Mitch Cullin

by Tideland (epub)

  "Is she awake?” I asked him.

  He turned around, facing me, and the overhead bulb reflected off his scarred scalp. He started to hug himself, but stopped.

  "Don’t know," he said. "‘Cause that never happens but maybe it happens -- so you stay here, okay? If Momma quit dozing I’ll go see if she needs soup.”

  But he didn’t move; he just remained at the door, fidgeting, sticking his hands in and out of his pockets.

  All of a sudden my heart raced.

  "I’m scared," I told him.

  "Me too," he said.

  I imagined him going and not returning, leaving me trapped alone in the witch’s cave.

  "If we go together we’re safe.”

  He nodded, saying, "All right, but don’t tell Dell you saw Momma. If you promise then you can go.”

  "I promise.”

  And before slinking into the hallway like quiet ghosts, I helped Dickens put his treasure away. We hid the dynamite in the stocking. He placed the secret inside the tackle box on top of the false teeth, then shoved the box under the cot and covered it with clothing.

  "It's our treasure,” I said.

  "It’s bad news,” he said, taking my hand.

  After that, we wandered into the hallway, traveling a short distance, entering the adjacent bedroom -- where candles flickered on a dressing table, dripping red and white and purple wax onto an enameled plate, casting the room in a muted glow. Dickens wasn’t holding my hand anymore. He had left me at the table, had gone forward, vanishing. Then a lamp came on -- and there he was, standing by a four-poster bed, peering at the dozer who lay on the sheets.

  Momma.

  "Dell says someday Momma will wake,” Dickens whispered. "She says someday there’ll be a pill or a story or something that all you have to do is give it or say it and she’ll open her eyes again. Except it will be a long time, so until then Momma stays like this. It’s better that way. Because if she gets buried or anything then she’s gone for good. So I hope that pill or story gets made pretty soon."

  Aside from being smaller, she appeared the same as my father, wrapped in a wool blanket like a mummy, reeking of varnish, her silver hair cropped. I couldn’t quite make out her face -- not from where I stood -- and that was fine; the bees had used her for a pin cushion -- they’d stung her cheeks and nose and eyelids. But now she was sleeping. She hadn’t stirred, hadn’t heard or created the crash.

  Dickens glanced at me and shrugged.

  What had fallen? What hit and bounced, keeping my husband’s tongue from my mouth? What gleamed when I searched the pitchy floorboards? A baseball. I went for it and picked it up, noticing a pallet alongside the bed, fashioned from quilts -- and my mother’s nightgown, folded into a square, sitting on a pillow.

  Dell’s napping spot,I thought. She guards Momma from bees.

  "That’s not your toy," Dickens whispered.

  He was beside me, lifting the baseball from my hand.

  "You can’t play with it."

  Then he turned and stepped to the dressing table. I followed, watching as he carefully set the baseball behind the plate. And what the candles obscured, Momma’s bedside lamp illuminated, if only faintly -- the dressing table was a shrine, an altar of photographs and keepsakes. Among the candles were necklaces, a briar pipe, marbles, a crystal fish, my father’s map of Denmark, a Prince Albert tobacco tin, a silver tray with lipsticks and powders and brushes.

  And there, below the mirror, the dead radio.

  "That’s my gift.”

  "No, that’s Dell’s,” he said, "that’s hers.”

  I was too busy studying the shrine to argue.

  Lining the mirror were black-and-white snapshots, family portraits, abstracted faces from the past -- a man and a woman reclining in a porch swing with babies on their knees, a boy hoisting a kite, a girl wearing a hula; those images mixed with pictures of John F. Kennedy and Chekov from Star Trek and Davy Jones from The Monkees and a life-like Jesus carrying his cross -- and my father in his heyday, his guitar slung behind a shoulder, a finger pointing at the camera.

  In fact, my father was everywhere. Driving a convertible. Eating a hot dog. Signing autographs. Swigging beer in a white T-shirt. Playing pinball. And who was that with him? That girl with her arm around his leather jacket, or kissing his cheek, or mussing his hair. That girl, in every shot, with blond hair and thick lips. Her mouth to his mouth, her fingers in his jacket or under his T-shirt.

  Even without sight Cut ’N Style knew.

  It’s Dell, she thought. She was beautiful once, not fat or a pirate. She loved your daddy. She had two good eyes.

  Then Dickens and I were all whispers.

  "They were kissers,” I said.

  "I think so,” he replied. "That was forever ago, I guess. But Dell is pretty. That was her boyfriend, that was her special friend. He took care of her for a long time."

  "It’s my daddy."

  "No, I’m not sure. No. Your daddy doesn’t look like that boy. I think I’d remember that.”

  "But it’s him and that’s Dell -- and they kiss. They do it like we do it."

  Just then I wanted to be kissed. I wanted his tongue wiggling in me. And I told him so.

  "I do too,” he said.

  My belly tingled.

