Whale Season (11 page)

Chapter 16

E
ven though it's Christmas, and nearly midnight, they're still swapping and shopping on the Power Possum AM. A caller named Al sounds as if he's in his twenties. He's offering a blue fleck metal pickup with
Playboy
mud flaps and most of its engine.

“1994. Nearly new,” Al says, his words slur. Al didn't see the ditch, so it's going for $350 cash, or the in-kind services of a DUI lawyer.

“They only let me get one call and this one was it,” he says. “So if you want it, just go on and call Sheriff Jeeter. He's got the keys to impound.”

Trot's name makes Dagmar cry all over again. Mascara runs muddy down her cheeks. She wipes them with the back of her hand. The night is unseasonably warm. Damp, like sweaty palms.

Trot took her out to what was left of Leon's place. She took a bottle of sloe gin with her from the bar. And her own car. She wanted some space to let it sink in. It wasn't just Leon's place. It was their place. Leon. Dagmar. Cal.

Yellow caution tape rings the charred trailer. A pink flamingo from the garden is a puddle. Some of Leon's things lay scattered on the grass, including the framed photocopy of Grover Cleveland on the thousand-dollar bill. He'd won it in Vegas the weekend they'd married.

“It's like our wedding picture,” he told her when he hung it up on the wall.

Dagmar felt a wave of regret when she saw it. Made her feel like some things are never over. Husbands are shadows you can't shake.

Then she thinks about Trot. Poor Trot. Feels ashamed.

“There's a brand-new rig over at the Round-Up,” he said when they first arrived. “Any idea where a guy like Leon would get something like that?”

That's when Dagmar slapped him. Something about the way he said “guy” set her off. He wouldn't even cross the creek. “You can see all you need to from here,” he said, still in his car.

Dagmar had never seen Trot like that before, saying all kinds of cop things.

“The call came in at 8:34
P.M.
”

“The medical examiner will have a determination of the time of death sometime in the near future.”

“Why are you being such a jerk?”

“I'm not,” he said quietly. Then pulled away without saying another word.

“Sorry, Trot,” she says, now, two hours later.

She's sitting in the middle of what Trot called “the scene,” sitting on a faded lawn chair in that pile of charred rubble that used to be her front porch. She's listening to a radio that someone left nearby. She's not sure what she's listening for, or why, but the scratchy sound makes her feel less alone. The lawn chair is bent, the blue plastic webbing slightly melted. When she cries, it rattles beneath her. She takes a sip from the bottle of sloe gin. Spits it out. She doesn't drink anymore since Cal died, doesn't want to depend on anything ever again—not booze, not love. Especially, not love.

“Love's a cakewalk,” Leon told her before she left.

She understood what he meant. You run in circles until you're the only one left. Then you win. But you're alone. Everything you love either dies, or leaves, and you're sitting alone in a wobbly chair with music playing too loud, too fast. That's why she'd sworn off love for good. “I'm beyond love,” she's told everyone. “Don't need it, don't want it.” But still wears her wedding ring.

“To ward off wandering eyes,” she tells the dancers, but they don't believe her.

Sometimes at night they see Leon sitting in the parking lot in his Pimp Daddy Caddy with the top down, the lights off, and the motor humming. Even though the mandarin orange paint job nearly glows in the dark, they point him out to her. But Dagmar always says she doesn't see him and goes back to the tables, teases couples, and buys a round of drinks for the ones celebrating their anniversaries.

She does, of course, see him. Everybody knows it.

Sometimes when she closes up for the night and the air is thick with stale smoke and Four Roses, she stands in the darkness watching him watch her.

It is at those moments that she thinks of what they had—not the bad things, not the drunken fights, not the lies they told between them—but she thinks of the quality of his love, the gentleness of it. How he'd hold her during thunderstorms so she wouldn't be afraid. How he wondered if Mama Po and Miss Pearl were together in heaven still doing that lovely, silly routine.

“Can you say ‘howdy' for the folks, Miss Pearl?”

Late at night, watching him watch her—so close, so far away—she always remembers Leon with grace, remembers him as a man who makes wishes on fountains and rainbows and the smoke of candles. Remembers him as a man who wished for things that never seemed to come true.

And now he's gone for good.

Her mouth feels like a maraschino cherry: too sweet, redder than real. This stuff is horrible, she thinks and puts the bottle of sloe gin next to her and turns her attention to the transistor radio. She gives the lighted dial another turn. Radio signals slip off the Big Dipper and collide into dead stars. They hum, hiss, and pop with the static of words and music. Sound like an alien love song.

She's looking for something, something that can't be swapped or shopped on Power Possum AM, something that's all about alligator love under a pink lemonade moon in tin sky. For a moment, the radio latches on to a clear signal.

“Do you believe in God?” a voice says.

She stops a moment. “I'm not sure He believes in me anymore.”

Then she turns the dial again. There's nothing but static.

Chapter 17

I
t's the voices of angels, Leon thinks.
“Drive on children, Drive on!” they sing in a deep southern gospel growl. “I'm not worried about my parking space, I just want to see the Savior face-to-face.”

