I’m using some of them to make something, Tammy said. In their memory. I don’t know what yet, but they were just too beautiful to go to waste, rotting into the ground like that.
Anyway we moved what was left of the peacocks to the new chicken coop while we tried to fix up the old one, Hal said. I guessed maybe a wild dog or something had ripped into it. I figured that the peacocks would be just fine in the coop with the hens for a while.
I hate this part, Tammy said to herself, pacing the longest edge of the porch. We should have known better.
They’re all birds, Hal said, so I didn’t think there’d be a problem. And it did seem all right at first because all the hens piled up to one side of the coop, piled on each other like a bunch of dogs or something, afraid of them peacocks, really, but before I knew it, the biggest hen in there found the littlest peacock and pecked the damn thing near to death. I don’t know what came over that bird—I still don’t know—though it just about made me believe in some kind of evil spirit or something—I mean, I’d just never seen a hen so riled up, making these weird gurgling noises, running real fast—so fast that I couldn’t even catch the damn thing to slit its throat—had to use the rifle. Imagine that—shooting a hen. Bullet tore that little thing right up. Pretty much ruined it.
Well, I wasn’t going to cook it anyway, Tammy said, even if you’d slit its throat like regular—I wasn’t going to eat that bird.
It sure did seem to be some kind of evil—that’s all I was saying. It wasn’t—well, I don’t know … I don’t know what it was or wasn’t. Not really. Not for certain.
I made him bury it over on the other side of the tracks, Tammy said. I didn’t want that thing near me. She smoked and stared out at the yard. Where do people go when that kind of look comes over them?
So after I buried the hen, I put the last three peacocks in a cage in a fenced-off part of the garden so that nothing else could get to it—none of our animals, nobody’s dog, no wild animals, nothing. And wouldn’t you just know? Out of nowhere this storm swept in, lightning and everything, some hail even, and two of them got drowned and the last one was left shaking under the other two dead ones, and that last one, well, he held on for a week or so till someone stole him or he just up and left.
I bet he ran off. It was just nothing but hell here for those birds, Tammy said. I feel bad about it all the time, every day.
You didn’t mean no harm.
I wanted peacocks all my life, ever since I was little. Her eyes were glassing over. She lit another cigarette as she spoke. Then as soon as I finally get them, I go and mess it all up.
It just wasn’t meant to be. You didn’t do no harm, Tams.
But I did!
You didn’t.
Indirectly, I did.
Well, I don’t know about—
It’s just as bad—indirectly. Just as bad. Maybe even worse. I should have known more about how you keep them. I didn’t—I just didn’t—
She raised a limp hand to her face and shook beneath it.
Oh, Tammy. You couldn’t have known. I didn’t bring it up to make you upset, Tams. It’s been years now and I was just thinking of them. There’s all sorts of things a person can’t know till it’s too late.
A train passed us, seeming louder and longer than the others. When it was gone, I noticed a little cricket at the edge of the porch, chirping, and I wanted to say something to Tammy and Hal, wanted to tell them what I was thinking, what I felt, but the words were all out of reach. The words were not mine to use. I wished I knew how to make a sound the way an insect does. I wish everyone knew how to speak that way, just that one word, no language at all.
After a while, Hal said, it starts to seem like that train is always there, don’t it? That it’s always there only there are just times you can hear it. Don’t it seem that way to you? Like the whole house is always rattling, all the time?
Tammy smiled at him and sat on the porch steps, facing the weedy yard full of cats. None of us spoke for some time. Sunlight began to leave. Another train went by.
WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO COME ON IN? Tammy asked from the door.
Moths were clustered around the porch light. A television was speaking somewhere in the house.
It’s nice and cool in here now and you can have a Coke. She was still standing in the mouth between house and porch, nowhere. Only then did I realize that I was alone in the dark out there, though I couldn’t account for the minutes that had just passed, couldn’t remember Hal and Tammy leaving. As I looked at Tammy, a train went by, its noise massive, and I felt sure, at once, that Tammy had the ability to tolerate an enormous amount of pain before she let anyone know.
All right, well, I can’t make you do nothing, she said then, quietly—nobody can make you do nothing.
The window behind me sent down a square of yellow light at my feet. Shadows flicked through it sometimes, or it sat still and flat. The voice of a television; infinite purring insects; a light bulb hissed. A car drove up and parked some distance from the house. Headlights on then off. Two doors opened, shut. The sound of feet carrying themselves through loose stones. Roger and Nelson emerged from the darkness and up the stairs.
Nice night, Roger said, as Nelson walked straight into the house without a word left behind him. Well, I guess someone’s in a hurry.
A rocking chair creaked as Roger lowered himself into it.
Did you have a nice day with Tammy?
I nodded. Roger rocked in his chair, half-lit, half in darkness, tapping his foot in an unsteady rhythm for a while.
Well. I heard how it went with Dr. Winslow, so I guess I’m probably not your favorite person right now for setting that up …
His fingers were tangled together, prone on his lap. Inside the house I could hear Tammy asking questions that Nelson blunted with one-word replies.
I usually don’t like to be too personal, Roger said, not to project too much onto someone, but it’s difficult for me not to—see something of myself in … your being here. You know, it’s probably no surprise, but I’m sort of a little bit different from most people here. I’m not like Steven, for instance, not like Hal. It’s not a secret really. I don’t know what people might say about me when I’m not around. Maybe it’s nice, maybe it’s not so nice. But no one acts ugly to me. Not to my face. They let me alone. I do my work and it all suits me fine. Of course people do talk a lot—they probably gossip, I don’t know—but if they do, it’s just behind closed doors. Only then. They’re polite like that.
Moths fluttered toward and away from the light and we watched them. A few times Roger turned his shoulders somewhat toward me, but his eyes were fixed upward, on the light, away.
I’m not saying that you’re like me, but if you’re being so quiet because you’re afraid that you’re too different from other people, then I don’t think you have anything to be worried about. It’s probably not as bad here as you might expect.
He laughed lightly, but only for a moment, and when I looked at him, I could see the part of Roger that never moved. Too much light will blind you and too much water will drown you. It is a danger to accept anything real from another person, to know something of them. A person has to be careful about the voices they listen to, the faces they let themselves see.
Roger stood quickly, began pacing as his tone became lifting and light; the pressure of the moment fell away like a shrugged-off coat.
Tammy and Hal, they’re very progressive, you know. That’s why I thought you might like to visit with them. People thought maybe you’d relate to Tammy, since she’s … well, since she’s Tammy. Long time ago they had a child, adopted of course because—well—anyway, it’s a sad story and since then they keep dogs and chickens and I think they used to keep peacocks over here, too, or I thought they did. And everyone thought it would be good for you and Nelson to visit again. Then after dinner I’ll take you back to Hilda and Steven’s place—so, that’s the plan. You’ll stay with them again … everyone decided that was the bes
t. Consistency. That sort of thing.
Tammy came out onto the porch and lit a cigarette. She was wearing an apron and her hair was tied up in a blue bandanna. Roger, is there anything—but she stopped herself, looked toward the window, came closer to Roger, and lowered her voice—is there anything Nelson won’t eat? I tried asking him but he wasn’t saying much but I just thought there are rules about what they can eat—aren’t there? Like kosher but something else—what’s the word for it?
Oh, I think he just eats whatever at this point. He’s been here for a while and they didn’t tell me anything when I called about him.
Tammy nodded, stood up straight, and took a long vanishing drag from her cigarette. Huh, she said. Well, I guess that’s good because we’re having chicken-fried pork chops and I just didn’t even think about it until he got here and I saw him and thought, Oh, no—I forgot to ask about that … boy.
When we went inside, Hal and Nelson were watching the television, Nelson gripping the soft limbs of his armchair and Hal smoking a pipe. On the television a teenage girl was being interviewed, her face collapsing into tears, reopening to speak, collapsing again. On the screen below—ALMOSE COUNTY IN CRISIS.
We should probably turn that off about now, Tammy shouted as she passed through the room toward the kitchen, don’t you think?
Reckon so. Hal hesitated for a moment, then stood and aimed the remote at the screen. A heavy quiet fell on the room.
Put on a record—don’t you think we should put on a record? Tammy asked from the kitchen. Hal didn’t answer, just moved through the room, then put his pipe between his teeth, freeing both hands to slide a record from its sleeve.
I know I shouldn’t—he said through a clenched jaw—and before dinner and all, but, man alive—he took the pipe from his mouth, set the needle on the record—everything is just so strange lately—a woman began to sing—I can’t help but smoke like a goddamn barbecue.
Roger started to say something, then stopped, started, then stopped again. I don’t know, but I just—no … no … Never mind.
Times like these—well, I keep thinking about evilness—
Yes, exactly, Roger said.
Anyway, we were both just about to quit with the smoking, you know, and had even planned last week that this was the week we’d cut down, but now—well, I just can’t. Or I haven’t. Or I don’t want to. Can’t seem to do anything right these days.
Roger nodded, looked at his hands in his lap. Nelson was looking around the room, looking into one corner, then another.
And this time of year, what with Saturday coming up and all … I mean, I keep having this feeling that I’m glad it’s happening in Almose and not here—ain’t that a mean thought? Hal looked up at the ceiling fan, held his pipe in one hand, and squinted. Glad about someone’s suffering because at least it ain’t your own.
Softly I gripped the back of my other hand, that forgotten place where the knuckles grow. Tammy called us into the dining room and directed us each to a seat at the table. Hal said a blessing and the table went quiet with eating until Tammy said, Oh, isn’t this nice? The two of you, new friends. It’s just so nice to see. I think it’s great.
Great, Nelson said, uh-huh. As a train roared by, Tammy caught a spider with a glass and newspaper, then went outside to release it.
She’s always doing that sort of thing, Hal said to us, the train howling farther from us now. Letting bugs out of the house like that. He shook his head. They’re just going to come back in, I tell her, but she ain’t having it.
After dinner Nelson and I were given two bowls of ice cream, a deck of cards, and told to go out back and entertain ourselves. As soon as the back door shut, Nelson pulled a metal flask from his pocket, took a swig, poured some over his ice cream, and passed it to me.
The metal was skin warmed—I could have cried—but I just repeated the long sip and pour, just as he’d done it. The last drops, pale brown, fell over the ice cream like rusted water into a basin.
You know where I get it? The whiskey?
I shook my head.
Butch gives it to me. He keeps me stocked. I keep thinking it’s because he feels sorry that we both have to put up with Kitty. She wants me to call her Mom but I won’t. My mom’s dead, I told her one time, and she started crying, and Butch told her to stop and I said something about how she didn’t even know my mom, and why would she cry about someone she doesn’t know, but she just cried more, then she got mad and got up in my face, so Butch made her go upstairs and started giving me this, whatever it is, bourbon. Anyway this afternoon Kitty tells me I’m going to see my new friend. And I say, Who? And she says, Pew, your friend. And, I mean—no offense—but we are not friends. Not to me. I mean, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. So I tell her, How can Pew be my friend? We don’t even know each other. And she says something about how we all need to be welcoming to you, and anyway that you and me must have a lot in common. And I say, Because we’re both brown? Must seem all the same to her. And you know what? She fucking laughs. She didn’t even answer me at all. Just laughed. But now that I see you again—I don’t know—you seemed darker the other day. It’s weird … Never mind. I mean, I don’t care. I don’t give a shit.
He started dealing the cards into stacks. One for me. One for him. One in the center. I mean, it’s fine. We’re cool. But it doesn’t matter to me if we hang out or not—and I don’t think we have anything in common really. Not really. Other than not being from here.
Nelson set a king down between us. Two heads. Four hands. A king. I’m not even doing anything here—I don’t know any card games. Guess you don’t either?
I shook my head.
Figures. We continued setting cards atop other cards, cards in pairs and alone. Taking cards and discarding cards, making order, making chaos, shuffling. An hour passed like this. Nelson produced a second flask from the ankle of his boot. We drank it, finished it. I softened into the night.
It became clear we had invented a game by accident, all the rules unspoken. We each won and lost. We spanned some time together. When a train passed, we pressed our hands over the table to protect it from the gust. Somehow we both knew what it all meant, what the game meant, what it was for.
I had this dream the other night, Nelson said, do you want to hear about it?
He swept all the cards together, then shuffled and redealt them, not looking at me, then stopping to look at me.
I only ask because people think other people’s dreams are boring. Do you? Do you think other people’s dreams are boring?
No.
Me either—not if it’s a good one anyway. Anyway—it was one of those dreams that you’re not in, it’s just something you’re watching happen to other people. And it was this meeting or something, all these scientists and philosophers are there, giving speeches—I guess it’s sort of what I imagine college could be like. All these experts and stuff. And there’s this one person there who decided to change her body into a horse’s body. Like—she decided that she would only be happy if she could change herself into a horse. And she’s spent her whole life inventing these drugs and surgeries to turn herself into an animal, and little by little she’s changed herself into a horse and this conference is … maybe it’s like the first time she’s publicly being a horse. But something about the surgery meant that she had to become a baby horse first, and her skin is almost translucent—have you ever seen a newborn horse?
I shook my head.
Well, she really looks like one, maybe even a premature one, and she can’t even walk yet, so someone is pushing her around in a wheelbarrow and also she can’t talk but she’s invented this device that turns her thoughts into words for her, so that’s how she’s giving a lecture about this thing she’s done to herself. And she’s saying that she might later change into a different animal, then a different one, and that it’s a way to keep living a longer and longer life—because this woman, for some reason I know that she’s maybe sixty or seventy or something. Like, super
old. And also, in the dream, I sort of knew that it was a controversy, that some people thought it was not right of her to do this, but everyone that was there was just listening to her talk through this speaker thing … out of the wheelbarrow.
Nelson put down a ten of clubs onto the stack and for some reason he stopped talking and we resumed putting our cards out on top of one another, taking and giving.
I mean, I can’t stop thinking about it, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a weird dream. I keep thinking about that lady and I keep thinking—you know, she’s right and everyone else is wrong. I don’t even know why I bring it up—probably just playing cards reminded me for some reason. Roger told me when you have a dream it’s just about you and you—that all the characters in the dream are just parts of you, talking to each other. But—I don’t know. It don’t matter or anything.
We were quiet for a minute, then Nelson won a round of our invented game.
I just thought it was funny, he said. Or stupid or something. I had the dream like a month ago, way before you even showed up, just so you know. So it’s not about you. I don’t care what you are. It doesn’t make any difference to me.
As Roger drove us away from Tammy and Hal’s place, down curving dark roads and empty fields, the moon was there, same moon as ever, hiding behind thin clouds. Nelson got out of the car without saying goodbye, taking slow, short steps toward the monstrous house that kept him. I watched him, not knowing when I’d see him again. Roger shouted something after him, some kind of thanks or concern, and Nelson threw his arm up—a dismissal, a goodbye.
Pew Page 8