A Miracle of Catfish

by Larry Brown

  He stood there and felt the wind stirring in his thick hair. The leaves on the big pecans were starting to waft up and show their paler undersides, and he saw a bolt of pure white light up the inside of a gray cloud far off. Deep thunder rolled booming out of the sky echoing again and again and the wind picked up as the ceiling blackened and moved his way. Birds fled before it, scattering in the wind, wavering, dodging in its path. The sky rumbled and Cortez saw the beauty of the world God made.

  He looked toward the house. She was scared to death of a storm. Always had been, ever since she was fourteen and a tornado blew her whole house away with two of her sisters in it. They found both of them down in the river bottom, one of them with all her clothes torn off, sitting as if she were only asleep against a giant cypress. The other one was up in the tree, green leaves and splinters of blue painted wood caught all in her golden hair like a garland. And because of all that his wife never got over being scared of a storm. All the time when Raif was growing up, whenever the least little cloud came up, he had to stop what he was doing and go get in the storm house with them. And sit there. Among the canned beets and candles and oil lamps. Old lumpy magazines. Sit there while it rained and listen to the wind blow and the rain hit things. Listen to that sizzling sound when it came down hard, without stopping, straight down, pouring, raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. He’d gotten plenty from Queen on days like that, in the rain, not out in it but inside the old house that smelled like her. She smelled like dirt, like the ground, but not in a bad way. A good way. No need thinking about that now either. He’d almost lost his head that time. And no telling what would have happened if he had. The world had certainly changed. You couldn’t do stuff like that anymore. Just bury somebody out in the woods. You wouldn’t be able to get away with it. You’d have to pay. And most days he didn’t want to have to pay.

  Cortez Sharp walked across his backyard and waited for the first drops to hit him, but when he got to the back porch he was still dry. He went inside and sat down on his mildewed cot and leaned his back against the beadboard wall and watched the wind have its way with the leaves of the chinaberry tree, and then he saw rain as dust swirled up from the first fat drops of water falling at the edge of the yard. The birds were flying across, weaving in the wind, cardinals and bluebirds that hung around and ate from the bird feeders she made him fill up once a week in the summertime.

  He heard one of his cows bawl down in the pasture and knew it was calling its calf to its side. Animals knew things. They knew when a storm was coming. They’d start moving for shelter, get up under a bunch of trees, and wait it out. But sometimes they got struck by lightning that way, too. Worst damn smell you ever smelled. He’d had ten killed under a tree one night. A bull and nine cows. Almost wiped him out. His whole herd at that time. Had Queen gone? For good maybe? He hadn’t heard her in a long time. He hoped she’d gone. Went back to wherever dead people went to. He didn’t want to hear her anymore. He didn’t need any reminding. He couldn’t have done anything besides what he had done. Not in the world they had lived in. Mississippi almost forty years ago.

  And then it started raining hard. He watched it come down and thicken in intensity and the outline of the barn began to fade behind the wall of rain, and it poured down in the yard and started running off the eaves and puddling next to the house and splashing up against the old red bricks. The sky closed up and became a solid color like steel and more water came down. It thundered and the wind blew and the storm rolled up to his place and then it came down as hard as he’d ever seen it.

  He sat there and listened to it and watched it and wondered how much of it was going into the pond. He wondered if it would fill up any, or if it would all soak into the ground the first time. He knew that had to happen. He knew enough water had to come down at once so that it all couldn’t soak away, but could pool and start making a pond.

  He could imagine what the pea patch looked like, water already beginning to stand in the rows and flood the young plants, and now in a few days the grass would spring up, probably, but that was okay, he could take the tractor down and run the scratchers through the stalks again. He needed to clean his gun, get ready for the deer. They’d be coming. Bastards. They were lying up now, under bushes, waiting for the rain to be over, or maybe not even caring that it was raining. Maybe it didn’t bother them. Maybe they liked it.

