A Miracle of Catfish

by Larry Brown

  He lifted his bottle and took a sip. He thought he might play a while later. Before he went to bed. He needed to get some wood cut tomorrow. And then he guessed they needed to figure out what they were going to cook for Christmas. He’d always liked turkey, and she’d always liked ham. He was thinking maybe they could buy a small one of each. Put the rest of it in the icebox. Make sandwiches out of it.

  He bent forward and checked the corn bread. It had risen in the black iron skillet, but it hadn’t cracked open and turned brown yet. Maybe a few more minutes. He closed the oven door and took another sip of whisky. He’d noticed that she hadn’t had a drink around him since she’d been home. He’d even offered her a beer one day just to see what she’d say, but she’d turned it down. He kept turning it over in his mind: Boy or girl? Girl or boy?

  “You thought up any names yet?” he said.

  She had her tortoiseshell glasses perched on the end of her nose and she was intent upon her popcorn stringing. She didn’t look up.

  “Yes sir,” she said. “A few.”

  “What you thought of?” he said.

  She’d already fixed herself a glass of tea and now she put down her needle and thread and lifted her glass and took a drink. He was eating a lot better again now that she was back. Once a week she got in the truck and went to town with the money he’d given her and brought back pork chops and sliced picnic and cracklings and strawberry preserves to put on their biscuits in the mornings, and sometimes she whipped up some of the eggs that she gathered regularly from the chicken nests outside and made a really good thing he’d never had before that she called an omelet. Filled with chopped-up ham and bits of cheese melted inside it. She didn’t turn her nose up at fresh deer meat. And she could do some wonderful things with the black iron skillet and a couple of young squirrels.

  “I thought of KuShonda if it’s a girl and Leroy if it’s a boy. After that ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ song.”

  “Mm hmm,” he said, nodding. He liked both those.

  “Mm hmm what?” she said. “You thought of any?”

  “Ain’t my place to think of none,” he said. “I’m just the grandpappy.”

  They sat there a little longer. He checked the corn bread again and it was done. He got a pot holder and took the skillet out and set it on top of the stove and with a dull knife broke the crust away from the sides of the skillet. She brought him a plate and he held the plate over the corn bread and turned it and the skillet over, and the pone slid out, solid brown and crusty, steaming. He set it on the table. He was so happy about the baby coming that he didn’t know what to do. Didn’t matter if it was a boy or a girl, he was buying it a fishing pole. A girl could fish as well as a boy.

  “Let’s eat,” he said. […]

  63

  Christmas vacation seemed to last a long time after Christmas was over. Jimmy had to spend quite a few of those days inside, kind of trapped in the trailer with the girls while his mama and daddy were at work, because it started raining and kept on. Days on end, rain falling from the sky off and on, the sun not coming out, the days all alike and gray and cloudy. Too muddy and cold to ride the go-kart. He tried it once, but since it didn’t have any fenders, it threw mud all over him, so he didn’t try again. He walked up to the pond a couple of times to see how much water it had in it, and it had come up a good bit and was a lot bigger than what it used to be. A green boat was tied to the bank. He wondered if that big fish was still in there. He looked down toward the house when he was up there, but he didn’t see Mister Cortez anywhere. He wondered if he had the cast off his arm yet. He almost went down to the house to knock on the door but then didn’t. Something kept him back, but he didn’t know what it was.

  And he worried about delivering some puppies out his butthole. He counted off the days on the calendar and whenever he went to the bathroom he made sure the door was locked and always checked to see what had come out of him. Nothing ever looked any different. But he kept an eye on things just the same.

