Marvel and a Wonder

by Joe Meno

  “Okay, okay. Jeesh. It’s for a water dragon.”

  “A what?”

  “A water dragon.”

  “Water dragon.”

  “It’s an animal. From China.”

  “You sit there and you tell me you want thirty dollars for a dragon from China? What kind of imbecile do you think I am?”

  “It’s a lizard. It’s like . . . a reptile. It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s a lizard? Why is it thirty dollars then?”

  “It’s like an iguana, but it’s rare. It spends most of its time in the water.”

  “You want thirty dollars for a lizard that lives in water?”

  “Yes. No. It’s called a water dragon. They got them for sale at the pet store.”

  “Well, I would have guessed as much.”

  “It’s thirty dollars for a pair. A male and female. Gilby there said he can get me a deal.”

  “Oh, Gilby can, can he? Why a pair? You don’t even have enough for one, how do you expect to get two?”

  “To breed. All it takes is a cage and a recording of some Chinese music, Gilby says. He said he could loan me a cassette tape.”

  “To breed? And where exactly are you gonna do this breeding?”

  “Upstairs. In my room. Or out in the coop. It’s an easy way to make money. Gilby said if I breed them I can sell the babies back to him.”

  “Oh, Gilby did, did he? Well, I tell you one thing: I wouldn’t have those things out there in my coop. No sir. I got enough troubles out there without having to worry about whatever disease those creatures might be carrying. All the way from China, who knows what sickness they might have with them.”

  “Are you going to let me have the thirty dollars or not?” the boy asked again.

  The grandfather did not answer at first, only stood, reaching for the white cattleman hat. He fitted it over the dull gray remains of his hair and said, “Thirty dollars of work will get you thirty dollars in pay.”

  * * *

  Thereafter, the grandfather and grandson ran through their list of chores. They began the day clearing the scrub and weeds from the westernmost field. Jim looked at the boy’s small, bare hands and asked, “Where are your gloves, son?”

  “I don’t need them.”

  “You don’t need them? There’s lots of weeds and brambles out here.”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  The boy had on his headphones as usual, the clamor of which Jim could hear from ten feet away.

  “Did you lose them somewhere?” the grandfather asked.

  “No. I just don’t need them.”

  “Well, do you want to borrow mine?”

  “No sir, I don’t need any gloves. I’m training myself to withstand all sorts of human pain.” What this meant Jim did not care to know.

  They continued on with that section of field, which, a week ago, when the weather had turned bad—hot, humid, then rainy, the kind of weather that often made for a late-summer tornado—Jim had been forced to abandon. He looked around for his grandson and saw him leaning over a pile of wet-looking tree limbs, which had been knocked loose from the line of nearby oaks, planted as windbreak.

  “Get an armful of those branches and drag them over to the coop. We’ll run them through the chipper.”

  The boy pulled the black headphones down over his ears once more and stumbled as he gathered the branches into his arms. Jim started up the tractor but switched it off when he heard the boy screaming. He climbed down off the machine in a hurry, rushing over to where his grandson was holding his left hand, leaping up and down.

  “What is it?”

  “A snake bit me. I think it was a female cottonmouth.”

  “A cottonmouth?”

  Jim turned and eyed the pile of branches. He hiked up his jeans and kicked at the limbs with the toe of his boot. Nothing moved. He kicked again, moving the pieces of rotten wood with his foot, turning it over. There was nothing, only a few black pieces of mud-clung oak.

  “It felt like a snake.”

  “Here,” the grandfather said, handing him the gloves. The boy frowned and put them on.

  Jim turned, climbed back aboard the tractor, and started it up. The small circular rearview mirror along the tractor’s left side reflected the shape of the boy as he stumbled, dragging a few limbs along the muddy earth, tripping over his own feet. Jim gave the mirror a gruff shove, adjusting it so that the boy’s figure was out of sight.

  * * *

  At lunch, after the field had been cleared, after the boy had spilled a full bag of grass seed, after he drank all of his grandfather’s coffee, the boy asked, “What about my money?”

