The O. Henry Prize Stories 2014

by Laura Furman

  I tried to stop my father’s words at my ears but they would not stick. I knew they weren’t meant for me, but I was half my mother, my father had said so himself. Like any good soldier, my father shot bullets through the air toward a target, but did not understand collateral damage.

  I asked my mother why my father was the way he was. I wanted him to be an alcoholic, but he rarely drank. A little wine with holiday dinners, a Coors Light heated in a saucepan with a little sugar on a Saturday afternoon. My mother said he didn’t have a father, so he didn’t know how to be one. Also it could have been the camps. Or the electroshock therapy after the war. Or maybe he was born this way—something in his wiring, she said. But probably it was the camps.

  And how to deal with him?

  A little philosophy, my mother said.

  While I was growing up, my mother read Rousseau’s Confessions, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Merton. As a single woman in Poland, she’d loved reading adventure, mystery, romance. She read translations of The Count of Monte Cristo, Dr. Zhivago, A Tale of Two Cities.

  My father read two newspapers a day but when he saw my mother sitting with a book, he walked around the house and looked for cobwebs clinging to corners of the ceiling. He pointed them out to her. She stood up and went for a rag to wrap around the broom, but under her breath, she said, “I hope a goose kicks you.”

  My father loved American folk songs. Every night before I went to bed, he said, “Good night, Kathleen,” and I said, “No, Dad, it’s ‘Good night, Irene.’ ” Sometimes he asked me to get out my violin and play “This land is your land, this land is my land.” He loved Woody Guthrie. He loved Lawrence Welk. He loved Charlie Chaplin. He loved the movie How Green Was My Valley.

  He loved Joseph Conrad, Marie Curie, Copernicus. He loved Einstein, Goethe, Marlene Dietrich. He visited Schiller’s birthplace. A civilized German, he said. Not like the rest of them.

  When my father napped, my brother lifted his huge bunch of keys (sixty-four—we counted once) off the kitchen counter. The keys hardly clinked. He tiptoed past my father sleeping in the dining room–bedroom and unlocked the top drawer of my father’s desk, where we all knew my father kept stacks of twenties. My brother put a finger to his lips when he saw me watching. I nodded.

  Some nights my brother stole one of my father’s old Buicks to drive to Jack in the Box and buy cheeseburgers for my sisters and me. He put the car in neutral; my sisters pushed it down the driveway and into the street. My brother cranked the steering wheel and coasted to the stop sign. There he turned the key in the ignition. My job was to stand at the kitchen sink and run the tap to cover the sound of the engine rumbling to life at the corner.

  “Who’s wasting water?” my father yelled from his bed.

  Imagine: The family drives the young man to college. His dormitory is at the edge of town and campus, near the bovine research facility. Fields stretch west to a line of low coastal hills. It is late September, hot. The air smells of hay and manure.

  The young man smiles and waves as the truck drives out of the parking lot. With his other hand, he wipes his eyes.

  He walks the campus until dawn that first night. He breathes deeply; even the manure smells sweet.

  Back home the father wanders up the stairs to the young man’s abandoned room. It is empty except for furniture—a bed, a desk, a dresser. He opens the door to the closet. Inside: a stack of high school yearbooks and a yellow dirt-bike helmet. The father tries it on. It’s tight, but it fits. From then on, he wears it while driving. Even in a dual-cab, dual-rear-wheel Chevy Silverado, you are not safe. Who knows when? Who knows why?

  In his retirement, my father devoted entire days to concocting health potions. A favorite: skunk cabbage, garlic, lemon, and honey in giant sun tea jars. He drank a gobletful every morning. He told me, again and again, how I needed to do the same. How after the camps, in the American Zone, when he was sick for years, he’d cut himself shaving and the blood beaded on his chin or cheek so slowly—thick and dark, like jam, he said. But within months of eating a clove of garlic a day, his blood ran thin and red and fast, the way blood should run.

