A Choir of Ill Children

by Tom Piccirilli

  “I know it,” I told him, taking my belt off. I stepped over to a loblolly pine and endeavored to break a thick piece of branch off. It took a while of twisting and bending it over with all my weight on top before it finally came free.

  “That’s it, Thomas. Now bring it on over here to me. The water ain’t but waist high on you. And don’t be scairt of that there bull, he’s done in for, that’s a fact. He sure did try to even the score though. Hurry it up some, I’m startin’ to feel a might dizzy here.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Herbie,” I said.

  “What’s ’at? You’ll . . . ?”

  I dropped my belt and the loblolly branch on the dead boy’s chest. “We’ll leave it up to Johnny Jonstone.”

  He gave a quizzical head ratchet. “The hell you say?”

  “If he brings it out to you, then you’ll be fine and me and Johnny’ll both be men of admirable exploits. He’ll make his daddy proud today.”

  “Hold on now,” Herbie said, beginning to seethe. I liked the look on his face. He flicked the butt of his cigarette into the bayou and it bounced off the flailing tail of the dying gator. “I don’t believe you quite understand the situation we got goin’ on here, boy.”

  “And I believe I do.”

  “Thomas, you come on out here now, ’fore I—”

  “If Johnny doesn’t get up, then I guess you run out of blood right there where you are and them other gators will come take you away. You hear ’em calling now, don’t ya?”

  They were roaring in the distance. Herbie turned in the slime to listen. The shock was wearing off and some of the pain and fear had started seeping in.

  “Sound fair?”

  “You little bastard!” he shrieked.

  “That any way to talk to your savior?”

  “You come on out here right now, young’n! You—”

  “No.”

  “—come this way so I can squeeze on you some, too!”

  I sat and waited while Herbie shouted and tried to crawl toward me, but killing the boy and the gator and having his leg torn off had taken something out of him. He couldn’t do much more than flail in place. I half expected the child to get up and clamber away crying for his mother.

  Occasionally I prodded the kid in the chest while patting his head. Cormorants and ring-neck ducks waddled past and, feeling content and safeguarded, I fell asleep in the shadow of white oaks, listening to Herbie’s screams.

  When I woke up the bodies were gone and my father stood over me with a terrified look in his eyes. The gators had taken the bodies off, I thought, if they’d ever really been there at all.

  I followed my father home, my distinguished valor intact.

  But my belt was gone.

  PRIVATE EYE WORK IS NOT ALL FLASHING .45S, DIRTY cops, and beguiling broads in sunglasses, but at least some of it is. Nick Stiel is already having serious problems. Lily’s been working him down to a nub, and the good sex is making him feel guilty whenever he thinks of his dead beloved wife.

  Stiel now looks as much like the stereotypical PI as Lily appears to be the repressed schoolmarm with molten loins. He’s begun to drink and the stench of whiskey wafting from him fills my office. I almost enjoy the smell. His eyes are no longer half-lidded. They’re wide and gazing around and it’s no longer an ordeal for him to bear witness to life. It may drive him completely insane before the end, but he’ll jackknife over the rim glaring at it all.

  The constant assault of her stern glance has pounded upon his fractures and burst him open. He’s leaking out between the seams. It’s a lot to deal with: Lily’s onslaught, that slithering tongue, the ever-loosening bun of her shining hair. The revelations of an exquisite body beneath such ill-fitting clothes, and the alluring mania of her lust. And all the while having Eve stare at him, pigtails bobbing.

  His calluses have been scrubbed off, probably with pumice stone. His fingers are as pink as a sow’s ass. I can imagine Lily arguing with him about how she prefers smooth hands, spending hours softening his scars with oil and lotion, then scouring them off. They’re as fine as velvet now. He’s getting a little beer gut and hasn’t practiced martial arts since he arrived in Kingdom Come.

  Stiel’s instincts are still sharp though. I can sense that he’s running all the variables around in his head, perplexed in a lot of new ways but no longer distracted by his wife’s death. He perceives me as a possible threat and he’s much more alert than he was before.

