Mitch Cullin

by Tideland (epub)

  My father said the place needed a new well. He said there was plenty of work to be done.

  "The yard wants some tending,” he mentioned during our second afternoon of Greyhound travel. "Mother had this boy mow and weed when she was living, but I suppose that fellow is all grown by now. And there’s nails coming up on the porch, so I guess we can hammer them. Squirrels lived in the a attic, but I got rid of them because they kept chewing the wiring and everything. They made a real racket in the morning, and I hated knowing they were there. But Mother liked them. She said the place didn’t feel so lonesome that way.”

  It’s true, the farmhouse seemed imbued with a lonely quality -- no doubt due to its isolated location. And I often wondered why my father let his mother live on the property by herself. He had purchased the land for her in 1958, right after his third guitar-instrumental single "Jungle Runner” reached the Top Ten. The house was built several years later, and Grandmother remained there until 1967, when she tripped down the porch steps, breaking her hip, and died in a nursing home soon afterwards.

  "Thought about putting the place on the market then," my father told me on the bus, "but my second wife talked me out of it. And now I’m glad she did.”

  For him, the farmhouse became a retreat, somewhere to hide and make music. He had the phone disconnected, got rid of Grandmother’s television. By the time I turned eleven,

  it was common for my father to leave the city for a few months, taking his Rickenbacker guitar and driving east in his Buick Riviera. Only once did he invite my mother and me, but my mother said, "Fuck that, Noah. Texas is the armpit of the universe. We’ll be here when you decide What Rocks can exist without you.”

  It was Grandmother who named the farmhouse What Rocks, but I’m not sure why. She was dead before I was born, so I never had a chance to ask her. Perhaps it was a joke of some sort, considering the nearby quarry existed as a constant nuisance; every other day or so there was dynamite blasting, which disrupted the sense of isolation, booming like thunder and rattling the windows.

  "When I bought it for her,” my father explained, "I told her she could sell it off someday to that quarry if she wanted. I’m thinking she could’ve made a little dough, you know, selling the limestone under that property. But I don’t think she ever considered doing that. I mean, the house and land were a gift, so that’d have been rude in her mind. She was a pretty proper old woman sometimes, wouldn’t even drive this baby-blue Cadillac I got her because she thought it looked too showy. I tell you what, we could sure use that car today.”

  Riding in the Greyhound made my father restless. The seat aggravated his spine, which was damaged when he slipped headlong from a stage in Chicago, landing squarely on his back. But being on the run, he couldn’t afford anyother mode of transportation. His prized Buick Riviera with white sidewalls was traded for a sandwich bag of mixed pills - Pamergan, Dextromoramide, Diconal, DF-118, Fortral, and Methadone, my mother’s favorite. And when we finally arrived in the small town of Florence, some ten miles from the farmhouse, he uttered a low groan while putting on his backpack.

  Then he handed me my neon suitcase, saying, "Suppose you’re ready for a picnic.”

  "Pizza,” I said, earnestly.

  "Can’t eat pizza on a picnic," he said. "You should know that."

  "We don’t have to have a picnic,” I said, following behind him as we moved along the passageway.

  "Got to eat sandwiches. That’s what you eat. That’s what it’s going to be.”

  At the Main Street grocery store, whatever cash remained went toward saltines, Wonder Bread, peanut butter, and two gallon jugs of water. And even though some minor celebrity status was attached to his name, my father’s face was far from well-known. It was like a black-and-white Western where the gunslinger saunters into the saloon; soon as we stepped through the doors -- a grubby little girl and a pale, long-haired man wearing huge sunglasses -- all heads turned toward us, all mouths stopped talking.

  It wasn’t as if the store was crowded. In fact, I recall just a chubby bagger boy with a crew cut and two high school-looking checkout girls, one Hispanic, the other white, both sporting hair-sprayed bangs that curled upward like a wave.

  "What time is it?” my father asked.

  "S-s-s-orry, not wearing a w-w-watch,” the boy replied, stuttering painfully, his lips and jaw twisting spasmodically as he spoke. "Around four, I-I-I think.”

  "It’s about four-thirty,” the Hispanic girl said.

  "Then you’re still open.”

  "Until five. Six on Saturday."

  "That’s good,” my father said, taking my hand. "Where’s the peanut butter?”

  "Center aisle, near the marshmallows, to the left.”

  And when we returned to the front with our groceries, my father asked the bagger boy if he knew someone who might give us a lift.

  The checkout girls glanced at each other, their grins verging on laughter.

  "Where you-you-you g-going?”

  "East of town, out toward the microwave tower on Saturn Road."

  "Guess I-I-I could t-t-t-ake you," the boy said, unfolding a paper sack. "It’s on my w-w-ay home, if you don’t mind waiting till I-I-I’m off.”

  "Not at all,” my father said. "I appreciate it, friend.”