  He knew what was happening on his place. The creek was filling with water that was running down off the banks, and his fine fat cows were standing under trees in the pasture with water smeared on their sleek black hides. The woods were whispering in raindrops and water was rolling fast downhill toward the empty hole where his new pond sat, and Cortez saw it in his mind’s eye, the muddy ground in the bottom pinging up little geysers of mud as the drops plinked down, and the water pooling in the bottom, slowly rising up the sides, gradually filling, becoming what it was intended to be, now with the rain at long last, and the thunder, and the wind blowing and stirring the tops of the trees.

  Out at the far edge of the rain he counted seven crows slowly flap-ping, making their way into the big red oaks down by the creek. He’d seen the crows before. He thought they must have a roost around here somewhere. It would be hard to find. A man had to have good eyes to spot a crow’s nest and his were old. But Cortez knew crows. His father had owned one for a pet when he was a little boy. It would steal anything shiny that was lying around outside the house. Spoons. Dice. A thimble once. That was in 1937. Everybody from then dead now. Just him and his wife left. And Lucinda. Nobody to carry on his name now with Raif gone. But the storm was fine. He’d been waiting for so long. And now here it was, like a reward for building the pond. He sat there and reveled in it for a long time, an old man, watching it rain, remembering other rains.

  19

  Jimmy’s daddy was riding around by himself that same evening, drinking a little beer. Almost dark. After the rain. Cool wind. The kids were home alone but that was okay. They’d be all right. Watch TV. Cook hot dogs. He was down on Old Union Road and the road was still wet and the rain had made the air look different. Softer or something. He hated like hell that he’d accidentally crushed the shit out of John Wayne Payne. But he didn’t think the whole thing was all his fault either. He hadn’t been able to make himself go to the funeral, although he’d been told that a lot of people who worked in the plant had. They’d actually shut the plant down for about three hours to let people off with pay for the funeral since so many people who worked there had known John Wayne Payne and how he’d give you a lift on a lunch flat. Of course some of them he knew took the three hours and went home and watched TV with it. Or shelled some peas. Cut the grass instead of having to do it Saturday.

  Boy, the weekends just didn’t last long enough. You got up and you went to work and you came home and went to bed and you spent all week fixing Towmotors, fixing spot-weld machines, fixing baloney sandwiches, taking breaks, eating lunch, punching in, punching out, and then Friday rolled around and you got your check and drove happily to the beer store and iced down a case and then you had all Friday evening before dark to ride around or cook out and then on Saturday you could sleep late and work on your car or go fishing or ride around and go get something to eat and drink some beer and then Sunday just came down like a nine-pound hammer. You could go fishing, sure. You could ride around a little, yeah. Drink a few beers. But it was tainted with the closing-in feeling of the loss of freedom. Because after the sun went down, it came back up on Monday morning. And you had to go work five more days. And it sucked. The ’55 was running pretty good now that he’d put a new battery in it and a voltage regulator and new brushes in the generator and a new Bendix for the starter and an exhaust manifold gasket and a new race and bearing for the left spindle and a new set of shocks all the way around and a new harmonic balancing wheel and plugs and points and a Rochester four-barrel. Rusty had set the timing on it with a timing light and she was purring like a kitten at its mama’s titty nipple. She had a l
ittle Bondo in her, sure, but how many were you going to find this old that didn’t? This son of a bitch was about fifty years old almost. He was thinking about a cam, maybe an Isky or a Lunati. Maybe a full race or a three-quarter’s. Rusty could order him anything he wanted. Just paying for it was the thing. He got tired of arguing with Johnette about what they ought to spend their money on. She said he drank too much beer. Rode around too much. Didn’t stay home with the kids enough. And that when he did, all he did was yell at them. She said he didn’t socialize with them. Just because he liked to watch his hunting videos and drink a little beer in the evenings. In the bedroom. By himself.

  That’s what she said. She said a lot of shit. He was glad he wasn’t having to listen to any of it right now. He was about tired of listening to all her shit. He’d like to socialize with that big-tittied heifer down on the line was who he’d like to socialize with. Socialize with her knockers. Damn, she had a set. Every man in the whole plant was damn near drooling. All of them chickenshit to even talk to her. He was gonna say something to her. He didn’t know what yet. But he was going to. Hell, she might not even talk to him.

