Visits from the Drowned Girl

by Steven Sherrill

  “Who?” Benny had hoped the conversation about Roger was over.

  “Roger.”

  “Oh. Yeah? What’s he teach?” Benny asked, assuming from the look of the guy, phys ed. ROTC, maybe.

  “Andy Griffith,” Rebecca said, and nothing else.

  “What?”

  “Andy Griffith. He teaches a course about the Andy Griffith Show. Sociology, I think. Something about values and ethics.”

  “Oh,” Benny said, truly not knowing how else to respond.

  “So,” Rebecca said after coming to terms with Roger’s departure. “You were about to tell me why you lied.”

  “My family used to work here,” he said. “When Claxton Mills was making the best towels in the country.”

  The lies came easy, and seemed too plausible for Rebecca to doubt. Benny took her silence to heart. He hadn’t planned the story, but knew true versions of it well enough that, once he got started, filling in the details was effortless.

  “My grandpa was a doffer,” Benny said. “Second shift. I used to come with my mom and grandma to bring him supper. We’d come to the back gate at seven o’clock, with tomato biscuits and sometimes a bowl of beans, sometimes salmon patties.”

  Benny paused. Rebecca mindlessly arranged and rearranged the pictures on her desk.

  “He died a while ago.”

  Benny let this pause hang. Before long, Rebecca Hinkey filled the silence.

  “My daddy worked here, too. Before he became a preacher; then he preached in the mill church.”

  “I bet they knew each other,” Benny said.

  “Yeah,” she said, weighing the complex ramifications of this, and how it impacted what she would say or do next. “They prob’ly did.”

  “But…” she said. “Why did you lie on the application?”

  “I drive by here all the time,” he said. “On the way to work.”

  “Which is?” she interrupted, doubt once again flashing across her face. It was a look he’d seen before, on her sister’s face in one of the tapes.

  “I do cook. That part is true. On the weekends I cook at a fishcamp north of town. Nub & Honey’s.”

  “I’ve been there,” she said.

  Not when I was working. I’d remember.

  “Through the week, I do tower work, painting and changing bulbs and stuff. Anyway, I’ve always thought it’d be cool to live here, in the place where the old man spent so much of his life. So, the other day, I just stopped in. I hadn’t planned it or anything, but once I got inside, and sa—and met you, I couldn’t turn back. Then, I found out how much it costs, and … well, I was too embarrassed to leave.”

  Rebecca swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. Benny explained that, by way of making amends, he’d brought the things necessary to cure her sick fish. She eyed the hospital tank, the chemicals, and the long net—they both understood that she’d never be able to reach in and catch the sick fish from the deep tank, not even with her stepladder—and she agreed, almost eagerly.

  Benny talked as he worked, tried hard to make her relax.

  “Have you been here a while?” he asked.

  “Almost a year,” Rebecca answered. “I got a degree in hospitality management from Piedmont. This was the first job I applied for.”

  “Congrats.”

  Benny stood at the top of the ladder. With his sleeve rolled up, net in hand, he chased the diseased fish around the tank, his arm going in almost to the shoulder; the crescent-moon scar on his biceps grinning wetly each time it surfaced.

  Rebecca relaxed. She talked to Benny about her job, about living there at the old mill.

  “So,” she said, almost grinning. “Who the hell is Gene Whoey?”

  “What?” Benny had forgotten the reference names he’d given on the application.

  “There is no Gene Whoey.”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” Benny said. “That’s what I named my imaginary friend when I was a kid.”

  Rebecca laughed. A genuine, natural, pretty laugh. While Benny was arranging the heater and putting the chemicals in the hospital tank, the telephone rang on Rebecca’s desk.

  “Be back in a minute,” she said.

  Benny positioned himself so that he could hear the conversation without looking as if he were trying to.

  “Claxton Looms Luxury Apartments. This is Rebec—Oh, hi, Mom.”

  Benny wished he could watch her with the phone.

  “No. No. Not yet. She hasn’t called or anything?”

