“What about them sticks? You help with them sticks?”
“Yeah, uh, I helped pick up the sticks.”
Sir Boo took another healthy slug of beer.
“Did ya take a shower?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s good, cause last night you kind of...”
“I know, sir, I smelled like death.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what you smelled like. You know, when Maria stopped the car for you, when she saw you layin there in the church parkin lot, she thought you mighta been dead.”
“No, sir. I just smelled like it.”
He enjoyed a laugh at that, his cheeks flushing. He polished off the beer and thumbed his mustache.
“How bout another beer, babe?”
Maria retrieved it and opened it for him. Again, he swallowed roughly the first half in a single gulp.
“You wanna beer, boy?”
“No thank you.”
“Prob’ly just think I’m a big drunk, huh?”
“Not at all.”
“You know, when Maria first saw ya with that thing on yer head, she thought you was one of them ragheads.”
“Oh, the shirt.”
“Is that what that was? You know what else we call ragheads? Sand niggers. That’s pretty funny, ain’t it? Of course, you was just wearin that to hide the...” And he waved the beer bottle around the top of his head.
“Horns, sir.”
“Yeah, horns. Why you wearin them crazy ass things?”
“I was born with them.”
“Kinda like in Ripley’s Believe It or Not, huh?”
“A little, I guess.”
“You ever been in one uh them books?”
“No, sir.”
“Might be able to pick up a little money that way.”
“Maybe.”
“You got a job?”
“No, sir.”
“See, then ya ain’t got no money. You a runaway?”
“I guess I am. But I’m going back later.”
“Cause ya ain’t got no money. Ya gonna do a stupid thing like run away, you need some money. Why, if we was some motel, you’da had to pay forty or fifty bucks just for last night.”
“I know, sir. I’m very thankful.”
“I bet you are. It was nasty last night. Real pretty today, though. You been outside yet?”
“A little bit.”
“Oh, right. When you’s helpin Maria pick up em sticks. Warm.”
“It certainly is.”
“How bout another beer?”
Maria grabbed another one out of the refrigerator, opened it, and sat it down in front of him. Behind Boo, the evening darkened. I wanted so desperately to be out there. I was hating every second of the conversation. Periodically, I noticed my foot was bumping up and down and I knew if I had to sit through much more of this I’d be going crazy.
“I’m glad you weren’t one uh them sand niggers cause if you was, I’d uh made Maria throw ya back out. We don’t need them people here, ya know what I’m sayin? They just here to make our money.”
“Of course.” I hated myself for saying it. It’s amazing what I’d say for survival.
“So, you still in high school?”
“Middle school,” I said, without even thinking.
“Middle school? Ain’t you sixteen?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been held back.” This time my head flicked to my right and I could feel my lips draw back from my teeth.
“Mustuh been held back a coupla times. You a dummy?”
“I guess so. I’m not very good at school.”
“I went to school with a halfwit nameuh Roger Willem. He was a real candyass, too. Now, he never got outta the seventh grade, so far as I know. You know him?”
“No, sir.”
“I thought maybe he’s your dad or somethin but, that’s right, yer name’s Black, ain’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That kinda makes you a nigger, don’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“You like niggers?”
“I’ve never known any, sir.”
“That’s good. I ain’t never known me none, neither. Course, if I did, I guess he’d be a dead nigger.”
He chugged down another beer and fished around in his jeans pockets, coming up with a flattened pack of Marlboro Lights. He pulled one out and lit up, casting a glance at Maria.
“She don’t like for me to smoke in the house. Says it smells. But we know whose house it is, don’t we, babe?”
“Sure do,” she said without much conviction.
She put the roast beef in the oven and stormed out of the kitchen. Sir Boo turned around to me, thumbed his mustache and said, “We don’t need no bitches in here anyway. She’s just a dried up old cunt. I need summa that fresh pussy.”
His voice became gruffer and noticeably slurred. His cigarette ash was incredibly long. He knocked it off in one of the empty beer bottles in front of him, half of it scattering around the bottle.
