She went limp. Her muscles were tired from the sobbing. It was as though she were watching herself from a spot miles above herself. She drew herself into a ball. Never had she needed something to hold in her arms so badly. So she held a rock. A rock that was the size of a bread loaf. She held it long enough that the rock became warm in her arms.
“Please,” she said. “Please bring back my Maggie.”
Thirteen
Peanut Butter
E. P. wiped a peanut butter–loaded butter knife on a piece of white bread. Blake couldn’t stop looking at it.
When the troop had arrived in Liberal, they held revivals that set the region on fire. Each service was a full house. People came from as far away as Wichita to see the child preacher. And these people had more money than those in other towns. The troop brought in more in four days than they’d earned all summer.
On their final night in Liberal, Blake had snuck into E. P.’s tent and placed the jar of spiked peanut butter into his cooler.
Now he sat across from E. P. watching the big man prepare a peanut butter sandwich on two slices of Sunbeam bread. Blake bounced his knees and grinned. He swallowed once and reminded himself not to stare at the bread. There was enough laudanum in that peanut butter to disable a Clydesdale.
E. P. leaned backward in his chair. He said, “I’ve decided after Liberal, we’re going to Oklahoma and Texas. Lotta revival work up there.”
“That’s more dust than I care to see. It’s bad down there. I don’t know if I can stand any more of this dust.”
“Friend’a mine says folks is eating up tongue-talking stuff in Oklahoma. And I’ll bet they ain’t never seen a young’un preacher like ours. Why, I’ll bet we could kill ’em up there.”
“Down there,” said Blake. “Oklahoma is below us, not above us.”
“And I’ll tell you one more thing,” added E. P., pointing his sandwich at Blake. “Old Coot would be a cash cow in the Texas plains too.” He sneered. “Just wait till they see a little boy on that stage. People see some kid preaching the Good Word, talking in tongues. We’d kill ’em up there.”
“Down there.”
“Say, what if we hire a minstrel band? Maybe work on Coot’s routine a little, with a few more healings, few more miracles . . .”
The big man took a bite and made a face. He licked his lips a little and grimaced. He swallowed his mouthful and stared at the sandwich. “This peanut butter tastes like it turnt.”
Blake sat so still he could’ve grown mold on his mustache.
“Got a friend in Oklahoma City,” E. P. went on. “Man who goes around studying little towns before a revival comes. Gets up there months ahead, digs up local gossip. He knows which folks is having affairs, which folks need prayer.”
“A clairvoyant act can be trouble,” said Blake. “Had a mind reader in the sideshow tent in New Mexico—a tricky line, takes years of practice.”
“If I push old Coot hard enough, he’ll do whatever I say. I told him to learn the entire book of Deuteronomy word for word. That little cuss actually did it.”
“You must be proud, E. P.”
“Besides, Coot’s getting older and uglier. We gotta add something to spice things up if we’re ever gonna make the big time.”
“You ain’t never gonna compete with J. Wilbur, E. P., if that’s what you’re thinking.”
The big man’s face turned stiff. His mouth became tight and his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say anything about J. Wilbur.”
“We’re a small outfit, we can’t afford a jaunt to Texas. Every vehicle we got is ragged, nearly shot to pieces.”
“We got a window of opportunity, and it won’t last. Once Coot’s full-grown, he’s finished. That’s the way it works.”
“Coot’s a good preacher. I don’t see the need to push him any harder.”
“He ain’t that good a preacher, he’s just young. If he were a grown man, we’d starve to death. No, if we have any shot at making a name for ourselves, it’s while he’s young.”
“He’s a better preacher than his daddy is, I can tell you that much.”
“You got a big mouth, Blake.”
“Only telling it the way it is.”
He scoffed. “That child ain’t mine, and you know it.”
“Everybody here knows where he come from. And everybody knows who he takes after.”
“Shut up,” said E. P., waving his hand in the air. “That boy’s a bastard whose mother was a—”
“A beautiful human being.”
