by Sarah Tomp
Roni stripped off her clothes and pulled on a giant T-shirt. She slipped under the sheet. “Do you think Bucky thinks I’m too stupid to marry?”
“Of course not. He loves you.”
“I know he does,” said Roni. “But sometimes I think he wishes I was smart like you.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. “And you’re smart too.”
“I’m not like you and Bucky, and we all know it. If you try to tell me I am, then I’ll never trust you again. Damn, Lulu, I’m honestly okay with it.” She closed her eyes for a minute, then opened them again. “Maybe Bucky worries our babies won’t be smart enough.”
“That’s stupid, Roni. Not you.”
“Forget it. Tell me about Mason.” She rolled on her side and said, “Watching you two dance reminded me of how Bucky and I used to be.”
When I closed my eyes that night, I saw bursts of color against a dark sky.
15
You picked me up after my shift at the junkyard, driving a surprise. I circled your little green truck, giving it the ten-point check Sal taught me. I’ve always loved Ford Rangers. They aren’t so full of themselves as the 250 Bucky drives. “How’d you get it running? Did you get Ollie and Randy to help?”
“I always knew how to fix it.” You sounded offended. “I just didn’t.”
“Isn’t your bed kind of shallow?”
“Good eyes. How about you get in?”
On the way out to Aunt Jezebel you explained how your truck was a bootlegger mobile. It had been painted at least three different colors before this particular shade of green. You’d designed the secret compartments. The shallow bed was due to a storage area, divvied up into eight separate holding tanks. Each one the right size to hold a gallon. The seats lifted up for more storage. You even had a metal safe box under the driver’s seat.
“My last delivery, for my family, didn’t go so well,” you said. “I left my truck, full of moonshine, parked on Dowdy’s Bridge. Then I disappeared.”
“Where’d you go?”
You were quiet a minute, then shrugged. “I ended up at rehab.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or just listen. You looked like you weren’t sure either.
“When I got back, Seth had parked my truck outside my house.” You thrummed the steering wheel with your thumbs. “He’d taken the entire engine apart. Left each and every piece scattered across the ground. Told me when I got the truck put back together, then I could come back to work.”
“Why would he do that?”
“At first I thought he was just messing with me. Or being a…” You shook your head. You were shy about cussing in front of me then. “But I also think he knew I’d need something to do.”
“You didn’t fix it?”
“All but the radiator,” you said. “By the time I got to that point I’d ridden a lot of miles on my bike and it was clear I wasn’t going back with the business.”
Except now your truck was fixed.
Once we reached Roni’s land, clouds brewed on the horizon. “Looks like we might get a thunderstorm,” I said as we hiked through the woods. “Will that matter?”
“Some say thunder rolling makes the liquor smooth.”
Near the top of the hill you said, “It’s about ready. I can smell it.”
To me, the corn turning smelled rich and sweet. Not bad or good, exactly. But demanding and relentless. When you opened the lid, the odor overwhelmed the woods. You staggered backward. At first I thought you’d been burnt, or bitten. Maybe that’s what it felt like.
Hands on your knees, bent over, you gasped. “It’s turning. That smell. It’s…” Your voice didn’t sound like you.
“I’ll close it,” I said, already moving toward the copper tank.
“Add more sugar.” Your voice came out short and choppy. It was scary to see you, who always radiated your own brand of vibrant energy, looking so pale.
Standing by the holding tank, I followed your curt instructions. The ugly, soupy mash swallowed the sugar with a gurgle and burp. I stirred it and then placed the cap on, making sure the clasps were sealed tight.
You stumbled a ways down the hill. I followed, uncertain. You said, “I didn’t know it would hit me that way.” You wiped the sweat off your face and took a deep breath.
“What happened?”
“That smell. The alcohol is there. It’s almost ready to run. The knowing it’s there, raw and on the edge, that’s worse than having an open bottle of whiskey on the table.” Wild-eyed, you went on. “I know how to walk away from the bottle. But that growing smell… I haven’t been near that since I quit. It ambushed me.”
