by Billy Coffey
-5-
The fly must have been sick or old to have been caught so easy, probably ready to die anyway. Not that such rationalizing matters. It’s survival of the fittest that Chris Jones thinks, which is pretty much the only thing he’s remembered from the last hundred and eighty days of fifth grade. The weak exist so the strong can keep alive. They are made as food to eat and tools to use and, sometimes, just stuff to play with.
It makes him strong to kill it slow.
He spent the better part of the evening before on the can, moaning in a way that made his daddy cuss and his momma say it ain’t all that bad and shoot, Chris probably deserved it. Well, he didn’t deserve it, didn’t nobody, especially nobody like him. Chris knows he should’ve questioned that little bastard runt Abel soon as he held out that . . . chocolate . . . and said it was so he wouldn’t get picked on no more. That’s how the weak ones work it. Royce has said such to Chris more times than Chris can count. The weak ones gotta be sneaky and conniving because they know they ain’t strong, and so they go around acting like common terrorists. You ain’t careful, Royce says, you turn your eyes away for just one second, they’ll get you. Then, by god, it’s up to you to get them back ten times harder.
He shifts his weight to the left cheek of his ample behind, which is still sore and feels like it will be sore forever. On a section of plank before him lie a pair of pliers and a tiny mound of body parts—two wings and four legs. The remainder of the fly, nothing more than a dark gray cylinder, rests to the right of its own appendages. The body quivers as though endeavoring escape. Chris tilts his head at the movement. Thinking how stupid that fly is, it don’t even know how to die. He could step on it. Flick it down into the gap between the boards and let the ants get it, or maybe set it on fire with one of his momma’s lighters. Chris could kill it, but he doesn’t. He only watches, waiting for that final moment when life slips away.
His daddy wanted him to come cut wood. That was this morning, after Chris’s momma went to work. Chris said no, then refused again after Royce said he could even work the chainsaw. He didn’t want to chance getting sick out in the woods, hearing his daddy either laugh or cuss. Would have been great any other day, but not this one. All because of that runt, that little bas—
Something moving along the road catches his attention. It’s hard to see through all the trees, but it looks like somebody coming. Some kid pushing a bike. The fly is forgotten. Chris moves to his knees (it’s a slow movement, due to what his momma called his blown gasket) and peers toward the road. Not many kids out here, especially ones with bikes. Chris would know if there was.
This kid looks almost as big as Chris himself. Then the trees give way—no, not big, just wearing a bunch of clothes. And catcher’s gear? He snorts, thinking, What a idiot. Thinking—Maybe I should go on out there and see if that kid knows he’s a idiot. Wouldn’t matter if he did, ain’t nobody home to get him in trouble. Not a bad-looking bike neither. Chris has always wanted one.
It’s when he stands that he notices the kid with the bike is limping. Not like he’s hurt, but like that’s just how he walks.
Now he sees the bright yellow cast.
Whatever slow movement has plagued Chris for the last day vanishes in a rage that blinds him to all but revenge. He leaps from the porch and finds two rocks in the yard, heaving the first as hard as he can. The stone smashes into the side of Abel’s football helmet, just above where the chin strap is fastened. A crack like cannon fire sounds along the road. Chris hears Abel’s cry (like a baby, a cripple little baby) and sees him stumble off-balance. The next rock whizzes past the face mask. The bike follows the direction of Abel’s body and crashes into his left leg, knocking him to the ground onto his busted arm.
Good.
Abel screams again and raises his head, eyes bugging in a fear that looks so delicious that Chris’s mouth begins to water. He can’t move with all those clothes on, can’t get the bike off, and so can only manage to kick like a turtle stuck on its back.
Chris runs across the road without even a glance to see if there is traffic. He grabs the bike and heaves it away, then straddles Abel with all his weight. Screaming like a boy possessed, “I’ma kill you, you cripple little wuss. Your momma ain’t gonna save you this time.”
He smashes a fist into the helmet, clattering Abel’s teeth. Both boys cry out from the pain. Abel tries kicking as Chris punches the helmet again, meaning to smash it and Abel’s soft head. Punching the helmet and the chest protector, punching between Abel’s legs, the blows blunted by the layers of clothing.
