by James Wade
“It can kill people too,” the boy added.
The girl shrugged. “So? Folks live and they die and who can tell the difference?” she said, shaking her head. “If I died, or you, who notices people like us? Who even cares?”
“God might care.”
“Do you believe in god?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think my dad does.”
“Yeah? What does he have to say about it?”
“He said there was a man who threw him off a deer lease, and then that man got cancer.”
“So he thinks god gave the man cancer for kicking him out?”
“He says everything happens for a reason.”
“What about babies dying? Or people starving or getting killed in wars?”
“I guess he reckons there’s a reason for that, too.” The boy shrugged again. “Do you believe in god?”
The girl wiped at her face. It was red and swollen around her eyes.
“When I was little, before my sister was born, my momma used to sit me in front of the TV set and turn the sound up real loud so I couldn’t hear what she was doing in the back. Don’t get me wrong, I knew what she was doing. Maybe not exactly, on account of I wasn’t very old, but I knew something. I saw the men come and go and I knew once they left she was different. She’d talk different, but it was really just her eyes. They were so sad and empty, like they were there, but they weren’t. Like they were watching everything happen, but from a place far away.”
The girl stopped and sighed and shook her head.
“Anyway, this one time she sat me down and there was this show on. I guess it wasn’t really a show. More like a speech or something. And there was this old man with big glasses and he was in a brown suit and he was yelling into the camera about how god only helps the people that are willing to help themselves. He was a preacher. The TV kind. And he said god only answers prayers if you show him you’re serious about whatever it is you’re praying for. Well, my grandma had taken me to a Sunday School class or two, and I knew some about Jesus and god and how they loved you no matter what and would take care of you always, and it didn’t sound like this preacher was talking about the same god they talked about in my grandma’s church. And to tell you the truth, I liked it. I thought this god sounded legit.”
The boy let out a half laugh.
“I did,” the girl continued. “I swear, I thought that shit made more sense than anything I’d heard before about some all-loving god. This man said you gotta pay for god’s promises, and that sounded a hell of a lot more like the world I knew about. So then the preacher man, he said, ‘If you’re watching this, I want you to send ten dollars to the address on the screen.’ And sure enough an address came across the television where you could mail your money.”
“Did you send ten dollars?” the boy asked.
“I was just a little kid, I didn’t have any money. But my momma was back in the bedroom with some old boy, so I found her purse and took out ten dollars—there probably wasn’t but fifteen or twenty in there to begin with. I wrote down that address in my little girl handwriting and I called my grandma to come pick me up and take me to the post office so I could mail some money to god.”
“Did you?”
“Sure as shit.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Did he answer your prayer?”
“No.”
“What did you pray for?”
“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t get it. That man on the TV kept my stolen ten dollars, and when my momma found out what happened she beat me black and blue and wouldn’t let me see my grandma anymore.”
“So you don’t believe in god?”
“Oh, who knows. Maybe god was busy that day, or maybe he pissed off the postman. Truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe about god or anything else. I do know one thing though.”
“What?”
“I believe in you.”
“What?”
“That’s right. Why not? You helped me more than god ever has.”
He pushed the wet hair out of his face and stared off and it seemed he was considering this new information with great care.
“Well don’t be weird,” she said. “I ain’t gonna worship you or nothing.”
The boy nodded.
“But it would be nice if you could conjure up some food and wine like how Jesus did for them hungry folks in the Bible.”
“Alright then. I will.”
“What? I was just playing.”
“I will. I’ll do some conjuring.”
The boy smiled, and it occurred to the girl she had never seen him do so and this in turn brought a smile of her own and they sat, the two of them, grinning, until the boy slapped his knees and stood and started down the trail toward the river. He stopped a few feet from the cypress grove and turned.
“You just gonna stand there?”
“And miss you partin’ the Neches? Not a chance,” she said. “I’m right behind you.”
The boy slipped soft into the water and the water came over his feet and turned them brown. The boy closed his eyes and dipped his hands into the murk and the girl stood some feet behind him and shook her head.
“I knew you were a river rat but I didn’t know how long a tail you had.”
“You want supper or not?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He felt above the small holes and hallowed wood near the shore, then spotted a near-black driftwood log three-quarters submerged along the bank. He waded over to it and studied it and turned and grinned at the girl, then plunged his arms into the water and came up splashing and struggling with a river cat the length of his own torso.
“Holy shit,” the girl said as the boy launched the fish onto land where it flopped and thrashed in the tall grass. The boy was right behind it and soon he was on the fish and holding it still.
“How did you do that?”
“It’s pretty easy. You just have to find where they’re nesting and then grab their mouth before they can get away. They’ll usually fight instead of run, ’cause they’re guarding eggs.”