I didn’t understand. I don’t know if I ever will, not completely.
“I’m such a damn drunk. I want to stick my face in and eat myself to death.” I heard disgust and shame in your words. “Deep inside me, there’s this ache that never goes away. Sometimes I think I’d rip my skin off if it would help get that liquor inside me.”
You looked like you were ready to bolt or crumple.
I could have given you space. If I’d walked away, you wouldn’t have been surprised. But I’d been with Mom when she got stranded at the mailbox. I’d found her cowering in her car after hours of trying to will herself back in the house. There’d been too many times I’d tried to convince her she could step outside, simply to get a breath of fresh air. I knew shaking. I’d seen hands wringing. Eyes wide with fear and anger.
“Hey,” I said, soft and low. “It’s okay.” I murmured easy nothings and rubbed your back.
Once the clouds let loose and rain poured down, drops of water pattering against the thick, leafy roof, finding their way to us, I finally felt your muscles relax and your breathing turn steady. Summer rain has its own scent. In the woods it blends with the smell of dirt, old wood, and new growth. The rain cleared the air of mash and let you breathe.
We slipped and slid down the wet hill. I tried to cover up the urgency I felt by chatting about the woods and jumping in puddles and my dead cat, Sherlock, who I still missed—anything so I wouldn’t have to think about the darkness nipping at your heels. When we stood by your truck, face-to-face, too wet to notice the rain, you said, “You saved me.”
I didn’t want you to need saving.
Maybe that’s why I invited you home with me that day. To get you back on solid ground. I found you one of Daddy’s shirts that was too wide and too short but would do while yours dried. I let Mom feed you her raspberry chicken and cornflake casserole, which is so much better than it sounds.
Later we sat on my front step breathing in the after-rain air and talking. As the dark settled in, lightning bugs danced around us. Watching the little flicks of yellow light, I told you about the time Roni and I tried to have a séance in my tree house until we got scared and knocked over the candles, almost setting it on fire. You told me funny stories about growing up in the valley, like the time you brought a bobcat kitten home. And how you’d drag a juicy meat bone up and down and over the ground for miles, setting up an obstacle course for your hound dog, Boo.
“How’d you get that scar?” I asked. “The one by your eyebrow.”
Rubbing the little white line, you told me, “One night while I was working the family still, a cougar attacked me. I fought him off with a broken bottle, but first he got me with one claw.” Suddenly you laughed. “Nah. I fell out of my bunk bed when I was five. My mama stitched me up in the kitchen. It feels like there’s twine buried there.”
I reached out and felt that you were right.
We talked for a long time about our families. You told me about growing up with a pack of much older brothers; how all four of you slept in one room so the other bedroom could be your wrestling arena. You and Seth used to be inseparable, but now he couldn’t seem to forgive you for going to rehab. I told you about Mom before she got stuck. How she used to take me up on the roof so I could count clouds and see the sunset without all the trees in the way.
“She’s given up,
” I said. “She’s not even trying to get better.”
“Maybe it’s not her time yet,” you said.
I shrugged. “I can’t be like her. I have to get out of here.”
That was also the first time you talked about believing in a higher power. “Do you believe in meant-to-bes, Lulu? Like today. I didn’t know I’d react like that. But God knew. So he sent you with me.”
I grew up with church being center. I prayed the Rosary, lit candles, went to Mass and reconciliation, but I wasn’t used to talking about God like that. So certain of his intent. I swallowed back the obvious: It was my fault you were there in the first place. Not God’s. Instead I explained how growing up as one of only a handful of Catholics in town had made me feel a weird mix of better and worse, like religion was a competition. The only way to win was to follow the rules.
You also told me stories about drinking. Slow and bare bones at first, then adding a little more, bit by bit. Sometimes letting things out makes them lighter to carry. You told me how Father Mick made you feel welcome when you met him after an AA meeting at the church. How you and Jessie call each other for support. She has a boyfriend and a little girl with red hair. When you leave together, it’s to keep each other from drinking. “She’s like a sister to me,” you said. “Except sober.”
