Gun Love

by Jennifer Clement

  He’s a man fallen, Pastor Rex said. Every man is one wrong turn away from being homeless. There’s not much else to know. Every man is one minute away from losing everything.

  The first time everyone saw the Texan staying with Pastor Rex was at church at a regular Sunday morning service.

  But I’d already seen him.

  Late every Wednesday afternoon Pastor Rex went to the veterans’ hospital to minister to the sick, and so this was a perfect time after school to check out his trailer for cigarettes to steal.

  It was a very hot, humid day. The air seemed to be a cloud that had come down and submerged our trailer park in moisture. In this kind of unbearable heat, I knew for certain that most everyone was inside their trailers sitting in front of a fan with a tall cold drink of something.

  On this Wednesday afternoon, I was so hot and sleepy, I couldn’t even make a fist. Lying in the back of the Mercury trying to stay cool in my underwear and T-shirt, I couldn’t even think to do my homework.

  Mrs. Roberta Young said these kinds of days made her believe it was true that the Earth was getting closer to the sun.

  It’s the Earth’s orbital motion change, she said.

  Land is always in the mind of flying birds, Noelle answered with her fortune-cookie words.

  I didn’t even bother to dress or put on some shoes when I decided it was time to make a quick dash, a quick cigarette run, to Pastor Rex’s trailer.

  Outside the car, the air felt cool on my skin. The damp grass under my bare feet was warm. I skipped past the slide and swing set and public bathroom.

  By now it had started to drizzle as the heavy air could no longer store the water, so I picked up speed and ran through a small clearing of trees. I slowed down as I circled around the Mexicans’ trailer surrounded by broken lawn furniture and the plastic pink flamingos just in case Corazón was outside. No one was around, but dozens of piles of newspapers tied with string near the trailer’s front door were getting wet.

  Before I hopped up the three steps and opened the door to Pastor Rex’s trailer, I looked around to make sure no one was lurking nearby. Then, in a swift glide of a move, I opened the door, stepped in, and slammed the metal door behind me.

  Rainwater trickled down my forehead and cheeks. My T-shirt and underwear were plastered to my skin as if the cloth had become my body. I shook my head to get the rain out of my hair.

  At that moment, I was not thinking about stealing cigarettes, I was trying to figure out how I was going to keep the tobacco dry. My mind was already focused on finding a plastic supermarket bag or something near the kitchen counter.

  What are you doing here, girl? Eli said.

  I heard his voice before I saw him.

  I stopped. I held my breath. I stopped. I stopped.

  What are you doing here, girl?

  He spoke the words, all together, as if they were one word: What-are-you-doing-here-girl?

  I slowly turned to my left and saw Eli on Pastor Rex’s bed. He sat naked on the edge of the mattress in front of a large round fan. He held a shotgun across his knees.

  He did not move to try to hide his nakedness.

  I didn’t move either. My newfound me, a thief-that-is-caught me, didn’t answer.

  A yearning to get in out of the rain, huh? he said. His voice was soft and musical as if speaking were a song.

  I nodded. I could hear drum thunder in me and outside.

  His eyes were blue, really blue, and not like the sky or ocean or other blue things that I could think of. He had long black hair.

  Hey, girl, turn and face the door, he said.

  I knew what he could see. His eyes held a small girl who was so white she could have been a peeled apple, a baby bottle of milk, a scoop of vanilla ice cream. He looked at my new body that was moving across the line from twelve to thirteen.

  You’re as white as a candle, little girl. I bet there’s a wick that can be lit up inside of you, he said.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t understand.

  Hey, girl, turn and face the door. Turn around. Turn your pretty self around. Let me get some denims on. And then I’ll fix you a towel so you can dry off.

  I did turn around.

  I spun around.

  I opened the door, ran down the steps, past the Mexicans, the old slide and swing set, and zigzagged through the trailers until I got to the Mercury. I yanked the door open, jumped in, pulled the heavy car door closed, threw myself down on the floor under the glove compartment, and rolled myself into a little ball of a girl.

  9

  The second time I saw Eli, I was with April May and her parents at church. Mrs. Roberta Young was across the aisle from us with Noelle. They were both dressed up in white and looked very serious with their hands folded in their laps. My mother thought they were the last people on Earth to dress up for God. Everyone else in the building was dressed in regular jeans, shorts, and T-shirts. It really horrified my mother and contributed to her disdain for Protestants.

  At the very back of the building several of the benches were reserved for the wounded men and nurses who came from the VA hospital. Every Sunday there was a bus service that would bring the war veterans to church. Some of the men were in wheelchairs and others moved on crutches. Nurses came with them to help those who couldn’t walk well or to push wheelchairs. Sometimes, if Rose was on duty, she’d sit in the back with the vets. A strong male nurse carried one man, who had no legs or arms, into the church every Sunday.

  Rose said the veterans’ hospital had every kind of man in it.

  When I looked at the men at the back of the church on those mornings I knew she was right. There were men back there of every shape and color.

  Rose said, The war wounded are a storybook.

  Eli walked in after the congregation was already seated. His black cowboy boots rang out on the floor. He wore blue jeans and a clean white shirt.

