The Drowning House (26 page)

In the fading light, her size and broad fleshy face made her appear older than she was. The boys were ready to run, and if she had kept moving they might never have realized their mistake. But finding herself in a strange place, she stopped and stood still, giving them time to examine her. As usual, she breathed loudly through her open mouth. Her tongue protruded slightly. A stocky boy with black hair that stood up stiffly said, “Look at her. She’s not normal.” He stared at Catherine, considering. “Maybe we can do something with her.”

“Like what?” asked a skinny boy with a pronounced Adam’s apple.

The bigger boy took a step closer. He smiled, showing a gap between his front teeth. “Give her an Indian sunburn,” he said. Then he reached out, put both hands on Catherine’s arm, and twisted. When she didn’t react, he did it again, longer and harder. This time she let out a wail.

“She’s a retard,” said the skinny boy in disgust.

A third boy who had been standing quietly said, “Don’t mess with her.” He was clearly younger than the others. His shirttail hung down over his shorts and his ears stuck out like handles from under a baseball cap.

“Why not?” the black-haired boy responded. He made fists, and the muscles in his arms jumped. “She don’t know the difference.”

“She’s crying.”

“That’s not crying. Haven’t you ever heard a pig squeal? My grandfather
kills pigs.” He reached for Catherine again, but this time he took hold of the hem of her cotton dress and lifted it. “Let’s see what she looks like with her clothes off,” he said. “I bet she looks like a pig. I bet she’s got a little curly tail.”

He couldn’t know that Catherine hated being dressed or undressed. Naked, she was unself-conscious, and she seemed to forget her clothes once they were on, provided they fit loosely and didn’t chafe. But she fought any kind of change. So her wardrobe was limited to the essentials. Details of any kind—buttons, pockets, a sash—she would tug on until they came off, leaving torn places. So Catherine wore plain shift dresses that zipped in the back where she couldn’t reach and fell straight from the shoulder.

I had seen how Faline managed her, heard her crooning and kneading Catherine’s scalp through her short hair so that she grunted with pleasure, before swiftly sliding the dress up and over her head in one practiced motion. But Catherine still experienced the process as a kind of violation.

When the black-haired boy yanked at her dress, Catherine, surprised, reacted with all her strength, swinging both arms wildly. One of them struck him in the face.

He sat down abruptly, stiff-legged, and the others laughed.

“What the hell, Tony. Knocked down by a girl,” said the skinny boy.

“Shut up, asshole,” said the black-haired boy. Scrambling to a crouch he lunged at Catherine. But she was solid, her feet planted stubbornly. She might not understand exactly what was happening, but her body knew how to resist. She took a step, but remained standing, and reaching down she seized hold of his hair. I don’t know if she meant to do more than steady herself, but it must have seemed to him that she was fighting back. He began to pummel her soft midsection. When she sank to her knees, the skinny boy joined him.

I watched her go down. Part of me wanted to cry out, to stop them. But I was too used to listening, to keeping quiet. I stayed hidden among the tall leaves.

The sound of their fists made me think of Faline, the way she worked a ball of dough, turning and smacking it. From the end of the
alley I heard other sounds, the swish of a car passing, a woman’s voice calling a child to supper, the sounds of everyday life, somehow full of sadness.

The black-haired boy, Tony, paused and looked back at the others. “What are you, afraid?” They shook their heads, but stayed where they were.

Catherine was on the ground with two of them on top of her, her dress hiked up around her waist. She made swimming motions with her thick arms and legs. She must have bitten her lip when she fell—when she raised her head I could see, along with smudges and the streaks left by tears, blood running down her chin. I closed my eyes.

Time passed, then one of the boys cried out, and I heard a new voice, one I recognized as Patrick’s, but raw, full of some new emotion. I peered out and saw him swinging, hitting, and kicking at them both at once. When the skinny boy stood, Patrick pushed him backward against the trash can that rattled as it fell over. I smelled coffee grounds and decaying food. Tony seized Patrick’s leg and pulled him down and they rolled together into the loose garbage.

Neither of them noticed the lights of the Buick entering the alley or saw my father unfold himself from behind the wheel. There was no urgency in his manner as he approached. The beams of the headlights lit the ground in front of the car and the bodies of the boys. My father took hold of Patrick’s collar and pulled him up. He gazed at the boy on the ground, then prodded him with his foot. “You,” he said, “go home.”

The boy staggered to his feet. My father regarded Patrick at arm’s length. “I know what I’d do with you if you were mine,” he said. He paused, his face unreadable.

The world was now the bright space in front of the car. Everything else was dark. I felt my heart strain in my chest and something hot and wet running down the inside of my leg. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, my father had turned back to the car. Catherine was gone.

I stayed where I was until everyone had left, then I took off my underpants and threw them into the trash can that was lying on its
side. I pushed some of the trash in, too. Later, when Patrick showed me the dead snake and told me what he proposed to do with it, I understood.

When I recall what happened that night, what comes back to me first is my own shameful inability to act. To move or call for help, to do anything for Catherine as she lay in the dirt. Then, as I peered out from the cannas, Patrick’s face. As familiar to me as my own, but unexpectedly joyful, the face of someone willingly risking everything.

Chapter 23

JUNE CAME TO THE ISLAND
and the crape myrtles bloomed—first the pale pinks and lavenders, then the stronger shades, magentas and dusty reds, as if the color were intensifying with the heat. Watermelon trucks, their tailgates down, appeared along side streets and on vacant lots, each with a wedge cut open for display, ripe flesh stuck with a knife.

Sunrise took place slowly through a pearly mist, disappointing visitors familiar with the tropics, who had to settle for a pale line along the horizon. At daybreak the sand was brown on the beach and brown in the water where the surf pushed it back and forth. The Gulf was dull as asphalt. But by nine the same landscape was all vibrating brightness—sand that glittered, water that was full of light, sky so profoundly blue it hurt your eyes. Shadows so black that everything within them was lost to sight.

