Ben and Rock pull that ’gator and he slides in on a sheet of moss. He’s longer than Charles. Must be six feet.
Ben stands in the front of the skiff and stares out. “I lost the lantern.”
Rock stands at the rear and stares out over the water. “Must have sunk.”
“We got the ’gator,” says Charles. “Let’s go.”
“Not without that lantern.” Ben gets on his knees and leans out. He puts both arms in the water and swishes around.
“Don’t do that!” says Cirone. “You know what’s in that water. Let’s go home.”
“I can’t go without it,” says Ben, and the way he says it, I understand: that’s someone’s lantern.
“Let’s go back to where we turned over,” I say. “We can feel with the pole.”
Rock poles us along, stopping often to swish the pole around the bottom. Ben sets his hands on the rim and looks into the water. Nothing but black there. With the ’gator on board, the skiff rides deep. If anyone makes a sudden move, we’ll take in water over the sides. We must all have the same thought; no one moves. No one even speaks. It goes on like this a long time. My wet clothes stiffen. The night has passed.
“Hey,” says Rock. “Something here.”
Ben crawls to him, slowly. “Hold me around the waist.”
Rock holds Ben, and Ben leans his whole upper half into the water.
I want to grab him back. His head’s in that water!
He’s out! One hand plucks moss from his head, the other holds the lantern. “What you waiting for?” he says to Rock. “You so lazy. If you was a dog, you’d lean against the fence to bark.”
“Ha! You ain’t worth a milk bucket under a bull.” Rock poles us steady.
The air turns rosy, and I can smell dawn coming. My eyes meet Charles’.
He lifts his chin toward me. “Glad you came?”
I don’t trust myself to answer. I can’t let myself think about what could have happened. “That ’gator,” I breathe, holding myself far from it, “he’s not a small one.”
“Sure he is. See the yellow bands on his tail? A young-un. They grow twice that long, easy. Some grow three times that.”
I can’t pull my eyes away. The ’gator’s back is all spiked, like armor. Two rows of scales stick up along the sides of his tail. His hind feet are webbed. That head that was huge when he opened his jaws in the water is now flat and empty.
I’ve never even dreamed of anything worse.
“’Gator hide bring sixty cents a foot.” Rock shakes moss off the pole.
“And the oil bring forty cents a gallon,” says Ben. “All in the tail and the tongue. I bet we get two gallons out of this one.”
“Money, money, money.” Charles pushes himself up on his elbows. “Ain’t you boys got nothing else on y’all’s minds?”
“The moss on Charles, now,” says Ben, “enough of that to dry out and send to New Orleans to make buggy cushions. Four and a half cents per pound, I hear.”
They laugh. Cirone is still cradling his foot in both hands, but he laughs. The idiots. And they’re right. That horror—and now we’re safe. Oh yeah, I’m laughing—I’m laughing and laughing.
“As for your portion,” says Charles, looking at me, “a ’gator supper. Tricia promised to make your portion special good.”
“Supper? We didn’t earn it.” I search for the words. “And we made the skiff flip.”
“It ain’t over,” says Ben. “We got to make a palmetto sled and drag it home. And guess who doing most of the dragging.”
ten
Our house sits on open land. Cirone and I have no choice but to walk across the grasses in plain view. It’s full morning now; we could have made it back from the swamp a lot faster if Cirone hadn’t been limping.
Cirone makes the sign of the cross.
“Who are you praying to?”
“Santa Dimpna.”
“Why?”
“I’m asking her to make them still be sleeping.”
“That won’t help.” Mamma talked about the saints all the time. I know. “All Santa Dimpna does is stop sleepwalking.”
“Do you know which saint makes people sleep?”
“There probably isn’t one.”
“Well, then, I’m praying to Santa Dimpna.”
I make a little prayer, too: please, please, let my uncles be in bed.
Francesco stands on the porch, his arms crossed at the chest, his head drooping. He looks like he’s asleep on his feet. His head jerks up as we come near. “Where?” His voice is low, quiet, and tired. “Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Me too,” says Cirone.