  Benny knew right away the context of the call. The mother’s, Hazel’s, concern was palpable even filtered through Rebecca.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she … I know, but … I know. Okay. Yeah, me, too.”

  Rebecca hung up the phone. When she finally got up from the desk, she had lost any trace of exuberance or interest in either Benny or the sick fish. Benny, not wanting to press his luck, told her he’d be back tomorrow to check on the tang.

  “Bye,” he said.

  Rebecca gave a half-wave as the door closed.

  Some people would find it easy to dismiss Benny’s actions, his secrecy, as cruel. At the very least, selfish and thoughtless. He wouldn’t argue the accusations, but he truly couldn’t see, not yet, anyway, the kindness or compassion in delivering his version of the truth. Rebecca didn’t know her sister was dead. Neither did Hazel or the deacon. They may, at some point. Then, again … Benny Poteat couldn’t tell you anything wise or insightful about the nature and purpose of secrets. Nor could he define the sweet qualities of secrecy that compelled him to cling so to his own secret. Nevertheless, as time stacked its incremental log pile between the drown­ing and the present moment, Benny grew more and more sure of his lessening desire to come clean.

  Squat’s nails needed trimming. Had for weeks; the poor old dog clicked his way across the linoleum to sit at Benny’s feet.

  “Good dog,” Benny said, taking a forepaw into his hands. The nails were thick and black through and through, making it nearly impossible to know how deep to cut before reaching the quick. Out of eight nails, ten counting the dewclaws, Benny only made three bleed, though. And Squat didn’t protest those.

  Benny watched the clock. He ate dinner. He cleaned up a little. He watched the clock some more. The certainty of the drowned girl’s identity gnawed away at his normally high sense of caution. Urgency grew, with viral-like fervor. By dark, Benny could stand it no longer. He didn’t care if Doodle overheard. He moved his rocking chair and television into place, pulled the milk crate from under the bed, and retrieved the third tape. The one called “Prophets.”

  Doodle started her bathwater; Benny heard it through the wall. He got a beer from the refrigerator and, with his socked foot, wiped a thin blood trail from the floor. Then he sat and pushed Play.

  July 9, 1998 • • • Rec

  7:00 A.M.

  “Prophets.”

  There is a title board. Some clumsy attempts at stylization: light coming up slowly to reveal each letter of the title, then cut to black.

  P r o p

  Doodle cursed, loud enough for Benny to hear her, then turned off the water. Benny stopped the tape, muted the television, and waited. He heard a closet door open and close, then several cabinets. She must’ve found what she was looking for because the noises stopped. After a few minutes, Benny started the tape again.

  p h e t s

  Daylight. Bright. So bright that, outside the context of camera and film, it would be painful. The scene is washed of color. A park, maybe. A picnic table in the distance. Someone sitting there.

  The knock on the door startled Benny. He fumbled with the remote, dropped it. In his haste to pick it up, the little black miracle worker got kicked under the chair.

  “Shit!” Benny said. �
��Just a minute.”

  “Benny” Doodle said. “It’s me.”

  In the half-light of the room, he found the button on the television that turned the screen blue.

  Doodle stood at the door, barefoot, wearing an extra-large Bisons’ T-shirt—the local double-A baseball team—and probably nothing else. When Benny opened the door, she tried to stick her head inside.

  “Hey, Doodle,” Benny said, stepping in front of her. “Whatcha need?”

  “You, sweetie,” she said, less playfully than usual. “What’re you doing in there?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly, trying to maneuver his body to block her view. “What do you need me to do?”

  “You watching dirty movies, Benny Poteat?”

  “No, Doodle. Do you really need something, or are you just trying to bug me?”

  “I’m sort of embarrassed to tell you.”

  “What in God’s name could you do or say in front of me that you haven’t done before?”

  “You don’t have to be mean,” she said, genuinely hurt.

