Slow Way Home

by Michael Morris

  “What in the world…,” said Nana as we drove past the church. Cars, trucks, and church buses filled the lot next to the place where the cross had once burned. Nana, Poppy, and me got out of the truck to find makeshift tables covered with plastic coffee cups and boxes of doughnuts. Men with construction aprons began unloading boards from a flatbed truck.

  “Let’s rock and roll,” Miss Travick said. Her smile was as wide as the truck that held the lumber.

  “Where did all these folks come from?” Poppy asked.

  “Well, after the story ran, I got my friend at the Tallahassee Democrat to cover it too. Then she got her friend at the TV station to mention it. Before you knew it, my phone was ringing off the hook.”

  “Look, there’s Frank McCloud, preacher down at the Church of Christ.” Nana pointed at the man carrying a saw.

  “And Darrell Harvey,” Poppy said. “He works down at the marina.”

  “Praise Jesus,” Sister Delores said as she walked towards us dressed in blue jeans. “I sure do appreciate y’all coming by.”

  “Listen, gal. We just appreciate how much you’ve done to help those men at the marina feed their families.” Poppy looked away at the group unloading the wood. “I’d better give them a hand.”

  While Sister Delores went around hugging everybody, Miss Travick paired us up. Beau and me were given a bucket and scrub brushes. We scrubbed the concrete steps leading up to what used to be the door until our knuckles were raw.

  Every so often Beau would pause long enough to look at me and whisper, “I don’t care what you say. Alvin wasn’t in that truck.” By the third time, I dropped the brush into the pail and slipped away behind the vehicles.

  As much as I wanted to ignore the events that led up to the burning of God’s Hospital, Poppy couldn’t stop talking about them. We stood outside of the filling station making the regular call to Uncle Cecil as if nothing had changed. A thick wind of early summer cut through the cracks of the bathroom door and stirred with a howl of anger.

  Nana reached for the phone, but Poppy turned his back.

  “Don’t worry, we slipped away when all the newspeople showed up.”

  By the time Nana got to talk, the look of disgust had swept down from her wrinkled brow to every crease around her lips. She snatched the phone from Poppy and only spoke a few sentences before the operator announced time had run out.

  Inside the café downtown, she held the menu decorated with sketches of shrimp with top hats and never said another word. But Poppy was making up for anything she might have wanted to say.

  He was smearing butter onto a cracker and talking all at the same time. “They tell me the Klan meets down at the swamp. Old Joe down at work said his cousin used to belong. Said if anybody got to talking out of turn about their plans they’d just cut the man’s tongue…”

  The table jarred, and pieces of cracker wrappers drifted to the floor. “Will you please hush about burning churches and cutting out tongues. As it was, you wasted the entire call with Cecil worrying about business he doesn’t care a thing about. Never once thinking to check about the note on the farm.”

  Nana turned back to the menu, and a young girl with braces flipped a new page in her pad. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think I’ll take me the biggest glass of tea you got in the place. How ’bout you, Brandon?”

  “Pepsi.”

  Before Poppy could turn to look at Nana, the bell on the door chimed and she had walked out. Acid grew in my throat as I watched a pair of seagulls fly away from the railing of the boardwalk. The waitress’s thighbone brushed against my shoulder when I slipped by.

  Nana’s pant legs slapped together as she walked faster towards a bench by the river. By the time she sat down, I was standing behind her.

  “Where are you going?”

  She reached up and patted my hand. Her fingers felt as tattered as the shrimp nets that lined the boardwalk railing. “Don’t you worry about all that. He just never did care about the farm the same way I do. To him it’s just land. Land that’s got my family’s sweat and tears in every square inch of it.”

  A soft breeze made the collar of her blouse flutter. The beat of her heart pulsated against my thumb as a small mullet boat drifted by with a pack of seagulls hovering behind it.

  Poppy’s footsteps were heavy on the boards of the dock. He stopped right when a seagull cried out one last time before flying away from the boat. “Brandon, I grabbed a mess of hush puppies. Why don’t you go see if they’re interested in feeding.”

