Seagull: A Southern Novel

by Paul, Lawton

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. Tried to think of nothing. But then I started thinking about bacon. Bacon and two fried eggs and a piece of rye toast on one of AJ's big, white plates. A cup of instant coffee in one of our mugs. They had wide edges that felt good on your lips. I opened one eye. The light was brighter, more yellow, and had reached the door. Clear your mind! I erased the breakfast image. This time after a few minutes I started sinking a little. Warm and safe in the closet where nothing could get me.

  I started to fall asleep, and another memory came like a dream: The closet door was shut, but I could see through the crack because it wasn't flush with the wall. The light was bright and the carpet was off white. And then big, black boots with a bunch of buckles up either side—leather, with metal covering the toes. The boots left a trail of mud in the carpet. A second later a woman's voice: "Jesse, just stay there!"

  I jumped up and hit my head on the closet shelf. Then I looked up and AJ was there.

  "Jesse? Jesse, baby, are you okay?" She had on the old man's crab jacket. She was holding a long metal flashlight, the kind policeman carried that used about six D-sized batteries. It was off, but she held it in front of her like a club. She saw me, dropped the flashlight and gave me a hug before I had a chance to get out of the closet. She put her hands on either side of my face and looked at me. I winced when she touched my puffy right cheek. Her eyes were red and teary. She didn't have any makeup on.

  "What happened to your face?"

  "Later," I said. "How'd you know I was here?"

  "Matthew. Tyler and Art are waiting in the truck."

  I crawled out of the closet and stood in the center of the room. My face and right hand throbbed and pulsed with a dull, red pain. I stood up straight for a second, then put my hands to my knees. I'd gone all night with no sleep. So I just breathed. In the morning light I could see the carpet clearly. Another sock that might have been bright red long ago, but was now sort of brown, a pair of panties with frills on the edges, and the number of old cans had seemingly grown, covering the floor. And between that bits of paper, cigarette butts with red on the end, empty cigarette packs wadded up, the shiny plastic wrap reflecting the light from the window. On the wall someone had scrawled, "Woe to the system, withdrawl of enthusiasm." AJ stood there in the center of the river rat debris, her spotless, white tennis shoes on the edge of the mystery wet spot where the carpet was extra brown and matted down. Her jeans were pressed and wrinkle free. We stood there for a moment in silence, AJ's perfume mixed in with the wet-dog, urine, crab-bait smell.

  I thought about asking her to take me to Matty's house. I could seek asylum there until I figured out why she'd been lying to me all this time. But I was tired and hungry—more tired than I could ever remember. I would've been happy spending the night at the McCready's house, as long as they had a bed. And bacon.

  "Do we have bacon?" I asked AJ.

  "Uh, yeah, I think so."

  We walked out together and I didn't look back.

  home

  I ate breakfast with Tyler when we got home, but halfway through the first piece of bacon, my swollen jaw started to hurt, so I went with grits and eggs and a cup of coffee. I ate slowly, like a man in prison eating his final meal. I imagine most men opt for steak. I went for bacon, then couldn't eat it. There's got to be a rule if you can't eat your final meal for some reason then you've got to have some time added before the hammer drops. I knew the hammer was going to drop. The old man had gone out to mend traps. I could see him through the kitchen window, patching holes in old traps so crabs couldn't escape. He usually exited before the hammer came down.

  In our house, AJ was the executioner. She'd quietly list your offenses, all the while adding extra stuff you didn't do, but that might have happened, to make it sound worse. Her voice would be small and sweet as she handed down her punishment. I remember watching a PBS special about a goat herding woman. All she had were these dumb goats, but they provided her with food and clothing. At dinner time she'd gently pull one to her and stroke the soft white fur and the animal would calm down and lay right there in her lap all relaxed and warm, then the old woman would stick a knife right in its neck, still stroking its fur and speaking softly.

  Jesse dear, you stole the boat and could've gotten yourself killed, not to mention all the worry and heartache you put us through. Then you got into a fight with that McCready boy. What if his friends had entered the fray? I shudder to think. You might've been hospitalized. And then you broke into the apartment. What if you'd stepped on a needle in that horrible place? All the broken glass, you might've gotten tetanus or hepatitis, or God knows what.

  And then she'd hand down her sentence: two weeks restriction, no TV, no comic books, no visits from Matty. Just me in my room with some homework and a stack of encyclopedias.

  After breakfast I took a shower, my hand and face still throbbing. It was a Friday, and since I was sick, sort of, AJ said I could miss school. The old man was outside so I sat down on the wicker chair in the Florida room, put my feet up on the radiator and waited. It didn't take long. AJ came in a few minutes later. Her face was blank, but it was coming. And seeing her sort of lit a little fire in me.

  The lie.

  So I decided to beat her to the punch. "The story about my mother and father and the picture was a lie." I said.

  AJ studied the floor for a good long time, then she looked outside. The Spanish moss danced and swayed in the wind like little gray flags. The river was whitecapping. AJ turned back to me, her eyes puffy and red. Then she sat down on the floor and held out her hands. I sat down in front of her and she took my hands and I looked into her wet eyes. She did an I'm-about-to-cry sniff, wiped her eyes and looked at me.

