Fay: A Novel

by Larry Brown

  Sam got up and Jimmy Joe stayed in his seat.

  “I got to stay here and see about that court date. I’m going off in thirty minutes anyway. If you need some help I can go, though.”

  “Somebody’s got to go,” Gladys said.

  Sam got his hat off the table and left his coffee cup on it.

  “I’m leaving right now,” he said.

  “Take it easy, Sam,” Jimmy Joe called after him.

  He went by Gladys and she moved back a little, but not enough to keep him from bumping up against one of her huge knockers. It was common knowledge around the station that Joe Price had been nailing her for years.

  “You hear bout Joe?” he said.

  “I hope his dick rots off,” said Gladys.

  Just before he reached the city limits of Oxford he slowed just a bit and lit a cigarette, knowing it might be the last one he’d get for a while. He caught most of the lights on green and started slowing down when he saw the red trucks parked just past the overhead railroad trestle. One firefighter dressed in turnout pants and helmet stepped to the edge of the street and motioned him on, pointed up the street where about ten black-and-white police cars were parked with their lights going. He put his hat on and reached to the rack for the shotgun. He’d put some shells in his pocket before he’d left the station and now he slipped them into the magazine one at a time, chambering the first one with a quick shuck of the slide, then filled the magazine on up.

  A police captain with a white shirt was standing next to a telephone pole when he walked up. The cop was giving him a subdued smile.

  “You the one got the job, huh? I thought you’s off.”

  “Shit naw. Not no more.” He looked around at all the duffers assembled to watch a free show. “You ought to be charging admission to all these folks.”

  “Aw hell,” the cop said. “I swear everbody from the post office and the paper and the welfare office, they all got to come out and see what’s going on. We got it blocked on Jackson and down Ninth both ways. The goddamn radio station is right up yonder. Got that mobile son of a bitch they can use. Hell, I don’t reckon we can shoot him now. Not in front of all these folks.”

  “It’s hard to get rid of this many,” Sam said.

  “I reckon the whole town’s heard about it. The chief don’t want us to do nothing rash. There he is right there, up there on the corner. Three guesses who it is.”

  Sam looked. A thin black youth with no shirt and a baggy pair of camouflage pants that were unbuttoned and sagging down below the waistband of his shorts was standing in the center of the street, brandishing a very big knife. He was encircled by a ring of police officers, none of them too close.

  Sam shook his head.

  “Why don’t they put that crazy son of a bitch in the pen and just leave him in there?”

  “I don’t know,” the captain said. “You want to go talk to him? We kinda hate to just shoot the poor bastard. Specially in front of all these people.”

  “What’d he do this time?”

  “He started out cuttin at cars comin down the street. He did that for a while till somebody called us. Hollerin a bunch of crazy old shit.”

  “All right,” Sam said. “Will you watch my shotgun?”

  “Yeah, give it here. You better give me your hat, too.”

  Sam handed them over and went on up the street. The boy’s name was Mozell Washington and he had a long history of burning cars and Dumpsters, of insinuating himself, smelly and half-naked, at the tables of well-dressed dinner folk, and mooching quarters on the street. He was a semi-regular fixture around the city jail, and the grounds, and could be seen about half the time in coveralls picking up trash from the streets at dawn.

  “How you doing today, Mozell?”

  Tears were coming from the boy’s eyes and he was rubbing snot from his nose with the back of his hand.

  “Stay back, Mister Sam. Don’t come no closer. They been messin over me again. Said I tried to cornhole James Louis.”

  Sam glanced around at the faces behind Mozell watching them, still watching the knife, wondering where he’d gotten it. He brought food to the jail from Smitty’s sometimes. A farmer had caught him fucking one of his goats in the dark of his barn one day. He didn’t figure he could reason with him but he thought he’d try anyway since he could always use the last resort.

  “Folks need to get back to work, Mozell. You got the whole street stopped here. Why don’t you put that knife down and we’ll go over here in the shade and talk about it. You don’t want Butch on you, do you?”

