She stopped, her voice almost ready to crack. Swallowing loudly, she met my eyes and continued. “He kicked it so hard the poor thing died. Rodney took it real hard. It was almost like something in him snapped that day. He got angry and mean. He talked about hurting people a lot, which wasn’t Rodney, you know? I mean, he’d always been different and sad, but he only wanted to fit in, to find his place.”
Another pause, this time for a deep breath. Her lips were trembling.
“Jim told us to take it out and throw it in the quicksand, but Rodney wouldn’t do it. He took the kitten and ran off into the woods. In a few days I forgot all about it.
“Then I stumbled upon Rodney’s ‘spot’ in the woods. He had a place under some big trees that he’d dug out and encircled with stones. A fire pit, I guess is the best way to describe it. I came up on him without him knowing and saw him playing with something. As I got closer, I saw it was the dead kitten. He was talking to it like it was alive, playing with it like it was a toy.”
She closed her eyes.
“It only got worse. He got worse.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. “I know I ain’t worth much as a mother, but I do love you, Walter. I love you even if I don’t know what to do about it most of the time. But this time, I know. I got to tell you, cousin or no cousin, don’t have nothing to do with that boy because his father will hurt you.”
I sat quietly, thinking of all the questions I could ask her. In the end, I only asked one.
“You said he only got worse. What else did he do?”
But the moment was gone. I knew it when I looked at Mama and her eyelids were beginning to droop. She had that look she got most evenings. It was almost the look of a drunk, even though I never saw her touch a drop of alcohol. Whatever else the look meant, I was sure it signaled the end to our conversation, and with that, another window to understanding my mother was shut right in my face.
—
Seth’s trial was set for the second week in May. There was some debate about whether he should be allowed to come back to school in the meantime, but in the end they let him. Kids were horrible to him. They called him queer to his face now, without worrying about consequences from teachers. Hell, the teachers went after him too. Mr. Bell, our math teacher, made him sit in the back of the room, facing the wall, because he couldn’t stand to look at him. I know that’s hard to believe now, but in 1961 rural Alabama, that’s the way it was. Mrs. Benedict gave us a long talk about the Bible and what it said about homosexuals and how it was a sin, and how no man should hold another man despicable for trying to instruct another in the ways of God. I wanted to ask her where it said in the Bible that you should kick somebody in the balls if they were gay.
That was the other thing that had started since the incident. People would come up to Seth between classes and kick him in the balls. Really kick him. Sometimes they’d punch him there too, leaving him doubled over in pain. He never told any of the teachers—not that it would have mattered if he did. He never fought back. He just took it.
Once when I was walking beside him in the hall, some guys came by and spit on us. Another time, I was suspended for fighting back after a tenth grader slapped me and Seth in the balls. Seth told me to let it go, but I went after the guy and slammed his head into a locker. My luck hadn’t run out yet, because nobody pressed criminal charges. I was only suspended.
I guess in a way I was always lucky. Even in Vietnam when I watched a friend try to dig a bullet out of his neck with his bare hands. Even at the Hanoi Hilton when they tried to make me wish to be dead, I kept hope. Even now with the emphysema and weak heart and all the alcohol, I feel pretty lucky.
Anyway, maybe it all balances out because I’ve got guilt, the kind that gnaws at you, until you wake up one day and feel your soul has been half eaten and you know the gnawing won’t be done until it eats it all or you do something about it.
—
A few days before Seth’s court date, I had an encounter with my father that has continued to haunt me to this very day.
I climbed out of bed to go pee. Our bathroom door was locked, so I figured my mother had it occupied. She’d taken to spending a lot of time in there. I’d hear her go in, lock the door, and run a bath. It might be an hour or more before she came out. I was afraid one night she wouldn’t come out at all.
I considered knocking, but the thought of her not replying was too much. Instead, I did what I had gotten used to doing: I went outside.
It was a clear, cool night, and every star in the universe was shining. No moon, but the starlight alone let me see where I was going.
I went around back of our house to the shed and started my business. I was just finishing up when I heard someone singing. I froze and saw my father coming through the trees, headed back to his house, drunk as usual.
Wasted like he was, I knew he wouldn’t see me as long as I could stay still in the shadows. I studied him, feeling suddenly like this might be my one true chance to see who my father really was. I can’t explain it. What I saw in him that night shook me to my core. He was me. I saw it clearly for the first time. In this moment of unguarded drunkenness, I saw myself, not my father at all. I looked away and then back again, trying to shatter the illusion. It was still me. I was there in his walk, the tilt of his head, even the silly way he ended the lines he had forgotten with words that didn’t rhyme except when he pronounced them wrong. I saw in him the kid who didn’t know how he ended up like he did. I wanted to call out to him, to stop him, to let him know I was there and that I understood. More than anything else, I wanted him to know I forgave him. He wasn’t mean or hateful or selfish or anything I’d once thought. He’d only lost his way. I understood that now. I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t. That would break the spell, and as long as the spell was unbroken, he was innocent, and as long as I could see him like that, I loved him.
