I could not sleep. Men were shouting out there in the restaurant and in the scrub-country silence the sounds were right in the room with me. Women would yell suddenly, giggling and screaming. Once I heard something overturned and a woman screamed. But then the laughter covered it, and the jukebox wailed. But it was not the noise or the laughter of women or shouting men that kept me awake. The feeling I had was something I could not explain. For the first time in weeks I was not thinking about Marve Pooser and hating him. What I was thinking about was Lily.
I was still awake when she walked into my room the next morning. It had quieted down about four, but then before daybreak they started going out in the boats. I listened to the motors catch and then roar and then die away as they went around the curve.
Lily carried a basin of water. She put it on the chair beside the bed. "You want to wash your face?" she asked.
"Don't you people ever sleep around here?"
"You'd get used to the noise if you stayed around here long enough." She did not look at me. I noticed she had brushed her hair. It glowed with a dark sheen in the sunlight. The dress was clean. She was still bare-footed, but there was no mud between her toes yet.
She noticed me looking at her. "You're getting better. It's time for you to get out of here."
She moved away from me and that was when I noticed there was a faint delicate fragrance about her. I didn't know what it was, I noticed its absence when she walked away. It made me empty and I wanted her close to me.
"My pillow," I said. "Would you straighten it, Lily?"
Her black eyes were not deceived. Her sullen mouth did not change its expression. She came back to the bed, and that faint fragrance warmed me and I wanted to reach out and pull her down against me. It was more than wanting to do it. It was like a need. But when I looked at the chilled expression on her high-planed cheeks, I remembered the way she'd cut Charlie with that steel rod. I was damned if I was going to be another fish-camp Romeo on the make for the first woman to come near him.
I breathed in deeply staring at the soft curls at the nape of her neck, wanting to touch them.
She straightened the pillow, stepped back. She glanced at me, as if faintly astonished that I had not grabbed for her.
She should have looked at my fists, knotted under the bed covers.
"Is that all you want?" she asked.
I just looked at her. I did not answer. The faintest smile touched at her eyes and she turned away. "I'll bring you some breakfast."
I stared at the ceiling some more and listened to the flies against the screens. I tried to think about Marve Pooser and that money, but all I could think about was the faint fragrance of her that was never bought in any store and that made you drunk when she got too close to you. Poor Charlie Bullock. All of a sudden I understood him one hell of a lot better.
She came back in and moved the basin of water. She placed a tray of fried eggs, hominy grits, pork sausage and coffee beside me. I looked at the food and felt sick. I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat it.
There was just one thing I wanted.
She walked over, looked out the window, watching something on the river, or maybe seeing nothing out there at all.
She glanced over her shoulder. I had not moved. "Eat," she said.
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat anyway. We don't waste food out here."
"No. AD. you waste out here is yourself, isn't it, Lily?"
She turned on her heel. "What are you talking about?"
"You."
"I'm all right. Don't you worry about me." Her gaze moved over the bruises I'd picked up.
I sat up, damned if I'd let her see that I was hurt any more. I started to sweat. My stomach trembled and I wanted her to get out of there before I lost it all.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
I told her. She wanted to know how big the town was and when I told her she looked slightly disappointed. She wanted to know what movies I had seen, what plays I'd attended, what music I liked. I felt warm because I knew the answers I was giving her were not what she was looking for. She was hungry for something too.
But it wasn't even in the same world with what I wanted.
***
About noon some of the boats returned along the river and I heard them tying up next to the dock. Old Henry Sistrunk came into the room and sat down in the chair beside my bed. He did not smile.
"You feeling better, mister?"
"Yes."
"You was in pretty foul shape when the girl found you. We didn't know last night what had happened to you."
"But you know now?"
"Been some talk along the river."
"I guess you want me out of here?"
"I don't take no sides in any trouble they have out this way, mister. I used to be a farmer, but there is no living in farming in this country. It's dead. For a while there, I made shine and sold it. That ain't no living either for a man that don't like trouble. I started this here fish camp. I stay out of trouble, I git along with folks. I just hope to make a little money." He looked around the small room. "Whenever a room is being used and I ain't making no money from it-"
"Will you hand me my wallet?"
He got it from my trousers. It looked as though he knew just where it was, what was in it. I gave him three fives and he nodded.
"Reckon how long you'll be staying here?"
Lily walked by the door, moving along the narrow hallway. She did not glance into the room. "I don't know," I said, still watching that doorway.
"From a man that hates trouble something fierce," Sistrunk said, "why don't you plan to leave pretty soon?"
"I came out here looking for Marve Pooser. I haven't found him yet."
"How much more you prepared to take, mister?"
"Why, is there some law against finding Marve Pooser?"
Sistrunk smiled. "There might be. If'n there is, you can bet Marve Pooser made it hisself. He'll git folks around here to enforce it for him too."
"They like him around here?"
Sistrunk shrugged.
"Do you like him?"
Sistrunk shrugged again.
"You're scared of him?"
"Mister, I'm scairt of rattlesnakes unless I got my eye on them all the time."
