Corpus Christi

by Bret Anthony Johnston

  Edwin Butler parted the curtains in his window and squinted at us, then he nodded and the curtains fell together. I was holding on to the seat, the muscles in my arms and ankles flexing. The trailer door opened after a moment, a long moment in which everything stood very still and the only noise was a disc jockey’s laughter on the radio. When Butler stepped outside, my father cut the ignition. “Here it is,” he said.

  In a pink T-shirt, jeans and ostrich-hide boots, Butler puckered his face as though it had been dark inside the trailer. A truck passing on Yorktown honked and he saluted the driver, smiling. “That’s right,” my father said. “Keep it up.” He shifted his weight and removed his wallet, stashed it under the seat. “Don’t let me forget that.” I said okay but couldn’t tell if he heard my answer. His eyes stayed on Butler, who’d squatted to wipe mud from his boots. And as we sat there, waiting and not speaking, my father pulled off his rings.

  He closed his fist around them, not for more than a second, but long enough for me to know he meant to hold the rings that way; I thought he might be talking himself into something, or out of something, maybe out of a decision he’d already made. Then he reached over and pressed them into my hand. His palms and fingers felt warm, as did the rings. “Keep these in your pocket,” he said. “Your old man might go to jail tonight.”

  I answered my father by saying, “Yes, sir,” something I’d never said before. I felt myself breathing.

  “Now go say hello to those horses,” he said. “They’ll want to see you today.”

  Butler was closer to the truck now, skirting a puddle as my father stepped outside. I looked at him then, turning and starting toward Butler, and he appeared normal. Nothing crazy burned in his eyes and he wasn’t rushing, but everything else seemed unfamiliar, part of another boy’s life.

  “I thought I’d see you pretty soon,” Butler said. “I tell you what.” Then he laughed a high laugh. I opened my door and eased it closed after stepping out. Butler looked at me, as if my presence might explain something to him, but when it didn’t, he turned back to my father. The Dalmatians chased each other, their black-and-white tails wagging; horses whinnied.

  If Butler expected anything, it was for my father to push or curse him or, at worst, to swing at him with his right fist, with a hook or a straight punch from the chest. Probably my father realized this. Earlier in his life, he’d fought a lot—I’d heard that—so what my father did to Butler shouldn’t have shocked me. But I was fourteen, and when it happened, my stomach clenched and I covered my face.

  He kicked him in his bad leg, just lunged forward and brought his heel and all of his weight down onto Butler’s kneecap. The joint popped, made a thwack sound, and buckled. I felt the impact in my chest, on my skin, and, without meaning to, I stepped backward, away from my father. Butler staggered—he stayed upright longer than you might have expected—then collapsed without trying to break his fall and landed in the puddle he’d avoided earlier. My father leaned over him. The Dalmatians were playing, rolling and growling and thrashing a muddy rag. Butler squirmed under my father, his face pale and his eyes very wide, the back of his pink shirt soaked in mud. He tried to raise himself. But his knee was broken, bent to the side, and, seeing that, he stopped struggling and lay back, his hair sopped in the puddle. Then he began screaming. Just opening his mouth and letting out whatever shrill, jagged noises he could, and when that started my father turned and fled toward the stables, where I was supposed to be.

  THE DALMATIANS HOWLED AT THE AMBULANCE’S sirens. We were loading the tack and horses into our trailer, and my father remained quiet except to tell me what to leave behind. The paramedics’ voices and the rattle of a gurney made their way to our stalls, and Deidra Butler sobbed and kept saying, “Still here. He is still here.” Butler cried out when they lifted him into the ambulance, again just some guttural noise, then came the sound of doors slamming and tires spinning in the mud and onto asphalt, then finally droning away. During all of this, my father worked as though the spectacle didn’t concern us and everyone would benefit if we kept clear of the trouble.