  Evelyn asked him one day if he wanted to make five dollars and Jimmy said yes. He asked her what he had to do to make the five dollars and she said all he had to do was keep his mouth shut and he said okay and she handed him five dollars. Jimmy didn’t know where she’d gotten five dollars. Probably from their mama. In about fifteen minutes one of the big boys off the school bus opened the door of the trailer and walked in without even wiping his really muddy feet off like he owned the damn place. He looked at Jimmy, but he didn’t say anything to Jimmy. He walked across the living room carpet tracking red mud and into the kitchen where Evelyn was and kissed her and she kind of swooned and then Velma came walking by with what looked like five dollars in her hand. Jimmy hadn’t heard any car pull up outside. Usually you heard some tires crunching in the gravel at least. He went to the front door and opened it and looked out there and there wasn’t any car out there. He wondered how the big boy had gotten there, but he didn’t figure he should say anything since he’d agreed to keep his mouth shut. Evelyn took the big boy back to the bedroom she shared with Velma and locked Velma out, and Velma and Jimmy sat on the couch in the living room and watched TV with the volume up pretty good while the big boy stayed back in the bedroom with Evelyn for about thirty minutes, and then there were some steady regular bumping noises that lasted for about two minutes, and then about a minute after that the big boy came out and left in a hell of a hurry, tracking more red mud across the carpet as he went. Jimmy hoped his daddy wouldn’t see all that mud on the carpet. And about two minutes later Jimmy’s daddy walked in. He had a beer in his hand. He plopped down on the couch next to Jimmy. Velma was in the kitchen making herself a mayonnaise sandwich since she was still crazy about mayonnaise sandwiches.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Jimmy said.

  “Hey, Hot Rod,” Jimmy’s daddy said, and tilted his head back while he took a long drink of beer. He twisted his head around. “Hey, Velma.”

  “Hey,” she said, slathering about a half inch of mayonnaise on her bread, both pieces.

  “Where’s Evelyn?” Jimmy’s daddy said.

  Jimmy didn’t say anything. Velma didn’t say anything. Jimmy’s daddy sat there for a few moments and then took a long look at both of them.

  “I said where’s Evelyn?” Jimmy’s daddy said.

  Velma didn’t say anything, so it had to fall on Jimmy to take up the slack.

  “I think she’s back there in the bedroom,” Jimmy said, concentrating like hell on changing channels with the remote.

  Jimmy’s daddy turned his head to look down the hall at the closed door to that bedroom. Then he turned back around and took another drink of his beer.

  “What’s she doing in the bedroom at this time of day?” he said. “Hell, it ain’t but four thirty. She sick?”

  Jimmy thought he’d let Velma catch this one, but she was evidently a tough little cookie with plans for her five dollars. She kept her mouth shut, so Jimmy had to answer again.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Why hell,” Jimmy’s daddy said, and stood up. He turned to Velma, still standing in the kitchen, trying to put the bread away. “Velma.”

  She looked up.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Is your sister sick?”

  Velma shook her head, her long black hair shaking for a moment, dark eyes enormous, lovely, and scared.

  “Can you not talk?” Jimmy’s daddy said, and took another drink of his beer. Jimmy started getting a little nervous. There were clumps of red mud on the carpet. Some of them had pine needles stuck in them. And gravel. It was only a matter of time until his daddy saw them.

  “Yes sir,” she said. “I can talk.”

  “Well answer me then when I ask you a question. You hear?”

  “Yes sir,” she said. “I hear.”

  “All right, then, goddamn it,” Jimmy’s daddy said. “Is Evelyn sick?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Well, how long’s she been in the bedroom?” Jimmy
’s daddy said.

  “She’s been back there about thirty minutes,” Jimmy said, just to kind of keep the ball rolling.

  “Well, is she sick?” Jimmy’s daddy said.

  “I don’t know,” Jimmy said.

  “Y’all don’t know very damn much,” Jimmy’s daddy said, and took another drink of his beer. Then he went back to his bedroom and stayed in there for about five seconds and came back out with a coat. He stopped in front of Jimmy.

  “Tell your mama if I ain’t here when she gets in that I’ve gone to look at a transmission a guy’s got that’s sposed to fit my car. All right?”

  “Yes sir,” Jimmy said.

  “Yes sir,” Velma said.

  Jimmy’s daddy started out the door and then he stopped. He looked down. He stepped back. His voice rose in outrage.

  “What in the … who in the hell tracked all this mud in the house?”

