Visits from the Drowned Girl

by Steven Sherrill

  Thunder. Lightning. Hail. Rain. And wind.

  Lord have mercy, the noise.

  Most things in life seem to be about aftermath. About dealing with con­sequences.

  Shocks trailer park was decimated. All but the empty trailer were ripped from their foundations and tossed helter-skelter up and down the road. Furniture, household items, kitchenware, personal belongings, displaced, became a grand spectacle of incongruity. Pete’s house withstood the storm, but he was killed by a thin stalk of broom straw that flew in the window, pierced his closed eye, and penetrated his brain. The children, the Saults and the Pinches, huddled behind the stone foundation, were, in a moment of temporary grace, spared. Ralph White was killed, but not before being stripped of his overalls and shirt and deposited in the back of his own garbage truck. It became clear, months later, that he must have been still quite alive when Myrtle, naked, wet, and ready, was dropped on top of him, and/or he was thrown into her. Myrtle conceived, but had been rendered a vegetable by the act. Jeeter Plowman was born nine months later, after gestating in the womb of his drooling, catatonic mother. And Mr. Plowman surprised everyone by doting on the boy until he himself died when Jeeter was twelve.

  Havoc does funny things to the mind, and often originates there. Over the years the rumors grew into myths and legends. Sometimes it was hard to differentiate the real from the misremembered. It’s a fact that one of the guineas was blown through the keyhole of Pete Shooks’s front door. And that the rest were unharmed. It’s a fact that JC Crews was left laying on his couch while the mobile home, yanked up and away, made unexpected ad­vances in its claimed mobility. JC slept through the whole thing.

  “What happened?” he asked of DW and AJ when they, pale and shaking but unharmed, shook him awake.

  “Everthang got blowed to hell.”

  Just who made the other claims isn’t clear. But existence carries with it a degree of validity, however specious. It might be truth that a family Bible was slung clear into the other county, through the window of a fishcamp, landing in a deep-fat fryer full of sizzling hush puppies. It’s possible, isn’t it, that a sheaf of hand-scribbled poems from a snuff-dipping old recluse, fluttered into the windows of a train passing miles away, settling in the lap of a high-powered literati who’d proclaim them genius and spend the rest of his life looking for the author. Or, a favorite, that a tart green apple could be ripped from the branch of the gnarled tree at the head of Shooks’s drive and hurled three quarters of a mile away straight up the ass of a preacher, ruminating over a successful sermon and bending over to wipe a smudge from his boot.

  Is there harm in believing these things?

  People choose what they want to believe. The choice based often on what provides the strongest sense of security. Erroneous. I know this, therefore it cannot hurt me. I know this, therefore it will protect me. Benny believed it all. He’d heard the stories for years. It wasn’t a conscious choice, though. He’d arrived at gullibility by default. They never found the bodies of Maynard and Mayree Poteat. Benny, although he wouldn’t eagerly claim to be a Christian, believed they were taken up to Heaven. Capital H. And that grace had deposited him, peach crate and all, into the top of one of the sugar maple trees. Impossible as it seemed, Benny was sure he remembered looking up at the sweet expanse of sky, clear and blue not moments after the storm passed. And looking down into the worried faces of Nub and Honey Goodwell, and all the other folks gathered at the scene of the tragedy. It was Nub himself who climbed up into the maple tree and plucked Benny from its branches.

  Sometimes, when Benny drives by where Shocks used to be, he pulls over to look and think. Nothing’s there now except the old foundation. And some nandina bushes. It was a quiet place to think. For making plans. For figuring things out. Like what to do with the backpack full of the drowned girl’s videotapes.

  Several hours had passed since her death; Benny wondered if she was missed by anyone. Without a VCR, he obviously couldn’t watch the tapes. Sometimes, on Thursday nights, he and Jeeter would watch pornos on Jeeter’s VCR. But Benny wasn’t about to take the drowned girl’s tapes over there. Benny wandered aimlessly through his tiny apartment for a long time, chuckling to himself when he remembered the WWJD bracelets the waitress at Big Pig BBQ had on her wrists last week. What Would Jesus Do? Benny asked her if she wore two bracelets so that she could get a second opinion if she didn’t like the first answer. The girl didn’t think it was funny. Benny knelt by the foot of his bed to pull one of the makeshift laundry baskets from beneath it.