  We drove to a ranch farther outside the city, one nicer than Butler’s and owned, I learned later, by the man who’d originally given my father the horses. A sign reading OLEANDER CREEK, HUNTERS AND JUMPERS hung over the entrance. My father left the truck idling while he negotiated with the owner inside the office. I climbed out and slipped sugar cubes to the horses, whispered to them through the trailer. White fences ran around the ranch, and the name of each horse was engraved on its stall—Texas Tuff Stuff, Johnny Boy, Madeline, Coffee Break. A covered arena loomed behind the stables, and a small girl was taking a lesson, giggling in her riding cap and boots.

  Twenty minutes passed before my father returned. An electric gate opened and I sat on the tailgate to ride into the stables. He could secure only one stall that night, but another would open tomorrow, which suited him fine. He commented on how my mother could ride English style in the corral— something she’d never done at the Seahorse—but I couldn’t recall her wanting to ride that way. My father asked if I liked the property and I said yes, because that was what he wanted to hear. Dusk blurred the sky as we unloaded and a lamp brightened near the stall, illuminating dust and other imperfections in the moist air.

  “My thoughts feel focused now,” said my father. We were driving home, and he started talking in the dark. “How are you doing?”

  “I feel worried,” I said. Then, a moment later, “Aren’t you scared?”

  My father chuckled and looked at me fondly, light in his eyes. “Boy, the only thing in this whole woolly world that scares me is losing you and your mother. I’d be in the tall grass without the two of you. I’d be in the weeds.”

  I didn’t answer him. Outside my window the stubble fields looked like black water. My father braked at a stop sign, and the telephone lines buzzed above us. He cleared his throat, moistened his lips, then looked at me. “I lost my job today, Benny.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  We remained at the intersection, though for how long I don’t know. There were no other vehicles around, and I began wishing my father would turn the corner.

  “It’s political, of course. It’ll blow over soon enough.” He rippled his fingers on the steering wheel, and lifted his eyes to the rearview mirror. Then finally he checked over his shoulder, and accelerated. “You’re not supposed to know any of that.”

  “Okay. Does Mom know?”

  My father shook his head, and after a moment, inhaled.

  “About Edwin,” he said. “It was reckless, I’m smart enough to know that. But the trouble’s behind us now.” For a moment, my father fixed me with his eyes—I felt him do it— though I didn’t look at him, but stared straight ahead, watching our headlights shine through the night.

  I said, “He didn’t know what happened.”

  “He’s no Johnny Straightarrow—remember that,” my father said. I thought he would say something more, comment on the night or why he was out of work, but we did not speak again. Maybe he was allowing his mind to continue focusing, or maybe he felt he’d already said too much. He turned the radio on to a man singing opera, and although neither of us liked that style of music, we listened. I wanted to say something, though I didn’t know what and so stayed quiet. My father seemed caught in his own thoughts, maybe absorbing the music or worrying about my mother or concentrating on something I couldn’t know. Or maybe he was realizing that he’d crippled a man and that trouble was not at all behind us, but would be waiting when we rounded the curve of Longcommon Road and the lights of our small house came into view.

  WHEN HE SAW THE POLICE CRUISER IN FRONT OF the house, my father said, “Okay, then. All right.” He wasn’t speaking to me, but just collecting himself before he parked near the curb and stepped out into the night.

  My mother sat on the porch, smoking. She was wearing a terry-cloth robe, an old one I had not seen in some time, and her hair looked wet and recently br
ushed, tucked behind her ears. Our floodlights beamed down on her, making her look far away. Two policemen stood near her, one leaning against her Chevy and a shorter one in the grass, but when my father opened the door, they clicked their flashlights on and started toward him.

  “Mr. Kelley? Mr. George Kelley?” the short policeman said. “I’m Officer Barrera.”

  “Are you fine, Marie?” my father called. “Are you feeling better?” The policemen and my father were nearing each other, but he was looking at my mother on the porch.

  “I don’t know what’s happening now, George,” she said. “I was in the shower.” She shielded her eyes from the floodlight and leaned forward on her toes to see us better. Her voice sounded strong. A line of cars rumbled by on Longcommon and my mother waited for their noise to fade before she spoke again. “Is Benny with you?”