“Where?”
“With friends,” I say.
“Friends? You have friends? Where with friends?”
Nothing I say will sound good. I look down.
“Your shoes are soaking—and don’t go thinking you’re getting another pair before the year’s up, either. Clothes damp, too.” Francesco walks around us, inspecting. He picks the last bits of moss off our hair. “Lost your hats. You’ll have to dig into the basket where we keep old caps. Where were you?” His tone threatens.
“I’m sorry,” says Cirone.
If we don’t talk, Francesco will never know.
“You said exploring.” Francesco pulls the tips of his mustache. “That means a walk in the woods—home within an hour. Instead, this! If you were doing anything bad, if you were on property you shouldn’t have been on, if the sheriff comes telling me …”
“We were in the swamps,” says Cirone quickly. “No one’s property.”
“The swamps at night?” Francesco’s voice rises. His face goes ruddy.
Cirone’s done the damage. “We were in a boat,” I say.
Rosario comes running out. “Ah! I thought I heard you.” He hugs Cirone and reaches out to tousle my hair, too. “At last. Where were you?”
“With cottonmouths,” says Francesco. “In the swamps.”
“The swamps!” Rosario pushes Cirone away to hold him at arm’s length. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“We didn’t see snakes,” says Cirone.
“Oh, you didn’t, did you?” shouts Rosario in Cirone’s face. “You don’t see these things at night. They see you!”
Carlo and Giuseppe come out on the porch.
“I suppose you didn’t see snakes, either,” says Francesco to me.
I stare at the ground again. In my head, I will Cirone to stare down, too.
“Speak to me,” says Francesco. “Speak or you’ll be even sorrier.”
“We saw alligators,” says Cirone.
“You went to the swamp at night to see alligators?” says Rosario. “Are you blockheads?”
“We hunted one. We killed one,” says Cirone. “And we killed a turtle, too.” He sounds proud of himself, the little liar. He’s nuts to run off at the mouth like that. If he tells his foot is hurt, we’re done for.
Francesco shakes his head. “You were off in the swamps with guns?”
“Just a spear,” says Cirone.
Francesco looks sick. “You faced an alligator with a spear?”
“Sicilians don’t go in swamps.” Rosario still has Cirone by the shoulders and he shakes him now. “Sicilians don’t hunt alligators.”
“We didn’t,” says Cirone. “Our friends did.”
“Who are these friends?” asks Francesco.
Even Cirone can’t be stupid enough not to recognize the threat in that question. I move closer.
“This is your doing, Calogero. You’re the older one.” Rosario shakes a fist at me. “You don’t care if you die? All right, that’s your business. But you could have gotten Cirone killed.” He turns to Francesco. “Are you going to whip them?”
“I’ll do it.” Giuseppe takes a step forward. “You’re not tough enough with these boys.” Anger steels his voice. “I’ll whip them till they can’t walk.”
“Do that and th
ey can’t work,” says Carlo quietly.
“I’ll teach them,” says Francesco.
“No, I’ll whip them,” says Giuseppe.
“Listen to Carlo,” says Francesco. “We need them to work. Leave it to me, Giuseppe, I’ll teach them good.”
“You better.” Giuseppe slaps his hands as though he’s wiping them off. “I’m hungry. Can we finally eat?” He goes inside.
Carlo follows.
Rosario waits, his eyes on Francesco.
“Work,” says Francesco. “You will work. All the time. No friends. Work.”
“Work? That’s punishment?” says Rosario. “Calogero could have gotten my little brother killed.”
“Hard work. For as long as I say.”
Rosario gives a harumph, but he goes inside.
I can’t believe how easy we’ve gotten off. We walk for the door.
“Are you limping, Cirone?” Francesco says.
Cirone shakes his head. He walks normal to prove it.
We go inside and start to crawl into bed.
Francesco follows and catches my arm. “Work.” He points at Cirone. “You too.”
We’ve been up all night. I can hardly keep my eyes open. “Now?”
“You heard me.”
We eat.