  He feared men with guns, yet after Auschwitz, the only real danger lurked in his blood, with its propensity to clot. His own cells conspired against him, though if you asked them they’d say they were doing only what they were designed to do—to clump, to gather, find safety in numbers at the first sign of breach. But the problem was, there was no breach, no outlet from which the blood might spill. The cells had simply aggregated, and traveled through his arteries. And decided to settle in the brain, depriving it of oxygen, and that was why my father collapsed, why he devolved, step-by-step, in crossing the kitchen one morning in his thermal undershirt tucked into his Fruit of the Looms. His knuckles nearly brushed the linoleum, my mother noticed, when he stumbled at her feet.

  After the brain surgery, my father remained in a coma for weeks. When he woke up, he could make sounds but not language. At first, we tried to make meaning of the guttural noises from deep in his throat. We lined up by his hospital bed. We bent our ears to his cracked lips and listened as if he were an oracle. All we heard were echoes of ourselves. My brother heard, “Do what you have to do.” My mother heard, “You never learned a thing in your life.” I listened hard, too, but nothing made sense to me.

  On the night before my father’s stroke, my mother dreams that two large black cows stand in their bedroom, grazing the carpet. She is a little girl again, in Zarebki, and it is her job to take the cows out to pasture and bring them home. If she loses one, she’ll be beaten, of course, but it is so boring out there in the fields, always too hot, or too cold, and her shoes are full of holes. She wakes from the dream, looks at the center of the room—nothing. Then she gets up, takes a little tincture of valerian to calm her nerves, and goes back to bed. Her husband sleeps, but she won’t, not with that kind of snoring.

  My mother always slept lightly, because of her nerves. She used to wake in the middle of the night just from the sudden light cast by the refrigerator door opening in the kitchen, adjacent to their dining room–bedroom. She turned quietly and saw my father silhouetted by the fridge light, head tipped back and milk carton tipped high.

  Then she knew why there was never enough milk for all the children at the end of the week. It was he who drank in the middle of the night and yelled at her on the night before shopping day if only a few drops fell in the youngest child’s cup. She didn’t know how to ration the milk, she must drink it all herself, that was why she was such a fat cow.

  My mother still has not fallen back to sleep when my father gets up at six to go to the bathroom. She puts the kettle on the stove, and when he collapses at her feet, she is too afraid to call an ambulance—if he has to pay for it, he’ll probably kill her. Instead, she calls one of her daughters, who calls an ambulance.

  In fifteen minutes, two large men in black pants and black jackets hunch over my father. They shift him onto the stretcher, raise its collapsible legs, and wheel it out of the kitchen.

  “Come with us, please,” one of the paramedics says, and my mother thinks that she can’t possibly go with them. Her shoes are full of holes. But when she looks down, she’s wearing her new white Reeboks. She’s not sure how they got on her feet. She takes her purse and follows the cows out to pasture.

  Chanelle Benz

  West of the Known

  MY BROTHER WAS THE first man to come for me. The first man I saw in the raw, profuse with liquor, outside a brothel in New Mexico Territory. He was the first I know to make a promise then follow on through. There is nothing to forgive. For in the high violence of joy, is there not often a desire to swear devotion? But what then? When is it ever brung off to the letter? When they come for our blood, we will not end, but go on in an unworldly fever.

  I come here to collect, my brother said from the porch. If there was more I did not hear it for Uncle Bill and Aunt Josie stepped out and closed the door. I was in the kitchen canning tomatoes, standing
over a row of mason jars, hands dripping a wat’ry red when in stepped a man inside a long buckskin coat.

  I’m your brother, Jackson, the man smiled, holding out his hand. I did not know him. And he did not in particular look like me. I’m Lavenia, I said, frantic to find an apron to wipe upon.

  I know who you are, he said. I put my hands up.

  Dudn’t matter, he said, and the red water dripped down his wrist, We’re kin.

  With the sun behind him, he stood in shadow. Like the white rider of the Four Horsemen come to conquest, and I woulda cut my heart out for him then.

  Jackson walked to the stove and handed me down an apron from a hook, saying, I reckon we got the same eye color. But your shape’s your ma’s.

  I couldn’t not go. Uncle Bill and Aunt Josie saw me fed but were never cherishing. I did not dread them as I did their son, Cy.

  What comes in the dark?

  Stars.

  Cooler air.

  Dogs’ bark.

  Cy.

