by Blake, J
Midway down the block an overhanging sign swaying and creaking in the wind announced The Mermaid Hotel, a small and shabby two-floor establishment whose grimy front window bore the faded pronouncement, SPIRITS—FOOD—ROOMS. He entered a nearly deserted taproom as the rain suddenly swept up the street in a torrent. Except for a man sleeping with his head on a tabletop, there was no one in sight but two men rolling dice at the bar. One of them was bearded and clothed in the manner of a riverman and the other was the boniface and said yes, he had a room for the night. One dollar. The men’s eyes roved boldly over Maggie’s bare legs.
“That your parrot?” the bearded man asked with a grin.
“My sister. She’s sick.”
The bearded man laughed and gave a broad wink. “Right you are, boy. I’ve had me some pretty sisters with the rumhead sickness a time or two meself.”
“She is my sister,” John said. The bearded man smiled broadly and nodded and said, “Well now, course she is.”
The room was upstairs, one of six in a narrow hallway lighted dimly by a wall-mounted lamp. The hall resounded with erratic snores and was ripe with the malodors of unclean men. The innkeeper led him to the room and went in first and lit the oil lamp on a small bedside table that also held a washbasin and a pitcher of water. A small brass bed with a stained pungent mattress was the only other furnishing in the room. The lamp flame fluttered in the glass, jumping to the breeze blowing through a door open onto a narrow balcony overlooking an alley. The boniface closed the door shutters against the spray of rain. John stooped and angled his shoulders to let Maggie slide off onto the bed. He nearly cried out at the relief to his cramped muscles. The shirt had fallen free of the girl’s hips again and the boniface’s bright eyes were fastened on her exposed pudendum. John pulled down the hem of her shimmy and the man smiled at him and shrugged and left.
Her breathing was deep and regular but she made no response when he sat on the edge of the bed and shook her by the shoulders and gently slapped her cheeks. He’d never seen anyone so insensibly drunk, not even Daddyjack. He soaked the shirt in the water basin and washed the streaks of vomit off her face and arms. Her damp hair looked dull and felt greasy and he recalled that she had always prided herself on her cleanliness and the sheen of her gold hair most of all.
He shook her again and her breasts jiggled freely under the thin shimmy. He stared at them. Then looked over his shoulder at the door. Then gingerly touched one. Pressed it lightly. Felt of its firm softness. His blood thumped in his throat and his chest tightened. For years he had harbored such shameful secret yearnings….
Sweet Jesus! He jumped up from the bed covered her legs with the damp shirt. You rotten son of a bitch! What in hell’s wrong with you! He was suddenly desperate for a drink. He went to the door and looked out into the dim hallway. Snores and farts and sleep babblings from the other rooms. The door had a swivel latch on the inside but there was no lock on its outer side. He closed the door behind him and went to the end of the hall and peered over the landing rail and saw the bearded man and the boniface still at the bar and no one else about.
He went downstairs and asked for a bottle of Nongela. A look passed between the boniface and the bearded man but he made nothing of it.
The boniface said he had to get the Nongela from the storeroom in the rear and suggested that John take some food back upstairs with him. “She’s like to be hungry when she wake up,” he said. “They love you forever if you feed them. I can have my scullery boy to lay out a plate of bread and cheese.”
It occurred to John that Maggie might not have eaten for some time and some food at hand when she came around would be a good idea if she wasn’t too hungover to eat. From this end of the bar he could easily keep watch on the stairs while the plate was made ready. “All right,” he said.
The boniface said fine, he’d be right back, and he poured John a large glass of whiskey on the house to sip at while he waited. The bearded man said it didn’t look like the rain was going to let up anytime soon so he might as well quit waiting and just get on back to his boat and to hell with getting soaked. He tossed off his drink and said so long and set out the front door into the downpour.
The rain struck like flung gravel against the front window and thunder quavered through the wooden counter under his elbows and the air was sharp with the smell of lightning. He drank the whiskey and watched the stairs and the minutes passed and then he remembered the balcony outside the room’s shuttered door and wondered if it ran the length of the building and maybe even all the way around it.