  “I’m sorry, Doodle. I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

  Benny followed Doodle into her side of the duplex. Squat hobbled along behind. Benny liked the moonlight on the skin of Doodle’s legs, but couldn’t bring himself to tell her.

  “Promise you won’t be disgusted?” she asked, as they stood in the doorway to her bathroom.

  “Sure,” Benny said, and meant it. “We all shit, Doodle. I’ll still love you in the morning.”

  “It’s not that,” Doodle said. “My cross. My necklace fell in the toilet.”

  “That’s it? That’s what you’re embarrassed about?”

  “Yeah, well … it sank way down. You can’t even see it.”

  “No big deal,” Benny said. “We’ll just get it out.”

  Benny followed her into the bathroom, a reversed image of his own architecturally. A shallow tub beneath a window, whose glass was as obscured by hard-water deposits as by the waves molded into it, filled the back wall. Crammed into the remaining space along the wall, the one they shared, a sink in a cheap pressboard-and-laminate cabinet, the rectangular medicine chest/mirror hanging over it—its door sprung so that it never quite closed—and a plain white toilet, lid down. Doodle found room for a wicker corner shelf, full of salves, unguents, lotions, and soaps, and further defined the bathroom as hers by the accents: a clear shower curtain with large vibrant fishes and ocean plant life swimming its surface, a waste can made from a hand-painted pickle bucket, stacks of colorful towels and washcloths, and several bras and panties hanging, at eye level, to dry.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” Benny said, blowing at the hanger of underwear closest to him. Which caused them all to sway.

  “Smartass,” Doodle said, backhanding him on the rump.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Doodle asked when he returned.

  Benny held in both hands a flexible metal tube, three feet long, a quarter-inch in diameter. At one end, something akin to a syringe: two arched braces for the fingers and a loop of rigid plastic at the top of the plunger for the thumb. From the other end emerged three angled claws that came to a pinch point. When the plunger was depressed, the claws reached open; when it was extracted, they pulled to a close.

  “I call it a nut-grabber,” he said. “Don’t know if it has another name.”

  After several attempts, with some maneuvering and delicate tugging, Benny actually pulled the cross from the toilet, its dripping chain wound around the grabber’s claws.

  “Thanks,” Doodle said, following Benny to the door.

  “You know,” she said. “If you asked nice, I’d watch one of those dirty movies with you.”

  “Goodnight, Doodle.”

  By the time Benny got back to his side of the duplex, the thought of starting the tape again seemed daunting. He shoved the milk crate back in its hiding place, moved the rocker and ottoman, disconnected the VCR, and sat it on the kitchen table. What he didn’t do was eject the tape named “Prophets.”

  Chapter 12

  On the way to Jeeter’s the next morning, Benny reached over to the passenger seat and tucked the dangling cords beneath the rented VCR. Although Buffalo Video was in the opposite direction from Jeeter’s, Benny wanted to return the machine first to avoid the inevitable interrogation.

  He didn’t see the BACK IN 5 MINUTES sign, hand-scrawled on a piece of receipt paper, taped at eye level to the locked door, until he stood in front of it. After seven minutes of standing, the door to the adjacent convenience store swung open to a crisp electronic ding-dong, and the video clerk emerged with a huge bottle of neon-green Sun-Drop clutched in her skinny hand.

  “Thawy,” she said, unlocking the door, not bothering to hold it open for Benny.

  She spoke again when he lifted the VCR onto the counter.

  “I wath sthowing my fwiendth my new thounge wring,” she said, then produced said tongue for Benny. The gold ball glinted in the dead center of her speech organ, pimply flesh swollen and red where the stud penetrated and disappeared. Benny couldn’t tell if she kept her mouth open, tongue shoved between lips, out of pain or pride.

  “Ou wreturning at?”

  “What?” Benny said.

  “Ah ou bwining dith back?” she asked, placing her free hand on the VCR.

  “Yeth,” Benny said, unable to resist the opportunity.