  He took a lipstick from the silver tray and led me to the pallet -- where we sat facing one another, our heads ducked so we couldn’t see Momma, so she wouldn’t see us if she miraculously awoke. And we put lipstick on each other, making our lips red and sloppy. Then we kissed, squishing tongues with closed eyes. His fingers found my panties, and he was tickling me down there. But I didn’t care -- because I was Dell and he was my father -- and we were married and our baby was coming. When we kissed I felt warm and safe, everything inside me crackled like a sparkler; that feeling would continue from now on, I was certain. It would never end.

  But it did end, fizzling abruptly with, "Filthy filth! Evil!”

  There was Dell, glowering at us with a menacing scowl, grasping her hooded helmet. Before either of us had a chance to start or speak, she nudged Dickens with a boot, pushing him away from me. And what happened next stifled my breath; she pounded the helmet with a fist, a muffled whapping, which sent Dickens scrambling backwards across the floor, against a wall.

  "No, Dell, no, no-"

  "Rotten! Rotten!"

  She threw the helmet down -- and it spun from the hood, rolling like a tire on its brim toward Dickens, bumping the wall near his right knee, missing him. Then the helmet yo- yoed back across the floorboards, wheeling past Dell’s boots, colliding with a dressing table leg. But it might as well have wounded Dickens: he fell on his side, shielding his face, drawing himself into a ball. His chest heaved and a pitiful moan, punctuated with sobs, trembled out of him.

  "Rotten!”

  I covered my ears, gazing at Dell’s mesh hood -- which had dropped before me, had landed in a clump by the pallet -- but I still heard everything.

  "Doing that here!" she was yelling at him. "Bringing nasty nastiness into our home!” She turned, her housedress sweeping above her boots, and crouched in front of me: "This is my home! My home, betrayer! Like father like daughter, I’d say. That's right, of course!”

  And I was a spy, she said so. I always went where I wasn’t invited, bringing my little friends, my little spies.

  ‘'Watching in bushes, vile nasty child! You’ll starve, right? No more food for you, not a thing, nothing! ”

  "I didn’t do anything!" I said, and began crying. "I didn’t do anything! ”

  "Liar!”

  "I didn’t-”

  She grabbed my wrist and stared at Cut 'N Style, mocking me, saying, "I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything!”

  "I didn’t-”

  Messing where I don’t belong. Me and my friends.

  "I’ve seen you do it, spying everywhere!”

  On her land and in her home and being filthy with Dickens in Momma’s room.

  "You're not welc
ome here, wicked one!”

  Now I'd starve. I’d wither and die. No more me. That’s what she said.

  "And no more of these--"

  Then she shook my wrist, making Cut ’N Style wobble and fall from my finger.

  "No more spies-”

  She stood upright, crossing to the dressing table, where she opened a drawer and rifled about inside of it.

  "Child, you’re not the only one who lurks-"

  Then she returned to me with something planted on a mittened index finger, something sprouting red hair; it was, I was horrified to discover, Classique.

  "This is a troublesome creature,” Dell told me, twitching Classique in front of my face so I could see her. "This is you-!"

  "That’s mine," I sobbed.

  "No,” Dell said, "I think not.”

  My guts twisted, my stomach roared with pain, as if Classique had been ripped from me.

  "She’s mine and I hate you!" I screamed. "I hate you, hate you-!”

  I hate you!

  And hearing my words., Dell’s ferociousness crumbled into a stunned silence; she was taken aback, and -- with Classique curling into a fist -- she lowered her hand.

  "What an awful thing to say,” she said, sounding truly hurt. "What an awful, terrible thing to utter at someone."

  With tears welling, snot dripping, I glared at her vexed, confused expression. just then Dickens’ heels banged the floorboards, his arms flailed. He wasn’t moaning anymore, and, when I looked, he was on his back, convulsing wildly; spit bubbled between his clenched teeth, and his face strained as spasms jolted his body, as he hissed saliva and gagged.

  "Look what you’ve done," Dell said, rushing to him. "Look what you’ve done!”

  She pried his mouth open, forcing two fingers into his throat -- Classique stuck on one of them, disappearing from sight again, lost in another hole. And I didn’t understand why she was doing that, why she blamed me and was choking him with my doll head. All I knew was that I had to escape or next she’d be using those fingers on me, slipping them past my lips. So I sprang forward, grabbing the hood.

  Without this you’re dead, I thought. Without this bees will kill you good.

  "Evil! Evil!”

  And I was fast, much faster than Dell. I was a ghost, sailing around her outstretched arms, her clawing mittens.

  "Monster child!"

  I don’t remember running from the witch’s cave, or tearing along the footpath, passing the hole where Classique had fallen. I can’t recall Dell’s hood slipping from my hand, drifting to the ground behind me. Or scrambling across the tracks. Or locking the front door of What Rocks. Or crying as I told my father what happened.

  But I did cry, weeping for what seemed hours, wetting my father’s quilt with tears. And finally exhausted, I shivered beside him -- the lipstick smeared across my chin, my stomach aching, my legs sore from running-hugging his rigid form, hoping he’d protect me from Dell.

  "I didn’t do anything," I said, again and again. "I didn’t. Just kissed Dickens, that’s all. I didn’t do anything.”

