River, Sing Out

by James Wade

  Soon the rain lightened and the veil dissipated and Dustin saw the world behind the curtain was the same as his own, and when he turned back, John Curtis was staring at him and had been for some time.

  “Did I ever tell you about an old boy named Harlen I used to run with?” John Curtis asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “I never did?”

  Dustin shook his head.

  “Well. Harlen was a wild man. A good man, according to most, but he had a temper on him that would get hotter than two foxes fucking in a forest fire.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Knew him for a few years after the war, before I reconnected with Cade. I guess you could say he was my right-hand man for a while. He liked to fight, and there was always somebody out to whip my ass. Instead, they’d try to whip Harlen. Usually didn’t go too well. He wasn’t quite the specimen ole Cade is, but he got the job done more often than not.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Now? Oh, he’s buried out back, below that little ridge. Got a hole in his head you could put your arm through.”

  “He got shot?”

  “He did indeed.”

  “Aryans?”

  “No, nothing like that. It was before all them days. I shot him myself.”

  Dustin’s throat was closing up on him.

  “How come?” he asked, the words shivering out.

  “He withheld information.”

  The tears were coming and Dustin didn’t think he could stop them.

  “What about?”

  “A goddamn dog. You believe that?”

  John Curtis shook his head and spit.

  “I was just starting out as a dogman. Working my way through the mud circuits and everything. Back then it was the Wild West, let me tell you. Weren’t no special task forces or anything like that. Hell, one of the top dogmen in East Texas was a sheriff’s deputy over in Calhoun County.

  “Anyway, I had this one mean sumbitch named Gito. He was a ferocious damn animal, I shit you not. Harlen took care of the dogs for me. This is before I met old Claude, of course. And I could tell just by the way he was that he didn’t like it. Not the caretaking, but the fighting. Saw something of himself in those dogs, I think. Felt bad for them. Whether he let Gito run off or not, I’ll never know. He said he didn’t, and I tend to believe him. The man wasn’t a liar.”

  “But you shot him.”

  “A week or so later, somebody spotted Gito out along the highway. Word got around to gay Jerry out at the bar that one of John Curtis’s dogs was loose. So Jerry told Harlen, thinking he’d either tell me or get the dog himself.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No, he didn’t. It wasn’t a lie. Unless you believe in lying by omission. Harlen just figured whatever came of Gito out there in the wild would probably be better than the fighting pits. And I don’t doubt that he was right about that. But when you can’t trust a man to be forthcoming, even about the smallest thing, you got no use for him. You understand?”

  “Are you gonna kill me?”

  John Curtis leaned back and crossed his arms.

  “That’s not really a fair question, is it? You’re asking me to make a determination without having all the facts. And I sure wouldn’t want to mislead you, one way or the other. Especially not when it comes to something so . . . permanent. Frank says you’re holding out on us. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe he’s not. Now’s your chance to set things straight. Did you help her run off, or do you just think she’s better off on her own?”

  Dustin was shaking. He nodded his head.

  “Well,” John Curtis said. “Go on.”

  The boy told him everything, and when he was finished John Curtis stood and walked to the edge of the porch and was a long time standing.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dustin said, whimpering, unable to withstand such silence.

  John Curtis walked over to the boy and stood above him. He looked down into his sunken eyes and saw there the fear and uncertainty of a child awaiting punishment. He put his hand on the boy’s back and felt his spine.

  “Dustin.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How does a vacation sound?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got something I need sent to Houston. I can’t rightly mail it. I was hoping you’d take it for me. I’ll pay for your gas, your hotel, even a steak dinner if the mood so strikes you.”

  The boy hesitated.

  “What am I running?”

  “Oh, nothing like that. Just some money and a message. You’ll take it to our bean-eating friend there.”

  Dustin nodded. He had begun shaking again.

  “It’s alright, bud,” John Curtis said. “Don’t be scared.”

  “Yessir, I’m sorry.”

  He was crying.

  “It’ll be in a public place. Somewhere sacred to Mexicans and Americans alike.”

  “A church?”

  “A ballpark.”

  John Curtis opened the door to the cabin and stood with his hand on the knob.

  “I’ll have Frank get with you on the details. Keep your phone on.”

  Dustin nodded.

  “What you told me, that stays between us. Not a word to anyone. You got me?”

  John Curtis went inside and closed the door. Dustin walked on weak legs through the rain to his truck and climbed inside. He put his head on the steering wheel and sobbed.

  17

  When the boy returned the girl was asleep and he boiled the water and set the pot in the fridge to cool and then poured it back into the jug and set it on the mattress beside her. Then went into the living room, took off his clothes, and collapsed onto the couch.

  When his eyes opened next, she was standing in the den in his mother’s T-shirt and a pair of his own blue jean shorts which she had been unable to button. Her hair fell across her face and shoulders and she held the half-empty jug, and he was in awe at how beautiful she appeared.

