How the Hula Girl Sings (18 page)
“Fine.” Forger smiled back. “Where you wanna go do it at?”
“Down by the riverbed. It’s pretty quiet down there.”
“All right.” Forger smiled.
“Give me my money now.” Eunice grinned.
“What for?”
“So I know you’ll meet me there.”
“What if you don’t show?” Forger asked.
“Oh, I’ll show, don’t worry.”
“But how do I know?”
“Here.” Eunice sighed. She pressed her lips to his greasy mouth and slipped her tongue inside. Forger’s eyes snapped open huge and wide. He gave a little cough, then a smile.
“That’s only part of it.” Eunice grinned again. Forger nodded and dug into his pockets and handed her the four dollar bills. “Meet me down by the woodshed in about an hour.”
“I sure will.” Forger grinned and took off like a loose little dog. Eunice shook her head and kissed each one of the dollar bills.
“Boys are sure dumb.”
Junior Breen had been trying to build a raft all summer long. Every time he’d find some scrap wood, it would be warped or full of holes or half-eaten with termites or just rotted through.
“Virtual infestation.” He’d frown and throw the wood back on the muddy ground. He had gotten himself three good pieces. That was it. Barely enough to make a skiff. He had made himself a nice oar, shaved it on down from a two-by-four and nailed a paddle on the end. He wanted to build that raft and drift down the river to New Orleans and meet some voodoo priests and eat rice and red beans and run off with the French-speaking whores. He sat in that woodshed all summer long, trying to whittle himself out a dream from gnarled wood and the edge of a shortened hacksaw.
“Didn’t think you’d show up.” Forger smiled, wiping the sweat from his long narrow chin. “Thought you’d taken my money and made a fool of me.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Forger. Not to someone who lived so close to me.”
They sat on the muddy bank, littered with dry brown leaves and rotten blackened wood and dirt and grassy green moss. The thin river wavered by, smelling hot and full of must.
There was a whitish film along the edge and all kinds of yellowish insects skimming the surface in thick buzzing eaves. Eunice uncrossed her legs and took Forger’s hand and planted it on her own chest.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered. Forger nodded and did. He smiled and licked his lips. Eunice reached down and unbuckled his dirty gray corduroys at the snap. Forger made a little mumble.
“Now keep your eyes closed,” Eunice said. He nodded. She reached down and touched him just below the waist. Then she pulled his pants down around his knees. He had a pair of old gray-and-white tight skivvies on. They were worn and threadbare and tight around his groin.
“Now don’t move,” she whispered. He nodded again. She put her hand over Forger’s eyes and placed his hand against her chest. He could feel the beat down there,
thump-thump, thump-thump
soft and clean and potent as spring. He felt the back of his legs aching as she breathed against his ear. Eunice laid her body right beside his, still covering his eyes, still breathing in his ear. She slipped his skivvies down and gave a little giggle.
“That’s it?” she snickered, shaking her head.
Forger shot up and pulled up his pants. His face flashed bright red. “What? What’s wrong?”
“It’s too small. I’ve got myself a bigger pinky finger than that.” She gave a little frown. “Let’s just forget the whole thing.”
“But my four dollars …”
“But nothing. You’re lucky I don’t go around and tell everyone in school.”
“I want my money back.”
“You want your money back?” Eunice smiled. “Here you go.” She dug into the front of her dress and held out the soft green folds of cash. “Everyone in town’s gonna know what a little peck you have. Everyone’s gonna laugh and shout and make jokes about it. Even your whiskey-drinking old man. He might take you out in the barn and try to stretch it out for you.”
The trick always worked. Every boy that had paid Eunice a red cent had lost their money on account of their small privates and unfounded fear.
“That’s fine.” She smiled. Eunice closed her hand and folded up the cash and put it back in her dress.
“You got an awful big mouth. Jim Ginerly said you told him the same thing and backed on out with him, too.”
“It’s not my fault you boys all have small parts.” She tried to smile. Forger gripped her hard around her wrist and pushed her down on her back, then climbed on top.
“I don’t think I care.” Forger smiled. “You’re going to do it anyway.”
He began to push up the folds of her white dress when a thick gray shadow fell hard over him. It cut straight through the heat and the dampness and the steady muddy ground, making everything cold and solemn and still.