So I watched him, wishing the moment would last forever. He stumbled to the porch, still singing, his face turned bright by happiness. After he’d gone inside, I stayed in the shadows for a long time, thinking about how I could make my life different than his.
Chapter Twenty-three
DANNY
Pike paused to take some oxygen. He’d been talking for a long time while Cliff and I listened in absolute silence. It was getting dark outside, and the trees swayed in the evening breeze. Way out on the highway, I heard a horn blow and the squeal of brakes, but the sounds didn’t seem real. All I could think about was the painting, this strange and brave boy named Seth, and if that little cabin held my mother and sister.
Pike lit a gas lantern, and the flickering flames threw shadows across the walls. I slid closer to the chair where he had leaned the painting. Looking closely, I could just make out the shadows inside the window, distorted wisps against the pale moonlight.
He stood. “Piss break,” Pike said, and stepped through the front door.
I looked at Cliff, who appeared to be half-asleep. “I’m going in. I’m going to slip and bring them back.”
Cliff opened his eyes wide enough to stare at me. I couldn’t tell if he was worried or just felt sorry for me.
A few minutes later, Pike came back in and lit a cigarette.
“There’s still a good bit more.”
I nodded. “I’m listening.”
Pike smoked the cigarette. Full night had fallen outside, and I was amazed at how dark it got back here with no power, no moon or stars to break through the interlocking branches of oak, pine, and elm. Like being in the storm shelter, I thought.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine being there, up against the back wall in total darkness. I tried to imagine moving through the wall, just phasing through it like I was Kitty Pryde from the X-Men, and coming out on the other side to a swamp at dusk and a little cabin and Mom and Anna.
Pike cleared his throat and began to speak.
> Chapter Twenty-four
WALTER
A couple of days later, I walked over to Seth’s, hoping to find him at home and his father gone. What I found was the exact opposite.
I knew something was wrong when I saw the blue lights through the trees as I drew closer to his house. Sheriff Branch’s car was in the yard and Mr. Sykes stood on the porch talking to Branch. I didn’t see Seth.
Confused, I stepped out of the trees. Mr. Sykes saw me and pointed. Branch turned around. “You, boy.”
I froze.
“Get over here.”
I debated bolting for the trees, but my curiosity got the better of me.
I walked slowly to the porch. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” Branch said.
I nodded and stood with my arms wrapped around myself.
“You seen Seth?” Mr. Sykes said. His voice was firm and he looked at me like I might be the one responsible for all of his problems.
“No.”
“This is his little boyfriend,” Mr. Sykes said to Branch. “If anybody knows where he is, this one does.”
“I’m not his boyfriend,” I said.
“Now I don’t care which way you sit in the saddle, son, I just want to know about Seth. When did you see him last?”
“I’m not answering any questions until you tell me what’s going on.”
Branch shook his head and tipped his hat back. “How about this? How about you answer my questions or I take you in for obstructing justice?”
I held out my hands, wrists together. “Okay.”
Branch cursed and spat on the ground. “You’re dumber than you look. Get in the car.” He pointed to the backseat.
He turned back to Mr. Sykes, and I bolted, full speed, back into the trees.
“Son of a bitch,” I heard Branch say. I didn’t turn around to see if he was following me.
I headed straight for the shelter hoping to find Seth there. Even if I didn’t, I knew I could hide underground until I figured out what to do.
I climbed down the ladder and pulled the hatch shut above me. I crawled on my hands and knees to the back wall, to the place to where Seth and I had slipped before. He wasn’t there. I was alone.
Leaning back against the wall of the shelter, I closed my eyes and tried to think of the place, the swamp, the moon, the little cabin with the orange lamplight burning inside. I had the place in my mind pretty well, when I realized I might be doing it wrong. Was it the painting Seth imagined or the actual place? Shit, I didn’t know. I tried both. Neither worked. I was still in the dark twenty minutes later when my hand fell on the paper.
As soon as I touched it, I knew Seth was gone for good. It was his note, not a suicide note, but a good-bye note. It was too dark in the shelter to make any of it out, so I tucked it in my back pocket and thought about where I could go. I knew Branch would talk to my parents and I’d have to deal with him if I went back home. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I stayed put, hoping that maybe Seth would come back. He didn’t. I fell asleep, leaning against the back wall.
—
When I woke, I didn’t know where I was. I’d have similar experiences in Vietnam when we were thrown into mudholes for days at the time, that feeling of dislocation, of being quite sure that your life had ended and this was what was waiting for you—just darkness and confusion. Fear is the best name for it, really. You’d get your head screwed on a little tighter and latch on to something solid. Might have been the ground itself, just a handful of hard-packed earth or some clumps of grass or once even a piece of feces gone brittle. Then you were back in the world, at least enough to carry on.
