“The man with the big watch,” Harlan says, low and weak.
Huddy stares at Joe’s hand extending, clamping down on his brother’s shoulder.
“You come back a tycoon or a whipped dog?” Joe says. Harlan smiles, always a loose and easy smile, but this time small, tight. Joe’s hand still hanging there and Huddy feels his own shoulder shake it off. “I’m sure you’re real happy about being back.”
Harlan’s jaw tilts up. “Oh, I cried the whole way.”
Joe glances sideways at Huddy. “He give you his story yet?” But he doesn’t wait. “Last I heard, you were talking about running dozers and backhoes.”
Huddy remembers the time Joe had stopped in, telling about a phone call he got from Harlan. They had him doing steep grades, Harlan had bragged, and Joe laughed, but then his lips pinched together, some memory sting of Harlan’s struggles and mistakes—missed days, quitting or getting fired, starting and losing and striking out somewhere else—Joe knowing that Harlan’s good fortune wouldn’t stick.
“Yeah, was,” Harlan says. He scratches at his neck.
“What happened after?” It’s just a small question, but Harlan’s silent and Joe’s face sinks and Huddy feels the air collapse. “Well,” Harlan says, swinging his legs. “Then I got to selling left-handed widgets.” He pokes the ground like there’s something dead beneath his feet but he’s testing to see if it isn’t. The sliding door cuts him loose, Lorie carrying glasses, walking briskly, her jewelry tinkling until Huddy realizes it’s the ice. “Lorie,” Harlan says, throwing his head back, “how’d this second-class brother of mine land someone like you?”
“Must have been my hair,” Joe says.
“Oh, you’re not losing it,” Harlan says, “you just pulled out all the gray.”
Joe laughs, rakes his balding hair, and Huddy surveys the deep yard, the light on the pool gleaming. The pool, the pond, the waterfall—Huddy wonders what else is out there, maybe creeks and brooks and lakes and a piece of the Mississippi and a sandy beach and way past some ocean with tides and currents pulling to the horizon, as far as Joe pulled himself up from the bottom, his trucks and haulers all over the city, making the city, and now he’s made this. Wrought-iron fencing far off at the property line, but Huddy can’t see it, feels like he’s looking out at miles and miles to a mirage that never ends but stretches and spreads and goes everywhere.
“Why don’t you show us this obstacle course?” Huddy says. “Make sure I don’t fall in.”
“You coming?” Joe says to Lorie, but his attention is full on Harlan, his eyes squinting like they’re hitting the sun, trying to see what’s inside, what’s there and gone, Harlan eyeing the ground, patting his hair like a cap tipped down on his face.
“I might listen from here,” she says and her fingers flutter. “Y’all be nice to each other.” She doesn’t look bothered by Huddy or worried by Harlan; she doesn’t mind this one-time visit. Huddy feels like she’s smiling at Joe’s brothers—distant Huddy and nonexistent Harlan—as if they were some silly old rhyme.
“Oh, we just gonna kiss his rings,” Harlan says. “You go first, Joe. You always been the line leader. I’ll go behind so I can pick your pocket. Hold my hand so I can swipe your watch.”
Joe leads and they follow, single-file with Harlan next and Huddy tagging. They pass the chairs and the pool and enter the narrow path and Huddy feels his feet crunch and skid on the pea gravel. Petals scattered about, plants tangled and dense crowding him, brushing his pants and skin as he passes, the pool’s chlorine smell overtaken by the flowers sweet and fragrant. “That’s an optic fiber plant,” Joe says. “That’s a butterfly bush, Japanese myrtle.” Huddy doesn’t know if he’s naming three separate things or correcting himself on one, his hand thrown out in all directions, speaking some foreign language exotic to Huddy but not to Joe, just ticking things off indifferently as if he hadn’t planted but discarded them. “Big tree is crape myrtle. That one’s wax,” Joe says, at some clump of foliage, and Harlan says, “Yeah, knew that,” dumping the ice from his glass.
The water is louder now. They cross the bridge and Huddy stares at the side channel flowing underneath, curving and opening wide to the terraced pond with the stream waterfall pouring down upon smooth rocks. Light shining on the pond’s surface and Huddy stares inside the water at the vivid fish, watches them circle and slip. Two dozen fish, tails waving and wriggling, orange and red like streaks of underwater fire, all in his brother’s yard like they’ve been here forever, some low, sunken craterworld beneath the grass that Joe merely had to dig down and discover. All these happy fish with their flapping fins and little mouths open, set free from the cleared earth above.