  The afternoon sun had colored the asphalt golden, and as the bagger boy drove us from Florence in his Nissan pickup, he put on a pair of dark convex glasses -- less against the bright rays spilling across the county road, I suspected, than against my father’s menacing eyewear. His name was Patrick.

  "I live with my g-g-g-grandfa-fa-father,” he explained, accelerating the vehicle. "We’re going fishing to-to-to-tonight, so I-I-I'm in a bit of a h-h-h-urry."

  Then he asked if we were visiting family, wondered where we were traveling from.

  "Going to see my parents,” my father lied. "My girl and I live in Austin.”

  I was sandwiched between them in the cab, my knees on either side of the gear shift.

  "Th-th-that right," Patrick said. "Austin’s gr-gr-great! Haven’t had much of a ch-ch-chance to know people a-around here. just moved from D-D-Dallas. Not from Florence. My grandfather’s b-b-b-been here for-e-e-ever."

  "Forever’s a pretty long time,” my father said.

  "You bet-bet-bet-cha,” Patrick sputtered. "I-I-I think I-I-I-I’d go nuts if I-I-I stayed here as long as he-he-he has."

  And while Patrick struggled in conversation with my father, I tucked my shins underneath my butt, pushing myself up, and gazed over the dashboard at the hilly landscape ahead. Cedar and mesquite trees grew along the road, in pastures lush from spring thunderstorms. This was farming country. In the distance, the microwave tower my father had mentioned loomed like a futuristic obelisk, reddish girders criss-crossing, an infrequent strobe flaring at its top.

  My father told Patrick to turn on Saturn Road, and soon the pickup was bouncing across a winding dirt road. "How f-f-far?"

  "A mile or so, maybe two. First gate you come to is good enough. That’s pretty much it.”

  The microwave tower was now in the rearview.

  To the left, dense groupings of cedar.

  To the right, a clear meadow under a canopy of low-lying clouds.

  Then we passed empty sidelots parceled by barbwire fences, each with a real estate marker advertising new concepts in family living, reasonable financing available. The wild grass had been grazed or chopped down, but was still thick enough for snakes and armadillos to hide in.

  "Tons of d-d-deer out here,” Patrick mentioned. "Rain has g-g-g-given them e-e-e-nough to eat.”

  The pickup flew past longhorns sunning themselves beneath a windmill.

  "An hour or two before the sun’s gone,” my father uttered, turning to stare as we zoomed by.

  When Patrick pulled off at a long frame gate, he asked, "This it?”

  "Yep,” my father replied. "Awfully kind of you."

  "No p-p-problem.”

  We climbed from the truck a
nd began organizing ourselves. With his backpack hanging off a shoulder, my father clutched the grocery sack against his chest. I was slightly lop-sided, gripping a gallon jug in one hand, my suitcase in the other. Chalky road dust, stirred up behind Patrick’s Nissan, caught us and then billowed on.

  Patrick mentioned that once a week he did a delivery run near What Rocks -- to let him know if we needed anything - and, leaning across the cab to close the passenger door, he said, "H-h-have a nice one.”

  My father gave him a nod, and I smiled but he didn’t seem to notice. He was already shutting the door. Then he had the pickup bumping around in the opposite direction, sending more sandy dust to the air, and sped away.

  The purr of cicadas rattled among the mesquite and cedar trees. From the road, What Rocks wasn’t visible, only the thick Johnsongrass which grew wild on the property. "Go on," my father said, planting a boot against the bottom cord of barbwire alongside the frame gate. He pressed the cord to the ground, creating a wide gap.

  So I crossed under the range fence, and he followed, grunting with exasperation as he bent. Then the two of us walked to the washed-out driveway, each occupying a gravelly rut.

  "Weeds get the better of everything,” he said, mumbling to himself.

  He glanced at me, elaborating, "When there’s no cattle on the land, the weeds grow greedy,”

  About a half-mile in, where the driveway forked between two cedars, the farmhouse came into view.

  "Wow," I said, trudging toward my father, who had stopped near one of the trees, "is that What Rocks?"

  "That’s her," he said, wiping his brow with the heel of his palm. His backpack was at his feet, the grocery sack crumpled and torn beside it.

  I set my suitcase and the jug on the ground, keeping my eyes on the old place.

  A flagless flagpole stood in close proximity to the wrap- around porch. There was a copper-colored weather vain on the lean-to, but shaped as a grasshopper instead of a rooster. And while it appeared no different than most two-story farmhouses in Texas -- pitched roof and an open plan -- its weathered planks, gray and stark and splintering, gave it a decidedly forlorn facade. Even before stepping through the doorway, I sensed the layers of grime, frayed spiderwebs, crumbs,and mice droppings that were eventually found within.

