Black Hammock

by Michael Wiley

  Tilson held one of the white hens. He called to me, ‘Miss Lexi.’ Beckoned me with a finger.

  When I joined him he said, ‘Look at this.’ He held the white by its neck. Turning its head so that the sun shined in its eyes. He thumbed apart the feathery down. He exposed the rough skin and a little hole which was one of its ears.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Blood,’ he said.

  I saw nothing.

  ‘Look close,’ he said. ‘You miss what need seeing if you keep blinking you eyes like a silly girl.’

  I looked again and saw it. A prick of blood. As if a sewing needle had gone into the head through the ear. I asked, ‘Could reserpine do that?’

  ‘It only one side of the bird,’ he said. He turned the chicken and showed me the other ear. ‘Every bird.’ He threw the white over the fence into the pit. He picked up another and smoothed the down and showed me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  He got mad. ‘What don’t you know?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ I said.

  ‘I tell you what don’t happen,’ he said. ‘Accident don’t happen. These bird die because someone want them dead.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘What I look like? I the man that bury the chicken when somebody kill them. Don’t ask me why.’ He picked up a brown campine. Thumbed the feathery down. Showed me a spot of blood. ‘Look.’

  ‘Who then?’ I said.

  He threw the brown over the fence and nodded to where Mom and Edgar Allan were hanging a painting on the wall. ‘You watch out for that boy.’

  ‘Him?’ I said. ‘Why would he—’

  ‘He don’t belong here,’ he said. ‘I know that. Not now. Not never. Good man don’t climb over the gate in middle of the afternoon. No he don’t.’

  ‘He came to see Mom’s paintings,’ I said.

  He snorted. ‘Stop blinking, silly girl. You got stones in you eyes?’ He picked up a chicken by the neck. Carried it out of the pen. Dropped it in the hole. Black flies sprayed from the ground. He said, ‘Don’t be surprise if when you done sleeping you open you eyes and see you house knock down.’

  As I went back to the porch Walter and Paul the driver came side-by-side across the yard from the pine woods. Walter’s wheelbarrow full of logs. Paul carrying more. Walter had a bloody gash over the bridge of his nose.

  They dumped the wood by the kiln. Paul picked up the axe and started chopping and slashing. Walter looked dazed. So he wandered to the wall where Mom and Edgar Allan were hanging Mom’s self-portraits.

  Mom saw the cut on Walter’s face and asked what happened. As if his bleeding annoyed her.

  He wouldn’t say. He stared at the paintings. Fourteen of them on the wall. ‘What the hell?’ he said. And said to Edgar Allan, ‘You leaving yet?’

  Edgar Allan smiled at Mom’s portraits. ‘We’re just getting started,’ he said.

  Walter started to argue but Mom said, ‘Edgar is going to stay one more night.’

  When Walter called her a fool Mom said, ‘He already paid us. I’m having a good time Walter. For the first time in a long time I’m having a good time.’

  Early in the afternoon the first thunderclouds built in the west and Lane Charles came to the screen door. Everyone was inside except Paul the driver who was splitting logs into strips and ribbons and Cristofer who was sitting on the ground watching him. Walter answered the door and Lane Charles pointed his thumb at the poultry pen. ‘Couldn’t help but notice,’ he said.

  Walter left the screen closed between them. ‘We’ve got company,’ he said. ‘Decided to butcher them.’

  Lane Charles looked in the screen and saw Edgar Allan. ‘Well, goddamn,’ he said.

  ‘Goddamn what?’ Walter said.

  But Lane Charles only laughed and said, ‘You’re eating egg layers? Meat’s bad.’

  ‘You ever try it?’ Walter asked.

  Lane Charles said, ‘Can’t say I ever wanted to.’

  ‘Don’t criticize then,’ Walter said.