  Jim smiled, piling a few burnt twigs of bacon upon a mound of scrambled eggs in the middle of the boy’s plate. “What money?”

  “For all the work I did.”

  “We still ain’t finished.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said thirty dollars of work will get you thirty dollars in pay.”

  “But you said—”

  “We got to pay a visit to the Hale place this afternoon.”

  “What for?”

  “Miss Hale asked for our help. She’s got coyotes coming in her fence.”

  The boy set down a strip of bacon and sighed.

  * * *

  Out to Lucy Hale’s at two p.m., they passed the Presbyterian church which Jim was upset to see had been defaced by graffiti. Fantastic gray circles and lines, what looked to be some manner of gigantic genitalia—near the size of a grown man—filled the redbrick facade. Jim slowed down the pickup as they came along the side of it, taking notice; he glanced over at his grandson, eyeing him hard. The boy was occupied, listening to the noise on his Walkman. The grandfather studied the boy’s face, but there was no sign that he had done anything so stupid. His grandson’s stupidity was of a whole different sort.

  Driving on, the grandfather signaled a turn into the parking lot of the A&P; the boy switched off his Walkman and perked up.

  “Where we going?”

  “I’m stopping off for an errand.”

  “What errand?”

  “I thought I might bring her some flowers.”

  “Flowers?”

  “Yes, flowers. You ever hear of them?”

  The boy began to laugh falsely, a kind of whinnying donkey laugh, smacking the dashboard with a too-wide grin. “I thought we was going over there to do chores.”

  “We are.”

  “No. You’re going over there to have intercourse.”

  Jim glanced over at his grandson once more, then drove on, speeding past the entrance to the supermarket’s parking lot, a thorny look in his eyes. What was wrong with this boy exactly? Jesus Christ. It was too much. It was enough to get you to consider the limitations of both schooling and religion.

  What the grandfather thought as he drove past the slanting wooden gates of Lucy Hale’s home was how sad and weepy the place looked. The white paint on the old homestead had begun flaking, the fences were a tangled mess of post and wire, and nothing anywhere—not even a tulip or hyacinth bulb, let alone a field of corn or soybean—had been planted on the hundred-fifty-acre spread. It was a shame. The place had been something when Burt Hale had been running it, one of the nicest little sheep operations anywhere in the state. Now, like almost everything else in the world, it had been left to rot.

  Ignoring the flaking paint on the porch, the grandfather, with the boy standing in the shadow behind him, paid the widow a call at the front door. Lucy answered, looking slender in a pair of jeans and a green blouse. She held a cat in her arms, the animal glancing up suspiciously from the comfortable cleave of the woman’s chest. Surprisingly, Lucy was all smiles and cheer. What Jim decided he liked best about this woman was both her softness—the softness in her eyes and lips—and her firmness—the firm line of her hip; the whole shape seemed put together as solid as anything he had known.

  “We come to take a look at that fence,” Jim told her. “And to get rid of t
hose coyotes. I have my daughter’s boy Quentin here with me.”

  “I know Quentin. I had him in Sunday school three years ago,” Lucy said, turning a gleaming smile toward the boy. “Hello there, Quentin. You look taller every time I see you.”

  The boy uttered some intelligible word or sound that would have to do as a reply. He mumbled a little more and then said, slowly reaching his hand forward, “I like your cat. Does he bite?”

  “No. He’s just bashful is all.”

  The boy put his hand tentatively near the animal’s face, then scratched behind its ears. The creature gave a soft purr, arching its neck against Quentin’s hand.

  “It looks like you made a friend,” Lucy laughed. “Here. You can hold him if you like.”

  The boy gently took the cat in his arms, carefully rubbing it beneath the neck. “He’s a good cat,” the boy muttered. “We had a cat once, but then he was killed by a rooster.” He handed the cat back to Lucy and stared down at his feet.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that happening before,” Lucy said with bemusement.

