by Bill Cheng
Eli became unnerved and stopped playing.
Go on, Teague said. His voice was soft. Almost childlike.
Eli didn’t move. It took only a moment for the room to empty. Soon they were alone—Teague and him. From the open door blew a bad wind. He could see the shadows twisting on the floor as the oil lamp squeaked on its hook.
What’s the matter?
Eli swallowed hard. He set his hands down on the keys, unsure of himself. His hands were two dead slabs on his arms.
Play a blues, Teague said. That is what you do, isn’t it? Go ahead. Play.
Eli turned back to his keys—his throat suddenly dry. The liquor was a weight behind his face. He knuckled his fingers and tried to rub the buzz out of the joints. His big hands floated up and rested over the ivory. The pedal clunked into its place.
And then at once, his fingers fell through the keys. A chord exploded from the pinewood piano. Then another. A rush of sounds and rhythm. His hands jumped and scurried and bit. Black keys, white keys. Pounding hard and soft, in unison and apart. Eli could feel the wood cracking around him. The walls were shaking.
A splinter burst from the body of the piano. Eli winced and grabbed his stinging cheek. He could feel the blood burning in his face. There was a blemish on the piano, a small dark patch he had not noticed before. Slowly, his eyes adjusted. It was a hole in the panel, small and clean where the bullet had just embedded itself. Eli turned. Teague’s hand was full of smoke.
His eyes were red and pocketed, staring at the floor. More than anything, he looked exhausted. He slumped in his chair, breathing heavy. Teague let the weight drop from his hands. Slowly, Eli rose from the bench. He began to run.
THE SHERIFF FOUND HIM HOLED up in an old farmhouse two miles from the camp. He was curled up inside the chicken coop, among the feathers and the shit, his hands bleeding from climbing wire. He turned his head away from the sheriff’s light and moaned softly. The sheriff stood over him, calm and sad.
Come on, son, he said as he helped him up. You got a few things to answer for.
He felt the man’s touch on his shoulders, and a wave of grief rose into his throat. He stepped out into the field. It was low flat tract, without grass or trees or shrubs. A place where nothing grows and the earth has no memory, and the thought came to him that all that is borrowed must one day be repaid.
The boy let in the just-rained air, cool and dewed, and stuck his head out the window. Overhead, the sky was swollen. The cottonwoods were in full bloom, their catkins fat and set to bust. From the third-story window he could make out the road that led out to Bruce proper, toward the Skuna River, and beyond it the railway station. He raised the window higher to give himself room, then he climbed backward out onto the ledge. He’d grown four inches in the last year and now he felt the pinch behind his knees as he anchored his large hands against the wall and slipped his weight outward. The roof edge was slick with rain. His fingers hooked and locked into the grooves. He let his body dip out, his full weight pulling against his fingers hard and sudden. For a moment he hung, groundless, outside the Hotel Beau-Miel, before hoisting himself onto the roof.
Farther into Bruce, he could see rows of houses, the movie theater, the restaurant, the market. A car cornered onto the main stretch. From where he stood, it looked like a large beetle smashing through the puddles.
He went low onto his belly, watching it from over the shingles. The car skidded and came to a halt in front of the hotel. He waited, watching it idle.
A door opened.
At first all Robert could see of the new girl was her green slicker. It floated beside the car, climbing out beneath Miss Lucy’s waiting umbrella. The car started up suddenly, and the girl slipped into a mud puddle.
Miss Lucy picked the girl up and hurried her into the house.
When he was sure they’d gone in, Robert made his way back to the edge of the roof. He peered down at the three-story drop and lowered himself down, feeling for the sill with his toes. He went inside, closing the window behind him. He tidied the room, tucking the sheet firm under the mattress and fluffing the pillows. This was to be the new girl’s room, and Miss Lucy had instructed him to be thorough. He gave the place a once-over, then entered into the hall.
Robert!
