Annie raised her eyebrows. “What’d you plan on doing here for a week?”
“Rest.”
She looked around the yard, wondering what the hell a teenage-looking kid would do.
“That’ll be $300 with a $100 deposit.” She went back to scribbling. “I don’t take credit cards and I don’t take checks.”
Drayton peeled four bills off a roll and placed them on her book. She stopped scribbling, watched him put the money back in his pocket. He could rent the room for months. Maybe years.
She stared at the bills on her ledger. “Why are you here?”
“I have business.”
“You dealing drugs?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then what’s a boy like you doing with a wad of cash like that.”
“I’ve invested well.”
“Then what’s your business?”
“It’s hard to say. I’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, your hospitality is appreciated.”
She watched the bills as if they’d sprout teeth and tear through her faded floral blouse. The ceiling fan made them tremble on the page. She gently placed her hand over them to make sure they didn’t sprout legs, too.
“You have a room for one week, Drayton. If I see anything I don’t like, you will leave my property with no refund. Do we have an agreement?”
“Indeed, we do.”
Annie snapped the book shut. “Come along.”
He took his time going into the house. No sense in rushing. Delivering Blake Barnes’s message wasn’t about words. He couldn’t stop by and tell them their deadbeat, runaway husband and father says he’s sorry. It wasn’t about that. Drayton had to deliver the message.
Sometimes it took a while to figure out what exactly the message was.
VIII
Drayton followed Annie past crooked pictures with dusty glass and family faces. Annie and her two boys and daughter. The daughter was the oldest, but she’d moved out a year earlier. The youngest boy, Drayton had yet to meet.
The hallway ended in the kitchen with peeling wallpaper of flowers and stripes and a small table with aluminum legs. Annie was already climbing the steep steps to the right, her footsteps clobbering each tread. At the top, a short hall went left and right, each ending at a door. Annie went left and turned the glass doorknob.
The ceiling inside was slanted. The books on the shelf were bloated. Annie asked Drayton about his luggage. He didn’t have any at the moment. She curled her bottom lip, stared, then decided it was an argument she didn’t have the energy for.
“Well, if you get any luggage, you can put it there.” She pointed at a bureau in the corner with a metal fan on top. “The washing machine is downstairs but the dryer don’t work. In this humidity, it’ll take a day and a half for them to hang dry. I don’t mean no disrespect, but if you start stinking to high heaven, you’ll have to sleep in the barn and that bed cost the same as this one.”
The day had gotten up to one-hundred degrees, but his shirt was still dry. Didn’t matter, a man can still smell underneath a dry shirt. The how and why his stink didn’t reach her nostrils didn’t seem to bother her. Wasn’t her problem, really.
“I serve supper at 6:00, but I’m running late. You’re welcome to make yourself at home up here or wander around the farm, pet the horses or whatever you plan on doing. Riding is off limits. I got an old mare stabled that you can take on the trail, but not until it cools off and not without one of us going with you. And you’ll have to sign a waiver. Understand?”
He nodded. Drayton listened to her descend the stairs. Pots and pans clanged below. She spoke quietly with Bo for some time.
Drayton had been in Middle East hot boxes that were only slightly warmer than that attic room. He stood at the window, contemplating Blake Barnes’s message. The day moved on. Annie knocked and told him supper was ready. He politely declined without opening the door, said he would like to rest. Then he watched the sun set. He listened to the house and the memories that penetrated the walls.
A television muttered from downstairs. Then music. Eventually, it was quiet. There was only the sound of tree frogs. Peace fell over the house. Those inside slept like the dead. Drayton stood at the window as still as the night.
When morning was near and the sky turned gray, he walked downstairs without a sound, found several boxes of tea in the cabinet. Among them Earl Grey.
IX
Annie would rather starve than take a risk. She blamed her ex-husband for that.
