“That car’s a death trap, you ask me,” Levona said. “What kinda car you got?”
“Uh, Camaro,” Skeeter replied without a hint of enthusiasm.
“Camaro!” Levona exclaimed as if he had just told her he drove the USS Enterprise. “My uncle’s got one a them. See, I knew we had somethin in common.” She inched a little closer to Skeeter. “Is yours one a the ones with the stripe on the side?”
“Uh, no. Mine ain’t got no stripe.”
“My uncle, he’s got the one with the stripe.”
Petunia and Tilroy were oblivious to the patter as she took his hand in hers and moved even closer to him, until their legs were touching. Tilroy’s mouth was hanging low and his arm was shaking, as if he was holding hands with the ghost of Rebah Deal.
“When’d you get that truck, Tilroy?”
“Month ago. My uncle got a new one an gave my daddy his.”
“That’s cool. Y’all gonna trick it?”
Tilroy relaxed a bit and nodded. “It’s gonna be the shit when we’re done.”
They fell into another silence until Levona said, “Okay, now we all gotta give the Tellin Cave a secret.”
“You don’t believe that old fairy tale, do you?” Skeeter said. He was clearly resentful of his blanket partner and in no mood for jocularity. “I thought y’all was jus jokin in the truck.”
“Ain’t no fairy tale,” Levona said. “We all gotta tell else who knows what’s gonna happen.”
Tilroy, whose confidence had been building with the new truck talk, said, “Y’all know my secret, so I ain’t gotta tell nuthin to no cave.” He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back on the blanket. He figured bravado in the face of the fifty-year curse would surely get around town.
Levona turned to him, pleading now. “You gotta tell—I tole you in the car. This ain’t no time to be foolin with it. Not on no Rebah Deal night.”
Tilroy turned to Petunia. “You go first.”
She sat straight up on the blanket, perfect posture just like Mr. Paul had taught her.
“Okay, you know I live next door to the Bluelys. Well, me an him did it in the shed behind his house.”
Skeeter looked over at her with a mixture of disgust and amusement. “That’s fucked-up, girl. The Bluely boy’s only twelve.”
“Not the boy, you fool. Me an his daddy. Right there in his toolshed while his wife was cookin dinner—that’s my secret.”
“Did she catch you?” Tilroy asked.
“Mrs. Bluely? Naw, but I started howlin real loud, an Mr. Bluely, he tries to put his hand over my mouth, so I bit him, then he starts howlin, but he surely dint stop or nuthin. I can’t believe she dint hear nuthin, but she dint.” She paused and looked from Skeeter’s open mouth to Levona’s smirk to Tilroy’s quivering lips and was satisfied her revelation had produced the desired effect. “Your turn, Tilroy.”
He gathered back most of his earlier bravado along with a smug smile. “Tole you, I ain’t tellin. Y’all already know what I done.”
“What’s it feel like, then?” Petunia asked and lay down next to him. “You know, killin someone.”
Tilroy sniffed and closed one eye, as if paging through his many killing episodes the way folks flipped a jukebox menu. And amid the posturing he stumbled onto a simple truth that he had been puzzling over since that night. He finally understood what he was feeling inside and spoke of it softly, reverently. “It’s like you own the universe.”
Skeeter was looking over at his friend with a mixture of awe and jealousy. He was getting tired of the way everybody was treating Tilroy now, like he was some badass heavy metal rock star, but he also enjoyed the reflected glory, even from the likes of Levona Stiles. Levona reached for another beer.
“I got me a secret,” Skeeter said. “Got me a good one.” He went from face to face to ensure he had the group’s full attention. Petunia looked bored and Tilroy was off somewhere in his own universe, reveling in his sudden understanding of homicide.
“Go on, tell, Skeeter. Is that your real name? I bet it’s a nickname,” Levona said.
Petunia leaned over to Tilroy and said, “Let’s go over there for some peace.” She stood and began to pull him up.
“Uh, yeah, it’s a nickname.”
“What’s your real name then?”
“Lawrence.”
“Lawrence Bight. That ain’t a bad name. Why they all call you Skeeter?”