“What’s the fish?” Harlan says.
“Goldfish,” Joe says. “Different varieties. Comets, couple of shubunkin, fantail. Fantail’s the calico. Those bright gold ones is koi.”
Huddy looks at Joe the new fish professor.
“They making babies?” Harlan says.
“Two sets already. Had to give some away.”
“You give any to Huddy?”
“What the hell do I want with them?” Huddy says. He stares down at their gaping mouths, at their eyes never closing.
“You got that fishtank in your shop,” Harlan says. “Plop ’em in there, sell the tank.”
“I gave ’em to someone with a pond,” Joe says, shrugging at Huddy, and Huddy wonders when ponds became such a common thing. Maybe a customer will pawn a pond and default and Huddy’ll dig a pit and set the stones in his own yard.
“Well, I’ll take some,” Harlan says. “Put ’em in my pocket. Goldfish? I’da done bluegill. Or stocked it with bream.”
“We ain’t eating ’em, Harlan. Raccoons the ones eating. And the birds. That’s why I built the deep zone three feet at the bottom. Got the strawberry pot so the fish got holes to hide.”
So how is Huddy supposed to not feel burned when Joe’s built a sanctuary, with fake herons as decoys, protecting his goldfish like they’re endangered species. This hole in the ground, designed and terraced, and then the holes in the strawberry pot and maybe inside an escape hatch reaching all the way through to the ocean floor. At his feet are decorative rocks, large varieties of quartz, flecked and glittering. He hears Joe calling out more foreign names, pickerel weed and horsetail and umbrella grass; hears him name the water lilies. Next to some agate halves is a chunk of amethyst and then a nugget small and sparkly. Water lilies and oxygenators, Joe says, they competing for the algae. Huddy reaches down for the nugget.
“Ha,” Joe says, watching Huddy inspect. “Figures you’d find my gold.”
“Lemme see that,” Harlan says and grabs it from his brother, grips it tight.
“You’re rich now, Harlan,” Joe says, and Harlan looks at Huddy, considering.
“Fool’s gold,” Huddy says. “Iron pyrite.” It feels good to be the namer of things.
Harlan stares at his open hand. “Fake, huh?” Licks his lips, slow, like an old taste he can’t recall. “Didn’t think you’d go for phony.” Harlan shakes the rock like dice, flings it in the pond and the water plunks, the fish darting as the rock sinks. “Hope your guppies don’t choke on it.” His thumb slides across his palm, feeling for any fakeness that might’ve flaked off. “You got any real liquor?”
They follow the stone path to the gazebo. Two stone benches with a slate slab between them, Joe taking one bench, Huddy and Harlan sharing the other. “Confederate jasmine,” Joe says, pointing above and around, but Huddy eyes the lights twining the posts.
“There it is,” Harlan says, snatching the bottle from the table and pouring big.
“I didn’t even know you did this,” Huddy says. He meant admiration, not rivalry, but his voice came out high and childish. He worries what else will sound wrong from his mouth.
“Yeah, Joe,” Harlan says, “this is a real nice cemetery you built.”
Joe laughs, coughs, like his laughter’s been blocked up for years by living ric
h. He raises his glass and Huddy pours and reaches his glass high to clink against the other two. “So, Harlan,” Joe says, thumping his thumb on the table, “what’s next?”
Harlan’s arm does a slot-machine pull. He laughs, takes his first drink. “Find a clock and punch it.” He shakes his head, tongue pushing hard against his teeth. “Do anything.”
“He just got here,” Huddy says.
“Come work for me,” Joe shrugs, some business deal ending, briefcase clicking shut.
“Might,” Harlan says, and Huddy watches him throw his drink back. Harlan eyes Huddy, leans at him, but Huddy knows he’s feeling like he’s going the other way, ditching out, which is ridiculous since what Harlan needs is what only Joe can give, and what Huddy needs is for Joe to stop looking at Huddy like he’s staring at a wall. “Thanks,” Harlan says, his face flushed with shame. He slaps his thighs to stand, but doesn’t. Shakes his legs like an engine running.
