Holding Smoke

by Steph Post

  Milo slid his finger over the touchpad for her.

  “Here, scroll down and read the post.”

  Sister Tulah squinted again at the screen as Milo flung himself back against the brightly patterned booth and stared out the window. The text was difficult to read, with constant typos and misspellings, but certain words stood out like pinpricks—“swampland,” “fraud,” “illegal,” “scheme,” “worthless,” “truth,” “justice,” and finally, “preacher.” Tulah kept her face straight, her mouth pursed, and only sniffed until Milo pulled the laptop back to face him. She didn’t say anything until he resumed typing.

  “It reads like the ravings of a disgruntled madman. It’s gibberish.”

  Milo nodded, not looking up.

  “It doesn’t mention you by name, which is a good thing, I guess, but then I got this email from the same account as before just as you were walking in. I only had a chance to glance at it, but here.”

  Milo started to turn the laptop again, but Tulah shook her head adamantly.

  “Just read it and tell me what it says.”

  Milo’s face fell. He fiddled with his glasses, wiping the lenses on his Star Trek T-shirt, checking for scratches. Putting her off. Finally, he jammed his glasses back on his nose and peered at the screen again.

  “All right. So, he takes credit for the Rip-off post you just saw and then he says it’s just the beginning.”

  Milo traced the computer screen with one finger.

  “Okay, then he says he’s had a talk with God and God told him, quote, ‘to remember Matthew 5:10.’ That’s a Bible verse, right?”

  Tulah dropped her hands into her lap and squeezed them tightly together, though she still refused to let any of her frustration show on her face. She was extremely conscious of the roomful of people behind her.

  “Yes. Which does not pertain to this situation.”

  Milo’s eyes darted across the screen.

  “Oh, here it is. Man, I think my mom did this in needlepoint once. She went through a phase where she was making everybody these pillows for Christmas. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs—”

  “Is the kingdom of heaven.”

  Sister Tulah could barely hiss through her grinding, clamped teeth.

  “You do not need to quote Scripture to me.”

  Milo swiped at the touchpad, leaned in closer.

  “There’s some more stuff about talking with God and about not being afraid, being protected, and then, oh shit. There’s a list of all the places he says he’s going to contact if you don’t fold Deer Park now. If you don’t do right by all the people you swindled.”

  Milo’s eyes briefly jumped up to Sister Tulah.

  “His words, not mine. And, whoa, this list is all over the place. ABC, NBC, News4Jax, WUFT, the Bradford Telegraph, the Times Union, hell, The View. It just keeps on going. Fox&Friends, 60 Minutes, the Better Business Bureau, FTC…”

  He continued to scroll.

  “I don’t even know what half of these places are. Talk radio, maybe? More local news channels, oh, The New York Times.”

  “That’s enough.”

  Milo pinched his nose and adjusted his glasses. She could smell the fear wafting across the table, oozing out of his pimple-clogged pores. But he didn’t stop, the email driving him on.

  “Christ, who is this guy? It just goes on and on. Now he’s going into how this will be the one good deed of his life, etcetera, etcetera.”

  “I said, enough.”

  She didn’t want to raise her voice. She didn’t want to slam the top of the computer down on Milo’s twitching fingers, drawing attention. But she would.

  “And then, okay, here’s the end. This is nuts. He says, quote—”

  “You do not need to quote.”

  “—‘Yes, you ruined me once. But you will ruin no more. I have no fear for me or mine, but only faith in God.’ And then this is in all caps, ‘AND YOU ARE NOT GOD.’”

  Milo’s voice slowed, began to shrivel, even as he began to recoil from Sister Tulah, leaning ever closer across the table.

  “And then it’s signed, ‘Yours, in the memory of my wife, August Chesserman.’”

  Milo stared blankly at the screen.

  “Wow. I mean, just, wow. I thought you were…”

  Tulah swallowed as Milo’s thought petered out.

  “I did take care of him. But it seems I did not do enough.”

  Sister Tulah threw her shoulders back.

