Let's No One Get Hurt_A Novel

by Jon Pineda

  I run to them. I can’t get to them fast enough.

  * * *

  I don’t have an instrument on me, nothing to transform in the canvas bag, so I just clap quarter notes on the offbeat. I’m an echo of what my father is doing. It’s not much, but it’s something.

  If I close my eyes, it’s like we’ve been dropped on our pier. A part of me wants to take off my shirt and dance around to get the tourists’ attention. Another part of me wants to just dance and keep clapping, so that’s what I do. My chest is still flat as a block of ice. But here’s the thing: I can feel that block melting.

  I’m glacial and cutting through the landscape. I pull Dox, Fritter, and my father along with me. I’m high-stepping like the red-haired woman in the framed print hanging in our old kitchen. The faces around me look painted on the air. I know this song Dox has chosen. I jump in with Fritter on the harmony of “Drown,” and Dox lets out a little yell. My father keeps his head down. He tries to keep up.

  * * *

  People branch off from the sidewalks and come our way. Some are putting dollar bills in the basket. The dollar bills stick out the top and fill the creel like trout. Someone even places in a twenty, and when I look up to see who is being so generous, he sweeps those white bangs of his to the side and slips on his Wayfarers. He turns his back on me and walks away. The others are with him—Reese, Clint, and Everett—all except for Wythe, who stands off to the side recording us with his phone. I stop what I’m doing.

  “No, keep going”—Wythe laughs—“this is pure fucking gold!”

  * * *

  Wythe films me, and I pretend like he’s not there. It’s the only way I can make it through. Main Boy and the others walk away. I follow. It’s another block before Main Boy even looks back.

  “Where are you going?” I say to him.

  “Beat it, Pig-Pen. You’re lucky I don’t have you arrested.”

  “Me?”

  “You took my dad’s shit.”

  “Well, you deserved it.”

  Main Boy stops and turns around. The flies hover behind him. Wythe is still at it with the filming.

  “What did you say?” Main Boy sticks his finger in my face. “Did you just fucking admit to it?”

  “Yes, she did.” Wythe nods at his phone.

  “I didn’t break anything. You can have it all back.”

  “I don’t want it back,” Main Boy says. “I wouldn’t take it back anyway. Not after you’ve had your hands all over it.”

  The flies start throwing elbows.

  “Burn”—Wythe laughs—“burn.”

  “Okay, everybody,” I say. “Don’t shit yourselves.”

  I wish the flies would wander off so I can talk to Main Boy, but there’s no way they’re going to miss anything. Wythe is making sure of it. He keeps holding the phone close to my face.

  On the next block are the two girls with the alpaca faces. I point and Wythe sneers. He and the flies take off in their direction, leaving Main Boy and me alone.

  * * *

  “Did you get in trouble?” I say to Main Boy.

  “Not really.”

  “How come?”

  “Insurance. They gave him double what it was worth.”

  Main Boy puffs out his chest and looks around. The flies are gone.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “What about you? Are you angry?”

  He looks at me like we’ve never met before, like everything has been erased and we’re starting from scratch.

  “I thought we had something good,” he says.

  I laugh.

  “What? Why are you laughing?”

  Fucking flies.

  It’s too much. It’s just too much.

  * * *

  “What have you guys been up to?” I say. “More videos?”

  “Yeah. We filmed a segment on foraging that didn’t go so great. Clint ate a mushroom that almost killed him.”

  I try not to laugh.

  “You can laugh,” Main Boy says. “We all did.”

  “That’s cold.”

  “I know. Then he started puking and couldn’t stop. Wythe was the only one who kept laughing. Now he’s on a pranking kick. Can’t get enough.”

  “Big surprise.”

  “I know. I’m kind of done, actually.”

  “If you say so.”

  Main Boy glances back at the flies and then stares at the ground. “You take care of yourself, Pig-Pen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m serious.” He steps closer, like he’s going to kiss me in broad daylight.