“If you ain’t got much brains, what do ya plan on doin for the rest of yer life.”
“I don’t know.”
“Dontcha think ya better get somethin figgered out?”
“I guess.”
He gulped down the rest of his beer and barked, “Beer!”
Maria stormed back into the kitchen, opened the bottle and sat it roughly down in front of him, rushing back out. Sir Boo balled his right hand up into a fist and slammed it into the palm of his left.
“Now me,” he said. “I ain’t exactly a whiz or nothin. But I’m smart when it comes to money. I started workin down at the Korl mill when I turned eighteen. You ever thought about doin steel work?”
“Not really.”
“Now, my job was pretty tough at first, loadin them sheets of metal onto the lifts but now, shit, I ain’t gotta do shit. Them supervisors up air, they saw that I had a real knack for takin control. At’s all they want, someone at can do their job so they can take some time off. At’s why I work a lot, cause it ain’t really work at all. Someone wants to pay me for doin more sittin around, who’m I to say no. That extra time done bought me this here house and here I am only thirty-two. My folks’s still rentin. Yer folks rent?”
“I think so.”
“Them some good ol boys they got up at Korl. Lot’ve em come right from the hollers of Kentucky. Them boys know what a dollar means. Most of em raised up dirt poor. Yer folks from Kentucky?”
“West Virginia.”
Boo Thiklet lit up another cigarette. He put a considerable amount of pause in between his questions. Now he paused a little bit longer, taking slow drags off the cigarette, his head kind of leaned back, studying me through partially slit eyes. I looked nervously at the table, conscious of his eyes burning into me.
He finished his beer, ashed his cigarette on the floor, thumbed his mustache and said, “Them horns make me mad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Bring me a beer, bitch!”
“Get it yourself!” she called back. That kind of surprised me. Up to that point, however, I found it impossible how she could see Sir Boo with anything but contempt.
He teeteringly got up and stumbled the two steps to the refrigerator door. He swung it open much harder than necessary, all the condiment bottles tinkling in the door. He belched and reached in for another beer.
The smell of roast beef filled the kitchen. Night had come outside the kitchen door window, turning it into six black squares. He twisted the cap off and tossed it into the kitchen sink. He stumbled back over and plopped down in his chair, almost turning it over.
“I don’t know why I keep her around. It’s the pussy I guess. She had a real sweet pussy. She was a virgin when I met her.” He leered at me. “That didn’t last long, though.” He poked a finger on the inside of his cheek and hooked it out so it made a popping noise. “She’s all used up now, though. Barren as a rock. I’m gonna have to find me someone else gonna make em sheets all bloody.�
��
I couldn’t help it anymore. I’d been sitting there all rigid, managing to keep my feet tapping and not much else. I let out a hoot before restraining myself, before launching into the whole routine.
“You act like a boy who ain’t never had any pussy. You ever had any pussy?”
That did it. I snapped. I beat my fingers on the edge of the table, letting out a whole slew of “Do, do, do”s, snapping my head back and forth.
“What is this shit?” Boo said. It sounded like he was filled with anger but I couldn’t be sure without looking at him. Whenever I had an outburst, I had a tendency to either close my eyes or stare straight ahead. I managed to bring it under control. Sir Boo was the only thing standing between me and the outside.
Sitting there and listening to him talk made me think maybe I’d been had. Had Maria lead me into her bedroom simply because she was mad or had Boo really not touched her in the last two years?
“You know what I think?” Sir Boo thumbed his mustache. I ticked and thrashed. “I think you know exactly what Maria’s pussy’s like. Joo fuck Maria?”
I never really thought he’d ask that. My lips drew back, tenuous against my gumline. I tried to say no but my tongue wouldn’t get out of the way and I could only make a kind of gurgling sound.
“Hey, you stupid bitch!” Sir Boo called. “Come in here and get the roast outta the oven!”
Maria came back in the kitchen and turned off the oven. “This is nowhere near finished,” she hissed.