  He turned around and looked at Jimmy and Velma. This was real trouble, and a no-win situation that Jimmy could already see coming. And he’d been so close to just walking on out the door. There was no way Jimmy was going to claim the mud as his just to protect the big boy and keep the five dollars. Oh no. His daddy might whip him for that. And five dollars wasn’t worth that. But if he didn’t lie and say it was his mud, and if Velma said it wasn’t her mud, then what was going to happen? Who were they going to blame it on? He might whip both of them just for general principles.

  “How many times have I told y’all to wipe your feet off fore you come in the damn house?”

  Jimmy didn’t say anything. He looked over at Velma and she didn’t look like she was going to say anything. She looked like she was wanting to get her mouth around that mayonnaise sandwich.

  “Looks like a dog took a shit in here,” Jimmy’s daddy said. Then he bent over a little bit, looking at the mud. “Damn,” he said. “This one’s got some pine needles in it. And this one’s got some gravel in it.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Jimmy said, self-preservation leaping in.

  “Well, whoever did it, clean the shit up fore your mama gets home. Bye.”

  Jimmy’s daddy put the coat on and went out the door as relief welled in. It had been a close call. Jimmy heard the ’55 crank up, and then it backed out of the driveway and went down toward the cotton fields and the wooden bridge and the old rotted house until it went out of hearing. Jimmy hadn’t heard the dead black lady crying in a while. He thought maybe she’d gone on vacation. And then Evelyn stuck just her head out the door and called softly for Velma. Velma was in the process of trying to start eating her sandwich, but she stopped what she was doing and went back there. Evelyn let her in and then the door shut. Then Jimmy heard it lock. Then silence. He turned the TV down. He could hear them talking, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. So he got up and walked very softly across the carpet to the door of the girls’ bedroom and put his ear against the door and listened. It sounded like Evelyn was crying. She was crying. Then he heard the door start to open and went quick and soft back across the carpet and was in the process of sitting down when the door opened and Velma came out and the door closed and locked again. Jimmy looked at her, but she didn’t look at him. She went back to the utility room down the hall and it sounded like she either opened the lid on the washing machine or opened the door on the dryer. Something was going on. He started to get up and go back there to see what she was doing, but instead he waited. His mama would be home in about another hour. And somebody was going to have to clean that mud up before she got in. Jimmy was naturally in favor of Evelyn doing it since she was the one who caused it to be there.

  But Velma came out of the utility room and stopped in the bathroom and came out with a towel and went back to the bedroom door and knocked on it. The door opened and Velma went in, then the door closed and locked again. Something had happened and Jimmy knew it had something to do with the big boy from the school bus who had just barely made it out of here before Jimmy’s daddy came home. And that was another close call. There was no telling what Jimmy’s daddy would have done if he’d come home and found some boy off the school bus in the bedroom with Evelyn. Jimmy knew that somebody would have gotten their ass kicked, and it wouldn’t have been Jimmy’s daddy. He kind of hated that the big boy had made it out on time. He would have really enjoyed seeing his daddy kick the big boy’s ass, because Jimmy thought he was the same one who used to hit him on the ears with those wadded-up pieces of paper.

  He sat there and listened. After a few minutes, the door to the bedroom opened and Velma came out, carrying a wadded-up bunch of bed-sheets. She went down the hall with them and Jimmy got up softly and followed her. When she went back into the utility room, she closed the door behind her. But it didn’t have a lock on it, and Jimmy waited about five seconds and then opened it. Velma looked up. She was stuffing the sheets into the washing machine and the sheets had blood on them. Oh my God! It looked like Evelyn was having a baby!

  “What’s that?” Jimmy said. It was only then that he saw Velma crying. She stopped what she was doing and fell to her knees, and Jimmy knelt next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him with her hands up against her face, and then she started sobbing. He just stayed there and held her. She wasn’t really his sister. But in another way she was. She was older than him but it didn’t matter. He just held her. But she didn’t cry long. She wiped her sniffles and got back up.

