Sweet and Low

by Nick White

  Affliction—the word gave him pause, made him look up from his plate of Hamburger Helper and corn bread, past his father, who appeared to be reading something cradled in his lap, and directly at his aunt. She was twirling the phone cord around her wrist, listening to the person speaking on the other end of the line. She had just returned from Big Suzi’s Hairport, and her hair was freshly dyed—midnight black—and relentlessly teased, forming a dark cottony helmet above her ears. His mother had once told him that Aunt Beatrice wanted to look like Kitty Wells, but Benjamin didn’t know who that was, so he could only guess that this woman was his aunt’s idea of beautiful.

  When their eyes met, she took the phone from her ear and hooked it onto her shoulder. “Need something, sweet pea?” she said. He shook his head. She went back to talking, soon forgetting that he or his father were there, which he didn’t mind. She would talk and talk well into the night, long after he had gone to bed. Some nights, the stout sound of her laughter coming from the kitchen would wake him. Jarred from his sleep, he’d lie in his dark room on his hard mattress, breathless and not quite himself—not yet remembering all the ways in which his life was no longer the same—and believe, for an instant, that the muffled female voice down the hall was his mother’s. No, stupid, he’d tell himself, and rub his eyebrows. Get a fucking grip. But on that night, he didn’t drift off to sleep until after his aunt had turned in. He tossed from one side of the bed to the other, thinking about affliction and the Cade sisters.

  The word had biblical implications; perhaps he’d read it somewhere in the Old Testament. Back when his father had still been a preacher at Second Baptist, he made it a point not to use such words (he was never the fire-and-brimstone type, preferring, instead, to keep his sermons intellectual—so intellectual, in fact, that Benjamin would ask his mother to explain parts of them afterward). The word—he decided, as he kicked his covers off—had a kind of spit to it, an acidity that he resented on the twins’ behalf. He felt this way partly because words had also been thrown around about him this past year—troubled, angry, defiant, temperamental—with the same sort of carelessness that he’d witnessed from his aunt. But, to be fair, he had deserved it.

  Last year, in seventh grade, he’d been in three all-out fights with older boys, and although he hadn’t won a single match, he had learned to appreciate the pleasure that came from hitting and even from being hit. The first fight was in October, not long after his mother’s wreck, and he had been so angry that he hadn’t felt any of the blows that landed on his face. It was only later, when he was in the teacher’s lounge being cleaned up by one of the custodians, that he realized his nose was bleeding and his left eye was swelling shut. After the third fight, which resulted in a table in his homeroom being toppled and a trash can severely dented, the principal had suspended him for a week. Before school let out for the summer, he’d called Benjamin into his office for a talk. “I hope you take this summer to think about your future,” he’d told him. “You will be in eighth grade next year. That means something. What would your mother say about how you’ve behaved?”

  The question had shaken him. He thought it foolish to wonder about what the dead think: If all the evangelicals were right, she was probably living it up in heaven and didn’t (he hoped, at least) have time to worry herself with what she had left behind. And if death is the end, like going to sleep and not dreaming, then that was fine with him too, perhaps even preferable, because then she definitely wouldn’t see how bad her son had become. In addition to the fighting, there were other charges against him: He had skipped a whole month of classes—the month after she’d died—wandering up and down the railroad tracks, leaving pennies and dimes to be flattened by the huffing freight trains. His grades were dismal; and he’d taken to bullying some of his classmates, the ones weaker than he, particularly the nervous fat kids with bodies built for ridicule. He ached to strike them again and again. He was small but wiry, capable of fast bursts of anger that surprised even himself.

  Once, a large red-faced boy named C. J. Montgomery accidently squirted ketchup on Benjamin’s shirt, and Benjamin, acting so fast that he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing until it was over, took a wad of napkins that he’d used to clean the stain and shoved it into the boy’s acned face. “Eat it, cocksucker,” he’d yelled, his heart hammering against his chest. “Eat it like I ate your mother last night.” The Benjamin he’d become had stumbled onto a secret no one liked to talk about: Being bad felt good, made all his other emotions—sadness, self-pity, worry—melt away. Aunt Beatrice kept most of his “behavioral problems” from his father. “Wouldn’t do him any good to know this,” she’d say each time after he’d come home with a note. It was she, without his father having the slightest inkling, who met with the principal time and again to discuss him.

