by Ed Lynskey
“Maybe I’ll give it another whirl. Maybe we can make a go of it. Maybe I’ll go on the wagon.” Maybe his voice didn’t ring with confidence.
“I figured you guys were in the pink.”
“As they say, looks can be deceiving. The honeymoon is definitely kaput. Any hope Salem and you will get back together?”
My headshake came as the risqué tableau of two pairs of naked legs, the bottom pair forked, blazed into my mind. The cab truck seat had cramped us, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. Afterward, she and I had shared a Marlboro, not the roach I kept in my truck’s ashtray.
“She’s not a party gal.”
“But then you ain’t a party guy now either.”
“True enough. Sure, I’ll buzz her after we get back.” Maybe I also didn’t sound too confident.
“I saw her banging on a typewriter in Herzog’s office.”
“I do my best to give it a wide berth.”
“You’ve got your reasons, too.”
Edna on the jet ski growled up to stop at a safe distance from us.
Waving her over, I said, “That machine is da’ bomb.”
Bobbing on the ripples she’d stirred, he grunted. “Miz Fishback is scaring off our bass.”
I wound in my fishing rig, the reel whining and the water beads glistening off the monofilament line. “The only bass swim in our heads. Admit it, pal. Today we’re skunked.”
“Jet skis are still a hazard.” He spoke extra loud for her benefit as she shunted up to us. “Doubly so when Miz Fishback is hot-dogging it on hers.”
“No more than Mr. Kuzawa does on his souped up bass boat.” Her arms, tanned and toned, lifted as she pinned up her wavy, red hair, and the yellow parrot barrettes clipped it into place.
“Brendan, does this stubbornness curse all of your family?” His red-veined eyes blinked at me. Before I could frame a reply, she offered hers.
“I’m proud to say I inherited mine from Mama Jo.”
My hand swatted a deer fly gnawing on my elbow. “Maybe emptying bed pans and mopping floors makes her stubborn.”
“After she comes home from her shift, I tread on eggshells,” said Edna.
“Her people are also religious. They see visions,” I said, my own dreams with Ashleigh fresh in my mind.
“But Mama Jo isn’t that far-fetched,” said Edna.
“I once dated a Gatlinburg honey that was,” said Cobb. “One Sunday evening, this fire-snorting evangelist threw out an altar call. Well, Angelina Sue scampered off up front and crashed to the floor, imbued with the Holy Ghost or epilepsy. Then she bounded up and kowtowed at the pot-bellied wood stove. The steel crackled red-hot. Now, dig this part. She bear hugged the stove.” He extended his burly arms and closed them to illustrate his point.
“Ouch,” I said.
He grinned. “So you’d think, but it didn’t faze her. No blisters, no welts, and not a single burn lay on her. It had to be a genuine act of faith. Later I kissed her body cool and white as peppermint all over.”
“You did, eh?” Edna’s voice took a brittle edge.
I cringed again.
He frowned at her. “Oh, get over yourself. This was ages before we dated. In fact, I never cheated on you, baby cakes. I deserve your thanks.”
“Thank you. I wish I could tell you the same.”
His manly dignity lost its starch. “What does that mean?”
I spoke up. “I tend to believe his story.”
“As a guy, you would.”
He threaded a blue-and-white spoon on the swivel hook and recast his fishing rig out ten yards to splash on the lake. “Why did I let Brendan invite you to be a thorn in my side today?” He reeled in the spoon.
“Me? You’re the one who can’t say three words without baring your fangs.” Her icy glare skirmished with his. “Brendan is trying his best to help us. The least you can do is show him a little gratitude …”
I left them to bicker and tripped across Lake Charles and up the wooded slopes to savor Will Thomas (he was the only white Cherokee chief) Mountain. A grassy bald capped it, and a dilapidated fire tower perched on the grassy bald. These grass-capped mountains made for a local enigma. Our superstitious cousins in Murfreesboro swore the UFOs, not the Good Lord, had created them.