“Wait, you catch them when they’re trying to protect their babies?”
The boy frowned.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“That seems messed up.”
The boy looked down at the fish, then back at the log.
“Yeah. I guess it does.”
“I’m not really hungry anymore.”
“Me neither.”
The boy took the fish by the mouth again and tried to get it back to the water but it fought back and tore a chunk of flesh from the boy’s hand. He dropped it, grabbed it again and this time made it to the log and let it go.
“Do you think it’ll go back to its nest?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said breathing heavy.
The girl grabbed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the boy and motioned for him to sit on the couch.
“I can do it myself.”
“I’m sure you can, but you took care of me plenty, and now I get to give a little something back. Plus, I’ve gotten pretty good at stopping folks from bleeding or getting infected after they make a piss-poor needle play.”
The boy looked uncomfortable with such information.
River tipped the bottle over his hand and began dabbing up the excess liquid with a paper towel.
“I wonder if the fish are drawn to you because of your name. You know, Jonah, from the Bible?”
The boy winced.
“That bullheaded little bastard sure didn’t think too much of me. Besides, that’s not how it goes. I mean, there’s a whale or a big fish or whatever, but there’s a bunch more. I used to read it a lot. Daddy told me my momma named me Jonah like from the Bible and so I thought maybe I could find out so
mething about her if I learned the story.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I just found out the real story ain’t how it is in the little kid books about the Bible.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, in the story, Jonah is supposed to preach god’s word to enemies of Israel, but he doesn’t want to because they are evil people. He tries to run from god by sailing in the other direction, but god sends a storm that’s going to sink the boat he’s on. Jonah know it’s his fault, so he sacrifices himself by having the other men throw him into the sea. He would’ve drowned, but god sent a big fish to swallow him. He lived inside the fish for three days, and the whole time he prayed to god and asked for forgiveness. God did forgive him. He had the fish spit Jonah on the shore of the place he was supposed to preach. So he walked through this city and told the people there that god was going to destroy them if they didn’t repent. The people were scared and they listened to Jonah and they did repent, so god spared them.
“But in the end, Jonah is mad at god for not destroying these people. He thinks they are bad people and they don’t deserve forgiveness. That’s why he didn’t want to go in the first place. It’s not because he thought they wouldn’t listen, it’s because he knew they would. He didn’t want them to ask forgiveness, because he was afraid god would grant it.”
The girl thought about it, then nodded.
“I like that story better,” she said.
“How come?”
“Because some people don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Even from god?”
“Especially from god. I bet it doesn’t say what happens to those people after Jonah leaves. I bet their goody-two-shoes act didn’t last no longer than a knife fight in a phone booth. Shit, soon as Jonah was rowing his boat back to Israel or wherever, they started up with all the same things they’d always done. I’d bet anything.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s how people are, kid, they’re assholes. They’re liars. They’re all out for themselves. They get caught doing something and sure as shit they’re so sorry about it; but turn your head for two seconds and they’ll be at it again. Now hold still and let me finish my doctoring.”
24
The box was built on-site in the early morning when there was the least chance of rain, yet the rain still fell and the men felt it mix with their sweat and one of them killed a snake with a power drill. They worked quickly and didn’t talk. Twelve by twelve, two feet high.
“Here,” one of the men said, handing out shovels. “Dig the grass up, the muddier the better. John Curtis’s been mud-training Miss Rose.”
The men nodded. Any advantage they could get.
When they quit and left out from the place, the box was a framed mud pit, the rain adding to it. And there it would sit, untouched and unassuming until it was called to blood, and blood there would be.
The gray day slipped unnoticed into night without so much as a dying breath. The mosquitoes swarmed the wetlands and the frog songs echoed through the bottoms in a ghastly collective, and the procession of truck lights came crawling through the red mud, shaping out the trees and tall grass on the far side of the field. The first truck circled the box then stopped, idling, while the others parked in haphazard rows. When all had arrived, the first truck pulled back onto the mud path and followed it to the gravel, then the blacktop, and eventually out to the highway.
A man stood in the dark near the box, his silhouette just visible in the early night. He stood like a man purposed, waiting for something. Everything around him was dark and still.
After a short time, his radio gave static and the driver of the missing truck gave the all clear. No law had followed, nor did any lay in wait for an ambush.
The man nodded, as if such a confirmation could be seen through the airwaves. He walked to the parked vehicles and banged his hand on the back of one and men began to file out, hoisting generators and lighting equipment from the beds of their trucks. Some greeted one another in Spanish, others in broken English. Cade spoke quietly with a man he’d known in the oil fields south of San Antonio.
The set up took less than ten minutes. The generators revved and hummed and powered the lights as they were placed and angled down at each corner of the box.
