Wakulla Springs (10 page)

And everybody in Florida talked about the wilderness-dwelling Skunk Ape. Taller than a man, it shambled along on its knuckles, reeking of sour cabbage, harrumphing deep in its chest,
woomp
,
woomp
.

Levi believed in all of those creatures, believed in them utterly and completely, because they had been seen and described and attested
to a hundred times over by grown-ups, and because he was half-convinced that he had seen and heard them on his own walks. Every night, it seemed, he heard and saw things even stranger and more awful—and therefore better—along the whirring chirping grunting splashing midnight shore of the Wakulla River, which he knew as well as any gator.

Besides, who would want to grow up and live in a world
where every living critter was known and explained and catalogued, or penned up in a zoo or alligator farm or serpentarium? Levi was even willing to believe in the Clearwater Monster, which had famously churned up the sand a few years back and been declared by experts as something like a giant penguin, even though a giant penguin in Florida seemed a lot less likely than even a Skunk Ape. Levi’s mother
said anyone who would believe in a giant penguin waddling down Clearwater beach was dumb as limestone and probably jake-leg drunk to boot. But Levi still believed.

On this night, Levi stared at the moonlit river more intently than usual, almost desperate for something out of the ordinary to happen, and was eventually rewarded when a big black shape glided past, accompanied by a repeated
plunk
like water being displaced by a paddle. For a moment, Levi was certain it was the phantom Indian brave that the Seminoles believed patrolled the river at night in his stone canoe, keeping the waters clear and the air free of evil spirits, then realized it was Old Joe. Eleven feet long, the Springs’ most famous alligator played second fiddle to no dead Indian. The
plunk
was Old Joe’s massive tail
cleaving the water as he swam. Levi fancied that Old Joe looked his way as he passed, one river creature acknowledging another, but who could say for sure? Late at night along the mysterious Wakulla, all certainty flowed eastward with the current, as Old Joe’s sidewinder motions sent little waves lapping over Levi’s toes, and the limpkins’ screams pierced the silence of the woods, and something
a ways off went
woomp
,
woomp
.

It took Levi more than an hour to make his way back to the dormitory. Past his bedtime. The lights in their apartment were off, and he kept his shoes in his hands as he swung his legs over the railing and padded across the porch, hoping to slip inside the door without disturbing his mama. But he heard low voices as he approached, and instinct made him stop and listen.
His mama and Jimmy Lee were talking in the dark. Levi couldn’t quite make out their words until he crept along the stucco wall to a spot by the azaleas, beneath her bedroom window. He smelled cigarette smoke, and heard the
tink
of a bottle against a drinking glass.

“Hold up, there,” his mama said. “I’ve had enough already.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Jimmy Lee, laughing.

Nobody spoke
for a while, though Levi heard something rustle, and his mama actually giggled.

How was it that grown-ups could have knock-down-drag-out fights one minute, and be snuggling and kissing the next? Levi sometimes thought that adults must make up their moods randomly as they went along.

“Jimmy Lee, wait. Wait, I said. Not now.”

“Why not now?”

“Because now I need to tell you some things I did years
ago. Two things.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, baby. I already know about the white man.”

Levi held his breath.

She laughed, an odd laugh, like that was funny and sad at the same time. “He’s always ‘the white man’ to you. He was a man. Ain’t that enough?”

Jimmy Lee said, after a moment. “You’re right. That is enough. But I know about it, and it doesn’t matter to
me anymore.”

“I’m glad. But that’s not what I need to tell you. It’s about after. After I knew I was—pregnant.”

“With Levi.”

“Yes, with Levi. Who else I been pregnant with?”

“I’m sorry. I guess I just needed to talk. I’ll hush.”

“Hush, then. Let me tell it, so that I can say
why
I need to tell you.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I knew, and my mama knew, but no one else. It was early. I mean, I didn’t
show. But I was sick every morning. Lord, what sickness! I haven’t touched okra since. I was really just a child myself, and scared to death.”

“So the father didn’t know?”

“
Never
knew. Like I told you before. You just gonna have to take my word that was impossible.” A rustle. “Besides, I thought you were going to hush.”

“All right. I’m hushing. You were scared.”