"Do you know Marve Pooser?"
"Knowed him since he was a boy. Reckon he's about your age.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Not right now I don't."
"He's out in this scrub somewhere."
"What make you think so?"
"I didn't know. I was taking a chance. But I'm sure now. Otherwise why would these people make a big thing out of not talking to me? If Marve Pooser was in Europe they'd be willing to tell me, wouldn't they?"
"Sounds reasonable."
"How about you? He's out here in this scrub. Somewhere. You could find him. How much would you charge?"
"I looked in your wallet, mister. You ain't got that kind of money."
"I could get it."
"Not unless you could print it mighty fast. Look, maybe you didn't understand me. I don't want any trouble. Messing with Marve Pooser, that's the fastest way I know to git your hands into more trouble than you'd be able to handle all the rest of your life. No, sir. You take my advice. You get well enough to travel, why you do it."
"Why are you afraid of him?"
"Because my maw never trifled with raising no silly kids."
"I'd never tell him you told me."
He laughed, shortly and sharply. "Mister, you wouldn't have to tell him. He'd just know. You here in my place. You leave here, you find him. Next thing you know, I'd have holes in all my boats, my nets would be cut, my shacks burned."
"How could he get away with anything like that?"
"I don't know. Same way he has all his life, I reckon. When Marve was a boy, he collected snakes and skunks and poison ivy, anything he could use in the jokes he played on people, his neighbors, strangers, teachers at school in Eureka Cros
sing. Some of his jokes turned out pretty rough. Couple people died of rattlesnake bites. Marve laughed hard when he heard about it. Nobody could prove he had nothing to do with it. But folks just knowed. Them jokes got to be part of Marve Pooser. He never knowed when to stop. He got hisself a car. He wanted to run somebody off'n the highway, he'd crowd 'em off, just to keep it up until they stopped or he edged them into a ditch. Thing about Marve was, he was always bigger'n anybody else. That wouldn't have stopped folks from hitting back at him, but it was the way his mind worked. A man don't mind taking a beatin' for what he believes in-not if'n he believes hard enough-but he don't want his kids snake bit or his wife roughed up when she goes into town shopping. Seems Marve always figured a man out. Figured what would hurt a man the most, and that's just what he always done to him."
***
"Lily."
She stopped in the doorway. "What you want?"
"Lily, your old man says you're the only one in this scrub not afraid of Marve Pooser."
She stepped into the room. "Why don't you get him off your mind?"
"I almost have, Lily."
Her mouth twisted. "Now you're getting smart."
"Not the way you think. I haven't thought about anything but you since yesterday."
Her face remained impassive. "You better keep thinking about Marve Pooser. It's safer."
"Sometimes a man doesn't want to be safe, Lily."
"You're not that kind."
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know enough."
"You're still burned because I didn't stop old Charlie Bullock."
She shrugged. "I don't care. Maybe I was sore at first. I thought you were different. But I know now."
"What do you know?"
"All I need to know."
I stood up. She watched me coldly. I stepped toward her. I was aware of her fists clenching without seeing them. I -didn't take my eyes from hers.
"Go back to bed," she said.
I stepped closer. "You're all I can think about."
I reached for her. She let me touch her left arm. She twisted slightly and backhanded me across the face with her doubled fist.
She lurched free. She did not run. She leaned in the door, watching me.
"I'm no whore, mister."
"Nobody said you were."
"You don't have to say it. You act it. You walk in here. You see a fish camp. You see me. You see Charlie Bullock. Right away you get to thinking, the same dumb things they all think."
"Maybe not."
"You got nothing I want, mister. Get that straight. Keep your hands off me."
I stood there looking at her. I saw those black eyes, waiting for anything I was going to do. I saw Charlie Bullock lurching toward her and I saw that pole coming down across his head. I could smell that faint warm fragrance of her, stronger now, and I ached across the bridge of my nose. I wanted her more than I'd ever wanted anybody. All of a sudden I knew I'd never really wanted anyone before. But I saw something else. Here was a girl who wanted something. You didn't take anything from Lily Sistrunk. You gave her what she wanted, and I didn't even know what it was.
It was an impasse. For a moment we stood there, watching each other, tense and rigid. I was assailed by the smell of her, but in her eyes I saw what I was: another guy on the make at her father's fishing camp.
At last her gaze shifted. She did not laugh at me, but that was what her look meant. She walked out. I did not see her again that afternoon. A girl brought fish and grits about seven that night. I pushed the food around on the plate, still unable to eat.
About ten it began to get loud out there in the restaurant. I could almost smell the beer fumes in the room where I was. The cars began rolling into the yard and the screen door banged every two or three minutes.
I paced the room, wishing from the bottom of my loins that I could get out of there. I knew better. I wasn't going to leave this swamp until I found Marve Pooser. Right now I wasn't even any match for Lily. I stretched out across the bed and told myself to go to sleep.
***
She was standing in the doorway. It must have been after midnight. I had dozed and when I opened my eyes, she was standing in the doorway, watching me.