“Take your hands on off.” Junior frowned, holding the hacksaw tight in his hand. “Take your hands on off ’fore I separate them from your wrists.”
Forger nodded and hopped off.
“Junior, we were just wrestling is all …”
“Go on. Get ’fore I split you in two.”
“But she took my money, Junior. She took it from me unfair.” “You wanna walk with a limp?” Junior asked, placing the blade against Forger Dunagree’s knee.
“You make it with her, too, huh? She takes you out back here and gives it to you?”
Junior slammed his big wide forearm up against Forger’s chin, knocking him clear off his feet. Forger landed on his back in the mud, gritting his teeth.
“Now get,” Junior grunted, holding the hacksaw tight.
“You are a little whore!” Forger shouted, wobbling to his feet. “You’re a whore and everyone knows!!” He stumbled away, spitting the blood from out of his teeth.
Eunice stood and straightened out her dress, then shook her head.
“My hero.” She frowned. “When are you gonna let me take care of myself?”
“Doesn’t look like you were doing such a good job.”
“Maybe not to you. But I took Forger back here ’cause I knew you’d be working in there. I knew I wasn’t in any trouble at all.” Eunice gave a little smile. “Did you hear us making it?” She gave a little sigh, then a wink. “It was so wicked. I can still feel all the sin burning along my skin.”
“Hush, Eunice, why do you have to talk like that?”
“It’s what makes the boys pay, isn’t it?” Eunice dug into her dress and handed him the four dollars. “Here, you earned it more than me.”
Junior shook his head.
“You keep it and buy yourself some manners. Maybe you won’t have to go lying in the mud for friends then.”
Eunice gave a little huff, then stuck her money back in her dress and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
“How’s the raft coming today?” she asked.
“Slow as syrup.” He frowned. “Slow as your own dubious grace.”
“Hush, Junior, why do you gotta talk like that?” Eunice let out a little laugh, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed Junior’s cheek. “A smart fellow like you could make some girl’s heart ache. You know, you’re gonna grow up to be the most handsome, smartest fellow in town. And everyone will call you Mr. Junior and all the ladies will fight over every one of your words. Every one, I bet. You’ll be the nicest man anywhere around.”
“Thanks.” Junior smiled, shaking his head. “How much you charge the boys for a good prevarication like that?”
“What?”
“A nice lie like that? How much do you usually charge?”
“That one’s free. Hey, I know what I oughta do. I should go spend that money on a dictionary so someone can half-understand what it is you’re saying when you speak. Maybe I’ll just go get myself a malted and some steak fries instead.” Eunice shrugged her shoulders and gave a little smile. “See you later, Mr. Junior Breen.”
Junior smiled and watched her creep out through the woods down the bank. Later that day, he found the nice red dictionary, bound tight in red leather, sitting out all alone out by the woodshed door. There was no note or letter saying who it was from. But he knew. He always knew. Eunice had surely stolen it from the elementary school.
He would always love her.
He would always love her poor unholy soul.
Junior felt his body tighten under the sweaty white sheets.
It was all a cruel kind of dream. Nothing beside him but his lonely bed and the night.
But she was still there. In the room. Right behind the closet door. Breathing there still. He shot out of bed and pulled on the closet hard. It was locked. Nailed shut. He dug under his mattress for the cold gray hammer and pried its silvery claw between the frame and the door, digging at a long metal nail, forcing it with all his strength and weight. He jammed the edge of the claw-hammer under the next nail’s head and slid it on out, then the next, then the next, until there was a shiny silver halo of spikes left cold and dull along the floor. He left the last two in and gripped the doorknob and pulled, tearing the wood from its frame. The wood creaked and struggled but finally gave. Then it was quiet. Then there was nothing but the voice he so badly wanted to hear.
Eunice . .
He stepped on inside.
Eunice …
Nothing there. There was nothing in there but the dark and the dust of the past.
But he had heard her breath. He had heard her voice in his dreams.
Eunice . .
Nothing had been there all along.
He fell to his knees, beginning to sob, leaning his face against the dull wood frame, still seeing her lying there in the light, all alone and undone, broken in pieces by the thin hacksaw he had used.