  “How goes it?” I ask.

  His integrity and honesty mean a great deal to him, and he’s not afraid to admit his failure. “I haven’t found a damn thing out about either case yet.”

  It doesn’t bother me. I didn’t think the report and maps and photos I gave him would ever do much good. His conflicted soul over Lily and Eve has only added to his other burdens. Stiel was pretty much lost from the very beginning, but we all have to play our strings out to the end.

  I’ve heard that he’s made friends in Potts County. He enjoys the company of the granny witches, and Abbot Earl has mentioned that Stiel spends a lot of time at the monastery, hoping to get centered again but not having much luck.

  “Don’t let it nettle your conscience,” I say. “You didn’t have much to work with right from the start.”

  “Thanks, but I’m still on it. I’m going to stay in town until it’s done.”

  He frowns, wondering what kind of play I’ll make next. There’s something of an implicit threat in his voice, as if he’s running the show. I toy with the idea of telling him that I won’t pay for any more of his time. If he hasn’t discovered anything by now, as I suspected he wouldn’t, there’s not much point in continuing.

  But I know it’s a matter of pride with him, perhaps the last vestige of self-respect that remains. He wouldn’t leave if they ran him out with pitchforks, and I still want to keep somebody close to Eve.

  “No luck at all with the dog kicker?”

  “Nothing. It’s still occurring pretty regularly, despite all the precautions taken by your neighbors. It’s clearly somebody who’s intimate with your ways and knows your pets.”

  “Uh-huh, it’s got to be one of us.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been keeping in touch with Sheriff Burke?”

  “That runt has a nasty disposition and he’s dumber than a shrub. He’s had no leads and, frankly, I don’t think he cares much.”

  “He never has.”

  It’s time to talk about Eve. Stiel fidgets a bit like a schoolboy waiting outside the principal’s office. I wait to see if he’ll crack the ice about the girl, but he doesn’t.

  “Has Eve spoken?” I ask.

  “No, she hasn’t. But she is capable of speech.”

  “Oh?”

  “In her dreams, she mutters. She’s mumbled a few words.”

  I take a stab. “Anything about a carnival?”

  “No. Why?”

  I don’t answer. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t seen Drabs in days and he and Velma Coots have got me on edge. I let out a breath and Stiel inspects the office, the gouges on the desk. He knows Lily’s work and a twinge of jealousy flicks through him.

  The genuine characters of both Lily and Eve are not that different, I suspect, although I have no idea what they might actually be. I don’t have to ask if Lily has bought her clothes more appropriate to an older girl. I’m certain Eve is still wearing the bobby socks and plastic black shoes.

  I wonder if she’s the child my brothers claim to have murdered, returned now to hold judgment upon us all.

  Stiel gets up to leave, gazing about, trying to find evidence. He knows that there’s more here than meets his eye. The rosy tips of his fingers must tingle. He wants answers and he’s nearly, but not quite, willing to rumble with me to get them. If only I could oblige.

  “Stiel?”

  He stops without turning to face me.

  “Does Eve still have that all-day sucker?” I ask.

  The word falls from his lips
like black blood coughed up from a chest wound. “Yes.”

  I wonder if he’s slept with little Eve yet, and if so, what it was like. He stares back at me now, already doomed or just about to be. Still, he holds his head high and walks straight and tall. There’s no curve to his spine and there’s a hint of a smile in those eyes. He’s got something to hold on to inside, even if it carries him to hell.

  It must be worth the price.

  “It’s this damn town,” he hisses, hand on the knob, as he lets out a soft, angry groan.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  REVEREND CLEM BIBBLER, DRABS’S FATHER, ASKS ME to meet him at his church. I arrive just before dark, with the sinking red sunlight igniting the kudzu weed that runs rampant across the small brown crabgrass lawn. He stands in the front doorway, framed by drawn shadows. I stare at the roof.

  The moist heat of night claws between my shoulders and sweat pools there. The reverend is dressed in a heavy black suit, as always. He’s comfortable and cool no matter how mindless the temperature makes everyone else. Perhaps his faith assuages and soothes him.

