Desperation Road

by Michael Farris Smith

  There wasn’t much she knew from the Bible but she knew about Mary because Maben had always wondered how she did it. Yes the angel came and explained it but Maben had gotten lost in enough of her own strange dreams to believe that Mary could have easily dismissed it. Woke up the next day and told her momma about the crazy shit that filled her head. An angel with great big wings and golden hair and the air of God came to me and told me that I’m about to be pregnant with a holy seed. And not just any holy seed but the holy seed. Crazy shit. But Mary had listened and believed and heard the whispers and saw them looking at her as her belly grew and Joseph hadn’t asked her to marry him yet. And then Maben had wondered how the hell Joseph did it too. Mary told him I’m still a virgin and this child is not of another man but of God and the good and faithful and maybe naive Joseph said okay. Maybe he was naive or maybe he was something else that Maben knew she wasn’t.

  She stared up at the concrete statue and then she reached out and touched her hand to Mary’s robe.

  “It ain’t that easy,” Maben whispered.

  Maben then tossed her cigarette and she leaned into the statue. Mary’s arms above Maben’s head and Maben slowly wrapped her arms around the Virgin’s waist and hugged. She closed her eyes and let her weight fall against the statue and in this brilliant and anxious night she halfway expected her own miracle. Halfway expected Mary’s arms to return her embrace. And then to hear her voice rise above the sounds of the natural world and sing to her some beautiful lullaby that Maben had never heard before. A melodic, spiritual song that would seep into her soul and tenderly set it free.

  39

  ON MONDAY MORNING HE WAS AWAKENED BY A KNOCK ON THE door. He sat up straight in the bed as if startled from an anxious dream. The light came full in the windows and he could tell that he had slept well into the morning. He put on his shirt and jeans and he opened the bedroom door and walked toward the front door where the knocking continued. He reached through the broken window and peeked around the blue tarp and saw the sheriff’s department cruiser parked in the driveway. He walked back into the bedroom and with his foot pushed the shotgun under the bed and then he unlocked the front door and Boyd was standing there.

  “Hey there,” Boyd said.

  Russell squinted at the sunshine. Moved his head around to stretch his neck and then he stepped back and told Boyd to come in. Boyd stepped into the living room and he walked around the sofa. Russell asked him if he wanted some coffee and he said no but Russell went into the kitchen to make some anyway. As he made the coffee he could hear Boyd walking around with lazy steps. He left the coffee to drip and when he walked back into the living room Boyd was looking at the Playboy.

  “Shit,” Boyd said. “Been a while since I looked at one of these. Is it me or have they got better?”

  “Hard to tell,” Russell said.

  He tossed the magazine onto the couch. “Don’t guess pretty girls are any prettier now than they used to be.”

  Russell rubbed at his eyes. His neck. His forearms. He was sore all over. Felt like he could lie back down and sleep the rest of the day. He sat down on the couch and stretched out his legs and Boyd leaned against the wall.

  “What is it?” Russell asked. “You got a shitty poker face.”

  Boyd laughed a little nervous laugh. “I was just wondering where you been.”

  “I been right here.”

  “Not yesterday. Or Saturday.”

  Russell shrugged. “Wherever, Boyd. It’s not a big place.”

  “Your daddy tell you I went out there looking for you?”

  “I got an idea, Boyd. We can play grabass for a while or you can tell me what you really want.”

  Boyd moved over to the couch and sat on the other end. “Thing is we got a dead man and we got only one thing to go on. I’m telling you what I’ve been told and not what I think and I probably ain’t supposed to tell you that but I am. But when you rode up that night in the middle of nowhere and you had that shotgun in the truck we had to look at you. I know it’s not the gun that did it but you’re still riding around with a loaded twenty-gauge for whatever reason. A fact that I have kept to myself so your ass isn’t on the first bus back to Parchman. So that’s what I’m doing now. I told the sheriff I wanted to come over here. Not him. Told him I’d find out. Then it took me a day and a half to find you. I guess you can see why I got to ask you about some things. And one of them is where the hell you been?”

