That’s How I Roll: A Novel (14 page)

Tory-boy had faith in me. True faith. I knew even the truest faith couldn’t save people. They’d scream out in church how they’d been saved, but their lives would stay the same misery they’d always been. Nothing would change, yet their faith would persist. Like the people who tore up their lottery tickets and walked away chanting, “Maybe next time.”

I’d had faith, once. The Bible was right about the Beast; I knew that was the truth even before I could read. So maybe God just didn’t think me and Tory-boy were worth saving. But if He created us, how could that be? Why bother to plant rocks?

That was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, so I put my trust where it belonged. Once I accepted Tory-boy’s pure faith in me, it was up to me. Me, alone. My balance wasn’t enough, not then. Even though I was building it, working on it constantly, I knew it would take time for me to get it perfect.

I didn’t have that time. The only person I knew whose world was in balance was the Beast himself. I couldn’t hope to match his balance. Only if I could find a way to disrupt it would he be vulnerable. Only then.

I watched him like he was under a microscope. I not only had to recognize the opportunity to disrupt his balance, I knew I’d only get the one chance to try it. If I failed, I wouldn’t get a second one. The Beast would take me outside, crush my skull with a rock, and tell the Law I must’ve fallen out of my wheelchair.

It wasn’t that I would have minded dying so much. But then Tory-boy would be left without protection. Not from the Beast, not from Rory-Anne, not from anyone at all.

I could not chance that. My plan had to be perfect. It had to throw the Beast’s balance off so bad that he’d never get it back.

Somehow, I knew that that could be done, and that I could be the one to do it. I was always searching for a soft spot. I was … Ah, there’s no truth in nice words. I needed to kill him. But I couldn’t see how to do that, no matter how hard I looked.

It’s a good thing I never needed much sleep—the only dreams I ever had were worse than being awake.

kept studying. After a while, I learned about certain things that would poison a man to death. Plants I could find for myself, right out in the woods. Only, I also learned that it would take a long time—not hours, not days, weeks—for that kind of poison to work. I could cook, but it wasn’t like the Beast was around to be fed every day.

It would only take a few seconds to blind him. I knew what I’d have to mix together to do that, and the Beast slept deep when he was drunk. But it was still too risky—even the smell of my fear might wake him up in time.

And, inside that shack, the Beast could find me and Tory-boy even if he was stone-blind—he’d done that in pitch-tar-black nights often enough.

I daydreamed about getting a pistol. I knew just the place to keep one hid. But I’d never used one, and I’d never get to practice shooting without drawing attention.

By then, I had one thing truly my own. My faith. Not the faith that makes you believe in things you’ll never see, the faith you have in yourself.

By then, I knew all I needed was patience.

And I surely knew I had that by the ton. Patience may be a virtue, but I didn’t need to be virtuous. I had such patience not because I was blessed with it, but because I learned it. When you’re born under a curse, you
better
learn it.

iss Webb was almost enough to make me believe there were angels on earth. She was the library lady, just out of the community college, not even twenty years old. Probably the only woman the County Library could find for the money it could pay.

It wasn’t much of a library, and it was a few miles from where we lived, too. At first, I couldn’t get over there but every once in a while. Then the school-bus driver started dropping me off at the library in the morning instead of taking me the rest of the way to school.

I realized that couldn’t have been good luck—I knew there was no such thing, not for someone like me. And, sure enough, I found out later that Miss Webb had talked to him. There wasn’t any point sending me to school when I was way smarter than the teachers. Besides that, some of the kids at school were as cruel as torture itself, and I couldn’t waste any of my mind-time on fixing them—I had to devote every second to coming up with a way to kill the Beast.

I’d read and study at the library every day. All the books I ever asked for were science books—could be anything from physics to botany. Miss Webb never could have guessed what I was trying the hardest to learn from all that work.

The bus driver would pick me up in the afternoon and take me to where we lived. I think he must have been sweet on Miss Webb. It was for damn sure that nobody was paying him to carry me and
my chair all the way to the door, both ways, like he did all during the week.

I wished I had a way to show my appreciation for that, besides just thanking him each time—that was nothing but common politeness.

I think the driver maybe even knew that. Because, when I asked him if I could know his whole name, he just said, “Charles Trammel, son. I mostly go by ‘Charley,’ but that there’s my proper Christian name.” I don’t think he would have said all that if he couldn’t tell that I felt bound to repay his kindness in some way.

Everybody at the school knew all about me spending my days at the library. But nobody ever said a thing about it. Who would they tell?

iss Webb was the first girl I ever gave a Valentine card to. The only one ever, to be truthful about it.

She knew I could never bring books home—the Beast would tear them up just to be doing it. But I could bring the things she baked, and the big bottle of milk she always had for me, too, as long as me and Tory-boy could make them disappear quick enough. We got real good at that.

Miss Webb never tried to get me to read anything special; she just left me on my own. But she could get books I wanted just by ordering them from bigger libraries. I loved her for doing that even more than I loved her for feeding me and Tory-boy the way she did.

You are what you do. So I was able to love Miss Webb just for being herself.

I was a little ashamed of that feeling. I know I should have been wishing that Mr. Trammel and Miss Webb would get married, but I just couldn’t make myself do that.

I’m not even going to lie and say I tried.

’ve had this sense of balance inside me ever since I can remember, but I didn’t really feel it kick in until I found science. It was like a holy spirit, the way it beckoned me.

Preachers will say they “got the call.” I don’t know how it was for them—or even if they’re being truthful when they make that claim. But for me, there could be no doubt. Science called: loud, hard, and sharp. A bright-white light calling, “You come this way, boy!”

Igniting something that had been inside me all the time, as congenital as my disease.

That does happen; I know it for a fact. Homer LaRue is the finest fiddle player there is, even if you’ll never hear him on the radio. Folks say he just picked up an old fiddle one day and made it sing. Every year, people would come back from Branson and swear they hadn’t seen anything to compare to him. And Homer LaRue never had a lesson in his life.

Folks say the music was born in him, but he didn’t know that himself until it called him. That was like it was for me with science.

When Miss Webb saw me with an algebra book, she asked me if she could help me with it. I was stuck for a minute, like I was being pulled two different ways. I wanted to say yes; I always loved having her close to me. But I wanted to show off for her even more.

When I demonstrated that I already knew how to do all the problems, she couldn’t hide her surprise. “Oh, Esau, I never imagined—” Admitting that she had underestimated me caused her to blush. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I was only about twelve or thirteen when it happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

And I will treasure it forever.

Oh, how I wanted to see that blush again. But I couldn’t surprise her twice. After that, no matter what outlandish claim I’d make about what I knew, I couldn’t even get her to raise her eyebrows.

t wasn’t just killing I studied. I had to know about why me and Tory-boy had been so cursed. And I finally found the explanation I prayed wouldn’t be there when I looked.

Once I followed the trail down to its natural end, I found myself studying genetics. After that, it didn’t take me long to work it out.

I don’t remember my mother. No, that’s wrong. That’s just dishonest. What I mean to say is that I have no actual memory of the Beast’s woman—the one he always told people had run off on him. I knew that she hadn’t given birth to me.

I remember thinking how, if her first child hadn’t turned out to be a girl, she might have lived long enough to have actually been my mother.

I couldn’t think past that point without crying, so, after a few tries, I stopped. For good.

es, I wanted it more than anything on earth. And, yes, I worked at it every waking moment. But when that flower finally reached full bloom, it wasn’t due to any plan of mine.