  Always I heard his step before the door and I knew when it was not the walking-by kind. I would not move from the moment my cousin came in, till the moment he went out, from when he took down my nightdress, till I returned to myself to find how poorly the cream bow at my neck had been tied. In the morning, when Cy was about to ride into town and I was feeding the chickens, we might joke and talk, or try. I had known Cy all my remembered life. We had that tapestry of family to draw upon.

  That night Jackson came for me, I heard Cy’s step. My carpetbag, which I had yet to fill, fell from my hands. Hush said the air, like a hand in the dark comin for your mouth. Cy came in and went to my bedroom window, fists in his pockets, watching the ox in the field knock about with its bell. Drunk. Not certain how, since no one at dinner had any spirits but Jackson, who’d brought his own bottle and tucked in like it was his last meal.

  You gonna go with him, huhn? Cy spoke through his teeth, a miner having once broken his jaw.

  He is my brother, I said.

  Half brother, Cy said, turning toward me.

  He’s older’n me so I guess I best listen, I said, suddenly dreadfully frightened that somehow they would not let me leave.

  Jackson an me’re the same age. Both born in ’fifty. You remember when he lived here? It was you and Jackson and your ma.

  I don’t remember Ma and I don’t remember Jackson, I said.

  It were a real to-do: your Pa joining up to be a Reb, leaving us his kids and squaw. She was a fine specimen tho. A swacking Indian gal. They lost you know.… Cy sat me down on the bed by my wrist.… The Rebs. His hands pinching the tops of my arms, he laid me back. You know what kind of man he is? I heard Cy ask. He was a damned horse thief. Old John Cochran only let your brother off the hook cause of my pa.

  You done? Jackson leaned in the doorway, whittling a stick into a stake.

  I jumped up. I’m sorry I’m just gittin started, I said, kneeling to pick up the carpetbag.

  Get a wiggle on, girl, Jackson said, coming in.

  Cy walked out, knocking Jackson’s shoulder as he passed.

  Jackson smiled, saying, His existence bothers me. Hey now, I don’t wanna put a spoke in your wheel, but how in hell you think you are gonna load all that on one horse?

  I’m sorry. Is it too much? I whispered and stopped.

  Why are you whispering? he asked.

  I don’t want them to think we’re in here doing sumthin bad, I said and lifted open the trunk at the bottom of my bed.

  Look here, Jackson said, You’re gonna come live with me and my best pal, Colt Wallace, in New Mexico Territory. And Sal Adams, if we can locate the bastard, so pack only your plunder.

  Jackson made like he was gonna sit on the bed, but instead picked my bustle up off the quilt. I got no notion how you women wear these things, he said.

  I don’t need to bring it, I said.

  You know, Lavenia, you weren’t afraid of nothing. When I was here you was a game little kid. He spun the bustle up and caught it.

  I disremember, I said.

  He looked at me, the tip of his knife on his bottom lip, then went back to picking. When I’m with you, I won’t let no one hurt you. You know that? he called back as he walked toward the kitchen.

  • • •

  Jackson threw me up on the horse, saying, Stay here till I come back. An don’t get down for nuthin. Promise me.

  Yessir. I promise, I said, shooing a mosquito from my neck, I swear on my mother’s grave.

  Don’t do that, he said.

  Why? I asked.

  Cause she weren’t a Christian.

  Wait.

  What?

  Nuthin.

  The dark of the Texas plain was a solid thing, surrounding, collecting on my face like blue dust. The plain and I waited in the stretched still till we heard the first gunshot, yes, then a lopsided shouting fell out the back of the house. The chickens disbanded. A general caterwauling collapsed into one dragged weeping that leaked off into the dogs the stars and the cool.

  The horse shifted under me. Please, I asked, What did you do?

  Jackson tossed the bloody stake into the scrub and holstered his pistol. I killed that white-livered son of a bitch, he said, jerking my horse alongside his.

  And the others? I asked.

  You know they knew, don’t ya? Aunt Josie and Uncle Bill. He let go and pulled up ahead, They knew about Cy. Now you know sumthin, too, he said.

  Through the dark I followed him.