  I take a step back. Wythe and the flies are busy chatting up the two girls. It’s sad to watch, knowing what I know about those boys. I shake my head and start to walk away.

  “Pearl?” Main Boy says.

  I turn around. “Yeah?”

  “How’s Marianne Moore?”

  IT’S STRANGE TO BE AROUND so many people at once. All the hubbub of the reenactment and just the town itself weighs you down. When I leave Main Boy, I have to weave my way around couples walking hand in hand. Large families are the worst. They have so many things that they own—what look like four-wheel-drive double strollers, camouflage diaper bags and matching backpacks, things that cost an arm and a leg.

  * * *

  Teenagers mill about a pizza shop. They’ve taken over the outside tables lining the sidewalk. I try not to stare at the plates of food, but the smell of the bubbling cheese is overwhelming. Through the glass windows, strings of white decorative lights hang from the ceiling. Almost all of the teenagers are wearing T-shirts that advertise for the local high school. It’s where I would probably go.

  * * *

  Maybe one of these kids would’ve even been my friend.

  An empty chair is at the last table. It sits off to the side, and I make a beeline for it. I want to feel what it feels like to hang out with kids my age, kids who aren’t the flies, but I’m nervous. I think someone is going to grab the chair and yank it away just to get a laugh.

  When I get close, I dive into the seat. It’s not cool. I sit back and act normal. I take out my phone, just for something to do. I forget it was dead. It was ruined by the river anyway. No one is even looking at me. They’re all talking about this party where everyone got wasted. Someone mentions the video where a kid eats a wild mushroom and then gets sick. I want to tell them I know who that kid is, I know who they’re talking about. It’s my chance to get in. I want to say something, at least, but I don’t.

  I’m right here, and it’s like I’m not here at all.

  I lean, trying to listen to other conversations, and the ones nearest to me get up and move closer to the group at the other tables. I’m not going to get up and move now. Someone says loudly, “God, what a dog,” and the rest laugh. When I finally look over, they’re all on their phones.

  ON OUR WAY OUT OF TOWN, we stroll into a service station and buy bags of pork rinds and some cola for the journey. Dox says he knows the woman who owns this station. Her name is Imogene. When Imogene sees Dox, she steps out from around the counter and gives him a hug that lifts him off the ground. Maybe it’s just me, but Imogene looks a lot like Fritter, like she spit him out. When I casually mention it to Fritter, he pokes my chest. “We’re not all related, Pearl.” I scoff, and he gets a real kick out of my reaction. He tells Dox what I said and then what Fritter himself said in response. Dox laughs and tells Imogene. Imogene laughs, and I’m horrified.

  * * *

  In one of the garage bays, there’s a flatbed wrecker with a black Honda secured to the top. I go in to take a closer look, and my father follows. I check the front end, but there isn’t even a scratch on the bumper. I breathe a sigh. My father hears me and says, “What was that for?”

  “No reason. I thought I’d seen this car before, but I was wrong.”

  Fritter hobbles in and then it’s Dox and Imogene. Dox has his arm around Imogene’s waist, and she’s laughing and telling him he’s as
crazy as he ever was.

  “This beautiful woman,” Dox says, “is going to save our lives.”

  * * *

  Dox sits in the cab of the wrecker with Imogene, who said she was hauling the car over to the next county anyway. It was no sweat off her back to drop us on the way. We put the windows down in the black Honda. Fritter gets in the passenger’s seat. He scoots the seat back plenty. None of us wants to be at the wheel. I sit in the back of the car with my father. I lean against him. Our things rattle on the floorboard. From here, I can see the river on one side. Especially up high, like we are. All of it moves on its own.

  “You scared me,” I say.

  “Him or me?” Fritter says without turning his splotchy head.

  “Both of you.”

  Fritter laughs.

  “Are you listening?” I say to my father.

  “I hear you.”

  “You have to do better. For me.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Are you listening?”

  He won’t answer.

  That’s how I know he’s heard me.

