Sign Languages (14 page)

The day the rain broke the drought, they stayed until almost five. Rising from the couch, Richard walked down the hall. In the study, with the rain pounding on the air-conditioner, the boy was asleep on the floor.

The girl was in Tom and Megan's bedroom. She wore one of Megan's Sunday dresses, the shoulders hanging down, the whole dress describing her young body. She sat on the bed watching the rain against the windows.

Richard stood in the doorway. The rain-filtered light darkened the bronze skin of her cheek and the backs of her hands. He thought about the rounder, mature body of Megan.

In the doorway he listened to the rain with her and, beyond her, to the snore of the boy, the sounds from the kitchen. He knew absolutely what he had known for years. He would never have children. He would never live like the cousins or these children.

One breast showed plainly through the thin fabric. It was hard, firm as a fist. She was probably sixteen; the rain-streaked glass softened her sharp girl's features.

Richard backed from the door, walked quietly past the sleeping boy, and sat on the couch.

Two days after the rain the weather turned cooler. Richard had straightened up and fixed himself a cup of thick, bitter espresso. He stood at the sliding door and listened to them in the woods. Later, he dozed on the couch until the sharp knocks on the flimsy storm door woke him.

“Coming,” he said, and flipped on the yellow porch light. “Yes?” Richard opened the door and looked down on a huge man in greasy coveralls that gapped at every button, strained at the seams.

“So you're the bastard, huh?” The words slurred from thick lips. The man seemed as broad as he was tall.

Richard held the door open. The yellow porch light failed to repel the moths that fluttered and dipped in front of their faces.

“What do you want?” Richard let the door close a bit, but with a surprisingly swift movement the fat man stopped it and laid a wide hand on Richard's shirtsleeve.

“You some kinda molester, that it? Bring the kids inside for
treats?”
He whined the last word and Richard smelled whiskey and realized several things at once.

“No, no, that's not it at all. Listen…”

But suddenly the fat man, his globular cheeks shaking in rage, his chin sagging like some brown animal's bloated throat, yanked hard and pulled Richard out the door onto the rough cement porch. Richard heard his shirtsleeve tear on the doorknob, felt his left knee flare in pain as it jammed against the wrought-iron railing.

The huge short man lumbered around on the tiny porch with Richard in his arms. A bear squeezing a foolish thin man. With a broad paw, the man would swat at Richard's face, and, working an arm free, Richard tried to protect his head.

Later, in bed, Richard saw it all from their point of view—as if he were at Barbie and Buddy's window. They never sleep. They probably had cups of coffee in their hands.

He touched his face where the man had hit him again and again with his ham fist. Then they'd fallen over the railing like in a western and plowed up the zinnias. Richard had yelled and yelled. He could hear his voice but not his words—he didn't know what he'd shouted.

“Goddamn molester. Kid fucker. Bastard.” Over and over. With Richard shouting too, trying to cover his face, trying to wrench the horrible fat fingers from his collar, from around his arms.

Finally he'd hit the side of the house with a crack and, after a few minutes, all was quiet. First he'd sat on the steps and looked across at Barbie's. Then he'd gone to the bathroom and washed his face carefully and done all those things his mother would have done if he'd fallen on the sidewalk. Then he'd lain in their bed and considered everything and how he'd never been hit before and how he still had never struck anyone. He didn't sleep as such. Instead, in an aching doze he packed and repacked in his mind. Sometimes he discovered he'd included Tom's pants or Megan's shoes and he'd dump everything out and start over. Then he'd either forgotten to buy the airplane ticket or had put it in some pants pocket. There were noises, too, as if, offstage, other actors were talking too loudly about their own lives and what they were going to do right after the show.

The next morning Richard could hardly get out of bed. His neck and back were stiff; his wrists felt as if they'd been sprung. His face didn't look so bad in the mirror, though his cheek was as red as a strawberry and there was a purple bruise on his jaw.

He decided not to shave and fixed himself a cup of bitter instant coffee. He breathed deeply and inhaled a new odor, the pungent smell of leaking gas. But, sniffing around in the kitchen, he recalled that the house was one of those sixties all-electric models. Perhaps, he thought, it's Chip's dead rat. Richard imagined its corpse in some cramped, dark place.