Silence hung in the air. Blake held his glare on E. P. This made E. P. laugh to himself. It was a low-pitched laugh that began in the man’s belly. “You’re too much,” said E. P. “Got too much integrity for your own good, you know that?”
Blake only smiled and prayed to the peanut butter gods to hurry up.
“Oklahoma,” said E. P. “That’s where we go. I’m sick’a this dumb state. I’s ready for a change. We go up to Oklahoma, then up to Texas. That’s what we do.”
“Down to Oklahoma, down to Texas. Where’d you go to school, you hick?”
E. P. was almost finished with his sandwich, and Blake didn’t want to miss the look on his face when the tranquilizer finally made the big man as useless as a steering wheel on a mule.
“Didn’t you ever want anything?” E. P. said, licking his fingers. “Didn’t you ever wish you could have a little spot of earth that was all your own? Didn’t you ever have dreams?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’m talking about making some real money, Blake. For once in our lives. The folding kind.”
“I wouldn’t know about money. You make more money than the rest of us.”
“Chicken scratch. I’m as broke as anyone else. Don’t you wanna have enough to buy new shoes instead of polishing the old ones so much you can’t even remember what color they were? Don’t you wanna retire one day?”
“When I retire I’m going back to Alabama.”
Blake saw E. P.’s eyes become glassy. The man kept blinking, and he began to wobble. He shut his eyes and opened them slowly. “Gonna retire and get me a dog to sit on my front porch . . .”
Blake waited.
“Yessir,” said E. P. with a thick tongue. “J. Wilbur Chaplain ain’t nothing. Nothing.” He rocked backward in his chair and almost fell over. He laughed to himself until a few tears came from his eyes. He started snorting a few minutes later. Laughter gave way to sleep. Soon E. P. was making the same snoring sound a buzz saw makes.
Blake stood and slapped E. P.’s cheek gently. He placed E. P.’s hat over the man’s wide face. Then loosened E. P.’s tie.
Blake squatted on his heels before E. P. and looked at him square. “Coot’s got your jaw and your eyes, and now he’s about to have all your money too.”
Fourteen
Barbecuing the Moon
A mosquito landed on Vern’s forehead. He smacked it so hard, it almost made him wet his pants and forget his own name. “That’s the third one I kilt in a minute,” said Vern. “These things about to carry me away.”
Paul slapped his arm a few times. “Just kilt two my own self.”
The trees looked dark purple by the light of the moon. A chorus of frogs croaked in the friendly way Alabamian frogs do. But their songs were drowned out by a radio. The truck door was slung open, the sound of a preacher coming through the small speaker, followed by applause and screaming hallelujahs.
Paul was feeding the baby from a glass bottle. Vern had followed Paul’s instructions and boiled the glass bottles in a pot of water until the bottles were so hot they scalded his hands. They filled these bottles with what Paul called “form-luh,” which was white powder mixed with water. Vern had never heard of formluh before, but the baby must’ve known what it was, because whenever she didn’t have a bottle in her mouth, she screamed like her pants were on fire.
Paul leaned against a tree, feeding the baby in his arms, whispering to her. It was the first time Vern ha
d allowed Paul to feed her. Vern didn’t like letting go of the baby. It made him jealous. He didn’t want the baby to accidentally start loving Paul more than she loved him.
“Can we turn that radio off?” said Paul. “All that hollering’s keeping her awake. I want her to fall asleep when she’s done eating.”
“But,” said Vern, “it’s J. Wilbur Chaplain.”
“So what?”
“So I always listen to preaching on Wednesday night.”
“Well, now you got a baby, and things got to change. Babies need sleep, you know?”
“Always listen to J. Wilbur on Wednesdays.”
Vern stood. He added wood to the smoldering firepit. He stabbed it with a stick until smoke drifted upward like fog, looking for a place to collect itself beneath the stars. He listened to the preacher’s words and wondered how a man could talk that fast without taking any breaths. He had to think long and hard about every word he said. How could one person speak a new word every second without even stopping to wonder if it was the right word?
