The Shoebox Trainwreck

by John Mantooth

  What? I said.

  He stood up and looked out the window. The backyard flashed in a photograph of blue-white lightning.

  My knee stopped bleeding.

  It did?

  He lifted his leg onto my mattress and switched on the lamp between our beds.

  See? There ain’t even a scar.

  I whistled softly. I reckon that’s good since you seem to get a new one every time you turn around.

  Yeah, Cody said, smiling. I reckon it is.

  We listened to the rain some more, and I had the feeling that I was waiting on something, but I couldn’t honestly say what. I was almost asleep, lulled by the distant thunder and insistent rain when Cody’s voice brought me back.

  I was supposed to come back, Cody said.

  I’m glad, I mumbled, half-dreaming.

  Some time later, the rain broke and there was a long silence followed by a flare of lightning and whipcrack thunder and the sudden smell of smoke. I joined Cody at the window where we watched a magnolia tree catch fire in the yard. Beyond that, the wheat formed a wavering line and I thought of Cody wandering there, alone. His body lying at the bottom of the rock slide under six feet of water, his leg caught in a deadfall. I pictured him walking down row after row of wheat, all jangled bones and bloody flesh, until he saw an opening, a door from that world back to this one. Did he hesitate? Or did he jump at the chance to come back to the world where the living do not understand the dead, much less themselves?

  Bobby Jackson Jr. showed up at our door three weeks later. Mama met him at work and they’d shared some drinks and now, here he was, in front of our trailer, smiling a smile only desperate widows could believe.

  Your mama around? He hooked his thumbs in his back pockets like he owned the place.

  She died last week, Cody said.

  Bobby took out some rolling paper, shook some tobacco from a tin, and began to build a cigarette. Funny thing, he said. Last night, she sure seemed alive. He grinned again.

  Mama appeared at the door. Boys, please allow Mr. Jackson to come in. He’s going to be staying with us for a while. He’s come upon a string of bad luck, so we’re going to be doing the Christian thing and help him get back on his feet.

  Cody and I stepped aside and Bobby Jackson Jr. came through the door and into our lives.

  Bobby liked to sit on the couch and cut his toenails. He went at them with something approaching obsession, whittling them down until they were bloody and swollen. Toenail flecks littered the den. One afternoon, after flicking another nail onto the floor, he told me to clean them up.

  I ain’t touching those.

  He laughed. All right. Little man has a mind of his own. I like it. Give me five, Peewee. He stuck out his hand. Foolishly, I slapped it.

  His big hand closed over mine. He jerked me to him so hard my mouth slammed into his shoulder. His other hand came down on my head and buried my face in the sofa, crushing my nose until I heard it crack and felt warm blood seep over my upper lip. I felt an intense burning, and I resisted the urge to touch it, to feel how bad it was.

  Now, I’m going to ask you again, boy. Would you mind cleaning up my toenails? He laughed at himself and let me up for air.

  That’s when Cody came flying in. He took off from one side of the room, leading with his forearm and clocked Bobby in the forehead. I watched as he stuck two fingers into Bobby’s eye sockets. Bobby screamed and let go of me. I stood up, hacking and wheezing for breath.

  Bobby punched Cody in the face, knocking him off balance. Then he found a heavy vase on the coffee table and broke it over Cody’s mouth. Dropping to his knees he went to work, hitting Cody over and over until the only thing bloodier than his fists was Cody’s face.

  Then he was standing over me, his eyes crooked and scratched raw, a lopsided grin on his face.

  I’m going to break you boys. Your mama’s pussy is too sweet not to make the effort.

  I flew at him, but his fist stopped me cold. I thudded to the floor and saw the room spin once, twice, and I was gone.

  The war lasted three more weeks. It was an ugly war, full of unrepentant violence and malice so dark its causes were beyond the pale of discernment. By all rights, Bobby should have won. He was older, tougher, and a hell of a lot more mean. But Bobby had never fought anything that kept coming back the way Cody did.

