“I’m sorry,” Joe says. And he is, Huddy can see and hear it, Joe’s scratchy voice, his hand across his pained face. “I got my money tied up in Arkansas. This tract of land I’ve been throwing money into ’cause a geologist says I should. I’ve got a guy not paying me on a contract, hung me up for eighty thousand dollars worth of concrete. Says it’s not his fault, nobody has money anymore. Sure, I’m getting bigger. But I’m shrinking, too.” His fingers make a cage of his hands. “The numbers are all over the place. It’s not as much live money as you think.”
Huddy chews at his cheek, eats his flesh. “Are we brothers, Joe?” Huddy looking around at jackpot and Joe telling him he’s crapped out and bust.
“Don’t make me sound mean. If I could give you this—”
“’Cause right now I feel like a brother’s brother’s brother brother.”
Joe shakes his head. “Man, you don’t make me feel likable.” He stands and snatches the empty bottle. “You both drinking my booze—but I’m just the bearer of bad tidings.” They watch him tromp off, feet crunching gravel, climbing and descending the bridge till he’s half-seen through branches and leaves, then gone.
“Go count your money,” Huddy mutters.
“He thinks he’s bringing God to the world,” Harlan says.
Huddy doesn’t like Harlan feeling what he’s feeling. Joe with fishes in his yard, Huddy with roaches in his shop. No matter how much he sprays and bombs and sets the traps, they keep coming and breeding, laying their eggs in the low heat of the electronics.
“Two kinds of living,” Harlan says. “Shit and sugar. I guess the flip side to this is me.”
Harlan’s sorry voice in Huddy’s ears, Harlan dumping his pain in Huddy’s lap. “Where’s that stuff I staked you?” he says, his voice angrier than he means it.
Harlan’s hands come up to explain, but then twist open, empty. “Thought you forgot.”
“You thought a pawnbroker forgot a loan?”
Harlan’s lips press together. “Things just got tight.” He looks back at his hand like Huddy’s borrowed hardware should be glued there but it somehow got unstuck. “And then this guy got me out on a string and pulled it.”
Huddy waves the story away. “I already wrote it off as a loss.”
“Just a nail gun and chop saw,” Harlan mumbles.
“Hell it was. It was a compressor. And a generator, too.”
“Weren’t no generator.”
“Oh, yeah? I remember loading that truck up good.”
Harlan whirls his head like the missing machinery just slipped past on a raft, got carried down the canal of Joe’s yard. “Maybe I could work it off.”
“Sounds like you’ve already got a job. He gonna set you up with some heavy-duty mulework, that’s what he can do for you. Man, why’d you even go down to Florida? Drywalling? Like you had to go all the way to Florida to hang drywall.”
“I was framing houses, too. I was getting my stripes. And then I had this big job—”
“Save it. My whole fricking day is excuses and everything’s gonna sound double-stupid out here. I can’t believe he did this. I can’t—”
“Why you always hearing the bad part of me?”
“Huh? I don’t hear from you for a year and you come back talking about your tail getting tore off. Damn straight—I’m thinking you sleeping with a shotgun under your bed.”
“I was down there three years and the only part you want to hear about is the bad.”
“The bad is the punchline. The bad is why you’re here. The good don’t really count.”
“I ain’t saying I didn’t get crazy. But I stopped it. And then I got swiped. I come back to this armpit, this stinking place, and the two of you talking shit. Shotgun under my bed? Man, I was sleeping with a fishing pole. I didn’t get so much as a hangnail down there.” He flicks his fingers out. “The Florida me? It’s done. I buried him. You hear me?!” He pulls at his shirt like it’s dripping sweat clinging, but Huddy could care less about Harlan wrestling clothes. Harlan jolts up like he got stung and Huddy watches him repeat the walkout.
“Guess that makes two,” Huddy mumbles. He loops his finger out to where Harlan split. That’s right, get moving, get lost. Just like their daddy. Not that Huddy would give that a moment’s thought, he cut out that dark spot years ago, except that’s where Joe’s money started.