“You know what you did to me, you little bastard? Everybody was laughing.”
Chris pounds again, again to little effect. And even as his fists fly and pummel, he realizes that Abel has ceased struggling at all. It is as though he has surrendered to some fate, this thing he deserves. Chris reaches for the chin strap and does not see Abel’s left hand reaching into the dirt and gravel. Nor is he aware that Abel’s right hand is balling into what fist it can.
Both react at once. The dirt and gravel (along with a bit of glass from a broken bottle, it turns out) meet the side of Chris’s face just as Abel’s right hand flies out and up in a wide arc that ends with the thickest part of his cast meeting Chris’s nose. The result is a wet popping sound, followed by a rain of tears and gushing blood.
Chris rolls away with his hands over his face. He lowers them and sees Abel moving toward the bike, struggling to stand on those two gimpy legs. Running away, like all cowards do. He’s digging in his left pocket for something. Chris refuses to let whatever it is get out and stands (wobbling as he does, the little freak clocked him good) before barreling toward Abel at full speed, screaming at him, yelling death.
Abel turns at the last second and raises his left hand. He’s got something in his fingers. Before Chris can react, he hears a mighty call.
“Shazam!” Abel screams, just before he throws a small cylinder to the ground between them.
It explodes with a pop into a wall of smoke that Chris runs into. The fumes choke him, making his eyes tear up and his lungs cough. His fists flail at the cloud, trying to beat it back. By the time the air clears, Abel’s almost to the next hill, pedaling forward as he glances back.
“I know where you live,” Chris yells, though with the busted nose and the two hands covering it, the words sound more like I bow ere you biv. “I’m gonna kill you. You hear me? I’m gonna kill you.”
Blood fills Chris’s hands, dripping onto his legs. He watches until the little speck disappears over the next hill. Then he blows out a breath and hobbles toward the house. Reaching the porch, he stops long enough to smash what remains of the fly with his shoe.
Tonight, he thinks. It’ll be tonight. He knows where the little cripple and his whore momma live. He’ll go and watch. Wait.
And if Chris has to, he’ll kill them both.
-6-
In a world rife with disagreement over matters large and small, it should be a miracle that folk in Mattingly agree as to which of the townspeople’s gardens is the finest. Everybody knows there is no better crop than that which grows in the two acres back of Henderson Farmer’s house where the yard abuts his north field. Henderson has long held close the secret of his plot’s success, a task made easier by the remoteness of his farm and fields. The farm was his daddy’s and his granddaddy’s, near two hundred acres, the little two-story house in the middle framed with wood siding that was white in some forgotten time but has since turned to the complexion of the fields around it, a brown film that streaks in the winter snow and hardens in the summer heat. It is a place of silences. Few visitors call upon this place set along the boundary between town and the wild places to the west and south. Even now the only noises are the few birds singing from high in an ancient oak, the hoe blade slipping into soft earth like a knife, and the clanging chain.
Most of Henderson’s wage is obtained by the bulk corn he grows and the livestock he sells, which is always some but never
much. Yet in these last years a good bit of Henderson’s yearly gross (not to mention most of his good name) has been derived from the produce stand he and Rita run in the town square from late June to early September. Folk say there must be something in Henderson’s dirt to make his vegetables grow so ripe and full, or some ancient wisdom that imbues his crop with such life. Even those who grow their own groceries will stop at the stand after the first harvests, hands full of money as they come and arms full of Henderson’s tomatoes and onions and peppers as they go, all of which Rita packages in paper bags stamped with words alleged to Christ, the Farmers being good Christian folk.
Yet many would know that notion false were they in the Farmers’ backyard now. They would stand unbelieving at first, thinking themselves fooled until they came to know different. For the one responsible for the beauty and goodness of this garden is not Henderson at all, nor the coldhearted woman called his bride, but the unwanted son they keep prisoner to tend it.