  “No matter. This email is full of empty threats. This man is full of empty threats.”

  Milo finally looked up at her. She fed off the weakness she saw behind his eyes, took strength from it.

  “I’ve never once made an empty threat. Not once. And I don’t plan to start now. Don’t worry, this will go away. This problem, this man, will be erased. So, this is the last I want to hear of it.”

  She moved to slide out of the booth, but Milo lifted his hand limply, dramatically, and slapped the screen of his computer down.

  “Look, I want out, Tulah.”

  Sister Tulah slowly turned her head back to him, incredulous.

  “Whatever it is between you and this August guy, and Jesus, there’s something, I don’t want any part of it. It’s too deep for me. I got enough Bible-thumping wackos in my family already. I know this God stuff is your thing and all, but it’s getting out of hand. Deer Park was supposed to be a business venture. Just business. And now, I mean, shit.”

  Milo tucked the laptop under his arm. His head was tucked, too. And if he had a tail, it’d be tucked so far he couldn’t walk. Sister Tulah’s disgust almost eclipsed her fury as he continued to whine.

  “Look, I’ll finish up any open deals, but then I’m out. You’re going to have to deal with this mess on your own and I don’t want any part of how you do it. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to walk away.”

  She didn’t necessarily want to cause a scene, but Milo Hill needed to know. He needed to know now. Her arm shot out with a pincer grip on his wrist.

  “You don’t get to walk away.”

  Milo looked down at her hand, blinking, as though he didn’t know where it had come from.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  She released him, but made sure every word reverberated across the table.

  “You. Don’t. Get. To. Walk. Away.”

  Sister Tulah gave him a death’s head grin.

  “No one walks away from me. No one. Do you understand? Or did all that sugar and caffeine scoop a bigger hole out of your brain than was already there? Not you. Not August Chesserman. Not God Himself if I don’t want Him to.”

  Milo scuttled to the edge of the booth and stood up. His hands were shaking as he fumbled in his pockets.

  “You’re serious.”

  “Oh yes.”

  Milo tugged his keys out of his skintight jeans. A turquoise crystal swung from the ring. He backed away.

  “You’re crazy.”

  Tulah leaned forward.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Crazy. All those stories about you are true, aren’t they?”

  Sister Tulah only stared at him, holding him, and yet he was still backing away.

  “Well, you know what?”

  Defying her. Leaving without her permission. Leaving without being dismissed.

  “Whatever.”

  Milo shook his head, eyeing the door. The brass bell on it clanged as a couple bounced in, laughing, holding hands and shaking off the rain. The girl dabbed at the dark purple lipstick smudged around her lip ring. Milo suddenly stood up straight, any spell Tulah could have woven on him broken.

  “Go ahead, threaten me. Maybe that kind of thing worked back in the day, but not anymore. You’re a dinosaur, Tulah. And you know what happened to them. I’m going to miss the money, but I’m damn sure not going to miss your mumbo-jumbo bullshit.”

  Milo pushed throu
gh the door without looking back. He almost ran into a young bearded man with tattoos on his face and a Chihuahua wearing a yellow plastic raincoat yapping in his hairy arms. Tulah turned away, disgusted, as Milo apologized to the man and then crossed the street, disappearing into the remnants of the storm.

  She clasped her hands on the table and stared down at the knot of her fist. Disgusted, but also unsettled by the way Milo had spoken to her, the way he had just stood up and walked away, confident that he could. He had not believed her words. He did not believe in her.

  And yet, beneath her outrage, beneath her fury, and her lurid imaginings of all that she would do to Milo, to make him see the error of his ways, an insidious, creeping affliction began to spread. For all his insolence, all his gross asininity, Milo did have one thing correct. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies. The world, and its people, were changing. And those closest to her were growing unrecognizable. Unmanageable. Slipping through her fingers. Wriggling out of her grasp. Loosening from her bridle. Spinning from her control. Tulah could feel the change happening around her. She could smell it, taste it in the air.

  And such a bane Sister Tulah would not allow.