  He aims his chin at me. The muscles in his glistening black face are taut, cords of his neck well-defined and showing every dark vein. His hands are clasped behind his back. He confronts the world—or only me—with a stoic, impenetrable front. He swallows once and his collar bobs. The reverend doesn’t unsettle me but he is perhaps the only man alive who carries any weight in my book. I’m not sure why.

  “Thomas,” he intones. His voice is low and resounding and echoes across the empty yard.

  “Hello, Reverend Bibbler.”

  He ushers me into the small wood-frame church. Two ropes leading up to the steeple creak and twine in the breeze. The bell sways and there’s an almost imperceptible yet constant thrum. Forty years ago this was a one-room schoolhouse where my grandmother taught the children of Kingdom Come. She was discovered dead on the roof, impaled with a reap hook, and the murder goes unsolved today.

  I’ve been in this church a hundred times and hardly ever think of my grandmother skewered to the shingles, but now I’m having a hard time getting past the image. She hung upside down for most of the afternoon, rotting in the sun, until she was discovered by my mother, who’d been sent to search for her. My gaze keeps drifting toward the rafters, to the west wall where strange words were found outside. Reverend Clem Bibbler knows why I’m looking there but doesn’t comment.

  The place is extraordinarily clean. His congregation is still afraid that Drabs is going to get naked up there or that the dog kicker will get after their hounds while they’re away, so they’ve been skipping his sermons. If it wears on his nerves, he doesn’t show it in the least.

  He leads me to the first pew and gestures for me to sit. I don’t. He clasps his hands behind his back again and strolls in front to his own pulpit. The cross on the wall is small, plain, and smells of lemon furniture wax.

  “Have you seen my son recently, Thomas?”

  “No.”

  “Drabs hasn’t been home for several days. I fear for him.”

  “Don’t. He might be cursed but so long as he keeps his clothes on in public he’ll be all right.”

  Reverend Bibbler pulls a face. “Please don’t border on blasphemy. I’m greatly worried.”

  “So am I. I’m sorry to be facetious. I’ll see if I can track him down.”

  “I’d be grateful. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

  “No, but if he’s still in town, I’ll find him.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your efforts.”

  “Of course.”

  An all-prevailing silence washes over and engulfs us. It always happens. We’re at different ends of the earth, he and I, though at times he thinks of me as something of a wayward son, and I feel for him the way I did for my father. I should leave but he has more to tell me, and he’s working his way up to saying it. I sit in the pew and give it time.

  “Did he tell you that he no longer wishes to preach the Word?”

  “Yes.”

  He expects a lengthier response but I see no point. We’ve had conversations exactly like this one many times since Drabs married Maggie to me down by the river and he lost himself within the grace of God.

  The reverend wants to draw me into a tête-à-tête, but the possibility annoys him all the same. “And what are your thoughts on that?”

  “It’s his life.”

  “But admit the truth. You’d prefer if he gave up the pulpit.”

  “I’d prefer if the pulpit gave him up.”

  “What you call a curse is special consideration under the Lord.”

  “I only want him to be happy.”

  Reverend Bibbler, for all his faith and sermonizing, still believes the damage done to Drabs may only be psychological or neurological. He once asked me for the money to send Drabs down to Atlanta for an MRI scan, which I gave to him. Drabs fell into a fit of tongues inside the small resonance chamber and the doctors, after two days of observation, had him committed to the psychiatric wing. It took a month and four lawyers to get him released.

  “I pray for him each morning and night, that he’ll find release from his burden. I pray—”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  He gets my meaning immediately but decides to play it out some. “Excuse me, Thomas?”

  He speaks my name with a singular flourish. It’s the name of the Doubter and he tries to say it the way he thinks Christ would have. All he thinks I need are a few Sundays listening to his preaching in order to get my mind right.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t pray for him. Drabs needs something else in his life right now. He always has, but especially for the time being. Perhaps you should help him attend to those matters first.”

