by Larry Brown
The wind picked up a little and wafted the leaves of the ferns up and down. They rocked a bit in their pots, turning and swinging on their chains.
And then the car started moving again. The hand that held the cigarette still trailed down the side of the door. It went away as slowly as it had come, not hurrying, not making very much noise at all. She sat there and watched it. It went on down the road and she couldn’t hear it for very long, thought maybe it might have stopped. But then down the road some distance she couldn’t judge, through the trees a pair of lights came on and the car picked up speed and ran away through the night, a fading roar in the vastness of the land lying around her that died away in gradually diminishing bits of sound until there was nothing left to hear but the quiet of the darkness and the crickets still speaking out there in the wet grass.
She got up, grabbed her cigarettes, and locked herself back inside the house. She turned off the light in the living room and when she went back to the bedroom she reached high into the closet and found the handgun in its cardboard shoe box and put it under the mattress, a hard lump she could feel beneath her for a long time until finally worry and weariness closed in, took over, conspired together to take her to a land of dreams where dark things moved and shadows rustled.
He lay there alone in his black bed in the blackness of the house with the dark walls around him. The wind was blowing a little and the weak moonlight made shapes and forms that roamed up and down the torn wallpaper when the leaves on the trees in the yard moved and swayed. He’d stripped the bloody sheets off and they lay piled in a pale white bundle in one corner. There was just the rough ticking of the mattress against his skin, a loose button that dug into his ribs if he turned the wrong way. He’d had neither drink nor the comfort of another’s hand. Just the endless roaming over the roads and the ceaseless cigarettes and the music that he was already tired of hearing. And how many nights had he lain like this already? In the saw and whine of a thousand sleeping throats he’d imagined a world different, a better place than the one that had been his for so long, as if stepping out those iron gates would free more than his physical body and allow him to regain some sort of balance, quell his anger, drive away the bad memories, make possible all the things he wished could be. But he saw now that it wasn’t going to be like that. He’d been gone too long.
The back door was loose on one hinge and he could hear it flopping, rattling, a soft and steady bang bang that was keeping him awake. That’s what he told himself. He knew now what she’d meant in the cafe when she said that things had changed. She must have meant for herself only, because for a long time now his heart had been darkening and hardening within his chest and he had felt it and felt it again now like stone, cold and lost to him and his eyes would not close.
Tuesday morning it was cramped and small inside the well house. The door was open and the overhead light was on and the puppy was keeping Virgil company by lying right outside. A few tools lay in the damp dirt between his feet, a chipped screwdriver, a small adjustable wrench, a hammer, some Allen wrenches. He was sitting on an overturned bucket. He could make the pump run for a few minutes but he thought it had lost its prime. And even if he had a new contact switch, it wouldn’t matter unless he had about five gallons of water to prime it.
He tapped on a pipe with the screwdriver, looking at it. He turned around to the puppy.
“She’s tore up,” he said.
The puppy raised its head and looked at him. The red tail thumped halfheartedly on the ground and he whined a little.
Virgil tapped the pipe some more. The joints of the brick walls in the well house hadn’t been finished smooth on the inside and the mortar had squeezed from between the bricks and dried like cake icing. Herman House had laid them one pretty fall day and he’d been gone a long time now. Virgil dropped the screwdriver.
“Yep,” he said softly. “Long time now.”
He reached in his pocket for his rolling papers and the little red tin of Prince Albert and rolled one, glancing at the Redbone watching him. He lit his smoke and waved the match out, let it fall to the dirt. It was kind of nice to be in the well house. It was always cool in there from the moisture of the pipes.
“Need a new contact switch,” he told the puppy. The puppy lowered his head and regarded him from his paws with his eyes rolled up mournfully.
“Know what that costs?”
The puppy didn’t move. He closed his eyes.
“Fifteen bucks. Fifteen bucks, buddy.”
The puppy didn’t appear to be listening anymore. Virgil looked at the pump a little while longer.
“And you ain’t gonna pump no water till you get one, are you?” he said to it.
The full heat of the sun hit him when he crawled from the little brick building on his hands and knees and stood up, slapping the dust from his hands. The puppy was standing there waiting as if they were going somewhere. Even if he had the switch, he needed that water to prime it. A barrel to haul the water. A pickup to haul the barrel.
“I ain’t got shit,” he told the puppy, and then he walked up on the porch.
It was the middle of the morning before anybody came by. He was sitting under the shade tree in a steel porch chair reading a story about grizzly bears in an old hunting magazine. He’d made some coffee and was sipping that and he’d brought the whiskey out with him and was sipping that too. The man in the story had been hunting grizzly bears but had accidentally surprised one and had been mauled for a while, dragged around over the ground screaming, then buried alive beneath leaves and twigs and dirt and bear shit. He’d lain there for a while, playing dead, bleeding from two dozen places, fading in and out of shock, waiting for the bear to go away, and after a long while when things had gotten totally quiet and he was absolutely sure the bear had gone away, he’d crawled out from under the pile of nastiness the bear had buried him beneath only to find the bear waiting, and it had begun to maul him and drag him around screaming again.