  Nub or Honey Goodwell would know the decent thing to do. Nub would probably tell him to go straight to the police. Honey, she was always praying about something. And it seemed to work. Benny left the milk crate beneath the bed, but he didn’t stand. He’d never, not in almost thirty years, prayed on his knees. He had seen a few pictures, though. What the hell? Benny assumed the position he thought most conducive, on his knees, feet aligned, hands palm to palm in front of his heart, and bowed his head. Nothing happened. No special feeling simply from kneeling.

  “Dear G…”

  Benny stopped when he realized he’d spoken aloud. What if Doodle heard him? When a car passed on the next block, it occurred to Benny that his windows were open and the lights were on. Anybody looking could see him there on his knees. The smell of sour laundry filled his nose. Squat snorted, huffed at the screen door to go out and pee for the last time of the night. Benny’s face burned with shame. His ears stung. He took the dog out. He went to bed. Fits and starts. Fits and starts. Benny slept in fits and starts.

  Chapter 6

  Time passed. Which is only to say that the Eiffel Tower clock on Benny’s kitchen wall kept at its mannered dervishing for nearly a week. His mind hung in a snag five days old. For the past few nights Benny had dreamt of Jeeter’s big plaster-cast fish, only this time the drowned girl sat perched on its back. Smiling and waving at Benny as they floated overhead, she appeared, sometimes naked, other times in what must’ve been a prom dress. Once, he could swear, she wore a ribbon reading BUENA VISTA PORK PRINCESS.

  Benny’s toe took a turn toward infection. He bought hydrogen peroxide and ointments. Distracted, he worked high above the earth. Looked down as little as possible.

  It was almost inconceivable that the videotapes, the camera, and all the drowned girl’s other possessions remained hidden in his van the whole time. Remained locked away through no sense of resolve or iron will on Benny’s part. And forgetfulness was out of the question. Not a day, not an hour went by, during that first week after she killed herself, that Benny didn’t watch it happen in his mind. Her decisive exit. Her possessions stayed hidden because he simply could not bring himself to touch them again. Transmutation. Transmogrification. Transubstantiation. Benny hoped that if he left the tapes alone long enough things would change into some­thing, anything, more palpable.

  He’d decided against asking Honey for advice. Or Doodle. Or Jeeter. And certainly not Little Dink. He just needed to think for a while. The girl was dead, for godsakes. Drowned. No amount of urgency on Benny’s part could resuscitate her. For a few days, he read the Buffalo Shoals Observer, but saw nothing about either a missing girl or a discovered body. As time passed, the tapes, the backpack, the clothing did seem to change; they took on a corpse-in-the-basement quality. As if the very stench of secrecy, emanating from his van, would incriminate Benny. For what crime? Inertia? Cowardice? Benny himself could not explain the hem and haw of his heart. Why hadn’t Benny watched the tapes already? Certainly not through self-control. The tapes he took out of the van on Thursday night. Late. He’d helped Doodle move her fish tank to the opposite wall, where it would get less natural sunlight and therefore less algae. Distracted all the while, Benny couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. He pulled away when she tried to give him a goodnight kiss on the cheek, which she often did and he occasionally allowed. Through the walls he listened to h
er get ready for bed, then, finally, quiet. Benny gave Squat a can of dog food to keep him engaged, then crept out to the van with a milk crate full of dirty clothes. Benny brought the dead girl’s stuff into his apartment covered in a beach towel bearing the faded image of several NASCAR heroes and smelling of mildew. Unable to bring himself to look through the things, Benny shoved them under the bed and waded ankle-deep into sleep, where he thrashed about until the sun came up.

  Because he didn’t want to be watched, even by a dog, Benny chained Squat to a tree beside the back patio. The fifteen feet of chain little more than pretense; all the old dog ever did back there was crawl beneath the one folding lounge chair and go to sleep. Benny closed all the blinds in the house and sat on his bedroom floor. He pulled the laundry crate from beneath the bed, but left its contents covered by the towel. It was Friday. He’d be expected at Nub & Honey’s around two. The morning loomed.