  Lane Charles was eighty years old. His glasses were dirty where the lenses touched his nose. Long ago he wrote a book and was a big reporter for one of the magazines. In the nineteen sixties he did stories on civil rights and sit-ins. Then outside his apartment building someone shot and killed the photographer he was sleeping with. The police charged him and kept him in jail for eight months until they figured out that two brothers had been driving around the country in a Dodge station wagon shooting sympathizers. But jail had broken Lane Charles. More or less. So he quit being a reporter and bought a farm that my grandpa carved out of our family land. Before Edgar Allan came only old civil rights workers crossed the bridge to Black Hammock Island. And young reporters writing Whatever Happened to Lane Charles? articles. ‘His own damn fault,’ Walter said when he told the story. ‘Sticking his neck in other people’s business.’

  Now Lane Charles grinned through the screen at Edgar Allan and put a hand on the door as if he would let himself in. ‘You cook your chickens by burying them in the ground?’ he asked Walter.

  Walter said, ‘You should leave well enough alone.’ He closed the door over the screen. There was a history of meanness behind his advice. Eighteen years ago Lane Charles had reported my dad missing. He hated the police but my dad was his friend and had been helping him put in pipes when he disappeared. And a missing man was a missing man. The police had come and that one policeman had kept coming back until I was six years old. Talking with Lane Charles. Asking Walter questions. Bringing me candy. Walter never forgave Lane Charles for that.

  So Walter sat in his green chair and said, ‘The man keeps poking at wasp nests but he’s surprised he gets stung.’

  Mom looked like she had something to say to that. But thunder roared out over the ocean. Engine noise chasing a faraway jet. And Mom and Edgar Allan ran outside to move Mom’s paintings back to the studio before the rain.

  Walter glared at me. The nose gash he’d gotten in the pine woods was dark and swollen. He said, ‘She thinks hiding them under a roof will save her but it won’t.’

  Late in the afternoon the sun split through the clouds and an hour later the sky was hard and blue. But rainwater still glistened on the metal fence around the empty poultry pen. And on the old black tar spills by the kiln.

  Then the phone rang.

  I picked up and the caller said he was a police detective. And, ‘We’ve had a report of a disturbance.’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Not here.’ Mom and Edgar Allan were talking in the kitchen. Paul the driver was outside on the porch swing. Cristofer was sitting beside him.

  The policeman said, ‘We need to come and check.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. I cupped the phone and told Walter, ‘It’s the police. They’re coming to check on us.’

  ‘Hell no,’ he said.

  I brought the phone back to my mouth. ‘Hell no.’

  ‘Is this Lexi Jakobson?’ the policeman asked.

  I felt the shiver you feel at moments like that. I asked, ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I used to come out your way,’ he said. ‘You were little. It must be fifteen years since I was last here.’

  ‘You brought me candy?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It was thirteen years,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Can you let me in? I’ll see that nothing is wrong and then I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Walter says no,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to be a pain,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t let me in my lieutenant will wonder what’s going on. It would be easier if we just did this.’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. I dropped the phone on Walter’s lap.

  I don’t know what the policeman told him but when Walter hung up he said, ‘He’s calling from the bridge. Go let him in.’

  So I ran up the hill. My dress brushing against my thighs.

  A Sheriff’s Office car was parked on the road. Windows closed. Engine running. I u
nlocked the gate and swung it open and the car pulled on to the driveway. The sun bounced off the windshield and blinded me. But when I opened the passenger door I knew him. He was older and heavier. Most of his red hair had fallen out or turned gray. But one side of his mouth curled higher than the other when he smiled and his eyes had a shine to them. Those things don’t change except when you die. A badge said his name was Daniel Turner.

  I sat next to him and said, ‘Did you bring me candy?’

  He smiled that smile. ‘That would be creepy.’

  ‘Lane Charles called you?’ I asked.

  He flipped down the sun visor. ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Who else?’ I said. ‘What did he say was happening here?’

  ‘How are your chickens?’ he asked.

  ‘You investigate chickens?’ I said.

  ‘Not usually.’

  ‘Cristofer didn’t do it,’ I said.

  He took his foot off the gas pedal. Gave me a look.

  When he pulled the car next to the front porch Walter came out to the yard. He had picked at the nose gash and made it bloody.

  Daniel Turner got out of his car. ‘It’s been a long time Walter,’ he said.

  Walter pulled at his beard as if he had spider webs. ‘But now you’re back,’ he said. ‘Like a seventeen-year locust.’