  Russell sat still and listened. The coffee seemed to have stopped. So he got up and went into the kitchen and brought back two cups.

  “If you got to know I met this woman down at the Armadillo. Caroline, I think. Don’t know. I was pretty drunk. Ended up over at her house and you know the rest. It’s been a while, Boyd. I wasn’t in a rush to get out of there the next morning. And that’s why my daddy didn’t know where I was.”

  “Hot damn. That didn’t take long. I know boys down at the office who ain’t got lucky in a couple of years.”

  “Right place right time.”

  “I guess it’d check out, huh?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “Now what about the other night at the scene?”

  “Like I told you then, I was riding around. Got nothing else to do. You know how it is. Go out riding and end up God knows where. I’ve been locked up for eleven years.”

  “I know it.”

  “And that’s all. I don’t have nothing else to give you. I hate y’all are so stuck.”

  “Stuck ain’t the word. If we had the pistol I’d swear he shot himself. But we got nothing. Only thing in the ballpark is some woman from the shelter downtown called the cops the other night about a woman staying there who had a gun with her and she took off with it. But we hear shit like that all the time. I don’t even think the sheriff wrote down the woman’s name. Might end up chasing after that one some, though. He don’t want us to look bad but it’s heading that way.”

  “You still think he was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing?”

  “Considering there was no call and no reason for him to be out there and he’s filled up with bullets from his own gun, I’d say yeah.”

  “Everybody think that?”

  “Mostly. Still, somebody did the shooting. Don’t matter if he was screwing around or not. I don’t guess you saw anything that night that might be worth mentioning. A car or motorbike or something.”

  Russell shook his head. “Wish I did.”

  Boyd took a few quick sips of the coffee and then he set the mug on the floor. Russell leaned back on the sofa. Stared at the spot on the mantel where the picture of Sarah had been.

  “What happened to your windows?” Boyd asked.

  “Tornado.”

  “Your dad told me the brothers been having a go at you.”

  “I told you the same thing already.”

  “How serious you think they are?”

  Russell sat up. “Don’t know how serious they are together. But I think Larry is pretty serious on his own.”

  “He’s always been the crazy one. He went nuts on his wife a few times. Ex-wife now. Stupid shit. Knocked her around good with the kid in the house over next to nothing. Can’t even see them no more, I don’t think. Now he’s married to some looker but word is she’ll pass it around. She’d better be careful is all I know.”

  “I’m not too worried about him.”

  “I’d say riding around with a loaded twenty-gauge is a fair sign you are.”

  “That’s the reason I’m not worried. If I didn’t have it and it wasn’t loaded then I’d be worried.”

  “I got you,” Boyd said and he stood up. “I hated asking all this. You know that.”

  “I know it.”

  “And you know I believe every word you say.”

  “I know it,” Russell said and he stood and they shook hands.

  “It was good to see your daddy. And I was sorry about your momma.”

  “Yeah.”

  Boyd walked to
the front door and let himself out and Russell stood in the window and watched him walk to the cruiser. Boyd sat down behind the wheel and glanced at himself in the rearview mirror and ran his fingers across the top of his thin hair. Then he backed out and he was gone.

  Russell stood in the window like a store mannequin. Maben and the child will have to leave, he thought. There’s no way around it.

  He walked back to the sofa and drank his coffee and when he was done he went into the kitchen for another cup. He poured it and stood at the kitchen window this time. Across the street a woman dragged a sprinkler into the front yard and she turned it on and then a small child just old enough to run came out from under the carport wearing only a diaper. He walked into the yard and when the water hit him he squealed and he ran away and then he kept running in and out of the water and kept on squealing and his mother laughed and laughed and laughed.