  “I’m here,” I said. The taller policeman shined his light in my face. I was on the passenger side of the truck, standing in the dark street.

  “Come here, Benny,” my mother called, then in a lower voice, “Is that okay? Can my son sit beside his mother?”

  “Sure,” my father said. He was sliding his wallet into his pocket. “He’ll do that just fine.”

  The three men stopped under our chinaberry tree, close to each other, as I walked to the porch. A wind blew that night, strong enough to rustle the leaves and make a set of chimes tinkle down the street. My mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it, then patted my thigh when I sat.

  “I’ll be with you soon.” My father flashed a smile at us. “We’ll clear this up in a hurry.” Then Officer Barrera motioned my father toward the cruiser, while the other officer followed. And after that, they conversed in voices too low to hear.

  Several of our neighbors had gathered outside, clustered on their porches. Occasionally a man’s voice rose or a woman giggled or someone popped open a beer can, then everything would fall silent again and I felt people studying us in the dark. Through a window across the street, I saw a woman dancing on a television screen. My mother whispered that she recognized her, but couldn’t recall the dancer’s name. I expected her to ask me what had happened, but after a door slammed down the street, she tightened her bathrobe’s belt and disappeared into the house.

  My father spoke with the officers for some time. They frisked him. My mother hadn’t returned and I appreciated her not seeing him bent over the cruiser’s hood, his arms and legs spread. As Barrera patted him down, my father said something and the three men laughed. They’ll let him go, I thought. But the taller officer took my father’s hands behind his back and clasped the handcuffs on his wrists; there were no cars just then, and the click of the locks snapped like a ratchet. He continued grinning, as did the other officer, while they placed him in the backseat and closed the heavy door. Across the street, on the TV, the camera zoomed in on another woman’s face, a singer, and inside our house, I heard my mother pouring a drink.

  Soon Officer Barrera came up our driveway and smiled a smile to say he was sorry. The taller officer lowered himself into the cruiser—the interior light went on when the door opened and I saw my father in the backseat, adjusting himself so he wouldn’t be sitting on his hands or hurting his elbows. The officer in the car said something to him, gestured with a pen, and for some reason I thought they were discussing me, maybe my riding or grades or my being an only child. Everything seemed very loud to me just then, each sound magnified—a dog barking on another block, the rope clanking against the flagpole beside the mechanic’s garage, the crickets trilling in my mother’s flower bed.

  “Ben, this is hard. I know.” Officer Barrera flipped his tablet over. “But will you, please, to the best of your ability, describe the altercation between your father and Mr. Butler.”

  I watched my father in the car; he was staring toward the mechanic’s garage across the street. It occurred to me that whatever I said would influence what happened to him, that right then the responsibility for our family lay with me, and he would want me to think in those terms—what became of us in the future depended on this moment in my life that felt like a dream.

  I said I’d been feeding Colonel and hadn’t seen anything. Barrera told me to estimate the distance from our stalls to Butler’s trailer, so I guessed the length of a football field, maybe two. He positioned himself between me and the cruiser so I could no longer view my father, and I wondered about his family, if he was thinking about his own son as he spoke with me. Barrera resembled a fire hydrant, with a black mustache covering much of his upper lip, and I thought he could beat my father. He asked me where the horses were right then, and I admitted they were at Oleander Creek but added that my parents had been considering the move for some time. He jotted my answers onto his tablet and with each one he glared at me as though he didn’t believe me, which, of course, he shouldn’t have.

  My mother returned then, dressed in shorts and a blouse. She covered her mouth when she saw my father in the cruiser. Officer Barrera handed her his card and said my father would spend the night in jail, and a clerk would call in the morning with more information. She asked if they served dinner there because he hadn’t eaten since lunch, and Barrera promised to arrange a meal later that evening. Then my mother asked to speak with my father before they left and Barrera okayed that, too. It was around nine o’clock then, the night sky streaked with gray cirrus clouds, and most everyone had abandoned their porches and dimmed their lights. I guessed they’d seen my father get into the cruiser and could imagine for themselves what would happen next.