He spun off the stool so fast it twirled on one leg before toppling and he took the stairs three at a time and had a pistol in his hand and then recovered sufficient presence of mind to come up on the door quietly, the crash and drum of the storm covering the creak of the floor under his boots. He paused at the door and pushed it gently but it held fast. He cocked the pistol and stepped back and then kicked the door hard with his bootsole and the latch snapped loudly and he rushed into the room and there the sons of bitches were.
In the quavering light of the oil lamp the rain-drenched boniface stood slack-mouthed just inside the open shutters with his fingers at the buttons of his pants. The bearded man was between Maggie’s wishboned legs with his soaked shirt plastered to his back and his pants bunched around his booted feet and his pale ass driving hard and he gaped big-eyed over his shoulder at John and stopped humping and raised up on all fours as the boniface whirled and darted out the open shutters and ran away along the balcony.
John thrust the pistol within inches of the bearded man’s face and pulled the trigger and the flint sparked but the gun did not fire. He threw it aside and grabbed for the other pistol under his coat but the man lunged and caught him by the shirtfront and the second pistol slipped from John’s grasp as they tumbled to the floor in a snarling embrace. Though hindered by his pants tangled about his ankles the man rolled on top of John and got both hands on his throat and began strangling him with red-eyed fury. John worked his hand between them and found the bearded man’s bare balls and clenched his fingers around them with all his might and yanked hard and felt the scrotum rip free and blood rush hotly over his fist.
The man screamed. His hands left John’s throat and he fell on his side and clutched his torn nutsack. John scrambled to his knees and caught him by the hair and shoved his head back and punched him in the Adam’s apple and the man’s face instantly purpled and he gagged horrifically. John stood and grabbed him by the collar with both hands and dragged him out onto the balcony and into the pouring rain and pulled him to his feet and shoved him over the railing.
The man fell into the darkness without sound and struck the muddy ground with a dull splash. Heaving for breath, John leaned over the rail but could not see him in the blackness below until a shimmering blue flash of lightning showed him lying on his belly with his face half-buried in the mud and his bare ass gleaming and his legs crossed at the ankles where his trousers were twisted round them. Then the alley went black again and John wanted to spit down into it but his bruised throat could not hawk up saliva. To swallow was torture. He stood at the rail and let the rain wash the blood off his hands. In the next flare of lightning he caught a glimpse of the drain pipe running down along the corner of the building, the pipe the bastards had shinnied up.
3
He staggered back into the room and closed the shutters. The floor was slick with blood. He retrieved the percussion pistol and went to the open doorway and saw that the hall was still deserted. The snores persisted, the sporadic mumblings of sleeptalk. He supposed that screams and the sounds of fracas were so commonplace at The Mermaid Hotel as to rarely attract notice. He closed the door and checked the flintlock and saw that the primer powder was wet. The percussion pistol was still nicely dry.
Maggie was yet unconscious, spreadlegged on her back, her blonde pubic patch glistening, her shimmy bunched above her breasts. Her nakedness seemed profound. Had he not seen it with his own eyes
he would not have believed a woman could be so drunk that she was unaware of being ravished. He gazed on her for a long moment before hastily pushing her legs together and again readjusting the shimmy and covering her thighs with the shirt.
He dismissed the idea of putting her back on his shoulder and going in search of another hotel. If the boniface wanted to even the score for his friend in the alley it would be best to stay put and make the man come to him rather than try to get out of the place while carrying Maggie. Even if the boniface recruited confederates, he knew John was armed. They’d not be likely to rush into the room and risk a ball in the teeth.
He felt a rushing sense of elation that he could not have explained to anyone. He damn sure had a tale to tell Edward. And where the hell were you while I was busy savin our sister’s hide is what I want to know.