“Hey, you fuckin whore, you fuck ol freak boy over there? You let him slip his horns in you?”
I almost laughed. I was sure Sir Boo thought he was being ridiculously absurd when he said that but it was the exact truth.
“You’re an ass,” Maria said. She pulled the roast out of the oven and threw it into the sink, cracking the thick glass dish. “I’m leaving.”
“Like hell you are.” Boo grabbed one of the multitude of beer bottles in front of him and threw it at Maria. It shattered on the cabinets behind her, the acrid smell of beer filling the kitchen.
“Fuck you,” she said, practically running out of the kitchen. This time Boo followed her.
That’s it, I thought. Now’s the chance. I could have easily run for the door, out into the night. I could have left the Thiklet house behind me as only a grim memento of why I should probably not get married. I could be home by tomorrow. I could. I could. I could. But I didn’t.
It wouldn’t let me. Whatever had guided me here. That rope. That force. It wouldn’t let me leave. Not before getting the lighter that Drifter Ken had given me. The lighter had become like a talisman. It was presented to me at the beginning of my journey, my stumbling, whatever the great white fuckness it was, and it now seemed vital that it remain with me all the way through to the bitter end. I stood up to go get the lighter.
Hearing their yelling, I wondered where they were. A thumping or shattering immediately followed a shout. I wondered how many times this happened. They seemed to strive for a perfect house, keeping everything in order. I imagined Sir Boo coming home every night, slowly undoing what Maria did through the day. I pictured him walking down the halls, crooking straight pictures, tilting lampshades, wiping his feet on the floor, his ass on the shower curtain.
I stood on the landing, knowing all I had to do was dart into the guest bedroom, pocket the lighter and dart out of the house. Slowly, I took the few steps to the bedroom, trying to glean some sense out of what they were saying. They were in their bedroom, the door shut, probably locked. I went into the guest bedroom, crossing over to the dresser where the lighter lay on its side. I reached down, took it into my hand and stood there, numbly frozen, staring out the window at the illuminated side of the church. Somewhere unseen, a tree wavered in the soft breeze, producing a dancing shadow on the side of the church. An exceptionally loud crashing, like the ceiling falling down or some fuckness like that, raised me from my stupor.
The fuckness. Yeah, the fuckness was going to pour.
My body’s rigidity turned into near palsy, my nerves jumping around inside me, that jittery motion carrying me to the Thiklets’ bedroom door. In a way, I thought, as inevitable as their conflict may have been, I contributed to this. I got to the door.
“Please, please, please,” I heard Maria say.
“Joo fuckem!” Boo savagely grunted.
“Just let me leave. I swear I’ll never come back. I don’t want anything.”
I opened the bedroom door and almost vomited. It was like all that shaking, all that jittering, zoomed straight into the pit of my stomach. The whumming started up good and strong.
A burning smell singed my nostrils. I quickly scanned the room for the source of it and took in the devastation. All the pictures were gone from the wall. They lay in a shattered heap in the far right corner. One half of the curtains and blinds had been ripped down so they hung there with a psychotic cant. The bed was disheveled and, in the center of it, lay a rifle, the barrel pointed sinisterly at me. The room seemed brighter and harsher than it had earlier and in this was the source of the smell. A lamp lay on its side in the corner to my left, the bulb melting into the plastic lining of the shade that directed all of its light upwards. Then I saw the sickening thing.
Their room also had a dresser, pushed up against the wall to my left. Boo had Maria bent over the far side of the dresser, his right hand tangled in the hair on the back of her head, his left hand clasped around her left arm, cinching it up tight to the middle of her shoulder blades. Her skirt was gone, her underwear tangled and stained. She saw me first but her eyes seemed unable to really focus. Bloody strands of hair clung to her cheek. Her nose was fat and swollen, blood running out, combining with the blood and spit from her mouth and waterfalling lugubriously down the front of the dresser. Sir Boo lifted up the back of her head and slammed it back down into the dresser’s unforgiving wood with each word as he said, “Did. You. Fuck. Him.”
