Common Sons

by Ronald Donaghe

  It was a little after noon before the police car had appeared at the intersection of their road and Highway 490. By then, Joel was sweating and hungry. His nervousness had long since given way to a slight nausea. His father was also sweating as they sat in the pickup on the side of the road, listening for the siren. There was no breeze at all, and the hot sun magnified the brilliance of the bushes and the hot dry sand, making Joel’s eyes water.

  When Deputy Gray arrived, Douglas got in with him to give directions and Joel followed behind them in the pickup. They turned into the Stroud place from the east. The old red pickup was parked in front of the house at an angle. Heat waves rose off it and the tin roof. The bare ground in front of the house was dry and hot. Joel followed the police car into the yard and parked beside the Strouds’ pickup. The driver’s door was open, blocking Joel’s view.

  Deputy Gray got out and walked around the front of his car with his handgun drawn. He stopped and stared at the ground between the car and the front door. Joel could see his father sitting in the front seat, looking at the same thing. Joel got out of the pickup but stood beside it. Nobody spoke, and in the dead stillness only the sound of Deputy Gray’s boots crunching slowly on the gravel could be heard. Then a slight, very hot breeze moved over Joel like bad breath. It stank of feces and had a metallic bite that made his nostrils hurt. An incessant humming came over everything like a beehive. His father opened his door and got out when the deputy motioned for him to. He turned to face Joel. His face was a death mask as white as a sun-bleached skull. He moved toward Joel up against the police car, as though one backward step would send him falling over a cliff. He was walking unsteadily, as if he were drunk or feeble. He held onto the top of the car and continued to sidle along it toward Joel.

  “You okay, Dad?” Joel asked seeing the stunned look in his eyes.

  His father got to the back of the police car and waved Joel off with one hand. “It’s the flies.so damn many.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. Joel looked over his father’s head and saw the deputy cautiously enter the house. Still, Joel hadn’t moved. But

  Douglas looked as if he was about to faint. He was beginning to keel over when Joel managed to move. He rushed between the pickup and the police car and caught his father before he slumped to the ground.

  In that instant of rushing over, Joel saw the bodies.

  * * *

  If Joel had been there, the waiting would have been bearable. Old feelings of dread and fear stirred in Tom. Pete was trying to help but didn’t seem to know quite what to say. He was sitting in the straight-back chair at Tom’s desk. Tom was lying on the bed propped up on one elbow. Pete had just handed him a photograph.

  Two naked figures were entwined on the wooden pier at Joel’s pond. The water in the pond was a stark shiny emerald, and the beauty of the surroundings, including the sharp focus of the two figures was breathtaking. Seeing himself as the figure on top, with Joel’s face clearly visible below him with a sensuous smile of pleasure infusing it, Tom felt a stirring of wonder. But the very sharpness, the clarity of the setting, the vividness of the water, the central emphasis on the two male figures in the throes of sexual intimacy also made it clear that Paul had all the proof he needed.

  “Paul sure has a neat sense of drama,” Pete commented as Tom held the picture up.

  Tom had to grin. “So do you. How did you get this?”

  “Paul had copies made. Boy, he ain’t messing around.” Pete shifted uneasily. He tapped the picture. “He tried to hand these out to some of the disciples, but they wouldn’t take them!”

  Tom looked at Pete blankly, as if what he said didn’t register. “Can I keep it?”

  Pete looked bewildered. “Well, sure, but why?”

  “Thanks,” Tom said. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  “But it puts you in an ugly light,” Pete said sensibly.

  “No,” Tom said. “Paul’s the ugly one. Just think how devious it makes him look, to have watched us no telling how long to take the picture!”

  “It proves he was right about you two,” Pete said. “If he shows this to his parents and yours.”

  “I guess I’m burning my bridges. Joel and I are going to live together somehow, and I’m ready.” He looked at the picture. “How long do you think he hid? By this time,” he shook the picture, “we were pretty far along, you know, excited. This picture just shows Paul is a peeping Tom!” He slid the photograph into his back pocket. “Now if Paul would only—”

  The door to his room suddenly banged open, hitting the wall. His father bore down on him in a blind rage.