  In the darkness of his room, he found himself titillated by the thought of the sisters, and the mystery of them, and their mother who had condemned them. Drugs? Sex? Both? Was there something worse than drugs and sex that he didn’t know about? They were, no doubt, troubled girls. Like him. Carefully, he slid the brim of his boxers to his knees and spit into the palm of his hand. He tried to think of what else his aunt had said about them so he could conjure a better image in his mind—“mangled together,” “a tragedy”—but none of it made any sense, none of it pulled the sisters from the shadows of his consciousness. Nevertheless, he managed somehow, and soon he was coming. Then he turned over onto his side, straddled the covers. Sleep found him at last.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER THAT NIGHT, he didn’t think about the Cade sisters until two weeks later when he was at Lucy Gatesmith’s birthday party at the Briarwood Country Club. Lucy was a year older, and the only person from his school he kept up with during the summer months. They took a beginning drawing class together that met twice a week—his mother, an artist herself, had forced him into taking the class, and his aunt had refused to let him stop for the summer, thinking, he figured, that art might calm him down some. During their time together, alone with Mr. Tuttleworth in his studio house, Lucy Gatesmith had developed feelings for Benjamin; he could tell by the way she spoke to him, all half-lidded and thick-tongued, as if she were speaking to someone standing behind him who was much taller, which he found both annoying and unnerving.

  He pedaled the two miles to the country club, arriving all sweaty and ready to swim. In fact, the only reason he had gone to Lucy’s party in the first place was so he could swim in the club’s Olympic-size outdoor pool. He was disappointed to find that he was the only boy at the party besides, of course, her younger brother, Tad, who had Down syndrome and gave Benjamin the creeps. Tad ran up to him when he first got there, and said, “A star!” and placed a gold-star sticker on his arm. Benjamin ignored him and went to change in the men’s locker room. When he came back out in his orange swim trunks, Lucy said, “You’re too skinny. I can count your ribs,” in such a way that let him know she approved.

  Nestled on a hill, the Briarwood Country Club had a great view of the town, which blinked in the distance like a steely mirage. The sky was bleached white, and the adults had left the pool area for the inside. Benjamin was the first to enter the pool, cannonballing into the water. The girls plopped in right after, and soon the air was thick with the smell of chlorine. Lucy was the last to get in the water, easing in one leg at a time. As she started to paddle his way, Benjamin cupped his hands and dipped them just below the surface of the pool. Then he started pelting her with cold blasts of water. “It’s better,” he explained, “if you get wet all at once.”

  “Bastard,” she said, but her lips were crooked in a half smile, telling Benjamin that she thought he was flirting. He wasn’t. Besides always being a little aggravated with her, he didn’t find her especially attractive. Her face was long, like a mule’s, and her belly was squishy and poked out, a marshmallow that she hid even now by wearing a T-shirt over her bathing suit.

  L
ucy suggested that they play Marco Polo and picked Benjamin as “it.” Suddenly, the other girls splashed away in all directions. The squeals were so sharp that Benjamin felt his teeth chatter. He didn’t want to play but figured that after he tagged someone he’d suggest a new game, perhaps chicken fighting. He closed his eyes and waited for the movements to quiet. “Marco,” he called, which was followed by a few shrill shouts and then a choir of voices giddily sounding from every direction. “Polo,” they shouted. He swam quickly to his right, thinking the weaker among them had migrated to the shallow end. “Marco,” he called again, sloshing in the water, swinging his arms, hoping to touch a stray arm, the edge of a shoulder, and end the game once and for all. But this time, there was no response. The water had grown still, silent, almost as if he were now the only one in the pool. “Marco,” he called again. “Marco, Marco.” It was spooky. He began to think that they were playing some kind of joke on him. He pounded his fists in the water. “What the fuck,” he said finally, opening his eyes. The girls were all clutching the various sides of the pool, their heads turned away from him, looking the other direction. Nearest to him was Lucy. She paddled over, and whispered, “Daddy has this place reserved. They shouldn’t be here.” Benjamin only half heard her. He, like the others in the water, was captivated by the strange figure standing at the edge of the pool, a girl with two heads.