Miss Lucy was still in her traveling clothes. A powder-blue floral-print dress and a string of pearls. She had let her hair down and the gray had started to show, striping faint over her left ear. She held out the green slicker and a yellow dress splattered with mud.
Put this in with the day’s wash.
Yes’m.
Robert took the bundle from her. He turned to go but Miss Lucy stopped him. She looked him up and down, and he realized then that the front of his coveralls was wet.
What I tell you about staying off my roof?
Sorry, Miss Lucy.
People don’t come here to get spied on.
No, Miss Lucy.
You’ll break your fool neck one day.
Yes, Miss Lucy. Sorry, Miss Lucy.
Miss Lucy shook her head.
You’re dripping on my floor, she said, waving him away.
THE HOTEL BEAU-MIEL WAS MISS Lucy’s baby. She scrounged and saved for thirteen years selling her fish, secreting a dime on every dollar of her earnings for the place. There were rooms, and beds, and a desk out front, and a book for folks to put their names. John Smith. John Doe. John Jones. And the women took the men’s coats and their hats and their hands and showed them up to their room, their mattress, their spread and pillow. They’d show them how the curtains slid shut on the rollers, show them how to lock the door, how to lay their shirts and pants, so neat so clean, on the chair backs to keep from wrinkling. They’d show them and then they’d show them—fifteen for an hour, twenty-five for three—anything they’d want to see.
On a good day, the house groaned with customers—a man to every room and to every room a bed and to every bed a girl, sometimes two if your pockets could keep. And in the front hall, and in the kitchen, and in the parlor, you could hear them lowing. Even in the jam cellar, where Robert slept and kept his quiet hours, dark save for the single cast of sunlight on the wall, the dust would roll from the wood slats, shook loose from all their thumping. He watched the motes spangle and gust and fall in drifts, and once, from through the pane, he saw float down a woman’s stocking.
Men would come for miles, their hair slicked back and pomade sweet. Miss Lucy would show them in one at a time and they’d smile and sign her big book and open their wallets. And it was Robert who broomed the floors and beat the dust and mopped the stoop. It was Robert who changed the sheets, boiling them with the gowns, the kimonos, the blouses, the dresses and skirts and underthings.
Out in the yard, Robert stocked the pit with firewood and lined it with coals and old newspaper. The sun climbed overhead, baking the late morning. He spoiled six matches trying to get a fire lit, dropping their crooked heads in the grass. His daddy had showed him once, old newspaper lined with hog fat to bait the flames. When a match caught, he cupped it with his hands and brought it careful to the pilings. He moved the tub over the flame and set it on its moorings. When the water started to boil, he cut a brick of soap into three pieces, then stirred it into the tub. After some time, the water started to grease and foam. He dropped the load in and stirred it with a long paddle. After the soap had lathered and the water had worked into a boil, he heaved the tub off its moorings, fished out the clothes, and let them cool on the grass. Then he dumped the remaining water over the coals and went inside.
There was a book of maps in Miss Lucy’s parlor, and there in its pages he could see the stretch of the Mississippi River, a jagged blue vein from Minnesota to New Orleans, opening south, spilling into the ocean. And off the blue snaking line lay the postage-stamp-sized borders of Issaquena County. On the page, it was only inches inland from Bruce, and not the hundred-some-
odd miles of ravaged country he’d traveled. With his thumb, he traced the roads to the hatched lines where his home may have been. It was no use. He couldn’t match the map to the country in his head, the anonymous roads, the bending land.
In Miss Lucy’s book, there was no mark for Crookhand Farm or the twisting mule paths that striated the wilderness, or the dusty straight where he and his brother used to race. Nowhere was the grove of tupelos, and the heady perfume that, in the summer, would wash out from its depths.
They were gone. There was nothing.
The door creaked, and he dropped the book. The new girl stood in the doorway.
She was beautiful. Smooth tawny skin. Large daring eyes.
You the wash boy?, she asked him.
Her dressing gown wasn’t sized near enough for her. Her collar plunged and when she swallowed, Robert could see the cords of her neck tighten. She came into the room, barefoot, and he realized she’d just washed. Her hair was matted down and tied back. The gown was wet and clung to her body in places.