“Goddamn,” Virgil said. “I believe I’da climbed a tree.”
He heard something coming and looked up. The sun was bright on the gravel road and he saw a pickup coming down it, a greasy tank in the back end, a small emblem on the door. It was the truck Puppy used to haul fuel and parts and grader blades to the backhoes and tractors and road machines the county owned. He slowed down and swung in and pulled up right beside Virgil in his chair. He got out. He hadn’t shaved in three or four days and his shirt was already soaked through with sweat.
“What are you doing?” he said, and he plopped down on the ground there beside him.
Virgil closed his magazine after bending down one corner of the page. He dropped it under his chair. It was getting too hot to sit out there much longer.
“I’m still messin with this well. It ain’t dried up. But it’s lost its prime I reckon. I need to get a part on it and try to haul me some water over here some way.”
He reached down for the whiskey and took a small sip. He offered the bottle but Puppy put one hand up.
“Not when I’m on duty. W.G. would fire me in a second. What are you doing hitting the hard stuff this early?”
He held it in his lap and grinned. “I don’t know. I ain’t got nothing else to do.”
“Damn, Pop. You feeling good today, ain’t you?”
“I guess I am.”
“I wish to hell I did. They workin my ass off today.”
He sat up and looked around. “You still got that barrel in the backyard?”
“Yeah.”
“You got a lid to go on it?”
“I think so. Pretty sure I do.”
“Well come on and let’s load it up and I’ll run you by the parts store. I got to pick up a carburetor and we’ll find some water somewhere and I’ll bring you back over here. Will that fix you up?”
Virgil got the bottle from the grass and stood up.
“It ought to. You sure you got time?”
“Shit yeah. I’m going anyway, come on.”
<
br /> Puppy backed the truck around in the yard and they put the barrel in. Then they went inside and Puppy fixed himself a glass of water from the little that was left in the wine jug while Virgil changed his shirt and combed his hair. In a few minutes they were going down the road.
Virgil chewed a piece of gum while the water ran from the hose inside the service station into the barrel. It was very hot out there on the concrete and he watched the traffic as cars pulled in and rang the bell on the pumps. Boys in blue clothes wiped windshields and pumped gas. Puppy was inside in the air-conditioning, smoking cigarettes in the cool comfort. It took a long time to fill the barrel up. He let it run until he figured he had about forty gallons in it and then he walked inside the shop and cut the faucet off. He took the hose from the barrel and coiled it back neatly and hung it on the rod where it had been.
Standing in front of the big panes of glass he waved to his son, and Puppy came on out and they got back in the truck.
“Wait a minute,” Virgil said. He got out and went back and put the lid on the barrel, clamped the band around it so the water wouldn’t spill. Then he got back in. Puppy pulled out to the edge of the concrete apron and then swung out into light traffic. Trucks and cars were parked against the curbs and some workmen were putting a new sign up on a little grocery store where produce sat on the sidewalk, striped watermelons and bushels of tomatoes.
“Damn it’s hot,” Puppy said.
Virgil wiped at the sweat on his forehead and hung his elbow out the window.
“Where y’all working at today?”
“Over there on Bell River Road. We had to put in some culverts so we can blacktop that road. We gonna blacktop yours next.”
“It’s about time. How long’s that gonna take?”
“We’ll be through by September we hope. Then we’ll start on em again next spring. Looks like he wants to blacktop the whole damn county before election time rolls around.”
Virgil rubbed at some grease on his hands. “How’s he to work for?”
“Aw, he’s all right if you don’t ask him too many questions. He gets upset if you ask him a bunch of questions.”
Puppy pulled up at a stop sign and waited for a woman pushing a baby buggy to come across. “You seen anything out of Glen?” he said.
“Not since Sunday. He slept at my house Saturday night. I got up and made us some coffee. Tried to talk to him for a while.”
Puppy turned his face a little. The woman and the baby got across to the sidewalk and he pulled out into the square.
“How come him to spend the night with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothin. I figured he’d stay with her. Didn’t he go see her?”
Virgil looked out the window at the shops and the stores. “Yeah. He went to see her.”
They drove around the square where shiny automobiles were parked in rows alongside shabby junkers. A concrete truck was parked on one corner and men in black knee boots were finishing forms for new sidewalks.
The parts store was just on down the street and Puppy started looking for a place to park. He stopped in front of a furniture store and backed into a space there and shut off the truck. They got out and went down the sidewalk together, Puppy hitching at his pants with both hands. They turned in at the double glass doors and a little bell rang when they pushed through them. Sporty steering wheels were hung on the walls, brake shoes and packets of spark plugs and tools of every sort all shiny and chromed. People were sitting on stools at the counter and men with pen clips in their pockets were moving slowly behind the counter filling orders. Puppy and Virgil stood there for a moment.
