The old woman regarded him for a long minute and then said softly, “I dreamed of being a little boy, Mr. Brown. Does that shock you? I dreamt about being a boy and growing up to be a man.”
“No, sir, that doesn’t shock me. Makes me feel sad, though, like I do for Corinna. It’s a hard thing to dream about what you can’t have.”
“I don’t believe that we have any choice about our dreams. I believe they simply come to us, like head colds and bad habits.”
“Maybe so,” Sam said. “Maybe so. But it’s a hard place you get to, isn’t it? I had a brother Emmanuel who always wanted to be white, or at least light-skinned. Sad fact was, he was the darkest of all of us kids. He’d wear hats and long sleeves on the farm all summer long to keep from getting any darker, damn near killed himself with heatstroke more than once.”
Max Biedelman smiled. “And did he stay on the farm?”
“Nah. He got killed in a bar in Yakima, trying to break up a fight between a couple of white men. Emmanuel thought white people were better than us, but those two white men didn’t have enough decency between them to wash their hands after they went to the toilet. Crackers, trash, both of them. Turned out they weren’t even fighting, at least not for real. They were just drunk and mouthy. Emmanuel got between them and they turned on him faster than a prayer reaches heaven. Shot him three times in the chest. Man didn’t stand a chance.”
“That’s a terrible story.”
Sam shrugged. “Yes, sir, I guess it is. But Emmanuel would have probably found something else to get killed over, if those white men hadn’t been there in that bar. Mama used to say, That boy has a strange look about him, always has. We gonna lose him young. And we did.”
“And yet, you’re not bitter,” the old woman said. “Why aren’t you bitter, Mr. Brown?”
“Bitter? No point in it. Emmanuel died because he was stupid and the Lord called him home out of pity for what else would happen to him if He let the boy stay any longer.”
Max Biedelman laughed.
“You bitter, sir?”
“No. I’m not bitter.” The old woman swayed to her feet, folding up her shooting stick. A small breeze had sprung up, and she pulled her coat collar up around her ears. “I think our little experiment has been a success,” she said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. “But I guess it’s time to go home, just the same.”
Now Sam sat in his chair in the living room, listening to Corinna washing up the dinner things. He had his recliner back and heaved his bad leg up beside the good one like a rotten old fish, burning from the inside out like he had fire for veins. Neuropathy, it was called; he’d read about it in the diabetes pamphlets Corinna had collected for him. Nerve death. There was going to come a day when he wouldn’t have that foot to use anymore, wouldn’t be able to stand beside Hannah and tell her everything was all right. And deep in his heart he knew that day was coming just as surely as nightfall.
chapter 10
Hey, baby,” Rayette greeted Sam at Dunkin’ Donuts. “This is the fifth morning in a row you been in here—you’re going to ruin that elephant’s appetite.”
“It’d take more than six donuts a day to do that,” Sam said.
“Yeah, for me, too,” Rayette said, patting her hips. “I should’ve gone to work for a vegetable stand.”
“Now, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Rayette. You’re a fine-looking woman.”
A customer pulled in behind Sam as Rayette handed him his coffee. “There you go, baby. You be careful with that,” she said. “I’ll see you.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I expect you will.”
He pulled out behind a big slat-sided truck full of garlic, headed to market from Spokane. It brought back memories. The summer he and his twin brother Jimmy were twelve years old, their daddy let them stay out in the fields on fine nights—just them and a few old blankets and the stars. There was no money for a tent, but Sam didn’t care, wouldn’t have stayed in one even if they’d had it, not when he could lie under the stars and see for himself what God would see if He was looking upside down.
Jimmy, though, had been a nervous camper, always going on about how coyotes were going to get them while they slept. They’d go way out into the farthest field, bed down in the hay, and Sam would just be rising up into the stars when Jimmy would punch his arm and say, What’s that? You hear that creepy kind of sneaky sound? That’s coyotes. They know we’re here, they’re just waiting for us to drift off and then they’ll come out and do their business. They’re gonna teach the little ones to eat using us; a finger, maybe, or maybe your nose.
