Mitch Cullin

by Tideland (epub)

  "I’m pretty thirsty.”

  I squinted; without the goggles, the room seemed unbearably bright.

  "Buff-low jerky," he was saying. "Yum. Sometimes I get jerky too -- if I’m smart and don’t be stupid.”

  "Dickens, did I fall far?”

  "On the ground is all. Plop."

  '"Oh, I didn’t go in the hole.”

  "No, don’t think so. I think I’d remember that, I think.”

  He came toward me carrying a paper plate and a Dixie cup.

  "There’s more later,” he said, handing me the cup, putting the plate down on the mattress.

  "Thank you," I said, bringing the cup to my lips, "thank you-”

  Warm apple juice -- pouring over my tongue, sweet in my throat -- I drank it in two big gulps. And the jerky, four round pieces, brown shriveled chunks, tough as a toenail; I ripped the dried meat between my teeth, milling with my jaw, chewing like a fiend.

  "See, if you chomp fast you’ll choke.”

  Dickens made a gagging noise.

  "That happens sometimes and you can’t breathe.”

  He stood nearby, watching while I ate, following the jerky as it went from the plate to my teeth.

  "Tastes good, I bet,” he said. "Smells awfully good.”

  I would’ve offered him some, but there wasn’t enough. Besides, I was starving; my stomach had become a deflated balloon.

  "It’s buff-low,” he was telling me. "They kill them and they create circles so you can keep them in your pocket-”

  "Dickens!”

  Dell hollered from downstairs.

  "Dickens!” she shouted.

  Her voice recalled my father’s baritone grumble, and my lips parted with amazement, my jaw froze. I stared at Dickens, who, upon hearing her, studied the floor as if it were made of glass.

  "She needs me."

  His gape met mine. He frowned.

  "I’d like my glasses again, please -- ’cause I was only trading when I played with your toys, okay? But I’m not playing anymore, so I don’t have to be fair now."

  "I don’t care,” I said, talking with a mouthful of jerky.

  I removed the goggles and dangled the elastic band from my fingers.

  "Okay," he said, taking the goggles, "you stay here, all right? She says you should. She’s in a mood, I think."

  I shrugged.

  "Dickens! Dickens!"

  "Uh-oh.” _

  He jumped, swung about-face, and flip-flopped away. I listened as he thudded down the stairs.

  "I’m sorry,” he mumbled, "I’m sorry-"

  Then silence. I couldn’t hear anything else.

  And suddenly What Rocks existed somewhere on the moon, enveloped by a crater, lost. The darkness outside confirmed this notion. So I finished eating, pondering the fate of the farmhouse-spaceship. Dell and Dickens and my father were in the living room and plotting our survival. And I was lucky to be alive, lucky that Dell could help me, thankful for buff-low jerky and apple juice.

  But Classique-

  "Poor Classique."

  Perhaps she’d fallen so far and so fast that her head incandesced like a meteor. With a brave face, I explained her sad fate to the other heads. But only Cut ’N Style was upset -- she cried gallons of tears, until a pool formed beneath her, soaking the throw rug and seeping into the hem of my dress.

  "She just disappeared," I told Cut ’N Style, "so don’t cry. She didn’t feel any pain, I’m sure.”

  But my words weren’t helpful; Cut ’N Style was inconsolable. I held her to a cheek, trembling, while Magic Curl and Fashion Jeans gloated.

  "You’ll get walloped,” I warned them. "If Classique was here, she’d destroy you both.”

  And I wished Classique had been there that night, accompanying me as I tiptoed from the bedroom. I wish she’d floated downstairs, going where my father’s stink lingered with the persistent aroma of disinfectant. She might’ve understood what I spied when gazing into the living room -- all the furniture moved against the wall, the entire floor blanketed by an orange plastic tarp; my father stretched naked there, on his back, with discolored patches, black and purple, showing everywhere -- abdomen, chest, thighs -- and blisters spread across his legs and feet, like welts, making a spiral pattern on his bloated tummy. His jeans and boots and boxers and socks and shirt -- his sunglasses and the wig and the bonnet -- were heaped in the leather chair. His ponytail was loosened, his mane of hair flowed out on the tarp, as if the wind had just swept over him. And the lipstick and rouge -- gone; his cheeks now swabbed clean and completely white. In fact -- aside from the blisters and discolored patches -- he was pale, drained; a gash smiled under his chin, crossing his neck -- a fresh slit, pink and thin and tender, grinning while he slept; his features relaxed, his eyelids shut.

  But what was in the buckets?

  Eight large containers, placed around the body. The one nearest his head, full and murky; my father’s rotten blood, thick as molasses and sanguine, almost reaching the rim - some on the tarp, drops spattered here and there.

  And why the bail of wire? The tacks? The brushes? The saw and claw-hammer? The scissors? The scalpel? The paring knife? And all that cotton batting? And the assorted needles? The ball of twine? The box of borx and the paper towels and the cans of Lysol and the rubber gloves -- and the dozen or so odd-shaped canisters and bottles?

  Was anything forgotten?