Go around the bend …
Sink on down …
Disappear …
Don’t come back around.
There’s nothing here whispering.
There’s nothing here for me to hear or feel.
There’s nothing here but the cold red tributaries of my own sin.
Doing it in a motel bed and breaking parole seemed like a fine idea at first. I wanted to get out of that town as soon as I could. I wanted to have intimacies with my Charlene like a normal man and his girl should. I had stolen some cash from where I worked and ran a baby down trying to escape, but now I was something worse. I had helped burn up Mr. Slates’s face when I was nothing more than a convict myself. Also, I had stolen Earl Peet’s girl. Everywhere I went in town, people would whisper and stare at me. That poor little baby in the blue carriage had already been laid in the ground. But that damn fool Earl Peet was still walking around.
“Do you wanna take a drive with me up to Baliboo? My Aunt Fiona finally died and my cousin Twilla needs some help with the arrangements.” Charlene was holding my hand and leaning against me.
“Why sure.” I smiled. “Stay a couple of nights in a fancy motel bed? Make love on a mattress instead of a parking brake?”
“Oh, wait a minute. I forgot. It’s over the state line. I won’t have you breaking parole on account of me.”
“So what? If we go for the weekend, we’ll make it back before anyone ever knows.”
So we went.
I took three days of vacation time and we made it away. Charlene drove the whole three hours up to Baliboo, Wisconsin, with me singing and making jokes and grabbing her thighs, and somewhere just over that state line a precious little thought occurred to me and reminded me of something Guy Gladly had told me. The world does not end with that tiny scrub of a town. Sitting in the passenger seat of that car, watching Charlene, seeing the whole bright world flash by, I got the feeling that she and I were not only driving, but moving straight ahead. We were moving past it all, moving right by, with her beautiful brown hair blowing like a halo around her head and her sweet delicate voice whispering in my ear. It made me want to drive all night. It made me want to stay in that car with her and drive and drive until all the things I had ever lost or known were long gone. Charlene’s foot was heavy, and we made it to her crazy aunt’s place in three hours.
It was an old gray, gloomy house, withered and soaked in despair. It made Charlene squeeze my hand as soon as she caught sight of it. It broke any good mood right away. Nothing about it seemed alive save for the small black birds that were perched still and sullen, singing little whistling hymns in the low trees.
“There it is.” Charlene smiled. “Me and Ullele used to sit in those swings out front for hours and talk about boys. She told me once if you wanted a boy to love you, you had to kiss his lips, then say a quick prayer to the Virgin Mary, and then say his name a hundred times every night before you went to sleep.”
“Does it work?” I asked.
“How do you think I got you?”
Those nice chain swings swung from a fat maple tree out front, dangling just above the overrun grass and weeds. The house itself was a real sad sight all right, getting worse as we stepped close. A whole section of the porch had begun to sink and lean in on itself. There was a broken window or two on the second floor and crabweed and black vines growing up the side. There were all kinds of holes dug into the wood paneling along the top floor, and nests and hunks of weeds growing right along the gutters and the roof. It looked sad. I watched Charlene take it all in and shake her head.
“It didn’t used to be like this. There was a nice garden out on the side there and wind chimes on the porch. It used to be the prettiest house ever. I used to pretend that I’d get married to some professional race car driver and we’d move in here and I’d sit out on the porch every night waiting for my husband to come home from the races and then he’d come from over the hill there and carry me up the stairs to that big silver four-poster bed and we’d sit up there and kiss and watch the sunset and stay awake as long as we liked.” Charlene gave a little sigh and tried to smile. “It seems all the things I ever wanted are pretty far away.”
I squeezed her hand and helped her up the porch as the whole house gave a little creak.
“My daddy would have a heart attack if he saw the place like this.” She frowned.
“Why didn’t your folks come?” I asked.
“There was some pretty bad blood between my daddy and his sister. She wouldn’t be beholden to anyone. She was that kind of woman. When my father offered to pay for her to be put in a rest home, she told him to take all his money and go to hell. My daddy, well, you know how he is, he kept a grudge against her after that and they stopped talking altogether. When my cousin called to tell us the news, my daddy just shook his head and said she’d already been dead to him for years already.”