  Grabbing the clumps of meal inside the napkin, I watched Nana smile that way she had. The smile that said worry was a nuisance that we did not have space for in our new lives. Poppy slid down on the bench and patted her leg.

  While seagulls circled in mid-flight around me, I watched the two of them more than the birds. She never responded when he reached over to hold her hand. She simply gazed at the boat as if it could carry her back to dry land that was reserved for the past.

  Bonita and Parker had set the trip up right after the church burned. Little did I know when I accepted their invitation to spend the day at the amusement park in Panama City that Beau and me would communicate only through Josh.

  “Hey, let’s ride the Spider,” Josh said.

  I shrugged my shoulders and looked down at Josh. Blue food dye from the cotton candy outlined his lips. “I’ll do it. But I don’t know about him. He’s too chicken.”

  “You tell him that I can ride that dadgum roller coaster with my hands straight up in the air. I’ll ride that thing, but I won’t sit by him.”

  By now Josh had gotten used to being a translator and was tired of repeating the words that he had first said through broken laughter. The joke died down before we entered the park gates.

  As we rode the Spider, black metal arms stretched out low over the park. Bonita and Parker looked like action figures standing in front of the shooting gallery. The cart would spin out of control before they had a chance to hear us call out their names. It was the first time that day that we had all laughed at the same time.

  Beau’s words were clipped as rock music blasted out of the cart’s speaker, but I did not need a translator to understand them. “I don’t know why you think Alvin burned that place down.”

  Josh was pushed into Beau as the cart made another dip towards the ground. His face was twisted even more than the arms of the ride. “Burned what place?”

  “Brandon thinks Alvin burned down God’s Hospital. Said that gold thing they found on the cross was the same one Alvin had at his house the day we went out there.”

  “That’s stupid.” Josh cut his eyes to Beau for confirmation.

  When we turned again, Josh slid over to me but grabbed the metal bar and pulled himself away.

  “I said it looks like the same one that was on that cross Alvin had. And hey, you’re the one who held the one at Mama Rose’s house.”

  “Alvin carves stuff for people all the time.” Beau leaned up trying to make me look at him. “That’s how he makes a living. Doing woodwork and stuff.” Rotating to the side for one final time, the cart suddenly became still. “I tell you what, I’m gonna prove once and for all that Alvin don’t know nothing about that fire.”

  “What you gonna do, walk up to him uptown and say, ‘Alvin, do you burn crosses with gold things on them?’”

  “No, we’re going back out to his place. Next Saturday when he takes Mama Rose to the grocery store.”

  “You crazy? I’m not going out there again.”

  “What’s wrong, you know you’ll be proved wrong? Or maybe you’re just too yellow-bellied to do it.”

  Josh leaned forward and the words whistled from his missing tooth. “Yeah, chicken.”

  “Let’s put it this way.” Beau touched his fingers together better than the mobsters he had seen on TV. “You don’t go out there with us, and I’m telling Alvin what you said about him.”

  Poppy’s words from the r
estaurant filled my ears louder than the electric guitar down below. I pictured Alvin hog-tying me and then sharpening his knife until the tip reflected the sunlight of his private hell in the swamp. A chill iced the image of my tongue hanging on a pine tree right between the others decorated with snakeskins and hubcaps.

  The following Friday we stood outside of the gas station while rain dropped from the edge of the rusted roof. Rainwater filled the holes in the asphalt the same way that the fear of Alvin had begun to fill my body.

  “Hello, is Cecil Willard there today?” Nana propped her blue umbrella against the bathroom door outside of the gas station. Beads of water ran down the phone booth and settled at her feet.

  “Uhh…”

  Nana slammed the phone receiver down, but her fingers kept moving as if she was tapping Morse code back to North Carolina.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That woman wanted to know who I was again when I asked for Cecil.”

  I kicked a bottle cap into a puddle, but she didn’t even try to stop me. “That’s what secretaries do. They take messages.”

  Nana grabbed the umbrella and nudged me towards the car with her elbow. “Something’s not right. This is the second week in a row. It’s just not right, I tell you.”