Letting the kid in the house, a stranger, was the riskiest thing she’d done since Blake left. Starving was one thing, but letting a serial killer in the house was another. She lay in bed that first night staring at the ceiling wondering if she made a mistake. That floor hadn’t creaked once since she led him to the attic room and those boards whined even when you thought real hard. He must’ve gone right to sleep because it was dead silent.
Don’t say dead.
Annie wondered if she would sleep at all thinking about it. That money would only last a few weeks. Then what? That boy could be a lifetime of trouble. She rolled back and forth, thinking the risk just wasn’t worth it. She was about to get out of bed and sit at the foot of the steps, just in case he got any ideas. But sleep rolled over her like a rogue wave.
Annie didn’t own an alarm clock. She woke every morning at 4:00 AM, no matter what time she went to bed. She would lay there for half an hour and pray for her children, then get up to make breakfast. Annie hadn’t been late for the morning in twenty years.
She was late that morning.
The horses were whining. Annie blinked. The sun pierced the room through the blinds, rows of bright lines on her bedspread. The clock read eight-thirty. She sat up, checked her watch. Still eight-thirty.
She came storming out of her room pulling on a robe. The house was silent. Annie leaned over the kitchen sink, looked out the window. The horses stretched their necks over the fence, kicking the ground.
“Bo!” she shouted. “Time to feed!”
Annie melted butter in the pan. She’d let Young, her youngest, sleep until breakfast was ready. He was a late sleeper anyhow. Probably slept right through the shouting. She had dreams that night. Dreams. Something about a park and the water. There was a sailboat, too. She could still feel the breeze on her face.
The butter crackled in the pan. She broke open four eggs and noticed the tea pot. It was still warm. Bo walked in a hurry with stainless steel buckets across the backyard. Off to the right, under the largest oak on the property, Drayton sat at the iron table with his legs crossed, a teacup in one hand and a saucer in the other. He watched Bo dump buckets into the feedboxes and the horses stuff their heads inside. He sipped elegantly, lifting the cup to his lips with his little finger poised outward. She’d never seen anyone drink like that, except on television.
She hated to say it, but until she saw him out there, she’d forgotten about him. And Annie never forgot about anyone on her property. She always said she could smell people on the other side of her twenty acres and he slept upstairs while she slept like the dead.
Don’t say dead.
X
Bo woke up late on the second day, too.
He was thinking he never slept like that before, or dreamed like that, either. Drayton had been there two days and pretty much stayed in his room. Hadn’t come down to eat, piss or nothing. He just drank tea and that was it. It should’ve been creepy, but for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe all the sleep Bo was getting just put him in a good mood. Mama certainly was.
The kitchen was empty. Except for the tea kettle, the counters and stove hadn’t been used. Mama must’ve been sleeping in, also. That was a world record, her sleeping in again. Since it was Saturday, he didn’t bother waking her for work.
The horses didn’t seem too upset. None were tromping around the pasture. In fact, they were already grazing at the round bale. The little table under the oak was empty. Drayton must’ve been back in his room already.
Bo figured that maybe Mama got up and fed. Good moods can do that. He went out to the feed room and heard the buckets clanging around.
“Morning.”
“It is,” Drayton said.
Bo pulled a Coke from the tiny fridge under the sink. He popped the drink and took a sip while Drayton went about cleaning the buckets. Shit, if he wanted to kick in around the farm, Bo wasn’t going to stop him. He went out to the barn to start hauling hay and dragging fields. The tractor spit black smoke from the straight pipe. He pulled the long trailer loaded with bales of hay out of the barn. When he turned back, Drayton was on the trailer.
They got chores down in half the time.
XI
A black Hanoverian came to the fence. His lips flapped. His coat was radiant. His eyes fearless. Drayton had ridden many like this one through battlefields. He was a warmblood, his descendants trained for war. A magnificent beast.
Drayton stepped out of the mid-afternoon shade and offered his hand. The horse snorted and blew warm air from its nostrils.
“His name’s Blackjack.”
