by Warren Read
Nadine went to the farther line and pulled the clips from Rodney’s clothes, from the load they’d hung together earlier. “Here,” she said, bringing them to him. “They’re dry enough.” She turned her back to him and continued her work down the line. A tiny shape flickered above her, in a darkening space between the trees.
“Bats,” she said.
Rodney didn’t like the sound of that, though he knew enough not to say anything. He didn’t want her to think he was afraid. “They don’t hurt people,” he said, and the upswing in his tone made it a question, something he hadn’t intended.
“No,” she said, folding a sheet over her arms. “Unless they’re rabid; otherwise they’re harmless.” She added the last of the laundry to the basket and turned to look at the sky, her hands planted on her hips like a superhero. “We had one find its way into the house one time,” she continued. “It was all kinds of hysterical, more scared than anything. Cute little guy, like a little mouse. Lester was gone at the time and I knew if I didn’t help it to find its way back out again, he’d kill it once he got home.”
“How come?” Rodney asked. “Did it have rabies?”
Nadine shrugged her shoulders. “It didn’t matter. Lester assumes the worst in any critter and he’d just as soon kill it than help it.” She bent down and picked up the basket of laundry, and rested one edge on her hip. “He’s sour that way.”
Rodney finished dressing under the towel, and then Nadine took it from him, adding it to the basket. “Anyway,” she said, “between the broom and this exact towel right here, I managed to get it close enough to the door that it flew out on his own.”
“Escaped,” Rodney said.
“Into the night.”
They ate on the porch again, Otis still banned by Lester from setting foot in the house. The bugs were frenzied, and Rodney imagined be might take in half the swarm with his spaghetti by the time he finished. Lester and Nadine sat in the chairs against the wall on the porch, a layer of sweat over their faces shining like oil. On the porch step below Rodney, Otis shoveled in noodles, his shirt stuck to his back like paint. The air was thick; even the humming porch lamp made everything feel hotter.
“When did you get that Skylark?” Otis asked.
“A couple years ago,” Lester said, taking a bite of bread. “I traded a gutted Winnebago for it.”
“You need to decide on one color for it,” Otis said, and then he laughed so that noodles hung from his teeth like a stringy beard.
Lester looked over at Rodney, twirling his fork on his plate round and round, letting his eyes roll over the boy’s arms and his shirt, on down to his shoes.
“What do you know, little man?” he asked.
Rodney swallowed a mouthful of noodles, the food settling in his gut like concrete.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I think you do,” Lester said. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned over onto his knees. “I think you do.”
“What year is it?” Otis suddenly boomed.
Lester gave him the side-eye. “What do you care?”
“It’s a ’70,” Otis said, answering his own question. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that once upon a time a certain fella tried to get into business with none other than Henry Ford.” He stuffed another forkful of noodles in his mouth. “Ford told him to go straight to hell,” he mumbled with his mouth half full, “and just to show him what was what, the sonofabitch turned around and started his own car company.”
“So the hell what?” Lester spat.
“GM, that’s so what. Now you got your Skylark there,” Otis said.
Lester gave a breathy whistle. “To think I lived all these years without having that little nugget of information.” He reached his leg out and gave Rodney a nudge against the back. “Did you know that, sport?” he said. “They teach you that at school?”
Rodney slid forward, hugging the edge of the step. He shook his head.
“Well, what kind of tidbits do they teach you?” Lester pressed. “Enlighten us with your knowledge.”
“Lester,” Nadine said, getting up from her chair. “Enough.” There was silence as she reached down to take Rodney’s plate, then Otis’s. “It’s late.” She took Lester’s plate last, picking up the brown bottle at his feet by sliding her finger into the long neck. “Come on.”
“Who gave you the keys to the kingdom?” Lester asked.
She said nothing to him, and he stood up, saying, “See you boys in the morning,” before swinging open the screen door and letting it slam shut behind him.
Nadine took hold of the post, just waiting there above Rodney. When he turned to look up at her she was gazing down at him, her hair loose and falling over her shoulders, much like his mother’s would sometimes do, before she’d cut it all off.
“Good night, Rodney,” she whispered. Then she slipped through the front door and into the house, the sound of dishes tumbling into the sink, and then there was that song again.
Rodney and Otis made their way to bed, Otis stopping at the outhouse, where he proceeded to sing a cowboy song over and over while he did what was needed. By the time he got to the van, Rodney was already under the covers, wedged against the back doors. The windows had been left open all day and the space was a cloud of mosquitoes, humming in Rodney’s ears and piercing any bit of flesh they could find.
“We can’t stay here much longer,” Otis said. “Lester’s hospitality never lasts but a few days at best.”
Rodney said, “Are we going home then?”
Otis gave a heavy sigh and slid the side door closed. “I got some ideas,” he said.
He was quiet then for a bit, and Rodney wondered if he was expected to ask Otis about those ideas. But then he started up with that cowboy song again, and Rodney felt his body start to settle into his blankets, the cradle of sleep taking him under.