  He also had a shotgun slung over each shoulder.

  Rose poked Sergeant Bob with her elbow and whispered, Who’s this man? Can you open carry in church?

  Everyone looked at him.

  Eli nodded slightly to the people on his left and right as he strode toward the front of the church.

  Rose said, That man walks down the aisle like he thinks he’s the bride.

  When he saw me sitting in a pew to his left like a small white egg, he closed his eyes for just a second, both of them. It was his way of saying, I know you.

  When he reached the front pew he pulled one shotgun strap from one shoulder and then drew the other off and laid them both on the bench and sat down.

  Later when I told my mother about Eli she said, There is only one kind of man who carries two shotguns into church. That’s a man who doesn’t turn the other cheek.

  Eli took in a deep breath. We all watched him. Everyone in that church could both feel and see his breath because he didn’t yet know that in our slice of Florida he had to breathe shallow. He didn’t yet know that the fumes from the dump and the murky and diseased, alligator-infested river could make him sick. He breathed deep as if he didn’t know mosquitoes were breeding everywhere and that hurricane season was only a week away. He breathed deep as if the church air could fill him with amens.

  A scent of lemon mixed with pinecones followed him into the church.

  That was perfume, Sergeant Bob said. Girl perfume.

  April May squeezed my arm and looked at me and crossed her eyes. She always crossed her eyes when she wanted to say, This is messed up.

  Across from where I was sitting, I could see Noelle and Mrs. Roberta Young. Noelle had two Barbie dolls with long yellow hair sticking out of the front pocket of her jeans. I could see that Noelle’s ankle-length socks had lost their elastic and had slipped down into her shoes. The socks were rumpled up in folds and no longer covered her heels. Noelle didn’t
seem to notice.

  We heard the story about Eli in a sermon that Pastor Rex gave that very morning with the man looking up at him from the front pew.

  Pastor Rex wiped his brow with a light-blue handkerchief and began the sermon. He said, I am not going to talk about our Lord Jesus, I’m going to talk about my friend from Texas, Mr. Eli Redmond.

  When Pastor Rex said the word “Eli,” I did not know yet that we were in trouble. I did not know that my mother was this man’s deer to hunt and that his name would be the song inside her body.

  Later my mother would say that this was no coincidence. Billie Holiday had sent Eli Redmond to her. Bessie Smith and Nina Simone had shepherded him here. Etta James was singing “At Last.” My mother didn’t believe in coincidence, she believed in divine intervention.

  April May listened to the sermon and turned to me and crossed her eyes again. She was not buying any of this.

  Eli Redmond is a man among us who has fallen on hard times, Pastor Rex said.

  I looked at Eli. I could see his profile. He smiled as Pastor Rex talked about him and leaned back against the hard wood bench and crossed his arms. He liked hearing the story of his life.

  Eli Redmond has lost his family, Pastor Rex repeated. He lost his family just as if his house were the Mary Celeste. Do you remember that boat? That was one sad story. It was found on the sea with the mashed potatoes and ham still hot on the plates and not a soul on board. Not a soul. People never knew what happened to that boat, but it must have been bad. Bad. The lifeboat was still attached. How did these people disappear? Where did they go? This is one of the ocean’s great mysteries.

  Well, Eli came home to his house from work and his wife and two boys were gone, Pastor Rex said.

  Everyone in the church turned, swiveled, or leaned forward to look at the man from Texas. Now his head was bowed and his eyes were closed as if his own eyes could not stand to hear his own story.

  Yes, indeed, Pastor Rex said, this is a man who lost everything. His family disappeared, went missing, vanished. He’s looked for them but hasn’t had no luck. I hope his bad luck will be good luck as the loving family of our church takes him in. We can be his lifeboats.

  Noelle had put down her Bible and had taken her Barbie dolls out of her pocket. She was holding them in her hands and making them walk on their tiptoe-shaped plastic feet along the back of the pew.

  I looked around the church. The church’s ceiling was covered with patches of mold. There was a large image of Jesus in a frame on the left wall and a simple metal cross on the right wall. I didn’t want to focus on Pastor Rex, who had now turned bright red with emotion as he repeated, Oh yes, lifeboats, yes, this is what we must be. Lifeboats. Who will carry the life vest for this man? He cannot drink saltwater. It’s like it says in the famous poem. So, who will bring him fresh water? Who will give him some work to do?

  When Pastor Rex said, Do not kill the albatross, everyone in the church grew still.

  April May turned to me and whispered, Albatross? What?

  The Lord be with you all, Pastor Rex said. And to finish, let us pray.

  At this point in the service some people stood up from their pews while others got down on their knees.

  I knelt next to April May. Sergeant Bob struggled down and also knelt on his one knee beside me while Rose continued to stand.

  I closed my eyes tightly and prayed to God and thanked him for the Catholic fact that my mother was not in the Protestant church to hear about Eli Redmond. I knew she’d be thinking about touching his forehead and placing a thermometer in his mouth.

  At the end of the prayer, Pastor Rex asked Eli Redmond to stand and say a few words.

  Eli stood up and turned around to look at the congregation. And for the second time I heard his rockabye-baby voice.