  God only knows what might happen if they find her out at Dad’s place, he thought. What she’ll say to stay free. She’s already killed one man when cornered and I’m not going back. Goddamn fingers are already pointing at me and I didn’t even do nothing.

  He poured the coffee down the drain and stood there watching the boy in the sprinkler and he knew that rough lives got rougher and he hated it for the girl and he hated it for Maben. And he hated that there wasn’t going to be a happy ending and then he wondered how much longer he was going to have to keep that shotgun loaded.

  He took a shower and then he drove out to his dad’s place to see about them. He got out of the truck and as he walked around the house he saw them out by the pond. His father and Consuela and Annalee. No Maben. The Virgin Mary with the sun on her face. His father waved to him and he walked out. It seemed to be getting hotter and brighter every day and he had broken a sweat by the time he reached the pond. The three of them wore fishing caps to keep the glare from their eyes, the child’s hat too big and hanging down across her eyebrows.

  “Catching anything?” Russell asked.

  Annalee peeped out from under the hat. “I got two. One big one.”

  “Nearly dragged her in,” Mitchell said.

  “And you,” said Consuela.

  “I was wondering when she was gonna say something,” Russell said.

  “She can say a lot. She likes to listen mostly,” Mitchell answered.

  “Where’s your mom?” Russell asked.

  “Up there.”

  “Still sleeping, I reckon,” Mitchell said.

  Russell left them and walked to the barn and up into the room. The room was cold after a full day of air-conditioning and Maben was asleep with a blanket pulled up to her chin. Russell sat down in a chair across the room and watched her. Trying to figure out what to say. How to say it. From outside he heard the child cheer at having caught another fish. A half hour passed and he sat and waited. Crossed and uncrossed his legs. Finally she stirred. First turning over and then sitting up and yawning and stretching and the blanket falling to her waist. She looked over and saw Russell sitting in the chair.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  “I thought you’d be.”

  “Tired like I can’t do no more. You ever been tired like that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Where’s Annalee?”

  “Out at the pond.”

  “With who?”

  “My dad and Consuela.”

  She stretched again. Yawned again.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the shelter?” he asked.

  She licked at her lips. Dry and chapped. “How you know about that?”

  “A friend of mine. A deputy. Came to see me this morning.”

  “For what?”

  “I was riding around out there the night it happened. Figured they had to come and ask me about it. Told me they got nothing. But the shelter lady had called the cops about some woman with a gun who had run out of there.”

  “They got nothing?”

  “They got nothing. Right now anyhow. Said they might start looking you up if nothing else comes along. How much did you tell them at the shelter?”

  “I told them Maben and then I made up a last name and whatever else they asked me.”

  Russell scratched at his chin.

  “What you think?” she asked.

  “Probably about the same thing you do.”

  He took a cigarette and lighter from his shirt pocket. She got up from the bed and he gave her one. She walked over to the window and looked at Annalee. She was standing on the bank, a catfish hopping on the end of her line and the old man trying to unhook it.

  “Lot of fish out there?” Maben asked.

  “A shitload.”

  “I think she likes it.”

  “It’s a lot more fun when you catch something.”

  She turned away from the window. “When you want us to leave?”

  “I don’t want you to,” he said. “But you’re gonna have to.”

  She walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge.

  “I’ll take you wherever you want,” he said.

  She began to nod. Not only with her head but from the waist up she rocked back and forth. A steady rhythm. A faraway look in her eyes as if she were looking across to the other side of a canyon that was miles and miles away.

  “I’m so tired,” she said again and she kept rocking. Her cigarette burned down and a long gray ash hung and waited to fall.

  “They don’t have nothing and they don’t have a gun. You won’t have to stay low forever. But I can’t let you stay out here with them looking at me.” His words held no meaning for either of them. As if they hadn’t been spoken. The ash from her cigarette fell onto the top of her bare foot and she stopped rocking. Lost her faraway stare. She looked at him. Wiped at her forehead with the palm of her hand. Began to smoke again. When she was done with the cigarette she rolled over and stubbed it out in an ashtray on the bedside table.