  “I don’t care if they bring him,” Mozell said. “He’ll be dead if they do.”

  It was very hot there under the sun and on the black asphalt of the street and Sam could feel the sweat starting to bead on his face and growing under his arms already. All these people watching, that made him uneasy. It was relatively quiet now that all the traffic on the street was stopped. Other than the low hum of the police cars idling and the clicking of the control box for the traffic signal on the corner there wasn’t much noise, and he knew the people could hear every word he said. So he was careful not to curse.

  “Mozell, you listen to me. If Butch gets on you he ain’t gonna turn you loose. So why don’t you just put that butcher knife down and save everybody a lot of trouble? You don’t want to get shot, do you?”

  Something must have clicked in the young man’s head at these words, for the expression on his face changed and he lowered his stance and spread his feet a little more. Sam could see how red his eyes were.

  “Go on and shoot me, mister police officer. Mister big bad police officer. They ain’t let me go to the sto in three days. Done took my cigarettes away from me.” His eyes narrowed and he gave Sam a mean grin. “Come on, motherfucker, think you so bad with yo big pistol. Cut yo balls off for you.”

  That was all he was willing to listen to and to have people hear. He backed up and then turned around and walked back down to the police captain.

  “Well?” the cop said.

  “Go ahead and turn the damn dog loose on him,” Sam said.

  The captain had taken a megaphone out of a patrol car and he had waved up another cruiser that had been waiting down the street. The car pulled up beside Sam and he looked through the back window at the big black German shepherd standing on the backseat waving his tail slowly. The handler got out and opened the back door and fastened the dog to a chain lead and brought him out on the street. He told him to stay and the dog sat. Sam knew the dog but he didn’t try to pet him now as he usually did whenever he went to the jail.

  The cop pulled the trigger on the megaphone when he brought it up to his mouth and it made a few squawks at first. He told the people to move back and they did. All the cops stayed where they were. Mozell had seen the dog by now and the dog had seen him. Mozell was standing all alone, and he crouched a bit and held the knife out point first. Sam could hear him telling the dog to come on.

  “If this ain’t some small-time bullshit I don’t know what is,” he said to nobody in particular.

  “You ready, Captain Smith?” the handler said.

  “Let him go,” the captain said, and the handler slipped the leash. A hush fell over everything as the dog started forward. He was running low and fast and it only took him a few moments to reach Mozell it seemed. He grabbed for that free hand and got it, and Mozell let him get a good grip before he swung the knife in a wide arc and sank it into the dog’s ribs, just back of the shoulder. The dog whined sharply, once, like a puppy that had been accidentally stepped on, and then he fell to the pavement, snapping a few times at his side and then stretching out as if for sleep. Mozell pulled the knife free and looked back down the street at Sam.

  “Come on, homeboy,” he said, and he motioned with the hand the dog had bitten and torn.

  He had already put the shotgun down in the street and had taken off his hat again and was walking forward and pulling his slapstick out of his left hip pocket. He could see from the co
rner of his eye cops with their guns drawn at the edges of the sidewalks and he could see Mozell’s lower lip hanging down slightly from his teeth and a thin strand of spittle dripping from his mouth and all the people watching from every side like fans at football. He could feel the sun on the top of his head and the dog was lying there bleeding, a dark stream that had begun to inch away from his body as the dog tried to pick up his head and see the thing that had been done to him.

  He knew he’d have to let Mozell swing the knife at him one time anyway, and he just hoped he could be fast enough. If he wasn’t, the ambulance was parked right there on the corner, and they could have him at the doors of the emergency room in four minutes, doctors and nurses waiting.