  WE PULL INTO THE YARD next to the broken washing machines. There’s no Marianne Moore coming from around the corner, or from under the house. It tears me up inside. We try to give Imogene some of our earnings, but she won’t take it.

  She beeps the horn at us and is gone.

  Fritter walks away, and I feel like I’m counting more patches on his head, more than what were there before.

  I call for the dog.

  “Probably in the woods,” my father says, and goes in the house to lie down.

  Dox carries his cigar-box guitar down to the pier. “C’mon, Lucille,” he says, like he’s B.B. King.

  * * *

  I take the rod, creel, and some empty cans with me, just in case the traps are full. I can hear Dox playing. The song travels downriver and follows me but keeps getting softer, like he’s turning the volume down on himself.

  I CALL OUT FOR MARIANNE MOORE AGAIN. She doesn’t show her face. The traps are empty, so I tie on a fly. I bite off the excess line.

  I try to remember what Fritter taught me. I pull out about twenty feet of line, and it immediately bunches on the water. There are branches near me, so I wade out more to get a good back cast. The current is grabby at my legs.

  * * *

  It’s a mess at first, the bunched line, but I let the current get ahold of it and pull. The river sorts it out on its own. I didn’t have to do a thing. I look over my shoulder at Dox in silhouette. He’s noodling on the cigar-box guitar.

  * * *

  I lift the rod up slow, then fast, but it doesn’t do what I want. The floating line drops like a snapped kite string. The current drags the line. I get it back in front of me. This time, I think about my mother’s story.

  She’s on the pier again. It’s evening, just like it is now. When she looks out over the river, she sees someone else. It’s not Fritter as a boy. She sees me. I’m the one wading into the water and pulling back on the rod until the line forms a small loop that unrolls slowly. I’m the one writing to her on the sky.

  * * *

  I let the muddler sink and then start stripping the line back. The first hit comes, and when it does, I think I’ve snagged a branch on the bottom. It doesn’t give at all. I pull up, and the line stays tight, even tightens. It zigzags for a bit, and that’s when I know. Some son of a bitch is making me work for it. It’s on the other end holding its ground.

  Dox sees me struggling and starts playing louder. Chords slide. I’m smiling. I keep stripping in the line until the leader is the only thing left between me and this decent-size bullhead surfacing. It’s a chore to free the muddler. The bullhead is all goop and river snot. God knows what else it’s sucked down its gullet. I put it in the creel, cast out again, and damn if I don’t hook into another one, and then another after that. The creel is overflowing. The fish start up with their grunting, making a slight ruckus. I tell them it’ll all be over soon enough. The damn things get quiet like they understand me.

  * * *

  I slap them on the planks next to Dox. The spikes of their side fins almost pierce my hands. “Careful, now,” Dox says, “let’s no one get hurt.” He cleans them and carries the stripped fillets inside to fry them up with cracker meal. I sit out on the pier and take it all in. I don’t check on my father. I stand up and yell Marianne Moore’s name once more. Nothing answers. I go inside to where it’s sweltering. It’s just a smidge warmer than hell.

  * * *

  My father is sitting in a chair while Dox cooks up the fish.

  “Did you see her?” my father says to me.

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  “She’ll come back. Don’t worry.”

  “That’s a switch.”

  “What is?”

  “Sounds like you might want her back.”

  He doesn’t bite. “She’s not well, Pearl. She’ll have to go at some point.”

  “Well, now she’s gone.”

  “Animals do that when they’re dying.”

  “No shit.”

  I SPEND DAYS GATHERING what I can: chicory root to roast for Dox’s and my father’s coffee, the brown cattails that taste like corn, and the small, palm-size pawpaw fruit, once they’ve ripened. I can smell the pawpaw from far away. Those are Fritter’s favorite.

  Everywhere I walk in the woods, there’s a growing heat. It’s the humidity, but it’s also the layers of flora burning with life. Each leaf is a flame that lights up and diminishes when another takes its place. Every chance I get, I call out, “Princess! Princess!” Nothing answers to that name anymore.

