River, Sing Out

by James Wade

  The girl walked always forward. The pickups and big rigs would start out as toy cars on the faraway plain and the boy would watch them as they came closer and life-sized and he would turn and wave at the drivers with both arms and shout “Hey!” as they passed by and sprayed water and the girl never turned or looked or seemed to notice. She stuck out her thumb and nothing else. Her wet hair hung heavy across her shoulders and the rain ran down her face and the whole of the world around her made no matter as she walked forward, thumb out.

  “Don’t look like anybody’s gonna stop,” Jonah said.

  “They think you’re my son.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s why nobody’s stopping. They figure they aren’t getting a blow job if my kid’s with me.”

  “Maybe they think I’m your boyfriend.”

  The girl didn’t respond for a while. When she did, she tried to keep herself from crying.

  “I’m sorry for what happened,” she said. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

  “It’s okay. I broke my wrist when I was nine, and this doesn’t feel like that. I bet it’s just sprained.”

  “How are your ribs?”

  “I’m fine,” the boy insisted.

  “Let me see,” the girl said, pulling up the boy’s shirt.

  He jerked away and winced.

  “I said I’m fine.”

  The girl rolled her eyes.

  With an unnoticed swiftness, the sun was again shining. Steam rose from the wet pavement. The humidity and sweat and rain mixed on the girl’s neck and the borrowed shirt clung to her frame.

  “Quit staring,” she said.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Quit lying.”

  “Alright.”

  They could see the roadkill from thirty yards out. It had been drug onto the shoulder just outside the nearest highway lane. A committee of buzzards hopped along the wet ground and through pools of standing water. The two fiercest of the bunch ate from either end of the dead animal. It was a deer. Its head kicked back unnatural, neck exposed, the two buzzards snapping and pulling at the fly-covered flesh. The others made challenges, wings spread, squawking. Eventually enough of the outliers banded together to mount a successful coup, running off the larger birds and then squabbling amongst themselves as to who was entitled to what. One of the buzzards buried its face in the exposed entrails of the animal and emerged from its feasting covered in dark blood and bits of viscera. Upon the approach of the two humans the birds bounded away in stunted flight, reforming near the tree line and waiting.

  The girl held her nose and gagged and hurried past the deer, the flies rising in unison and then touching back down as if their every movement was magnetized. The boy stopped and stared down at the animal. It was a doe. She stunk something fierce. The buzzards hopped, impatient. Further down the tree line the boy caught movement. He squinted into the shadowed underbrush and there saw a glimpse of brown fur, spotted white.

  He couldn’t know for sure it was the same deer he’d been feeding. But he knew, all the same.

  “Come on,” the girl said, her shirt now covering her nose and mouth. “Let the damn birds finish eating.”

  A sheriff’s car passed and made a U-turn and pulled alongside them near the shoulder of the highway. A deputy rolled down the window.

  “Deputy.” The girl nodded.

  “What are y’all doing out here on the side of the highway?” the man asked.

  “Just getting a little fresh air, sir.”

  “What’s in the satchel, there?”

  “Oh, just some water and snacks and bug spray and whatnot.”

  The man nodded.

  “I’m headed right up here to the Dark Horse, y’all come from that way?”

  “Nossir,” the girl said. “We live right off the county road, yonder. Just came up to the highway to see if the blackberries were still ripe.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I don’t buy that country-cooked story even a little bit. Y’all need to get off the damn road before somebody sees you.”

  The deputy saw their confused glance.

  “You know John Curtis has got the whole damn force out looking for you, girl.”

  “You ain’t gonna take us in?”

  “Are you not listening to me? I’m trying to help. There ain’t but one or two of us that still believe in right and wrong, but we’re out here. Now get off the damn highway and, if you can, get somewhere far away from this place.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Well, work faster.”

  The deputy pulled back onto the roadway, and the boy shifted uncomfortably.

  “They even got the cops looking for us?”

  “Looking for me. Not you. Why don’t you go on home?”

  “After what happened back at the bar, if they ain’t looking for me yet, they will be soon enough.”

  “So what are we then, Bonnie and Clyde?”

  The boy frowned. “Bonnie and Clyde ended up dead,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, everybody ends up dead.”

  The boy begrudgingly agreed to hide behind a tree while the girl tried to flag down a ride. It took less than three minutes for a truck to stop.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” a younger man said from behind the wheel. “Where you headed?”

  “Greenwood Apartments.”

  The man’s face scrunched up.

  “The projects?”

  “That’s right. Gotta buy some weed.”

  “Alright then, I guess I can drop you.”

  “Great,” the girl smiled, then turned to the woods. “C’mon, Jonah.”

  The boy emerged with his head down, and the man in the truck looked confused.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “Oh, he’s just my little brother.”