“Bring in the dogs,” the man said.
John Curtis stepped down from the front of the black four-door Ford pickup and opened up the back. The dog leapt down and landed firm and started to pull toward the box, John Curtis doubling the end of the leash around his wrist.
“Look at that hard-mouthed bitch,” Frank said. He crossed his arms and spit.
Rose looked every bit the specimen of a gaming dog. She stood high-chested and ears pinned, waiting to follow her owner’s lead. Her brindled coat moved up and down with each breath, and the russet and tawny markings gave the dog the look of some exotic beast from the jungles of the eastern world.
“You sure that little ole chihuahua’s ready for this?” one of the white men said, heckling the Mexican contingency.
A short Mexican called Jay stepped forward to shake John Curtis’s hand.
“Where’s your dog?”
“Luto,” the man called, and both dog and handler stepped forward out of the darkness. John Curtis gave no reaction, but the others in his party frowned. Luto was jet black with yellow eyes, and looked to outweigh his opponent by ten pounds. He crept forward with his shoulders up and head down, as if he’d come from some ancient breed of panther.
Jay grinned at John Curtis who still betrayed no emotion.
Cade shook his head.
“Alright then,” John Curtis said, “let’s get after it.”
They mixed milk and vinegar and soap into the buckets and a man from each group was sent to wash the opposing dog. The other spectators drank beer and smoked cigarettes and heckled the opposition.
“Wash ’em good, José. Y’all gonna need all the help you can get.”
“Frank, what do you reckon John Curtis is gonna spend that five thousand on?”
“I imagine he’ll buy a night with the most expensive Mexican whore there is. But I don’t know what he’ll do with the other four thousand nine hundred and ninety-five.”
“Seguir hablando, gringo. Ya veremos.”
“Hey, Cheech, how do you say ass-whoopin’ in Mexican?”
“Perro pequeño,” the Mexicans laughed, pointing at the brindle dog and holding their thumb and forefinger close together in a pinching motion.
“We’ll see who’s laughing when it comes to the nut cuttin’. We’ll see.”
“Si. Ya veremos,” the Mexicans answered.
John Curtis and the Mexican handler cradled their respective dogs behind a white, painted scratch line on either side of the box.
The dogs faced away from one another. John Curtis whispered in Rose’s ear and ran his hand along her neck, trailing a thin liquid gel along her fur.
The referee took position, and the dogs were turned. Rose bared her teeth and pulled against John Curtis’s grasp. The big black dog crouched and snarled.
“Release,” the referee said.
The dogs barreled forward. Rose feinted sidewards from Luto’s first strike and locked into his left leg, but the dog was too strong. He pulled away, flinging blood from the fresh gash. Luto moved forward again and this time overpowered the smaller dog. He bit Rose’s neck, but just as quickly let go and shook his head. The brindle dog took advantage, launching at Luto’s throat and latching. The Mexican handler and his compatriots immediately went into hysterics. The referee called a stop and the men did their best to unlock Rose’s jaws. When John Curtis finally pulled her away, the male dog’s neck was wet and matted with blood.
“Puto tramposo,” Jay accused, running forward, then being held back by his own men.
John Curtis gave him the same
grin Jay had shown earlier.
Cade stepped in.
“This was a no qualification show,” he said. “You all agreed to it. You brought a goddamn dog looks like it’s been pumped full of every Mexican steroid you could get your hands on. Now if there’s a problem, you’re free to walk away and forfeit your money.”
The Mexicans argued angry amongst themselves. They weren’t handing over any money, but if they walked out on the show, they’d likely never get another one in East Texas. They pointed at the black dog, at John Curtis, at the pitch-black heavens.
Finally, a lanky man stepped forward from among them.
“We stay,” he said.
Jay threw his hands up and cursed in Spanish and walked into the darkness.
John Curtis looked over at Luto. The dog was taking ragged breaths and bleeding unobstructed from the neck.
He looked back to the man and nodded.
On the restart, Luto turned his back and cowered behind the scratch line. There would be no more fighting.
There was no handshake afterward. The men on both sides were silent as they tore down the box and loaded the equipment. The only evidence left would be tire tracks and the still-wet blood that seeped into the muddy ground and was there mixed and become part of the bottoms for all of time.
“Y’all hang back a second,” John Curtis told his boys. “Let them go on. We gotta talk some business.”
The Mexican caravan came up from the river road and turned out onto the highway and the night went from black to red and blue. Squad cars and SUVs blockaded the southbound stretch of pavement. The lead truck turned and sped away in the opposite direction. It was going ninety miles per hour when it hit the spike strip and went airborne and turned over and slid into a ditch. More lights came up from the north and there was nowhere left to go.