We go to work; Cirone at the stand, me at the grocery. I stock shelves, fill orders. The hours drag. Whenever I doze off, Francesco gives me a hard pinch.
By evening my eyes feel like they’ve been rubbed in sand. My whole body is sore from dragging the sled with that ’gator. My arm is bruised where Francesco’s been pinching me. I stumble home. Supper is a haze. I don’t even know what I’m eating.
Francesco, Giuseppe, and Rosario go out on the front porch to smoke cigars.
I stand up from the table and sway; my body is so heavy. Cirone stays slumped over the table. I pull on his arm.
Cirone stands and plods across the room toward the bedroom, weaving. He falls over a pot of goat-milk curds. Stinky white spills everywhere.
Carlo shakes his head. Those curds were set out to cool, to make cheese. If he shouts, the others will come back in, and then who knows what will happen.
But Carlo only takes Cirone by the arm and leads him to bed. Then he does the same to me. He whispers, “What happened to the alligator?”
“He died.”
“The meat. What happened to the meat?”
“They took it.”
“How stupid can you be? You risk your life and you come home empty-handed?” Carlo shakes his head. “It’s just as well. Sicilians don’t hunt alligators. Don’t do it again. Ever.”
I won’t. I never want to stare at a yellow-ball eye again.
In my dreams glowing yellow balls surround the boat. Charles jumps onto a big ’gator’s back. Other ’gators jump on Charles. The thrashing mass disappears under black water. I wake in a sweat. Snores come from other beds. I drop back asleep.
In my dreams we’re in the water, the skiff upside down on top of us. I can’t find Cirone; I can’t hear him, can’t feel him. Cirone! I wake in a sweat and lie trembling.
That swamp is a live thing with an empty heart that beats anyway. No mercy, no mercy, no mercy, no mercy—drumming till you lose your mind. How can Ben and Charles and Rock face it over and over? I roll on my side and Cirone’s heels hit my chest. He’s curled in an S. Somehow, he’s asleep. That’s good, at least. We’re lucky we can use our uncles as an excuse never to ’gator hunt again. I close my hands around Cirone’s ankles. I’m the older one. “I’m sorry, Cirone,” I whisper. After a while I drop back asleep.
“Get up!” Francesco drags me from bed. I fall on the floor.
The room is half dark. “It isn’t even morning.”
“Joe Evans is here. You’re going out to the fields today.”
“What about the grocery?”
“Cirone will help me in the grocery.”
“What about the stand?”
“Rosario will manage.”
“Please, Francesco.”
“You’re the older one. You get more punishment. Go with Joe. Now.”
I spend the day with Joe Evans and his crew, harvesting lettuce, plowing the roots under, and planting again. By Wednesday evening I’m dead on my feet.
It’s the same story Thursday. Friday. Saturday. I have never looked forward to a Sunday as much as this one. The Lord was right when He declared a day of rest.
On Sunday Francesco pulls me out of bed again.
“It’s Sunday,” I say. “No fair.”
“I’m the one who should say no fair. It’s my Sunday, too. My only mistake was taking you into this house. I can’t sleep late on a Sunday because I have to punish you.”
“The grocery is closed. The field hands are at home. How can I work?”
“Plenty for you to do around here. Work I’ve been putting off. Start with cutting firewood for winter.”
“It’s June!”
“Get up.”
“What about Frank Raymond?”
“You already speak English good enough.”
“But he needs the food I trade or he’ll starve.” That’s not the truth, now that Frank Raymond’s painting the mural in the saloon. But Francesco doesn’t know that.
“I’ll give him greens.”
“He won’t take charity.”
Francesco lowers his brows. “I understand that. A man who has to bow too low never gets up again.” He looks at me. “All right. Chop wood in the morning. Study in the afternoon. Then you come home and work.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll walk you there. I’ll walk you back.”
And so it goes. Day after day. And I’ve only caught one glimpse of Patricia since that Wednesday—the last day of May. I was carrying crates into the grocery and she waved from across the street. That’s all. Not even words, just a wave.
