So it was July, the Fourth of July. He tried to find that in the story, tried to find some mention of firecrackers and night sparklers and icy watermelon slices. Was there a parade? Could they hear the band from that house? From the front porch? From that big round front porch with all the rocking chairs just barely rocking in a breeze? Or did they take her to the parade? Mr. Bird probably carried her; probably sat her up on his tall, wide shoulders, and held on to her skinny little ankles. Beside them stood Mrs. Bird with her arms folded on her big baby belly.
From time to time, Hyacinth appeared in the story. Some days it might be only a fleeting glance of her that Wallace had, the long thin whip of her apron string as she turned a corner, or just her worn green hymnal on the black stand by the bed.
But today was different. It was the Fourth and hundreds of people lined both sides of the street to see the parade and he was on one crowded corner and there on the opposite side was Hyacinth, all done up in her blue Sunday dress with the iridescent glass buttons sparkling on her chest and the black tie shoes she always wore because high heels put too much of a strain on her curving, bony back.
His breath quickened.
Her eyes scanned the crowd. She was searching for someone. For him. Of course, for him. What would he say? How would he ever explain it? Five years, she’d say. Five years.
The band was coming. His heart beat with the drums of the approaching Boy Scouts. Fifty Boy Scouts marching by; fifty Boy Scouts with bright orange scarves knotted at their throats and tan caps peaked on their dark-cropped heads; fifty Boy Scouts still combing the area at press time.…
Today was the Fourth of July and Huller had said he wanted it done by the seventh, but because he didn’t know the Birds’ telephone number, they couldn’t be called. Wallace stared at the paper, at the letters that scrambled in and out of words. He couldn’t think straight—not about Canny, not about ransom money and cemeteries and laying her limp body down on the forest floor. None of that was near enough to be real. It couldn’t be real until it was happening. His only bridge between the past and the future had become this paper and, in the most frightening way, Canny.
The door opened and his head shot up.
“What’s that?” Canny asked, squinting as she stepped from the wall of hard bright sun, here, into the dimness. She sat on the foot of the bed. Her cheekbones glistened with gritty sweat. “What’s that?” she asked again. Wallace looked at her a moment and then he folded the clipping and put it back in his sneaker.
From across the way came Dotty’s laughter. Alma was dragging the kitchen chairs onto the porch, where Dotty sat on the floor, cross-legged, surrounded by record albums. Ever since Ellie had gotten sick last week and gone home, Dotty had been her old breezy self.
“We’re gonna have hot dogs and hamburgs,” Canny said, gesturing toward the house. “They got the grill,” she said, meaning the rusted, legless grill he always kept in the trunk of the car. “Momma’s picking out her favorite records. Ellie’s bringing her stereo back.”
Wallace got up and scooped an armload of Dotty’s clothes from the floor and set them on the chair. A pair of her red nylon underpants fell and Canny picked them up, idly twirling them on one finger as she spoke. “I got some good news,” she whispered. “But you can’t tell Momma.”
He snatched the twirling panties and stuck them in his pocket.
“Ellie’s coming back with all her stuff in a suitcase and they’re gonna hide it in the barn and then they’re gonna run away soon as he gets the number.”
“What number? Who?” Wallace asked.
“Jiggy and Ellie!” Canny came and stood close by him. She rubbed his hands. “Ain’t that great?” She grinned. “Ain’t that the best news yet?” Her jaw trembled and suddenly she was crying. “I got bugs,” she said, gesturing at her dull, tangled hair.
“It’s just hot,” he said. “Ever’thin’s all itchy.”
“One fell out,” she whispered, leaning close.
“Probably a beetle flew on you.”
“It was flat. And it had a lotta legs and I couldn’t hardly see it.”
“Then it was a tick!” he said, smiling at her. “A tick’s flat and it’s got all them legs. And ticks just get on you one at a time. They don’t grow on you like hair bugs does.”
She bent forward and with both hands scratched her scalp until her eyes watered. “I’m so itchy, my stomach feels puky,” she groaned.