  * * *

  I don’t think about Main Boy and the flies. I expect soon there will be an eviction notice, but it’s not like we own the place. I don’t know what happens to people in our situation. All I know is I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain with Main Boy, so maybe anything goes.

  * * *

  My father and Dox managed to get the truck working again. Dox takes it into town every morning to busk. My father sometimes joins him. What little money they make, they spend on a big cloth bag of rice or potatoes and the inevitable bottle of something. They share the bottle in the evenings, despite my father’s knowing he shouldn’t anymore. The doctor said my father needed to start taking shots for his condition. When I confront my father, he lifts the bottle and takes a long pull like I’m not even there.

  “This is my prescription, right, Dox?” my father says. “How many shots does that make now?”

  * * *

  Fritter doesn’t come out of his room.

  I PASS SOME RABBIT SCAT and bend down to feel it. The scat is soft, fresh, and together, in their mound, the spheres look like tiny musket balls. Out here by myself, Fritter’s voice is loudest in memory. He is guiding me through the brush. He is telling me to make a snare with some twine I weave together from nearby vines I’ve stripped. I pull down one of the branches, so that it bends all the way to the ground, and I tie the line and set the trap. In the middle of the loop destined for some beautiful animal’s neck is pawpaw fruit I’ve folded open like a book.

  * * *

  Everywhere I look I find things that could sustain me. There are numerous edible flowers and nuts. I hear Fritter telling me to gather them all and take them back and put them in sorted piles. I strip two long branches and trim away the leaves. By hanging the cans on the opposite ends of these branches, I make a yoke for each shoulder. The deeper I walk into the woods, the heavier the load of what I’ve gathered becomes.

  IS IT TERRIBLE TO ADMIT that when Wythe comes with the invitation, I find myself happier than I’ve been in a very long time? The flies haven’t forgotten about me.

  * * *

  I emerge from the woods with all of the cans filled to the top. Hanging from my elbow like a purse is a rabbit I’ve snared. My father and Dox are camped out on the end of the pier. Without Marianne Moore on guard, they don’t even acknowledge Wythe sitting
there in his piss-yellow golf cart. Wythe is waiting for someone to take notice. When he spots me, he covers his mouth. I must amuse him to no end.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” I set down the paint cans. I hold up the rabbit.

  “That’s not alive. Is it?”

  I cradle the animal to me. “What are you doing here, Wythe?”

  “Mason wanted me to invite you to the dance.”

  “What dance?”

  “I don’t know. Something he’s cooked up.”

  I laugh like I don’t care, like my heart isn’t thrashing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. The messenger.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  “You tell Main Boy if he wants to invite me, he’ll have to do it himself.”

  “Who the fuck is Main Boy?”

  “I mean Mason.”

  Wythe laughs now. “Fucking Main Boy.”

  I don’t say anything. I just pet the rabbit’s head.

  “Look, he feels bad, okay?”

  “I really don’t care.”

  “He could still have you all run out of here. He could put you out on your ass.” Wythe snaps his fingers. “You think they’d like that?”

  Wythe points at the pier.

  Dox and my father are oblivious to us. Notes slide into laughter.

  * * *

  “I don’t have anything to wear.”

  “He’ll buy you a dress.” Wythe is smiling now. “It’s the least he can do, right?”

  “He’s not buying me a dress.”

  “But he will.”

  “I don’t want him to buy me a dress. I’ll get my own dress.”

  “So you’ll go?”

  I look at the river. Though it’s right there in front of me, like Dox’s song, I can barely make it out.

  “Fine.”

  “Really?”

  “I said fine.”

  “Oh, man, you’re gonna make him so happy. And me, too.”

  “You?”

  He studies the ground. “Ever since I saw you last, I’ve been feeling kind of bad. I shouldn’t have filmed you. That was wrong. Just so you know, I didn’t post any of it.”