Then I said, “Yes,” mainly to get his attention. The word sounded muffled among the whumming in my head.
Sir Boo snapped his head back at me. Maria had managed to claw deep red streaks into his face. His eyes were huge and all pupil. He was so mad they jumped around. I closed my hand around the lighter, drew it back and threw it at Sir Boo. Amazingly, it smacked him right in the middle of the forehead. However weakly, it made him let go of Maria. He looked at me and thumbed his mustache. Maria slid off the dresser and hit the floor with a thump. Boo moved toward the bed. I took off running, hearing his footsteps behind me.
I got to the top of the stairs and heard the gun go off. The bullet hit me in the back, to the right of my spine, the impact catapulting me down the stairs. Immediately, with the slightest exertion, both of my lungs started burning. There wasn’t a lot of pain, but the pressure made it hard to breathe. I scrambled through the living room, managing to stand by the time I got to the kitchen. My breathing raggedly mixed with the whirring iron whumming and I slammed into the front door, fitfully trying to grab onto the handle. My body shook violently. I felt like I had to run to make that shaking go away. If I were to just stand, I’d have the overwhelming desire to rip my skin off.
I got the door open and ran out into the night.
The church was the only thing really lit up so I ran for that, some hopeless feeling telling me the doors would be locked. Where was he? Was he behind me? I couldn’t hear anything over the breathing and the whumming. The church seemed a mile away. My body had shook itself into exhaustion. I felt like a gelatinous slab but, nevertheless, my legs carried me. Everything spun around me. One of my shoes flew off. I was dimly aware of the blood trickling down the crack of my ass.
I reached the door, the iron handle feeling like a rare treasure in my hand. I put all my weight against the door and pushed the handle. It collapsed inward. I collapsed with it into the dimly lit interior.
At the far end, the baptismal pool cast a rippling white reflection against the wall. I lay in the deep red carpet of t
he aisle. I couldn’t stand up. For a panicked minute I thought it was blood all around me, extending up to the pulpit area. I crawled up the middle of the aisle, those big heavy pews on either side of me. Then I had a thought.
I’m dying.
The fuckness had caught up with me, striking a final deadly blow. I rolled over, collapsing onto my back and staring up at the rafters of the church. Fuck it, I thought. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.
Everything melted away. The whumming, the ragged breathing, all of it melted away. If I was still breathing, and I couldn’t tell if I was, it had to be through my skin. My chest wasn’t moving.
Everything was quiet. I stared up at the rafters. The soft light. A flash of blue. Blue. White. A jagged razor of death. Boo Thiklet positioned over me. He lowered the barrel of the rifle down to my forehead. Still there was silence. It felt like everything happened through a thick plate of glass. I looked at his hand as he pulled the trigger, awaiting the explosion, the inevitable end.
Nothing.
Again he depressed his finger.
Nothing.
Again and again and again. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. For a second, I thought it had happened and I just didn’t hear it. I thought maybe I was watching everything from someplace above.
My body was numb. He grabbed me up, wrapped his arms around me and tossed me onto the edge of a pew. I landed on the floor and flung myself back into the aisle. Finish me off, I thought. Now Boo held the gun by the barrel and swung the stock at my head. It connected with a hollow- sounding impact. Every sound I heard came from inside my head. I lay on my side, my back resting against the row of pews. He grabbed my feet and pulled me up to the pulpit. I noticed my other shoe had come off in the meantime. I didn’t see how anyone could brutalize someone whose shoes had fallen off.
A long wooden altar sat squatly in front of the pulpit. The scripture, “For he so loved the world...” was stenciled in blood red letters on the front of the altar. What was the rest of the scripture, I wondered? Why didn’t they put it on there too? Boo turned me around, grabbed both of my horns and thrust my face into the floor. He rolled me over onto my back. Figuring out what he meant to do released some feeling into my body. Like I was cast suddenly and coldly back into life and reality. A wave of sickness burned in my stomach, turning my bowels and throat to acid.
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