  16

  Judah stood out in the misting rain, face raised to the shimmering copper glow of a sun setting over the corrugated tin roof of the garage, and tried to set the place into his mind. Cannon Salvage had never belonged to him, not really, not in the way it had been a steady heartbeat for Sherwood or Levi or Benji. Sure, he’d spent his time underneath the lifts, tinkering around, prying parts off cars, throwing back beers at the poker table, swapping tales, but he’d done so always with one foot out the door. He had left town when his brothers had stayed, following Cassie up to Callahan, and then serving his time in prison. Ramey had more of a claim on the garage really—with the summer she’d spent trying to right the books, struggling to scrub them clean in water Judah perpetually dirtied—and for Benji, Cannon Salvage was more of a home than any trailer park he’d ever crashed in. No, for all Judah’s talk about leading the Cannons, on both the high roads and the low, he was nothing more than a stranger in the town’s one building bearing his name.

  He turned in a circle, taking in the cars all around him, some up on blocks, some sinking into the dirt and gravel on flat, puddling tires. Behind Judah, in the far lot, the monoliths of crushed vehicles still teetered, though Judah couldn’t remember the last time he’d walked back through the maze. He vaguely recalled that Ramey had liked to get lost back there, disappearing when she needed a break from Benji’s griping or Lesser’s fawning, but he’d never thought to follow her. With a last sweep, his eyes wandered from the trio of rusty lawn chairs corralled around the tin ash bucket; to the rhapsody of oil slicks, catching the last rays of sun in a prismatic dazzle; to the Cannon Salvage sign, the tall, red letters fading away.

  Through the open bay doors, Judah could see Benji and Shelia inside the garage. Shelia hiking her purse up on her shoulder, Benji dismissing her with a wave before sticking his head back inside the guts of an orange Mustang up on the lift. Shelia spotted Judah when she turned around and cocked an eyebrow. Judah shrugged, but still didn’t move, letting the whispers of rain settle on his bare face, neck, and forearms. Shelia came out to stand beside him and stare back into the glaringly lit garage, growing brighter with every creeping moment of dusk.

  “You heading out for the day?”

  Shelia nodded. She brought a ripped thumbnail to her mouth and gnawed the corner of it.

  “Ramey pass on my information about Tulah and the Scorpions?”

  “She did. Thanks.”

  Shelia dropped her hand and spread her fingers, examining her nails in the waning light.

  “I wish I could do more.”

  Judah stood with her a moment longer, watching Benji disentangle himself from an air hose, cursing, and stump across the garage with his cane. Judah jutted his chin out toward his brother.

  “Take care of him, Shelia.”

  Shelia wedged her fingertips into the pockets of her frayed denim miniskirt. Her head was bent and she was staring down at her sandals.

  “You know I will.”

  He tried to smile. Benji, coming back across the garage, stopped when he noticed Judah out in the yard and waved. He mimed opening and chugging a beer, followed by a thumbs-up and a goofy grin.

  “But I mean, don’t go letting him get too comfortable, neither.”

  Shelia tried to return Judah’s smile, but he knew that the night was weighing on her. As on all of them. The night, and then the next, and the one after that. Her voice cracked just a little as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.

  “Not a chance.”

  Shelia smacked Judah on the arm and gave him a shove toward the garage.

  “Now go, drink a beer with your brother already. Get out of my hair.”

  She strode around the corner of the garage to her Rabbit parked out front. Judah watched her leave and then shook himself. He needed to talk to Benji; he needed to get it over with. Judah crossed the lot, catching the beer flung at his chest just as he stepped inside the garage. Benji grinned at him from behind the poker table as he raised his beer in a toast. Judah stepped over an open toolbox and skirted around a drop cloth littered with sockets and wrenches as he tapped the top of the can. He hopped up on the metal desk in the corner and snapped the beer’s tab, leaning back from the spray of foam. Benji laughed, though Judah could tell it was forced. Like the grin. He decided it was probably best to just come right out and say what he needed to. Rip the bandage off quick and get it over with.

