B003UYURTC EBOK (21 page)

“You know Cullen Witter, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, what’s he up to?”

“Well, here’s the thing. Cullen’s a great guy, my best friend in the whole world. Couldn’t find a nicer guy if you tried. So I was thinking, since you’re suddenly back in town and all, you might want to come out with us tonight.”

“With you and Cullen?” Alma asked, confusion on her face.

“No, no. Me, Cullen, and Mena.”

“Mena Prescott?” she asked.

“Yeah. We’ve been dating for a while.”

“Oh. That’s good, Lucas. She’s so pretty,” she said.

“So it’s a date, then? Tonight?” Lucas asked.

“Umm, are you sure?” Alma asked.

“It’s just a movie with some friends. You know this town is boring you to death already,” Lucas joked.

“You’re right. I’m in.”

“Pick you up about six fifty, the show starts at seven fifteen,” Lucas said, walking away in reverse.

“I’ll be ready.”

“See ya.”

“Bye, Lucas, thanks.”

Cabot Searcy had never been to Arkansas before the day he landed at the Little Rock airport. He had also never rented a car before stepping into the dark green Ford Taurus and taking the entrance ramp onto the interstate. Terrible at directions, Cabot was relieved that he had only to travel this one road in order to eventually stumble on Lily, Arkansas, where he hoped to find and patch things up with his runaway wife. He listened to the radio loudly as he passed exit after exit, casually noting the number on each glowing sign as he sang along and snapped his fingers wildly. This time he would sit her down, hold her hand, and cry if he had to. He would apologize for his behavior. Promise a new start. Ensure her a perfect life.

After getting off the interstate, he drove some ten or fifteen miles before coming upon a wooden sign illuminated only by a single spotlight secured to the ground below it. The sign read in big, bold red letters:
WELCOME TO LILY
! and underneath it had been added, in slightly smaller letters of black and green,
HOME OF THE LAZARUS WOODPECKER
!

“I’ll be damned,” Cabot said to himself, turning the radio off.

He had told Alma the night before on the phone that he would sign the papers and mail them to her attorney in Savannah. He had lied, of course, and had instead gone straight to his uncle to beg for enough cash to buy a plane ticket. After passing through the dismal, dimly lit town, Cabot pulled up to a small motel with several of its sign’s neon letters burnt out. He had just enough for one night, and turning the key to room 16, he glanced over to his right to see, leaning against the side
of the building, a large, new sign reading, in unlit neon letters,
THE LAZARUS MOTEL
.

Waking up with his Bible beside him, Cabot stuck a finger into his left eye to adjust his contact, stood up, and then knelt down on the floor, placing his elbows onto the bed. He silently asked God to provide him with the answers he so desperately searched for. Why wouldn’t Alma come back to him? What was the point of his finding Benton Sage’s journal? Why had he ended up in Lily, Arkansas? He coughed. He said amen. He walked into the bathroom and took a shower.

It was around noon when Cabot found Alma’s house, and only knew it to be so from her maiden name stuck to the mailbox in tiny black and gold letters. For curiosity’s sake, he opened up the mailbox, rifled through the envelopes, and threw them back in. There were no cars home. He walked into the carport and tried his best to peer through the high window of the side door. He saw nothing but a darkened kitchen. As he turned to walk away and back to his car, he heard the door behind him open. He turned around to see Alma’s mother standing there with the screen door still shut in front of her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Ma’am, I’m Cabot. I’m Alma’s husband,” he said, walking closer.

“I know who you are. Why’d you come here?”

“I wanna see Alma. Is she here?” he asked, still walking forward.

“Stay where you are, okay? She’s not home.”

“Can I wait for her then?” he asked.

“No. That’s not a good idea. Do you have the papers?” she asked him, opening the screen door up just enough to let her hand through, her palm facing upward.

“I mailed them yesterday. To the lawyer,” he said.

“Good. Then why don’t you go on back home now? She’ll be gone for a while. She told me y’all were through. Now, I’m sorry. But that’s that.”

“Ma’am, let me in. Please.”

“Cabot Searcy, you turn around and get back in your car and get outta here,” she said, closing the screen door back.

“I have to see her,” he said. “I need to. Just to say good-bye.”

“You’ll wait in the car then, across the street. And don’t you walk back over here unless I say so. You got it?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thanks,” he said, walking toward the car, where he would wait for thirty-seven minutes, each one counted intently by Alma’s mother.

Alma Ember rounded the corner in her mother’s maroon Honda and pulled into the driveway. She got out, looked across the street, and saw her husband staring at her from a green car. She stood there, waiting for him to walk over, but he did not move. Her mother opened the door and shouted, “Alma, I told him to stay over there until it was okay!” Alma looked back at her mother, held a finger up as if to say
Give me one minute
, and began to walk across the street. Cabot had already rolled the passenger window down when she approached the car and rested one hand against the door. She leaned down and looked in at him. He had been crying.

“Cabot, what the hell?”

“Alma, I know we can fix this. I know it,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

“Stay in the car, Cabot,” she said.

“I just … I’m so glad to see you. You look so good and I just—”

“You need to go home now. You need to go home and mail those papers and you need to stop all this.”

“Alma, I love you,” he said, leaning over to get closer.

“Cabot, it’s done. I’ve got things to do. I’ve got to get ready to go somewhere. I have a life here. I think you should go back to yours in Georgia.”

As she walked away, Alma began to think of all the things she hadn’t said to him that she should have. She should have told him to see a therapist. She should have told him that he was a kind, good guy who just couldn’t seem to hold himself together right. She should have told him that she had moved on, had been dating someone, had gotten over him completely. She should have lied through her teeth to ensure that he would get the point. And so, she turned back around to see Cabot still sitting there, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his head leaned down. She walked back up to the window, stuck her head inside, and said this:

“Cabot, you weren’t the worst husband in the world. It was good. A lot of it was good. But I knew it was over and so I just had to go. I’m sorry. That’s the way it happened and there’s no way to fix it. So I’m gonna go in and get ready for my date and you’re gonna drive back to Little Rock, get on a plane, and go home. Okay?”

