Elise will say even now how maybe nothing happened at the school and Termite just doesn’t want to leave the nest. Maybe he needs a push, she’ll say. Never mind about you, Noreen, but doesn’t Lark need a life? You can have a break if he’s in school. Don’t you need a break? So what if they don’t teach him anything, as long as they take care of him. He might be Lark’s doll now, but he’ll grow up someday and be a mighty big doll. Finally Charlie tells her he’s heard enough. Lunch hour’s over, time Elise got back to the Coffee-Stop. Without Charlie even saying so I know he’s thinking what are the chances Termite will ever grow up, and that’s what he thinks I ought to be telling Lark. I should tell her Termite’s on loan. High interest loan, Charlie would add, very high. Aid to Dependent Children, some aid. Like how special that special school was. Made him scared of his own shadow, not that anyone could ever tell him what a shadow is. Lark is the dark and the light and the shades between, and the names for those are not what he considers. And what did she ever consider? He was her mother’s and that was all it took.
Termite
In the basement the cold comes up from the hard cracked floor, up from the broken places where dust layers and the cracked concrete flakes and pebbles. The cold sits on the floor and breathes, one low shadow that folds and settles and stirs like smoke when Lark turns and walks and moves. Lark doesn’t know, she doesn’t see. She closes the storm-cellar doors that open wide as flat steel tongues under the dark green lilac leaves. The heavy doors clang shut and heat falls across them like an animal that can’t get up. The ragged orange cat lies in the cool of the railroad tunnel, on the concrete of the buckled road the railroad made and left to break and crack. Lark says men from the scrap yard hauled away big pieces they smashed loose with axes, so long ago that moss and straggled weeds grow in the empty places. The orange cat sleeps on a tilt of slab but its notched torn ears stay tense and turn to hear. Rats by the river scuttle and thump. The orange cat slits its black-rimmed eyes at every sound and Lark shuts the kitchen door at the top of the basement stairs. Her feet step down each wooden step. The basement windows throw their light across in slender pools that move.
Termite, Lark says, I know you want the radio.
We’ll listen later, she says.
The kitchen is shut away. Above them the spigot ticks its drip and the refrigerator hums and stops. The fan turns its metal face to no one, clicking side to side. The basement couch is deep and broken and he sinks into cushions and cold. Lark puts the wide breadboard across his legs and gives him newspaper to color. Here’s a sheet with no pictures you make the picture Termite, and she holds his wrist to show him where. The crayons are cool and poured and silky slick and Lark says to start with the green. Small, see Termite? You don’t have to color so big, but he says until she lets go of his wrists and gives him colors in each hand. He knows she’ll stand by the workbench with her notebook and her thin pencil that whispers and never stops. He can move then, both hands to make the shape, mixing the colors dark, moving his arms to color deep. He presses hard and the colors get deeper and rounder, he makes them darker and harder until the space inside them is deep enough. Lark is finished and she stops his wrists and holds his paper up, close to his face. He smells the deep smooth waxen colors and the dark. He knows he made the shape.
See? Lark says. Always a blur in your picture, here, like a man or an animal standing.
She tells him the blur is there because the board is gouged underneath and makes the color go on lighter in just one place. She hangs his picture on the line with clothespins. In summer they hang the wash outside and the basement clothesline is empty except for his sheets of newspaper, open to show each shape.
Here are last week’s pictures, Lark says. Here’s yesterday, here’s today.
Black rainbows Termite, all the colors at once.
He feels his pictures stay. He smells their dark gloss and hears them move on the line, their paper edges curling small, pulled in by the shape. Lark doesn’t see, she doesn’t hear, but the orange cat hears the dogs, yelping and crashing through Polish Town field. The dogs are running a rabbit they smell veering from its nest, weaving away from a burrow so deep and hidden the dogs smell endless tracks in the flowering weeds.