  * * *

  —

  IT ALL MADE SENSE to him now, the affliction his aunt had been talking about. The Cade twins were conjoined twins, fused at the shoulder, sharing the same body from the clavicle down. Or maybe they were two half bodies smashed into one; Benjamin wasn’t sure. His mind began flashing as soon as he saw them, trying to think of ways to comprehend their existence: They were different knuckles on the same finger; each a separate tip on a snake’s forked tongue. Two, but one. One, but two.

  They wore a large terry-cloth bathrobe and a pair of bright yellow slippers. Their blond hair was identical in shade but done in different fashions. The girl on the left, the one with softer eyes and thinner lips, had hers tied behind her head in a tight braid while the other one—her face all angles: high cheekbones, a sharp chin—let her hair fall freely about her shoulders in thick cascading waves. They looked about sixteen, and when they threw back the robe, they revealed a pair of toned legs and two elegant arms. The one-piece they wore looked as if it had been made especially for them, fitting over their long shoulders and around their slightly disproportionate breasts, giving their body a smooth finish. Benjamin inspected them as if they were some object Mr. Tuttleworth had displayed for him to sketch and noticed that their fingernails had French tips, just like those of a debutante.

  “Jesus,” he said, blinking. “Jesus Christ on a cross.”

  “Ridiculous,” Lucy was saying, and when the twins sidled onto the diving board, the girls started pulling themselves out of the water. The twins didn’t seem to take notice of their scattering, their eyes were fixed straight ahead at something above the other girls’ heads. By the time they had made it to the end of the board, the pool held only Benjamin, who could not be moved. Everyone seemed to be watching them; some of the adults had even ventured back outside. The twin on the right smirked, appearing to revel in being the center of attention, and the other one was mumbling something, her eyes hard and focused. They extended their arms and, in one fluid motion, dove into the water, causing barely a splash. The adults applauded, but the twins didn’t resurface right away to hear them. Instead, they swam under the water, making their way slowly to Benjamin’s end of the pool.

  Meanwhile, a woman wearing a pink straw hat and a long multicolored caftan ambled outside. “My nieces,” she was saying to some of the adults. “They out here?” The twins resurfaced a few feet in front of Benjamin, their eyes clear and blue and completely startling. They turned their heads in unison and watched the woman in the caftan approach.

  “Told you she wouldn’t be happy,” said the one with the braid.

  “What a killjoy,” said the other. “I’m not spending all summer cloistered in that house like a nun.”

  The woman traipsed to the edge of the pool and leaned down. “Girls,” she said. “Thought I said to stay in the game room.” She removed her sunglasses, glanced at Benjamin, then back at the twins. “What are you wearing?”

  “Made it ourselves with Mama.”

  “Isn’t it lovely? Fits us like a dream.” The one on the right was grinning. She was trouble, Benjamin could sense it. Up close, he saw that her face was so perfect in its dimensions that he wanted to reach out and touch her cheeks. He waded closer to them, ignoring Lucy who was calling him, telling him it was time to cut the cake. The twins snapped their heads back to him when he neared them. They gazed at him as if he were the strangest thing they’d ever seen.

  “Yes?” said the one on the right.

  “I’m an artist,” he said, and they chuckled.

  The aunt stood and put her sunglasses back on. “It’s time to go.”

  “Who are you?” said the one on the left.

  He told them his name, and the one on the right raised an eyebrow. “You’re that preacher’s kid,” she said. “Oh, we’ve heard all about you.”

  “You’re bad,” the one on the left said. They laughed again, this time much louder.

  Benjamin pressed on. He knew what he wanted now. He said, “I’m an artist, and I’d like to draw you.”