Joe was fifteen, Huddy thirteen, Harlan ten, and when their daddy left, Joe saw them through hard times. He started mowing neighbors’ lawns, and since he was too young to drive, he made a deal with an older neighbor whose family had a truck and a trailer, to drive him around the city on the weekends and nights, and Joe would do the bulk of the work and the neighbor could split the cash. He’d come home smelling of grass and gasoline, his face streaked with sweat and dirt, the heat coming off him. A fifteen-year-old man of the house. Thick wads of cash from his pants pocket, one leg, then the next, and they’d watch him reach for it, the money warm and unfolding on the table, everyone staring at it, their mama, too, the money from her new job at the grocery store not enough, but now, with this, it was. Huddy thankful but jealous, seeing her look at the money with relief, Huddy wanting to be older for it to be him, Joe not having to say a word, everything he needed to say or do was right there on the table. Joe’s little notebook, the neat rows of names and addresses and figures. Huddy asking to look at the notebook, wanting to see the numbers; Harlan wanting to hold the cash. Most of the money went to the household, but whatever was saved Joe threw back in the business. Upgraded the equipment, got a commercial mower, edger, string trimmer. Turned sixteen and got his own truck and trailer, went solo and made more, even had some old men knocking on the door looking for work.
When the grass went dormant, Joe worked at a gas station. Which is how he hooked in with short-haul trucking and then eventually with a building contractor. But that was later. At first, Joe even did some scrapping. Took his truck out and filled the back with metals ditched at the curb, ladders and dishwashers and water heaters and electrical motors and stainless steel sinks and aluminum cans. Went to restaurants, commercial businesses, siding shops. Brought salvage wire out into the backyard and built a fire, and while he cooked out the insulation to get to the copper, he’d go work on the mower, sharpening blades. Huddy asking to work alongside him, Harlan asking to have some cash, Joe not answering either, so Huddy asking for advice.
Keep your blades sharp, Joe would say. Try not to run over anything.
Harlan asking about where he can get money.
“Go catch chickens,” Joe said.
“That’s what daddy did, way back,” Harlan said.
Joe not looking up, so Harlan saying, “Money’s right there on the table, too. That’s easier to catch. ’Member daddy said catching chickens was ’bout the nastiest thing you could do. He used to say how bad the chicken house smelled.”
Joe added some name or number to his book. “You know what your problem is, Harlan. You think you’re a kid. You think you’re a person. You ain’t neither. You a laborer. Go bust some concrete. Go be a scrapper.”
“Like that nigger, the one me and Huddy seen? Had his bike filled up with junk. ’Member, Huddy? We saw him go by and he got so much junk he tipped over.”
Joe shaking his head, looking at Huddy, then fixing back on Harlan. “You gonna be a nigger your whole life.”
Huddy stands, feels his head fuzz but not spin, but he doesn’t want more brothers’ voices. He flips open his phone to reach Christie. When she answers, he asks, “Wrong time again?”
“What are you talking about?”
“From before. Forget it. After lunch.”
“You still at Joe’s?”
“Guess I am.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m here—but I ain’t never been back here. His new backyard. Yeah, I’m at Joe’s.”
“Hold on.”
Huddy waits, looks around, stares at a glazed porcelain ball atop a pedestal. He hears
shouts and cries and Christie shushing. “Dealing with Cody?”
“Who else is screaming in my face?”
“I don’t know what’s going on over here”—he eyes metal birds and butterflies, all these flying creatures stuck in the ground—“so I figure I ask what’s there.”
“What’s going on is a diaper. Why’s it so quiet on your end? How are you with Harlan and there’s no noise?”
“Break in the action. Surprised you can’t hear the ocean. That surf?”
“Hold on. Git your leg—shh … Damn tabs. What you saying?”
“Just me and the horsetail.”
“Huh?”
“Helicopters and cannons.”
“Huddy, what you babbling about?”
“Some plants. I’m sightseeing. I’m calling you from a different time zone. Is it morning where you at? I better check the tank, make sure I got enough to get home.”