  Cody’s injuries healed faster than ever now. And this, above all, seemed to vex Bobby. I frequently noticed him studying Cody, as if he were a puzzle he could put together if he could just see the bigger picture. And even when Bobby hadn’t touched him in days, new wounds would appear all over Cody’s body and heal the next hour.

  Me, I kind of took my licking and fell in line. One fist to the temple had been enough to teach me. I returned violence surreptitiously. A shake of salt into one of his wounds while he slept; a toy carefully placed on the floor near his bed that might cause him to stumble; an upturned tack on the couch where he liked to sit.

  Cody, though, was determined to kill Bobby. Either that or make him run. Out of some kind of twisted code of respect that I could not fathom, neither of them would fight when Mama was around. She surely knew it was happening. The tension in the trailer was so flagrant that ignoring it was like trying to ignore the sun on a cloudless summer day.

  It happened on a Friday after Mama had gone into town for groceries. Cody told Bobby he needed to leave or he would kill him. Bobby told Cody to come suck his fat one. He wasn’t going anywhere. Cody came for him with a switchblade we’d bought with the money we found after going through Mama’s underwear drawer.

  Bobby caught Cody before the blade could do anything. The two tumbled to the ground, shaking the trailer. They rolled the length of the trailer, fighting for control of the knife. It ended up in Bobby’s hand and then in Cody’s neck. The blood spilled out in a thick river of pulsing red.

  And then, for the second time in Cody’s sixteen years, his pulse stopped.

  Get some towels, Bobby said. We got some work to do before your mother comes back.

  We cleaned the linoleum, sopping the blood up with every towel in the trailer. I worked silently, aware that I was dying inside myself, losing touch with who I was, what I hoped to be, everything except the hate I held for Bobby Jackson, Jr.

  We hauled him to the wheat field and dropped his body between the rows.

  He’ll come back.

  Bobby looked at me like I had lost my mind.

  You’re in shock.

  Maybe so, but he’s done come back before. He’ll come back for me.

  You’re a fucked up little kid. He took the shovel and raised it up high. He brought the sharp edge down repeatedly over Cody’s neck until he had made a clean break between body and head. He kicked the head away. If he comes back now, he’ll be in right bad shape, he said, laughing.

  We buried the body in a shallow grave. Bobby took the head back with us and buried it underneath the trailer.

  I didn’t know what would happen next

  Bobby told Mama Cody had run off after a fight.

  Boy said he’d never come back here. Bobby shook his head. Shame he was so headstrong. You gonna call the cops?

  Bobby talked Mama out of calling the police, convincing her Cody’d come back quicker if they didn’t make a big deal about it.

  If Mama had doubts, she kept them to herself.

  Eventually, Bobby got so cocksure he’d gotten away with it, he told me I’d be next. I believed him. Bobby was a lot of things, but I’d yet to know him as a liar.

  I thought about going to Mama, but I was afraid. Not that she’d tell Bobby. I was afraid she would believe me. She would believe every word and do nothing. I was more frightened of the person my mother had become than anything else.

  One morning while Bobby slept, I saw her crying. She was cradling one of the little dolls Cody had slept with as a baby. She held it tight to her breast like a woman suckling a child, and I wondered how she lived with herself knowing that the man she slep
t with every night had killed her oldest son.

  I watched her in silence for a moment, before slipping out to the storage shed to look for a shovel.

  Digging his body up was the easy part, but after that I had to think of a way to get his head from under the trailer and out to the wheat field. I settled on an old pillowcase. Placing the head inside, I tucked it under my arm like a running back carrying a football.

  Once I had him out of the ground, I tried to remember what, if anything, I’d done while standing in the cove near the rock slide, waiting for him to emerge. I seemed to recall a prayer.

  Lord, I know it ain’t natural, but I need him.

  I need him real bad.

  The morning clouded over and I couldn’t tell if it was a sign or maybe just a front moving in. It started to rain, a hard rain that tore at Cody’s flesh, and made the stench even worse.

  Nothing happened.

  I went home, determined to kill Bobby myself, if necessary.

  Mama was waiting for me in the den, a half-smoked cigarette in her mouth, an overturned whiskey bottle beside the couch.