“C’mere,” he said, taking her into the bathroom. He wet her hair in the tiny, brown-stained sink and lathered her with hand soap. He filled the plastic cup with water and kept pouring it over her head. Little beads of light shone on every hair. He rubbed her neck with the towel and when she stood up straight, he rubbed her head with his hands through the towel. Still the hair glistened. He looked closely, sifting one by one through the fine yellow strands. She was loaded with nits. Her scalp crawled with lice.
“I do, don’t I? I got bugs,” she said with a shudder. “You’re looking at the bugs!”
“You got a rash is all,” he told her. “One of them itchy heat rashes.”
“You’re lying to me, Poppy,” she said, batting away his hand and turning.
He looked at her. “Don’t say nothin’ to your Momma,” he warned, and she nodded somberly.
Last spring when he had found a bug in Canny’s hair, Dotty just took off. Those two days alone with Canny in the tiny, airless apartment had been the most frightening time of his life. Without Dotty, he couldn’t think what to do, couldn’t seem to make connections. When they ran out of milk, he and Canny drank tap water. When they ran out of bread, they ate just the bologna rounds. When the lady from the first floor banged on the door, hollering that she needed to use their bottle opener, he and Canny just sat very still and looked at one another and never said a word.
“I’ll get some stuff for it,” he told her now. “Some kerosene or something.”
“There’s some out in the barn,” she said. “In a red can.”
They both looked up at the sound of Dotty’s voice.
“She’s calling you,” he said.
“Canny!” Dotty kept calling. “Jesus Christ, get out here!”
Canny ran outside. Dotty wanted her to find the rest of her records. He stood by the door and watched Canny search under the front seat of the old car. She pulled out a hubcap and a bag of Dotty’s shoes and the bottle of whiskey from the motel room.
“What’s that?” Dotty called, leaning forward.
“Booze!” Canny answered, holding up the bottle.
“Whee hoo!” Dotty cried, shaking both fists over her head.
Alma came out of the house and they both ran down to take a quick swig from the bottle.
A little while later, Wallace was sitting on the porch, watching Canny digging treasure holes in the yard, when a battered red station wagon crawled into the driveway on low, squishy tires. Kelly and Krystal and Ellie got out carrying the speakers and the turntable, the three of them attached by wires and the same slack-jawed languor.
The driver was tall, with long, thin hair and bony, tattooed arms. He approached the house with his head bent and his shoulder angled as if against a singular, biting wind. His front teeth were pitted and stained and pointed like fangs and Wallace knew at once that this was Carl, the brother. The blood drinker. The vampire. The monster in all of Hyacinth’s stories.
The night was muddy with damp heat and flecked with a few distant stars. They sat up on the porch, Alma, Ellie, and Wallace, and, down on the top step, Dotty with the three little girls. She wore a satiny red dress split up to her thigh and black glittery stockings. She looked sad and as out of place as if she’d been dropped off at the wrong party. At her feet were a paper cup and the last of the whiskey.
Jiggy had missed the cookout as well as the firecrackers that Carl was busy setting off below them in the driveway. Each fizz of light made the little girls gasp and giggle. Under the porch, the dog whimpered and growled, its hard tail b
eating the wet black soil. Alma got up and stood over the girls. “Who wants the last hot dog?” she asked.
“Save one for Jig,” Ellie called, and Dotty poured herself another drink and leaned back with her elbows on the porch floor.
“He had his chance,” Alma crowed. She slid the charred, withered hot dog into a roll and made a show of giving it to Wallace. He didn’t want it, but he ate it anyway. She sat next to him and called down to Carl for a sparkler.
“They’re gone,” Carl said, as he lit the last firecracker. Its thin red whizz spit and fizzled into the darkness like an arrow suddenly deflected.
“Shit,” Alma said. “I been cooking all night.”
“Well don’t blame me,” Carl said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand; his eyes, nose, and mouth were now irritated and raw from the fumes, while his skin in the night had the odd bloodless sheen of a slug.
“You coulda saved me one,” Alma pouted, crossing her jiggly, sunburned arms over her chest.
Dotty took a long drink. She leaned back and sighed. Ellie had gotten up to put on another stack of records. The night grew hot and lush, deepening with the din of the music. Ellie snapped her fingers and her head jerked back and forth to the beat. “I been ba-a-ad. I been ba-a-ad.…” Lips pursed, she shimmied her shoulders, and then suddenly her head shot up. “Since I been born!” she sang in a growl.