“My momma started it on acounta me bein a small baby.”
“What’s that mean? Skeeter?”
“Mosquito, I guess.”
Levona paused to think things through, then burst out laughing. “I get it—Skeeter Bight.” She laughed some more until she saw that Skeeter was stone-faced. She choked her cackle into a cough and inched even closer to him to show she didn’t think it was a very funny name either, secretly pleased with her ability to puzzle out the shades of nickname giving.
Petunia ignored her and pulled on Tilroy again. This time he got up. He reached in the bag for two more beers and followed her over toward our hiding place in the crag hole.
“What bout my secret?” Skeeter complained. “I ain’t tole yet.”
“I know all your secrets, Skeeter Bight,” Petunia dismissed as she laid out the blanket on a filthy old mattress ten feet in front of us. Buzzy and I took a step back into the darkness.
“I gotta tell my secret, y’all know that,” Skeeter complained.
“So tell your damn secret, then,” Petunia said. She and Tilroy were sitting on the mattress now, leaning against the cave wall. She was so close I could smell her perfume and watched, entranced, as the flame from the fire danced over the contours of her body.
“How long you an Cleo Fink been friends?”
“Me an Cleo been best friends since kids. I played on his hundert-pound team. Blocked for him.”
Petunia was even more impressed. Not only was she about to rut with a man killer, but a man killer who hung out with the cool seniors. Kendra and them were gonna completely freak. And with Levona as her witness, they couldn’t say a damn thing.
Levona was watching Petunia with one eye and keeping up nervous conversation with Skeeter. “So you gonna tell?” she asked.
“All right but you gotta swear you ain’t tellin nobody. Got that?”
“I ain’t tellin.”
Skeeter seemed satisfied. “You know when someone stole my momma’s car last year?”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
“Well, it warn’t stole. Me an Til wrecked it an made like it got stole. It’s in a ditch over to Big Spoon all covered up.”
Levona’s face squinted up. “What kind a secret is that?”
“That’s my secret.”
“That ain’t no proper secret.”
“Is too. You dint know it, did you?”
“It’s gotta be bout sex. Like the first time you done it or somethin like that.”
“No, it don’t.”
While Levona and Skeeter argued, Petunia leaned over and kissed Tilroy on the lips. He kissed her back, awkward and hard, like he was trying to strip her lipstick with mouth suction.
“Take it easy,” she said and shoved him backward. She leaned forward and kissed him softly. I looked over at Buzzy, whose eyes were cue balls.
“Ain’t that right, Petunia?” Levona called over to seek support for her argument with Skeeter.
“Hmmm,” Petunia answered onto Tilroy’s slavering tongue.
“Skeeter’s secret’s gotta be bout sex, don’t it?”
“Hmmmmmmm.”
“Right. Petunia… Petunia!”
“What, girl?” Petunia shouted back.
“Skeeter’s secret gotta be bout sex, don’t it?”
“Right, now will you shut up for once?” she said and went back to Tilroy’s quivering, drizzled lips.
“Tole you,” she said and laid a hand on Skeeter’s leg. Being right seemed to put her in a lascivious mood.
Buzzy and I were foc
used on the wondrous show on the mattress in front of us—Petunia Wickle and Tilroy Budget locked in a furious embrace. She pushed him back on the mattress and straddled him, pinning his arms above his head.
“You’re crazy, girl,” he said, losing whatever stickle of confidence was left in him.
“You don’t even know,” she said and ran her hand through her hair, raised her arms toward the ceiling to stretch, then pulled her T-shirt over her head, revealing a bright white bra one size too small. The edges of the bra were frayed; a safety pin connected a broken strap to the bra body.
Despite its age, the whiteness of Petunia’s bra made it look like she was wearing two full moons. She reached behind herself with one hand. The bursting bra came loose and she slowly pulled it away. Her grapefruit breasts jiggled at their newfound freedom. I couldn’t tell who was happier: Petunia’s breasts or me.