  SLEEP CAME EASILY TO ME THAT NIGHT, AND THAT still surprises me. After the police took my father, my mother followed me inside and warmed the dinner she’d cooked that afternoon. We sat at our small table together, my mother and I, and talked, not about the stables or Edwin Butler but about regular topics, as though my father were working late and would soon waltz through the front door and our lives would resume. “Go to bed, Benny,” my mother said as she cleared the dishes. “The sun will rise tomorrow.”

  She called someone while I readied myself for bed—I heard her dial the phone and say, “Hello. Okay. It’s Marie,” and the sound of a cigarette pack tearing open, followed by my mother’s cough. Soon, though, she spoke in a soft, private voice and my thoughts drifted to Butler. I wondered where he was at that moment. My best guess placed him in surgery or possibly in the recovery room with his wife, who would be waiting for him to regain consciousness and ask what had happened. I sympathized with him. I thought of my father, awake in the night and in jail, punishing himself with words like patience and restraint. Then I fell asleep, and if I dreamed, I don’t remember it, except that I slept well so they couldn’t have been nightmares, just the uneventful dreams of a boy my age.

  The hinges of our front door woke me. My first thought was that my father had returned, either legally or he had escaped, which made my heart pound. I dressed myself—just my jeans and shirt from the day before, no shoes—and crept into the kitchen. The lights were on, the radio played at a low volume. I checked my parents’ room for my mother, and the bed was made but when I called her, she didn’t answer. It was six o’clock, the time my father left for work on weekdays, so outside the air felt cool.

  “They love popcorn,” my mother said. She was kneeling beside the anthill. “I once owned a dog who liked it, too. Maybe we should offer some to the horses.”

  I only responded by nodding and putting my hands in my pockets, though my mother didn’t seem to want a response. She had changed clothes since the night before, and wore now a gingham dress with her hair pulled back. I smelled a citrusy perfume.

  “I used to kick their little piles and make them run around where I could see them, but not anymore.” She raised her eyes to me, smiled, then looked back at the ants. “It’s a change I’ve made in myself.”

  “That sounds good,” I said. A van towing a trailer careened past.

  “If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be? That’s an important ques
tion.” My mother crushed some popcorn in her hand, then sprinkled it over the ants. The concrete felt rough beneath my feet, cold. “And it needs to be something you can change, nothing like your height or the color of your eyes.”

  My response came quickly, as if I’d considered it often and had only been awaiting the question. “I’d like to be braver. I’d like to be less afraid of things.”

  “What a wonderful answer,” my mother said, nodding. “I suppose that’s inspired by your father.” She stood and dusted the last of the crumbs to the ants, then clapped her hands together. Cars passed on Longcommon, their tires swishing over the asphalt, as though it were wet. My mother leaned over the ants again, then shouldered past me and sat on the porch. She lit a cigarette and sent the smoke through her nostrils. “I don’t want to know what happened yesterday. Is that fine?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s fine.”

  “Edwin’s hurt, I know that. Your father is to blame for it, I know that, too.” She closed her eyes and drew on her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs before blowing it out. “The officer called about an hour ago and said they’d release him shortly.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “Of course it is.” My mother flicked her cigarette into our yard. Someone cranked a car’s ignition down the street.

  “These last few days,” she said and stopped. She shook out another cigarette and lit it. “I haven’t been upset over money. Or not having money. Your father can’t believe that, but it’s true.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I believe you.”

  “I’m worried that when I die people will only remember me for my mistakes.” The air in front of my mother became clouded with blue smoke, then the smoke spread and its scent wafted toward me. “Maybe I didn’t pay Edwin. Maybe all of this is my fault.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. My mother sniffled and touched the back of her hand to her eyes, then she looked at the sky, which wasn’t special that morning, just hazy and slate-colored. Longcommon was quiet; the morning lacked the noise of wind or dogs or people whispering on dark porches.