“Oh, you sound like you filled up fine. Look: I already got a one-year-old I can’t understand. Try not to drive home to the wrong house. Good luck with the porch steps.”
“Ain’t all that.”
“Did that car seat come out of pawn yet?” And when he doesn’t answer she says, “We need it now, Huddy. Cody’s busting out of the seat. I gotta get him the next size.”
“This guy’s gonna default, I’m sure of it.”
“You always say that. I’m buying the thing.”
Okay, he thinks, and he says bye. He follows the path back, his hands slashing at plants brushing his face, and he imagines his arms as saws, the branches lopping down around him. Harlan squats at the edge of the pond, staring at the water. He glances down at his hand and Huddy sees the right sleeve rolled past the elbow, the shirt wet to the shoulder, and when he hears Harlan’s hand tapping on the paving stones he knows what he’s holding.
Harlan turns and grins. “I don’t got no fishing license, so I guess I had to get this.” The hand comes up fast, the nugget held between two fingers. “Ain’t worth shit?”
Huddy steps closer, examines the cavities and crystals. “Worth something,” he shrugs.
“What’d you call it?” Harlan says, the glistening rock moving to his face like a magnet.
“Fool’s gold.”
“The other thing.”
“Pyrite.”
“Yeah, pyrite,” Harlan says. “Semiprecious pyrite.”
Huddy laughs, shakes his head. “Get you a gem box. You a gem salesman right quick.”
“Fool’s gold, pure gold. Sounds the same to me.” Harlan blows on the rock like pyrite’s just a dusty coating keeping down the value.
Huddy studies the others. “I’d go with the quartz, if you’re taking. That pyrite’s probably a tenth of the agate.”
“Yeah?” Harlan says.
“Bigger,” Huddy shrugs. “If you want to get scientific. Probably a fraction of the other.”
“Well I’m sticking with gold.” Harlan buffs the pyrite on his shirt, then pockets it. “Unless you want it? For collateral. Or how ’bout you scoop the rest up and then you and me square.” But he doesn’t smile. Instead he yanks his head back like his hair got pulled, his face pinched in anguish.
“The stuff I was saying before …” Huddy says.
“You weren’t saying nothing.” His shoulders jerk. “I know what I am. Third down the line. I know where Joe is and I know where you are.”
“It ain’t like that.”
“Ha, I guess that makes me your buffer from the bottom.” Harlan flexes his hand and the fish flee. “See, it’s dark, so they getting spooked ’cause they think I’m a predator.” He skims his hand along the surface and Huddy watches the water ripple out. “He really got the works out here,” Harlan says, shaking his head. “This is some dream, ain’t it?”
A dream or a display. But sure, Harlan’s right, Huddy won’t argue.
“Were me,” Harlan says, “I’d build it exactly like this and I wouldn’t even need the house. I’d just stay out here and make this my water bed.”
And Huddy feels it, too, this floating peace. Moon and stars and the air a part of Joe’s arrangement. You build something like this, you’d feel like you can reach up to the sky and move constellations around like potted plants, flick stars with your fingers. His eyes open dizzy to the fish, slashes of red and orange brilliant in the water. It’s the biggest success story he knows, and it’s gotta be a consolation that it’s a brother.
“Can’t everybody win, I guess.” Harlan scoops water, spreads his fingers and watches it pour through. “This ain’t just a pond. It’s a wishing well. ’Cept everything already came true.”
Huddy imagines a shining penny pitched out from his thumb, his life tossed away and remade. “If you work for me, Harlan, I can’t pay you as much.”
“Sounds like you needing me more. Unless you pulling the plug.” Harlan steps lightly over stones, climbs the small embankment edging the waterfall. He reaches into the running water and pulls a clump of algae from the wet rocks and flings the slick green muck over his shoulder into the bushes. Huddy thinks of Harlan’s arm sinking down, his panning hand moving through the water, groping for the gold, his fingers crawling along the terraced steps, circling until the nugget’s pinched in his fingers.