  CHAPTER 16

  “You say the two youngest children witnessed this?” Deputy Gray was leaning against the pickup, talking into the window.

  “Bout all I could understand from the little ones,” Douglas said.

  His face had gained some color, kind of gray now instead of white, but his voice shook, and Joel got a quick impression of what his father would look like as an old man. He patted his father’s shoulder and helped him sit up. “Maybe we should go, Dad,” Joel said quietly, but Douglas sat up straight, took a deep breath, and shook his head.

  “Little Henry and Sally Ann found our place,” Douglas explained. “Henry was blubberin’ and shakin’, Jim, but I don’t doubt he saw everything. Sally maybe didn’t, but everything looks about like Henry told it. Said Kenneth was comin’ to get them so they ran out the back door. Henry seemed sure Kenneth stayed inside the house. Thought he was going to kill everybody, poor mites.”

  James Gray shook his head. “You see everything in this business, Douglas. But a slaughter like this just don’t make sense. Makes me feel sick.” He stopped and studied Douglas’ face. “I’m sorry for goin’ on. You look pretty sick yourself.”

  Douglas smiled weakly. “I feel okay. You need anything else, Jim?”

  The deputy straightened up and let his eyes slide once more around the yard. “Nope. The Sheriff will be here. I’ll just wait in the car. Since the oldest son killed himself inside, there’s not much else to cover. You two go on home now and, Douglas, you lay down for a spell.” He patted the top of their pickup. “More’n likely the state’ll take care of funeral arrangements.”

  Joel’s hands shook as he turned the key in the ignition. He backed up toward the clothesline and outhouse to turn around, wanting to avoid passing by the police car and getting another glimpse of the bodies. Even the simplest movements of maneuvering the pickup were jerky, and he saw detail he wouldn’t ordinarily see. Edna had been hanging clothes. A few ragged shirts hung on the line, a basket had been overturned, and a few clothes lay scattered on the ground. He noticed that one of the dresses hanging on the line was smeared with grease—odd against the clean, sun bleached brilliance of the other clothes. It was that pitiful dress, more than the shack or the ugly sight of the bodies, that made his eyes fill with tears. She was a kind woman, she had faded into poverty over the years but had never hurt a soul, and now she was dead, leaving four homeless children, and a scene as gruesome as the shack their only legacy.

  They rode in silence on the quick trip back. His father offered no explanations that would make sense of what had happened. To hear him tell it yesterday, Henry and Edna seemed happy with what little help he and his mother had offered, and he had said, “Guess they’ll get along same as always. Except maybe with the twins workin’ for us and your mom loading them down with food and such, they’ll fatten up a little.” And then he’d said with an eye on Joel and one on Eva, “We imagined that we’d have a big family, Joel. Too bad, somehow, the misarrangement of kids in this world.”

  Joel helped his father out of the pickup. He was looking much better, but his legs buckled on the porch, and Joel took his weight on his shoulders. His mother took one look and hurried out to him. She was shaking, but Douglas smiled at her, and she put both hands on her chest, visibly relieved. “Oh, you gave me an awful fright!”

  She made Douglas lie down on the couch and opened his shirt. Sh
e looked up at Joel. “Stay with the children. As soon as I’ve got your father resting, I’ll take over.” She looked at him with something in her eyes that went from pity to a kind of sadness. “Tom called, Joel. He says he’s over at Pete’s. He says he’s fine and to call him later. I told him what happened and where you were. The number is by the phone. But please watch after the children for a few minutes until I can get back to them.” She lowered her voice. “Paddy and Dete seem pretty lost. See if you can’t help them.”

  Joel nodded. He looked at the telephone, torn between it and the Stroud children. He went into the kitchen and splashed water on his face quickly and took a hand towel over to the kitchen table, dabbing his face. Patrick and Detrick each held a child. They stared at him, their young clear eyes regarding him silently, full of questions, as quiet as the two children asleep in their laps. “Which of you is which?” Joel smiled.

