Tideland

by Mitch Cullin

  "You don’t have to go,” I told him.

  "Oh," he said, nodding, "that’s good -- ’cause I was thinking you should play with me today, okay?”

  "Okay,” I said.

  And just then I wanted to ask if he’d rescue Classique. I was about to say that his skinny arms could stretch deep inside any hole in the world. But before I had the chance, he said, "Your daddy sleeps a lot. My momma does too. That’s all she ever does these days."

  I tried imagining Dickens' mom, but Dell filled my mind instead; she was sleeping somewhere in that dim house, or sitting still in a chair, the hood and helmet resting on her lap.

  Where was his mother?

  "Is she a ghost?"

  He shook his head.

  "Not anymore, not really -- she’s just a dozer. She’s isn’t as pretty as your daddy. Her hair isn’t nice like his is.”

  "It’s only fake,” I said. "Look-”

  I reached over the chair and tugged on the bonnet and blond wig, lifting them a bit.

  "That’s funny,” he said, flatly. "You fooled me ‘cause I didn’t know.”

  "Not supposed to be funny," I replied, straightening the wig, smoothing the coils. "It was Classique’s idea anyway, it wasn’t my idea. And now she’s in the hole and I can’t get her.”

  Dickens pinched his nostrils, fanned the air with a hand.

  "He’s spoiled,” he said, his voice sounding nasally. "He must’ve been sleeping forever."

  "He’s cuttin’ muffins is all."

  "Oh. I guess that’s what it is, I guess. Whatever it is-"

  Then he dug in a pocket, removing six bullets. He held them in his palm for me to see.

  "I can feed the shark these," he said. "If you want, you can help me too. We can’t catch the shark with these but we can lure it. "

  He let me hold one; -- gold-colored, rounded at the tip, longer than my fingers. I rubbed the bottom of the shell, remembering how Dell made the hunters unload their rifles. I figured she’d given the bullets to Dickens -- or maybe he stole them when she wasn’t looking.

  "All right,” I said, "I'll help you, but you have to help me later. You have to rescue my friend.”

  "I don’t know,” he said. "I probably can’t do it."

  "It won’t be hard, I promise. She’s in trouble. She’ll get l hurt bad if you can’t save her.”

  "Maybe she’s hurt already."

  "Or she’s dying. She’s farther than the ocean, I think.”

  "Uh-oh,” he said. "That’s farther than the moon."

  "And you’re better than a stick or a rake -- you’re the captain!”

  "Yeah, I am. I’ve got my own submarine."

  "I know."

  "Her name is Lisa."

  "I know. Will you help me?"

  "Can we feed the shark? I’d like to do that. I’d like to play with you too."

  "Then you’ll rescue my friend."

  Dickens shrugged.

  "If you’ll show me what to do," he said, "in case I don’t understand everything about it. "

  "Yes."

  He popped his knuckles and sucked his lip and tilted his head and sighed.

  "Okay,” he finally said, moving toward me. "Okay,” putting his slender hand in my hand.

  And off we went -- through the front door, along the porch -- escaping the flatulence of What Rocks. Across the yard. Into the sorghum. Swishing among the grass. Climbing to the tracks. Moving into the tideland, going underwater. Dickens couldn’t have known this -- I was an octopus, he was swimming like a dolphin. If I told him, he might’ve panicked. Then he’d drown for certain and Classique would never be saved. So I didn’t mention that we were beneath the sea, or that there were men miles above us fishing.

  Dickens said, "You get three."

  Three bullets, clanking in my palm.

  We crouched on the tracks, downwind from Lisa and the flattened pennies.

  "Put them here this way-”

  He carefully set each of his bullets on the rail, crosswise, spacing them apart by a foot or so. Then he watched as I did the same on the opposite rail.

  "What’ll happen?” I asked.

  Dickens puffed his cheeks. He made an erupting noise and clapped his hands together.

  "The end of the world,” he said.

  "The monster shark will die?"

  "No. The shark never dies. It eats bullets like candy, I think."

  I thought of bullets shooting in the shark’s mouth, exploding, a snack.

  "If we had a gun we could kill it,” I said.

  "No way,” he said. "l can’t use guns. I can’t or I’ll get walloped.”