  While the girl processed his credit card, she told him all about getting her tongue pierced the night before. Told him that her boyfriend thought it was “thexy,” but her mom would probably throw her out of the “houth” when she found out. Benny listened, his concentration as impeded by the recent events of his life as her speech was by the previous night’s aesthetic modification in her mouth. What choice did he have?

  “Holy thit,” Benny said, when he saw the total charge for the rental. He’d forgotten the daily fee.

  “Sthe ou yater,” the girl said, following Benny out of Buffalo Video and locking the door behind her.

  Never good at budgeting, anyway, Benny realized he’d have to wait until payday at Nub’s before buying a VCR. Wait three days before he could watch another tape.

  Benny didn’t expect Jeeter to be at home. Expected him, it being a Tuesday, to be out with his ‘dozer, or digging a pond with his backhoe. Benny’s plan was to go into the greenhouse bus, pick out a present for Rebecca—a sort of forgive-me-for-the-lies, I’m-really-an-okay-guy offering—and just leave some money on the table for Jeeter. He’d done that kind of thing before; Jeeter wouldn’t mind. But Benny smelled the evidence of Jeeter’s presence as soon as he stepped out of the van. Hops. And boiling malted grain. The ever-industrious Jeeter was making home­brew, a thing he did every couple of months. Benny walked into the trailer without knocking.

  “Hey brewmeister,” Benny said. “Whatcha making?” Jeeter, at the stove, with one hand, stirred the ingredients, called “wort,” in a large stainless-steel pot; the other hand holding the recipe book, which he extended to Benny.

  “Goat Scrotum Ale,” Benny read aloud. “Mmm.” The trailer smelled wonderful. Sweet caramel-scented malt, infused with the oily perfume from the hop flowers, filled the air. Benny knew that Jeeter would ask him to help with bottling the beer in a few weeks, after it fermented, then they’d both get to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. “How come you aren’t out milking some Meyer’s Park resident out of his hard-earned cash?”

  “Priorities, my friend,” Jeeter said, dropping a floating thermometer into the wort.

  “Hey,” Benny said. “Can I get something out of your greenhouse?”

  “The door’s open,” Jeeter said. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one of them little trees.”

&nb
sp; “You ain’t got enough sense to take care of a bonsai, Benny.”

  “Fuck you,” Benny said, flipping an unused bottle cap at Jeeter’s head. “It’s not for me.”

  “Oh,” Jeeter said, his eyebrows roller-coastering. “You pitching a little woo?”

  “Can I have a tree, Jeeter?”

  “In the service of friendship and fornication, my world is at your disposal.”

  Jeeter didn’t push the issue, and Benny offered no more information.

  In the old bus-cum-greenhouse, air thick with humidity and the smell of damp earth, Benny sized up his choices. Shunning the more showy plants and flowers, what he held up for final inspection barely filled his palm: a bonsai, a juniper with bright-green needles, being trained in the slanting style, its rough-barked trunk angling out of the small clay pot, limbs spare and reaching downward. The tree stood no more than six inches high, but may have been five years old. Beautiful. Beautiful in spite of, or because of, the strand of thick copper wire wrapped from its base to the tip of its stretched limbs, forcing the tree to hold its hard shape. Pinching back each new bud, each attempt at growth, kept the juniper squat; not allowed to grow up, the tree fattened and strained against the molding wires. Bonsai is an art. Several arts. The art of force. The art of insistence. The art of patience. Who is to judge the by-products of a man’s attempt to define his world? Other men and women? God? What, then, of God’s own lapses? It all confused Benny. He left ten dollars on the table in the greenhouse, and tapped the van’s horn as he backed out of Jeeter’s drive.

  The second time he passed by the old apartment building on the way to Claxton Looms, all the window casings in the front of the building had been removed, and the roof was gone. Completely. Through the gaping square spaces on the top floor, blue sky hung.

  Benny left the bonsai tree in the van when he went back to see Rebecca Hinkey. Wanting to gauge her frame of mind before risking the gift.

  “Hey, Rebecca,” he said. “How are you?”