  “We got to get these sheets clean and dry and back on the bed before Mama gets home,” she said. “If we don’t, Evelyn’s gonna be in a whole lot of trouble.” And she turned around and again started stuffing the sheets into the washing machine. Jimmy helped her. He found the scoop and scooped up some washing powders and dumped them in and Velma set the timer for the shortest cycle on the machine and closed the lid and started it. Jimmy heard the water running into it.

  “Did she hurt herself?” he said. Velma shook her head.

  “Did she have a baby?” Jimmy said.

  “No, she didn’t have no baby! Are you crazy?”

  “Well, where’d all that blood come from, then?” Jimmy said.

  “I can’t tell you,” Velma said. “But please don’t say nothing to Mama. Please? Please, Jimmy.”

  From the way she was looking at him, Jimmy knew this was something pretty bad. So he just nodded.

  “Help me fold these clothes and put em away,” Velma said, so Jimmy did. They folded towels and bath cloths and some underwear and put it all away and then Velma said she had to go back in there with Evelyn, so she did. This time she stayed for about ten minutes, except for coming out one time and going back to the bathroom and running the water and then coming out with a wadded-up wet bath cloth. She went back into the bedroom with it and the door locked again. Jimmy went back to watching television. It was about to get dark outside and Jimmy wondered if they were going to make it on time. He could hear the washing machine still going on the sheets, and the dryer was really slow about drying things. Something was wrong with it. An element or something was burned out. His mama cussed about it pretty often. And what if the washing machine didn’t take the blood out of the sheets? Wasn’t blood supposed to be hard to get out of something? And where had the blood come from anyway if Evelyn hadn’t hurt herself or had a baby?

  He kept sitting there, trying to listen to the TV and still hear what was going on in the bedroom. After a while the washing machine stopped. Velma must have been listening, too, because she came out right away and went back there. It sounded like she was taking the sheets out of the washing machine and putting them in the dryer. Then Evelyn came out of the bedroom. She was wearing only a bra that even Jimmy could see was way too small for her, and a towel was wrapped around her bottom half. She was holding on to the wall as she walked down the hall toward the bathroom, taking baby steps. She looked over at Jimmy for a moment, tears coming down her cheeks, and she gave him a grim smile, as if she suffered willingly. Velma came out of the utility room and helped her into the
bathroom. Then that door closed and locked. Then silence. Then there was nothing to hear but the dryer running. Running and running and running.

  Jimmy kept sitting there watching TV. It was getting closer and closer to time for his mama to get home. But sometimes she stopped in town and bought groceries. Sometimes she’d call on her cell phone and say she was going to be late, but sometimes she wouldn’t.

  After a while, Velma and Evelyn came out of the bathroom. Evelyn had put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and she walked slowly over to the couch and stood there. Jimmy looked up at her. She looked a lot better than she had when she’d first come down the hall.

  “Can I sit down?” she said.

  “Sure,” Jimmy said. “I can move if you want to lay down.”

  “That’s okay,” Evelyn said. He saw that she was trying to bend down carefully and he got up and helped her ease onto the couch.

  “Whew,” she said, when she’d leaned back against the cushions. “That’s better. Thanks.”

  Velma came in and sat down nearby […] with her sandwich and took a bite of it. She chewed, her small mouth working, one dab of mayonnaise on the corner of her lips. She licked it off with the tip of her tongue.

  Evelyn did something that surprised Jimmy. She leaned up and reached beneath the couch cushion and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and a lighter and opened the cigarettes and took one out and lit up. There was an ashtray on the coffee table and she slid it closer. Jimmy was almost shocked.

  “When’d you start smoking?” he said.

  “A few weeks ago,” Evelyn said. “Herbert got me started.”

  “Who’s Herbert?” Jimmy said.

  “That was Herbert in here a while ago.”

  She took a drag and leaned back again and crossed one leg over the other very slowly, like somebody in slow motion. Jimmy could tell that she didn’t really know how to smoke yet, that she was just practicing. Plus she coughed a few times.