  My poor husband, I thought. Poor Classique, poor blind Cut ’N Style. She got you all. I’m next. She hates me. When she knows the squirrel is gone, she’ll destroy me for sure. She’ll probably hang my head in her living room, or stick me on a shelf in the shed.

  But there was nowhere to go. At night, bog men stirred in the attic and in the sorghum with Queen Gunhild. At night, Dell would wander outside, I knew. So how long did I have? How long until nightfall and the bees went to bed? That’s when she’d come for me. Now she was in her cave, perhaps stuffing Dickens with wire, waiting for night. Then she'd arrive with her tools and buckets. She’d crash through the front door, yelling, "Filthy filthy!”

  And lying with my father, I prayed for food and some- where safe to hide. I imagined those cities at the bottom of the ocean, those castles and families -- that’s where I belonged. Classique would probably meet me there, so would Dickens and Cut ’N Style. l/Iy father was already dreaming himself there, I felt certain. And if I could only dream myself there too. If I could shut my eyes and try hard enough, I might find myself waking inside his dream.

  If I tried hard enough, if I closed my eyes and held my breath -- if I tried hard enough-

  I never heard the breath leave my body. Before sleep, the last sound to fill my ears was the beating of my heart, and I knew I was slipping past the tideland, going beneath the ocean and sinking away from What Rocks. The afternoon light had faded above; maybe the waves had curled high enough to extinguish the sun. And in that far-flung region of my imagination, I tried understanding the exact circumstances that brought me to Texas instead of Denmark, but nothing presented itself. I knew only that I’d been on my own since that first night in the back country, and that I’d fled Los Angeles after my mother turned blue. Then I saw myself swimming through a vast underwater wilderness, going deeper and deeper, like a penny tossed into the Hundred Year Ocean -- or Alice falling very slowly in the rabbit-hole, looking about, wondering what was going to happen next.

  22

  The end of the world was purple, appearing as an iris or a rose in my dream, blooming with an ear-piercing eruption, the petals suddenly bursting away from the bud like a fire- work. Or was I already half-awake -- having just stirred beside my father -- when the explosions shook What Rocks so abruptly, so violently, that the table lamp beside my bed fell to the floor; the window near the staircase collapsed in pieces, and all the windows downstairs -- I soon discovered -- shattered inward, throwing glass over the floorboards.

  Then with astonishing speed, the ruinous aftermath of the blasts unfolded beyond the farmhouse, cacophonous and jarring-the whine of iron wheels sparking on the tracks, passenger cars tipping this way and that, metal striking metal, the ground quaking-then everything was quiet, enveloped in a brown and white dust which rose into the evening sky like smoke.

  No, it isn’t really the end of the world, I thought, only the end of the monster shark. But I wasn’t certain, not there in my bedroom or downstairs or out on the porch. I wasn’t certain until reaching the grazing pasture, where the derailment became apparent -- the bus had been smashed beneath a toppled passenger car, another car rested in Dell’s meadow. Waning sunlight cut through the dust cloud, reflecting off the silver-tinted wreckage -- and it seemed the entire train had turned edgeways, spilling cars on either side and across the rails, up and down the tracks, as far as the eye could see.

  Then, in the stillness following the crash, I understood that Dickens killed the shark, that somehow he escaped Dell and her fingers. Now he was diving in Lisa, and if I sat and waited he would find me. He would emerge from the dust in his goggles and flip-flops, his lips puckered and ready for a kiss. And as the silence gave way to alarmed voices calling back and forth from within the passenger cars -- as stunned men and women and children began climbing from the wreckage -- I looked for him, searching the faces of those who staggered toward me.

  At first just a few came, settling down in the pasture, speechless and seemingly uninjured, sitting upright with dazed expressions. But eventually the crowd grew in number, bringing both the wounded and the shocked -- a young woman, pressing a bloody handkerchief over her mouth, held an infant to her breast; in front of her stood an elderly man, staring at the flattened, upturned bus, shaking his head in confusion as his left arm dangled limply. Others begged for water or help, some complained about the dust. Every so often I heard weeping, at times screaming. And the chaos swarming around and on the tracks -- all those people running along the embankment, clamoring among the high weeds and foxtails -- showed no signs of ending.

  "Little girl -- are you hurt anywhere?" said a woman. She was sitting nearby, cradling her purse in one arm. "Are you okay?"

  Aside from a scratch on her cheek and disheveled hair, she appeared to have survived without serious injury. But her eyes were watery, her voice trembled when she spoke, and I noticed how she absently yanked bluebonnets, one after ano
ther, crushing the flowers firmly before dropping them.

  "I’m just hungry is all,” I told her. "I was sleeping."

  And she flinched, as if my words had agitated her.

  "Here, I have sornething." She opened her purse and pulled out an orange, asking, "Are you traveling alone or with someone?"

  I shrugged.

  "Don’t know,” I replied, my stomach grumbling while she peeled the fruit. "I guess Dickens will come get me, I’m pretty sure he will.”

  I watched as she rotated the orange, using her fingernails to scrape away the rind. Then she offered me the orange with a shaky hand, and instantaneously my teeth were on it.