“Scared, and wanted a way out.
Wanted the baby to go away and leave me alone, have him go get born to somebody else and give me my old life back.”

“Him?”

“What?”

“You said
him
.”

“Yes. Somehow I knew, even then, it was a boy. Lucky guess.” She cleared her throat, and Levi heard ice rattle in a glass. “Lucky? Hmm. Anyway, I asked my mama how that would work, how I could end it. Lord, she had a blue fit. ‘Child, that is murder,’
she said. ‘That is the original sin, to kill your own kin. Get down on the floor with me right now.’ So we prayed on it for an hour, there on the kitchen floor. Well, she prayed, anyway, asking God to forgive my childish thoughts. I just lay on my side, wrapped around her knees, crying. Picked up a splinter in my cheek, see? Right there. So when she was prayed out and I was cried out, she got
me up and hugged me, then got her tweezers and tried to work out the splinter, which didn’t go so well, ’cause I kept flinching and crying, and finally she set down the tweezers and reached up with her fingernails and plucked it out, just like that. I didn’t feel a thing. That was the last I ever said about getting rid of the baby. Except one time.”

The ice rattled again in the glass, and Levi
heard his mama blow out air,
pluuuuuuuuh
, and he knew she was passing the cold wet glass across her forehead, like she always did when it was hot and she was stalling for time. Jimmy Lee said nothing, and finally Mama started up again.

“See, Old Mr. Gavin up and died, if you can
up
and do anything when you’re ninety-one, and we went to the lying-in. Mr. Gavin was related to every colored person
between Mobile and Tampa, so Mama and I had to stand in line to pay our respects. I was standing there crying—I cried at the drop of a hat, in those days—not feeling sorry for Mr. Gavin, just sorry for myself, when I remembered a funny old tale Mr. Gavin told me once, when I had the chicken pox. He said one way to cure a sickness is to whisper into a dead person’s ear.”

“To do
what
?” Jimmy Lee’s
voice got louder.

“I
wondered
if you was paying attention.”

“I never heard tell of
that
. What are you supposed to whisper?”

“You whisper the dead person’s name, and then you ask the dead person, real nice, whether he’d be willing to take your sickness away with him. It won’t hurt him, after all. He’s already dead.”

“My God.”

“Anyway, right about that time the woman who was blubbering over
the casket finally got done, so Mama and I moved up in line, and she reached down and patted Mr. Gavin’s wrinkly bald head, and kissed his cheek, and moved on to say hey to some of the Pensacola people. And even though I knew it was just some old wives’ tale, before I could change my mind I leaned down close to Mr. Gavin’s ear—they say your ears keep growing all your life, and that must be true,
because Mr. Gavin’s ear was the size of a cabbage leaf, folded across half his head, and what was even stranger was there was no heat at all, not like you feel when you’re that close to a living person—and I whispered ‘Mr. ’Lonzo Gavin, this is Mayola Williams, and please won’t you think about taking this baby with you when you go, thank you kindly.’ Then I stood up, and someone asked me to tote a
plate of chicken out to the porch, and it was over. I’d done it.”

“No one heard you?”

“Jimmy Lee, Mr.
Gavin
couldn’t hear me, him being dead and me whispering so low and fast. Wasn’t really a whisper, more like a breath with a thought inside it. But that thought was there. And when I come through the house with the plate, even though it was a gracious amount of chicken, I felt lighter than I
had in weeks, almost bouncing when I walked, and I knew—I mean, I just
knew
—that Mr. Gavin had taken my baby with him. But he hadn’t. Six months later, Levi was born, and to this day, every night when I stand in his doorway and watch him sleep, I thank God and Mr. Gavin that neither one of them heard what I whispered—and that Mama didn’t hear it neither.”

“Why tell me now?”

“Because I want you
to stop throwing off on superstitions. If I tell you I don’t have a headache anymore when I take the sliced potatoes off my forehead, I want you to say you’re glad of that. A thing that comes down to you because whole generations told it to each other, before you ever showed up, that deserves respect whether you believe it or not. Now, maybe I didn’t half believe what Mr. Gavin had told me, and
I still don’t, but I know I
wanted
it to be true, and I know that the doing of it gave me a lightness.”