  Walloped?

  "What’s that?"

  "Like this-”

  Dickens slapped his chin, twice, striking himself so hard the second time that he nearly lost his balance. Then his skin turned bright pink, burning with the imprint of his fingers, and he rubbed his chin, frowning.

  "I got walloped plenty, ” I told him. "At least a thousand.”

  "Me too,” he said. "It’s big business, my sister says. She only does it when I'm wrong -- which is a lot, I guess."

  Dell hit Dickens. She was a walloper, like my mother.

  "You miserable creep," I heard her telling him. "What good are you? Explain that to me. I never liked you, I never did, you know.”

  And there was Dickens -- hugging himself, cowering in a corner of their house -- talking in his spooked voice, "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t-"

  He took my hand.

  "We better go. Monster shark catches us here and we’re doomed. We better hide.”

  Off we went again; Dickens leading the way, me wondering if he massaged Dell’s legs at night. All I could think of was flesh being grabbed and pressed-and an arm raised, ready to swing, poised for the slightest of transgressions.

  "Bad dog!"

  That’s what my mother often said, what she’d call me; sometimes she was joking, mostly she was serious.

  "Bad dog! Bad dog!”

  What had I done now? Massaged too hard? Massaged too soft? Massaged in one place too long?

  Resting in bed, she’d shove her fat legs in my direction. I knew when she was about to start kicking; she always snorted, then exhaled an angry breath. And I could easily dodge her feet. I was fast. Her legs operated in slow motion. But her hands were another story.

  "You’re a bad dog,” I admonished Dickens, who’d just returned from using the bathroom in the Johnsongrass. "You watered all the fish and seaweeds."

  "No,” he said, shaking his head, "you’re the bad dog!”

  We were sitting inside Lisa.

  Or Lisa II, as Dickens now referred to the repaired wigwam; he’d patched the fallen roof, removed the tires and bicycle. On her maiden voyage, we explored the ocean floor together, hoping for an encounter with the shark -- but, as evening approached, we grew tired of the search and surfaced.

  ‘'What can we play?”

  "I’ll think."

  Late afternoon light streamed through the cracks in the submarine, shining on us, illuminating the scant hairs sprouting from Dickens’ nipples. He patted his narrow rib cage, his chest, smooth and fallow, almost appeared translucent.

  "Let’s go to the bus,” I said. "It’s the best place for watching light bugs. They visit me there.”

  "Can’t do that.”

  "How come? We can play.”

  "Can't go there.”

  Dickens paused. He looked at his belly button.

  "Take the bus for shark bait and drive it on the tracks and it tips over and burns up -- then you get in trouble. Then you can’t ever go there again, ever.”

  He glanced at me, gravely. His toes fidgeted in the flip- flops.

  "And I’m not supposed to drive anyway, you know. Or steal buses, or steal anything anymore. That’s what gets me in all the trouble -- even if it was a million years ago. Lucky they didn’t send me away forever, all right? Lucky I didn’t burn and die too. And Sheriff Waller said you have to have a lice
nse -- and even then you can’t take a bus -- ’cause it isn’t the same as Daddy’s tractor either. You can’t drive a bus on the tracks or it tips and burns, you should know that. That’ll get you sent away, Dickens, so I can’t go there with you."

  "Oh,” I said, confused.

  Captain, you’re acting silly, I thought. You’re crazy.

  He mumbled, "Sometimes you just worry about it too much -- just pretend it never happened, okay?”

  "Okay," I replied, uncertain if he was talking to me or himself.

  Then he was standing, saying, "I better go home now and eat, I think. We shouldn’t play no more today."

  It didn’t matter. I was bored with playing. My stomach ached for crackers and bread.

  "But you have to save my friend, you said you’d do that.”

  "I don’t know how,” he said. "I make mistakes if I try some things.”

  "‘I’ll show you," I told him. "You promised.”

  And then it was me taking his hand; I wasn’t planning on releasing my grip -- not until he squatted at the hole, not until he used his hand to rescue Classique.

  "But-"

  "No, you have to," I said, tugging at his arm.