"You still here?" she said. "I thought you were gone."
"Sure you did."
"You've had a day and a night to think. How long does it take you to get smart?"
"Just because everybody around here is scared of your boy Marve Pooser, that don't mean I am."
"Big brave boy."
I sat up on the bed. "What do you want, Lily? Why are you here? Are you one of these frigid babes that gets a kick out of getting a guy excited and then fighting him off?"
Her mouth twisted. "You conceited jerks. That's what you men are." Her head tilted and with her sullen mouth still pulled she listened a moment to the drunken yells mixed with the juke music from the restaurant. "Why should any woman want any of you?"
"I don't know. But they do."
"Sure. The stupid ones that think security means a wash-tub full of baby diapers and dirty shirts. Sure. They squeal and moan and pretend some man is just driving them wild. You ought to know what they really think. You ought to know what they really want."
"You didn't have to live long to get real bitter, did you?"
"Maybe it's the way I lived, mister. I was in the room when my ma died. We had had the doctor out to see her once, but he told Pa he couldn't come back unless Pa would pay him some of what he owed him. I saw Pa's face. Sure, he wanted to pay him, but he didn't even have two dollars. Not even two dollars. So Ma laid in her room and she died. She wouldn't let Pa send for the doctor. She was afraid he would say he would not come unless he got paid and she couldn't stand to hear that.
"Maybe she was hoping that he would think about her and know how ill she was and come out anyway. She had to hope for a miracle. And that's the way she died. In a room uglier than this one. And I sat on the floor beside her bed and I cried. I remember the flies in that room and the way I brushed them away from her until my arm almost fell off. I remember the way she would catch my hand and tell me not to do it any more because it didn't matter. And I'd think about the way she walked around the house barefooted, saving the only shoes she had for church or Saturday in town. She said she was dying just because she had nothing any more to live for."
"All right. You had it tough. You think you're the only one."
"I don't care about anybody else. Nobody cares about me, so I care. I ain't going to be like Ma. I ain't marrying some no-good man that's got to think he's a god before he'll give you money for bread on Saturday night. The man I marry will know why I'm marrying him-and so will I."
"You got it all figured out."
"I got it all figured out."
"What do you want?"
"That's easy. I want out of this scrub."
"Hell, that ought to be easy."
"Sure. But when I go, I'm going far. I ain't planning to come back."
"Men out here all the time. Charlie Bullock. Your old man said he had more power than any other guy in this part of the state."
"Sure, and he's married, too."
"That shouldn't stand in your way. A gal as tough as you knows what she wants. What's a wife in the way?"
"She wouldn't matter. Not if I wanted him. But that's where you're wrong. I wouldn't touch him."
"What you want? Your old man says Charlie is a VIP?"
"Sure. Around here. He comes out fishing, drinks, throws his weight around, has some money. In a little town like Ocala, he's a big wheel. That's not what I want."
"You got to start somewhere."
"No. I'm going to clear out. Some day some guy will come here to fish, from Jax, or Atlanta, or maybe a big town in the North. A man that's got something. A man that is somebody. I don't want to go to some little town like Ocala. What would I be there?"
"Looks like you could have been Mrs. Charlie Bullock if you'd played it right."
"No. I'd still be Lily Sistrunk. That ain't where I want to be. I want to get out of this country, be where nobody knows I ever was Lily Sistrunk, and where I can forget it myself."
***
She was stringing a net between the slicked cypress uprights on the dock. It was the middle of the morning and she had not been out of my thoughts.
She glanced over her shoulder. "You still here?"
"Lily, I want to talk to you."
She went on stretching the netting. A fish struck in the river, glistening wetly silver for a moment in the sun.
"Do I look like anything you might want, Lily?"
She did not smile. She shook her head. "Pa looked through your wallet. I watched him do it."
"It doesn't matter what's in my wallet, Lily."
"It matters to me."
"Suppose I could give you some part of a hundred thousand dollars? I don't know how much yet. But if you helped me find Marve Pooser-"
The breath exhaled from her. "Marve Pooser again. You got two things on your mind, haven't you? Getting me in a bed and finding Marve Pooser." She laughed, shaking her head. "Two of the worst things that could ever happen to you."
I looked at her. "I'll take my chances. Marve Pooser has got part of a hundred grand-"
"Marve?" She had bent over the netting again. She straightened up, and I saw the scowl, the pull between her brows. "Marve Pooser? What you been drinking?"
"It's the truth. He, he robbed me. I'm going to get that money back. You help me and I'll get you out of here, with plenty of clothes to wear and money to spend-"
"In exchange for getting me in bed."
"If I can. That's up to you. That has nothing to do with Marve Pooser."
"Look. I don't believe Marve Pooser has any such money."
"Why not?"
"It stands to reason. Marve is just like me. All he ever wanted was to get out of this scrub country. If he had any part of a hundred thousand dollars, he'd never come back here."
"Maybe he had to. Maybe he had to hide for a while."
A Moment to Prey Page 6