  He didn’t bother with saying anything else to him. He just walked straight up to him and when the knife came swinging to his belly he stepped back to let it pass, and in that fraction of a second when Mozell was trying to recover and bring it back, he swung the slapstick down like a carpenter with a framing hammer, right on his nose. He heard and felt the crunch of breaking cartilage under the lead shot that was sewn so snugly in its black leather pouch, and then Mozell was on his knees and cops were all over him, one kicking the knife away, others turning him facedown and putting the cuffs on him.

  Out on the deck it was hot and Fay lay in the sun for a while after the Western was over. The chicken was in the refrigerator for safekeeping. It was still too early to start making supper so she was just killing time. She kept hoping Sam might call and she was listening for the phone inside.

  The afternoon was almost windless and her skin had beaded with sweat by five o’clock. She could raise her head just a bit and see out over the lake, but there didn’t seem to be too much moving out there. Too hot. Occasionally she’d hear the roar of a ski boat coming by. Other than that it was fairly quiet.

  She couldn’t think of anything in the house she needed to be doing. The bed was made and the floors were clean and everything had been dusted. She thought she’d lay out for maybe another thirty minutes and then go inside and take a bath and relax in the water some before she started cooking. He wouldn’t be in until late and there was plenty of time. She could nibble on some stuff and hold off on really eating until he came in, when she could meet him at the door with a cold beer and kiss him and ask him how it had gone. She wished he’d call. But he was probably busy. It was okay. She was patient. She could wait.

  She went inside around five-thirty and started drawing the tub full of water, walking around inside the house with a towel wrapped around her, the stereo playing in the living room. She had her favorite tapes stacked beside the receiver, Merle and Willie and George Jones. He’d taught her music as well as fishing in these last weeks and months. The house was filled with the sweet notes of guitar and banjo and steel guitar, and she felt covered in the music. She thought about that night in the trailer with those boys and what Sam had said about that. And he was right. No telling what they might have done to her.

  She put another tape on and went back to the bathroom and cut the water off. She’d already put some bubble bath in while it was filling up and now the tub was piled high with suds. She dropped the towel and got her glasses and a magazine and slipped in, propped up her feet, lit a cigarette and set the ashtray on the toilet lid.

  By eight o’clock the potatoes were peeled and sliced and boiling in some water, and the chicken was frying at low heat on the stove beside them. She was sipping a small glass of wine and watching a show about elephants on the television. She was fascinated at how a herd of them could tear a forest apart eating the leaves and how long they stayed pregnant and about how well they all stuck together in general. She decided if there was any animal she could be, she’d want to be an elephant.

  She missed him but she was okay by herself. It wouldn’t be that much longer until he’d be in and then it would be like he never had been gone. And she’d get used to this. Other people had to do it, too. People had to work, and anyway, there was a lot to do. She guessed she’d have to go see a doctor about the baby and she was already getting nervous about that. She never had been to one but she’d heard people talk about that, how the doctor had to examine you, and she didn’t want anybody examining her. There was so much she didn’t know about the world and what was in it. If she’d stayed where she was, no telling what might have happened to her. No telling where she might have wound up. She wished she could see Gary. Maybe one day.

  The sun was going down outside and she took her wine over to the sliding glass door and wandered out on the deck to watch the night come.

  He still hadn’t called. She guessed he was busy.

  Out over the water the sky had paled up into hues of pink and there were scattered clouds of gray hanging there like smoke. There was an orange glow to the west that shot rays of light up through the sky and the drifting cirrus. She sipped her wine and watched the sun slowly sinking until the color of it ebbed and the darkness grew stronger, until the last bit of orange light was vanquished by the roll of the earth and she remembered the rest of the chicken still frying in the skillet and got up to go inside and see about it. One boat cruised on the water out there in the growing blackness that was coming but she could see nothing of it.

  By ten she’d had two more glasses of wine and the food was sitting in the oven staying warm, the gravy made, the potatoes whipped with some sour cream and sprinkled with black pepper, the beans in a casserole dish. She was going to slice a fresh tomato and put the biscuits in to bake whenever he came in. The chicken had turned out fine. But now she was restless again and moved through the living room like a person who didn’t stay there, picking up a magazine and looking at a few pages and then putting it down.