“But, Mayola—”

“Hush. I also know I’m damn lucky it didn’t work that time, because luck has a way of coming—or not—that is beyond any of our knowing or doing and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

“All right.” Jimmy Lee was quiet for a minute before he said, “You said there was two things?”

“Yes. Well, the second thing—” Levi heard the clink of ice and a splash of something wet and a
long
bit of quiet before he heard his mama’s voice again. “The second thing I ain’t never told another living soul before. Not my mama, for sure. Not even Vergie.”

“I’m listening.”

More quiet. Then she said, “He gave me money.”

“Who did?”

“The man.”

“I thought you said he didn’t know?”

“He didn’t.”
Levi heard another
pluuuuh
of blown-out air, another stall. “He gave it to me—before.”

“
What
?” Jimmy Lee’s voice was loud again, and now it had iron in it.

“He gave me a hundred dollars. He was rich and it wasn’t nothing but pocket money to him. And that’s what I used for the doctor when Levi was born.” Levi felt his stomach turn over like he’d eaten too many biscuits all at once. He heard the
bedsprings squeak. “There, Jimmy Lee. I’ve said it.”

“Yes, you sure have. Why? Why now?”

“Because if you and me are gonna have a life together, and maybe have a child of our own, I don’t want no secrets between us. I needed you to know every single thing, and now you do.”

If Jimmy Lee said anything in reply, Levi didn’t hear it. He was already running across the dew-wet lawn and back into the woods, where even the wisteria seemed to know to get out of his way.

He used to run like this imagining the TV narrator in his head:
This is the fantastically true story of Herbert A. Philbrick, who for nine frightening years lead three lives—average citizen, member of the
Communist Party, and counterspy for the FBI.
But that suddenly seemed very childish.

He ran full-out until he reached the little hidden sink nearest the Lodge. Ignoring the grunting bullfrog that on any other night he would have stalked and observed, he sat down and thought about what he had heard, though much of it was hard to think about, literally: It would not hold his concentration.

The
part that he could let through came in a steady beat like the bullfrog’s mating call:

The doorway.

She stands in the doorway and watches me when I sleep.

Why did she never tell me that? Why did I never know?

He sat there a long time thinking, not really listening to the bullfrog or the other night-plopping creatures until the breathy singsong of someone sauntering up the Lodge driveway made
it into his ears—

Numbers, numbers, ’bout to drive me mad

Numbers, numbers, ’bout to drive me mad

Thinking ’bout the money that I should have had

The voice was heading away from the building and out toward the road when Levi suddenly stirred himself, fisted away the tears he didn’t remember crying, and stepped through the trees and into the drive directly in front of Policy Sam, who jumped
a foot into the air with a yelp.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Damn, Levi! I thought the Skunk Ape done got me. If I’d’a dropped these tickets, I’d have played hell picking them up, too.”

“You going to Cooper’s?” Levi asked.

“Yeah, I’m going to the Big House. Got a late toss tonight.”

“Can I go with you?”

If Sam had asked, “Why?” Levi would have been stuck for an answer. All he knew was that he suddenly
didn’t want to be alone any more, but he didn’t want to go home, either; if he saw his mama now, he would bust out crying, just like a baby—
an unwanted baby
was the thought he couldn’t let himself think, nor about another baby that his mama might want. That overheard conversation had set so many grown-up thoughts to swimming through his head that he needed to
do
something grown-up, this very night.

But Sam didn’t say a word.

“Look, I just want to see what it’s like. You been asking me to go with you, right?”

“Sure I have,” Sam said, though he didn’t sound so sure.

“Well, let’s go. I’ll buy a number if that’s what it takes,” Levi said. “How about 91?” It was the first number that came to mind: Mr. Gavin’s age when he died. He’d never even heard of Mr. Gavin before.

“91? Numbers only go
up to 78.”

“Oh. Well, 78, then.” Levi pulled some coins out of his pocket.

Sam hesitated, but finally handed over a single strip of paper. “Okay, then, come along. But you best pick ’em up and put ’em down, ’cause we got to hustle out to the county road and I’m running late already. The men drinking down at the boats was trying to count lightning bugs, and that is one slow-ass way of picking
numbers.” He shook his head. “Levi Williams, playing the numbers. Never thought I’d see it. Ain’t you scared of your mama no more?