Drayton eyed the young boy in the wheelchair. Tracks led back to the house. “Beautiful horse.”
“I’m Young.”
Drayton shook his hand, nodding imperceptibly. He heard Annie talking to Young at night, heard the rubber treads squeak on the hardwood. He even sensed Young watching him through the downstairs window, the curtain drawn just enough. Now that he had a good look, he could see he was fifteen, bound to a wheelchair all his life.
“You don’t exist,” Young said.
“Pardon me?”
“I’ve been researching.” Young pulled a laptop from the saddlebag. “You don’t exist, not by Nassfau Rauttu.”
“I see.”
He tapped the keys. “You either lied or you’re hiding something. There’s no Nassfau Drayton Rauttu in the last hundred years.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“How so?”
“Are you a liar or have I met my match?”
“I don’t exist.”
Young waited for a follow up. When there was none, he pulled a broken radio antenna from the saddlebag and poked Drayton’s leg. “Physics don’t lie.”
A chuckle puffed from Drayton’s lips. A rarity.
Young watched him closely then told Drayton all the horses names and what their owners were like. He didn’t like half of them because they felt sorry for him. He didn’t usually talk to people. But then the sun tracked further across the sky until there was no more shade where they were standing. Young was back to the horses when Drayton asked him if he ever rode one. Young said his daddy used to put him on Imelda and walk him around the pasture. He got quiet after that.
He looked over his shoulder to make sure Drayton wasn’t looking. Young typed loudly. He looked over his shoulder once or twice more, as if comparing Drayton’s face to a picture then abruptly snapped the laptop shut.
“I accept.”
Drayton raised his eyebrows.
“You exist, therefore you can be found.”
Young wheeled over to the ramp that led to the back door. Challenge accepted.
A smile touched Drayton’s lips.
XII
“You invite him to supper,” Mama told Bo after watching him help with the hay and drag the fields. Then they spent the next day mending fences. Except for a pot of tea on the stove every morning, they hadn’t seen him eat a thing. “Don’t take no for an answer,” she said.
But when Bo tapped on the bedroom door, Drayton spoke without opening it. “Pass along my regrets,” he said. “I’m a bit tired this evening and would like to retire.”
He didn’t look tired when they were working. Bo had soaked through two shirts finishing that fence and Drayton had yet to sweat. Not sure what kind of a person worked in heat like that and didn’t sweat. Must’ve been some sort of deformity.
Later that night, a boarder called. She forgot her camera in the round pen. She’d been filming that day and asked if Bo could bring it in so it didn’t get rained on. He broke away from the Braves game and found it hanging from the post. He admired the sleek design, the way the digital panel flipped out. He turned it on, switched it to night mode and panned around the pasture while he walked back to the house. He zoomed in on the kitchen window where Mama was cleaning up, then swooped toward the second floor.
Drayton was standing at the window.
Bo looked up from the camera. The window was empty. He had to be imagining things. Besides, the floor hadn’t creaked once since he retired. Bo didn’t want to make a big fuss out of it. As long as Drayton helped with chores and paid for his room, he could stare out that window until he passed out. He went back to the Braves game.
Forgot all about it.
XIII
On the seventh morning, Drayton watched the sun come up from beneath the live oak. He took careful sips, savoring the aroma, even if it was old and stale. Young would occasionally sneak peeks from the windows but he had yet to address him again. He wasn’t concerned about him discovering his true nature. Drayton’s past evaporated like dew in the afternoon.
He was enjoying his time on the farm; the scent of mowed grass, the horse feed and manure was refreshing. The hard work was satisfying and the family needed the extra pair of hands. But that wasn’t what he had come to do. He would like to stay much longer, but it was no place to be when the hunger returned.
Certainly not around the family.