  Soon I walked alongside the embankment with Dickens in tow. Already my head swam, my stomach burbled, a mixture of anticipation and hunger. We passed by Dell’s meadow of bluebonnets and rocks. Then we wandered across the clearing of threshed grain -- clomping on white stalks that had turned golden in the evening rays -- and headed for the shaded footpath, where rnesquite branches crisscrossed overhead. Behind me Dickens’ feet flip-flopped.

  And when we arrived at the hole, I loosened my hold on his hand and explained that Classique had fallen from my finger: "But she’s pretty close. Butmy arms aren’t like yours and I can’t get her, but you can. She’s really close. It isn’t very far, it just looks far in there.”

  Dickens knelt. He stared at the hole, pondering the darkness within.

  "What is your friend?” he asked.

  "A head. A Barbie head."

  "Does she bite?”

  "No. Her mouth is like this-”

  I pressed my lips together for a moment.

  "She doesn’t have teeth.”

  "All right,” he said, nodding.

  Then his arm sank inside the hole, slowly, all the way to his shoulder. He brought out both parts of the broken branch and tossed them aside -- he slid his arm in again. Then out.

  A handful of dirt and pebbles.

  In again.

  And his face strained as he felt around. My heart began racing.

  "Don’t know," he said. ‘just can’t find nothing.”

  I was on my knees, beside him, watching.

  "Wait. I got her. It has to be her. It has to be-”

  Out.

  An oblong stone, bigger than Classique, sat in Dickens’ palm.

  "She’s weird,” he said. "Not a head at all, not like you said."

  I was suddenly tired and dizzy. I lifted the stone and let it drop to the ground.

  "No,” I said. "No, no-"

  "That’s all that’s down there,'’ he told me. "Nothing else, okay? Nothing but dirt and more dirt.”

  "She’s dead," I said.

  In the distance, the train whistle blew. Dickens glanced in the direction of the tracks.

  "Uh-oh, the monster shark -- it’s coming."

  Then he made the erupting noise with his mouth.

  But everything was spinning, so I shut my eyes. My body became heavy. And I slumped forward. And I don’t recall much after that -- except sensing my fall. I was entering the hole, tumbling straight into blackness, disappearing. The earth had swallowed me up.

  16

  What Rocks had drowned.

  I stirred on my father’s bed -- reversed in position, my head resting at the foot of the mattress -- disoriented, lightheaded, and parched; everything around me was tinted in ultramarine, blurry. The ceiling. The lamp glowing at the center of the night table. My dress, my legs, my sneakers. The backpack and small pile of dirty clothes and the Peach Schnapps bottle, all clumped at my feet. Blue and slightly out of focus.

  At the bottom of the sea, I thought.

  My fingertips touched my face, feeling for wetness. And I opened my mouth wide, expecting a gush of water, but found myself swallowing air instead. Then I realized the goggles were covering my eyes, the frayed elastic band pressed against my ears.

  "And then you fly," Dickens said.

  Turning my head sideways, I saw him. He sat on the throw rug, playing with Magic Curl and Fashion Jeans and Cut ’N Style. The heads lounged in his level palm, a flying carpet sailing back and forth above his lap -- and he was underwater, breathing as effortlessly as a goldfish.

  '‘We sunk,” I rasped.

  Dickens glanced at me, his palm stopping in midair.

  "No," he said softly, "Dell says you nap until she’s done with him. Or she says you stay here and eat something if you wake, all right? You’re lucky she’s strong and held you -- lucky she rescued you or I’d have fainted too.”

  Dell rescued me.

  "Did she suck my blood?"

  "She doesn”t do that. That’s wrong.”

  "Oh."

  My belly groaned.

  "I’m hungry," I told him.

  "'I`hat’s what she said,” he muttered, returning his attention to the heads. "She already said that."

  His palm landed; he lifted each head, one at a time, setting them upright on the rug.

  "A safe crater trip -- everyone had a safe trip visiting the moon."

  Then he climbed from the floor and crossed to the night table. And I propped myself up -- pushing the goggles off my eyes, onto my forehead -- so I could see what he was doing.

  "I’m pretty thirsty.”

  I squinted; without the goggles, the room seemed unbearably bright.

  "Buff-low jerky," he was saying. "Yum. Sometimes I get jerky too -- if I’m smart and don’t be stupid.”

  "Dickens, did I fall far?”