Just as quickly he was pulled from his sleep by a painful high-pitched wailing, and in that curious space between the cry and the awakening, Rodney imagined it was his mother calling out. He bolted upright, unable to untangle where he was as the darkness around him bound his eyes. In time, he found the back-lit window squares edged with fog, and the deep and guttural breathing and smell of Otis Dell, and the confusion lifted from him.
“You awake, kid?” Otis was sitting up in his bed, the ashy moonlight washing over his heaving silhouette.
“Yeah,” Rodney said.
“You awake?” he repeated. His voice shuddered as he spoke, almost like they were riding over a long gravel road together. It was a strange feeling, Rodney thought, to hear Otis sounding like that. Like he was afraid.
Rodney sat up and studied the windows, searching for standing shadows, or perhaps the whisper of branches that could have frightened Otis. There was nothing outside but blackness.
“I ain’t a murderer,” Otis said. “If someone tells you I am.”
“What are you doing, Otis?” Rodney asked.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he went on. “I didn’t plan on it. He was there.” Otis swallowed hard, like a drop in an empty bucket. “The phone never rang and then he was just there.”
Rodney considered what must have happened next. “Was it Mr. Kruger that hit you on the head?” he asked.
“I didn’t have no choice,” Otis whispered, as if it was a secret. “He got in the first hit. At that point it was him or me then, right?”
There was a strange feeling that came from those words, from the desperation that seemed to fill the space inside that van, anguished and suffocating like Otis himself. He wanted an answer from Rodney.
“Did you kill him, Otis?”
Otis didn’t say anything at first, and Rodney could see that the shape of Otis had turned now and was facing in his direction. He stayed like that for a good half minute, the shape moving in and out with the breathing.
“I’d say no,” he said finally. “Not really, not when you look at it real close.” He laughed, a squeaky noise that labored behind hi
s breathing. “I gave him a good shot to the jaw is all. The stairway behind him—that’s what killed him.”
“But you hit him.”
“He was standing too close to the top step. It wasn’t my fault.” Otis leaned over to Rodney then, his breath sour and raw. “You hear me?”
Rodney pulled back so that his body pressed against the metal side panel, the cool seeping through to his skin, as Otis slid the side door open, flooding the van with the gift of oxygen and moonlight. He swung his legs out and stood up. His underclothes glowed blue as he walked away from the van, a ghost moving further into the clearing. And just as Rodney drew in his breath to call out to him, Otis’s body folded in place, bending sideways like a closing pocket knife, collapsing onto the ground.
32
“Something happened to Otis.”
Nadine felt her body kick, and she opened her eyes to see a slim silhouette in the open doorway of the bedroom. It took her a moment to ground herself, to piece together the words that had awakened her.
“What did you say about Otis?” she asked. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” Rodney leaned against the edge of the doorway and wiped an arm over his face.
They stood there in the clearing between the van and the outhouse, three points surrounding the body as it lay in the patchy light like a dropped marionette, the arms and legs bent in unlikely angles, the eyes gazing vacantly straight up at the moon.
Lester leaned down and touched the neck and cussed two to three of his usual words before making the call that he was good and dead. “Must of been that knot on his head,” he sniffed, standing and folding his arms over his chest like he was the detective at a crime scene.
Nadine retied her bathrobe around her waist. “Better go hook up the phone, Lester. We have to call someone.”
Lester put his fingers to his forehead. “No, no, no!” he snapped. “Jesus, woman! If you don’t realize half the state is probably looking for Butch and Sundance here, then you’re even more stupid than I already figured.”
Nadine felt her skin tighten. “Don’t call me stupid, Lester.”
“Don’t act it, then.” He walked around Otis’s body and gave Rodney a shove. “Get your shoes on, kid,” he said. “This pile of shit laying here is half yours.”
Nadine stood there thinking of how she might go with him, go with Rodney to the van and whisper for him to run, to follow the drive downhill until he got to the highway. He could crouch down among the sage, and wait until a set of headlights came up over the ridge. The driver would surely stop for a kid, she imagined. Take him straight to the police station if he asked them to.
But Lester had hold of her wrist now, and he was leading her to the house. It was only when she fell behind, her bare feet catching on every rock and root, that he let her go.
“What are we doing?” she asked. Her voice hooked in her throat.
Lester stopped, turning on his feet to look at her. She could not see his face under the shadow of the eaves, but of course she could see him plainly. She knew the way his eyes had narrowed at her, and the look of his teeth as he ground down on his lip.
“Otis Dell is gonna take a trip down the rabbit hole,” he said, clear as day.
“This is crazy, Lester!” she pleaded with him. “That’s a human out there!”
“You’re being generous with that,” he said. He moved toward her, and there was now something in his hand she couldn’t make out, long and cylindrical, and he slapped it against his leg like it was a riding crop. “He’s a criminal,” he said. “You know that.”
“You never told me he was.”
“Did you just say don’t call you stupid?” he said. “Well, I’m giving credit where credit is due, honey. You knew it, and you gave him safe harbor right alongside of me.”
She said nothing to that.
Rodney walked alongside holding the flashlight, Lester struggling with Otis’s legs, one pinned under each arm, Nadine cinching her hands behind Otis’s neck in a sort of full-nelson.
“Hold that light steady.” Lester’s breathing was all over the place.