  The twins went silent, and the one on the right was about to say something, but the aunt was clapping her hands now, as if that might get them out of the pool faster. “Out, out,” she said to them. They fell back into the water and backstroked to the diving board, then they climbed out using the metal ladder and put on their bathrobe, leaving the question he’d asked unanswered and floating in the air like a forgotten balloon.

  * * *

  —

  AUNT BEATRICE MET BENJAMIN at his bedroom door that morning, and said, “Your father is having one of his spells.” This meant that his father had become obsessed with something and had decided to see it through. A month ago, he had decided to uproot the flower garden in the back—the garden Benjamin’s mother had planted when they’d moved there—and cover it with pine-smelling wood chips. The first Sunday Aunt Beatrice was staying with them, he snaked the drains, causing the half bathroom in the hall to flood. Benjamin had found her ankle-deep in the water, on the verge of tears. “He ain’t crazy,” he said to her. “Just sad.”

  That morning his father was in the living room. The windows had been stripped of their curtains and blinds, which lay in a pile on the love seat. His father nodded at him, and said, “Have to fix these. Hang them right. The sun keeps getting in.”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Benjamin helped his father hook the blinds back to the windows, then handed him the curtains.

  When they finished, his father stepped back away from the windows, sighed, and said, “Well, I guess that is as good as it’s going to get.” He left for the kitchen, and Benjamin followed.

  His aunt was frying thin slices of salt meat in a large black skillet, and she smiled at them when they came walking in. Her hair was twisted in curlers, and she was nursing a cup of coffee. “All situated,” she said, speaking to Benjamin, who nodded.

  The kitchen, like the rest of the parsonage, was small and barely had room for the three of them, but Benjamin knew better than to complain: The Second Baptist Church had allowed them to rent the place even though his father no longer preached there—the official statement was that he was “on leave.” Aunt Beatrice set a plate in front of him, and said, “Heard you saw those Cade girls at Briarwood the other day. You know their mother sends them to some artsy-fartsy school up north. That’s why they’re so bold.”

  “They are good divers.” He grabbed the bottle of syrup and poured it on the meat. With a fork, he squished the meat around in the gooeyness before eating it. He enjoyed the salty-sweet combinatio
n. His father picked at his food, nibbling the edges of some toast before giving up altogether and hiding behind the large gray wall of a newspaper.

  “They should be more careful.” Aunt Beatrice took his father’s plate and slid it into the sink behind her. “So sad. Those girls haven’t got a chance.”

  “Not many of us seem to,” Benjamin said, his mouth full of mush. He swallowed. “But I don’t think they’re sad at all.”

  “I just mean,” Aunt Beatrice said, her voice rising an octave at being challenged, “it must be a burden to them to live in such a way. Can only imagine what that mother was thinking leaving them here while she up and—”

  His father coughed and folded the paper as neatly as he’d found it. “I think,” he said, “we should get a move on. We’ll be late.” His voice was deep and piercing. Aunt Beatrice seemed taken aback by the suddenness of his voice and downed her coffee as if there were something stronger than caffeine in it. Benjamin, on the other hand, missed his father’s voice, the richness and unadorned confidence of it. Missed listening to it each Sunday.

  The Second Baptist Church was on Miller Avenue and shared a parking lot with the Jitney Jungle across the street. The church was built in the late ’80s and didn’t have a steeple or a baptismal. It was a squat, beige-bricked building with darkly colored stained-glass windows and a long sidewalk that snaked around a memory garden, which had a rosebush planted in his mother’s honor. They were so late that they didn’t tarry through the fellowship hall, but went straight to the front door, which had already been closed. His father had been the founding preacher here, and Benjamin felt nervousness and some other type of emotion he couldn’t place prickle off his father when they entered the building. The last two pews were empty, as always, and he followed his aunt and father into the very last one. Very few people turned to regard them as they took their seats since the choir was performing the offertory hymn. The sound of the organ and the piano drowned out the singing voices; Benjamin imagined the noise as one large eraser pushing against their throats.