He walked out onto the deck. The air was cool. He listened, but the woods were quiet. The only sounds the truncated songs of cardinals. Richard put his coffee cup on the railing and stepped down onto the grass that had greened-up since the rains. He looked across the backyards, left and right, several times as if they were a dangerous street he was about to cross. He imagined faces at all the windows, everyone knowing everything about him and the four children and the father. The memory of the fight caused his sore cheek to ache.

Richard walked across the yard, stepped over the sunken trench he'd inadequately filled in, and pushed his way through the weeds. He'd watched them return home; he knew the route Kimmy and Chip took. Clumsily he climbed the cinder-block fence and stepped onto the pile of scaffolding. He almost fell into the yard. For a moment Richard looked up at the faded green garage apartment.

He walked up the steps to the small wooden porch; his pants leg brushed the ragged screen punched out from the door frame.

“Hello, anybody home?” Richard rapped on door. It felt hollow and rotten under his knuckles. He figured he'd apologize, say something to their huge father, so he could get them back.

“Hello in there, anybody home?” He didn't know their last name. “Kimmy, are you in there? Chip?”

“Wow! He gave ya some good uns, huh?”

Richard turned and looked down at Chip, who had walked around the corner. Beyond him Richard saw the other three emerge from the woods and sit on the dining chairs around the blackened circle where they built their fires.

“Your dad home?”

Chip came closer, stood beside the porch. He looked at the screen door. “Nope, he ain't never home.” He looked up again. “He busted ya good, huh? Goddamned if he didn't.” He grinned.

“Listen, why don't you come on over and play? I've got some new stuff you can play with… you and Kimmy. And we'll fix hamburgers… on the grill. We'll eat outside. How'd you like that?” Richard raised his voice and looked at the others.

“Are you kiddin'? Are you foolin'?” Chip jerked his thumb at the door. “He'll come home sometime.”

“Listen, I know what.” Richard stepped down the steps and looked at Tom and Megan's house. He was surprised at how it looked from this point of view. He stopped for a moment to examine it all. “What if you come over for a little while and help me look for that dead rat? He's really smelling today. He's stinking up the place real good. Help me do that, okay?” Richard turned and looked at the redheaded boy, who stared up at him and then clapped his hands, yelled at the others.

The three jumped up from their chairs and ran ahead. They all vaulted over the fence into Tom and Megan's yard. Yelling still, they pushed inside.

Richard stood at the fence and listened to them. He could leave a note. But he'd have to go home for a pencil and paper and climb back over the fence. And he couldn't attach it to the door; he'd have to step inside. Besides, the father would know soon enough.

Richard climbed the wall and dropped to the other side. For a few minutes he watched everything from the cover of the tall saw-toothed weeds.

GYPSY MOTH

November 1969

I came from out of the field, over the barbed-wire fence, to the restroom door. Out of nowhere. Out of the blue. I looked back at the hill, the bare post oaks. Shitty night. I stamped my feet. Two cars on the asphalt circle of the roadside park. I hunkered out to them. A shiny red BMW. Black leather insides. The other an ancient Dodge. Rusted-out fenders. Tailpipe hanging low. Wired with a half-hearted twist of coat hanger. My people always give themselves away.

Later the old man grins. His tongue brown and furry from the Chesterfields. The stumps of his sparse teeth chocolate turning canary yellow at their crowns. I nod. I never smoke. He cackles. Grins. Winks some more. Stomps the pedal to the floor and the Dodge lurches, sputters.

I've never owned a car. A house. Only seen one movie. With Burt Lancaster.
The Gypsy Moths
. That's how I feel when I'm done and lay on them. Opening my shirt first and raising theirs up. In it Burt Lancaster wears these black stubby wings for the skydiving trick and he blazes down two hundred miles per hour, ears full of wind. His eyes looking right at me. That's the way I get. Pull my shirt out, hold it wide like moths' wings. Their eyes turning milky. The Gypsy Moth. Me and Burt Lancaster in a movie I saw in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The wind like an ice pick. The whole town perfect in the roaring wind.

I tell a story from my childhood to the old man whose dash is crammed with crumpled paper. I like to tell my people stories. True ones. Pieces of me in exchange.

