Stories of Breece D'J Pancake Read Free Page B

the telephone ring a number of times. Finally, a man answered and asked what I wanted. I asked for Breece. He said I had the wrong number, that Breece did not live there anymore. There was in the tone of his voice the abrupt authority of a policeman. He then held the line for a moment, and in the background I could hear quick and muffled conversation between Breece and several other people. Then the man came on the line again and asked my name and number. He said that Breece would call me back. But then Breece himself took the telephone and asked what it was I wanted. I mentioned the movie. He said he could not see it because he was going to West Virginia that same evening, but that he would get in touch with me when he returned. I left town myself soon after that, and did not see Breece again until early September. That was when he gave me the trilobite, and shortly afterward he made me promise that I would never tell anyone about the night I called him the summer before.
    In the early summer of 1978 I left Charlottesville for New Haven, Connecticut. Carter was still President, but my ideas about the South had changed dramatically. I hoped that, with luck, I would never have to return to Charlottesville. I began making plans to resume my old life-style as a refugee from the South. But if life has any definition at all, it is the things that happen to us while we are making plans. In the early fall of that year I found out that I would be a father before spring arrived. Around that same time, a package from Breece, mailed from Charlottesville, arrived at my apartment in New Haven. I did not open it. I knew there would be a gift inside, but I also knew that renewing my connection with Breece would take my memories back to Charlottesville, and I wanted to be completely free of the place. The package from Breece remained unopened until the late evening of April 9, 1979.
    On the evening of April 8 I had a dream that included Breece. I was trapped in a room by some menacing and sinister people and they were forcing me to eat things I did not want to eat. Breece was there, but I cannot remember the part he played in the drama. I woke up before dawn to find that my wife’s contractions had begun. The rest of the day was spent in the delivery room of the Yale–New Haven Hospital. In the late afternoon I went to the Yale campus and taught a class, which earned me one hundred dollars. Then I walked home, happy with the new direction my life had taken as the hardworking father of Rachel Alice McPherson. At my apartment, however, there was a telegram from John Casey, sent from Charlottesville. It informed me that on the previous night Breece Pancake had killed himself.
    I called Charlottesville immediately and was told certain facts by Jane Casey, John’s wife: Breece had been drinking. He had, for some reason, gone into the home of a family near his little house and had sat there, in the dark, until they returned. When he made a noise, either by getting up or by saying something, they became frightened and thought he was a burglar. Breece ran from the house to his own place. There, for some reason, he took one of his shotguns, put the barrel in his mouth, and blew his head off.
    I have never believed this story.
    I speculate that Breece had his own reasons for hiding in a neighbor’s house. They may have had to do with personal problems, or they may have had to do with emotional needs. Whatever their source, I am sure his reasons were extraordinary ones. As a writer, if I am to believe anything about Breece’s “suicide,” extract any lesson from it, that lesson has to do with the kind of life he led. I believe that Breece had had a few drinks and found himself locked inside that secret room he carried around with him. I believe that he had scattered so many gifts around Charlottesville, had given signals to so many people, that he felt it would be all right to ask someone to help him during what must have been a very hard night.