  “Benji—”

  “You don’t got to say it. I already know.”

  “You do?”

  Benji nodded, his head hanging low, all trace of a smile abandoned.

  “I guess Ramey sketched Shelia in on the details and she told me.”

  Judah kicked the heel of his boot lightly against the dented side of the desk.

  “Damn, who even needs me anymore?”

  “Look who you’re talking to.”

  “You mad?”

  Benji drummed his fingers on his beer can, still keeping his eyes down.

  “I only punched one wall. Then Shelia and I got into it and I punched another.”

  Judah’s mouth twisted. He was waiting for Benji to shrug, make a joke, smooth things over like always, but he was giving Judah nothing.

  “You know why it’s got to be like this, right?”

  “But you’re taking Ramey with you. She’s ain’t even a Cannon.”

  Benji’s voice had sunk into petulance, which meant he was coming around. Judah knew he wasn’t really trying to use the Cannon argument. Levi’s argument. He was just hurt, feeling left out yet again. Judah couldn’t blame him.

  “It’s not about being a Cannon this time. It’s just about doing what needs to be done. Nothing glamorous. Nothing heroic. Just setting a wrong to right.”

  “I still don’t see why you got to do it without me.”

  Judah sipped his beer and wiped his mouth on the collar of his shirt. He was having trouble looking his brother’s way.

  “Because if things go bad tomorrow, Benji, then you’ll be the last Cannon standing.”

  Benji’s head swung up, his eyes and mouth wide like a child’s. They stared hard at one another, older and younger brother, the last two left. A struggle was playing out across Benji’s face, the lattice of scars running red like veins of ore, then cooling, until finally he released a long, brimming sigh, raised his beer to Judah again, and drank.

  “Well then.”

  Judah drained his beer, crushed the can, and slid down from the desk to pull out his cigarettes. He fit one to his lips, lit it, and then peeled off the photograph that had stuck to the cellophane of the squashed package. He inhaled deeply and spoke around the cigarette clenched between his teeth.

  “I got something for you.”
/>   Judah held the picture out to Benji.

  “I found this a few months back, when Ramey and me were clearing out Sherwood’s place after he, you know. You probably don’t even remember him, do you?”

  Benji took the photograph from Judah and held it in both hands, squinting at the slightly blurred image.

  “Who is it?”

  Benji laid the picture down on the table and Judah dragged a chair over and sat beside him.

  “That’s our granddad, Sherwood’s father. His name was Harvine, but everyone called him Hob. Me and Levi called him Grampy Hob. He died when I was seven or eight, I think, so you were probably too young to remember.”

  Judah touched the crimped edge of the photograph. He’d discovered it in Sherwood’s sock drawer and stuffed it in a corner of his own, but now he wished he’d carried it around for a little while or something. The photograph was worn and scratched, but it was easy to make out the man’s bright eyes and smile, his swayed body cocked in a swagger, one elbow resting casually on a fence post, a ruined city spread out behind him. Benji nodded.

  “Grampy. Maybe. Always sat out on the porch all day when he’d come over?”

  “Yep. Shelling peas. That’s what I remember. Shucking corn or digging at a piece of wood with his knife. Always had something in his hands.”

  Benji frowned.

  “For some reason, I always thought he was our mama’s daddy.”

  “I think he spent more time with her than he ever did with Sherwood. Even cooked in the kitchen with her when he wasn’t out on the porch. Mama told me once, after Hob passed away, that there was bad blood between him and Sherwood. He’d come over to visit her, see us kids, but not his own son. When I think back to some of the things I remember Hob saying, and things I heard between him and Mama, I reckon he didn’t like the path Sherwood was on.”

  Judah tapped the photograph with the two fingers holding his cigarette.

  “He was a paratrooper in World War II. Told me once about jumping out of a plane in the middle of the night. Said something about it feeling like falling right through heaven, ’til you hit the ground and then you knew that hell was real. I didn’t understand it then. Shit, I ain’t sure I do now.”