by William Gay
There was a car parked in the edge of the yard with the driver’s-side door open and of a sudden someone streaked into Meecham’s vision running full tilt toward it. A young man trying to haul up his pants and at the same time trying to avoid the hose that was falling with metronomic regularity.
Choat flung the girl aside and ran in pursuit of the fleeing boy. The boy had one hand behind him flailing about for the hose and the other hauling at his breeches and he was screaming Yow, Yow, every time the hose struck. He leapt into the car and slammed the door and cranked the engine. The hose was bonging hollowly on the roof when the engine caught and the car went spinning sideways wildly in the gravel. Glass broke when it glanced off the catalpa tree in the corner of the yard. It righted itself and one light came on as he shot off down the road.
Choat did not even skip a beat in his flailing. He fetched Ludie a blow or two and turned his attention back to the girl. She was on her knees with her arms locked about her head and face and the old man could see by moonlight her naked back laced with thick red welts.
Hold it, Meecham yelled. He had the window raised and the pistol barrel resting on the sill. He raised it pointed into the yard.
Choat whirled, the hose hanging limply at the end of his arm. He looked confused for a moment, as if he couldn’t fathom where he was or what he was doing with the hose or why somebody was pointing a two-foot pistol at him.
You nosy bastard. I might of knowed you’d put into this.
I’m tired of watchin you beat folks, Meecham said. That’s a child there, not a dumb brute. You raise that hose one more time and if what passes for a brain in you is big enough to hit then I aim to lay a slug in it.
You ain’t got the balls, Choat said.
Meecham lowered the pistol and fired and when the bullet thocked into the ground a little divot of earth flew and showered Choat’s bare feet. Choat dropped the hose and stepped abruptly back.
I aim to law you too, first thing in the mornin. There’s bound to be laws about beatin young girls with garden hoses.
Choat opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. Finally he said, You’ll regret this, Meecham. You’ll be sorry ever day of your life you shot towards me.
Meecham waved the pistol barrel. Get this circus out of my yard so a man can get some sleep.
THE NEXT DAY was a veritable beehive of activity on the Choat place. In the morning the old man drove into town. He was back before noon seated on a Coke crate in the shade of the catalpa like a spectator awaiting the onset of some bizarre show.
Shortly after noon a white service truck with SOUTH CENTRAL BELL on the side drove into the yard and a man with a toolbox got out and went into the house. Meecham guessed they were having the phone hooked up and he was pleased at this for once he was back in his own house he might have need for a telephone.
Then in midafternoon a dusty Plymouth from the sheriff’s department pulled up and a deputy in cop’s khaki got out with a folded paper in his hand. He went up the steps. Choat explaining, making expansive hand gestures. How this was all just some misunderstanding. All this in silent pantomime. Finally he gave up and got in the car and the deputy slammed the door and they drove away.
Almost immediately Ludie and the girl followed in the Choat car. None of them looked at him. It was quiet the balance of the day until just before dark when the Choat family returned. Choat himself was driving. He got out with a six-pack of beer under his arm. He unlocked the trunk and took out a red five-gallon can and lifting one-sided with its weight strode to the porch. When he set the can on the porch he turned and gave Meecham a look so malevolent the old man expected tree leaves to char and the grass around him to burst into flame. Choat turned and trudged on to the house.
MEECHAM THAT NIGHT had difficulty in falling asleep. He’d found an old man’s sleep chancy at best but tonight he had begun thinking about Ellen and try as he might he could not get his mind off her. He remembered when they were young, when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and the nights were veined with heat. The way he wore Aqua Velva shaving lotion to this day because she had liked the smell of it when they were going together. Then the swift inevitable squandering of days and the last time he saw her alive.
It was on a Saturday and they were getting ready to go to town. He was in a hurry to get to a cattle sale and she kept dragging around. Trying to decide this dress, that dress, something. I just don’t know which one to wear.