Mama had a cat that had no voice. It'd open its mouth wide and cry long and mournful. But no sound. Not the faintest noise. I'd pinch it hard.

On the back porch I punished it. Ran its tail under the rocker. All but break its gray skin under its gray fur. It'd scratch and howl and howl but the only sound was its claws on the linoleum.

I laugh. The old man looks in his rearview mirror. But I don't need to. I know he sees an empty two-lane road. November day gray like cat's skin. My people always look out on gray. On rain or low clouds like bruised flesh. Then comes the Gypsy Moth slamming through the overcast. The sun on its back.

TWO CARS ABANDONED

Pine Bluff police towed two abandoned cars from downtown. One, a red 1968 Ford van, was removed from a vacant lot on Biloxi St. The other, a 1951 Dodge, was found parked in an alley alongside the Tower Theater. Both vehicles had been stripped of their license plates. Anyone having information concerning these cars should contact the police department or come by City Hall. If unclaimed, the two autos will go on public auction the second Tuesday of next month.

August 1973

It's a fully equipped Ford Ranger pickup. I even found some money in the glove compartment. A twenty and some ones. It's hot outside in this little town, so I drive with the air-conditioner on, the windows rolled up. The cold air blasts my chest. I pat down my shirtfront. It's a brand new one and so are my pants—Sansabelt like football coaches wear on the sidelines. I've bought a new Stetson to celebrate, too.

Because I love summer. Everywhere. But here especially. It brings all my people out in the open. Now I don't find them just at the post office bundled up, noses red and runny. The funky smell of dirty rooms on them. By the tracks some negroes sit on upturned packing crates and slap knees and talk. And in front of the washaterias old frumpy women and thin ones in cheap cotton dresses lean against car fenders, sit on hoods, drink icy bottles of Coca-Cola.

People out, walking, clothes baskets on hips. A man sitting on the post office steps, tearing open an envelope. A woman with the hood up at K-Mart. I pull in next to her. She's in stretch pants. Her hips bigger than a mare's. Her face flushed, sweat dripping as she looks over her shoulder.

Together we do this, jiggle that. My voice geared to this weather so it's all open spaces and coolness and smiles.

Oh they love me always. And I love them. Who else does? I ask you. Who has the time for this young-old woman with red knuckles, grease across her chin? She hefts herself into my Ford Ranger, asks about the Yellowstone decal on the corner of the windshield. Something I haven't noticed but like in her. They're always wondering. They ask childish questions. They're poor but rich in spirit.

She thumps out a Virginia Slim. Her weight tilts me to the passenger's side.

I tell her all about Yellowstone as we drive across town in the heat. Past washaterias, post office, street corners, roadside parks, highway cafés where my people come and go in this heat.

Her name is Ruth. She makes a joke about her ex-old man being “Ruthless.”

We turn up the lane to her house, pines arch overhead. She lives alone, she says, pulls hard on the cigarette, fogs my truck, smiles coyly.

We'll take our time, Ruth. We'll have days together. A whole week. Despite this heat, nothing's too good for you.

HOUSTON POLICE ARREST SUSPECT

The Houston Police have located and arrested John Wood Phelps in connection with last month's brutal murder of his ex-wife, Ruth Mackenzie Phelps of Route 4, Coldridge. Sheriff Johnny Scotts told the paper this was the big break he'd been looking for. “Heaven knows we've got a lot of questions to ask Mr. Phelps,” Sheriff Scotts said. Though specific details of the murder have been kept from this community, what has become known has led to some uneasiness in rural households throughout Madrid County.

December 1975

I cried an hour up in my room. And I went out and bought a pint of Canadian Club. I usually never drink when I rent a room in some boardinghouse; I go down and watch TV. It's that time of year and those people show up on the news, don't they? Black kids with chestnut eyes and their fat mothers. Old white men, their hair yellow, their chins all stubble and spikes, sunken cheeks.

Yesterday I drank too but it was only some hearty burgundy. We sat and watched TV. This program where lions circle herds and bring down the weak or lame. Wildebeests standing like huge dumb mountains of flesh. Stupid eyes. Looking here and there but seeing nothing important, missing the details that'd save them. Asking for it. Lions coming close to crouch low, their eyes always moving, chests rattling.