The little girls were up on the porch now, giggling and dancing. Their hard bare feet were crusted with dirt. In an effort to imitate Ellie, they snapped their fingers and twitched their hips and shouted with her, “I been ba-a-ad, a real bad ass!” And then on ‘ass,’ they giggled, staggering into one another. A half-grin came over Wallace. His eyes were on Canny. Dotty kept her back to them. She took another drink, staring all the while at the distant road.
“Like this!” said Ellie, demonstrating how to rock their pelvises back and forth. “Pumpit!” she laughed, as her own narrow hips undulated. “Hey!” she laughed.
“Hey!” the little girls called back.
Headlights moved through the tree line. The dog crept out from under the porch and began to whine. Dotty got up then and turned the volume as high as it would go and she began to dance with Ellie and the three girls. The music crashed and beat at the night like a monstrous, clanking engine that was slowly consuming them. Goose bumps rose on Wallace’s arm. Even Alma was dancing. The porch floor trembled. “Hey!” Dotty called, and gestured down to Carl. He shook his head, self-consciously. Dotty ran down the steps and, grabbing his arm, forced him onto the porch. She bumped her hip into his and danced around him. His two sisters were limp and wet-eyed with laughter. With her knees pinned together, Alma crouched low as if she were trying not to wet her pants. “Oh God,” she gasped, as Dotty’s arms slithered like snakes round Carl’s bony neck and sunken chest. His eyes began to burn and his cheeks warmed with color. Dotty stuck out her tongue and wiggled it at him. He lowered his eyes.
The dog was the first to see Jiggy’s truck come into the driveway. The dog and Ellie, with her chopped, boyish hair. She leaned against the railing and smiled at Huller, who sat in the truck, watching Dotty advance again on Carl, shimmying against him, backing him up against the wall of the house. She whacked her pelvis into his, then stepped away, her face twisted and sharp, and suddenly haggard as if she were going to be sick. The music was over; the record still turned, in a soundless rasp. Dotty went into the house and let the screen door slam after her. Following her Huller passed Ellie with an imperceptible nod. He and Dotty stood just inside the door. His voice was low and coaxing. Wallace leaned back, listening.
“Fuck off,” Dotty kept saying. “Just fuck the hell off.”
“Four-seven-six-two-one-nine-one,” Huller said. “Now tell me to fuck off.”
“How’d you get it?” Dotty asked. A match hissed and cigarette smoke streamed through the door screen.
“I got it,” said Huller. “Don’t I always get what I need?”
“What about her out there? You said she wasn’t coming back.”
“I can’t make her not come. She’s Alma’s sister.”
“Little bitch gets on my nerves,” Dotty muttered.
“Umm,” Jiggy sighed. “You feel good.…”
“Yah?”
Just then, Wallace saw a long white Lincoln come into the driveway. The black tinted window on the passenger side rolled down and a woman stuck out her platinum blond head and asked the three little girls if this was Huller’s place.
“Jig!” Alma warned from the railing.
Huller came out to the top step. The car door opened then and Wipes Callahan got out and Huller hurried down to greet him.
“Hey!” Callahan said.
“Hey!” Jiggy said, starting to nod.
Though Callahan hadn’t seen her, Dotty stood just inside the screen door.
“I been hearing things,” Callahan said, his head bent as he spoke in a low voice. “I been asking around. You know, that thing the girl said. Well, there were some bucks involved. Still are, from what I hear. There was nothing—no clues, no leads, no nothing. It was like the biggest thing ever around there. I mean, we’re talking major. The thing went on. Pictures. TV. The papers. I mean, it.…”
“Forget it,” Huller said. “She just … you know.”
“She here?” Callahan asked.
Huller glanced up at the empty doorway. “Nah. She was flipped. You know. I’m sorry she took your time.”
Callahan was staring at the three children who sat on the porch railing. “Cute kids,” he said. “They all yours?”
Wallace’s eyes locked on Canny.
“All mine,” Huller said.