Well, you best be for wearin one of them, Meecham said. I’m goin out to the truck and if you’re not there in five minutes I’m gone and you’ll have the rest of the day to make up your mind.
He had laid his pocket watch in the seat beside him and when five minutes were gone he cranked the truck. He saw her hand pull aside the kitchen curtain, her face lean palely to the glass. Then he drove away.
He’d done such things a thousand times with no payoff but this time the cards fell wrong. When he returned she was dead on the kitchen floor with one glazed eye studying the linoleum as if there was some profound message encoded there.
When finally he slept he dreamed of her, strange tortured fever dreams a madman might have. He was in the undertaker’s office and they were discussing arrangements. Backhoe fees, the price of caskets. They were sitting on opposite sides of a limed oak desk and the undertaker was backlit so starkly his vulpine face was in shadow, just the sinister suggestion of a face. The light gleamed off his brilliantined hair. Curving horns grew out of his skull like bull’s horns and his yellow eyes seemed to be watching Meecham out of thick summer bracken.
Of course, there’s an option we haven’t considered, the undertaker said. We could animate her.
Animate her?
Of course. It’s a fairly expensive process but it’s done frequently. The motor functions would be somewhat impaired and the speech a little slurred, but it’s immeasurably preferable to the grave. As I said, it’s done regularly, mostly for decorative purposes.
Then animate her, Meecham cried. He was hit by a wave of joy, an exalted relief so strong it made him lightheaded. He would not have to give Ellen up at all, an animated Ellen was immeasurably preferable to the grave.
Then it’s settled, the hollow voice said out of the bracken.
Meecham dreamed he turned over and his arm lay across the animated Ellen and he abruptly awoke.
Animate her, he was saying aloud. He was crying, tears were streaming down his cheeks, he could taste them hot and salty in his throat.
The dog was lying on the edge of the old man’s pillow. Its fierce little teeth were bared and its eyes bulbous and its tongue swollen and distended. There was a piece of plowline knotted around its neck and the covers were tucked neatly about its chin.
Jesus Christ, Meecham said. He jerked backward, forgetting the cot was scooted against the wall, and slammed the back of his head against the window frame. He sat rubbing his head for a moment then he crawled over the foot of the bed and fumbled his pocketknife out of his pants.
He cut the plowline and sat massaging the dog’s chest. The body was still warm and limp but it quickly became obvious the dog was not going to take another breath. Meecham was seized with enormous sorrow. He had killed the dog as surely as if he had knotted the plowline himself. If he had left well enough alone the dog would still be fighting over scraps in Thurl Chessor’s front yard.
He laid the dog on the floor and got the pistol out of the night table and cocked it and went through the house making sure Choat was not hidden somewhere watching. Hoping all the time that he was. The house was empty. By the time he had replaced the pistol and made his morning coffee on the hot plate he had come to see things in a different light. He was still going to make Choat pay but he had come to see Nipper as more than a dog. Nipper was a sacrificed pawn in a game that he and Choat were playing, and Choat had simply upped the ante.
THERE WAS NO TAXIDERMIST in Ackerman’s Field that Meecham could locate but he heard of one in Waynesboro and so drove there. As
deer season was still months away this was a slow season for taxidermy, but the process was more involved than he had thought and he had to stay overnight in a motel. The bill for preparing and mounting the dog was one hundred and seventy-five dollars but the old man counted it out with a willing hand. He knew he was spending money like a furloughed sailor but he figured every nickel he threw away would be a nickel that Paul could not get his pale manicured hands on. In fact the old man wished that Paul could have been with him. He would love to tell Paul that he had paid a taxidermist a hundred and seventy-five dollars to stuff a ten-dollar dog for no other reason than to aggravate Lonzo Choat.
The taxidermist was gifted in his art and this new and improved Nipper transcended lifelike: he had been lent a dignity he had not possessed in life. His mouth was closed, his little glass eyes thoughtful and intelligent. The expression on his face was exactly as if he was thinking over some philosophical remark that had been made and was preparing in his mind a rebuttal.