Joe’s shirt is crisp as a hundred-dollar bill. His face is beat-down and tired from the long day, but the shirt, even untucked, looks pressed and perfect. Huddy drinks and swallows. “You could be his goldfish enforcer,” he says to Harlan, teeth bared. “I’ll get you a snake gun.” And he feels cold for saying it, because he knows Harlan’s come home tapped-out and small. Or worse, with bad debts to wrong people. Huddy looks at Joe’s fingers, thinks of him pinching his fish food, the fish crowding and frenzied, snapping at their meal and each other, the water alive with their hunger. He eyes the shirt again, tips his glass, feels his body lifting into the chest pocket, arcing and about to drop in but Harlan’s already nestled there, a handkerchief pulled over him like a nighttime blanket, so Huddy can’t squeeze beside.
“Where you staying?” Huddy asks.
Harlan slides his hand along the arm of the bench, dances his fingers at the edge. “Saw this sign out on Stage Road: Win one year’s free rent. Thought I’d stop in and go see about that.”
Huddy watches Joe frown. “Stage Road?” Huddy says. “What you doing up there?”
“You, too?” Harlan says, neck twisting. But then he lightens, swings his neck back slow. “KayKay.”
“KayKay … You two still close?”
“Look like you lost a few,” Joe says, eyes narrowed like Harlan’s starved out a new face.
“Ha,” Harlan says, “I was about to tell you the opposite. You lookin’ full-grown, that’s for sure. I feel sorry for that belt.” Harlan lights a cigarette, eyes pinpoints against the smoke.
Joe eases back, pats his belly. “Doctors want me eating a handful of pills.”
“For what?” Huddy asks.
“For stuff I don’t have yet. Make sure my blood moves.” He rubs his stomach, some soft ulcer rub. “What you think—this brother of ours, he on the run? Hiding out from the world?”
Huddy watches Harlan’s glass tilt at his throat. He wants to talk about himself, not Harlan, not now—Harlan siphoning off Joe’s attention. Sitting beside Harlan makes Huddy feel identical, and Joe’s not helping with his eyes shifting back and forth like he can’t tell one brother from another. Joe getting it double, two needy brothers both at the margins, one without money and one without the means to free himself somewhere better. He’ll quick-fix Harlan and be done. That’s how Huddy’d do if he were staring at two kinds of favors.
“You the only one hid away,” Harlan says. “You a hermit crab now? Maybe you hiding from her—your next wife-to-be-ex.”
Huddy laughs, but he only wants to hear about his own relief. How am I supposed to talk out here, to tell what is happening to me, with the air so sweet and unreal, with all these blooming flowers and tree colors. He feels the water rolling over him, rounding him off, rubbing and wearing his complaints down, leaving him relaxed but weak. Water running everywhere and Huddy’s mouth drying up. He sips, feels warm and better, but his tongue is still thick with all that he wants to say, so he fires another sip to burn words down. Joe is pointing out the helicopter plants and tiger grass, and Huddy refills his glass and realizes he’s not just thirsty but hungry, since he forgot to grab dinner to hurry here. Another sip and more heat in his stomach and Joe’s talking about water cannon, elephant ear, some frond or other, but there’s too much to look at so Huddy’d like to chew the plants to not only clear some space but curb his hunger, and the trees need to be trimmed back too and Huddy’d like to do that also with his teeth. He’d like Joe to sit and watch while Huddy ate the entire garden, chewed it right to the ground, his mouth a plow filled with shreds of greenery, and then he’d go diving for the fish, and after he could have this talk and Joe would have to listen because Huddy’s voice would sound so strange with all of Joe’s plants stuffed in his mouth, fish scales jutting from his teeth like tiny pins.
“Listen, Joe …” But Huddy’s not even sure which problem he’s bringing up, he can’t say Summer yet, he hasn’t ordered his thoughts or maybe the drinking’s scrambling them. He runs his hand across his lips. “I got a situation.” His voice doesn’t seem right, the only sound that fits here is water. He likes his job. He just wants a small do-over, a tiny nother chance.
“I heard about it. Barnes called me.” Huddy watches Joe shake his head. Three feet away but it feels like what’s between them is ten shut windows. “Great, another vacancy.”
“Barnes called you?”
“An hour ago.”
“Well I’m leaving before Barnes.”
Joe’s hand up to halt him.
“We gotta move the shop, Joe.”
“I ain’t touching your rent, okay?” His hand pushing out now.
Huddy takes another sip, the glass sliding to his mouth.
“Tell him about the blood bank,” Harlan says.