Mama Jo held that the meteorite bombardment annihilating the dinosaurs had also scorched the permanent grassy balds. I knew the panoramic vista—miles of leafy green—from this one was a picturesque memory to store away. If stranded in an electrical storm, I’d also learned, like Moby Dick’s Ahab, you made an ace human lightning rod. Maybe besides suffering the fernlike bruises and my eyebrows singed off the zap had scrambled my brains. It gave me the haunting dreams. I also hated how Uncle Sam declared eminent domain, and the bully took over any desired land. A smattering of the original hill families still eked out their waning years in the parklands …
“Brendan, are you off gathering wool?” It was Edna. “You always drift off into your own little world. I asked you why should I live with Cobb again.”
Smiling, I shrugged. “Because you grace the trailer park with your class.”
“Ha. But he hasn’t changed one iota since I left him.”
“Aw, quit busting Brendan’s chops.” Cobb drained the last slug of the Rolling Rock. “He’s trying his best to help us. The least you can do is show him a little gratitude,” said Cobb, parroting her words.
Her glare rewarded him.
“Yo, got any more beer?” he asked me.
Now angry, she knew only to attack. “More beer? You never know when enough is enough.”
“That’s the last bottle,” I said, my voice a little weak.
“We’ll head back soon,” he said. “Get some more.”
“What. Honestly. You drink like a fish.”
Snarling, he took her bait. “You love to strum that harp, angel face. I’m pretty sick and tired of hearing it, too.”
“Your drinking is what worries me, Cobb. Some night driving home drunk as a skunk you’ll plow into a Mack truck.”
“That’ll be the day. I respect my limits, huh, Brendan?”
I did my best ambiguous shrug.
“Drop me a line if you ever grow up.” She jerked the jet ski to life and scribed a compact doughnut, her kicked up water droplets spritzing into our faces. Jogging the throttle sent her galloping away toward the earth dam. The foamy water swirled in her wake, and the jet ski’s engine dimmed to a buzz.
“She flies off at any time. Hotheaded, Lord yes, she is. Maybe that crotch rocket will cool her off. I sure can’t. Getting hitched almost undid me, but I ejected in the nick of time.”
I slapped at a cluster of gnats. I saw a kernel of truth in what he said, but she was also my twin sister. I’d read or heard somewhere that brother and sister fraternal twins were unusually close and protective of each other. Staying pinned in the middle of this sniping crossfire sucked. “Buying more beer was a bad idea.”
“Why? It was invented to go with fishing.” He peered over Lake Charles. “Why we can’t make it work stumps me.”
His boozing was the flashpoint, but I didn’t address it directly. “She’s high-strung, and you’re laid-back. Your opposites don’t attract but repel.”
Silence came after he shrugged his beefy shoulders in reply.
The honking Canadian geese flying in a vee beat it south against the leafy backdrop of Will Thomas Mountain. Autumn circled nearer, and its chill seeped into my bones. Further off, I espied a smoke banner pluming skyward. It was another forest blaze, but today was a blessing: for a while, I’d forgotten my homicide arrest.
“This trip is shot to shit. Are you ready to go?”
“I guess.” He laughed at his tattoo. “‘Eat more bass!’ Ain’t that a riot?” He reeled in his tackle to stow and stretched back into his T-shirt.
Casting the empties into the dirty lake, I chuckled. “You deserve a rebate on your tattoo.”
“Next time we’ll do better. Race y
ou.”
We dragged up the anchors, revved the engines, and dashed off, zipping neck-and-neck over the water. The gusting wind threatened to peel off our scalps like pot lids. It felt exhilarating. We’d never again share the zest as that last run we made on Lake Charles ending in a dead heat. The late afternoon shadows engulfed the decrepit marina and pavilion. He guided us through the scum zone along the same track we’d cut earlier until our bass boats drew up to the T-dock.
“There’s still no sign of her,” I said.
“She’s goofing by the earth dam. Let her burn off more steam.” He lifted his bulk to the rickety T-dock where he swayed a little but then righted his balance. A hand shielding his eyes, he scanned the margins. “Where in the devil did she go?”
“Here, grab this dock line,” I said, guiding my bass boat to ease up behind his. “She’s been gone for what now, an hour?”
Anxious, he ignored my extended dock line. “At least, I’d say. Her farting around will make us drive home in the dark.”
“So we’ll grab a couple of motel rooms.”