  “It definitely happened. I saw it. It was pretty awesome.”

  Jim shook his head and rolled his eyes at the boy. “Well, I guess we should go take a look. I was thinking we would poke around the fence line and try to find where they’ve been sneaking in. We’ll set a few traps and see if maybe that doesn’t do the trick.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.” Lucy paused for a moment, glancing down at the cat in her arms. “Only if one of them does get caught, a coyote, would I have to go out there and kill it? Because I don’t believe I could. I have Burt’s gun upstairs but I don’t know, if something was caught . . .”

  Jim smiled at her, nodding seriously, and glanced over at the boy. “Well, we don’t mind waiting around a little while to see what turns up, do we?”

  The boy did not answer, only gave a grunt, then pulled his Walkman over his ears. He started heading back toward the pickup truck, karate-chopping at the air with a soundless scream.

  Alone with the widow for a moment, Jim immediately grew awkward. He was like a cigar-store Indian, standing there too stiffly. He peered down at his shoes, then hers, then reset the hat upon his head and tried to look for an exit.

  “Well, ma’am, I guess we oughta get to it.”

  “Let me get you a cup of coffee first . . . I’ll put on a new pot before you get started.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, but we brought a thermos with us.”

  “Okay. Well, how about I put some supper on for you then? For when you get finished? I got a few steaks and a leg of lamb in the deep freeze. You just tell me what time you’d like to eat.”

  “Deirdre will be expecting us back home,” the grandfather stammered, glancing away, the lie coming out slow and easy.

  “I see.”

  “Well, we oughta get to it then. We’ll come around back when we’re all done. How’s that sound?”

  “Okay. I’ll be here,” Lucy said, her eyes cast down, her voice sounding a little disappointed. All of that was more than enough to get him to hurry back to the truck, his weak left leg moving faster than it had in weeks.

  * * *

  Together, the grandfather and boy set to work mending the fence, which, in Jim’s estimation, was the real problem, even worse than the coyotes. He dragged the fence stretcher from the pickup while the boy carried the roll of wire. There were eight spans that needed to be replaced. As soon as they had set to work on the first one, Jim noticed the boy had his Walkman turned up as loud as it could go. He heard what sounded like a failing tractor’s engine. He finished stapling the edge of the new wire in place and then stood staring over at the boy beside him. “What type of noise is that you’re listening to? God almighty, I can see why your brains are no good.”

  “What?” the boy asked.

  Jim just shook his head, dragging the fence stretcher toward the next slack span.

  “I was thinking,” the boy mumbled. “About Mrs. Hale. Maybe she should sell this place if she can’t take care of it.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’d be obliged to take advice from a financial wizard like you. When your way to get rich is by asking me for a loan.”

  “I just don’t know why we have to come out here.”

  “Because she lost her husband. And she don’t know how to run this place. You think I want to be out here on a Sunday? No sir. But here we are. Because there are things you do because they’re the right thing to do whether you want to do them or not. That’s what the Lord calls life. I can see from your expression that you don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m talking, so you can go on back to your headphones now if you like.”

  “I think you just want to bone her.”

  Jim stared at his grandson’s face, then knocked the oversize headphones off the boy’s ears. “If you don’t got anything intelligent to say then don’t say anything. And that’s a rule you can think on.”

  The boy was quiet for a long time after that.

  * * *

  Edward had not slept in days. How many he did not know. Probably since he had come back. The way the moon and sun worked here, it was different, like they were on strings, like night and day were part of a pageant at a children’s hospital; none of it was real. California was real. Derek was real. Even the old black-and-white movies they watched together while tweaking on homemade crystal seemed more real than the people back here. This was not even his old room. One of his half-retarded brothers had taken his room over. Now he was forced to sleep on the closed-off back porch, which smelled of turpentine and rust.