She leaned down to kiss him again, detoured to his neck, and slowly made her way over his big belly. I looked at Buzzy, who gave me two thumbs up. Tilroy’s face was shut tight, like he was about to undergo a painful medical procedure.
Petunia was at his crotch now. She unloosened his belt buckle, unzipped his pants, and slid them down. Tilroy was wearing white brief underwear pulled high to his navel and tight across his belly.
“You ain’t even hard yet, Tilroy,” Petunia said, looking up in frustration.
“You gotta touch it some,” he replied, voice coming out as a guttural panic.
She pulled his underwear down and her face disappeared in his crotch, hidden by her long black hair, which draped across his belly. We could see her head bobbing up and down ever so slightly. On the other side of the cave Levona and Skeeter were entwined on the blanket, perilously close to the fire.
After a minute or so, Petunia looked up from his crotch. “It ain’t…”
Suddenly Levona screamed. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!” The fire, which had died to coals, was flaring now. Once we adjusted to the new light, we realized it wasn’t the fire that was blazing; it was Levona’s hair. It crackled like burning pine needles, and her screams punctured the cave. Skeeter picked up the blanket and whacked Levona’s head to quell the flames. She rolled on the floor screaming, “Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”
Petunia grabbed her top and rushed over as Skeeter finally extinguished the last of Levona’s flames.
“Whud you do to her?” she screamed. Tilroy pulled his underwear back up to his belly button and zipped his pants.
“I dint do nuthin!” Skeeter shouted. “We was jus messin round an she laid back in the fire an her hair starts flamin. I dint do nuthin!”
Levona’s screams had quieted, muffled by the blanket that Petunia had wrapped around her head. Tilroy threw wood on the fire for better light. “Way to go, fuckwad,” he breathed. “I was jus bout to do her.”
“I dint do nuthin!” Skeeter insisted. Petunia knelt to Levona, who was curled in the fetal position on the floor, whimpering in pain. She carefully removed the blanket to inspect her smoldering, nearly hairless head. A wisp of smoke rose from her singed hair as if from a snubbed candle.
“Are you hurt, baby?” Petunia asked.
“Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.”
“We gotta get her to the hospital. Her head’s all red an burned up,” Petunia said to Tilroy.
“You sure bout that?” he replied. “Looks like a bad sunburn to me. Mostly jus the hair what went.”
Petunia stood up and faced him with hands on hips. “We… are… takin… her… to… the… hospital,” she said with increasing emphasis on each word so that the last came out as a scream.
Tilroy and Skeeter grabbed the other blanket and the remaining beer and hustled out of the cave after Petunia and the whimpering Levona.
“It her fault; she laid in the fire,” Skeeter whined to Tilroy at the cave mouth.
“Shut up, fuckwad.”
It was the smell that brought everything back. It didn’t reach me until they had left the cave and Buzzy and I climbed from the crag hole. The smell of burning hair, acrid and sickly sweet, hung in the air on an inversion of smothered memories.
As I stood and considered the fire, the true and absolute horror of that day came streaming back in a single razor-wire vision. I knew that if I closed my eyes, the sequence of it, like the film loop of a bad dream, would start again.
Buzzy added more wood and we laid out our sleeping bags again. I was dark and silent and brought my knees to my chest, continued to stare into the flames.
“You know, you ain’t tole the cave nuthin,” he whispered. “You should do that now, fore we forget.”
“I don’t want to tell the cave anything. I don’t even want to sleep here tonight. That smell is gonna make me puke.”
“We can go sleep up the tree house then.”
“I’d rather just go home. I don’t want to be a wimp, but I really think I’m going to puke.”
“But you seen what happens when you don’t tell. Just tell a little an we’ll go.”
I shifted on my sleeping bag and gathered up the rememberings. I had kept the truth hidden for so long that the lies were rooted in me like weeds. “My brother wasn’t hit by a car like I told you,” I said.
“My momma said she heard that,” he admitted and looked down into his hands. “Why ain’t you tole the truth?” The fire popped and issued an arching cinder that landed near my foot. It glowed for a moment, then went dark.