  “You don’t got any food,” she said, and the boy nodded and pulled the blanket up to cover his bare chest and bony shoulders.

  “Well,” the girl looked around. “The hell are we supposed to eat?”

  The boy opened his mouth, but the girl didn’t let him speak.

  “Don’t say eggs. I swear to god, you better not say eggs.”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped.

  “You got any money?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “How ’bout a phone? Or a charger?”

  “No.”

  “No food, no phone. I guess you have a Corvette out back that you drive around to get whatever you need?”

  “No, I don’t have a car.”

  The girl shook her head.

  “How far are we from the highway?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen miles.”

  “That’s not impossible to walk.”

  “Closer to twenty if you use the roads.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  The girl paced the room. The boy watched her scrunch her face and push back her hair. He watched her legs flex with each step and saw the veins in her neck as she threw her head back and sighed.

  “It’s hot as shit in here,” she said at last. “Let’s go down to the water so I can think.”

  The boy nodded and scrambled from the couch and kept himself wrapped in the blanket until he was in his room with the door shut. When he emerged again he wore light-colored blue jeans and a T-shirt with a polar bear drinking from a Coke bottle. The girl was gone and the door was left open.

  He found her at the river. She’d taken the largest of the trails leading away from the trailer and she sat on the stunted beach with her knees pulled to her chest and her feet half i
n the water.

  “Feeding the minnows,” the boy said.

  “What?”

  He pointed to the two-inch-deep water and the girl saw the tiny creatures swarming around her toes.

  “At least somebody’s eating,” she said.

  “I can find us some food.”

  “Why the hell do you live out here alone?”

  “I don’t. My dad works the pipelines. Two weeks on, two weeks off.”

  “And he’s there now?”

  “No. He’s off, but he’s at Shawna’s.”

  “Who’s Shawna?”

  “His friend.”

  “Mmhm. How long has he been gone?” she asked.

  “Since the day you came.”

  “He stay gone like that a lot?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “I guess.”

  “How come you helped me?”

  He shrugged again.

  “You don’t know?” she asked.

  “What should I have done?”

  “I don’t know. Left me there. Threw me in the fucking river.”

  “You didn’t want me to help you?” he asked.

  The girl softened.

  “No, I did. I do. Thank you. I just . . . wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “We all got a name.”

  “What’s yours?” the boy asked.

  The girl looked down and then out at the water.

  “Call me River.”

  “Is that your name?”

  “It’s what I want you to call me.”

  “Okay, River.”

  “You know what I am, right?” she asked him.

  “A girl.”

  “I’m a meth addict. Do you know what meth is?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Well. I use it. Or I did. That’s why I been acting so weird. That and a bunch of other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Do you know what depression is?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about psychosis?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “It basically means I hear and see shit that ain’t really there.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know—voices, whispers, fucking jolly green giants.”

  “You see giants?”

  “God, no, it’s just an example. Listen, I’m in a world of shit, and as much as I appreciate what you did for me, I gotta get out of here. I lost something really important, and there’s bad men who are gonna kill me stone dead because of it.”

  The boy dropped his eyes.

  “What’d you lose?” he asked.

  “A backpack. Had something in it worth a lot of money.”

  “Oh. Well, what if you stayed here?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  The boy looked around, not sure of an answer.

  “You came from upriver,” he said, pointing. “So you probably lost your backpack somewhere in the woods. You can stay here, and we can go out looking for it every day until we find it. Plus, the people looking for you aren’t going to think you’re here with me.”

  The girl ground her teeth in contemplation.

  “What about when your old man comes home?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find your backpack before he gets here.”

  They stood, the boy staring at the girl, her arms folded in front of her.

  “I’m going in,” she said, and began to undress. The boy looked away.

  “You gonna make me go alone?” the girl asked, and the boy found himself removing his shoes out of some thoughtless instinct.

  The sun shone even as it rained and the world around them was humid and airless. They stripped their outer layers and spilled into the swollen brown river, and the chattering of squirrels and the grousing of sparrows filled the country. And somewhere in the beyond, a single fate was selected from a row of fates, no one more certain than the other, yet each bound to the world by threads of choice and circumstance.

  The girl ran her hand across the water’s surface and the smallest wake left trailing, and she stood there, waist deep, and stared down at her stomach as it moved with each breath. She walked further into the river until her stomach was submerged, then back to the shallows. Amen, she whispered.

  The boy saw her hair pinned up in flashes of purple and blond, a few rogue strands hanging wet on her neck. He saw her shoulder blades, her spine, the indented small of her back. He saw the curve of her hips as they disappeared into the water. She moved toward the shore, her legs rising from the river, her panties clinging to her skin. She was skinny, but she was a woman. And as the boy watched her, a great weight of inadequacy pressed down on him. With each step she took, he felt more naked, more exposed. It was as if he were seeing himself for the first time. As if he’d ate of the forbidden fruit and was at once awash in the shame of his own being. His bony chest, his thin arms and knobby knees. He was a head shorter than the girl. He sunk down in the river until only his face was above the water.