Meecham drove back to Ackerman’s Field with Nipper in the passenger seat across from him. He’d positioned the dog so that Nipper’s little agate eyes faced the window.
Wish I could of got some kind of barker put in you, he said. Maybe I’ll get you a beeper.
Nipper sat motionless watching the scenery slide by the glass, ripe summer fields fading slowly into autumn.
WHEN CHOAT GLANCED UP from the circular he had taken from the mailbox and saw the old man and the dog on the porch his left foot seemed to forget it was in the process of taking a step and he stumbled and almost fell. He did an almost comical double take, then his face took on a look of studied disinterest and he went back to reading the circular.
When he glanced up again Meecham was tossing sticks into the yard. Fetch, boy, he was saying.
I wouldn’t hold my breath till he brought that stick back, Choat said.
He’s a slow study, Meecham agreed. I believe he’s got some Choat in his family tree somewhere.
You smartmouthed old bastard. If I could buy you for what you’re worth and sell you for what you think you’re worth I’d retire. I’d never hit another lick at nothin.
You ain’t hit that first lick yet, Meecham pointed out.
Choat was looking closely at the dog. I bet that little son of a bitch is a light eater, he said.
He don’t eat much but he’s a hell of a watchdog, Meecham said. Lays right across my feet and never shuts his eyes all night. One of these nights the fellow that tied that plowline will come easin through the door and I’ll make him a date with the undertaker.
WHEN THE BLACK LEXUS stopped in the yard of the tenant house the front door of the main house opened and Choat came out onto the porch with a can of beer. He sat down in the swing and propped his feet against a porch stanchion.
The car gleaming in the packed earth before the tacky sharecropper’s shack looked out of place, as if somewhere there was some mistake, some curious breakdown in the proper placement of things. Then the door opened and Paul got out. He smoothed down the blond wing of his hair. He took off his sunglasses and folded the earpieces down and tucked them into the pocket of his sport shirt.
Hey, Dad.
I was wonderin when you’d show up. Come up and get a seat.
Paul came over to the edge of the porch and brushed invisible dust off the boards with a hand and pulled up the cuffs of his trousers and seated himself. How you making it, Dad?
I’m makin it fine.
That’s not what I’m hearing. I was talking to Alonzo Choat this morning. He tells me you’re cutting a pretty wide swath around here.
Well. I was never one to let things slide.
No. You never were that.
Did you come out here to straighten this mess out?
In a way. I came out here to pick you up and drive you back to the nursing home.
Then you’ve wasted gas and a good bit of your valuable time drivin out here. It’ll be a cold day in hell when you guile me into that place again. I get mad ever time I think about it.
Dad, it’s just till we get this straightened out. I’ve signed a lease and it has to run its course. When the ninety days are up I’ll get out of the sale and you can move back in. If we need a practical nurse to look after you then I’ll hire one.
The old man was silent a time. He marveled at how different they were, how wide and varied the gulfs between them. It saddened him that he no longer had the energy or even the inclination to try and broach them. But it amused him that Paul had not improved much in his ability to lie. Being unable to lie convincingly to a jury must be a severe handicap in the lawyer trade.
I don’t need a nurse, he finally said.
Perhaps not. You need something though. Shooting a pistol at a man. Having him arrested so that his family has to go bail him out. Setting dead dogs around the porch like flower pots. For God’s sake, Dad.
Well, I can’t say I didn’t do it. But you got the wrong slant on it. I’m not goin to argue with you, arguin with you was always a waste of time. You’d just lie out of it. Do you think I don’t know you? Do you think I can’t see through your skin to ever lie you ever told?
I’m not leaving here without you. You’re a danger to yourself and you’re a danger to other people. Goddamn it. Why do you have to do everything the hard way? Can’t you see you’ve played this string out as far as it will go? You know that if you don’t go with me voluntarily I’ll have to get papers and send people out here after you. Is that what you want?
