That's How I Roll: A Novel

by Andrew Vachss

  In his own way, the Beast was a reliable man. If you did something to him, you could count on him coming for you.

  But you’d never know when he was going to make his move. When it came to business, the Beast could bury his own ego in a cake of ice. He was proud of saying that an ambush is better than a gunfight.

  Everybody hated him, but the Beast was always safe, because he had his place in the world. People needed him. Sometimes for certain kinds of work. But mostly what they needed was for him to leave them be.

  Nobody needed for him to leave us be.

  eople don’t take care of you just because it’s the right thing to do. The law might prohibit some things, but a man owns his children same way he owns his livestock. Despite what some said, I never could find anything in the Bible to back that up, but there was no need—the Beast himself had taught me even before I could read.

  He didn’t teach me by talking; he showed me.

  “Nobody’s coming,” he’d always say. “Nobody’s ever coming here, you crippled little piece of shit. Not without my say-so. Not unless they want to die. It’s my land they’d be stepping on. Ain’t nobody around would do that, not even the Law.”

  he Beast knew people would always deal with you if you had something they wanted. He didn’t have a friend in the world, but certain people always had work for him. “Jobs” is what he called that kind of work.

  That’s how I first learned that being safe is all about your place in this world—nothing else matters.

  Later on, even when I was still a child, I could have found a place for myself alone easy enough. But had I done that, Tory-boy wouldn’t’ve lasted out the week.

  hen Rory-Anne got big in the belly, I told the teachers I wouldn’t be coming to school for a while. I could see they weren’t all that upset, but they were obligated to ask me why that was.

  When I told them Rory-Anne had a baby coming and I’d have to help her out, they just shook their heads.

  Just like most people around here: they might get sad, but never enough to get helpful.

  I read everything I could find about taking care of a baby, but there was no way around the one thing I’d never be able to do. If it wasn’t for Mrs. Slater, Tory-boy never would have made it.

  She came over one afternoon. The Beast’s truck was gone, and a whole carful of people had come by and picked up Rory-Anne. I guessed Mrs. Slater had been watching, waiting for the right time.

  “You know what every baby needs, son?” she asked me.

  “Yes, ma’am. Milk.”

  “Is that what you’ve been crying over?”

  “I guess so,” I said, even though I didn’t think there were any tears on my face—I had wiped it with my shirt soon as I heard the knock on the door.

  “All right,” Mrs. Slater said. “This is what we’re going to do. Can you make it over to the lightning tree by yourself?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” I was sure I could do that, because I’d already done it, plenty of times. That tree had been struck by lightning a long time ago—before I was born—and everybody steered clear of it because it’s supposed to be real bad luck to touch such a tree. The way I figured it, I’d already had about all the bad luck there was, so the lightning tree never spooked me.

  And everybody avoiding it made it a perfect place for me to hide whatever I didn’t want to keep in the shack.

  Now that I think back on it, I’m sure Mrs. Slater had seen me go back and forth between that tree and our shack. She lived not a hundred yards from us, but way higher on the hill, in a much nicer house.

  “God bless you,” I said to her. I had nothing else to offer, and I was still young enough to believe that truly meaning what I said would count for something.

  kept reading up on the subject, but mostly I learned just by taking care of the baby.

  That was my job. Nobody had to say it; I just knew. I knew nobody else was going to do it if I didn’t. I was bound to do it when I learned that Rory-Anne was going to give birth. But the first time I saw Tory-boy for myself, I wanted to do it.

  This is the best way to make you understand that feeling I had: I wanted to protect him even more than I wanted to walk.

  The wheelchair didn’t stop me. I could roll right over, pick up Tory-boy, and do everything that had to be done. Just like I could pick up the milk Mrs. Slater left for me every day. It was always in actual baby bottles, in a little cooler. I knew how to heat it up, how to test it, and everything.

  There was other stuff Mrs. Slater left, too. Mostly little jars of baby food, but there was also a blue blanket, stuff to put on Tory-boy’s gums when his teeth were coming in … so many things I couldn’t even count.

  It was like Mrs. Slater had read the same books I had, because, every time a book said a baby would need something, she’d have it waiting for me.

  hen I was taking care of the baby, I knew he always had to be in the center of this gyroscope I was building in my mind. Maybe “gyroscope” isn’t the right word: what I saw was all those spinning rings, constantly in motion around a center post. I don’t know how I knew—it wasn’t anything I’d read.

  Maybe it was the spirits talking to me. That’s the only way to explain how I was so dead certain about “balance” and “safe” having the same meaning.

  I knew the exact nature of my balance. I could see it in my mind: swirling rings of pure black obsidian, every blade sharpened to such an edge that it made a surgeon’s scalpel look like a flat rock.

  Like everything of value, that perfect sharpness came at a price. Those “black knives” you can read about in Aztec legends were made from volcanic glass. Such a blade could be used only to slice, never to stab.

  Somehow, I knew if I could always keep those rings spinning the center post would never fall over. It might lean—sometimes so far over that I’d be afraid—but it would not fall. No matter what hit against those rings, the center would stay upright.