  By the time we drove to the marina to give Poppy supper for the night shift, Nana was tapping the steering wheel to a beat all of her own. Poppy stood at the opened window with rain dripping from the brim of his cap. “Probably just got sick or something. Maybe Loraine took ill. You know how she likes to be petted. Oh, it ain’t nothing.” But the words of comfort never seemed to soak into Nana’s mind, and I can’t say that I cared. With the threat of having my tongue cut out, a missed Friday afternoon call with Uncle Cecil was nothing more than child’s play.

  The multicolored Christmas lights were still burning even though it was five till nine in the morning. Looking up at the faded glow of lights that hung above the door of the Lazy Lounge, I suddenly wanted more than anything to be one of those lights.

  The clicking sound of a loose bike chain made the muscles in my neck tighten. Beau wore a camouflage hat and began laughing when he saw me. “I bet you done pissed all over yourself wondering if we had already gone on to Alvin’s place and told him about you blaming him.”

  Josh trailed behind in a zigzag motion and tried to make his laugh sound just as genuine.

  Dust and specks from broken beer bottles flew up when they braked. Beau directed us towards the highway with a tilt of his chin. “You’re fixing to be proved wrong, and I want to be there to see you eat crow.”

  “I’m about to kill and dress that crow. Then we’ll see who’s gonna eat it,” I yelled back.

  Other than an armadillo that skirted across the road, it began to seem like we were the only signs of life in the county. Squinting up at the sun that pounded our sweat into the asphalt, I began to wonder if everything else had more sense to stay tucked inside the thick forest that lined the edges of the road. Josh reached for the fake-leather canteen that clamped on to the handlebar. He used one hand to steer while finding relief from the container with Davy Crockett’s picture on the side. Looking down, I stared at the washed out places that swept by and pedaled harder. Invisible cotton hung in the back of my throat. As much as it might hurt, I vowed never to ask anything of the Riley boys for the rest of my life. No matter how short a life it might be. It was then that I wondered if me dying would cause Mama to be welcomed back into the family, out of pity if nothing else.

  We rode until the grooves of the bike seat seemed like a natural extension of my backside. Beau pulled off onto a driveway covered with pine straw and thick vines. Oil-colored water touched the tip of the cypress branches that hung like claws over the edge of the swamp. Mosquitoes the size of half-dollars danced around our bare necks. Slapping sounds echoed from the moss-draped landscape.

  The roughness of the overgrown path seemed to rattle nervousness deeper into my body. Breathing started sounding whistlelike. Beau turned his head and then reached under his bicycle seat. He slowed enough for me to reach him and stuck out a thermos. “Here. You look like crap.”

  Beau stopped when we saw a portion of Alvin’s shed. Part of the rusted tin was missing to reveal a post that held up the structure. We followed Beau’s lead and tucked our bikes under the fold of a pine tree.

  The cry of a bird rolled down from a cypress tree, and soon its flapping wings broke the stillness. Josh jogged up closer to Beau and cautiously looked back at me as if I was about to ambush them. The same sensation that had caused me to wet the bed overpowered my insides. Dryness seemed to cover the back of my throat the same way weeds covered the hems of our jeans.

  A stack of wood speckled with mold greeted us at the edge of the shed. An upside-down horseshoe and a raccoon’s tail dangled from the tattered door. Now the whole injustice of the church burning seemed nothing worse than burning leaves on a windy day. Maybe that gold medallion fell off somebody’s car trunk just the way Beau had explained. Then we moved past the woodpile, and my legs buckled when I saw the truck in front of Alvin’s house.

  The rusted-out tailgate held Alvin’s latest work. Round cypress tables lined what was once the truck’s brand-new body.

  Beau turned and sighed. “Come on. That truck ain’t nothing but his work truck. He’s half way to town by now.”

  A rooster pranced around the side of the shed and stopped to glance at us before pecking dirt. Lumber in all sorts of colors and sizes lay scattered under the house.

  Dust and dead bugs clung to the window of the front door. When Beau wiped the glass with his palm, an outline of his fingers offered us a look inside. “See there’s nothing in there that nobody don’t have in their own house.”