Sam would laugh and Jimmy would yell at him, You just shut up. We’re lying down here in the grass, and that’s the perfect height for a coyote snack.
They’d never seen a single coyote, but right up until the end, all Sam had to do was look at Jimmy and give a little yip and that boy would shiver like God had stepped on his soul—and maybe He had. One day Jimmy didn’t come home from a trip to town that he’d taken for no particular reason except he was twelve years old and he could. He’d wanted Sam to go with him, but Sam had promised to help hay one of the fields.
Jimmy didn’t come home that night and still wasn’t in his bed by morning. Sam’s father went driving all through town, taking Sam into every store on Main Street and Fuller, pushing Sam ahead of him and saying, You seen a boy lately looks just like him? We’re looking for his twin, boy never came home last night. Sure appreciate hearing it if you know anything.
No one did know anything, though. After a while there was nobody left to ask, so they headed back home. About a half-mile before they got there, Sam spotted a bunch of turkey vultures circling overhead, and he said what he always said when he saw turkey vultures rising: Looks like something out there must have died.
His daddy pulled off the road, and when he shut down the engine it was quieter than church, quieter even than Heaven, maybe; there was no sound whatsoever, not even when cars went by, not even trucks. Sam’s father looked first and said, Jesus God.
Jimmy was on his back in the ditch, looking like he’d just gone in there for a nap except that his shirt was covered with blood, more blood than one skinny little kid was supposed to have, at least it looked that way to Sam. He and his father lifted Jimmy into the bed of their old pickup, and his skin was as cool as a snake’s. But the way Sam really knew Jimmy was dead was, he had his eyes closed. Jimmy would have to have been dead to lie out there in a ditch all night with his eyes closed, because if he’d been anything short of dead he’d have had them wide open and swiveling in his head like searchlights, looking out for coyotes until morning.
Late that day the sheriff came out to the farm. He told them that a trucker long-hauling garlic from eastern Washington had pulled into a diner and told a state trooper he’d been rocketing through a small town outside Yakima when he felt a little something hit his front end, figured he’d clipped a deer or maybe an antelope, and kept right on going. It wasn’t until he’d pulled off the road for coffee that he noticed a scrap of plaid flannel cloth stuck in the grille.
Boy wasn’t nothing more than roadkill, Sam overheard his father tell his mother that night, spitting out words as hard as BBs. Child was no more than a skunk by the side of the road. Sam had heard his mother weep. His father just slammed out the porch door calling to the dogs to come on now, just come on.
He had never been the same after that, or Sam, either.
Now he and the garlic truck went their separate ways just outside the gates to the Biedelman Zoo, returning Sam to his senses. He’d been having visions of the past more and more lately. He wondered if it was something to do with the diabetes, but he didn’t know how that could be, unless diabetes could make you crazy. Half the time he didn’t know if he was coming or going anymore, what with dreaming the same damn dream almost every night. Every morning when he woke up, he felt like he’d climbed a mountain, or been worked over with a meat tenderizer like his mother used
for tough old farm animals that had been butchered late in life.
Corinna was right: he was going to have to do something—talk to Neva Wilson, maybe, or get hypnotized like people did to quit smoking, so he could get some rest.
He parked out back of the barn, and saw that Hannah was already outside, taking in the thin November sun. When he got inside, he found that Neva had mucked out the barn, squeegeed and disinfected the floors, and was cutting up fruit.
“You must have gotten here hours before daylight,” he said. “You trying to hurt yourself?”
Neva smiled and waved him off. “It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep.”
“You got something on your mind? Harriet Saul, maybe?” Sam said wickedly.
Neva gave him a look.
“She’s a nasty thing, isn’t she?” Sam grinned, pulling on his zoo sweatshirt.
Neva tried to suppress a smile. “So I didn’t do too well with her yesterday, huh?”