  Jimmy’s daddy had the windows down, listening to his tapes. He had a bunch of good ones. Narvel Felts, Lefty Frizzell, David Frizzell, Ferlin Husky, Roy Drusky, Roy Clark, Guy Clark, Petula Clark, the Dave Clark Five. He wished he knew how to play a guitar. He ought to buy one’s what he ought to do. Somebody was selling one on TV the other night for $39.95 or maybe it was three payments of $39.95, which wasn’t bad if you thought about it, if the guitar was any good. Be something else Johnette could raise hell about. Playing a guitar. Making some more noise. He guessed he could play it outside. He could play it out on the back porch if he ever got around to building one. Shit. He ought to at least build some steps sometime. What if they had a fire by the front door and they couldn’t go out that way? They’d have to jump down from the back door. He wondered if Rusty knew how to build steps. He might. He could build anything. He was damn good on deer stands. He was building a little boat right now. Damn, that’s what he needed, was a little boat. Once that old fellow’s pond got filled up, and if he put some catfish in it, and if Jimmy’s daddy had a little boat, he could drag it through the woods at night and catch the shit out of them while the old man was asleep. Drag it back before daylight. Sneak in, sneak out.

  He took another drink of his beer. It was good to get out of the house for a while. Get away from them kids. Drive you batty all that yelling and hollering and raising hell and throwing shit everywhere and arguing over what they were going to watch on the TV and making a mess in the kitchen and tracking up the carpet with their muddy feet whenever it rained and just generally being loud all the time. It was mighty fine to ride around in a ’55 Chevy with not just a shitload of Bondo in it after a good rain and listen to those throaty pipes. He’d gone ahead and gotten his inspection sticker with regular mufflers out at Gateway one Saturday and then almost immediately changed to glasspacks in the parking lot of AutoZone on Rusty’s lunch hour with Rusty helping him and eating a sandwich at the same time, sometimes holding the entire sandwich in his mouth while he reached for tools, put it up on some jack stands and it only took about seventeen minutes to change both of them out, and now it was pretty throaty. It just kind of lugged a little going from second to fourth. It was aggravating not to have third gear. You had to get up some speed going up hills. He needed to see about that transmission down at Bruce. It might even have a Hurst shifter with it. He wondered how much a complete rolled-and-pleated interior would cost him. No telling. How fine would that be, though? Say blue and white. With those little speckles of glitter in it? Have some matching floor mats. Get some of those big foam dice to hang from the rearview. He knew Jimmy needed to get his teeth fixed. He didn’t know how much that was going to cost. Or if they could even afford it. They probably couldn’t. He shouldn’t eat all that candy. Little shit.

  He finished the beer in his hand and threw the empty out the window, then reached to the cooler in the floorboard for a fresh one. Popped the top. Took a drink. Set it between his legs. Reached into the pack in his pocket for a fresh cigarette. Lit it. Turned his parking lamps on and the dash lights didn’t come on. What the hell. Son of a bitch. He bumped the dash with his hand and they flickered. Then they came on. Then they went off. He hit it again. They came on. They went off. Son of a bitch. He hit it again and they flickered. He hit it twice and they came on and then went back off. Piece of shit! He heard a horn blaring right in front of him and looked up and saw that he was about to be hit by a big pickup head-on and swerved widely, almost going into the ditch, veering, almost sinking into the soft shoulder, then straightening and fishtailing back out of the ditch, mud on the tires making it slide in the road squealing until he got it back under control, and the pickup, real big, jacked way up, lots of lights, rolled on up the hill past him, red lights fading and climbing. Some damn kid probably. The road was full of them and some of them were barely big enough to see over the steering wheel. Where the hell did they come from? He’d be damned if Jimmy was going to run up and down the road like that burning gas. All these kids had it too soft these days, their parents buying them pickups left and right. If Jimmy wanted a pickup he’d have to work for it. Just like Jimmy’s daddy did. In the sawmill with Halter Wellums. Digging five or six splinters out of his hands every day. Walking through the woods to work, walking through the woods back home. You probably couldn’t find a kid who would do that now.