  Daniel Turner laughed. ‘Can’t keep me underground forever.’ He leaned a little to the left as he stood.

  ‘I see that,’ Walter said. He squinted as if the sun was too bright. ‘But will you explain something to me? How does a man who’s been on the homicide squad for – what is it – eighteen or nineteen years?’

  ‘Twenty this past spring,’ Daniel Turner said. And he crossed his hands over his belly.

  Walter said, ‘How does a man who has twenty years get sent out on a call for a little disturbance? Killing business must be slow.’

  ‘Business is always too good,’ Daniel Turner said. ‘But a nine-one-one operator who has been around for a long time – another locust like me – remembered your name and passed it along.’

  ‘Because she thought you would be interested?’ Walter said.

  ‘She knew I would be,’ Daniel Turner said.

  Mom and Edgar Allan laughed in the kitchen. The policeman nodded at Paul the driver on the porch swing. ‘Who are your guests?’ he asked.

  Walter said, ‘Visitors is all. Is it any of your business?’

  ‘I mean no disrespect Walter,’ Daniel Turner said.

  ‘We both know that’s a lie,’ Walter said. ‘You drove through our gate for one reason only and that was disrespect.’

  Daniel Turner jingled his keys. ‘Everyone’s all right here then?’ he said. ‘Your wife?’

  Mom and Edgar Allan laughed again.

  ‘You hear her,’ Walter said.

  ‘And Cristofer?’ Daniel Turner asked.

  ‘He’s never been right,’ Walter said. ‘But you already knew that.’

  ‘Looks like you’ve got no problems then,’ Daniel Turner said. He walked back to his car. Favoring his left side. But he stared at Walter before getting in. ‘The years haven’t been good to you Walter,’ he said. ‘You sound as confused as you ever were.’ He frowned at him. ‘What happened to your face?’

  Walter touched the gash and brought away blood. He said, ‘I was cutting wood.’

  ‘Looks like you put your face in front of the log,’ the policeman said.

  Walter said, ‘Yep looks like it.’

  ‘No disrespect,’ Daniel Turner said.

  ‘Then get off my land,’ Walter said.

  Daniel Turner got into the car. Started the engine. Rolled down the window. ‘Stay well Walter,’ he said.

  But Walter was already climbing back up the porch steps. He went to the porch swing and glared at Cristofer. Cristofer glared back until Walter lunged at him as if he would bite him. Cristofer keened. Walter laughed. He looked at Daniel Turner. Showing both palms. Like they shared an opinion about Cristofer’s idiocy.

  Daniel Turner spun his tires in the wet. Slowed to get traction. Gassed the engine again and sped over the hill and out of sight.

  ‘Goddamned fool,’ Walter said and went into the house.

  Paul the driver said, ‘Come on.’ And Cristofer puppied after him into the yard. Paul picked up Walter’s axe.

  When I came back from locking the gate he had given the axe to Cristofer and was teaching him how to split logs. When the axe struck wood Cristofer grunted. Everything else was quiet in the yard. Except for the chopping. And the grunting. And a low buzz by the poultry pen where black flies hovered like they knew there was something good inside the earth.

  THIRTEEN

  Oren

  When Kay called dinner, Walter was sunk in his green chair as if no enticements of any kind would move him. She started to tell him again but thought better of it. She went out on the porch, called to Cristofer and Paul, and went back to the kitchen.

  I had gone out to watch them chopping wood and had pulled Paul aside. ‘Were the chickens necessary?’ I asked.

  ‘Close your eyes if you can’t watch,’ he said. ‘But let it happen.’

  ‘I’m just asking,’ I said.

  ‘Go inside,’ he said.

  So I went inside.

  Now Cristofer, sweaty and grunting, came in with the axe.

  Walter said, ‘Leave it outside, you fool.’

  But Cristofer gripped the axe handle like it was a baseball bat and swung it through the air.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ Walter said.

  Cristofer’s eyes lit up, he raised the axe above his head, and he bull-charged him. He swung the axe at Walter’s head. Walter hollered and ducked and the axe handle bounced off the chair back.

  Paul came through the door and took the axe from Cristofer. He carried it back out to the porch and threw it across the yard.