The old man was suddenly seized with weariness, a weight of torpor bearing down on him as if all the things he’d done and all the things he’d said and all the things he’d heard in all the years he’d lived had suddenly come due all at once. It took an enormous effort to reply, just to breathe. He sat packing the bowl of his pipe and staring at the red kerosene can on Choat’s porch.
Goodbye, Paul, he said at last. You take care of yourself.
I’LL TELL YOU WHAT he did do one time, Thurl Chessor said. He was in Long’s grocer store and when they wasn’t nobody watchin him he poked a mouse down into a Co-Cola bottle and acted like he drunk off of it. Oh he cut a shine. Spittin and gaggin. He throwed such a fit with Long and the bottlin company they give him a world of cold drinks just to shut him up. Cases and cases of em, they drunk on em all summer. That bunch like to foundered theirselves on Co-Colas.
But do you reckon he’d burn a man out?
I wouldn’t think so. I never heard tell of him doin anybody any real harm. He’ll steal anything ain’t tied down or on fire but he’s too triflin and lazy to make much effort.
Well. He said he was goin to. He said that tenant house would go up like a stack of kindlin and me with it. I may have leaned a little hard on him, shootin at him and all. Anyway I believe he’ll try it. He strangled that dog.
You ought to get the law then. Tell the high sheriff.
Choat would just deny it. He’s tryin to make Paul believe I’m crazy. All I want you to do is just speak up if anything does happen. You go tell the law I told you ahead of time he threatened to do it. Will you do that?
Yeah. I’ll do that.
I wouldn’t want him to get clean away with it.
No. You can have another one of them pups if you want it.
No I believe I’ll pass, the old man said. I’m a little hard on dogs. Besides, I’ve still got the other one.
Maybe, Chessor said tentatively. Maybe it would be the best all the way around if you just went back. You said it was all right.
I lied, the old man grinned. It’s a factory where they make dead folks and I ain’t workin there no more.
Chessor was silent a time. As if he was considering his own bleak future as well as Meecham’s. We all got to work somewhere, he finally said.
Meecham drove back and sat on the porch smoking his pipe and waiting for full dark so that he could steal the kerosene can. At last the day began to fail. Dark rising out of the earth like vapors. Against the sky the main house looked
black and depthless as a stage prop. Beyond the Rorschach trees the heavens were burnished with metallic rose so bright it seemed to pulse. As if all the light there was was pooling there and draining off the rim of the world like quicksilver.
HE WORKED VERY FAST. He figured if he faltered he’d quit, give it up, let Paul be a daddy to him. He upended a box of photographs and threw on old newspapers and lit it all with a kitchen match and when the photographs began to burn with thin blue flames he picked up the can and began to pour kerosene around the room.
Except when he threw it the fire leapt toward him like something he’d summoned by dark invocation and even as he hurled the can from him he was thinking how like Choat it was to keep lawn mower gas in a can clearly labeled kerosene. His lashes and eyebrows were singed away and he could feel his hair burning and when the can blew the room filled up with liquid fire. The walls were flaming and on the foot of the burning bed Nipper watched him calmly out of the smoke with his glass eyes orange with refracted fire.
Meecham covered his face with his hands and fell to the floor. Far off he could hear somebody screaming Help me, help me, and then he realized it was he himself.
WHEN HE CAME TO he was lying on his back staring upward into the stars. His body seemed to be absorbing the heat from the wheeling constellations, he rocked on a sea of molten lava. He could hear a voice and an ambulance wailing and after a while he figured out the voice was Lonzo Choat’s.
He’s damn lucky these houses is so close or I never would of heard him. Beats the hell out of me what he thought he was doin. He’s been actin funny, I believe his mainspring may have busted. I reckon he thought it was winter and he was just buildin a fire.
That’s a hell of a brave thing you did, Choat, another voice said. Let’s go with him, Ray.