  Step by step. Address the moment at hand. By default, Benny had learned to bumble his way through difficulty. Through loneliness. Through isolation. To look back from any given moment inevitably brought guilt and shame. To peer into the future, as near as the next hour or as far as eternity, meant fear and doubt. It wasn’t an easy thing, nor even always possible, but when push came to shove, way down in the deepest, most conniving hollows and gullies of Benny’s psyche, he was occasionally able to find the present moment and cleave unto it. To remain in the unfolding now, however briefly, brought clarity and insight. Benny peeled back the NASCAR towel.

  Egg Rock Pentecostal. Shinn Presbyterian. Holy Ghost Deliverance Tabernacle. Epworth United Methodist. Rod of God Ministries. Hoop Leaf Baptist Church. Mt. Nebo Chapel. Benny made a list to settle his mind, then lay the inventory from the crate neatly on the floor.

  The tripod, insectlike, with its telescoping legs and wing nuts.

  Her T-shirt, which Benny, without thinking, pressed to his nose, then folded.

  The drowned girl’s underwear. Not the cleanest. Folded, with both embarrassment and a momentary but quickly withering semierection. Her black pants. Same.

  Eight videotapes, dated and titled. He arranged them chronologically without reading the titles.

  The camera itself He remembered the tape in the camera. The tape. With great trepidation, Benny pushed at the Eject button, missing the first time, his fingers fat with culpability. He put the unlabeled tape, in order, with the rest.

  Aside from the two button pins—POTTERS DO IT ON THE WHEEL; HUNG LIKE A HORSE—there was nothing else remarkable about the backpack Benny unzipped each pocket numerous times, hoping for small miracles. The only thing, except for what might be contained on the videotapes, of­fering any semblance of telltale was the business card and its troublesome sense of familiarity:

  Claxton Looms Apartments

  3 Shuttlecock Court

  Rebecca Hinkey, Resident Manager

  Benny ran a finger along the upper edge of the card; then, as if there were some secret to be revealed only through a Braille reading, he brushed his fingertip over the printed surface. Could this be the drowned girl’s name? Her address? Benny hoped not. These details were too real. She didn’t seem like an apartment-complex manager. Not from a long distance, anyway. Just before the telephone rang, Benny realized what bothered him so about the card. That name. Hinkey.

  “Hey, sugar.”

  It was Honey Goodwell. She called everybody “sugar.”

  “Hey, Honey.”

  Benny covered the drowned girl’s stuff with the towel.

  “What time you coming in today?” she asked.

  “Two,” Benny said. “Unless you need me earlier.”

  “Nub says that tub of tartar sauce went bad. Says we’ll need another before we open tonight.”

  “We got enough pickles to make another batch?”

  “Let me ask Nub.”

  Benny heard the muffled repetition of his own question.

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll be there after lunch,” Benny said.

  Almost immediately after hanging up the phone, Benny heard Doodle’s ring through the wall. Honey, no doubt. Benny put the drowned girl’s things back into the laundry basket, covered them, and pushed it under his bed. Benny raised his blinds. A school bus stalled and backfired at the corner stop sign. Its levered maw gaped and a writhing chorus of children scurried buglike up the steps out of sight. Already, the humidity pressed against Benny’s chest. He brought Squat inside, gave him a bowl of water.

  “What am I going to do, Squat?”

  Squat kept his opinions to himself Benny wasted the rest of the morning, then readied for work.

  Clyde, no surprise, was sitting on his front porch across the street when Benny walked out the door. Somewhat surprising was the rain that must’ve come and gone in the night, leaving as its only clue the saturated driver’s seat in Benny’s van; he’d left both the window and the moonroof cracked open. He only noticed the musty smell after his pants had become soaked. The most surprising thing about the morning, by far, was Doodle’s tits. Benny had already cranked the van and opened the windows against the incessant heater. The rainwater had just seeped through Benny’s work pants and briefs, and he was settling into the discomfort when he heard Doodle call out from behind her screen door.

  “Hey, Benny Poteat! I got something to show ya.”

  He looked. She lifted her shirt. An old Nub & Honey’s Fishcamp T-shirt with the image of a fishing rod bent double against the strain of its barbed hook embedded in the lip of a grinning catfish. BEST HUSH PUPPIES IN TOWN. Benny had seen the shirt thousands of times before. All the waitresses wore them. He’d seen Doodle’s breasts, bared and most often divided by a small gold cross on a chain, for various reasons, probably half a dozen times. They always took him by surprise.