Dumb Willie drifts among sprouting rows of what for miles is called Farmer Corn in awed and hushed tones normally kept for gossiping of rich folk. He whispers as he works the hoe, flattering the plants from the black dirt in that clumsy way he talks. The hoe slips again and again into the soil, turning the dirt, Dumb Willie hilling the corn as a chef prepares a meal or an artist touches brush to canvas. Once (only once, and apart from then hardly ever) he clips the edge of a stalk, bruising it—“Boozed it!” Dumb Willie nearly shrieks—at which point he falls to his belly and uses his big hands as delicate instruments to heal what he’s broken. Every now and again he pauses to retrieve a weed that he holds close to his eyes before burying it with soil and moving on. His momma’s words are often repeated in his thoughts—Weeds need pullin’, else they choke the life out every good thing. As he moves down the row, digging deep beside the tiny weeds to catch their roots, Dumb Willie considers how he is called a weed too.
There is a quiet grace to his movement in spite of his massive size. Barely a mark of Dumb Willie’s passing would be left between the rows were it not for the steel chain fastened above the boot on his right foot. He must measure each step, pausing to hold the hoe in one hand and gather the long links in the other, easing the chain down between the plants so as not to crush them. The other end is soldered to a tall metal pole sunk deep at the garden’s center where a sparrow is perched, its head bobbing. Dumb Willie smiles at it. Sparrows are his favorite. The bird lights off and leaves a feather behind, which he retrieves and then tucks into the front of his overalls.
He talks and talks and calls that praying, hilling the corn and making it safe, and he stops to wince at the hot sun beating down and to look long at the edge of the grass where Rita has left a jug he cannot reach. A moving thing far at the side of the house catches his attention. He sees A Bull’s yellow cast waving and then sees A Bull. A Bull’s waving and he’s all dirty.
Dumb Willie shouts the name and his own. He drops the hoe onto a fragile bit of corn and marches from the garden, that long chain jangling, kicking up dust as it winds around the plants and snaps them. When the links reach their limit, he is spilled to the grass. He looks back to the chain and the pole as though seeing both for the first time. Now to the jug on its side that his fingers still cannot reach. Now finally to A Bull, who has stopped his waving and looks on in a sad and fascinated way.
“You’re chained, Dumb Willie,” he say.
“I . . .” It’s a word, he forgets what it is. “Fawled. It’s on my. Fut.”
“Your folks here?”
Dumb Willie shakes his head. His hands spread and flex in the grass, gathering in the blades. A Bull leaves the side of the house, no longer needing to hide since they are alone. He’s limping. A Bull’s always limping, he’s got bad bonez.
“They’ll be gone awhile, you think?” A Bull asks.
“Da’ee say I heel the. Corn.”
“Yeah, but are they gonna be gone awhile?”
Dumb Willie say they’ll be gone awhile ’cause he’s chayned. “Can’t take you on the . . .” It’s a word. “Tractor.”
“That’s okay. Can you take a break, you think? I got stuff to say.”
He pats Dumb Willie’s head and then walks down to Dumb Willie’s feet, which is a long way for A Bull because he’s so short and Dumb Willie’s so tall. Jangling that chain and the lock that holds the foot to it, cursing.
“I’m sorry, Dumb Willie,” he say. “I cain’t get this off you.”
“Oh. Kay.”
A Bull leaves the chain and goes to where the jug of water is. He lets Dumb Willie drink first and Dumb Willie say thank you for the wadder.
“I got to tell you something, but it’s a secret. You know what a secret is.”
Dumb Willie nods. He knows secret and places a dirty finger over his lips.
“Yeah, that’s it. Last night up at that barn? I seen Preacher Johnny after all that was over. I went out back and got him to give me one a them words. He did. He told me I was gonna find a treasure, and that when I found it I’d have to do something.”
“It’sa. Preecher.”
“Yeah, the preacher. He did something, Dumb Willie. I don’t know what kinda trick Preacher Johnny did. I thought it was a trick, but now I don’t because of what I got to tell you. You should’ve seen it, way he acted.” He looks at the chain. “Wish something like that’d happen to your folks once.”
Dumb Willie doesn’t nod in agreement. It’s an awful thing what Abel say.
“I hurt my momma’s feelings this morning, Dumb Willie. I didn’t meant to. I think she’s fed up with me, though. I cost her. She got all this money last night from people who want to help us out, but I had to give it to Reverend Johnny so I could get that word. I made her cry. My momma, Dumb Willie. I made my momma cry. That’s just about the worst thing ever. I didn’t even get to see the train this morning. But then I was cleaning up the wreck room—”
“Sorry,” Dumb Willie say, “’bout that. Trayne.”