  The girl turned.

  “Quit staring,” she said.

  He went under. He held his breath and closed his eyes and let the pull of the river pass by him. The pressure in his ears was comforting, the low hum of a world submerged. He always wished he could stay under longer, but it was impossible to breathe; above the surface it was only hard.

  The girl sloshed to the shore and pulled the shorts on wet and leaned up against a cypress trunk. Whatever the boy had done to her feet, they felt better. But a twenty-mile walk seemed like a tall order. And where would she go, anyway? John Curtis had eyes and ears all over the county. She had to get far away from this place, and that was going to take money. She needed cash, and that bag was the only way to get it. She crossed her arms and looked out at the boy and shook her head.

  “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go eat some goddamn eggs.”

  18

  The sheriff’s office was run for the most part out of a series of portable buildings behind the county jail. The largest of these structures had a handicap-accessible ramp up to the door and the words “Neches County Law Enforcement” in two lines of block lettering on the outward-facing wall. Just inside the door was a low ceiling, vertical wood paneling, and the smell of day-old coffee. Behind a desk with only a phone and computer atop it sat an aging woman with gray-streaked hair and glasses. She worried with the keyboard in front of her, but was trying her best to hear the conversation in the other room.

  “Look, Mr. Curtis, we both know I could have you sent away for the rest of your goddamn life. So don’t come in here making demands. We have a relationship, and despite what you river-rat rednecks might think, relationships aren’t supposed to be abusive. Now, if there’s something I can help you with, you’re welcome to ask nicely and let me see what I can do.”

  John Curtis grinned without disturbing the lit cigarette in his mouth.

  “I’m hurt, Sheriff, I truly am. And of course I apologize sincerely. It’s just, I didn’t realize you had those sort of feelings for me. But since you’re painting me as the bad guy in our arrangement, let me go ahead and finish out the picture for you. You arrest me, you shoot me, you do anything to take me away from my position atop this little shitpile we have here, well, you’re gonna have scumbag cooks and pushers and everybody else flocking to these bottoms. And guess what? They ain’t gonna be as nice as me. They ain’t gonna be willing to give you the little gifts that I do. Your name and picture in the paper every couple of months for making a meth bust, for keeping these streets clean. We both know the truth. I’m the law, not you. You take me out, this place turns into a goddamn bloodbath. No more freebies just handed to you. You might actually have to work to catch criminals.”

  “Now hold on just a—”

&nb
sp; “Then come reelection, I’m not around to make sure my boys, along with every other tweaker in Neches County, are turning up to vote your fat ass back into office. ’Course, that’s all politics, and you’re smarter than you look, so I imagine you already knew most of that. But there’s something matters to me more than politics, Sheriff, it’s principle. And if you ever threaten me again, or talk down about me and my people, I’ll have a couple chalk heads go down to the elementary where your daughter’s in Miss Lacy’s class, and I’ll get ’em to snatch her up by her pretty blond hair and slit her fucking throat. And they’ll do it too. They’ll do it for a baggie of crank and a pat on the fucking head. See, you have deputies, Sheriff, but I have soldiers. And there ain’t no law, god’s or man’s, gonna stop my boys.”

  The sheriff swallowed.

  John Curtis shook his head.

  “There will forever be those who stand in judgment with no knowledge, no true understanding of what it is before them. These conjectures are inevitable, of course. Nuance is too complicated for the masses. It further confuses an already muddled world. They look at us and they see trash. Sketchers with bad teeth and worse manners. They believe, because our trade is outside the boundary of law, that we can never have true power. That’s where they’re mistaken. It is precisely our lawlessness which makes us dangerous. Which makes us feared. And fear, above all else, is the root of power.

  “My father taught me that. He didn’t mean to of course. He didn’t mean to teach me anything. But as soon as I shed my fear of him, he lost his power over me. The moment I realized he was just a man, no different than me, that’s the moment I unsheathed my blade and took the power from him.”

  “Jesus Christ, John, you just admitted to murder in the goddamn sheriff’s office.”

  John Curtis laughed.

  “So arrest me.”

  The sheriff frowned.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” John Curtis said. “You see, the world is full up with bad men. Folks don’t like to admit that, or even think about it; but what good does lying do? I guess people will lie about anything to make themselves feel a little better. I never found the use in it. I’d rather see the truth of the matter, then set about with meeting it head-on, trying to conquer it outright. And how do you conquer bad men? You become one. Even bad men are scared of someone. Scared of worse men. And let me tell you, there are none worse than me.