  One of the twins patted Sally Ann and looked down at her small body against his chest. “I’m Patrick,” he said. “She cried herself to sleep. She thinks Mama’ll be here when she wakes up. But she won’t, will she?”

  His question sounded almost casual, but Joel heard the fear in it. He shook his head. “No, Patrick, she won’t.” Henry Jr., who was also asleep, was sprawled across Detrick. Detrick was holding his brother tightly, staring off at nothing. Joel couldn’t find words with which to comfort them, so he settled for action. “Let’s go put these kids in my room,” he said. He gathered up Henry’s arms and legs and lifted him from Detrick’s lap.

  “Ah think he peed on hisself,” Detrick said. “You kin smell it.”

  You could, Joel noticed, as he carried Henry through the house. His face was tear-stained and dirty; he clung to Joel’s neck in his sleep and breathed through his open mouth against Joel’s chest, leaving a wet patch of spittle on Joel’s shirt. Under all that dirt, little Henry was a cute kid, probably seven or eight. In his sleep he looked rested, and Joel couldn’t imagine that he had seen such a brutal killing only a few hours before, so brutal, in fact, that Joel hadn’t been able to look directly at the bodies. The dark blood splashed on the plastered wall of the house was enough to make his guts crawl. He squeezed Henry close, more to comfort himself with Henry’s live warmth than to comfort Henry, he realized. He laid the boy on the bed and motioned for Patrick to lay Sally Ann down, too. He unbuttoned Henry’s baggy pants and slid them over his bare, crusty feet. His underwear was stained a deep yellow and his skinny legs were chapped around the inner thighs. Gently, he pulled Henry’s shorts off and tossed them on top of his pants. Over his shoulder he said, “Patrick, look in that top dresser drawer for a pair of my shorts, the smallest ones you can find.”

  Patrick did as he was told, gingerly opening the drawer. He took out a pair and handed them to Joel. His eyes were wide open in disbelief. “All those belong to you?”

  Joel didn’t understand at first. He glanced at the drawer where his mother usually stacked his underwear and T-shirts and smiled at Patrick’s surprised face. “Oh. Yeah. A lot of ‘em don’t fit any more.” He made a point to remember to sort through them later. “I’ll bet there’re dozens that’ll fit you and Detrick.”

  Detrick had followed their conversation and silently looked at the drawer stuffed with underwear. Joel regarded them now, remembering the ragged clothes on the line. They were fairly tall for their age, which he guessed was thirteen or fourteen. He looked at them closely, trying to gauge their sizes. “Why don’t you guys take a quick shower and I’ll get you both some clean clothes?”

  “We’ll git dirty agin workin’,” Patrick said. “Don’t wanna ruin no nice clothes. We’s s’posed to be rakin’ manure this afternoon.”

  The absurdity of Patrick’s comment startled Joel. Something clicked in him. Yeah. What do you do on a day like this? Things were suddenly very complicated. There was nothing he could do. It was up to his parents for now, wasn’t it? Without direction, the two older boys just stood by the bed, speechless. He blinked, trying to think. “We’re not going to finish today, guys. You’ll feel better after a nice, hot shower. Then we’ll see, okay?”

  He unfolded a light blanket and laid it gently over the two sleeping children, and showed the twins the bathroom. He waited for them to undress, put their clothes with Henry’s and, while they were showering, went through his closet and found practically brand new Levi’s he hadn’t worn for years. They smelled a little musty and he shook them out. He got some shorts and T-shirts and socks and took them into the bathroom. Both boys were in the shower and the room was steamy, but he could see their pink outlines through the glass, neither of them speaking. The silence was eerie. He shivered as if cold, feeling their loss just a little more. He laid the clothes on the sink cabinet and pulled the door shut behind him. There was one thing he could do, something he wanted to do, and he intended to suggest it to his parents.

  The afternoon looked like it was going to be a long one.