  Where you been?

  Out playing.

  In the Goddamned rain?

  Wasn’t raining when I went out.

  Cody’s dead, ain’t he?

  The silence in the trailer was as heavy as the rain outside.

  Yeah, Mama. He’s dead.

  How’d it happen? Tell me right now.

  Bobby . . . Well, they was scuffling.

  Fighting?

  Yeah. And Cody pulled out a knife.

  And Bobby had to defend himself right?

  No, it wasn’t like that—

  Yes, it was. Subject’s closed. She hesitated, as if she wanted to say more.

  The rain pounded the trailer, sounding every bit like an angry god.

  It wasn’t never natural, she said. The way he would bleed . . .

  I didn’t say nothing to this. Instead, I went over to the window and pulled the blinds apart. The day had grown dark, like somebody had thrown a caul over the sun. Shadows squirmed in the front yard and I looked for Cody, but all I could see were miles of wheat, waving in the darkness like some great undulating beast whose secrets I could never grasp.

  That night the rain stopped suddenly and the silence woke me up.

  Cody sat across from me on his bed.

  I came back for you, Davy.

  He was no more than a shadow, silhouetted against the window and the moonlit fields beyond.

  You going to stay this time?

  He stood and went over to the window and opened it to the night. The smell of wet grass and wheat sifted in.

  I ain’t supposed to be here, Davy. There’s another place I’m supposed to go. He gestured to the wheat field. Some place out there. Something’s coming for me, and when it does, won’t be nothing I can do to hide anymore.

  He came over and sat beside me, putting his arm over my shoulders. I’ve learned a few things in the wheat. It’s powerful easy to get lost between here and there, there and here. That goes double on this side. Mama’s lost her way, Davy. She’s so tangled up in stuff she won’t never find her way out. You’re right there on the edge. And if something don’t give, you’re gonna fall into the same pit she’s in. And once you’re there, it ain’t about climbing out. It’s about just seeing your way through, keeping the muck from your eyes and the mountain vines from wrapping you up and holding you forever. What I’m saying is you got to get in touch with that Victoria lady. Tomorrow.

  He stood up. I was dead a long time, Davy. It ain’t like last time. I shouldn’t stay.

  No, I said. You gotta stay. Please, Cody.

  He nodded and the moonshine came in through the window and fell on him. I saw how his head wasn’t on right, how it hung over to the side, how the hole gaped on one side of his neck like a wordless mouth.

  I ain’t much to look at, he said.

  I don’t care. Don’t go.

  So he didn’t. We pushed our beds together like we used to do when we were little kids and got scared of the wind in the wheat. We lay for a long time, talking of death and Mama and how she always ended up with guys like Bobby. We talked about the path Cody’d glimpsed in the wheat and how he felt sure he was bound to walk it, one way or the other.

  You ain’t going to kill Bobby? I asked.

  Bobby’ll kill himself eventually. On the other side, you can see how things that make sense among the living are really foolish. Revenge can’t fix nothing. He seemed to think for a minute, then added: If I knew it’d fix you, I would, Davy. I’d kill him. But it’ll make things worse on you. That’s the nature of this world. That lady, Victoria. She’s your ticket.

  In the other room, I heard Bobby snoring. A night bird twittered outside and somewhere far away, thunder boomed like a muted explosion. I reached out and put my hand on Cody’s arm. He felt still. And cold. But I kept my hand on him until I fell asleep. That night, I dreamed dreams only the dead could fathom.

  First light and I turned to see Cody gone. The bed was still there where we’d pulled it snug against mine. I got up and pulled on my clothes, aware that this day might change my life.

  I made it to the front door before I heard Bobby’s voice.

  We need to talk, Davy.

  I turned around. Where’s Mama?

  Don’t worry about her. Me and you need to talk.

  I slung the door open and tried to dart out into the yard, but before I could, I heard the click of a hammer being pulled back.

  I’d slow down, Peewee.

  You gonna shoot me? I said, trying to make it sound like a challenge.