  He said, Like a tree alone in a field, I stand here. No other trees are helping me to bear the wind and storm. Lightning struck this tree, struck me. I want to find my woman and my brood. I can’t slumber in the day or night. There is no repose for my eyes that don’t see their eyes. You can dandy up your imagination, but nothing can prepare you for this.

  Eli spoke as if he were bent over a cradle.

  No one is loving me, he said, and then he was almost really singing. Maybe my woman is calling to me. Maybe they’re walking along a highway. Maybe they’re in that dwelling where no one comes back from. Maybe.

  Everyone was quiet. For one day the word “maybe” became the most important word of our lives. It was a word we’d never given a place to on the mantelpiece of words and now it sounded like a word that contained answers.

  Behind me, in the pews at the back, I could hear the war veterans’ breath exit and enter their bodies with deliberation, as if they were counting the chime of the day’s new word: maybe, maybe, maybe.

  The men tried hard not to stare at Eli Redmond, but they could not stop because they knew him, because they’d been him so long ago.

  They looked at the Texan and remembered what it had been like to hold a woman by the waist and squeeze her just a little so she’d feel their strength in her body.

  I could hear the restless sound of metal crutches slip and fall and the whine and wheeze of wheelchairs as they stirred in place.

  The broken soldiers knew they were ruins as they looked upon this man.

  10

  My mother was so good, she was too good.

  Some people would say that kind of goodness needed to be locked up.

  She never said no to me.

  I’m like a cup of sugar, she liked to say. You can borrow me anytime.

  She was a cup of sugar.

  But sweetness is always looking for Mr. Bad and Mr. Bad can pick out Miss Sweet in any crowd—just like magnets. Mr. Bad was the refrigerator and Miss Sweet was the Florida Loves Oranges magnet sticking to the door.

  My mother invited Eli Redmond into our car to visit.

  She opened her mouth in a great wide O and breathed him right into her body.

  She opened her mouth and breathed in the balm and musk of Eli Redmond.

  I could not understand. She knew all the songs, so why would she get messed and stirred up with a man like this? And she knew all the love songs that are a university for love. She knew the “I’m So Lonely I Ain’t Even High” and “Call Me Anything But Call Me” songs.

  When he said his name was Eli she was down on her knees.

  His voice tamed her immediately. The first word of love he said was all she needed. He said, I’m your medicine sweet baby my oh my your name has always been written on my heart.

  And thereafter all he had to do was whistle for her.

  My mother and Eli met for the first time in the dilapidated recreation area we passed on the way to the bathroom.

  Every morning our routine was to get out of the Mercury early and go to the bathroom. I always went in first while my mother waited for me outside.

  On the day my mother met Eli Redmond, I was in the small bathroom washing my face and brushing my teeth when I heard voices outside. It was my mother talking to the Texan. I knew it was Eli because he was singing every word.

  He said, What do you mean? You knew I was coming? Like the spring?

  Yes.

  When I came out of the bathroom, I found my mother sitting on the cracked plastic swing in her long, almost transparent, lavender-colored nightgown. Eli stood behind her and was propelling her small body into the air.

  He held a burning cigarette tight between his teeth so that he could use both his hands to push her into the morning sky. My mother’s eyes were closed so she could feel his hands against her lower back and hips.

  I walked back to the Mercury alone and began to dress for school.

  About half an hour later my mother came back. She opened the door and crawled onto the backseat. She turned around a
nd lay down on her back and placed her hands over her face as if she didn’t want Eli’s face to leave her eyes. Her bare feet were muddy. Somewhere on her morning voyage from the bathroom to our car she’d lost her flip-flops.

  Baby, Pearl, she said, I believe in love at first sight. Be careful what you look at.

  From then on my mother was always staring into her wishing-well watch. In the round face of hours and minutes she looked for time to spend with Eli.

  Maybe I’m getting my future back, she said.

  The following Sunday my mother pushed me out of the Mercury and told me to go to church with April May. She told me to go off in kind, soft words, but they might have been a soldier’s hard combat boot giving me a kick. She wanted to be alone with Eli.

  A week had gone by with Eli trying to bribe me out of the car with candy. He brought a yellow packet of peanut M&M’s and a bag of jelly beans. But he read me fast. It took him only two days to figure out that what I really wanted was a cigarette. Thanks to my mother’s burning up for Eli, April May and I could count on a regular supply of Camels.

  The following Sunday there was a sense of expectation in the church. Even Pastor Rex kept looking over his shoulder to the front door as he set up the altar. The soldiers shifted and looked around. The women were more groomed than usual and a few men were wearing long-sleeved shirts, which was pretty unheard-of.

  The congregation was waiting for Eli, but I knew he was with my mother in the backseat of our car.

  So much for Eli’s missing family, April May whispered to me.

  Yes.

  So, your mother and Eli have gone the sweetheart way?

  Yes.

  Salt meet wound, she said.

  Pastor Rex became unraveled as he went through the routine of the church service. In his sermon he talked about the Miracle of the Mule and the Miracle of the Miser’s Heart, but it was hard to follow what he was trying to say. His hands trembled as he held the prayer book.