Lark says he can hold his ribbon. He can be outside but not by the alley. He has to sit here by the kitchen stoop where there’s shade. She says the sun is boiling and the storm that’s coming has sucked up all the air. He tells and says to be near the alley but he sits in his chair and the alley is across the grass. The white stones in the alley are still and their long tracks lead to the rail yard and the tunnel and the river folding its shape. Deep inside his pictures, a shape stands up and listens.
Lark says, I’ll turn the radio loud and put it in the window.
She gives him his ribbon and she goes. The kitchen door slams and he hears her put the radio against the metal smear of the window screen.
He says until she lifts the screen while the radio buzzes loud. It whines and then it talks. Top ten hits. Number one song for the Platters. Water pours in the sink while the faucet sputters. Lark moves the hot sponge on the dishes and steam comes up behind the radio. She’s told him that whirl and thrill that opens songs is an orchestra, men playing horns before the voices sing asked me how I knew. He moves the blue and moves it and hears Lark singing true is true. She’s told him replied means yes and denied means no. Cannot be denied means always yes. No in songs is yes and smoke gets in your eyes. He feels her standing at the sink with the heat around her face. Nonie holds him on one hip and flares the paper bag over the steaming spout of the kettle. Nonie melts salve in the kettle. The kettle was screaming but now it only pours wet smoke. Nonie says steam will help him breathe, here Termite, with your face just at the edge. Deep now. Breathe in. The brown paper of the grocery bag smells of wilted boxes but the steam gets in his eyes and he breathes the warm white smoke. There now, Nonie says. Breathe, breathe. Lark says steam is wet smoke that doesn’t sting but there’s no smoke. He sees through the blue into the sky and there are no clouds. The sky goes away, whiter and whiter. Termite moves the blue and moves it and the radio rolls its sound like a blue swell through the alley. Flies smash and fumble through the open window. They bump and move inside the music. When Nonie gets home she’ll hang a curl of gluey paper from the ceiling and say screens are to keep flies out, why do they lift that screen.
Lark says they have to go to Charlie’s now. She takes his strip of blue and rolls and folds it and says they’re going. Rush at the restaurant is over, Charlie will be wanting to see them. Heat shimmers along the alley. Bars of light are pouring in a yellow sheen all the way to the tracks at the rail yard. He wants to go there, but Lark puts him in the wagon. She pulls him up the alley to the paved road. The wheels tick on the concrete sidewalk and go silent on the tarred street. The tar is hot and the surface breathes small bubbles that bloom and break. Water beetles trundle from the gutters. They stick in the tar, upended in their hard shells. Sometimes Lark turns them over with a stick and skitters them back to the dark, to the wet insides of the grates along the curb. The beetles are long and fat as thumbs. Termite hears one move its legs in smooth wild blurring clicks. Lark stops to look but she won’t let him touch. Termite hears it minutely lifted, swarmed by ants. The ants keen fast, piling into an edge that wants to pump and push. Lark knows to go.
They go one way, up the hill into town, past Gladdy’s house and Murphy’s Five & Ten, past Dairy Joy and the Coffee-Stop. Elise sits in her chair at the Coffee-Stop or she sits in her chair at Charlie’s. She tucks her feet behind the wooden rungs and turns her hips and props her arms on the table. She sits warm and curled like a cat that’s safe and sucks her cigarettes. She takes care of Nonie and Lark and her hair is a dark orange blur. Red highlights she says, and paints her eyes in thin hard lines. He sees them when she puts her face close. Elise stays in the kitchen and Solly puts him in his chair. He’s small and Elise says he’s excused. These other kids can work when sh
e babysits. Solly, make yourself useful and move the furniture while Lark vacuums. Then you kids get the laundry off the line. It’s near dark and dew will be wetting those sheets.