“Lemme tell you something,” Huddy says. “Some people. Like Joe, he got his gravel he’s digging out the ground. Others digging gold out the ground. I dig it out of people. Out the ground or people is the same thing. As long as folks coming into my store, I’m fine, ’cause I’m mining.” But he’s shaking his head the whole time he says it.
“Good deal,” Harlan says. He steps back to the front of the pond. “Now where’s that fish called Stubby? I’m naming ’em all right now. That calico, she’s thinking she’s special. We gonna call her Lady Jane. This fantail, he likes me, he’s my follower. I’ma call him Shadow.”
Huddy watches Harlan rub his bloodshot eyes. “You really fixing to stay with KayKay?”
“Might.” He slides his head. “You never liked her.”
“Kind of a dark mystery, that’s all. Crack her open, never know what’ll pop out.”
Huddy remembers her car. The front end bashed in. From driving into her ex’s truck—and the way Harlan explained it, the ex had driven into her car the week before, so she was just retaliating. Huddy thought there was a restraining order, but he couldn’t remember which side, or maybe that was just him thinking there ought to be one. The guy had asked to marry her, right after he went to jail, and Harlan thought that was a hoot, the ex doing everything backward and late. “If you want,” Huddy says, “I got a spare room. Till you lovebirds connect.”
Harlan nods. “That’s brain coral there,” he says, pointing. “And water hyacinth. Gotta be careful with that one, it’s a choker.” He looks around for something else to name or know. “Those dots on the rocks is tadpoles.”
They hear the glass door slide open, see Joe come out.
“I’ll give your place a spark, man,” Harlan says fast. “That’s what I bring to the table. And I got the truck. It’s running good.”
“Harlan, you can be all that. But you also gonna be my guard dog.”
“Hell, I can do that. Easy. See, when I told you about losing my tail, I didn’t mention: I’m a salamander. So it grows back fast.”
Huddy pats Harlan’s shoulder, cups the back of his neck. “I know you everything from a puppy dog to a rattlesnake.”
A twitch of a smile fading. Harlan’s face darkens. “Florida, man,” shaking his head, “nothing happened down there.” Saying it like it did and it didn’t and both were the problem, and Huddy can’t tell which he’s hearing more, Harlan worried or Harlan bored.
They both turn to look at Joe approaching, a six-pack hooked in his fingers. “Guess we’re switching gears,” Harlan says. “You think …” he says, staring hard at the water, his face concentrating, “if you’d been firstborn, this would’ve been you?”
“Can’t know. He always been a workhors
e, gotta give him that. Ain’t just about order.”
“I think it would’ve been good for me, if I’d been oldest. If it was me taking care of things, putting bread on … if he’d been behind us, instead of vice versa … me taking the lead …”
But Joe’s close enough to stop Harlan. “What are we arguing about now?” He shuts his eyes, rubs his lids, blinks himself awake. “She said she heard the whole thing. Got ears like a squirrel.”
“Guess this is one big doghouse,” Harlan says.
Joe glances at the pond and Huddy wonders if he’s seeing the missing gold, if he might frisk them or just smile at their petty crime. “So what’s with the blood bank? You got a name for the contractor? It’s probably too late to snuff out the permit.” Joe glances at his watch but then turns back to his house, the windows huge with glass. “Stay long if you want,” he shrugs, ripping one of the beers and passing the rest. Amazing how little they had as kids, their daddy swiping the valuables on his way out the door, and now Joe’s got all this, and he looks like he’s about to drop, breathing hard from all the long years of climbing and chasing.
“You ever drive with this guy?” Huddy says, not knowing why he’s saying it, because the last time he’s been driving with Joe’s been years, but man, what a maniac driver. He throws a hearty arm around Joe, hears himself laugh. “The worst tailgater ever,” Huddy says, laughing more, three rear-end collisions to Joe’s credit, Huddy in the passenger seat and Joe right up on the guy’s ass, the guy thinking he’s playing some sick game. “The guy flipping him off in the mirror and he’s not even seeing it, ’cause he’s on the phone, yelling about work.” Cell phone, Huddy thinks, so it couldn’t have been too long ago.
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