  Damn that was close. Too close. Like to had a head-on collision. With some kid. He needed to get some insurance on this son of a gun. Get some collision anyway. Comprehensive would be a lot better, but that shit was high. He couldn’t really afford it. But he sure needed it. Just in case something happened. Damn that was close. Little bastard like to smeared him all over the road.

  Jimmy’s daddy calmed back down and drank some more beer and cruised by a turf field and some woods and a place in the road where there was a big pipe that ran under the road. Through the big pipe an endless stream of cold spring water poured, and there was a deep pool off to the left of the road that everybody called the Cold Hole, and he’d seen kids swimming there, and he thought what he ought to do was bring Jimmy down here sometime, get a few of his buddies, maybe Rusty and Seaborn, ice down some beer, ride around a little, then bring Jimmy down here and throw him in. Let him sink or swim. That’s the way his old man did him. And he nearly drowned, yeah, but he learned how to swim, didn’t he? Jimmy could do the same thing. Kids were kids. People were people. He wondered how deep that old guy’s pond had wound up being. He might walk over there one day and see. That old man was probably senile. Probably went to bed with the chickens. Probably slept like a dead man. Probably be easy to sneak in.

  He drank some more beer and listened to some more music and stopped and took a piss in the middle of the road and then rode through a little creek bottom and up a hill and around a curve. He wondered if there were any wild hogs running loose down on the levee tonight. He thought he’d ride down there and see. He’d already seen two big ones, one a huge and hairy black tusker with a ridge down his back, and last summer he’d found three dead wild baby piglets in the road somebody had run over, one of them cut half in two by a tire, the head and two front legs and part of the chest and some guts on one side of the road and the back legs and some guts and the little bitty curly tail on the other, and he’d stopped and picked them up and looked at them, the two whole ones, anyway, and wondered if they were fresh enough to maybe eat, but he figured that with roadkill pork you didn’t want to take any chances, because it might have already turned bad, and then somebody had come along while he was standing there holding one of them by the leg and had given him a weird look, and he’d only taken one of them home, just to show Jimmy, and then Jimmy had turned out to be in town getting some tennis shoes and a swimsuit with his mother, so then he’d thrown it off the bridge down below the trailer and didn’t even get to show it to Jimmy. Buzzards ate
it probably. […]

  He wondered what was the matter with Johnette’s ass. Ill as a damn hornet here lately. Hell, she wasn’t going through menopause, was she? She was too young for that, wasn’t she? Hell, she wasn’t but thirty-five. But his cousin had to have that hysterectomy when she was thirty. Was all messed up inside, the doctor said. He didn’t want any more kids anyway. It was hell to keep them fed, the ones he had. Damn they could eat some stuff. Ate something all the time. Chips and dip, couldn’t keep that around. Cokes, couldn’t keep them around. Hot dogs, couldn’t keep them around. Ice cream, couldn’t keep that around. They wouldn’t eat vegetables very much, so you could keep them around. Asparagus? Naw. Squash? Wouldn’t touch it. Now Jimmy liked a homegrown tomato sandwich. Jimmy’s daddy had taught him that, how to make one, showed him how to peel the tomatoes, slice them up, put a little salt on them, spread the mayonnaise on the bread, fixed two one day, gave Jimmy one, poured him a glass of cold milk, sat down in the living room with him and ate and watched wrestling on TV. He didn’t get enough times like that with Jimmy, and he didn’t mean to stay so damn busy, or be gone riding around like this, drinking either by himself or with Rusty, but it just seemed like too much to stand being cooped up in that trailer with them all the time. It was nice to get out. A man who worked had to get out some. Deserved to get out some. This beer was cold as hell. Jimmy’s daddy’s daddy loved him a cold beer, too. He guessed he needed to go see the old fucker sometime. Old hardass. Still smoking them damned old Camels. Drinking that damned old Heaven Hill. He needed to take Jimmy when he went, he guessed. Let him see the old fucker. Shit. Jimmy hardly knew him. And whose fault was that? It wasn’t Jimmy’s daddy’s. It was Jimmy’s daddy’s daddy’s. He didn’t have to sit over there in the woods by himself all the time like a hermit. Walk up and down the road picking up cans.