  From his knapsack he pulled out a ball of tinfoil and found a few specks of meth or angel dust; he didn’t know which, couldn’t be sure. He licked his finger and rubbed the powder against his bloody gums, the inside of his cheeks. Everything began to burn and it made him wonder if it was maybe just bleach or cleaning powder. He looked out through the slanted blinds and saw the sky turning from violet to the color of a bruise. He scraped the remaining white powder up with his long pinky nail and snorted it with his left nostril. Then he bit nervously at the cuticle; he began to pace again. That’s when it happened: the small fingernail came loose, dropping to the floor. He held out his hand, horrified, shaking his fingers, his arm trembling. He pulled on the nail of his index finger and it came loose too, with a sickening ease. He cried out and then crept up noisily to his brother’s room, eyes wild with panic.

  Gilby was still asleep, beatific as a young girl. His longish hair, his pockmarked face, the length of his dark eyelashes. Edward shoved him with his left hand, shaking him awake. He sat up and blinked, glancing around, asking, “What time is it?”

  “Time? Who cares what fucking time it is? Look at this fucking thing. Look!”

  Gilby held up the clock radio, saw that it was past nine a.m. He yawned, wiped at his eyes, as his brother pushed his hand right in his face.

  “Jesus. What is it? Get your fucking hand out of my eye.”

  “Look,” Edward whispered, face wet with tears. “Will you just fucking look? I knew it. I just fucking knew it.” Edward stretched his fingers out before his brother. Two of his fingernails from his right hand—the first and the last—were gone.

  “What’s happening to you?” Gilby asked.

  Edward let out a soft sob. “I’m changing. I’m turning into something else. Look. I got the black mark on the palm of my hand.”

  Gilby nodded though did not see it.

  The older brother stopped crying long enough to announce, “We got to come up with a plan. I don’t have much time before I do something terrible.”

  * * *

  After they had finished the first three spans, the grandfather noticed his left arm had begun to shake. For a few seconds he felt as if he would fall over. Trembling, he leaned uncertainly against a fence post, his ears ringing. The noise was like a far-off song, something hesitant. He put his hand out for his grandson, stumbling a little against the boy’s shoulder, startling
him from his own reverie.

  “Grandpa? You all right?” the boy asked.

  The grandfather did not utter a word, fighting to catch his breath. Finally, the feeling returned to his arm, to the left side of his face, and he found that he could speak again. “I got winded is all. Too much sugar in my coffee.”

  “You sure?”

  For a few moments the grandfather leaned against the boy. Something—some sort of ancient pact, some sort of affinity—glowed in their faces for a moment, and then, just as soon as it had appeared, it was gone.

  * * *

  The grandfather and grandson each took long sips of water from the green hose that had been left unwound along the side of one of the outbuildings. The water was warm at first, then got deliciously cold, the tang of the metal nozzle making it taste like it had come from a well. The grandfather watched the boy drink, the boy’s face sweaty, rosy-cheeked, the boy giggling to himself, accidentally spraying his own feet. It was not that he did not love him. No, the grandfather thought. No, it’s only the things that make us so different. How far apart we are. That’s all.

  By the time they had finished mending the fence line, the sun had disappeared, leaving a smudgy cloud of orange in the western edges of the sky. From the cab of the pickup, Jim retrieved a large paper sack. They walked along the outside of the fence and squatted down beside one of the spans they had just fixed—having found a breech in the wire marked by a half-dozen sets of coyote tracks. A few sheep, curious, yellow-eyed, came up to watch them work. Their wool smelled wet like winter. Jim made a few high-pitched noises in their direction and then knelt down, studying the problem at hand.

  “What’s in the bag?” the boy asked, but the grandfather didn’t answer. He opened the sack and lifted out four No. 3 coil-spring traps, the jaws six inches in length. He wound the end of a short length of chain through the eye of one trap, closed the end of the chain with a rusty pair of pliers, and connected the chain to the nearest post, a few paces away. All of a sudden he got winded again and had to lean against the fence, looking over his shoulder toward his grandson. He pointed with his chin down at the muddy earth.