I never want to hear about alligators again in my life.
eleven
I start up from my bed in a sweat. The rooster’s crowing. It’s already morning. Francesco didn’t wake me before dawn. What’s going on? When my heart slows, I can feel the hollow pit in my stomach; I haven’t talked to Patricia for the entire month of June. I haven’t even seen her at a distance but twice.
I turn my head and my nose hits Cirone’s toes. He’s still in bed, too.
So where’s Francesco?
I jump up and wake Cirone. We wash, dress, and eat the bread and jam waiting for us under a cloth on the table. Carlo’s gone. But I know he’s close by, ’cause he left everything out. A mound of spinach and wild greens sits on the cutting board. And a bowl full of grated cheese that smells so sharp my nose prickles. A pile of chunks of peppered lard, a pile of diced dried meat. Under another cloth, pie crusts. Lots of them. It makes no sense. Cirone and I each steal a chunk of meat.
He runs to the stand. I run to the grocery. Half the vegetables are already stacked in neat piles in the bins. I take over the rest of the job while Francesco stays busy in the storage room at the rear. He comes out only when the first customer arrives. For the next couple of hours, Francesco and I move around each other peacefully, serving customers as if everything is like it used to be. He doesn’t bark orders; I do my job with a smile.
“Hey, Mr. Calo-whatever.” Charles comes into the store.
I grin. It’s been so long. But no! I’ve got to get him out of here fast.
Francesco rushes in from the storage room.
“Morning, sir,” says Charles. He touches his hat in respect.
I step between them, hands open, trying to think up some excuse for why Charles is here before Francesco explodes in anger.
But Francesco is beaming. “Everything ready.” He rubs his hands together, speaking his big, bold English. “On wagon, out back. Calogero, you go help Charles. You make sure he got everything he need. Everything.”
I look from Francesco to Charles and back.
“You no hear? Get going. You drive the wagon, you help unl
oad.”
I blink, dumbfounded.
He points at me, that finger that’s always telling me what to do. “You ears no work, Calogero? You drive the wagon to church. With Charles. Now go.”
Church. He’s got to mean Patricia’s church. That’s the only church Charles would go to. I nod.
“And, Calogero, if they need, you stay.” Francesco puts his hands on his hips. “No be lazy. You stay and you make useful.”
You bet I’ll stay. If Patricia is there, I’ll stay all day.
The wagon is waiting out back, hitched up to Granni. I rub the horse’s muzzle while Charles climbs in back and checks the boxes.
“All here, I reckon.” He jumps off and comes around to the front bench.
I get on beside him and take the reins and we’re rolling that wagon slowly out to Depot Street. “What’s going on?”
Charles punches my shoulder. “He didn’t tell you. I knew it. I knew from the way you acted.” He laughs. “You thought the only reason we went ’gator hunting was to show you and Dancer how?” His voice pokes fun. “You did, didn’t you?”
I’m no fool. “You did it to make tons of money.”
“Ah, we sold that hide,” says Charles. “Slit it down the back and emptied it out careful, so the belly skin stayed perfect. Sold the oil, too. But not an ounce of meat went in the cargo for the French market down in New Orleans. Not one ounce.” He waits.
This is like with Frank Raymond. Feels like everyone’s always waiting around for me to take the bait. Oh, all right. “So what did you do with all that ’gator meat?”
“We got mouths to feed.” He’s smiling, still poking fun.
“You needed all that meat?” I ask.
“Mmm-mm. Every single bite.”
“You must have a lot of mouths at home.”
Charles takes off his cap. His hair has been cut really short. There are nicks in his scalp from the clippers. “Ain’t never seen nobody look so dandy, right? We having a party. Tonight.”
“And the stuff in this wagon is for the party?”
“Every single bite,” says Charles. “A graduation party. Seven people graduated from lower school and two from upper school.”
“Patricia’s graduation!” I practically shout.
“Ben’s, too. Seven at once, and two more—two!—made it all the way through upper school.” Charles wags his head. “Can you believe it? My uncles already cooking our ’gator in an outdoor pit.”
Alligator Bayou Page 7