  “You’re taking your little brother to buy pot?”

  “Yeah. He’s real discreet,” the girl said and winked at the man. “Get in the back, Jonah.”

  They rode in silence, the driver glancing over at the girl a handful of times per minute. By the time they hit the first traffic light in the town of Neches, the man realized none of this was going to be how he thought. He dropped them at Greenwood without saying a word.

  “Why is you here? I told you on the phone we ain’t want that shit.”

  “I need to talk to Trina,” the girl begged.

  “Who the fuck is this?” the man asked, looking to the boy.

  “He’s a friend. He’s cool.”

  “Cool, my ass. This little motherfucker look ten years old.”

  “I’m thirteen.”

  “The fuck you doing running with this bitch?”

  “She’s my friend.” Jonah shrugged.

  The man shook his head.

  “You gonna let us in or what?” the girl asked.

  The man motioned for them to come inside, then he looked out at the parking lot and the road and shut the door.

  “I’ll get Trina out the back,” he said.

  The girl had called the apartment a shithole but the boy liked that there were stairs. In his estimation, only rich people could afford a second story. The carpet was worn and stained, but still it felt softer than what was in the boy’s trailer. The television was the biggest he’d ever seen. He imagined it was likely the biggest in the world and that there was a certificate somewhere saying as much. There was a man in the small kitchen off the living room, peering through the open space above the bar. Several others were lounged on leather chairs and a couch. In a tiled space where the living room met the kitchen, two men sat at a small circular table of glass, whispering to one another.

  The boy watched the men in the room, each of them aware of every movement, their own and those of the others. There was a forced calm in the room, and it made the boy uneasy. The skunked s
mell of marijuana mixed with sweet cigarillos and lingered in the air and in the apartment and would for many years to come. On the television, men with machine guns wearing various masks were shooting at one another in the desert.

  “Hey, boo boo,” a woman said, coming down the stairs.

  “Hey, T,” River said.

  “What are you doing here, baby girl? I ain’t talked to you in a minute.”

  “You got a phone charger?” the girl asked weakly, trying not to cry.

  The woman’s face grew stern. She eyeballed the girl.

  “That motherfucker Cade do something to you? He hit you?”

  “No, no. I mean, it’s not that. Can we talk alone?”

  “Yeah, girl. C’mon upstairs to the salon.”

  A man laughed.

  “What the fuck is funny, Julius?”

  “Man, just ’cause you be up there tying nasty weaves on ugly bitches don’t make your bedroom a salon.”

  “Mind your business, nigga. I’m working for a motherfucking living. Police come up in here, whatchyou think they care more about? My legitimate business or your punk ass surrounded by a bunch of fucking weed and coke.”

  “Alright, I was just playing.”

  “Piece of shit.”

  “Alright, I said. Damn. Sensitive ass.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What the fuck I thought.”

  River told him to stay and the boy stood near the foot of the stairs and looked into the kitchen and the big man holding court looked back at him.

  “What’s up, little man?”

  “Hey.”

  “Already.”

  The man looked away, and the boy assumed this was the end of the interaction.

  “Say, man, lemme line you up.”

  The boy was caught off guard.

  He looked behind him on the stairs and a young boy who looked to be the same age stood in a red-and-navy striped T-shirt and khaki shorts.

  “What?” Jonah asked.

  “Lemme line you up in the back, dawg. When’s the last time you got a haircut?”

  The boy could not recall.

  “Whatever, man, come on,” the other boy said.

  Jonah followed his counterpart up the stairs and into a hallway. He could hear the girl talking on the other side of a closed door. He paused outside of it and tried to listen.

  “Come on, man,” the other boy urged, and Jonah followed him to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

  There were cigarettes in the sink and a variety of pipes, body sprays, and pill bottles on the counter.

  “Right here, my man.”

  The boy sat on the stool provided.

  “I’m Terrance,” the other boy said. “But everybody call me Lil’ T. Trina, my sister, she already Big T. That dude down there fucking with her is my older brother, Julius.”

  “I’m Jonah.”

  “What’s up, Jonah.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Alright, I’m gonna clean you up, dawg. Make your shit look good.”

  Lil’ T flicked on the clippers and Jonah heard a muted hum and felt the dull tickling sensation on the back of his neck. The boy watched in the mirror as Lil’ T focused and took great care in every pass, occasionally backing away to study his progress.

  “You’re good at this,” the boy said.

  “I’m the shit. I’m gonna have you looking fresh as fuck. Your girl gonna love this shit.”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “Friend? Shit. That’s about to change, I get through with you. Believe that.”

  “Okay.”

  Lil’ T laughed.

  “You don’t talk much, huh?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I hear you, Jonah. I’m like that shit, too. All serious and everything. Don’t worry, that just means we’re wise. You feel me?”