  "Wrong, child, who welcomed you down here?"

  "Not me, Dell, l didn’t-”

  The living room wasn’t the living room; it’d become an operating theater. And Dell was surgeon. And Dickens the nurse.

  And my father-

  "So much damage already. But I’ll save what’s left, right? He’ll never be the same, poor man.”

  There I stood beside the wood-burning stove, uncomprehending, a rag doll unable to speak.

  "Yes, Rose, wigs and blush won’t cut it, child. You’re a baby, yes, yes. And now you’ve stumbled upon my calling, of course. So stay put and watch if you must -- but know this -- be quiet or else. I can only do so much, right? Audiences and peeping toms make me a nervous nelly. This isn’t fun, sad man -- sad sad man." .

  Her calling required dishwashing gloves and the scalpel, but not the hood and helmet. She’d gathered her hair into a bun, had donned fishing waders that were mostly concealed underneath her housedress. And how familiar she was with my father, straddling him, shaking her head, saying, "To meet once more -- and like this -- what an unfortunate shame. I won’t let you go this time, I won’t.”

  She knew him. She knew his name.

  "Sad Noah -- into my arms again. The Rose child is yours, I suppose. You never told me, no, no.” She continued speaking to my father all the while, touching him here and there as she worked, muttering, "There’s never been another, Noah. No, no, no, never another, you’ve known that. I’ve waited for you these years, so now you’re staying put. I'm keeping you -- you won’t be leaving me anymore. I'm protecting you, right? And the Rose child, she’s family now, see? She’ll be fine, darling one. But she’ll stay here with you, because this is where you belong. And I’m so close, right? I’rn just across the tracks. And this way, of course, you won’t be going anywhere. Not somewhere else, or in the ground. Strangers won’t take you away. You’ll stay put for a long while. No more running away.” Then she kissed him on the lips. She kissed my father, saying, "I love you so much, dear sweet man -- so much-”

  And how intimate she was while making an incision along the middle of his belly, cutting up to the center of his breast bone. How handy she was with that razor-sharp scalpel -- slicing each of his palms, continuing a little ways along the back of the wrists -- then piercing his soles; the scalpel traveling onward, steadily, over the ankles.

  "Sinister apples,” she uttered when an incision was completed. "Sinister sinister apples.”

  But those weren’t the words Dickens repeated; mumbling as he went outside, gripping the bucket of my father’s blood: "I’m tired tired tired-"


  And so was I, perhaps. Or possibly shock -- not sleep -- overtook me during that long night, bowing my head, bringin my body to the floor, drawing my knees in toward my ribs. And if Classique had been there, she could’ve told me what transpired while I lay unconscious.

  Or perhaps I was awake and observed it all -- how the tools were used, how the skin was peeled, how the intestines were held. The gristle and tissue cleaned from the nose. The brain spoon made by hammering and shaping a wire tip. The eyeballs snipped from the sockets. The removal of tendons. My father’s meat scraped and sheared, dumped into buckets. The fat trimmed from the underside of his skin. The bones sprinkled with powdered borax -- and the heavy wire fashioned into strips, bunched into balls. Each bucket now filled and hurried outside. Dickens in the yard-surrounded by buckets, digging the earth with a spade -- as sunlight began filtering through the Johnsongrass.

  Imagination or memory?

  "Sinister apples.”

  Dell the butcher, rolling my father this way and that on the tarp, sewing him together. Then the smell of varnish, like nail polish, obliterating his stink.

  And did I dream? W.as it the mystery train rattling at dawn, shaking me where I slept?

  "Rise, Rose-”

  Dell was nudging me with a wader.

  "Rise and behold Noah."

  Rise and behold my father, arms at his side, legs straight; glistening, coated with varnish, mended and stitched -- except for a rabbit-hole where his navel once budded, strands of wire lurking within. A hole bigger than my fist, cavernous, waiting to be searned.

  "Is he better?" I asked.

  "Of course,” Dell replied, "of course.”

  But he didn’t look anything like my father. She’d given him a haircut, cropping his hair close to his scalp. His eyelids were sewn shut, bits of twine appearing as overgrown eyelashes. And his skin was lumpy in places, deformed. Still, he didn’t seem miserable. The varnish gave him life. He glowed.

  "You’ll offer him a gift, yes?”

  Dell pointed at the hole.

  "Something that’s dear to you, Rose. Something he can keep by his heart.”

  "Like what?” ·

  "No, no, you decide. You pick the treasure for the chest.”

  But what could I offer?

  "Wait, I know."

  Two heads, the traitors -- Magic Curl and Fashion Jeans, both screaming and weeping as I lowered them into the hole.

  "Not me! Not me!”

  "Please, please, please-”

  "Goodbye,” I said, letting them drop. "Have a safe trip."

  And they wouldn’t stop blubbering, even after Dell had sewed up the hole and applied the final coat of varnish. I could hear them, echoing inside my father.

  "Help us! Help us!”

  "There’s no light and we can’t breathe!”

  Then a funny thing happened, I started crying. Tears surged, splashing from my lashes, streaming along my cheeks. Sobs caught in my throat.