“I’m walking down a hill,” Rodney said.
“I don’t give a shit if you’re rolling down it. Hold the fucking light steady or I’ll crack you over the head with it.”
“Lester,” Nadine said. “Jesus.”
Lester suddenly let go of Otis’s legs, as if the dead man had suddenly found a hidden pocket of life and offered one last kick.
“Give me the goddamned thing.” Lester snatched the flashlight from Rodney’s hand and panned it over the ground to the square of plywood that shone pale under the yellow beam. “Go down there and pull that piece of wood back,” he said, giving Rodney a hard shove that sent him stumbling.
Rodney steadied himself, then made his way down the hillside. At the plywood he turned and looked at Lester and Nadine, his face twisted in a confused expression, mouth cockeyed, eyes staring back with pupils shrunken to pinpoints.
“Pull it back,” Lester snapped.
Rodney reached down and took hold of the corner of the board, moving it back with broad, heavy steps. Once he was a safe distance away, he collaped onto the grass.
“It stinks in there,” he said.
“You think it smells bad now,” Lester said, “give it a week.” He turned to one side and spit something onto the ground, then handed the flashlight to Nadine. “I got it from here.”
Rodney stayed back against the tree as Lester walked the body to the edge of the well. There he seated Otis’s body against his legs as if he was a child, as if, any minute, Lester would start to rub his shoulders, or stroke his hair while singing one of those cowboy songs for him. Instead he called out, “Make a wish,” and shoved Otis away from him, letting the body fall freely into the darkness.
Rodney shifted himself against the tree bark. The sound of his back against the trunk was like a whisper of secrets Nadine could not stand to hear.
“Come here,” Lester said, waving the light at Rodney.
“No.”
“Get over here,” he said. It was not a hard order but something unsettlingly sweet, like a scatter of apples sinking into the ground beneath the branches of a tree.
“Lester,” Nadine said. “Leave him alone.”
“Look down in here,” he said to Rodney, panning the light into the pit. “You can’t even see the bottom. It’s like it goes on forever, I shit you not. Like, somewhere in the middle of China, that sonofabitch just flew up from a hole in some Chinaman’s backyard.” He laughed, a rattle of phlegm kicking from deep in his chest. “Now drag that board back over it,” he said, nodding to Rodney.
“I’ll get it.” Nadine took a step forward. Lester put a hand out.
“I told him to do it. Most of this is your baggage, kid. Now get off that tree and put the board back.”
Rodney moved slowly forward, taking the corner of the plywood in his hands. He slowly pushed the wood closer to the hole as Lester’s eyes narrowed on him, and his mouth formed thick commas at the edges, curling and trembling as if he were anticipating something at any moment.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Nadine said, pushing past Lester and taking one side of the plywood, and heaving it over the opening. “Go and wait up at the house, honey,” she said to Rodney. “We’ll pick apart this mess when the sun’s up.” She handed him the flashlight and held it tight in his hand, and explained that she and Lester would be fine, that they knew the way back in broad daylight or pitch black. “You know,” she said. “Just like the little bat.”
Rodney held her gaze for a moment before turning away. Nadine watched the light fan out over the ground, getting smaller as Rodney made his way up the hill, until he was gone.
“I want your word that you’re not going to do anything,” she said to Lester.
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“With him. With the boy.”
Lester laughed softly, and Nadine started from the
sudden touch of his hand on the back of her neck. “What do you think I’m gonna do?” he whispered. “You think I’m cold-blooded? Is that what you think?”
Nadine didn’t say anything as she pulled away from him.
“Answer me,” he said.
“I don’t know if I trust you so much.” She put her hands to her stomach and it felt like something was spinning in there, like a rabbit caught in a snare.
“When have I ever done you wrong?” he asked, almost in a laugh.
Nadine discovered the image of a big Rolodex in her head, one card after another of Lester’s misdeeds. “You really want me to go there?” she said. “You want to open up that can of worms?” Before he could leak out another of his smart retorts, she turned to go, letting her feet feel their way in the dark up the hill, where the house loomed in silhouette against a star-choked sky.
33
If his memory was true, Rodney knew he could get to the highway in half an hour at best, if he stuck to the drive and moved fast. But it was dark and there were trips and dips and deep ruts, and even with the small beam of light in his hand, he couldn’t cover much distance before catching his shoes on the ground and nearly falling into the earth.
His body moved in fits and stumbles and his heart knocked inside of him until he thought it would break through his ribs. Somewhere behind him Lester would eventually figure out that he had gone, and he would come for him. There was no doubt. How many people, he wondered, might be driving the highway this time of night? He didn’t even know what to do if he even made it there.
He thought of his mother, asleep all the way back in Hope, in that bedroom of hers with the door closed tight. Or maybe she wasn’t sleeping at all, but instead sitting at the front window wondering if her son might ever walk up those steps again. He could see her, with her mud-brown hair down over her face, cheeks scrubbed to red. She would have no need for Otis. Not anymore.
Somewhere in the distance, off to his right, the brush moved, and the tapping of little feet sounded, growing faint, as whatever it was ran away from him. There was a stabbing in his side, and his legs felt like they would fold underneath him at any step.