  There’s more of the Puritan in him than he thinks. He would’ve been at home in Salem seated beside Cotton Mather, laying stones on Giles Corey’s chest and hanging possessed dogs.

  “What matters are they?” he asks.

  “You’re already aware of them.”

  “He dreams of you often.”

  “I know, he’s told me.”

  The reverend is a Christian warrior who wears the highly polished armor of the Lord. Still, he’s no fool or instigator, and he knows that he must share his control of Kingdom Come’s spiritual well-being with other forces. His mama told him stories about the bayou and the deep woods, the same way all our mothers did. The nature of his belief is more emancipated than most, as it has to be in Potts County.

  He’s also a shrewd reader of souls. “Don’t hate my son, Thomas.”

  “He’s my only friend.”

  “Yes, he is. And he loves you deeply. Remember—”

  The pause lengthens as I hang waiting. “What?”

  “He’s no more a burden to you than you are to him.”

  MOONLIGHT POURS THROUGH THE WILLOWS AND swamp cyrilla as I continue to cruise the backroads of town. I keep expecting Drabs to come stumbling out of a drainage ditch, clothed or unclothed, maybe leaping from behind a patch of dogwood scrub. I can only hope I won’t find his castrated corpse dangling from a birch limb, swinging slightly in the rising wind.

  I drive slowly, circling the highway, surveying all the shanties and ramshackle cabins dappling the hills and hollows. Pinewood boards that don’t fit in door frames are held in place with knotty crossbars. Screens hang from broken hinges. Televisions and radios mumble politics and weather and canned laughter from sit-com hijinks. Banjos and drawls float from splintered slats. I head farther into the marshland, past Doover’s Five & Dime.

  I should go to the flat rock. Drabs—or someone—might be waiting there for me, but I’m moving in some vague pattern, following a different course. I tug the steering wheel left and right without reason in mind, riding down routes that are little more than ruts through the woods.

  The moon beckons, so what the hell.

  I think about Lottie Mae, the teenage granny witch who, presumably, was after my vinegar. We’v
e got something in store for each other, but whether it’s going to be worthwhile or just dangerous I’ve no idea. Maybe she’s lying out there on the flat rock right now, nude in the silver blazing of the night, eviscerated or waiting for me to climb onto her. Maybe she’s holding a reap hook.

  A smear of black motion off the side of the road lunges free. I stomp on the brakes and hang on to the wheel as the truck swerves wildly to the left.

  Bursting through the brambles, Betty Lynn rushes in front of the truck and I nearly clip her. The truck goes into a skid and grinds up gravel and mud as I swerve into the weeds. She lies in the dirt, stunned. I get out and check her over in the glare of the headlights to make sure that I haven’t hit her. There’s no blood but she’s covered in sweat, disheveled, and confused.

  She blinks at me without recognition. Her face and arms are torn up with scratches. She’s been running and crawling through the fields, and tobacco leaves are mashed into the knees and seat of her jeans.

  “They . . .” she gasps. “They comin’ . . . behind me.”

  “Who?”

  “They started followin’ . . . I heard ’em . . . ran.”

  “Who is it, Betty Lynn?”

  She still can’t pull it together, and she’s trembling so hard that she shakes right out of my grip. “Dunno . . . think they got guns. Heard sounds . . . coulda been a rifle bolt sliding . . . mebbe not . . .”

  She can’t say any more as she takes in heaving gulps of air. I get her into the truck and turn off the headlights.

  I wait, expecting to hear drunken laughter, hoots and hollers. To see a couple of flashlight beams waving back and forth, guys whistling and calling Here, kitty, kitty. That sort of crap. A few good ol’ boys out having fun chasing after a pretty girl, things getting just a touch out of hand. It happens.

  But there’s only silence. I light a cigarette, acutely aware of the irony as I lean against the truck on the outskirts of a tobacco field. I look back and Betty Lynn is bewildered and exhausted, staring at me, still sweating. Her hair and clothes are drenched. They must’ve chased her all the way from Leadbetter’s parking lot, almost three miles away.

  “Let’s go,” she says.