At the hardware store that sold plywood and generators and, for the fancier houses, metal storm shutters, the sign went up:
HURRICANE SEASON IS HERE
.

Four more days passed before Will stopped by Stella’s room again, time enough for me to gauge precisely the effect of his absence—the depth of the silence, broken only by an occasional cough, the weight of the air in Stella’s room that, without the energy of Will’s presence to stir it up, pressed on every surface. Occasionally I heard his footsteps, heard him speak to Mary Liz as he closed her door. That was all.

I would not have gone down the hall to him—I had that much
pride—but when he put his head in and suggested a fishing trip, I agreed immediately. “I used to see you on your way to the bait shop,” he said. It was not the moment for me to explain what had really drawn me there. “It’s too hot to go fishing during the day,” he continued. “But we can do some flounder gigging. The bay will be pleasant at night.” He smiled at me and I felt as though something larger had been resolved. Will went back to his study whistling.

That evening we drove out to the shore. Will talked and laughed and listened, his head tilted. The strong beam of his attention had turned my way again. When we stopped for the light at Sixty-first Street, he looked me up and down, his gaze full of approval. I sat back and stretched my legs.

The sun was setting as we pulled up to a wooden shed near the causeway. I had thought that there would be only the two of us, but as always where Will was concerned there was a crowd. Four or five men, one already in the boat, the others milling around. There was no one I recognized. Suddenly it occurred to me. “Is my mother coming?” I asked.

Will looked surprised. “Eleanor gets terrible motion sickness.” He paused. “You didn’t know?” His tone was mild. Still, the question stung.

“I guess there’s a lot I don’t know,” I said, but he had already turned back to the group. Several of them seemed to have been waiting for his arrival. They greeted him the way you would a public figure, without expecting a real conversation. They spoke his name, shook his hand, then headed for their trucks. I’d heard that Will sometimes forgave loans when Islanders were in need. I wondered if any of these men had benefited from his largesse.

Will gestured toward a big, bearded man in baggy shorts. “Clare, this is Captain Red Kellums. If there are flounder anywhere in the bay, he’ll find them.”

Kellums was too shy to shake hands. He ducked his head. “Ma’am.” To Will he said, “Tide’s in our favor. On its way in. But the wind’s blowing pretty good. So it won’t be as clear as it’s been. I thought we could take a look along some of the shell reefs.”

“Red not only knows every inch of the bay, he knows everyone who’s fished it for the last twenty years.”

I looked at Kellums. “You must have gotten an early start.”

“Had my first commercial boat before I was fifteen.”

“Red ran quite a successful shrimp operation.” Of course Will knew all about Kellums and remembered his accomplishments. Will always knew who had received an award or a promotion, whose son or daughter had graduated from high school or college. But a good salesman could have done that. What I was just beginning to understand was that Will could make you forget things too—like your shyness—the same way he seemed to forget Catherine’s difficult and limited existence, Mary Liz’s complaints, Patrick’s troubles. Somehow Will was able to put it all aside, like a book he was reading, picking it up again only when he chose to.

Encouraged, Kellums spoke up. “At one time I had four boats working for me.”

“Tell Clare about Shotgun,” Will prompted.

“Shotgun. Well, he must have been fifty when I hired him, and he looked twenty years older. But he did know how to fish for shrimp.”

I knew I was expected to ask. “Why was he called Shotgun?”

“He’d been in a fight. Some old boy blasted him in the midsection at close range and he lost a lot of his intestines. Had to wear a bag.” Kellums grinned. “It didn’t slow him down none, though. He’d go out drinking, and when they wouldn’t serve him another round, he’d take that bag off and slap it on the bar.”

“Where was this?” I asked.

“Out by the Texas City dike. Nowhere you’d go.”

I looked at Will, wondering if he’d heard anything about my visit to Lafitte’s. He pointed to my sandals. “Do those have rubber soles?”

I shook my head.

Kellums said, “She can sit on one of the coolers.”

“Clare’s done plenty of fishing. I’m sure she’ll be fine.” I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. Will offered me his hand as I climbed aboard.

It was not what I had expected—a blunt-nosed boat, flat and shallow as an oven pan, about twenty feet long, surrounded by a high metal railing. At the bow, where a bank of lights hung, a man stood with his back to me. Something about him was familiar. As we moved away from the dock, the man turned and came toward us, and I saw that it was Tyler Henry.

“You already know each other, I think,” Will said. The boat shifted as the wake from a passing cruiser struck the side. Ty reached out and would have caught my arm, but I took hold of the rail.

“Weekend warriors,” said Kellums. “Anyone want a soda? Beer?” I shook my head. Kellums called to Will, “I’ve got a couple of spots in mind. Past the airport runway is a good lee shore.” Will nodded and we went fast for a while, bouncing over the chop and, now and then, sliding up and down the wake of a passing boat.

Across the bay, vivid streaks of light began to spill out along the horizon. Ty said, “It’s pleasant this time of day, isn’t it?” When I didn’t respond, he shoved his hands in his pockets and rotated his shoulders. He looked uncomfortable. “I hope you don’t think I …” he began, but trailed off midsentence.

I felt sorry for him. I understood that he couldn’t turn down an invitation from Will. Will had hired him, brought him to the Island. Ty couldn’t know how complicated things really were.

“You’re saying this wasn’t your idea.”

He looked relieved. “God, no. I don’t know one end of a flounder from the other.” He paused, then said, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

From the stern Will called out, his voice raised above the sound of the motor.

“Ty! What do you think? The heat’s not too bad, once the sun goes down.”