  Then Walter went after Cristofer. He cornered him by the bookshelves, seemed to rise up, and said, ‘I’ll kill you, you goddamned—’ He couldn’t decide goddamned what. Or there was no word for it, he was so mad. He said again, ‘I’ll kill you.’ He might have done it or at least broken him, and Cristofer howled like he knew what was coming. But I moved between them. Paul had said, Close your eyes. Let it happen. But I wouldn’t let this happen. I said to Walter, ‘It was an accident.’

  He stared at me, like Who the hell are you? He said, ‘An accident? The boy tried to kill me.’

  ‘Not very hard,’ I said.

  Walter said, ‘Get out of the way or—’ Again he had no word for it.

  I grinned at him. Like I’d lost my mind. I said, ‘Go ahead. But you won’t touch him.’

  Maybe he would have tried.

  But Paul came in again. His face was red, as if he’d been choking on his own happiness. He grinned at me and asked Walter, ‘What do you think of that?’

  Cristofer looked at him and Paul opened his arms. Cristofer ran across the room and Paul pulled him to his chest, whispering, ‘It’s all right, it’s OK.’ Then Paul laughed a roar of a laugh.

  FOURTEEN

  Lexi

  Most summer nights kids from both sides of the bridge met out on Sawpit Road by the boat ramp. To drink. To get high. To hook up and afterward go for a swim. On a night when Cristofer went axe-crazy I thought the less dreamtime the better. So I waited for the house to get quiet. Then I put on a dress and flip-flops and went downstairs and out.

  The moon hung like a hook in the sky. The shadows bruised the ditches and the trees. The night had laid the heat thick on the ground. Sweat slicked down the back of my neck. I wiped it away and licked the salt from my fingers. At the first bend in the road an armadillo stood on the gravel shoulder as if it was afraid of pavement. I ran at it. Scared it back into the grass. I took off my flip-flops and carried them. Grit on my feet.

  Four kids were at our meeting spot. On good nights we had as many as ten and our noise would make dogs bark. Martin was leaning against the Road Narrows sign. He was a blond-haire
d kid whose family had moved to Big Talbot Island but who kept coming back. I’d done him once when I was sixteen and sworn never again. Which was OK since most nights he didn’t seem interested in repeating that catastrophe either. Martin’s friend Andy was lying on his back on the roadside. Looking at the stars. A can of Lone Star in his hand. A twelve pack at his feet. He was twenty and drunk most of the time. Sooner or later it might happen between us but not tonight. The Hendricks sisters were there. Saying over and over that they wished they had weed. Was Martin sure he had none? He was sure. He said over and over.

  A cell phone rang. The Hendricks sisters jumped. You couldn’t get a signal on the island except by the bridge. Even at the bridge it came and went. Sylvia who was the taller sister answered. Mouthed the name Eric. Walked off to talk in private. Andy saw his chance. Brought one of his beers to Kara. They wandered off too. I sat on the gravel where Andy had been lying. Martin sat beside me. He crossed his legs Indian-style. His blond hair hung to his eyes. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  I tried. ‘Hey.’

  He cupped something inside his palm. Showed me a joint. A magician making a coin. ‘Wanna get high?’

  ‘The Hendrickses will hate you,’ I said.

  He blew the hair out of his eyes. ‘I care?’

  I said, ‘I don’t think I’m up to it tonight.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  I straightened my dress so it came to my knees. ‘Cristofer tried to kill Walter again.’

  Martin pulled out a Bic. Flared it. Touched it to the end of the joint. Inhaled. Holding the smoke in his lungs he said, ‘One day I’m going to get out of here.’

  ‘Buy tickets for two,’ I said.

  He coughed. ‘Why? You like this place.’

  ‘I’ve never known anywhere different,’ I said. ‘That’s not the same as liking it.’

  ‘I don’t see you leaving,’ he said. And inhaled again.

  I said, ‘I don’t see myself coming back like you when I’ve moved off island.’

  He coughed and looked up at the sky.

  So I got up and said, ‘I’m going home.’ It was a mistake to come.

  He coughed again and called after me, ‘Hey come back. I didn’t mean it.’