He cleared off the small table and set the lamp beside the bed and then braced the table firmly against the door. He balanced the basin and pitcher at the edge of it so that any jar of the door would topple them to the floor in warning. He took off his sopping coat and shirt and wrung them and put the shirt back on and hung the coat on the bedpost to dry as best it could. Then he got in the bed and sat facing the door and with his back against the wall, the cap pistol in his hand and his leg against Maggie’s flank. The front of his pants was damp and stained with blood. He wanted to take off his boots for comfort but felt readier for trouble with them on. A minute later he thought to blow out the lamp to give himself cover of darkness and make a better target of anyone who might suddenly open the door and frame himself against the light of the hallway.
For the next hour he sat keenly vigilant, his eyes fully adjusted now to the darkness. Lightning sporadically flickered blue-white against the shutter louvers. He heard nothing other than the relentless splash and rumble of the storm. He now felt certain that the boniface would not pursue the fight. He had also become intensely conscious of Maggie’s pressing warmth. He tried to think of other things, of the sights he’d seen between Florida and New Orleans, of his first view of the Mississippi, of anything but Maggie lying beside him in near nakedness. But the harder he tried to ignore the feel of her flesh against his leg the keener his awareness of it.
He looked at the shadowed shape of her, at the easy rise and fall of her breasts. He spoke her name and patted her cheek and gently shook her shoulder. She groaned lowly and rolled onto her side facing away from him and the shirt fell away from her legs and her bare buttocks snugged against his hip. He said her name again and stroked her hair but she did not move nor alter her breathing. He put his hand over her breast. Caressed it through the smooth satin. Felt the nipple draw tight. He startled himself with his moan.
How many times back in Florida had he sneaked up to the river on warm days when she went there to bathe and watched as she splashed naked in the shallows and lathered her breasts and fingered their pink tips and stood in the thigh-deep water with her eyes closed and slowly soaped herself between her legs? She wasn’t yet thirteen years old the first time he spied on her but he could never afterward be near her without wanting to put hands to her. He had ached to touch her, kiss her, to fondle her little breasts and stroke her pretty legs. To put his face in her hair and rub his cheek on her belly. To kiss her blonde sex.
His self-loathing had nearly consumed him. Only the lowest, sorriest, most worthless son of a bitch on two feet could ever look on his own sister that way, could have such damnable hankerings as his. In the early months of watching her from the bushes with his throbbing cock in his hand his disgust with himself was so great he thought of hanging himself from a stable rafter. He’d pin a note to his chest: “Not fit to live another day.” But over time he’d learned to accommodate his self-disgust by simply enduring it to the point of familiarity. Yet he’d sworn to himself he would never touch her in any such way as he yearned to. Would never behave toward her as anything but a good brother. Would look out for her and protect her as a good brother should.
Liar! Goddamn dirty liar! You ‘re as much a liar as your goddamned mother. It’s the same low blood in both you, low and mean and not worth a rat-damn.
He laid the pistol by and turned on his side and ran a hand over her hip and caressed her bare rump. He insinuated his fingers between her legs and felt of the fuzzy nestling warmth there, and now the sudden slickness. The ripe smell of her sex closed over him like a net. His erection pulsed painfully in the stricture of his trousers. He cursed himself under his breath and unbuckled his belt, undid his buttons, shoved his pants off his hips. His phallus bobbed free, aching to its roots.
No, goddamnit, don’t! DON’T, you bastard you damned bastard….
He might as well have commanded the storm to cease banging at the shutters. He moaned as he entered her from behind, sliding in smoothly and deep, pulling her tightly against him and almost immediately spasming, crying out as if spilling the devil’s own milk….
He clung to her for a time, stupefied with horror.
Then extracted himself and hoisted his pants and buckled his belt and sat up against the wall. She stirred and mumbled slurringly and rolled over and snuggled into him with an arm over his hips.
For a time he sat unmoving, feeling the rhythm of her deep respiration against his leg, his own breath raw and tight in his throat.
God damn me.
It was his only thought. God damn me.
4
He had no idea how long he’d been dozing when he opened his eyes in the dark and immediately felt the difference in the way she was breathing and knew she was awake. He stared down at the dark shape of her and his heart jumped as she abruptly pulled away from him and said in a strangled voice, “Who’re you? Who?”