  Pressing my nose against the hot glass, the red of the Confederate flag that hung on the wall looked darker behind the dirt. Stacks of boxes covered the sofa, and a corner TV with aluminum wrapped around its antenna completed the tiny living room. The closet door that had housed the cross and the gold medallion was leaning sideways. A rusted hinge held the top of it to the door frame. The rooster crowed, and I jumped backward at the sound.

  Beau nudged Josh, and both were laughing.

  “So what? The cross I saw was probably the one he set on fire at God’s Hospital.”

  The door squeaked open when Beau pushed it. “If you’re so smart, then go on in and find another one.”

  Musty smells rolled out onto the porch, and my heart beat faster. “You crazy? He’d have grounds to kill me for sure.”

  They were still laughing when I looked behind them and saw the small window of the shed. A droopy spider web clung to its edges. “What about checking that window?”

  With hound-dog precision Beau followed my point, bounded down the stairs, and started pulling at the shed door. Strips of white paint peeled away from the frame, and the top part of the door seemed bolted on the other side.

  Beau glanced at the perfectly stacked firewood that was the most organized thing on the property. The bottom log caved in when Beau put his weight on it. The faster he moved up the stack, the smaller his arms looked as he balanced himself by clinging to the side of the shed. He wiped the window with his elbow and mumbled something just as the rooster crowed again.

  “I told you so,” I said climbing up the pile. The back of Beau’s sneaker was in direct view when I heard Josh pulling himself up behind me.

  The shed window was filmed with neglect, but the evidence was crystal clear. Inside, crosses lined the room like tombstones for giants. The gold medallion was smack dab in the middle of every one of them, just as it had been on the one burned at Sister Delores’s church. A rope the color of saw grass dangled from the corner. Attached in the noose was the head of a black doll, its eyes bugged and a tongue painted red hanging from its mouth. A tongue ready to be cut and hung on a tree. Then the black rag doll turned into my face, and the limp body was mine. Tongue dangling out like a dead cat’s, I watched myself twist in ci
rcles. Holding my crotch, I fought the urge to pee right in front of them. A curtain began to fall on the scene, and blood drained to an empty pit somewhere outside of my being.

  The grinding truck gears caused us to look back towards the house. Steel bars on the truck grill glistened while the miniature Confederate flag hung limp on the antenna. Alvin’s body looked bigger than ever riding towards us in the raised vehicle. As I scrambled to get down, a piece of splintered wood lodged into my palm. Just as I heard Beau yell, “Look out,” the log slipped out from under his feet, and the vision of my mama came into full view. She was standing down below, right next to the water pump with her arms extended wide. The ends of her jeans were painted with flowers and flapped like an angel ready to carry me away. The soft red lips formed a smile so peaceful that I tried to reach out for her. But the earthly scream I heard was one of torment as logs rained down in a clap of thunder. All the while, the arms of my mama kept stretching but never managed to reach far enough.

  I heard the moaning before I saw the soles of Josh’s shoes turned sideways. Logs slanted in all sorts of directions covered the bottom part of his body. Beau jumped up right after I did. A stream of blood ran down the side of his head. Our arms moved so fast that they blurred with the logs we yanked and tossed away. A force slammed me down to the ground again, and I watched Alvin shove Beau away. As if they had been made of toothpicks, Alvin flung the pieces of wood to the side.

  The sound of Josh’s teeth chattering was the only noise I heard. Alvin jerked him up in his arms and moved towards the truck that weeks earlier had only been able to terrorize. Josh’s legs were knotted to the right, and blood was beginning to soak through the jeans.

  “Open the damn door,” Alvin yelled. “Open it!”

  Beau’s eyes danced with panic as he struggled to pull it open. A scream as piercing as the one Josh had let out was heard as the door hinge scratched against metal.

  People from the church and the regulars from Nap’s Corner trickled into the hospital. Bonita kept folding a tissue and paced the lobby filled with low-seated chairs while a fluorescent lightbulb cast ghost faces on those who sat below it.