  "Home at last,” my father said, sounding somewhat relieved. He hoisted his pack, unzipped the top, and rifled inside, producing a shoelace with a key tied at the end.

  And in less than three minutes, I was already upstairs in What Rocks, staring from my bedroom window at the upturned school bus, while my father was downstairs tacking up the map of Denmark.

  Night arrived.

  I had been to the bus and returned. Now I was upstairs again, having left my father in the living room. On the edge of the single mattress, where a faded brown stain filled the middle, my suitcase sat open. Carefully, I removed what few items I’d managed to pack-my mother’s satin nightgown, and an armful of Barbie doll parts (four heads, two arms, onetorso, six legs, each dismembered piece unearthed in a thrift shop bin). Aside from the contents of the suitcase, another thrift shop purchase, my dress, panties, socks, and sneakers were all I had.

  Biting my sore bottom lip, I took a moment ordering my possessions. The nightgown, which had been folded haphazardly, was given rest on the mattress pillow, a regal flourish in my imagination. The doll parts were then arranged in a line beside the pillow: heads first, then arms, then legs, then torso.

  Finally, I zipped the suitcase, noticing with some sadness that its neon-colored flower stickers were coming unstuck, and shoved it underneath the bed anyway. And while crouching, a tiny drop of blood spattered on the floorboard. So I drooled into a palm, watching as a red string of saliva formed in my cupped hand.

  "I’m dying,” I said in mock-horror, affecting the voice of a soap opera actress. "I can’t go on, I must go on."

  I went to look in the bathroom mirror. Puffing my bottom lip, I spotted the sliver of split flesh oozing blood, but was disappointed it wasn’t any worse. So I spat at the sink, hoping my spit would suddenly turn crimson and profuse. It didn’t. In fact, it seemed mostly clear.

  "You will survive,” my reflection told me, aping a TV doctor. "A complete recovery is expected."

  "Thank you, thank you," I replied. "Now there’s hope."

  Then I twisted the sink knobs, praying a little water might spurt out so I could brush my teeth. But nothing happened. It didn’t matter anyway, I reasoned, because I’d forgotten a toothbrush and toothpaste. And when I brought a finger to my clenched teeth, sliding it back and forth like I was brush- ing, more blood bubbled from my lip.

  My reflection grinned, showing me how the blood had discolored the crowns.

  "You’re red all over," I said, noting my orangish hair and freckles, the hyacinths on my dress.

  "Simply ghastly,” my reflection exclaimed in an English accent, just then catching music playing faintly in my father's bedroom. "A ghastly noise, Jeliza-Rose."

  "Yes, we must put an end to it,” I replied, turning from the mirror.

  Then I crossed to the other bathroom door, which opened into the adjoining sleeping quarters.

  When I entered, the hinges creaked like in some monster film, so I stood near the doorway for a bit, sucking my bottom lip and taking everything in the backpack on the bed, the lamp glowing on the night table, the ratty throw rug on the floor. My father’s room was almost identical to mine, except he had a double mattress with a larger stain. On the windowsill above the headboard, a hand-held radio transmitted music -- girl, you really got me going, you got me so I don’t know what I'm doing -- and I remembered how my father kept the radio pressed against an ear as the Greyhound journeyed through the desert, listening with his eyes shut, sometimes sleeping for hours while music or news or static droned.

  "You really got me, you really got me,” I sang, going to the mattress.

  The contents of his backpack were in a small pile on the bed, unwashed clothes topped by a depleted Peach Schnapps bottle. The sandwich bag once containing the mixed pills had been emptied, and was now stuck over the bottle neck like a makeshift prophylactic. And I pictured my father swallowing and swallowing and swallowing, then exhaling relief as he waited for the hallucinations and thought disturbances to begin. "Thought disturbances-” that was what he called them, "sweeping clean the little messes in my brain.”

  I climbed across the mattress toward the windowsill. Parting the curtains, I saw the strobe flutter from the distant microwave tower.

  Then I saw nothing.

  The world outside was darker than I ever knew it could be. And aside from the strobe and several moths trying to thump past the pane, it seemed as if all else had fallen into a vast hole. There was just me and my father and What Rocks and the radio. The Johnsongrass had disappeared. So had the horizon.

  Imitating Patrick the Bagger Boy, I stammered, "I-I-I think I-I-I-I'd go nuts if I-I-I stayed here as long as he-he-he has.”

  Then I took the radio from the windowsill and carried it from my father’s room.

  4

  I was naked with my arms stretched over my head. My dress was on the floor, covering my sneakers and socks, and the hand-held radio sang the blues on my night table. My mother’s nightgown, all shimmery pink and smooth, sank around me. And I could smell her, the persistent body odor she often had. The gown was so massive over me that for a moment I was lost underneath it -- my hands searched for the sleeve openings, my head rummaged against the silk in an effort to reach the neckline.