“You have a date?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“With who?” he asked.

“Cabot, you don’t know anybody here. What’s it matter?”

“At least tell me his name and I’ll go. I promise. I’ll go.”

“His name’s Cullen. He’s nice. You’d like him. Please leave.”

With that, Cabot Searcy started up his rented car and soon disappeared from Alma’s view. That would be the last time Alma Ember ever saw her husband. Rounding a curve, Cabot Searcy began to think about his life up to that point. He thought about the many girlfriends he’d had in high school. The one-nighters he’d bragged about to his friends. The casual encounters. He thought about college. Those first few months where he felt like he ruled the world. He thought about Benton Sage and his honest words. His suggestion that Cabot change his ways before he screwed everything up. He remembered packing up Benton’s things. Reading Benton’s journal. Finding the notes in the margins at the school library. He pulled into a grocery store parking lot and killed the engine. He walked inside. He scanned the large room for anyone who looked useful to him. Walking around the checkout lanes, Cabot grabbed a pack of gum, tossed it down onto the nearest cashier’s conveyer belt, and tapped his fingers on the counter. On his way out, he stopped and turned to a tall bag boy with closely cut hair and asked him his name.

“Neil,” he said.

“Okay, Neil. Here’s the thing. You know a guy named Cullen?” Cabot asked.

“Yeah. Cullen Witter.”

“Yeah? Friend of yours?”

“Went to school with me. He’s a year younger, though,” Neil said.

“Oh,” Cabot replied, “I need to talk to him.”

“So what?”

“Well, Neil, would ten bucks get me his address?” Cabot asked, taking out his wallet.

“I guess. I think he lives over off Eighth Street on the gravel road,” Neil said nonchalantly.

“Eighth Street?” Cabot said in that I-don’t-know-my-way-around-here manner.

“Right,” Neil said back.

“Neil, you’ve been a tremendous help,” Cabot said, smacking the ten into Neil’s hand.

Cabot walked toward his car and, after passing two people up, stopped the third and asked, with a face full of confusion and innocence, how to find Eighth Street.

“Okay,” the woman began, “keep goin’ down Main Street till you get to Machen Drive, then take a right and as soon as you pass the four-way stop, you’re there.”

“Is that a paved road?” Cabot asked.

“Yeah,” the woman answered.

“Thanks.”

In his motel room, Cabot could hear the sound of clanks, bangs, and heavy motors outside as a crew tore down the motel’s existing sign to replace it with the new one. He tried taking a nap, but the noise proved too distracting. He watched a few minutes of television before getting a headache and deciding against that idea as well. He had picked up a
Lily Press
from
the grocery store on his way out, so he sat at the room’s small desk, flipped on the lamp, and began to read through it. The cover story was about the Lazarus woodpecker. Of course, Cabot could barely read the name Lazarus without thinking about his Bible. He remembered the story of Lazarus being told to him in Sunday school. He remembered wondering what it would have been like to witness Jesus roll the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb and watch the dead man walk out, still wearing his grave clothes. The article was about several of the town’s businesses embracing the recent tourism boom brought to Lily by the sighting of the bird. Cabot laughed when he read about the Lazarus Burger and laughed even louder when the article mentioned some woman giving woodpecker haircuts. But still, all Cabot could really think about was Alma, and more specifically, what he would like to do to the little punk she would be going out with that night. Over those several hours he tried talking himself into just flying home and being done with the whole thing, but he knew he couldn’t just let his long trip be wasted. So he packed his things, locked the door to the motel room, and drove off down the street. He followed the directions given to him and was soon putting on his turn signal at the gravel road.

Gabriel Witter laughed as Cullen ran childishly down the hallway toward his bedroom, having just shouted the strangest combination of words he’d ever heard. He repeated them back to himself. “Ornithological cannibalism,” he said, as he turned
off his television and opened up a small green notebook filled with page after page of song lyrics. He turned to the first blank page and, after reaching up to grab a pen off his desk, drew a picture of a woodpecker eating a hamburger. He grinned when he was done and heard a car pull up and a door slam shut. Looking out the window, he saw Lucas’s car speeding away, dust floating everywhere. He looked over to the side yard to see that his dad’s work truck was gone, and as he walked down the hall toward the kitchen he noticed that his mom was asleep on the living room couch. He quietly poured Fruity Pebbles into a shiny white bowl and then opened the refrigerator with an I-hope-this-doesn’t-make-a-loud-sound expression on his face. After grabbing the milk, which was nearly empty, he shut the refrigerator door with the same stealth by which he’d opened it. He emptied out the jug onto his cereal and sat down to eat. Gabriel read over the newspaper his dad had left sitting there that morning, shaking his head at the long article about the bird and turning immediately to the classified ads. He was in the market for a set of drums. There were none listed in the paper. At the sink, he washed the remaining cereal out of his bowl, taking special care to make sure no colorful residue remained on the white edges and nearly burning his hands with hot water while doing so. He dried his hands off and grabbed the empty milk jug off the counter. Several previously discarded items fell to the floor when he opened the trash can. He picked them up, took the lid off the can, and painstakingly pulled the bag out while trying not to make very much noise. After finally getting the milk jug down into the bag, he
tied the bright yellow plastic strings and quietly opened the back door. Gabriel tossed the bag into the large green trash can resting against the right side of the house, then yanked it into rolling position and made his way with it down the long, rocky driveway.