“If we’re lucky but they book up fast in the summer.”
I tied a mariner’s knot to latch my dock line and climbed to the T-dock. “Let’s rack up the boats. We’ll hear her soon.”
“Says who?” He gnawed on a thumbnail.
“Says the percentages.” Brave words but the alarm in his voice had caused my heart to stagger a beat. “Let’s rack up the boats.”
“Screw the boats.” He shambled over the dock planks, and he beckoned me with his hand. “C’mon. Your binoculars can glass the banks.”
My boots punched through the dock planks as I followed him ashore. I wished the telephone in the crooked booth got 911. My binoculars were on the cab’s dashboard, and I rejoined Cobb. He cupped hands to mouth and bellowed out over the expanse of water.
“Edna! Yo, Edna!”
“We’ll hear her engine any minute.”
He turned his ear to Lake Charles, but only the eerie silence enveloped us. Binoculars up, I scanned the shrubby boundaries, and my head wagged. “There’s nothing to see, I’m afraid.”
“She wrecked that crotch rocket.”
His finger jabbed in the directions I should glass next. A landward breeze hosed the algae’s rankness over us. I knew one big reason for his growing anxiety. He’d once told me how much he missed his late mother. A drunk truck driver had T-boned her where her sun visor rod speared her in the temple. He’d been all of eight. Like me, one parent had raised him. My sight fell on our pair of bass boats waiting for us to mount them.
“That algae will be a bitch and a half,” he said.
I nodded. “Then I guess we better get on it.”
CHAPTER THREE
Two days before Lake Charles on Thursday as I squirmed in the dentist chair, Edna had cleaned my teeth. We talked, or rather she did. I listened.
“Cobb and I might get back together.”
With a mouthful of her fingers and a dental polishing tool, my responses were eye rolls and nostril flares. Was she tweaking me? Her arch sense of humor kept you wary, but I saw no trace of her smile. Not reacting, I didn’t want her too distracted to slip and gouge my gums. She paused to take a rest. A Nashville hat act twanged a love-gone-to-shit-and-life-is-the-pits song on the audio system, but I preferred listening to the brain-fried dentist office music. She continued speaking as she cleaned my teeth again.
“I haven’t talked to him, so don’t you breathe a word. I’m not clear on what’s what. Huh? Don’t speak, Brendan. Anyways, I’ve been so uptight over it. My muscles get stiff. I stay tense, ready to snap. Huh? Am I bearing down too hard? Sorry.”
I slobbered on the paper bib clasped to my neck before I spat. Did she expect me to go in first and soften him up? Neutral like the Swiss, I knew better than to get embroiled in their marital squabbles. Again, I rinsed and spat.
“Didn’t you two call it quits on the Fourth? Now you talk out the other side of your mouth. What should I think?”
“Well, excuse me all to hell. Can’t I have a change of heart?”
“Like anybody, sure.” After hoisting a leg over the side of the dentist chair, I stood.
Giving me her back, she clattered the steel picks and mouth mirrors to fit them into the autoclave. The tobacco smog wafted in from the waiting room despite the posted “No Smoking!” signs. Some bad habits died hard. She was one gasp away from reaming the smoker a new one but turning, she used a more cordial tone.
“Sorry to yap at you. It may sound ditzy, but I could harbor feelings for him. Don’t we deserve a second shot?”
“Absolutely. You say he has no idea?” My tongue slicked over the cleaned tooth enamel. The gaps between my teeth were natural Dr. Smith had told me during his dental probe.
“Do you men ever have a clue? If only he didn’t drink …”
“Is it that big of a deal?” I asked. “He holds his liquor. He doesn’t miss work. No DWIs.” I didn’t bring up vodka, his new daytime liquor, was an odorless vice.
Thinking, she stared off and then parked her blue-gray eyes on me. She chipped on a smile. “Anyway. Have you sold any songs? Have you heard back yet?”
“A signed letter from Houston Forge Records said professional singers don’t record freelance material. Too many legal snafus arise over the copyrights.”
The clink of metal on metal was her fussing again at the autoclave. “Are you smoking weed again, bro?”
“Are you writing a book?” I asked the back of her red hair.
“Does that mean no, smart ass?”