  “I feel you.”

  “Ha ha, hell yeah. You cool as shit, Jonah.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Lil’ T said in a playful, mocking voice. “You cracking me up, dawg.”

  He again studied the boy’s hair and made delicate and deliberate adjustments, attending every detail of his work. When he finished, he used his hands to wipe the hair from the boy’s neck and shoulders.

  “You good, bruh.”

  The boy looked at himself in the mirror.

  “You like that shit, right?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Alright, gimmie ten.”

  “Ten what?”

  “Ten what? Dollars, nigga, what you think?”

  “Oh, I don’t—”

  “You don’t have any money? What you think this is free? You think my time don’t mean shit, huh?”

  “No, it’s not that, I just—”

  “Ayyyy, I’m just messing with you, Jonah. Damn. We cool, bruh.”

  The boy exhaled.

  “Whatchyou think about all this rain, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. The bottoms are flooding. But it’s not too bad here yet.”

  “Yeah, ‘yet,’ is the key word.”

  “You think it will get worse?”

  “Hell yeah, bruh. We all gonna be under water.”

  “You think it’s god?”

  “Huh? Naw naw naw, it ain’t god. It’s the government.”

  “The government?”

  “Shit. It’s always the government. Trying to get rid of black people.”

  “But there aren’t many black people in the bottoms.”

  “True. But y’all poor as shit down there, right? So to the government, that makes you black. Welcome to the club.”

  Lil’ T shook his head and continued.

  “It’s just like Katrina, bruh, and that Bradley Cooper motherfucker.”

  “Who?”

  “The sniper dude, not Bradley Cooper for real, but the dude he played in the movie. He was out there talking about shooting black folks during the hurricane. Government denied it. Of course. Then that motherfucker end up dead? Nah. That’s some shady shit, and so is this. Bet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say, you wanna see some real shit? Follow me.”

  The boy followed Lil’ T to a darkened bedroom and the latter switched on the light then pulled a cardboard box from a closet and dumped its contents onto the bed.

  “Check this shit out,” Lil’ T said, and the boy looked and saw several handguns of varying shapes and sizes.

  “Whoa.”

  “Right?”

  “Do you know what they all are?”

  “Shit no, I’m trying to be a barber not a gangbanger. Still looks badass, though.”

  The boy agreed.

  There was a pounding on the door of the room next to them. Lil’ T scrambled to put the weapons back in the box.

  “Come on, Jonah, help me with this shit. Julius’ll kill my ass.”

  They replaced the guns and the box and turned out the light and stood in the hallway and listened to the voices in the next room.

  “This bitch gotta go, Trina,” Julius said. “She mixed up in some bullshit I don’t want no part of.”

  “This my girl, Julius. I ain’t about to be like that.”

  “I’m not asking. I just talked to a nigga who knows what’s up. This bitch stole a bunch of crystal from John fucking Curtis. You remember that motherfucker? The one who went all Scarface on them Nazi-ass white boys up in Redtown? I gave that crazy fool my word we wouldn’t mess with the meth game no more. Everybody know cocaine about to comeback hard, anyway. The Weeknd singing about that shit. So we gonna let that dude have the meth heads, and what we damn sure not gonna do is play babysitter for some bitch who stole from him.”

  Trina stood, ready to c
ontinue the argument, but the girl stepped in.

  “It’s okay, Trina,” she said. “We’ll go. I don’t want to cause problems. But please, Julius, don’t tell anyone we were here.”

  “Shit, I ain’t trying to have nobody find out you was in my house.”

  The girl came out first and saw the two boys and motioned for Jonah to follow her.

  “Sounds like you in some shit, bruh,” Lil’ T told him. “Keep your head on a swivel out there.”

  “Huh?”

  The other boy laughed and shook his head.

  “Just stay safe, Jonah.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks.”

  33

  The thin man sat at the bar and sipped his tequila from the glass as if it were something hot, something to be consumed delicately.

  He listened to the sound of the planes taking off and the cry of children and the distorted announcements being made over the speaker. He hated airports, grocery stores, public places in general.

  “Hey, cowboy.”

  The woman was tall and blond and drunk.

  “Hola,” said the thin man.

  “You speak English?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you gonna buy me a drink?”

  The thin man held up two fingers and circled the air in the barkeep’s direction.

  “Where you headed, handsome?”

  The man shifted on the barstool to face the girl. He looked her up and down and smiled.

  “I am headed toward a destiny, señorita.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said.

  “And you?”

  “Conference in Dallas. Corporate wants us to go up there and promote the new environmentally conscious side of the industry.”

  “Which industry?”

  “Oil and gas.”

  “I see.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “It is unpleasant. You know this. I know this. This tequila is too fine for such unpleasantness.”