  Matter of fact, I might. Come sit down.

  I pulled myself over to the table where Bobby had been eating eggs and sausage links and chasing it down with Wild Turkey.

  You and your mama been talking?

  Huh?

  Don’t huh me! He sprang from his chair, knocking the table and all of the contents onto the floor. He had the gun in one hand and the bottle in the other. He stuck the gun against my forehead. Where was you going just now?

  To school.

  Bullshit. It’s the Goddamn summer and you know it.

  He was pushing the barrel against my forehead so hard it hurt.

  I was going to talk to the coach down there about football next season.

  That’s a damned lie. You was going to tell somebody about what I done wasn’t you? I ain’t no fool. Well, guess what, Davy boy? I’m going to cancel your plans. Come on, we’re going to the wheat field to do it this time. I don’t feel like cleaning up the blood.

  I’d never been so deep in the wheat before. We walked and walked until the outside world receded like an obscure dream. The real world awaited now—a place that destroyed the senses and made reality an endless series of swaying wheat stalks.

  Somewhere above us, the sun beat on our backs and great blackbirds swept across the sky like chiaroscuro brushes.

  Bobby told me to sit on the ground and look at the wheat.

  I did as I was told, settling onto the soft soil, letting the breeze rattle through the wheat and flow over me like baptismal waters. I was ready to die. It would be over soon, and I would be up and walking, gliding like an unmoored stalk of wheat, searching for Cody.

  But Cody came to me.

  I saw him first in outline, as the wheat parted and bent, sketching my brother.

  As he materialized, I reached out to him. Cody ignored my hand and stood in front of Bobby. He looked good—healthier than he’d been in life. He looked wise—ancient somehow—but most of all he looked happy. Even with the gun pointed at the back of my head, I found myself overcome with grief and love and awe. My brother had given all for me. He’d come back for me, died for me, and somehow come back again.

  You ain’t here, Bobby said.

  It’s you that ain’t here, Bobby. You’ve come too far into a place you don’t understand. You can’t hurt me anymore, Bobby.

  You ain’t real. />
  Cody extended his hand to me. I grasped it, surprised at how substantial it felt, and he pulled me to my feet.

  The gun went off, once, twice. Two dimesized holes appeared in Cody’s forehead. A sliver of blood leaked out before both were filled with new, unblemished flesh.

  Bobby dropped the gun and ran.

  I picked up the gun, but when I turned back to see Cody, he was gone, disappeared among the wheat, as if he’d never existed at all. I stood there, the gun heavy in my hand. I watched the wheat bristle beneath a clandestine breeze and knew I would never see my brother again. Not on this side of the wheat anyway.

  I caught up with Bobby, as he was getting into his truck. I felt calm, more in control than I’d ever felt, and I walked slowly to the rear of the truck and put a bullet in both back tires. Bobby clambered out of the truck, tried to run, but tripped. He fell onto his stomach and rolled over on his back to face me.

  He’s dead, Bobby said. He’s dead.

  So are you, I said. My finger actually tightened on the trigger. I had every intention of shooting him, but then Mama’s car came down the road and pulled into our gravel drive.

  You see? You see your boy? Bobby said. What he’s going to try and do to me?

  Mama got out of her car. She was crying.

  Davy, baby, she said. Put down the gun. You’re not like this. Please, don’t be like Cody.

  At those last words, I spun around, aimed the gun at her. Don’t be like my brother? He’s the only one I’d ever want to be. He killed Cody, Mama.

  I know, baby. I know.

  And I’m going to do what I have to.

  You ain’t got the damn guts, Peewee, Bobby said.

  Yeah, and Cody wasn’t going to come back either, was he?

  That wasn’t real, he said, but his eyes told a different story. They looked haunted. They looked like they had seen something that would forever float before them even when the lights were out and his eyes were closed. Especially then.

  I aimed the gun at the space between his eyes, right above the bridge of his nose. I imagined the bullet tearing through his forehead, little bits of bone and flesh scattering across the front yard like hayseed. Imagined Mama screaming, crying, losing it, losing it all.