There are so many voices it is overwhelming—a cacophony of four-part harmony. Clapping hands keep the beat. “Amens” stretch out like stray cats. The song shakes with thunder and forgiveness.

“Drive on children, Drive on!”

It is the day after Christmas. Sunday. A dishwater cold morning. The cement slab underneath Leon's head hums. For a couple of hours, he's been passed out next to the central air-conditioning unit behind what used to be The International House of Pancakes, just outside of the town of Flamingo. It is the mosquito capital of the world. His body looks like a pincushion. Sweating sour, he places his left ear against the humming unit.

That's where they are, he thinks. The angels. They are inside of the air conditioner.

When the propane blew, Leon's brain shook like an Etch A Sketch. So the idea of angels living in air conditioners seems entirely reasonable at this moment.

They must be real tiny, he thinks, and peers into the metal honeycomb filter to catch a glimpse of them, but all he can see is lint and an M&M wrapper that has worked its way into the metal casing. The Frigid King smells of french fries and maple syrup. Makes his stomach growl. Fire ants crawl in a straight line across his legs. He doesn't notice. He wants to clap along to the music, but his arm is numb—mostly because he's lying on it.

The voices of the angels grow louder. A sax and bass drive them on. “Sing it,” Leon shouts.

And they do.

“When you get on the road to glory, Satan is going to try to flag you down. But keep on driving if you want to make it to the holy ground.”

Sweet as a dozen of Krispy Kremes, Leon thinks. Not just any dozen. Not glazed, or chocolate, but filled with pure white sweet cream filling and powered sugar all over the top.

Leon leans in even closer. His limp arm hits the metal casing of the Frigid King. The pain is electric, takes his breath away.

“You got to check your tires,” the angels in the air conditioner sing. “You got a rough road ahead.”

Tears well in Leon's eyes. Cool his fever. “Amen,” he says. “Amen.”

Leon has crawled all night to arrive behind the IHOP. His world is a kaleidoscope. Words and images rattle around, aimless in his brain. The only thing he is sure of is that he recently met Jesus, and that a choir of tiny angels is singing inside the Frigid King. And they're singing for him.

“That Jesus has got some pull,” he says. Then sings along, “Drive on children. Drive on.”

He is off-key and croaking. But even through his confusion, Leon knows he is lucky to be alive.

When the explosion happened, he was rolling away from his trailer. That saved him. The force propelled him into the sandy ground near the swamp. When Mayor Bender and the rest arrived with their garden hoses and boxes of baking soda, Leon had rolled into the cattails and was covered in mud. Looked more like a gator than a recreational vehicle salesman.

Drunk and stunned, he slipped in and out of consciousness as his trailer burned.

“He's got to be dead,” Leon heard a chalkboard screechy-voiced woman say. For some reason, the sound of her voice made him want to hit her with a spitball.

“Poor son of a bitch,” he heard Bender say. Then the mayor impersonated a Doberman barking. A few snarls. Couple of growls.

“Pretty good,” Leon thought, then passed out again.

When he finally came to, everything was gone, including, most regrettably, Clyde, who looked about as much like Elvis in his pre–Las Vegas years than any dead bear had a right to, and his 1963 Sovereign of the Road Airstream complete with Sky Dome and extended cab, and his best cowboy boots. The air was filled with the dark scent of scorched metal and burnt tapioca—a smell that brought tears to his eyes, but he didn't know why.

In fact, when he came to, Leon wasn't sure about much. One by one, memories of his life rose to the surface, and then faded. Mama Po in her cheesecake swimsuit cooing over Miss Pearl. Grammy Lettie teaching him how to count cards in poker, “You got to have a skill, boy.” Dagmar at Po's funeral, honey-tanned, her hand clammy in his. And Cal, his small fish of a body, bobbing in the rough current.

All this was part of him, and somewhere deep inside he knew it, but didn't want it anymore. Couldn't bear it. So, bit by bit, Leon let go of his past until he was adrift in the body of himself without anchor.

For a long time, he made his way though the swamp. Wild Turkey dulled most of the pain, but his head hurt right through the drunk. He could feel his brain push against bone.

“Settle down,” he said. “Just settle down.”

The moon shone clay red, made him squint. At dawn, a flock of red ibises banked a turn overhead. Their sanguine wings combined with the sun and filled the sky with flames.

“I could really use some BBQ,” he thought and slowly, very slowly, with the blanket still tied around his waist, began to crawl toward what he thought was the highway. There's always a barbecue place near the highway. That is the only thing he knew for sure.

“Maybe they'll even have coleslaw with tiny bits of apple. Fried okra. Jo-Jos with Tabasco. Peach pie with lard crust.”

So he crawled along the tangle of swamp and shore. Past the hibernating alligators, softly barking, dreaming of small dogs and wayward children. Past the pig frogs and their squawking duets. Past a cottonmouth sliding down the trunk of a fallen cypress, slipping into the dark water. Past a turkey vulture, its flaming red head, a pompadour.

“Nice hair,” Leon said.

The vulture hissed and flew away.

That's when Leon saw the blue roof of the former IHOP and began to think of biscuits with gravy, pancakes with sausages tucked inside. But he only made it as far as the back door before he passed out.