Perhaps he would stay a bit longer if the opportunity presented itself. But that, also, he sensed would not happen. Yes, he would have to leave the farm soon. The hunger was beginning to gnaw. It was a hollow pain, a yearning that was ancient. It had nothing to do with appetite. It had more to do with his existence. The longer he denied it, the hollower he became. He did not fear the suffering that came with it, for Drayton learned to deal with that centuries ago. What Drayton feared was the instincts that took over. His desire to live, to exist, was innate. Over that, he had no control. And when the hunger was strong enough, he had no control at all. A gentleman, he was not.
Still, there was time.
XIIV
Hal Towgard was a man of his word.
It was touching one-hundred degrees for the seventh fucking day in a row. He hated doing business when it was hot. Hell, half of Charleston hated doing anything when it was that hot. They might be in the South, but contrary to satirists, they weren’t stupid. He never once fucked his sister, nor did he know anyone who had (fucked their own sister, that is). They weren’t inbred, they didn’t own slaves, nor did they all fly a Confederate flag. Hell, if they thought the South was so stupid, how could anyone explain all the presidents of the United States coming from the South. (Forget Jimmy Carter, he was a dumbass.)
No, Hal hated doing business when it was hot enough to boil shrimp on a tin roof, but he had business to attend and business was his word. Cockroaches were a part of the Lowcountry. Sometimes you just learned to live with them, other times you had to grind them under foot. Snap, crackle, pop.
His pits were soaked before he got in the Chevy Silverado, squeezing behind the steering wheel. He tongued his mustache then wiped his bald head with a handkerchief and shifted ten ways to China trying to squeeze the hanky back in his pocket. Aaron stepped into the garage talking on his cell. The little dumbass didn’t close the door. Hal could feel the meter spin as cold air was sucked out of his house. He pushed a button, rolled the passenger window down.
“Close the fucking door.”
Aaron took his sweet ass time doing it, that cell attached to the side of his head. He damn near stopped on the last step. Hal punched the horn. It echoed inside the garage. He was about to go through the windshield. Hal Towgard, waiting on his son. When Aaron pulled open the passenger door, Hal tore the cell off his head and rifled it against the wall. It dented the sheetrock.
“Get in back.”
Aaron held an empty hand to his face. Rage boiled under his blank expression, f
lickering past his eyes. He pushed it down – all of it – and slid onto the back bench. Hal adjusted the rearview mirror and watched the boy. One sign of defiance and he’d dent the sheetrock with his head. Hal backed out of the garage and something crunched under his tire. Aaron slunk in the corner looking out the window. He kept it pushed down. Kid wasn’t stupid.
People didn’t understand that politics is politics. It was no different no matter where you were. Washington. New York. The country roads outside Charleston, South Cackalacky. It was all about control. People needed to be controlled. They craved control and, thankfully, there were people like Hal Towgard to give it to them. There were different ways to do it. The trick was finding what worked. Aaron dared a glance in his father’s direction, slunk lower in the seat and stared hollow out the window.
Fifteen minutes later, Hal turned down the last country road. One of his tenants needed a Come-to-Jesus talk. A cockroach problem was brewing and he liked to stay ahead of things. He turned onto the long winding road and eventually down a wooded driveway. Hal pulled next to Annie’s piece of shit. He didn’t honk. He didn’t need to. People knew when Hal Towgard arrived. They felt it in their bones. And if they didn’t...
Snap, crackle, pop.
XV
A truck eased up to the house. Bo stopped measuring beet pulp in the feed room and looked out the window. He passed the steel bucket to Drayton without a word. A man climbed out of the brand new Chevy, his belly covering his belt buckle.
The front door rattled and Annie was down the steps.
“I come to check on y’all.” Hal wiped his head with a handkerchief. “Aaron said he got in trouble over here and I wanted to make sure no one was hurt.”
“No trouble,” Annie said.
“You got company?” Hal looked past Bo.
Drayton stood in the doorway, looking at the devil Blake Barnes left behind. Tell them I’m sorry. For leaving? Or to fend for themselves?
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