Paul slapped the back of his neck. “That mosquito was as big as a Ford,” he said, inspecting his hand in the firelight. “Sucker almost paralyzed me.”
Vern repositioned slabs of pork on the wire fence he’d stolen from a nearby farm. He gave the hog carcass a final rub, then slapped it. He always slapped a roasting hog before he cooked it—it was custom. His daddy had slapped carcasses, and so would he. Vern transferred another shovel of coals to the pit. He moved embers around until the pit was burning yellow. The wood popped, making sparks fly upward.
The bottle dropped. The baby was waving her hands in all directions, fussy in Paul’s arms. Paul could hardly hold her still.
“What gives?” said Paul. “I thought babies was supposed to sleep all the time.”
“Maybe she can’t sleep ’cause she miss her mama,” said Vern.
Paul gave her to Vern. The baby stopped crying when she looked at him. “Everybody need a mama,” said Vern.
“I guess that makes you the mama, then.”
“Reckon we oughta name her? I mean, a real name, something proper. I was thinking about naming her Verna. Or Vernlyn.”
“Vernlyn? You’re a narcissist.”
“No, I’m Baptist.”
Paul slapped his cheek. Then his forearm. Then his neck. “How about Paulette, or Pauline, or Paula?”
“Them ugly names.”
The baby observed Vern with a serious face. She seemed to be concentrating very hard.
“Well, she ain’t no Vernlyn,” said Paul. “I can tell you that much.”
The baby grunted and filled the air all at once. The smell was akin to something that had been passed through the system of a dying possum.
Vern pressed her against his chest. He kissed her red hair. He kept his nose against her smooth skin. Then he looked at the moon. So far away. He felt the heaviness of the baby against him.
“Where’s your mama?” whispered Vern, looking at the moon. “Where that poor woman run off to?”
The baby looked upward at the sky. She reached her hand toward the moon. Then gave up and closed her eyes. She fell asleep in only a few seconds.
Vern sat and leaned backward against a tree. The fire was burning orange, and the smell of hog was in the air. The sound of the baby’s breathing was the prettiest sound Vern had ever heard. “Sleep good, baby,” he whispered. “Your mama love you.” And he started to drift off to sleep too.
Then he felt a smack on his face that nearly broke his nose and made him swallow his tongue.
He opened his eyes to see Paul standing over him with a rolled-up newspaper and a smile on his face.
“That thing was as big as a Buick,” said Paul.
Fifteen
The Borrower
Marigold snuck into the empty kitchen with gentle steps. She tried to move softly enough that the floorboards didn’t creak. She saw the icebox across the room. She walked toward it on the fronts of her bare feet so she wouldn’t make any noise.
Never before had she been so bold, but then, it took bravery to survive now. She was ready to eat real food instead of stolen grain from nearby barns.
It was Sunday night. She’d been planning her big move for days. That night, after the family left the white farmhouse wearing their Sunday best, she waltzed right onto the back porch. The kitchen door was unlocked.
She opened the icebox and saw a collection of rich food that almost made her cry when she put it in her mouth. She ate so fast she almost forgot to taste it. She ate cold chicken and potatoes, hoop cheese, and rag bologna and drank thick milk from a jug. And she felt ashamed. This was not borrowing. Once the food hit her mouth, it was thievery. Plain and simple. After her last bite, she left a note apologizing for what she’d done. It took her twenty minutes and two drafts just to get it right.
Dear Sir or Ma’am,
Thank you for letting me eat some of your food. It was really good. Specialy the potato salat. I dont like to take other folkses food, but I got to eat since I ain’t eat in four days. Hope your church was good.
Love,
Marigold
Before she’d penned the last word, she heard footsteps. They were easy steps, shuffling against wood floorboards. She froze. She couldn’t seem to get her legs to move. The vibrations were heavy on the stairs; the sound moved across the ceiling. She almost vomited all over the floor.