  "Your mother went missing," she said. She left her little boys alone. Y'all lasted two days before someone found out. Tyler tried to take care of you. The apartments were brand new and there weren't any people on that end. A friend of mine who lived there, Mary Ann Thorsen, found you when you fell off the top of the slide and hurt your arm. You just kept crying, 'Momma, Momma, Momma'. It was early in the morning, before the sun had come up yet. She didn't know how long you'd been lying there."

  She leaned back and grabbed the tissue box next to the old man's recliner. "Mary called me because she didn't know what to do. Art and I came. You were three and still in diapers and Tyler was only five. He didn't know how to change a diaper. It was horrible. There was a pack of frozen vegetables on the floor of the kitchen. Tyler had chewed through the cardboard and plastic to get it open. Both of y'all were dehydrated. The house smelled like poop. There was food on the table like you guys were going to sit down to dinner. Three plates. She'd fried up some spam, canned corn, and salad. Three plastic cups and a pitcher of sweet tea. But y'all hadn't touched it."

  Out in the yard, the old man fired up the blower--the high-pitched gas engine whining. AJ kept going. "We'd always wanted kids. I prayed about it. Then you guys came.

  Right after you came to live with us we had some good days, and some not so good days. You'd just start crying, begging me to take you to your momma. It tore my heart out because that's the one thing I couldn't give you. I'd hold you all night and you'd cry until you fell asleep, then wake up and cry again. Tyler was always quiet. It was like he'd bottled it all up and locked it deep inside. Neither of us talk about it. One day I couldn't take it anymore so I made up the story about your momma. We all needed a bit of finality there.

  After that we started to recover a bit. Then we went to the museum in DC and had a bit of a setback, but you guys started to grow and thrive. I knew I'd have to tell you the truth at some point. I just didn't think that time would come so quickly. You guys are still my babies, no matter how tall you get."

  "What about my father?" The blower sound stopped and the garage door banged shut.

  "Jesse, he just wasn't there for you or your mother. We have Uncle Art, now."

  And that was the end of the story. She looked at me with large eye
s, reading my face. I gave her a smile and said thanks. We hugged and she went back to the kitchen and I laid down on the couch. It was too soft and an ugly brown color even though we called it "old yellow," but right then it was the most comfortable place on Earth. I put my hands behind my head and crossed one leg over the other, took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling. My mind was clear. A smile started its ascent from deep inside of me. I could feel it coming. I fought it for a moment, but then I let it come. And so I smiled up at the ceiling like a mad man. Home was here, with AJ, the old man and Tyler. And for once in my life, there was no place I'd rather be.

  Pretty soon the old man came in, plopped down in his chair and grabbed the remote. The credits were rolling to Wheel of Fortune. So I watched soap operas with him. At some point during The Guiding Light I fell asleep. At that point, I hadn't slept in about a day and a half. Taking the boat seemed like years before. So I slept the rest of that day, into the night, and woke up the following morning around 5:00 am. It was a good, deep sleep, and I felt better than I had in a long time.

  And the hammer never came.

  My face and hand were a little less sore, and I was hungry. The old man saw that I was up so we went to The Clock, his favorite little restaurant that was open 24/7. We drove together in the old truck, bouncing all the way in the springy front seat. He had an AM radio and eight track player in the dash, the green dial glowing in the dark, an eight track loaded, but not pushed in, called Beer Barrel Polka. It'd been in there for as long as I can remember, but I'd never actually heard the song. There was a thin layer of dust covering the eight track and the knobs on either side of the radio.

  The restaurant was empty when we walked in. We sat down at the old man's usual table and a big lady with an apron and a hairnet brought the old man a cup of coffee. "What's he want?" she said, pointing the end of the round, glass coffee pot in my direction.

  "Coffee and a short stack," said the old man. I'd been here before and this is the way it went. The old man was beyond menus at this point.

  Soon I had a plate of pancakes in front of me. I devoured them, then added two sugars and a creamer to the coffee.

  "Where'd the flapjacks go? You hide 'em under the table?" the old man said. I patted my stomach, and sipped on the coffee.

  Squeek came just before sunup, and Captain Jake, who captained the fire boat near Eastport, not long after that. Squeek usually had a grin on his face, but that morning he was smiling bigger than usual, and he was looking right at me.

  "I's proud a you, Seagull. I seen that McCready boy's face! Look like he done run into a wall or sumin'! His nose all black and blue." He patted me on the back mid sip and coffee spilled onto the table.

  "Yeah, I heard about that," said Captain Jake. He had a red and gold patch on his sleeve--two axes crossed with a curved fireman's helmet in the middle. FIRE on top and DEPT. written at the bottom. His gray hair was clean cut and he smelled like aftershave. "Maybe you got a little of your old man in you after all," he said. Jake never smiled, mainly just complained about everything, but today was different.

  He called the waitress over, who by now was busy with several other tables. "Mavis, darling, bring this boy here a piece of apple pie, heated, with a little vanilla ice cream on top."