“Keep on driving,” the angels in the air conditioner now sing.

“Amen,” Leon shouts, and his brain feels as if it could crush ice at any speed, stir, shake, puree, and liquefy.

Inside what was once an International House of Pancakes, the Sunday service of the Church of the Resurrection has cranked up the volume. Deacon Henry Love pulls the corners of his vest down hard.

“Jesus has gone missing,” he booms. The moon of his belly forces the vest to pop up again like toast. “Jesus has gone missing in a world of parking lots and fancy cars.”

Leon looks under the ragged fence. Sees tires everywhere. Some with wire wheels, some with gold-plated hubcaps. Logic spins like a silver ball on a roulette wheel. “I'm in a parking lot,” he shouts. “There are fancy cars, but Jesus isn't here.”

The sax slips alongside a sultry bass line. The IHOP is steamy. Deacon Love vibrates like lead crystal. “Jesus is lost in a parking lot filled with fancy cars and nobody can find him.”

“But nobody's looking!” Leon wails into the air conditioner, and then pulls himself up onto his knees. “I'm the only one out here!” He sees that the parking lot is filled with cars, mostly Cadillac and Buick. Long boats of chrome, glinting. A motor city ocean.

“Where are you, Jesus?” Deacon Love cries out into the microphone and rattles the windows, the doors, and the cement slab that Leon is kneeling on.

“Where are you?” the congregation joins in.

The sound is so overwhelming, it occurs to Leon that the angels might not be in the air conditioner, but in the IHOP. Inside. It only makes sense. IHOP offers pancakes from all over the world—and that's some kind of heaven.

Leon is a hungry man, so he steadies himself against the Frigid King, takes a deep breath, and, with all his strength, makes his way toward the front door of the IHOP and the manager he knows for certain will be standing there in a matching tie and suspenders, holding a menu, ready to seat him with the heavenly choir and pour him a cup of joe, ink black, no cream.

If this is heaven, he thinks, I probably shouldn't ask for the smoking section.

Inside the IHOP, all heaven is breaking loose. Mabel Love, the deacon's wife, is wearing her best dress, a leopard skin print with matching pillbox, and speaking in tongues, the riffs of Babel. Her mother-in-law clogs along to music that only she can hear, her scarecrow arms flailing.

Everyone is on his or her feet feeling Jesus like a cold finger run along the spine.

Leon watches. Amazed. There are angels in high heels and angels in three-piece suits and angels spinning around in circles and angels falling to the ground. There are angels laughing, singing, shouting, and fanning themselves with paper fans provided by the First National Bank and Trust. There are angels everywhere and they are more beautiful than Leon ever imagined them to be.

And they sweat. A lot.

“Dang cool,” he says.

“Shh,” says Rae Dawn. Six years old, brown-eyed, and fussy, Rae Dawn is sitting on the blue bench where the customers once waited to be seated. The bench is now known as the “time-out place.” Rae Dawn sits there so often Deacon Love has threatened to have her name inscribed over it.

Rae Dawn is not an angel. The sight of Leon bruised, bleeding, dressed in a sheet, and crawling toward her on his hands and knees does not frighten her.

“Wanna see my new doll?” she whispers. “My mommy says it cost a lot of money.”

Deacon Love and his congregation do not notice Leon stagger in. They are enraptured.

“Let us take a moment to think of this,” Deacon Love says, speaks in a loud stage whisper. “Let us take a moment to think of the Son of God lost in a world filled with greed and hatred and longing.”

A spotlight snaps on. His hair shines like chrome.

“Let us close our eyes and dwell on this sad vision of our sweet Savior. Let us ruminate. Let us conjugate its meaning.”

Deacon Love puts a meaty hand over his eyes. Then everyone, except for Rae Dawn and Leon, puts a hand over his or her eyes.

It looks like they are all playing hide-and-seek. The music stops. The room is suddenly quiet.

“Want a peppermint?” Rae Dawn whispers loudly to Leon, who in an attempt to stand, is teetering back and forth, white knuckled, clutching the doorjamb. She opens her tiny black patent purse.

Over the griddle Leon sees a sign—“If it isn't perfect, send it back.”

Got to be heaven's motto, he thinks.

Rae Dawn holds the peppermint out for him. It's fluffy like a tiny pillow. The sweet smell makes his stomach turn.

Then Deacon Love begins to sing, “Swing low, sweet chariot.”

The congregation joins in. “Coming for to carry me home.”

“Swing low.”

The song is soft as sheets. Leon is so tired he wants to curl into it. Let it cover him. Soothe him. Over the sweet rumble of voices, the keyboard softly pulls the melody along. The sax and bass whisper.

“Aren't you gonna eat it?” Rae Dawn says, tugs at Leon's blanket.

“Jesus is lost,” Deacon Love cries out over the song. “That we know for sure.” Tears roll down his face, splash onto his heaving vest.

“No, he isn't,” Rae Dawn shouts. “He's right here. I just gave him a peppermint.”

The entire congregation turns around.

Leon, peppermint in hand, waves. “Hey there,” he says. Flashes a winning smile. Then passes out.