The steps were getting closer. She thought of running, but running surely would have given her away. Soon the feet were outside the door.
When the door opened, Marigold couldn’t seem to make her body leave its position. At the door was an old woman staring across a dark room. In the darkness Marigold could only see a tuft of white hair atop the outline of an old woman’s body.
The figure said, “Emily? That you?”
Marigold swallowed.
“Emily?” the woman said. Her voice sounded a million years old, dry and weak. “Emily, answer me.”
“It’s me,” said Marigold. “It’s Emily. Here I am.”
“Oh, good. I fell asleep on the sofa. I had a bad dream.”
Marigold did not know how to answer, so she didn’t. She only glanced at the screen door and considered how fast she could get to it.
The old voice said, “Who’s that? Standing beside you? Ben, is that you?”
Marigold glanced beside her at the icebox.
“I can see you both standing there,” the woman said. “Ben? Ben? Is that you? Are you hungry, Ben? Emily, fix your grandfather a sandwich.”
“There’s nobody else here,” Marigold said. “Maybe you should go back to bed.”
The woman patted the wall and ran her hand along the surface as though she were searching for a light switch. Marigold turned to run, but her legs were paralyzed. When the woman’s hand found the switch, the room lit up.
The pale-faced woman was ancient. She was hunched at the shoulders, leaning on a cane. Her white hair was thin, and her skin looked like weathered wood. She stared at Marigold until her brow furrowed. Then she looked directly to the left of Marigold.
“Emily,” the woman said. Her face ruptured in tears. She was no longer looking at Marigold but staring at something that wasn’t there. “Oh, Emily, I’m so confused.” The woman came closer and touched Marigold. “I can’t remember anything, and sometimes I forget who I am.”
Marigold took a step back from the woman.
“I’m scared, Emily.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Granny,” said Marigold, retreating. “Just go back to bed.”
The woman began breathing heavily. A cold look fell on the woman’s face. She began glancing around the room. It was as though the walls were closing in. The woman’s features contorted. “I don’t know where I am.” The woman began to sob. “Where am I?”
Marigold felt a sensation in her fingertips. It crawled slowly into her palms. It was a tingling that turned into warmth. Soon her hands were hot like fire. Her palms ached with a heat.
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“Emily, is that you?” The woman came toward Marigold. “Help me, Emily!” she said. “Please don’t let them get me!”
“Nobody’s gonna hurt you,” said Marigold.
“Ben! Ben! Where’s Ben? Please come back, Ben!”
“Sshhh,” said Marigold.
She wrapped her arms around the old woman. She placed her palms on the back of the woman’s neck, and it felt like touching a potbelly stove. The woman’s chest expanded with big breaths. Marigold’s chest began to tingle with a thousand needle pricks.
The old woman squeezed Marigold so hard she felt herself creak. She could feel the woman’s heart, pulsing beneath her ribs. It was almost as if they had become so entwined that they were one person instead of two.
Then Marigold felt confusion sweeping into her own brain so that she almost forgot where she was, or who she was. She saw flashes in her mind of a tall young man wearing suspenders, smoking a pipe. She saw the image of a young woman, small, blonde, blue-eyed, holding a baby on her hip.
These images abruptly came to an end when the old woman jerked backward. The woman wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Who are you? What are you doing in this house? You’re not Emily.”
The woman’s eyes seemed clear. “This is my house,” she said. “I’m in my own house. This is my kitchen. I’m standing in my own kitchen.”
Marigold stepped toward the door.
“What did you do to me?” the woman said. “Who are you? How do you know me? What’s happening to me?”
“I don’t know,” said Marigold.
“Wait! I demand to know who you are. Why are you here?”
Marigold darted out the screen door. And in moments she was running through a dark farmland toward the woods. The food in her belly was bouncing with each stride, making her sick. She ran until she almost lost the food inside her. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, breathless.
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