a new start. Life became pleasantly routine. So lulled, we didn’t expect the drama of our living room erupting in the night.

Lots of people don’t believe me, but that tile floor just buckled at once, all of a sudden: ker-ack! If we’d still been living in San Jose, I would have sworn it was a gunshot. Ben and I jumped out of bed in one of those stumbling scenes out of a sitcom. He got the light and I froze in front of a ceramic mountain range in our living room. We’d had a personal earthquake, and who knew why?

Ben grabbed the phone, then looked at me, bewildered. “Who do I call?” he asked.

I shook my head, and as I did I thought I saw a movement outside. I ran to the window, stubbing my toe on a chunk of tile that distracted me just long enough. Was that a woman running toward the beach? I started to laugh, then sing.

            Delia gone, one more round, Delia gone.

I turned to my astonished husband and began to frame how I would tell him I knew, without a doubt, that I was pregnant.

Jody Rathgeb worked in journalism for 16 years before launching a freelance writing career. A former restaurant reviewer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, she has also been published in a number of magazines, including Civil War Times Illustrated, Cigar Aficionado and Times of the Islands. Her novel, Fish-Eye Lens, has been published by Belle Isle Books and several short stories have appeared in online publications. She writes a weekly blog at JodyRathgeb.com and divides her time between Richmond and the Turks and Caicos Islands.