“It don’t matter, now listen. I was cleaning out the wreck room and I found all these letters Momma kept hid. Know where they was from?”
Dumb Willie shakes his head.
“My daddy.”
“You ain’t got no. Da’ee you a bass . . . terd.”
A Bull say, “Not anymore I ain’t. My daddy’s still livin’, and I know where at. That’s the treasure Reverend Johnny told me. So I didn’t know what to do then. I rode my bike out to see Preacher Keen. No way I could tell him everything, but I said what I could and he said I gotta go. I didn’t think I could since it’s so far away. I thought on it and thought on it, and I was thinking so hard that I forgot about having to cut in the trees when I passed Chris’s house. Chris seen me. He tried killing me, Dumb Willie. Just like he promised. And now I think I gotta go. I just got to.”
Dumb Willie’s eyes shrink to slits. “Chris. Stinks Chris a. Weed.”
“Yeah.” A Bull sighs, and that makes Dumb Willie grin. “Dumb Willie, you got to listen to me. Where my daddy is? It’s a long way off. I think I know how I can get there, though. And I got to. If Reverend Johnny was right about the treasure, then that means he’s right about the rest. He said that treasure’s gonna get me healed.” He stops here, talking slow and looking straight at Dumb Willie’s nose. “Healed, Dumb Willie. That means I won’t be cripple no more. You see?”
Dumb Willie bobs his head.
“And then you know what I’ll get? A ree-ward.”
“Ree . . . ward?”
“Yeah. And you know what that ree-ward is, Dumb Willie? It’s my folks. Because I don’t know why my daddy left or why Momma say he died, but I bet I can talk to him. I bet I can make him come back with me, and then we’ll be a family.”
“Fambly,” Dumb Willie say.
“And then everything will be okay. Me and Momma’ll never have to worry about anything again. Daddy’ll get a new job here, and we’ll almost be rich. I gotta go find my joy, Dumb Willie. But listen. Are you listening?”
>
“Yez.”
“I cain’t leave you here, ’cause there’s no telling what’ll happen to you. So I want you to come along. To go see my daddy. Momma can’t go. I hurt her too bad, and she kept those letters from me so I ain’t even supposed to know. But I need to find my joy, and so does she, and neither of us can find it if I stay here. So you think you wanna find some joy? It’ll be an adventure.”
“Venchure.”
“Yeah. So you wanna come?”
Dumb Willie pulls on his chain. “I got heel the corn and pull. Weedz. Da’ee won’t let me. Go he say we . . .” It’s a word. “Kweer.”
“No, we ain’t. Your daddy beats on you an’ your momma treats you bad. They say you got the devil. Shoot, they even chain you up in the garden. Folk who love don’t do that, just craven ones. My daddy’ll take care of us, I know he will, and then when we get back here I bet my daddy’ll never let your folks do anything bad to you again. Shoot, my daddy might even say you can come live with us. I’ll take care a you once I get healed. But it’s a long way, and that’s why you got to come along. We’ll go tonight, okay? After everyone’s in bed. You get some food and clothes and stuff and meet me in the field behind my house at eleven. You know eleven?”
Dumb Willie nods, say, “Leven.” He knows leven when the news comes on and he’s supposed to be asleep but he’s not because that’s when the trayne comes. A Bull hears the trayne so Dumb Willie hears the trayne because they’re . . . it’s a word . . . friends.
“Good. It’s a secret now, okay? You remember that. It’s a hush-hush.”
Dumb Willie say, “Huss-huss.” He says, “We goin’?”
“Yeah. We’re going.”
And A Bull smiles. It’s a bright smile that makes Dumb Willie smile too and A Bull says yes, they goin’, and it’s a place where there’s no stinky-weed Chris Jones and no mean mommas and no daddies that chain and beat. A Bull says the word where that place is and then says the other word it’s like, and that is the word Dumb Willie repeats. He repeats that word over and over and softer each time, rolling it in his mouth as though it is dipped in honey. Dumb Willie says that word to A Bull and the tractor and the corn and the sparrow and the hot sun above. Says it again, to himself:
