by Sarah Tomp
I froze in place.
“It’s okay, Jake. Lulu’s just excited.”
Excited was not how I would have described my panicky, nauseated feeling, but I wasn’t about to argue. I stood silent and still.
Jake bent over and pulled open a door. I heard a seal released, realized there was a small refrigerator hidden within the jumble of old boxes and furniture. I guess that’s what the propane tank was for. He set an enormous jar on the table beside him, but the way he stood with his back to me made it impossible to see what he was doing. The floor trembled as I heard sounds of scraping and tapping. When he’d finished, having pulled the old sheet back over his work space, he shuffled to us, cradling a brown glass jug in both hands.
You took it from him, then handed him the flask of liquor.
We sat there a few more minutes, but it was clear we’d faded away from Jake. He only had eyes for the drink.
As we got up to leave, you said, “I’ll be back sometime soon, Jake. I’ll let you know how she does. Try to eat some crackers.”
As you closed the door I heard Jake say, “Welcome home.” I don’t know if he was talking to the liquor or you.
Outside, I breathed, deep and desperate for fresh air. You led me to the water, where you sat on the bottom of a turned-over metal rowboat, still cradling the jug Jake had given you. I stood at the water’s edge, watching the river run. The sun hid behind the clouds, leaving the day hazy and subdued.
I asked, “Who is he?”
“Friend of the family. Taught me to fish. He used to be the best shiner in three states. Now I’m not sure he can eat anymore. Alcohol does that eventually.”
“Why’d you give him liquor? Doesn’t that make it worse?”
You shook your head. “He’s too far gone. His body needs it. If he suddenly up and quit, he’d die. It’s gonna kill him either way.”
“What happened to his face?”
“He fell into a barrel of hot mash during a fight. Everyone was drunk, Jake most of all. But being drunk is also what helped him survive. He didn’t hardly feel his skin peel off.”
“That’s… awful.” Words were too inadequate.
We were both quiet a minute. Now that I’d met Jake, you being an alcoholic meant something more than I’d first thought. But it was him too. The idea that he might have once upon a time been like you. He’d been young and strong. He’d had lips. Maybe someone had kissed them.
“What’s in that jug, Mason? What is Baby?”
“This is the yeast, Lulu. Baby is the key. This is where the moonshine starts.”
That wasn’t the yeast I knew. “I thought yeast was dry and grainy.”
“Not when it’s ready to work.” Your eyes shone bright. “You’re talking sleepy yeast. Baby is awake and hungry. But she’s not just any yeast. This here is the same batch of yeast my daddy and his daddy and his before him used in every batch my family ever brewed.”
Yeast is a live thing. It has DNA. Each strain has its own personality. It eats and breathes and grows. Take some out and more grows back. Baby, the Malone family yeast, had been Jake’s roommate for years. Whenever a Malone needed a fresh start, they’d come see Jake and take a bit of the baby.
“I guess I better help you get the mash started,” you said. “You heard Jake. I gotta take care of Baby.”
It was like you truly didn’t see Jake and that shack—and Baby—like I did. You didn’t see the dark and dingy shadows that made me hesitate.
“Why’d you quit your family’s business, Mason?”
You kicked at the sandy mud. “They quit me. They don’t trust me ever since I got sober. My family is thick with functioning alcoholics. Me, I couldn’t function. I’m the weak link.”
I didn’t understand the meaning of your words. Not really. But I recognized the feelings I heard in your voice. I got that your family didn’t fit your skin. Like me with mine.
I kicked off my flip-flops and stepped into the water. The cold of it made me gasp. Turned my toes numb in seconds. You stepped in beside me. We stood there in the shallows, letting the river rush by.
I was in way over my head. And you were getting pulled under.
13
We left early in the morning the day we mixed the mash, all four of us piled into Bucky’s truck. Baby was on the backseat with us while the bags of sugar and cornmeal sat packed inside plastic boxes stowed in the bed of the truck. Your bike was back there too, since you don’t like to feel like you might get stranded somewhere. Having an escape plan helps you feel like staying sober is within your control. I didn’t have to be an alcoholic to understand that.
Bucky said, “I’m so glad to be getting this crap out of my truck. Feels like I’ve been driving the Betty Crocker–mobile.” He drove too fast heading into the hills; we all felt the same kind of eager. Even you.
I snuck peeks at you as we rode along with the music blaring. Little glimpses, seeing you in parts. The freckles lining the edge of your ear. The shape of your nose in profile. The little white scar by your eyebrow. Your hands, rough and callused, tapping along with the music. Your mouth. Which broke into a lazy, crooked smile every time your eyes caught mine.
When Roni had asked Bucky, he didn’t seem to know much about Jessie. He didn’t think she was your girlfriend, at least not in any formal sense of the word. Even if she wasn’t an ordinary, regular, whatever to you, I knew better than to mess where she’d laid a claim. I’d never gotten in a full-out fistfight, not like the one Buttercup had in the cafeteria freshman year, but I’d been threatened. There’s a particular blond cheerleader I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, even now. I knew the jealousy of Dale girls didn’t listen to reasonable explanations about favors and secret projects in the woods.
So, sitting in the back with you, I was careful not to touch. But I looked.
Bucky parked on the opposite end of Roni’s land, so we hiked through the woods hauling everything. Roni and I carried a plastic box between us, while you and Bucky each slung one up on your shoulder. Bucky is taller and looks stronger than you in some ways, but you had him beat with grace. You loped through the woods like you belonged there.
I know the woods are beautiful in the thick of summer, lush and bursting with fresh growth. I’m sure the sky was a brilliant blue. But I didn’t notice any of that. I only had my eye on getting to Aunt Jezebel, my copper hope.
It couldn’t have been easy, all that work you and Bucky had done to finish the setup. The propane tank sat inside its ditch, and the pipes leading out were nestled beneath the tubs and barrels.
“This looks like a mad-scientist laboratory.” I peered in, checking it out. “We can be like Frankenstein.”
You laughed, and Bucky said, “Figures you’d want to make yourself a man, Lulu. One special-ordered and perfect. To do whatever you say.”
“Ooh, make me one of those too, Lulu-bird,” said Roni. “Mine’s too mouthy.”
Bucky turned to you. “How do we start?”
You gave us the tour, beginning with the vat where the mash gets mixed and cooked to prepare for fermenting. Then you narrated us through the steps for an actual run—from the starter tank to the condensing worm on to the collection barrel—where we’d get our moonshine whiskey, as long as the temperature was right. Pipes connected all the different parts, bringing propane in one way and sending alcohol out the other.
Listening to your clear and patient explanation reminded me of Mr. Cauley and AP chemistry. No one would guess you didn’t graduate from high school. I know you think that bothers me. It definitely bothers Daddy. But I’ve seen the gifts you have with making and building and fixing. I know the way you can look at something and understand intuitively its inner gears and workings. There’s all kinds of smart and not. I’m proof of that.
I was itching to get started. Not only because it meant I’d be that much closer to making money but also because you made it sound fascinating. Like I’d been missing out.
You showed us the cutoff
valve for the fire. “You gotta keep dirt and the shovel close by for random flames. But it’s the cap that’s most likely to cause problems.”
You had us each practice using the metal crook you’d made from an old pipe to lift the cap. “Inside this tank will be like molten lava. Even the fumes are like gasoline. The seal has got to be tight. No kindas, sortas, or almosts. Otherwise this bit of metal will pop like a bomb.”
“Oh, man, I want to see that,” said Bucky.
We laughed, but the nerves were back working in my stomach. Jake’s scars haunted me. And the more you taught us, the more I realized we needed you to stick around and see us through.
“Give me logistics,” said Bucky. “Day by day.”
“We can’t do it all today?” Roni asked.
“Today we mix and boil the mash,” you said. “Then it needs time to work. To ferment.”
“That’s Baby’s job, right?” I asked.
You grinned. “Baby’s got a sweet tooth.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What do we need to actually do?”
“Someone will need to stir it every day, but that’s it. In a few days, the liquor’ll be ready to run. That’s when Auntie needs a lot of company.”
Roni said, “What if I have practice?”
“We can take shifts,” I said.
You said, “It’s better to have at least two people here.”
Bucky said, “Unless it’s Roni and Lulu. Then we probably need three or four.”
“Don’t be such a chauvinist,” I said. “Roni and I are perfectly capable.”
“I’m not,” said Roni.
“Two girls alone in the woods? Seriously, Lulu?”
“It’ll be like we’re camping,” I said.
“Camping is a good decoy,” you said. “If you set up over that way, then you’ll have an excuse to be out here if someone wanders through.”
“Is that what your family does?” asked Bucky.
You shook your head and frowned. “Nah. They work indoors. An old warehouse. Being out here in the woods, this is serious old school.” Your eyes lit up with your smile.
“So that means you’re gonna be here, right? As payback for my nice graduation flask you gave away. Seriously. You’re not going to leave me alone with these two, are you, Mason?” Bucky clapped a hand on your shoulder, but you slid away from him, went back to talking procedures.
By the time we fed Baby, mixing her in with the cornmeal, sugar, and water, not one of us could swear innocence if we were to lay a hand on the Bible in a court of law. Although you’d say we were simply letting nature take its course.
Maybe that’s what was happening with us too. Nothing but nature.
Remember that vine we swung on, launching ourselves down the hill? When Bucky fell flat on his butt, you laughed so hard you caught the hiccups. Roni sang about honeysuckle something until you offered to pay her a dollar to change tunes. She took you up on it too. We all laughed so much that day. I’m not sure why Bucky and Roni decided to tell every let’s-embarrass-Lulu story they could think of. Of course the puking in your helmet had to be rehashed. But the absolute worst moment was when Roni said, “One thing I know for sure, is if Lulu had been drinking her way through high school like the rest of us, there’s no way she’d still be a virgin.” It got about a hundred degrees hotter, and I couldn’t even look at you.
As we tried to wash up in the stream I said, “I feel sticky,” and showed you my grubby hands.
“You have something on your face.” You leaned in to wipe my chin, then said, “Oops,” because your hands were worse than mine.
“We need more than this nothing bit of creek,” said Bucky.
None of us were ready to let go of that day yet. About twenty minutes later we pulled into the dirt parking lot of the Queens’ Tube Trailer Spot. It’s a brilliant simplicity of a business to rent out inner tubes and then charge double for a ride back up the road.
Roni had a swimsuit stashed in Bucky’s truck, but even if she’d had an extra, her tiny top wouldn’t do the job for me. So while you and Bucky went to get the tubes, I pulled Roni behind the bushes, along with Bucky’s knife. “Stand guard,” I commanded. I slipped off my jeans, and then, wearing only a T-shirt and my underwear, I went to work cutting the legs off. The fabric was thick and I trembled from nerves, but with Roni holding it taut, I hacked away. It’s some kind of miracle I didn’t hack into her too. Midway into the second leg you came to check on us. It was like it never occurred to you we might be behind the bush for privacy.
“Y’all ready? Bucky’s…” Your voice trailed off as you realized I wasn’t wearing any pants.
I know my face must have turned wild shades of red as I pulled down my T-shirt, awkwardly, because of the knife in my hand. Not that my shirt was long enough to cover everything anyway.
You whipped back around, and Roni burst out laughing. “What’s the big deal, Mason? It’s the same amount of skin as you’d see with a swimsuit.”
Sure didn’t feel that way.
Even if you had some kind of girlfriend and we were almost done with our some kind of business arrangement, I felt shy around you in your shorts and no shirt as I came out from behind the bushes. Besides you getting a sneak peek at my behind, after all day in the dark woods, the sun felt too bright. My ragtag outfit of cutoff jeans and a T-shirt tied in the back was nothing to make you look twice. At least I’d worn a pretty bra, since it showed as soon as I got wet.
I couldn’t help but notice the lines and windy ridges of your muscles. Of course you were in shape—all that biking and hauling and working with your body all day every day—but I hadn’t seen the results so definitely. You even made Bucky look soft.
I stepped into the river’s edge, taking a minute to get used to the cool of the water, feeling unsteady on the pebbly ground. Bucky crashed through the water past me, sending out a gush of spray and waves rolling across the surface and over us. I shrieked in reflex. After that it was easy to dive in.
I sat in the hole with my back pressed against one side of the inner tube and my legs dangling over the other. The river moved quickly; it must have been a high-water day. We aimed to stick together, but the river is in charge of steering. We rolled and flowed and every now and then bumped into each other. I was pretty sure at least one of the times you crashed into me was on purpose.
We neared the beach where we usually hang out way too soon. Sometimes we get a ride from the Queens’ van and make another run, but none of us felt like getting out of the water yet. You pointed downriver and said, “Aren’t y’all going to ride the Bottoms?”
“Excuse me?” said Roni. “Are you sure that’s sanitary?”
We knew the place you meant. I’d gone as far as the rocks that mark the start, but I’d never had the nerve to ride the actual rapids.
Roni said, “I don’t know. I had my sights set on warm sand sleepy time.” She turned to me. “What do you think, Lulu?” She probably expected me to back her up for beach time, but your smile persuaded me to follow.
We rode our tubes to the ridge of rocks crowded with people waiting their turn. Standing inside my tube, I planted my feet between the rocks.
You talked over the din. “After the ride, bear right and come back around. You don’t want to hit the Wormhole.” I knew what you meant. Mom had warned me about that chute-style rapid ever since my first trip to the river.
You set your tube in the frothy, white water and jumped on. Raced along the surface—and dropped—plunging into a hollow. With a whoosh of speed you popped out, completely airborne for several feet before crashing back to the river’s surface. I laughed at the look on your face.
Bucky didn’t go quite as far when he popped out, but his obvious shock was truly hilarious. When you both came back to the start, Bucky said, “Let’s go, Roni.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just watching the water swirl makes my tummy feel funny.”
I helped you hold the tube while Roni climbed on
Bucky’s lap, and then we let them go, into the vacuum. Roni’s shriek must have traveled all the way upriver to the dam in Elmsworth.
Roni yelled from the water below, “You’ve got to try it, Lulu.”
I was scared to do something so obviously out of control. Old habits die hard, you know. But I was a shiner now. I took risks, lived on the edge. Except I had to do it alone. Didn’t matter that you’d already seen me without any pants, I wasn’t about to climb in your lap the way Roni had with Bucky.
You held my inner tube in the churning water. I was distantly aware that other people were waiting and watching, but you seemed completely focused on me. I couldn’t help but notice the way your shorts hung low on your hips. Adrenaline coursed through me as the water rocked my tube, trying to wrestle it out of your hands. I grabbed your wrists. “I’m scared.”
“Do you believe you have a purpose to be here on Earth?”
“What?” I laughed at your unexpected question.
“Do you have plans and goals and dreams?”
It felt like you were teasing me, but I nodded.
“I know you want to see Aunt Jezebel in action. Have faith you’ll make it through.”
My heart raced almost as fast as the water around me.
You leaned in close. Your voice rumbled against my ear. “I’m not letting go. Not until you say.”
“How do I make sure I go the right way? How do I steer?”
“You don’t. You let go. You trust.”
I watched the tremendous force of the water racing down over the rocks. “Okay.”
“You’ll have to let go of my arms.”
I laughed a little. And rolled away with the water.
Into the rush and the roar. Fast. Faster. I popped in the air, trying to grab on to something that wasn’t there, reaching, stretching, holding on to nothing, not sure how to breathe, if I could breathe, if I’d ever breathe again, and then splash! Back down into the calmer waters. It was over before I’d figured out if I liked it.