So there wasn’t Jessie, or any other girl, sitting with us on that step. Just what I’d hoped.
We’d gravitated closer together by then. Our legs stopped their brushes and settled in, warm and tight against each other. My heart thumped from the simple touch, the way you smelled, close beside me. But even with you warm and solid at my side, an invisible veil of remembering you on the hill slipped between us. Made me turn my head away from your gaze, kept me from looking at your lips.
Instead, I told you how I couldn’t wait to get to California. How I was going to do research and develop cures for unusual diseases with weird names. Or for people with issues like my mother. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d do, but I’d have options. I’d get to decide what mattered most. Whatever it was, I’d be able to do something that made the world better. Not just swap out one rusty part for another.
You stood up, clasped your hands together above your head. Then turned to me, let me peek inside at what you’d caught. A lightning bug, looking dim, ordinary, ugly, crawled across your fingers. You let it go, and then it shone bright.
“We’re going to get you your money, Lu.”
Didn’t you hate that I still wanted to make moonshine? Even after seeing you struggling, I still had my own desperate need to make my plan work.
You said, “I didn’t think I could do this moonshine thing. Ever since I got sober, I’ve been on autopilot. Everything rigid, everything the same. It was the only way to make it through the day. That’s why I didn’t put my truck back together.”
You turned to me, caught my eyes so I couldn’t hide from yours. “Lu, you’re helping me see I’m tougher than I thought. I can do this.”
Ethanol is poison. But we drink it anyway. It causes trouble enough, but its lethal cousin methanol ferments alongside it. It has to be separated, drained, and thrown away. Methanol will most likely kill you. If it doesn’t, it’ll leave you brain damaged, blind, or paralyzed. And then you wish it had.
To get the ethanol, you have to work around the methanol.
To get out of town, I had to drag you through the muck.
16
My impatience bubbled up, agitated, restless and ready, like Aunt Jezebel’s bittersweet mash. But finally, the waiting was over. It was time to make moonshine.
We’d decided to camp for two nights—before and after the run—to be sure we’d have enough time. The timing was hard to predict.
“Each run’s a little different,” you’d said. “Things’ll happen we can’t guess.”
That didn’t keep me from trying to anticipate every possible outcome. Getting caught. Arrested. Fires. Ending up with scars like Jake’s. You breaking down again. Or drinking whatever we brewed.
You and me…
That was the hardest to guess. On top of the obvious anxiety and stress over the actual running of the still, I was spending two nights in the woods with you. You, who didn’t have a girlfriend after all.
Roni and Bucky had, of course, made up from their fight on the Fourth. Roni was going to Richmond with the band, and next time Bucky would try to go too. So, they’d be all over each other, and that would leave you and me, to be…
The great unknown.
It still amazes me how little resistance I met. Mom trusted me then. My disappointment over school was a tender topic. I was a bruise she didn’t want to push too hard against. There was no sign of the mother she used to be. The one who’d checked and double-checked every plan. The one who called parents to confirm they’d supervise the parties I wanted to attend. Who expected me to make the right choices.
When I told Mom where we were going, she simply said, “Camping? Where will you sleep?”
It wasn’t that she worried I was up to something illegal. She didn’t even seem to consider that boys might be included. For someone who can’t step onto her front porch without breaking into a cold sweat, the idea of sleeping in the woods was inconceivable.
“I’ll be in a tent. Remember, I was a Girl Scout.” Never mind that our troop’s idea of camping was eating microwaved s’mores in Charlotte’s living room. Mom made me call Daddy to double-check the plan.
“Hello, Luisa,” he said. “Good to hear from you.”
“Hello, Father,” I said, just as formally. I was still punishing him.
“Since when do you enjoy the great outdoors?”