“Don’t be scared.” It was all he could think to say. The effort of speech pained his throat.
“Who are you?” Her voice had a hysterical edge. “Where is this? Where?”
“Hold on a minute, just hold on.” He reached down and groped alongside the bed and found the lamp and brought it up and dug a box of matches from his pocket and struck four duds before one flamed. He lifted the glass and lit the wick and the room was cast in weak yellow light.
She was huddled at the foot of the bed, staring at him, arms crossed tightly over her breasts, legs folded under her. Her face was puffed and her eyes red and wide and uncomprehending.
“It’s me, Maggie. Johnny.”
Her brow knit as if she’d been asked a strange question.
“Johnny,” he repeated. “Your brother.” He held the lamp closer to himself.
Her eyes roved over his face, searched his eyes intently, lingered at his mouth. “Johnny,” she said dully. She abruptly put her thumbnail between her teeth and bit on it and immediately pulled it away again and folded her arms tightly once more. Her eyes were on him but somehow did not seem to be truly looking at him.
“Maggie, don’t you recognize me?” The look in her eyes was frightening. “I’m your brother, goddamnit. Johnny, I’m Johnny.”
And then she said “Johnny,” almost as an exhalation. And smiled.
His heart leaped. “Yes! Oh Jesus, Maggie, I thought … we thought you were…. She said … momma, I mean … she said—” He stopped short at her sudden laughter. It was hollow and toneless, as unnatural as the awkward set of her smile and the vague focus of her gaze.
“She said he killed you,” she said, smiling unnaturally, crookedly. “She said he killed both you all is what she said.”
“Maggie—”
“No, no, she did, she did!” Now her eyes widened and then she leaned toward him and said in a breathless rushing whisper, “She used to talk to me when nobody else was about. She told me he was crazy and beat her awful all the time and was going to kill her and so she was going to run away and did I want to go and I said yes, yes, yes, and she said for me to sneak out at night and take his horse and wait at the place upriver where me and her used to go to get mussels and not to move from there no matter what till she showed up. I took
some food and matches and stuff and waited and waited for I don’t know how many days. I was so awful scared at night. I was sure a painter would eat me, or a gator. Finally I couldn’t just wait anymore and I started back to home. Then I saw smoke from over where the house was and I could hear him yellin way off somewhere, yellin and cussin. I was too scared to go look so I went back to where I was spose to wait and I waited and waited I don’t know how long. And then I heard a shot and then another one and I was so scared. And then she finally showed up and she was all beat up and her dress was all tore and she had Foots and Remus and she … she told me …”
Her look seemed to fix upon him clearly for a brief moment and she put her fingers to her mouth.
“What happened?” he asked gently. She looked all around the room. “After she showed up,” he said. “What did you all do then?”
She turned her vacant eyes back toward him and her fingers moved down to her breast. “She said he killed you. Both you. Said you went lookin for me and when you got back you all got in a argument and he shot the both you dead. She said we had to get away quick before he found us and killed us too. We rode and we rode. We slept in the woods. She had this big butcher knife. She made me wait in the woods outside Mobile while she went in town and sold one of the mules and then we could pay to sleep in a inn ever now and then and buy us some food. But mostly we slept in the woods. Ever time we saw somebody comin down the trace we got off into the bushes and hid.”
Now her eyes widened fearfully at some vision in her head and her rasping whisper dropped lower still and he had to lean forward to catch what she was saying. “In Missippi these men come on us in the woods, these three men. He had a number twelve on his eye, the biggest one did. He grabbed her by the arm and she cut at him with the butcher knife and he twisted her hand and her arm cracked just like a stick. He laughed at her and pulled her down on the ground and pushed up her skirt and did it to her. This other one who smelled like dead fish, he did it to me and I hollered it hurt so bad. Then the other one who looked part nigger did it to me. Then the biggest one. He hurt the worst of all. I thought I’d die. She kept tellin me not to cry, not to give em the satisfaction, and all the while they’re takin turns on her too. When they finally quit I couldn’t stand up. I was all bloody. It felt like I was all tore up inside.”