“Two rehearse this?” Joe snaps. He frowns, thought he was having a brotherly moment, some shared family history, but Huddy and Harlan have turned twins, two halves with the same face and one voice, side by side with secret talks and plans, and Joe on the other bench, outnumbered and apart. He tilts one way to Harlan, then scowls at Huddy, but Huddy glares straight back. How can you think we sharing something when you’re living like this? Memories gonna get real blurry, the past going blank. There’s no stories when we’re all small, no older, other time—no us when there’s this maze of trails where I need a map to find you.
“We got a blood bank setting up next door to the shop,” Huddy says.
“So what? A few more lowlifes in your shop. Run ’em off.”
Huddy sips through clenched teeth, his face seething. Blood bank, he thinks, but it slips in his head to bloodbath. “If we move—”
“Move? Leave me with an empty building? Before I’ve made my money back?”
“That money was gone, Joe. Remember? It was quiet money.”
“You want me to fork it out again? And own a vacant building on Lamar? I’ll have to board the building up for a year before I get tenants filling it.”
“That’s why I’m leaving!” Huddy stands up to go, but he’s staring out at footpaths going every which way with a thousand hidden corners.
Joe sighs, lays his arms out. How does he get to be the exhausted one, the one with problems? Huddy hears the water pouring down on the pond, a current pushing his plans away, Joe sitting on his bench like a boat with the water moving him safely out to sea.
“Hey, man,” Harlan says, “that white fish, with the itty-bitty tail, I’m calling him Stubby.”
“Harlan!” Huddy says, hate flooding his face, shaking his head at Joe. “I got it all scoped out. Liberty Pawn, on Summer Avenue—”
“Summer Avenue?” Joe laughing, relieved.
“What’s wrong with Summer?”
Joe trades grins with Harlan. Huddy can see how Harlan’s giving him a lift—Joe gets to turn Huddy down and have fun doing it. “You must be the only person who drives down Summer and says, ‘Count me in.’ Summer and Lamar, they’re both ghetto streets.”
“Summer is doing business with the whole city,” Huddy says. “Don’t matter
ghetto.”
“Joe,” Harlan says, “what Huddy’s trying to say is congratulations on all your money, and let’s just divvy it up three ways and we’re all happy.”
“I ain’t saying that.”
“Well, I believe in sharing. Family.” Harlan grabs the bottle and pulls directly, exhaling with a long, pleasurable sigh. “Family money. So how about sliding me twenty cents?”
“Will you shut up?” Huddy says.
“You gonna lose your customers,” Joe says, still smiling over Harlan’s act. “Nobody from Lamar coming over to Summer. Your customers can’t even find Summer.”
“I’ll get double back at the new place.”
“Just go to the bank, man,” Harlan says. “Why you need his dough?”
“Ha!” Joe says.
“Banks don’t do pawnshops,” Huddy says, but correcting Harlan doesn’t bring Huddy closer to getting Joe. “This other place, it’s got a drive-around. Contractors on a lunch break, they got their equipment hitched up, they can be fifty feet long and get in there. And the building’s freestanding.” Joe shuffling his hands, so what? “I don’t want no one connected to me no more. Nobody’s breaking in next door and coming over to me. Barnes gone, I’ll have empty stores on both sides. With Liberty, the only people coming into my lot would be for me. And it’s got a thousand more square feet inside. I can put more out on the floor, more in storage. It’ll give me a chance to spread out.”
“Spread out or spread thin? Why you want more space to guard? Sounds like too much, Huddy. Too many arms and legs and tentacles.”
“Sounds like you an octopus,” Harlan says.
Huddy looks up at the house, all the big rooms lit on the top floor. “Too many arms and legs and tentacles,” Huddy mumbles, feeling like one of his customers who echo his appraisals, like the guy who came in last week trying to get cash on a camera that was nothing more than a glorified piece of plastic. “Sorry, buddy,” Huddy said, “technology’s just a little old on that,” and the guy threw the line back, and Huddy kept quiet, just cut him down with silence, the echoed line cracking out in every direction, to bewilderment and humiliation and fear and rage and grief, and Huddy watched for a reaction, the man’s fingers hooking into the camera case, but then he left, his emotions twisting together at the door, which he yanked, calling the parking lot a motherfucker. But now Huddy’s exchanged positions, on the wrong side of the counter, playing the sad and mad repeater.
Bluff City Pawn Page 4