“You know I went cold turkey. That’s why I’m all jitters.” I balled up the paper bib and slung it in the wastebasket. “You really should fill in Cobb.”
“When I’m ready, I will. In the interim don’t let the cat out of the bag.”
“So noted.” They were big kids yet for some reason I went ahead and floated the suggestion.
“Tomorrow after work, he and I are off to go bass fishing. We’ll stay at the nearby Chewink Motel. Are you busy then?”
She turned, her frank gaze on me, and I caught the touch of a coy smile. “I’m always flexible. Where?”
“Lake Charles.”
“So, I’d do what exactly?”
“Bring your new jet ski and let your hair down.”
“I’d be too busy untangling his lures or picking off the ticks and chiggers. It’s sweet that you asked, but no thanks.”
“Just think on it, but don’t let it get out. Lake Charles is our private getaway.” My scribbled out check covered the damages she gave me.
She stamped the dentist’s name—DR. RONALD SMITH, DDS—on the check. I asked her to pencil in my next six-month appointment, but I knew I’d still forget it. My wave acknowledged her farewell nod.
* * *
I left Dr. Smith’s office, stepping down to Main Street, all four blocks of it. My glance saw the weather-faded letters, “Umpire”, on the century-old brick train depot now refurbished as an upscale restaurant. Our lawyers and doctors dined there, but the menu ran too ritzy for my steak-and-spuds palate and wallet. Grateful Edna hadn’t brought up my arrest, I ambled down the baking sidewalk.
The jut-nosed, young woman in faded dungarees and a sleeveless blouse folded up a wheelchair and stuffed it in her yellow Malibu’s trunk. An infirmed older passenger (her mother?) sitting in the front seat wilted. Friendly, I smiled. They didn’t. Newcomers, I mused as my walk came to a glass-plated shop front.
An air conditioner wheezed in its transom, and the water runoff dribbled down. Pete Rojos waved at me dodging the drips. Inside, I could pick out the old leather from the saddle soap odors blended in the chilled, stale air. He appraised me over a pair of copper-framed glasses smudgy as his windows. His words sounded high-pitched.
“It’s hotter than a roasted fart.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Have you got any plans for the weekend?”
“I’m going fishing
up at Lake Charles.”
“Lake Charles … oh, wow … it’s been years.”
I fished out the claim ticket to my boots I’d dropped off for reheeling.
“Puma Claws are the toughest heels I sell.” His rusty voice mimicked the cicadas trilling in the honey locusts. I slipped off my shoes, and he grinned as my sock feet nestled into the malleable boot leather.
“It feels like I’m walking on cotton,” I said.
“You bet your hillbilly ass it does. Puma Claws are the toughest heels I sell,” he said again, only prouder. “You can dance all night, and they won’t wear thin on you. They’re made in the U.S. of A.”
Chuckling, I stamped the boots to seat my heels. “How’s Salem making it?” I gave him my leather shoes I’d worn in to have him reheel.
His raven-haired, sword-legged, and blue-eyed daughter, Salem shipped off in four days to Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She wore a bronze tan well into January, and I’d dated her. She didn’t like pot, but I did, so any serious vibes between us went up in smoke. She lingered as the special girl in my heart.
His eyes hardened into chips of flint. “Why do you give a—”
The cowbells clanked, and my glance followed his to the door. The new cedary Aqua Velva overrode the old leather and saddle soap smells. I took in the tall, big-boned man anywhere between forty and fifty suited in ash gray poplin. My teeth gritted, and I nodded as Herzog slouched beneath the air conditioner spewing down its cool air. His hangdog aura never varied.
“Have you completed my repairs?” he asked Pete. “You stated today at the latest.”
“Count on me to deliver the goods, sir.” He dug out a brown leather game pouch from under the counter. “I pop riveted the shoulder strap back into place. You’re good to go.”
“This year I’m being proactive.” Herzog removed his wallet and paid. “My hunting lodge is scouting the prime sites. Dr. Smith predicts Lake Charles offers phenomenal hunting. We like to park near the earth dam and enter the woods from there.”
“That’s where Brendan is headed this weekend.”
Herzog latched his hangdog look on me as Pete went on.