“Nope. Seems like she especially doesn’t like women, though, so it’s not you, exactly. That’s one tough old sheep who doesn’t have much use for the rest of the flock. Even Truman Levy’s been rubbing her the wrong way lately, and she’s always been partial to him. Might be The Change coming on,” Sam said doubtfully. “More likely, it’s just her ornery nature.”
Neva just kept on chopping vegetables.
“Let me just give these to my girl, then I’ll come in and give you a hand with that,” Sam said, holding up the Dunkin’ Donuts bag. “Be right back.”
“Take your time,” Neva said, waving him on. “If I didn’t have this to do, I’d have to think, and I don’t want to think.”
Hannah heard the paper bag. Long before Sam was within range she’d headed for him with her trunk already reaching. He held the top of the bag open and let her choose for herself from a maple bar, an apple fritter, or a glazed donut filled with Bavarian cream. She started with the cream. “I could sure use a donut myself,” Sam told her. “I feel like I got sand for brains this morning. Neva, too. So you keep an eye on us, shug. Might be one day we’ll need you to keep us out of trouble.”
When Truman woke Winslow, he found the boy running a low-grade fever all over again. Rather than leave him home with Miles, Truman rounded up two boxes of apple juice, a fresh box of Kleenex, a couple of decongestants, and a few good books and brought him to work. Harriet was uncharacteristically tolerant when it came to bringing Winslow into the office, and this morning was no exception. When she saw the boy’s school backpack sticking out of Truman’s cubicle, she came right over. Winslow was crammed into a corner, drawing a picture of Hannah.
“Hey, sweetie, are you sick?” Harriet asked him.
Winslow shrugged. “Kind of. I’m not throwing up or anything.”
To Truman Harriet said, “There’s not much going on today. Why don’t you just take him home?”
“Thank you, Harriet—”
“Maxine.”
“—Maxine. I’ll just finish payroll and then we’ll go.”
“Paychecks aren’t due until tomorrow.”
“Yes, I know, but this way if Winslow’s worse tomorrow I won’t have to come in. Half the kids in his class are out with whatever this thing is. Back into the germ pool after a long healthy summer. It’s like this every year.”
“Well, don’t stay longer than you have to.” Harriet gave her pith helmet a smart rap to seat it more firmly on her head and then she was gone.
Winslow waited a beat and then whispered, “How come we’re calling her Maxine?”
Truman shook his head and whispered back, “She plays the role of Max Biedelman when she’s here.”
“But I thought Max Biedelman was a man.”
“Yes, I know,” Truman said impatiently. “But she wasn’t.”
“Isn’t she dead?”
Truman sighed. “Yes, Winnie. Look, it’s impossible for me to explain. You’ll just have to go along with it.”
Winslow asked if he could go outside. It was a cool morning, but the sun was bright. Truman laid his cheek against Winslow’s cheek, and they felt the same—the aspirin had kicked in. He let the boy go.
Winslow liked going to work with Truman, even if he was sick—a little sick, not sick-sick. It was a lot more fun than when his father had worked for Allstate Insurance, where the best thing about it was a coffee mug full of free Allstate pens that skipped when you wrote with them. Whenever Winslow cleaned his room another pen or two still appeared along with the lint balls, though he didn’t know why that was—it was like they had legs and wandered freely through the halls and closets when no one was home. The zoo didn’t have free pens, but Harriet Saul was nice to him even though she wore a helmet and pretended to be somebody dead.
They’d had Miles for a couple of weeks now. He was a nice pig, even if he liked Truman better than him. Winslow figured that was because Truman felt sorry for him and tried to make up for it. Truman had only begun to sleep in his own room again a couple of nights ago. As far as Winslow could tell, the pig didn’t miss his mom much, though Winslow had worried about that when they first brought him home, because he was so small.