  "On the ground is all. Plop."

  '"Oh, I didn’t go in the hole.”

  "No, don’t think so. I think I’d remember that, I think.”

  He came toward me carrying a paper plate and a Dixie cup.

  "There’s more later,” he said, handing me the cup, putting the plate down on the mattress.

  "Thank you," I said, bringing the cup to my lips, "thank you-”

  Warm apple juice -- pouring over my tongue, sweet in my throat -- I drank it in two big gulps. And the jerky, four round pieces, brown shriveled chunks, tough as a toenail; I ripped the dried meat between my teeth, milling with my jaw, chewing like a fiend.

  "See, if you chomp fast you’ll choke.”

  Dickens made a gagging noise.

  "That happens sometimes and you can’t breathe.”

  He stood nearby, watching while I ate, following the jerky as it went from the plate to my teeth.

  "Tastes good, I bet,” he said. "Smells awfully good.”

  I would’ve offered him some, but there wasn’t enough. Besides, I was starving; my stomach had become a deflated balloon.

  "It’s buff-low,” he was telling me. "They kill them and they create circles so you can keep them in your pocket-”

  "Dickens!”

  Dell hollered from downstairs.

  "Dickens!” she shouted.

  Her voice recalled my father’s baritone grumble, and my lips parted with amazement, my jaw froze. I stared at Dickens, who, upon hearing her, studied the floor as if it were made of glass.

  "She needs me."

  His gape met mine. He frowned.

  "I’d like my glasses again, please -- ’cause I was only trading when I played with your toys, okay? But I’m not playing anymore, so I don’t have to be fair now."

  "I don’t care,” I said, talking with a mouthful of jerky.

  I removed the goggles and dangled the elastic band from my fingers.

  "Okay," he said, taking the gogg
les, "you stay here, all right? She says you should. She’s in a mood, I think."

  I shrugged.

  "Dickens! Dickens!"

  "Uh-oh.” _

  He jumped, swung about-face, and flip-flopped away. I listened as he thudded down the stairs.

  "I’m sorry,” he mumbled, "I’m sorry-"

  Then silence. I couldn’t hear anything else.

  And suddenly What Rocks existed somewhere on the moon, enveloped by a crater, lost. The darkness outside confirmed this notion. So I finished eating, pondering the fate of the farmhouse-spaceship. Dell and Dickens and my father were in the living room and plotting our survival. And I was lucky to be alive, lucky that Dell could help me, thankful for buff-low jerky and apple juice.

  But Classique-

  "Poor Classique."

  Perhaps she’d fallen so far and so fast that her head incandesced like a meteor. With a brave face, I explained her sad fate to the other heads. But only Cut ’N Style was upset -- she cried gallons of tears, until a pool formed beneath her, soaking the throw rug and seeping into the hem of my dress.

  "She just disappeared," I told Cut ’N Style, "so don’t cry. She didn’t feel any pain, I’m sure.”

  But my words weren’t helpful; Cut ’N Style was inconsolable. I held her to a cheek, trembling, while Magic Curl and Fashion Jeans gloated.

  "You’ll get walloped,” I warned them. "If Classique was here, she’d destroy you both.”

  And I wished Classique had been there that night, accompanying me as I tiptoed from the bedroom. I wish she’d floated downstairs, going where my father’s stink lingered with the persistent aroma of disinfectant. She might’ve understood what I spied when gazing into the living room -- all the furniture moved against the wall, the entire floor blanketed by an orange plastic tarp; my father stretched naked there, on his back, with discolored patches, black and purple, showing everywhere -- abdomen, chest, thighs -- and blisters spread across his legs and feet, like welts, making a spiral pattern on his bloated tummy. His jeans and boots and boxers and socks and shirt -- his sunglasses and the wig and the bonnet -- were heaped in the leather chair. His ponytail was loosened, his mane of hair flowed out on the tarp, as if the wind had just swept over him. And the lipstick and rouge -- gone; his cheeks now swabbed clean and completely white. In fact -- aside from the blisters and discolored patches -- he was pale, drained; a gash smiled under his chin, crossing his neck -- a fresh slit, pink and thin and tender, grinning while he slept; his features relaxed, his eyelids shut.