The vacuum roars in and out, working its billowy bag, blaring muffed wind and wrenching the rug taut. The whirling in the bag is like bees packed tight. The machine sucks air through its long neck and Lark holds the cord in one hand like a hard rat tail that whips and smacks. She pushes and pulls and the noise howls louder. Dust flies in clouds, stirred and rising. Solly pushes Termite’s chair, following Lark each way she turns. She can’t hear them in the roar and Termite rides the cutting buzz that rattles in the floor. He smells and hears each shape in the clamor until the vacuum dies and the fat black bag goes small.
Stop it, Solly. He shouldn’t breathe this dust.
The dust hangs, drifting, settling back, hiding, covering. Solly says laundry is girl’s work but he holds Termite and follows Lark through the kitchen into the yard. The screen door slams and Solly’s chest is smooth and moist and streaked with dust. He holds Termite on the curve of his hip, against his low jeans and the slim ridge of his leather belt. The clotheslines run in front of the laurel hedge and fill with colors, each with a sound for the deep hedge to murmur back. Lark hangs sheets over two lines so there’s a narrow space between. Solly stands in the space and turns Termite in slow circles until they’re dizzy. They lie back along the hedge inside the twisted white and the laurel leaves under them go back and back. The dark leaves hold the dark, rustling all night, awake.
Lark snaps pins off closer and closer along the line, throwing them in her apron pockets and filling the basket with clothes. She’s pulling the sheet from under them and Termite says until she stops. Solly pulls her close and she leans against them with the weight of the basket in her arms. The heavy apron slips to her knees and the leaves move, taking them in deeper. Solly moves his hand and holds her. Shhhh, he says, listen. Termite hears the street grate shift as Lark pulls him past in the wagon. The ragged orange cat lies in the shade of the curb, flattened on a trickle of water running into the gutter. The grate is slimed to its depths with leaves and black decay. The cat slits its eyes at the wagon going away and splays its haunches on the bars of the metal grate. Water is runneling deep, down where Solly threw pebbles and Joey fished for coins with a magnet on a string. Termite wants to stay but he’s in the wagon going away. They’re moving past Gladdy’s house, under the trees that shade the sidewalk. Today the trees are still, their heavy limbs flung wide. The orange cat stirs on the cool grate by the curb. There’s a blur of small prone motion in the middle of the street and the cat slides in a fluid crouch to stand over the beetle. The ants ripple unevenly and the beetle moves. The ragged orange cat noses close to touch the smell, a dark tinge like a little hole.
Gladdy’s not home, Lark says, or she’d be watching us from the window.
Gladdy only has Charlie, Lark says. That’s why she’s afraid, like a dog that snarls and bites. She’s afraid of ice and storms and heat and anyone Charlie likes.
But you don’t have to be afraid, Termite. Main Street won’t hurt you.
Cars move in blurs past Lark’s shoulders and hips and her white form pulling the wagon. The curved metal eyes of the stoplights never shut and the air in the colors changes in long coned beams. Sounds shout and wobble. Main Street is never a long smooth stream like the roar the trains pour in the rail yard.
Termite, you like big noises and small sounds, but regular noises won’t hurt you.
You can’t always be quiet. You can’t always be at the river or sitting in your chair.
The striped cloth awnings of the stores hang limp and the asphalt glitters. Far behind them now, the tar street near the alley hums. The orange cat shifts foot to foot, bats at the beetle and bats it. The cat flings the beetle small and large, back and forth, across to the concrete curb. The ants scatter or struggle, caught in the tar in their own piled wedge. The orange cat tongues the beetle like a stiffened jewel, mouths it softly, and carries it away. Elise stands nodding her head to the music. Lark I’ll teach you the Lindy. Solly you’re taller than Nick and half his weight. And this one! Are you twelve yet honey? You remind me of someone lately. You kids will never be prettier. Throw that laundry on the bed. I’ve got the big bands station on the radio, loud as Termite likes it.
Elise taps her stocking foot and Lark walks forward and back with Solly. Faster, Lark, smoother. Relax, it’s dancing. Lark, run at Solly and jump, split your legs tight to his waist. Solly, you catch her, both arms. Then swing her, full body left, then right. Now step, turn, and back to the swing. Yes! That was dancing twenty years ago. People knew how to dance and they didn’t wear any pedal pusher trousers.