  A few mornings after, we rode into a town consisting of a general store, two saloons, and a livery. We harnessed the horses round the back of one of the saloons. Jackson dug a key out from under a barrel and we took the side door. He went behind the empty bar and set down two scratched glasses.

  You used to be more chipper, he said, Don’t be sore. An eye for an eye is in the Bible.

  There’s a lot of things in the Bible. Thou shalt not kill, for one, I said, sitting up on a stool.

  Waal, the Bible is a complicated creature, he said, smiling, You and I’re living in Old Testament times. He poured me a double rye. I can’t warn a trespasser not to rustle my sheep with no sugar tongue. I have to make it so he don’t come back and you don’t go bout that cordially, mindin your manners. I have to avenge harm done pon me. Yes, ma’am, what you witnessed t’other day was a vendetta cause I can tell you that I don’t kill wantonly.

  And I don’t drink liquor, I said, pushing the glass back across the wood still wet from the night.

  Truth is, he clinked my glass, I shouldn’t have left you. When I run away I mean. It’s jest bein you was a girl, and so little, a baby almost, I figured Bill an Josie’d take to you like you was their own, especially after your ma and our pa went and died. But those folks didn’t do right. They didn’t do right at all. We can agree on that much, can’t we?

  I don’t know, I guess we can, I said and a rat run under my feet.

  Those folks, they weren’t expecting me to come back. Naw. But no one’s gonna hurt you when I’m around—that there is a promise.

  I picked up my glass. We’d run out of food on the trail the morning before and as we broke camp, Jackson’d made me a cigarette for breakfast.

  But I didn’t know what you were fixing to do, I said, runnin my tongue over the taste of ash in my mouth.

  You didn’t? Let me look about me for that Bible cause I’d like to see you swear on that.

  Can you even read?

  Enough. Cain’t spell tho. He refilled my glass, Look, it ain’t your fault this world is no place for women.

  But us women are in it, I said.

  Have another, he said. Don’t dwell.

  A bare-armed woman appeared in a ribboned shift, breasts henned up; she went into Jackson and said Spanish things. He smiled, givin her a squeeze, Go on then, he said to me, Go with Rosa, she’ll take care a you. Imma go get a shave and a haircut. Should I get my mustache waxed and curled like an Italian?

  I laughed despite myself. The whore held
out her hand, Come with me, Labinya.

  Upstairs, she poured water in a washstand. Some slipped over the side and spilled onto the floor; she smiled then helped me take off my clothes heavy with stain. Her nose had been broken and she was missing two top teeth on either side. I stood there while the whore washed me like a baby. I wondered if this was somethin she did to men, lingering on their leafless parts for money.

  On the bed, divested, I could not care what next would befall me. There was no sheet only a blanket; I covered my head with the itch of it and cried. I cried cause as sure as hell was hot I was glad Cy was gone, cause I could not understand why when first Jackson took my hand I had known he was not good but bad, I knew that right then I was good but would be bad in the days to come, which were forever early and there as soon as you closed your eyes.

  The whore was still in the room. But when I grew quiet, the door shut, and I could not hear her step, for the whore was not wearing shoes.

  Since I was between hay and grass, my brother dressed me as a boy. It only needed a bandanna. I’s tall for my age and all long lines so it was my lack of Adam’s apple he had to hide if I was gonna work with him and not for the cathouse, since my face was comely enough tho never pleased him, it looking too much like my mother’s (he said and I do not know).

  In the back of the saloon, the bandanna Jackson was tying bit the hair at the nape of my neck. Lord, I think you grew an inch these last few months, Jackson said then turned my chin to him. Why’re you making that face?

  Cause it pulls, I said, playing with my scabbard. Jackson had gotten me a whole outfit: a six-shooter, belt and cartridges.

  Waal, why didn’t you say so? Needs to be shorter, he whipped the bandanna off, Hey Rosa, gimme them scissors again. Gal, what d’ya mean no no por favor? She said you got pretty hair, Lav. Rosa, why don’t you make yourself useful and get us some coffee from the hotel—Arbuckle if they got it—and have that barkeep pour me another whiskey on your way out. Lavenia, I am gonna cut it all off if that is all right with you.