That day when I woke up in the shelter, I didn’t have a clue about Vietnam. It was still years away. What I did know was a darkness that might not ever let go. I pulled out the note from my pocket and ran my fingers over it, trying to touch the pen strokes to make out Seth’s words. I wanted to believe it said he was going away for a while, to the swamp, but just until things cooled down. He’d be back and we’d carry on as friends because we were best friends and that is what best friends did. They stuck together. I savored this vision for a while, letting my hands caress the page before climbing the ladder into the light.
I found a warm morning, birds singing in the trees, the smell of wood smoke coming from either my house or Seth’s; I couldn’t tell. I plopped down on the ground and opened the letter up. It was printed in Seth’s handwriting on a piece of yellow legal paper:
Walter,
Gone for good. You’ll be able to get on better without me, I think. By now you know my father is evil. You know what he did. I hope you’re wise enough to keep clear of him. Please, Walter. Do that for me. Stay away from my father.
By the time you read this, I will have done what I can to make it right. You’ll probably want to go to the authorities about this. Don’t. He’s too dangerous. What’s done is done. Like I said, I have tried to make it right.
I’ve decided the swamp is the best place for me. I’m finally going to do it. My only regret is that you’re not here with me.
Seth
The paper, wet with my tears, wilted between my hands. I read it again, over and over, wishing it said something different. Finally, I crumpled it into a tiny ball. As soon as I did this, I regretted it and tried to straighten it out, but it was ruined. Still crying, I opened the hatch and climbed back into the shelter. I went to the back wall and beat my fists against it, hard and then harder, hoping somehow on the other side, Seth would hear me.
Chapter Twenty-five
It never really crossed my mind to follow Seth’s advice and stay away from his father. Part of me hoped I could prove his guilt and somehow Seth would know and come back. Another part of me was just angry. For Seth, for those two girls.
I’m afraid that one of the reasons Seth slipped when he did was for me. Sure, he was bound to do it eventually, and maybe it was his court date that pushed him to go when he did, maybe he left to avoid what would almost certainly be an unsympathetic judge, but I think it was more than that. Seth was the kind of person who always thought of others. This is part of my guilt too. It should have been me trying to protect him, but instead it was the other way around.
The next day, Sheriff Branch picked me up at school. He made me sit in the back of the cruiser and he took me down to the station. I’d had some time to think about things and had something resembling a plan, even though I suspected it would be a miracle if it worked.
He sat down at his desk and pointed at the chair for me.
“I know you know where he is.”
I stayed quiet. I wanted to play this just right.
“Son, this ain’t playtime. This boy has skipped out on a court date. His father has reason to suspect he might have been involved with those girls.” He leaned forward, his leather chair creaking. “You tell me the goddamn truth or I’m going to lock your ass up.”
I didn’t say a word.
“You ever been in our jail before, boy? It’s only one cell, so if you’re there and we bring in somebody else, say a drunk, or God forbid one of them perverts from up on the mountain, you’ll be sharing the toilet with him. So tell me.”
“I’m scared,” I said in a weak voice.
“Scared? Just tell the truth. The only thing you’ve got to fear is that jail cell.”
“No, that’s not true. I have someone else to fear.”
“You talking about Seth’s daddy?”
I nodded.
“You think he’s out to hurt you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Seth said he killed those girls.”
“We’ve been down this road and I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”
I shook my head. “That’s not all.”
Branch drummed his fingers on th
e desk, waiting.
“He killed Seth too.”
“Now, this is just ridiculous. I—”
“You wait,” I said. “Seth isn’t coming back. He’s dead.”
I must have convinced him because Branch didn’t speak for a moment. He only looked at me, studying my face. Finally, he stood up. “Get the hell out of here. He’ll come back and when he does, I’m going to nail your ass to the wall.”
I started toward the door, but paused right before going out. “You’ll see. He’s gone.”
—
The thing that ate at me the most was the part of Seth’s note that said he was going to do what he could “to make it right.” What did that even mean? Would he come back and kill his father himself? That was the only conclusion I could draw, and if that was what Seth had meant, I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t face his father alone.
I began to watch him. What I found, while crouching in the trees near his house, disappointed me. He was a boring man who went to work every day and came home every evening. At dusk, I watched him through the kitchen window as he cooked his supper. He didn’t drink, at least not that I could see. Of course, when he moved away from the kitchen windows into the deeper parts of the house, he might have been doing anything.
A week of this got me exactly nowhere. Seth was still gone, and the kids at school still hated me. My father still hated me. My mother was still a lost soul who locked herself in the bathroom for hours at a time. Maybe Seth did have the right idea. I started spending time in the shelter, just sitting in the dark, trying to go there, to tell him he was right to get out of this godforsaken world once and for all.
But I didn’t have whatever Seth had. Maybe it was imagination, maybe it was just that my life wasn’t as desperate as his, but I couldn’t do it.
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