  “I almost left out of here last night. Probably should have.”

  “No, you probably shouldn’t have. Don’t start walking to nowhere with nothing. That’s how you got here in the first place.”

  “That’s how I got damn near everywhere,” she said. “I just didn’t want to leave her but I don’t know how much more she can take.”

  “Don’t you have anywhere you can go?”

  She shook her head. “If I did I’d be there already.”

  Outside the child shrieked again.

  “Maybe she could…” Maben started.

  “Maybe she could,” Russell said.

  “Let her rest some. Eat some.”

  “If you think so.”

  Maben then fell back on the bed. Held her hands up toward the ceiling. Traced the circling fan with her index fingers, making quick circles. Then she paused and let her arms fall out to the side and she made a T. “I don’t know how much more she can take,” she said again.

  “She’ll be fine. A week or two and you’ll be back and maybe y’all can start over.”

  “I heard that one before,” she said and she turned on her side. Closed her eyes.

  Sleep as long as you want, he told her. He left and she pulled the blanket over her and she closed her eyes and she listened to the sound of the child’s voice every few minutes whenever she reeled in another fish. The voice seemed to leap across the quiet country and it was the sound of happiness and as she listened to it Maben wasn’t sure that it could be the voice of something that belonged to her.

  40

  RUSSELL WALKED OUT TO THE POND. MITCHELL WAS UNHOOKING A catfish from Annalee’s line and her eyes danced with the jerks of the struggling fish. Mitchell pried it free and dropped the fish into a cooler where several more catfish flopped and sucked their last breaths. Consuela stood on the other side of the pond with her own pole and her line was straight and still.

  “You’re gonna catch them all if you don’t slow up,” Russell said to the girl. She smiled at him and asked if she could do it again. Mitchell said sure but then pick
ed up a cardboard box from the ground and opened it and saw they were out of worms.

  “We gotta get some more bait. Wanna ride to town?” he asked her.

  “Yeah,” she said and she handed him the cane pole.

  “Run up there and wash your hands off with the hose and head on to my truck. Meet you there,” Mitchell said and he set the pole and empty bait box on top of the cooler.

  Maybe that’s not such a good idea, Russell wanted to say. She can’t be seen with you. With us. But that would mean letting Mitchell in and he didn’t want to do that. So he said I’ll ride with you.

  “Good,” his father answered and he slapped his son’s arm. Then he turned and yelled across the pond to Consuela. Voy a la tienda.

  Russell looked at him sideways and said I bet you think you’re pretty damn smart and the two men walked together toward the house. Annalee held the hose and sprayed one hand and then she swapped hands and did the same. She turned off the nozzle and ran across the yard to Mitchell’s pickup and climbed in without waiting. Mitchell stopped at the hose and got a drink and then they got in the truck with Annalee sitting between them on the bench seat and ready for a ride.

  Boyd walked into the sheriff’s department just as Gina was yelling at Harvey Dennis to put out that damn cigar. Smells like ass and you ain’t supposed to smoke in here.

  “Shut the hell up,” the sheriff yelled back.

  Boyd stopped at her desk as she spun around in her chair, a feisty little woman with glasses on her head and a small mouth seemingly stuck in the smirk she had worn every day of her twenty-five years at the department. “Not again,” Boyd said.

  “You can tell when the shit hits the fan around here cause he starts puffing on them things,” she said and she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a can of air freshener. She sprayed a circle around her desk as if to form some sort of meadow-scented force field.

  “I’m guessing I can go on in,” Boyd said.

  “I’m guessing you can.”

  The small office building was square and built for function with linoleum floors and cinderblock walls and industrial lighting. Every wall was painted the same shade of vanilla and metal file cabinets lined the hallways and most of them needed a hammer or at least a screwdriver to get into. Harvey’s door was open. Boyd tapped his knuckles on the wooden frame.