  * * *

  Dressed in T-shirts and Levi’s, Patrick and Detrick looked even more alike, but in the few minutes Joel had spent with them, he had discovered that Patrick was more talkative. He was also slightly taller. Joel was struck with the dominant family resemblance to Edna, especially in their long jaw lines and thin frames. Kenneth had taken after Henry, square at the shoulders and compact. The twins’ eyes were a pale blue-green. They had dark blond, sandy hair, but Patrick’s was lighter and more streaked. The T-shirts were a little large in the shoulders and a little short in the waist, but the Levi’s fit well on their straight hips and they carried themselves proudly when Joel brought them into the living room. Patrick was actually smiling slightly, and he seemed to be protecting Detrick silently, but communicating it in his closeness.

  “My, you two certainly look handsome,” Eva crooned. She took control of them and walked them into the kitchen, her hands on their shoulders.

  Douglas was sitting up on the couch looking fine now. Joel watched the boys for moment. He sat down on the edge of the couch and leaned back, facing his father. “What are we going to do, Dad?”

  Douglas leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands. “Looks like we’ll have our hands full for awhile. I can’t see packing these kids off somewhere until we find out about kinfolks, can you?”

  Joel shook his head, relieved. “We could take care of them, Dad.”

  “We’re taking them to the hospital this afternoon,” his father said, “just in case they’re in shock—the twins, I mean. I think the little’uns just need to sleep and eat, and we’ll keep them distracted, I guess.”

  “That’s good.” There wasn’t much you could do, Joel realized, except pick up where you left off, which reminded him suddenly of Tom.

  It was nearing two o’clock and he hadn’t eaten since dawn. He took a sandwich and sat down in the easy chair by the telephone. His father went into the dining room, and he could hear the timbre of his voice rise against the silence. He could almost see the smile on his father’s face. Joel dialed the number written on the pad.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, Tom and Joel returned to the farm. Joel got out of the pickup and took the box and suitcase he’d found behind the garbage cans in the alley. He studied Tom’s face as he came around to the other side. The left eye was swollen and turning a little darker now, and from the corner of the eye, fresh tears ran out. His own eyes watered in the glinting sun off the pickup’s windshield. Tom’s other eye was okay, bloodshot from crying, and he squinted as he looked around bewildered. Joel felt sorry for him. This afternoon, when he’d stopped at Pete’s house, Tom had come outside with Pete, his face looking much like it had at the church that day, and Joel had felt the old dread return, thinking Tom had lost in the confrontation with his father. But Tom had quickly said, “No! No! Joel, I’m fine.”

  They were parked by the cowshed. “You okay?” Joel said now, patting Tom gently on the shoulder.

  “Well, I’m a little sad, but I’m ready for anything,” Tom
said. “I stood up to Father just fi—Joel, where are you taking me?”

  Joel laughed. “You’ll see.” They walked down the road that ran along the east side of the cowshed. It forked east toward the field and north into the undergrowth, little more than a trail through the mesquite bushes, yucca plants, and sparse grass and sand. Joel led the way north. Tom followed and caught up to him. When he drew up alongside, Joel grinned at Tom’s curiosity, but he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. “Well, what happened, Tom?”

  In answer, Tom grinned and pulled the picture out of his back pocket. He held it against his chest and watched Joel’s curious expression. “If you tell me where we’re going, I’ll show you this!”

  Joel made a grab for it, but Tom snatched it away and laughed. It sounded good to hear him laugh, just the thing they both needed to take their minds off everything. “Okay. I’m taking you home.”

  “Oh, I get it!” Tom said. “I always suspected you wanted to live in the desert!”

  “You guessed it. You wanna live under a mesquite bush or a yucca? Now show me the picture.”

  Tom handed it to him. Joel felt Tom watching him. He thought the picture was kind of nice; he held it this way and that. “You have a cute butt,” he teased. “I look kind of funny, though, with that goony smile on my face.”

  “You do not!” Tom protested. “I think you’re really beautiful. It gives me chills to think I can make you look so dreamy-eyed.”

  Joel handed it back. “Paul, right?”

  Tom tucked the picture back into his pocket. “Who else? You know he made a lot of copies of the picture? Pete said he tried to give them to the disciples.”

  “And they wouldn’t take them?”

  Tom nodded.

  “Well,” Joel said. “So they’re not so bad, I guess.”