“If I’m not going to college, I need to get working on my redneck skills. I might take up opossum hunting next.” I didn’t say anything about making moonshine, but I thought it.
In a small and steady voice he said, “I know you’re angry, Lulu. I appreciate you making the best of the situation. Have fun and be safe. How’s your mother?”
“Talk to her yourself.” I handed over the phone.
When Roni and I arrived, you and Bucky helped haul our gear and the jars up to Aunt Jezebel. You were both so giddy and wired you needed something to do. As you bounced up the trail beside me, there was no sign of that broken boy I’d seen.
Right before we reached the last part of the trail, we all caught the whiff at the same time.
“Whooo-eee, what is that?” Bucky asked.
Roni said, “Mother-of-a-stink-bomb, that is awful.”
They weren’t talking about the fermenting corn smell. We must have made some skunk mad with all our traipsing through the woods. The funk of his stench was enough to make our eyes water. I was thrilled. Now maybe Aunt Jezebel’s smell wouldn’t have any power over you.
After your breakdown, I’d read about alcoholism on the Internet. Tried to figure out what it meant. I wanted to make sure you didn’t have a relapse. I wanted to control your temptations. But that’s not something someone else can hold for you, is it?
Tucking our noses into our shirts whenever the stink got too bad, we checked each part of the still to make sure, yet again, that everything was in place. I had a clipboard with my notes and a diagram to check off each step of the plan. I caught your smirk as you looked it over.
“I want to keep track of what we do. So we know what works.”
“You don’t think I know what I’m doing, do you?” you teased.
“I think I don’t know what you’re doing. That’s a completely different issue.”
You took the clipboard from me. You erased and fixed the part I’d drawn backward. When you turned to show me, we were face-to-face, eye to eye. A sudden heat rushed through me. You moved to recheck the alignment of the pipes, and I turned and fussed with something, pretending I hadn’t just wanted to kiss you.
As much as I’d stressed and fretted over what might happen with you, I was sure something would. I’d felt the heat passing between us. I was sure it wasn’t o
nly my heart that raced when we were close together.
Bucky brought up sleeping arrangements after we’d moved downwind of Aunt Jezebel. “I can’t help but notice we only have two tents.”
“Girls in one and boys in the other,” I said.
“Wrong answer,” said Bucky. “No offense, Mason.”
You said, way too quickly, “I was planning on sleeping under the stars.”
“That’s not what you call Lulu, is it? Stars?”
Roni laughed. It took me a minute to get it, but then I concentrated on not looking your way.
Eating outside makes everything more delicious. I’d brought Mom’s coconut-chicken sticks to share, and your strawberries were the sweetest I had all summer. We cooked Bucky’s corn, husks and all, right in the fire. Roni’s lemon bars pushed me over the edge to stuffed silly. Then we laughed and joked around the hypnotic flames of the cozy campfire.
After Roni started playing her ukulele, I asked her, “Are you nervous about going to Richmond?”
“I don’t like the idea of staying in a hotel by myself, but I’m excited to sing on a real stage.”
You said, “Roni, you’ve changed my mind about country music. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought.”
“Thanks. I think.” She laughed. “What kind of music do you like, Mason?”
“I had to give up listening to metal,” you said.
I knew that was because of what you called triggers. The associations that made you want to drink. You said, “This old guy named Beethoven plays some pretty decent tunes.”
Bucky said, “I’m sure glad the old folks’ home let you out for a night.”
Even though he was joking, your age truly was an issue. Not so much the number, but the way those extra years had been spent. Drinking. Getting into real trouble. The things you’d done, the girls you’d been with. Cindy, and other girls too, even if Jessie wasn’t one of them. There were issues sitting between us at that campfire, but I knew issues and boundaries might be hard to see in the dark.
Roni said softly, “I’m mostly just glad to have something to do when Bucky and Lulu leave me.” She leaned into the arm Bucky wrapped around her. I knew they wouldn’t last by the fire much longer. Then I’d be left with you.