“Because the truth is what’s making my mom crazy. I guess my dad thinks if we all lie long enough, the lie will eventually become the truth.”
“You don’t gotta tell if you don’t want to. Let’s jus forget the Tellin Cave an go home.”
But the memory had already shifted forward, and there was no possible way of sending it back. Like water overtopping a dam, it had to alight somewhere. I shook the ghosts out of my head and began.
Chapter 22
THE TELLING
Every Saturday back in Redhill I used to cut the grass. That was my chore, every Saturday.” My voice cracked as the sequence of images aligned in their proper order. “I cut the grass.” I paused and shifted my legs in the ash. “We had this brand-new riding mower. Used to take me only about twenty minutes to cut it all. I had band practice that day and I was late, but my father said I had to cut the grass before I left.
“I told him I would do it when I got back, but he made me do it then, even though he knew I’d be late for my practice. I could have easily cut it when I got back, but he made me—easily could have cut it after band.” I brought my knees up and put my jaw in the space between them. “So I backed the mower out of the garage, filled up the gas tank, and started cutting. Usually when I do it I put the blade on medium and go slow so it cuts everything nice and even. But I was pissed, so I put it on high and floored it. I shouldn’t have done it, but I was gonna miss my band practice. I could’ve cut the grass when I got back, you know. Could have cut it easy.” I was suffused with a bitterness and regret that seemed to be corroding me from the inside out. The fire had died a bit, and Buzzy was stirring the coals with a stick. I watched how they danced and pulsed at the attention.
“My mom came out with Josh to weed the garden and plant some stuff. Josh was three then and was into everything. I mean everything. One time Mom even found him curled up asleep in the dryer. He was into absolutely everything. And he was fast, too. Man, you had to watch him or he’d be gone like a shot,” I said and paused, remembering how Josh used to race across the lawn toward the street and how my mother finally had to get one of those kiddie harnesses with an extra-long leash to keep him in her sights.
“Anyway, I cut the backyard first. It was all uneven but I didn’t even care, I was so late for practice by then. I cut the side yard, then came around the corner to the front faster than I should have, and Josh was digging in the front flower beds with my mom and he just ran out in front of the tractor. Just ran right in front of it. I slammed on the brakes and swerved and just
missed him. I mean, I just missed him. Mom didn’t see any of it, but I was shaking from it all and Josh was just laughing like he was at the circus or something.
“So I get off the tractor and take him over to Mom and tell her that I almost ran over him and I was late for band and that she should keep him off the grass until I was done. I swear I could have killed him if he’d got caught under those blades. I mean, it was that close.”
I looked over at Buzzy, who was staring at a spot in the coals.
“It was good you put them brakes on when you did.”
“Mom told me she had to finish the weeding, so she got out Josh’s harness and put him in it and tied the leash to the bumper of my dad’s car, since it was the only thing in the yard to tie him to. She got him his red dump truck to play with and went back to her weeding. And Josh was happy just playing with his truck on the driveway; he probably didn’t even know he was tied to the bumper. I started cutting the grass again, only I put the blades on medium and cut it slow like I should. I went back and forth across the front yard, and Josh was playing with his truck in the driveway. You know those tractors, they’re so loud when you’re on them it’s like everything else in the world is silent. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I seen em.”
“Well I was going back and forth across the front, being really careful this time, and Josh was playing with his red truck, like I said. He was being a good kid like he’s supposed to be. Just playing with his truck like a little boy. I cut one way and turned and started cutting the other way, going toward him, and saw that he was standing up now, just standing up holding his truck over his head and watching me. Just standing there holding up the truck. Only as I got closer I could see that it wasn’t the truck he was holding; it was the old red gas can I’d left out on the driveway—I’d forgotten to put it back in the garage. He was just standing there looking at me and holding up that red gas can. He must have thought it was water, because he turns it upside down and the gas pours out all over him. He must have thought it was water the way he looked at me… questioning, sort of. Then he starts crying… I guess it must have stung his eyes or something. He was soaked from the gas, just standing there holding the gas can up over his head and crying.”
The Secret Wisdom of the Earth Page 20