“Hey!” Callahan jabbed Huller’s arm. “Keep in touch.” He drew a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Huller. “Case anything comes up.” He glanced up at the little girls and then back at Huller. “I got a knack for smoothing troubled waters.”
After Callahan left, Alma kept playing more records, but nobody wanted to dance. Carl straddled a kitchen chair, backward. Six empty beer cans stood at his feet. Ellie dozed against the railing and Krystal lay against her, asleep with her head on Ellie’s hip. Kelly lay in a ball, curled like a sleeping cat. In her sleep, she scratched at her head and moaned softly.
“Carl,” ordered Alma, “bring Kelly up for me, will you?”
Wallace watched Carl untangle himself from the chair. He bent over Kelly, and when he lifted her, she stiffened and her eyes opened wide. “No, Uncle Carl!” she screamed. “No, I don’t wanna!” Her scream thinned through the house.
13
It was morning and he felt as if he hadn’t slept at all. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Bits of things stuck to his feet. Dotty’s snoring rose and fell in a soft, hoarse rattle. On the chair between the beds was a plate of sodden potato chips peppered with cigarette ashes. It had been long after midnight before she’d finally fallen asleep. Callahan’s visit last night had set them all on edge, especially Huller, who had herded the two of them into the hot cabin. Again, he had wanted all the details of the day they had taken Canny. He had paced back and forth, firing the same questions at Dotty. What had the Birds’ house looked like inside? Exactly what time had it been? Where did they go when they left her house?
“I don’t know for sure,” Dotty had said.
“What street? What road? What highway?”
“Shit! I don’t know!” Dotty had roared back. “We just went. I told you that!”
“Just went’s not good enough!” Huller had said.
“Why?” Dotty had said, her chin out, her eyes hot. “You don’t believe me? You think it’s bullshit?”
“Maybe. Isn’t halfa what you say bullshit?”
“Yah? Is that the way it is?”
“How do I know!” Huller had said. “How do I know she’s not just some kid you’re saying is the Birds’. I don’t know who you are or him! I mean I could get fucked here in a big way!” His voice had quavered as he ran his arm acro
ss his wet forehead.
“You just gotta believe me,” Dotty had said. “There’s nothing else I can tell you I haven’t already said.”
“Dotty, you heard Callahan! That kid disappearing was the biggest thing that ever happened there. And I don’t understand how the two of you, you and him, especially him, ever in a million years pulled it off. I mean, you slipped right past them, the F.B.I., cops, troopers, bloodhounds, a fucking manhunt! Jesus Christ, how’d you do it?”
Wallace had looked at her. He remembered the endless driving, Canny’s tears every time she woke up and saw him, and through it all Dotty’s voice, as hard and sure as the road passing under the tires.
“Simple,” Dotty had said in an obvious effort to calm both herself and Huller. “Number one, nobody saw us; number two, we were only there a few minutes; and three, what’shername friggin’ brilliant Bird didn’t even call the cops for what? Forty-five minutes?”
“Forty minutes,” Huller said.
“By that time we were long gone.” She had laughed. “I mean we were in orbit. We didn’t stop. We didn’t talk to anybody. We just moved out of one life into a whole new one. We never bought a newspaper and we didn’t even have a radio in the truck. We didn’t know anything that was going on. We just kept going till we got to Florida. When we needed gas, I siphoned it. When we needed food, I took it.”
“It’s screwy,” Huller had said. “The whole thing. Just screwy.”
“No,” Dotty had said. “It’s luck. I’ve always been lucky.”
From across the way now, a door creaked open. Looking up, he saw Canny tiptoe onto the porch and then glance back inside the house before she scurried down the steps to the small, sagging barn, where she had told him there was kerosene. Wallace started for the door, glad that Dotty was still asleep. This would be a good time to soak Canny’s hair. By the time everyone woke up, they’d be done.
Before he could open the door, he saw Carl come out of the house. His shirt was undone and he buttoned his pants as he came off the porch, leaving the zipper open. Still dull-eyed and limp with sleep, he headed toward the barn, moving close to the house through the trough of early morning shadows that rippled and swayed like dark water. With his hand raised to the barn door, he glanced back over his shoulder before slipping inside.
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