  "It’s the fumes, of course,” Dell said.

  She reached out, resting a gloved hand on my shoulder. And when I moved to embrace her, she stepped back, withdrawing her arm.

  "It’s unhealthy for your lungs, these fumes. Go to the porch and draw in. Go, I say -- draw in."

  So I trudged outside -- brushing dry the tears, stifling the sobs -- and breathed on the porch. Only a hint of Lysol and varnish persisted, sneaking through the open door and raised windows. Otherwise, the morning air smelled fresh and cool, like spring water. And at last the sun was ending the dark hours; a reddish hue burned beyond the sorghum, bleeding under the starry sky.

  In the yard, Dickens scooped dirt with the spade, wearily replenishing the pit he’d created. The buckets littered the ground, empty and upturned among the weeds. During the night he’d acted as Dell’s helper, fetching what tools she asked for, taking what was already used -- or wasn't needed -- and placing them into one of the four duffel bags on the porch. But now he was spent, pausing between scoops, adjusting his goggles and wiping his brow.

  "When he’s done, we’ll be going.”

  Dell brought me jerky, three pieces.

  "Tonight I'll return,” she said. "But l’m tired as sin and my work is accomplished."

  I began devouring the jerky while she slipped off the gloves, gnawing and smacking as she tossed the gloves on top of a duffel bag. Then she lifted her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. And I caught a glimpse of her pirate-eye, the milk-white pupil and iris. A dead peeper-that’s what my father called a baked trout’s eyeball; that’s why I didn’t eat his trout. I hated those eyes.

  Dell lowered the glasses and found me with her good peeper. She jiggled a thumb at the duffel bags.

  "They’ll remain for the time being. Don’t mess with the contents, please.”

  I nodded, chewing.

  "Tonight we’ll put your house in order. An untidy home means an untidy person. This is where you belong, this is your place. So you get rest. And leave Noah be -- he must dry, understand?"

  I imagined my father withered like a chunk of jerky, his skin tightening and growing brown.

  "He’s a bog man,” I said.

  "Nonsense, such dribble," Dell replied, and her ferociousness simmered below the surface; her good eye glared and her lips tapered. "Rose, that man is no bogeyman! What a terrible thing to say, horrible!”

  She turned -- her housedress swishing against my knees - and marched away, shielding her face, protecting herself from a bee attack. I watched as she pounded down the front steps in her waders. And just then I heard the squirrel overhead, scampering on the steel awning. Dell heard him too. She twisted around in the yard, peering between fingers, glowering at the roof. Her hands parted briefly and she spit.

  "Nasty-!" she cursed the squirrel.

  And the squirrel chattered and ran. He tore over the awning, no doubt heading for his knothole.

  Then Dell ambled toward Dickens, who had finished scooping dirt and was stomping on the pit with his flip-flops. And I tried not to think about what had slid from the buckets, what was now buried there in the yard. I wanted to eat and not think about anything.

  But my brain wouldrft quit.

  World full of holes, I thought. Holes everywhere, full of people and things. Squirrels and doll heads and bog men. Things go inside holes and sometimes never come out again for a thousand years. Some houses are like holes too, like tombs.

  I ripped at the jerky, picturing this mummy that was once on TV. He was in Egypt. He was a king. Several of the men who discovered him died mysteriously. One choked on his vomit, another was smashed by a slab of marble. The TV voice said murnrnies had strange powers.

  Dell and Dickens wandered toward the cattle trail, disappearing among the high grass. And I swallowed, wondering if my father had any powers, if it would take all day for him to dry.

  17

  Like an airship descending -- the picnic basket landed beside the wood-burning stove, the silverware clanked, and Dell said, pulling back the top, removing a foil-covered plate from within, as if she were proffering a cargo of rare jewels, "For the Rose child of dear Noah-"

  Beer-Braised Rabbit, she explained, with carrots and onions and potatoes. A thermos of apple juice. Pound cake for desert, one slice.

  "A very special treat.”

  She’d returned after nightfall, hoodless and without Dickens, in unusually cheerful spirits, bringing the basket and the plaid quilt.

  "We’ve chores ahead," she told me, "so eat. Stuff yourself."

  It was an indoor picnic, and I was the guest of honor- swigging from the thermos, alternating bites of rabbit with bites of cake -- watching as Dell wrapped my father in the tarp, bundling him like a mummy. Then she rolled him up in the quilt until only his head was exposed, and used safety pins to join the fabric and bind the untucked corners.

  "Looks like a burrito,” I said.

  "Ridiculous. Don’t speak with food in your mouth, you’ll choke.”

  When I was done
eating, we straightened the furniture in the living room, and folded my father’s clothes, stacking them neatly on the leather chair. Then Dell asked about the map dropping from the wall.

  "It’s JutIand,” I said, "Or Denmark, I’m not sure.”

  "And why does it exist here?”

  I shrugged.

  "We’re supposed to be in Jutland instead of Texas. It’s his favorite place to live. But I guess we got lost or something, I guess."