  I knew something else. I knew that, once anyone tried to cross into our side of those rings, me and Tory-boy would be safe from them, no matter what evil might be on their mind to do.

  It may have been the only thing a half-person like me could ever manage to put together by himself—I had to do all the work inside my mind. But I knew, I absolutely knew, that if I used the half of me that worked I could get it done.

  I never questioned how I knew this.

  couldn’t walk, but I could always get around. And I was so smart the teachers didn’t know what to do with me. None of that made me safe. The Beast could unbalance my whole world just by tipping over my wheelchair.

  He did that a lot, especially when he was drunk. Which was most of the time. But he did it when he was sober, too. He liked doing things like that. Liked showing you who was holding the whip hand. His favorite thing in life was raising fear in others.

  ory-boy might have been slow in the head, but he was fast on his feet. Soon as he could crawl, he would always try to scramble away when he heard the Beast coming. But there was no place to hide inside that miserable little shack, and he got hit on plenty.

  Whenever the Beast went into one of his rages, Tory-boy would run to me. He never ran to Rory-Anne. He learned real quick that she wouldn’t do anything. But even though I was only a child, and crippled to boot, Tory-boy developed the belief that I could protect him.

  Maybe that was because, lots of times, I actually did. I knew that all I had to do was say the right words to the Beast and he’d forget about beating on Tory-boy and go right after me.

  And I knew he’d stop a lot quicker if I didn’t cry or scream. When he whipped Rory-Anne, the more she’d scream the longer he’d keep at it.

  I think that’s when I stopped feeling the hurt he put on me. After a while, I could see him doing it but it was like I was hovering above it all.

  Every time he was finished with me, I would go find Tory-boy. I’d cuddle him on my lap, rub his chest, and whisper soft until he stopped being afraid.

  Years be
fore he could understand words, I promised him that, one day, I’d make it stop. All of it.

  For good and forever, I’d make it stop.

  I chanted it like I was calling up a spell.

  I didn’t try praying. I had already figured out that God wasn’t listening.

  But once my little brother came, if I could have sold my soul to the Devil to make things right, I would have done it on the spot. And spit in the face of Jesus to seal the bargain.

  ory-boy believed anything I told him. He always did. And that was only right, because I never once lied to him.

  Tory-boy had faith in me. True faith. I knew even the truest faith couldn’t save people. They’d scream out in church how they’d been saved, but their lives would stay the same misery they’d always been. Nothing would change, yet their faith would persist. Like the people who tore up their lottery tickets and walked away chanting, “Maybe next time.”

  I’d had faith, once. The Bible was right about the Beast; I knew that was the truth even before I could read. So maybe God just didn’t think me and Tory-boy were worth saving. But if He created us, how could that be? Why bother to plant rocks?

  That was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, so I put my trust where it belonged. Once I accepted Tory-boy’s pure faith in me, it was up to me. Me, alone. My balance wasn’t enough, not then. Even though I was building it, working on it constantly, I knew it would take time for me to get it perfect.

  I didn’t have that time. The only person I knew whose world was in balance was the Beast himself. I couldn’t hope to match his balance. Only if I could find a way to disrupt it would he be vulnerable. Only then.

  I watched him like he was under a microscope. I not only had to recognize the opportunity to disrupt his balance, I knew I’d only get the one chance to try it. If I failed, I wouldn’t get a second one. The Beast would take me outside, crush my skull with a rock, and tell the Law I must’ve fallen out of my wheelchair.

  It wasn’t that I would have minded dying so much. But then Tory-boy would be left without protection. Not from the Beast, not from Rory-Anne, not from anyone at all.

  I could not chance that. My plan had to be perfect. It had to throw the Beast’s balance off so bad that he’d never get it back.

  Somehow, I knew that that could be done, and that I could be the one to do it. I was always searching for a soft spot. I was … Ah, there’s no truth in nice words. I needed to kill him. But I couldn’t see how to do that, no matter how hard I looked.

  It’s a good thing I never needed much sleep—the only dreams I ever had were worse than being awake.

  kept studying. After a while, I learned about certain things that would poison a man to death. Plants I could find for myself, right out in the woods. Only, I also learned that it would take a long time—not hours, not days, weeks—for that kind of poison to work. I could cook, but it wasn’t like the Beast was around to be fed every day.

  It would only take a few seconds to blind him. I knew what I’d have to mix together to do that, and the Beast slept deep when he was drunk. But it was still too risky—even the smell of my fear might wake him up in time.

  And, inside that shack, the Beast could find me and Tory-boy even if he was stone-blind—he’d done that in pitch-tar-black nights often enough.

  I daydreamed about getting a pistol. I knew just the place to keep one hid. But I’d never used one, and I’d never get to practice shooting without drawing attention.

  By then, I had one thing truly my own. My faith. Not the faith that makes you believe in things you’ll never see, the faith you have in yourself.

  By then, I knew all I needed was patience.

  And I surely knew I had that by the ton. Patience may be a virtue, but I didn’t need to be virtuous. I had such patience not because I was blessed with it, but because I learned it. When you’re born under a curse, you better learn it.

  iss Webb was almost enough to make me believe there were angels on earth. She was the library lady, just out of the community college, not even twenty years old. Probably the only woman the County Library could find for the money it could pay.