  “You better cover them things up, Doodle.”

  With the screen door between them and the soft shadows cast by the morning sun, Benny could just make out the pale elliptical flesh. He couldn’t see Doodle’s face, but he knew she was grinning at him.

  “Can you give me a ride to the store?” she asked, rolling her shoulders to settling the shirt down into place and pushing the screen door open. “My gas tank’s empty and I won’t have any cash until after work.”

  “Not this morning,” he said, searching for an easy lie. “I got to take Dink to the doctor. I can loan you ten bucks, though.”

  Benny reached for his wallet, confident in the slight deception. All he really wanted to do was drive by Claxton Looms on his way to work. Just to look. Doodle would’ve asked too many questions.

  “You sure you got it to spare?” she asked, pinching the folded bill between two fingers and pulling it away.

  “Yup.”

  “You charging me any interest?” Doodle grinned. “I’ll pay.”

  Benny smiled back. He liked her. But she made him nervous.

  “One day, Doodle, when you least expect it…” Benny paused.

  “Yeah?”

  “I might just collect on all them promises you’ve been making.”

  “Lordy, lordy. Talk like that makes my thighs all tingly.”

  “Well I better leave before things get messy.”

  Benny cupped his palm and waved as he drove off As an afterthought, he gave a tap on the horn for Clyde. Claxton Looms and its neighborhood lay in the opposite direction from the fishcamp. Benny had no plan for what he would do once he got there, but he was determined to go. He didn’t know exactly where the apartment complex was, but he knew from the address on the business card it had to be just north of the center of Buffalo Shoals. Given the hoity-toity name “Claxton Looms,” Benny suspected the old mill district had succumbed to moneyed northerners after the Buffalo Shoals economy, clinging to some techno-coattails, made an effort to turn itself around nearly a decade ago. Beyon
d attitude, he didn’t know what he would find, but the deeper he drove into the belly of gentrification, the less confident he became.

  As predicted, in the space of two, maybe three blocks, things changed. In what was once a small hub of textile-mill life and industry—blue-collar shops, chicken-and-rib joints, shitty apartments—Benny witnessed the miracle of transformation. Dollar stores and pawnshops gave way to futon emporiums and specialty boutiques. The free-coupon paper racks were replaced with Creative Loafing racks, the free artsy-fartsy weekly. In the window of what used to be a cheap tire store and garage, Benny saw the irrefutable evidence of a coffeehouse-cum-bookstore. Tiny cramped tables ringed with mismatched chairs. Shelves and shelves and shelves. He saw the sign. RETREADS. The sidewalks were cleaner there, better lit. And everything smelled of ethnic restaurants, no capital E. As a nod to the fringe, to danger, a wide alley, dubbed Grub Street, led to the tattoo and body-piercing salons and a retro pool hall. Benny saw posters advertising an art gallery’s monthly, crawl, but couldn’t read the address. By the time he stopped at the second traffic light, he became acutely aware of how much his van—ugly, loud, and dirty—stood out among the sleek imported sedans parked along the street. Looking in the window of a store called “Vortex,” where a larger-than-life bronzed Buddha sat in full lotus position, his hands in the cosmic mudra, surrounded by geodes, crystals, trickling fountains, and all the other contemporary trappings of the salvation industry, where in the Awakened One’s hammered and polished lap a propped sign read gifts for the discriminating lover, in that window Benny could make out the diffused reflection of himself, the roosting-chicken tattoo on his left forearm he’d long since stopped thinking of as funny, and his vehicle, and he felt ashamed.

  A horn blared from behind, the sense of urgency conveyed through duration. The light had changed while Benny wallowed in self-doubt, and the Audi driver showed no mercy. Flustered, Benny drove right past the entrance to 3 Shuttlecock Court. Claxton Looms Luxury Apartments, however, was impossible to miss. The massive brick edifice, a three-story refurbished textile mill spanning nearly a full block, had been gussied up to enhance both its luxury and industrial qualities. The sign, fashioned from an antique loom and long narrow banners of dungaree and gingham hung, undulating, from every other window, projected just the right tone to passersby. You’d love to live here. Are you good enough to live here? Benny kept driving. Reconnaissance, he thought to himself. He’d gather his feral wits and come back a different day.