  It was going to be a while longer before he came in. She located her sandals and slipped her feet into them and grabbed her smokes and lighter and pushed open the deck door and stood there looking out. The clouds were dark now and scuttling along the belly of the moon. A wind had come up, and she could smell the rain coming on the air.

  For quite a while she leaned against the deck rail, looking at something that shone briefly or gave back a reflection when the clouds let the moon through. It was far up the beach at the back of the house, something there she thought was not usually there.

  Flashes of light from far away came through the murky stuff in the sky. It was raining out there somewhere, but she couldn’t tell which way it was headed.

  She wasn’t especially scared of the dark and she thought she’d take a walk down on the beach. It crossed her mind to get a flashlight but she went on without it. She told herself that it was just spending part of the night away from him that was making her feel so unsettled and uncertain. Once she got down on the sand there was a steady breeze and the lap of rising waves against the beach. She stopped and studied the sky for a while, thinking about what the baby might look like. She was never going to do anything mean to her baby. She was going to take care of it and give it everything it needed. She couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like but there were images of infants in fluffy clothes sleeping in blankets going through her mind. You had to feed them at night if they woke up. Wash diapers. Heat bottles. Amy’s magazines had lots of stuff like that in them. She knew about crib death and that they didn’t know why babies died from it. She guessed she’d have to sit and watch it whenever it was asleep to make sure it was still breathing.

  She hoped he’d ask her to marry him and she thought about herself dressed in white like she saw in movies. She’d have hers short. She’d let her legs show because she knew her legs were good. Sam had told her that and she’d seen men staring at her whenever they went to the grocery store in Batesville. More than once she’d stopped and looked up at the lettuce bin or the meat counter and seen some young man or boy or even older men looking at her. It pleased her now that they liked to look at her.

  The beach felt good tonight. All the day’s heat was gone and now there was just the breeze to lift her hair and cool it on h
er neck. She stood with her feet spread, and lifted her hair with her hands, and let the wind flow over her. The clouds parted and the moon looked through and she saw that shiny something up the beach there again. It was something curved, something a little way off either the sand or the water. She walked toward it and the clouds hid the moon again.

  Now a feeling moved into the pit of her stomach that wasn’t a good one, and it was stronger than what she’d felt before, and now she knew that something wasn’t right. She looked back toward the house but there was nothing other than the lighted deck up there, deserted, silent. She walked a little more and now she was close enough to make out a boat pushed up against the shore, and she couldn’t imagine why anybody would have left it there like that. But Sam had told her that he’d seen couples pull up and stop there and go off into the woods with blankets in their arms.

  If that was the case she didn’t want to bother anybody. She wouldn’t want anybody bothering her while she was doing that. But it just seemed strange for it to be here so late. There were no lights around anywhere, no campfire light that she could see anywhere up or down the beach. It wasn’t all Sam’s land here anyway. He’d told her once that he had a hundred and forty feet of lakeside property behind the house and the rest belonged to the people on either side of them. Maybe it was some of them.

  But the boat looked familiar, and as she got closer she recognized the shiny dark hull and the curved windshield. She could even see the silver letters on the side, near the back: Chris Craft. She turned. Alesandra came from the black trees and scattered grass and grew gradually into being in her dark clothes. The clouds parted and Fay saw the little gun in her hand again looking like the same one Sam had thrown up on the beach that day, and above it the eyes that were cold and staring under the moon. That’s what dead looks like, she remembered.

  IT WAS BEHIND the cook tent where the older boys took their turns with Barbara Lewis and where sometimes Fay watched from behind a tree. It was always hot and dusty there and the workers’ backs were bent out across the fields. Once a day a bus rattled through and stopped and flapped open its door and waited for people to get on or off. Some left, others came in, and they didn’t know anybody for very long.