“Damn they’re busy today,” Puppy said. “Let’s grab us a stool and set down.”
They found a pair and sat down and put their feet up on the rungs.
“Be with y’all in a minute,” a man said.
“We ain’t in no hurry,” Puppy said. “Y’all got it good and cool in here.”
He got out a smoke and lit it, then swiveled around on the stool to face Virgil.
“I can’t get over him spending the night with you. It just ain’t like him. Maybe he’s gonna settle down now that he’s home.”
“I doubt it. I took a ride with Bobby other night.”
“Bobby? What for?”
“He wanted to talk about Glen. Did you know somebody killed Frankie Barlow?”
Puppy’s eyes shifted away from Virgil until they were looking down at the floor. He glanced back up. “I heard about it.”
“You know anything about it?”
Puppy let out a big sigh. “I took him over there Saturday afternoon before we come to see you. But Barlow wasn’t there. We met him on the road heading back. I don’t know nothin else about it. And don’t want to.”
Virgil sat there for a moment, thinking things over.
“Did you tell him about Bobby and Jewel?”
“It ain’t my place to tell him. Besides. I don’t want him pissed off at me.”
“Why in the hell should he care? He ain’t gonna marry her anyway. I knew that before he ever come home.”
“Well,” Puppy said. “You know how he is about Bobby. He can’t stand the ground he walks on. All it’s gonna be is just more trouble.”
They sat there quietly for a while. Virgil looked at his fingernails.
“When you gonna fix my car?” he said.
“I’m gonna get around to it.”
“You’ve had it two months.”
“I know it.”
“I get tired of walkin.”
“I know it.”
Somebody finally came down and waited on them. They ordered their parts and waited a few minutes and the man came back out and placed a big gray box on the counter. Puppy opened it and pulled out the carburetor and turned it over in his hands.
“That looks like her,” he said, and put it back in the box. He scratched the back of his neck and leaned his elbow on the counter. The man made a note on a piece of paper and left again.
“There ain’t no need in worrying about him, Daddy. It ain’t gonna do no good.”
“I can’t help but worry about him,” Virgil said. “I always knew he was gonna wind up in the goddamn penitentiary.”
They waited some more and smoked another cigarette apiece and then the man came out with a small green box and set it down. “Look at it and see if that’s it,” he said.
Virgil slid the bottom of the box from under its lid and picked up the contact switch. He opened and closed it, looked at the shiny new points.
“That’s it,” he said.
“Good. That’s the last one we got.”
Puppy signed a ticket on the county for his part and Virgil paid for his. They picked up their stuff and Puppy crammed the flimsy copy of the ticket in his pocket as they went out the door.
“I’ll run you back over to the house and then I need to get on back to work,” he said. “I’ll come by this evening and see if you got it runnin.”
“I’m gonna need that water to prime it. Can you stick around long enough for me to put it on?”
Before he could answer, Ed Hall stepped from the cleaners with some shirts and dresses in a plastic bag and he was concentrating so intently on a little piece of paper in his hand that he bumped into them. Virgil stopped.
“Excuse me,” Puppy said, and started around him.
Ed looked up to see them suddenly and his face turned red. “You ought to watch where you going,” he said.
Puppy stopped and turned around. He hadn’t heard him plain evidently. Virgil took a few more steps and got up beside him.
“What?” Puppy said.
Ed Hall was standing there with his clothes in his little plastic bag. Small and enraged. It was very hot there on the sidewalk. Cars were going up and down the street beside them.
Ed Hall looked at Virgil and jerked his head toward Puppy. “Is he yours too?” he said. “Or do you even know
?”
Virgil started walking toward Ed Hall but Puppy stepped in front of him.
“What’d you say?” said Puppy.
Virgil caught Puppy by the arm but he snatched it away. He walked up to Ed Hall and stood very close to him. “You little sawed-off motherfucker you better shut your mouth.”
“Wait a minute, now,” Virgil said, and tried to get between them, but there wasn’t any room between them by then. Puppy didn’t even look at him.
“Stay out of this, Daddy.” He stepped a little closer to Ed Hall. “You want me to slap the shit out of you?”
Puppy still had the carburetor in one hand and he was poking Ed Hall in the chest with a greasy finger, little dark spots appearing on Ed’s white shirtfront as his face got redder and redder.
“You people ain’t nothing but trash,” Ed Hall said.
Puppy bent over to set the carburetor on the sidewalk. “I’ll show you some trash,” he said.
Ed Hall dropped his dry cleaning on the sidewalk and drew back and kicked Puppy in the side of the head. Puppy landed on the concrete on his hands and knees and his cap came off. Virgil bent over to help him but Ed Hall kicked Puppy again.
“You little asshole,” Virgil said. He swung wild and Ed Hall leaped out of the way and jumped back and tattooed Virgil on his right ear. It felt like a boxcar had slammed into his head. He fell up against a pickup. People were starting to come to their windows to watch. Ed Hall was dancing around, his fists up.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll whip both of you right here.”