  It wasn’t much of a library, and it was a few miles from where we lived, too. At first, I couldn’t get over there but every once in a while. Then the school-bus driver started dropping me off at the library in the morning instead of taking me the rest of the way to school.

  I realized that couldn’t have been good luck—I knew there was no such thing, not for someone like me. And, sure enough, I found out later that Miss Webb had talked to him. There wasn’t any point sending me to school when I was way smarter than the teachers. Besides that, some of the kids at school were as cruel as torture itself, and I couldn’t waste any of my mind-time on fixing them—I had to devote every second to coming up with a way to kill the Beast.

  I’d read and study at the library every day. All the books I ever asked for were science books—could be anything from physics to botany. Miss Webb never could have guessed what I was trying the hardest to learn from all that work.

  The bus driver would pick me up in the afternoon and take me to where we lived. I think he must have been sweet on Miss Webb. It was for damn sure that nobody was paying him to carry me and my chair all the way to the door, both ways, like he did all during the week.

  I wished I had a way to show my appreciation for that, besides just thanking him each time—that was nothing but common politeness.

  I think the driver maybe even knew that. Because, when I asked him if I could know his whole name, he just said, “Charles Trammel, son. I mostly go by ‘Charley,’ but that there’s my proper Christian name.” I don’t think he would have said all that if he couldn’t tell that I felt bound to repay his kindness in some way.

  Everybody at the school knew all about me spending my days at the library. But nobody ever said a thing about it. Who would they tell?

  iss Webb was the first girl I ever gave a Valentine card to. The only one ever, to be truthful about it.

  She knew I could never bring books home—the Beast would tear them up just to be doing it. But I could bring the things she baked, and the big bottle of milk she always had for me, too, as long as me and Tory-boy could make them disappear quick enough. We got real good at that.

  Miss Webb never tried to get me to read anything special; she just left me on my own. But she could get books I wanted just by ordering them from bigger libraries. I loved her for doing that even more than I loved her for feeding me and Tory-boy the way she did.

  You are what you do. So I was able to love Miss Webb just for being herself.

  I was a little ashamed of that feeling. I know I should have been wishing that Mr. Trammel and Miss Webb would get married, but I just couldn’t make myself do that.

  I’m not even going to lie and say I tried.

  ’ve had this sense of balance inside me ever since I can remember, but I didn’t really feel it kick in until I found science. It was like a holy spirit, the way it beckoned me.

  Preachers will say they “got the call.” I don’t know how it was for them—or even if they’re being truthful when they make that claim. But for me, there could be no doubt. Science called: loud, hard, and sharp. A bright-white light calling, “You come this way, boy!”

  Igniting something that had been inside me all the time, as congenital as my disease.

  That does happen; I know it for a fact. Homer LaRue is the finest fiddle player there is, even if you’ll never hear him on the radio. Folks say he just picked up an old fiddle one day and made it sing. Every year, people would come back from Branson and swear they hadn’t seen anything to compare to him. And Homer LaRue never had a lesson in his life.

  Folks say the music was born in him, but he didn’t know that himself until it called him. That was like it was for me with science.

  When Miss Webb saw me with an algebra book, she asked me if she could help me with it. I was stuck for a minute, like I was being pulled two different ways. I wanted to say
yes; I always loved having her close to me. But I wanted to show off for her even more.

  When I demonstrated that I already knew how to do all the problems, she couldn’t hide her surprise. “Oh, Esau, I never imagined—” Admitting that she had underestimated me caused her to blush. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  I was only about twelve or thirteen when it happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

  And I will treasure it forever.

  Oh, how I wanted to see that blush again. But I couldn’t surprise her twice. After that, no matter what outlandish claim I’d make about what I knew, I couldn’t even get her to raise her eyebrows.

  t wasn’t just killing I studied. I had to know about why me and Tory-boy had been so cursed. And I finally found the explanation I prayed wouldn’t be there when I looked.

  Once I followed the trail down to its natural end, I found myself studying genetics. After that, it didn’t take me long to work it out.

  I don’t remember my mother. No, that’s wrong. That’s just dishonest. What I mean to say is that I have no actual memory of the Beast’s woman—the one he always told people had run off on him. I knew that she hadn’t given birth to me.

  I remember thinking how, if her first child hadn’t turned out to be a girl, she might have lived long enough to have actually been my mother.

  I couldn’t think past that point without crying, so, after a few tries, I stopped. For good.

  es, I wanted it more than anything on earth. And, yes, I worked at it every waking moment. But when that flower finally reached full bloom, it wasn’t due to any plan of mine.

  It just happened, as if its time had come.

  If people could look at a videotape of what happened, they’d get sick. And if they liked what they were seeing, they’d be sick.

  The way it started, I didn’t have any feeling about it at all. It wasn’t new; it was part of my life. But when the Beast turned vulnerable, it was like looking at a beautiful new butterfly, opening its glistening wings as it rested up for its first flight. One of those rare sights, one you knew wouldn’t last but a few seconds.