Then it’s night. Solly and Lark put him in the middle on Lark’s bed and rock him slow and slower until they say he’s asleep. Now they breathe.
Elise stands in the doorway, against the light.
Look at you three, like a pile of cats. Solly, you get up and go home.
Nonie says the restaurant may be home to Charlie but she’s not moving into it with him. She meets him late to go over the books in the office. Charlie says she does his figuring and he does most of her cooking. He makes sauces for Termite, ground fish or meat with crushed nuts and cream and basil, and soups with every vegetable boys won’t eat. He stirs in soft sharp cheese he grates while Termite watches.
Hold the bowl, Champ. This Parmesan came in just now on the refrigerator truck. Have a little of this. Get your vegetables and beef. Painless.
Termite sits high and tight against the lunch counter in his chair. He holds his bowl in his arms and Lark leans near to help. The counter murmurs sounds and the bitter ashtrays smell of circled ash even after Nonie washes them. Gladdy walks and talks. Her shoes tick small and fast.
He’d be better off where people trained to do it just no sense.
Termite feels her hands flutter, moving to open and shut and close and fasten. She flutters and nudges, blind against a screen.
Used to him training of a kind I don’t object.
I tell everyone, she says. How generous my son is. Work around your needs for his sake I suppose.
Suppose suppose suppose.
He says loud and tells. He feels her urge and push, turning her small square purse to blur and cover. Then she goes. Her sounds are small dark flares going away. The bell over the door shakes to say she’s gone.
Well, Champ, Charlie says.
Charlie picks him up. He says an excursion after a big lunch is the thing and he takes him to the Men’s and puts him on the seat. Termite’s skin is cool where the air moves. Charlie shows him to move his wrist and aim down while he makes the clattering sound. Men got to aim, Charlie says, and holds Termite up to wash his hands. Termite holds on hard to the soft slick soap but Charlie pulls it away. Charlie stands warm and broad behind him and puts his cool wet hand on Termite’s neck, holding water with his big fingers.
There, Champ, cool you off. Now you’ll want to touch that dishwasher.
The big machine sloshes, shuddering the floor. It rumbles on its feet, tinkling small chimes where the glasses touch. Termite feels it rattle plates in the hot spray and the pounding. His hands are up to let his fingers play every sound but the dishwasher stops with a lurch and clicks and wheezes once. Cycle’s over, Charlie says. He’s in Charlie’s arms and they’re through the kitchen and past the office, into the dining room.
Charlie puts him in the wagon between sounds and talk and then Lark is pulling them away, out the door.
Lark walks fast. He can hear the river but he wants the train. The rails in the empty rail yard curve and cross and the steel lines gleam but the train is tunneling deep. He feels it rumble in the shade of the woods, moving faster than the black furled smoke it pours. Clouds are scudding across the sun, blocking the light and showing it, sounding air and changing. The trees are blowing without their leaves. Solly says Lark is finally a teenager. Tell her, Termite. Teenagers have bo
yfriends and Nonie doesn’t have to find out. Nonie made the birthday cake and Lark’s new skirt is from Lowman’s in Atlanta. Box pleats, pink and brown. See? Touch, Termite. Wool. A nice weight in a cold spring.
Leaves on the ground fly up, twisted like torn scraps. The new grass is pale and the bright forsythia dips and slashes. Solly pulls the wagon through the woods. They’re going to the tunnel, he don’t stand talking in the wind. Remember that movie, Termite? Sure as the turn on the earth. Last summer, every day for a week. You liked the rifles. The river is moving and the green mound of the island is still. Sounds roar and pound and open in the stones of the tunnel. The tunnel hums the pounding sound that slides into the river.
Termite, Lark says. We’ll stay a little while before the storm.
Lark and Termite Page 17