  And so I had a great time at The Clock that morning, filled with pancakes, apple pie and coffee. And something else started brewing inside of me. Up to then I hadn't really thought about it. In all of the emotion at the apartment, the lack of sleep, the fear of AJ's impending sentence, I'd forgotten what happened.

  I'd beaten Johnny McCready.

  Yeah, he had me down. But in the end I was standing and he was on the ground with a bloody nose. It reminded me of the time at the market when the old man said I saved the boat and I let myself have just a moment of pride. But this time I truly was proud, just a little. And it felt good. Things looked different. Felt different. A calmness surrounded me for the first time in a long time.

  The next Monday I went to school. The side of my face and hand were still a little sore, but I was well rested and ready to go. I met Matty in the morning as usual. We walked down the hall to our lockers and it was like a ticker tape parade. River rat friends kept yelling, "SEAGULL!" Plenty of pats on the back. Girls whispering and giggling as we passed by. This continued pretty much all day whenever I got within earshot of another tenth grader. Even Tyler's friends were coming up to me. "Way to go, man. Tyler's little bro puttin' it to Johnny."

  I was actually enjoying the attention. But I didn't really know why everyone was making such a big deal about it. Then I ran into Johnny outside second period. He had a little bandage taped to his nose. The white rectangle made the black and blue skin around it stand out. Even up near his left eye there was some blue. My first thought was how did that happen? Maybe his old man had popped him. Then I realized. And a little shame doused the pride.

  He walked right up to me and we stood there, facing each other again. Instantly everyone in the hall got quiet. I'd never noticed until right then, but his jeans were too short, and his shirt was ragged. He had on an old Ocean Pacific t-shirt that was so thin you could almost see through it. There was a hole near the neck. There was supposed to be a surfer in front of a big, orange sun, but part of the surfer had worn off. Just two legs and the tail end of the surfboard remained.

  "You find what you were looking for?" he said, brushing a clump of black hair hanging down over his black and blue nose. There were stitches under the little white bandage.

  I looked down at my shoes, then back at him. "Yeah. I guess I did."

  "Keep it real, Seagull," he said and walked off. The tight group of kids cleared a path for him like the parting of the Red Sea.

  After third period biology Matty showed up at my locker, as usual. And as usual, I took my time offloading my history and bio books, all the while my eyes trained on the door to Hailey's calc class which hadn't let out yet. My locker was about head high, so when I opened the door it made a nice little wall to hide behind. Hailey's tractor beam, which usually rendered me speechless and weak kneed could not penetrate metal.

  "You gonna talk to her today?" Matty said.

  "Yep."

  "What you gonna say?"

  "I don't know."

  "Another one of your great plans, I see."

  A few classes let out and the hall got crowded. Jason Vincent, whose father used to be a shrimper, but had gotten a job at the post office, stopped by to say congratulations. His friend, Bucky, who was a striker on Mel Johnson's crab boat, joined in, too. Bucky had been the recipient of Johnny's leading right on more than one occasion. And soon there was a little crowd of people around me and Matty going on and on about the fight.

  The story had begun to spin out of control. Someone said by the looks of Johnny's face, I must've hit him with a bottle. Then someone suggested brass knuckles. Matty served as my public relations officer and ran damage control. Meanwhile I was trying to see over everyone's head, but couldn't find Hailey.

  After a few minutes the crowd thinned, Matty had to run to class and I turned to my locker to grab my English lit book. I shut the door, locked it, and spun the dial. When I turned around, there was Hailey. All speech functions were suddenly rendered inoperable. I thought about Star Trek, when the Klingons showed up Captain Kirk would scream, "All power to the shields!" And Scotty would divert power from the main engines to the forward shield. The ship would be saved. For me, there was no time to raise the shields. It was a surprise attack and I was floating in space, powerless, with no communications.

  I wondered if my face had contorted into some odd look of pain and angst. She was so close I could see a little brown in her green eyes. She was holding her calc book tight to her chest with her arms wrapped around. We both stood there for a moment. I was afraid that speech functions had not yet returned and that I would stand there and just stammer.

  "I saw what you did to Johnny's face," she said. It wasn't triumphant, like everyone else. It was
more of a statement, with a little sadness. She'd broken the ice so I felt pretty sure actual words would come out.

  "Today, for the first time, I kinda felt sorry for him. He doesn't have a good family life," I said, a hint of crackly voice, but I might have had a cold.

  "You're right. But I'm glad he got what was coming."

  "Where's the walking coat hanger?" Stronger voice.

  "I don't know. Don't care."

  Then she smiled right at me. Direct shot to the forward hull. "Captain, we can't take an energy beam of this magnitude!" "Hold her together, Scotty!" On the main deck everyone was scurrying about, red lights flashing, warning klaxon blaring. Then the captain, clinging to the edge of his chair, crew members laying sprawled out on the deck, issued his command: "More power to the shields!"

  I faked being normal. Faked a regular voice. "Where's your next class?"

  "It's DeAngelo's social studies in the portables. You'll be late if you walk with me."

  "That's okay. A few days ago I stole a boat, got into a fight, and broke into an apartment. Almost sunk another boat... Being late for English lit is not that big of a deal."

  "Maybe we could break a window on the way to spice things up," she said.