Winslow didn’t miss his own mother exactly. It was more like he missed a woman who looked like his mother but didn’t act like her. His real mom snapped at him a lot, mostly about his habits of folding his own laundry and getting his homework done ahead of time. His Other Mom smiled at him and said things like, I love you more than anything else in the world, did you know that? and Why don’t we just say to hell with it and go out for ice cream? It helped a little that his real mom didn’t seem to like Truman very much, either, although he did everything for her like washing the dishes and cooking. In fact, Winslow had noticed that the more Truman had tried to do for her, the less she seemed to like either one of them. When she’d moved out last spring her last words to him had been, Well, god knows I don’t have to ask you to behave, because you always do. She’d said it like that was bad, and when she’d bent to kiss his forehead, she didn’t quite touch him—all he’d felt was her departing breath. She hadn’t even done that with Truman, just walked out with a backwards wave as she walked down the sidewalk to the car. To keep Winslow’s spirits up, Truman had pretended it was okay, but a few days after his mom left for good, Winslow had seen his father staring at an old pair of moccasins she used to wear around the house and had apparently abandoned. He’d been crying. Winslow had gone to him and awkwardly patted his back, saying, I’m pretty sure this will be better, and it was, even in times like this, when he was sick. His mother had always acted like he got sick on purpose, just to mess up her schedule. Truman made him macaroni and cheese and felt his forehead a lot.
Winslow had gotten as far as the dik-dik exhibit when a boy about his own age fell into step with him.
“You work here?” he asked Winslow, seeing Truman’s sweatshirt.
“Nah. I’m sick, so my dad brought me to work for a while.”
The boy looked him over. “You don’t look sick.”
“Well, that’s because I’m not sick-sick. Just sick. How come you’re here? Isn’t it school?”
The boy shrugged. “I faked a note saying I was supposed to go to the dentist.”
“Aren’t you going to get in trouble?”
“Nah. I’ll just hold my face when I get back to school, you know, like my tooth is hurting. I have a friend here I come see sometimes.” He puffed up a little. “His name’s Samson Brown. He’s in charge of Hannah. She’s the elephant here.”
“I know that.”
“Yeah? Well, me and Mr. Brown, we take her for walks sometimes. You want to come?”
“Sure.” They headed off down the hill together toward the barn.
“What’s your name?” Winslow asked.
“Reginald Poole. What’s yours?”
“Winslow Levy.”
“Hey.” Reginald held out his hand and Winslow shook it. “You’re not going to throw up, are you? Because I don’t want to be around if you start thr
owing up and stuff.”
“Nah, I’m okay,” Winslow said.
They trotted down to the elephant barn and found Sam in the yard with Neva, lashing a garden hose to a tree.
“Hey, mister!” Reginald called from outside the fence.
Sam turned around. “Well, what are you doing here, boy?”
“I got excused from school this morning.”
“How come?”
Reginald shrugged. “I’m ahead of everybody else, so my aunt, she wrote an excuse for me, said I didn’t have to go until this afternoon.”
Sam frowned at him. “I don’t much like to be lied to. You know what I’m saying? Hannah doesn’t lie, and Miss Wilson here doesn’t lie, either. I can’t respect somebody who lies, much as I’d like to.”
Reginald looked down at his feet.
“Who’s your friend?” Sam said.
Reginald jerked his head toward Winslow. “His name’s Winfred, Winbad, Winberg, something like that.”
“Winslow,” said Winslow. “My dad’s Truman Levy.”
“I know who you are, son. So what’s your excuse for being here? You too smart to be in school, too?”
“No, sir. I’m sick.”
“Don’t look sick to me.”
Winslow groaned. “Not sick sick. Just a little sick.”
“Hey, mister, what are you going to do with that hose?” Reginald asked Sam. “You going to give Hannah a bath?”
“Did you hear something, maybe a little bug buzzing around my ear?” Sam asked Neva.
“I didn’t hear a thing,” Neva said, poker-faced. “Must have been the wind.”
“Aw, you ask him,” Reginald said, poking Winslow in the side.
“What’s the hose for?” Winslow said.
“Watch.” Sam walked back to the barn and turned on the outside spigot. A perfect arc of water bloomed and fell fifteen feet away. Hannah had been watching the preparations with great interest. She lifted her head and trumpeted nervously.
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