Miss Lucy told me you had my dress.
Robert stared at her. Her voice was sticky and had the dull ring of tin in it.
Well, do you or don’t you? That’s a very important dress. It was from the king of Spain. What you do with it?
Robert looked around him.
Speak up, now!
I—
You didn’t use soap, did you?
That—
The girl let out a groan.
You can’t wash my dress like it was just some beat-up pillowcase. Don’t they teach you nothing ’round here?
The—
Well, where is it?
In the yard, Robert managed to say.
She groaned again and grabbed his arm. Come on then. Show me.
She near jerked his arm from the socket, dragging him through the halls. The girl was as tall as Robert, her long legs taking the floor in wide strides. Robert found himself stumbling behind to keep pace. He watched her shoulders flex underneath her blouse, the line of her back and neck diving into her gown. He directed her into the kitchen, and they burst out into the yard.
She found her dress laid out on the grass.
Of all places!, she cried.
I wasn’t going to just leave it like that . . .
Oh, so the boy can talk can he?
She shook the dress open.
Look at this!
She held it up. There were brown spots all down the front.
Let me see, Robert said.
He took the dress and began rubbing at the blob of rust. It wouldn’t come off.
My favorite dress! I swear, you people got your head screwed on wrong!
Robert started to speak, but she snatched the dress from his hands and flung it across the yard. Robert watched after her, her fists tight to her side, stamping back to the house. Robert picked up the dress, looked again at the stain. He touched it gently at the hip. Then the back. He spread the dress neatly and laid it out under the sun. Then he took his rinse bucket to the pump and went on with the day’s wash.
AFTER HE FINISHED WITH THE wash, Robert did the ironing, watered the garden, swept out the stoop. At lunch, he took a little bread, then went straight to dusting out the parlor. All day the women jawed on about the new girl, Hermalie—how Miss Lucy had put her up in the good room on the top floor, how she gave her a Chinese fan and her Portuguese chest—how Lucy was grooming her. They told stories. She was Miss Lucy’s daughter, sent east then come back to run the hotel, that she loved up the governor and now she had to wear her apron high. That she smoked and drank and raised hell, that she was run out of Florida for her deviling, that even the state militia couldn’t keep her knees shut.
The whole day, the women would stop outside Miss Lucy’s room and put their ear up to the door. Then they’d scuttle off with some new gossip burning a hole in their mouths.
Come full dark, Robert locked up the house, went into the kitchen, then down into the jam cellar. He lay on his cot and pulled his blanket over his head. His ears rang, and with his eyes closed, the room felt like a bell—shimmering, sonorous.
He slept uneasily, waking up in a sweat. His jaw was numb and he realized the smooth black stone was in his mouth. He spit it into his palm and dried it on his pajama leg. Then he rousted himself out of bed and lit a candle.
The girl’s dress was sitting on his shelf. He took it upstairs into the kitchen and spread it flat on the table. The stain had gotten worse—little brown islands stretched across the middle. He rinsed it again in a basin of cold water, plunging it and replunging it. It didn’t do any good. He went into the larder for a lemon, peeled the rind and squeezed the juices over the stain, something he’d seen his mother do, before the flood—before Billy.
He massaged it into the cloth, grinding his knuckles into the fabric. He held it up to the candle. The stain seemed lighter somehow, but he was too tired to be sure. He dunked the dress again, squeezing in another lemon. His hand began to sting and he ignored it, working on, kneading his flesh against the cloth, his fingers bright with pain, on and on into the still-dark morning.
It was Miss Lucy who taught him his letters—how to read and write—and every week he’d send letters all through the state, to courthouses and newspapers and homeless shelters and police stations. He’d write page after page, sending for information on Ellis or Etta Chatham. He remembered that night as his father led him out across the field, Miss Lucy waiting beside the open carriage. She took his hand. Why don’t you come riding with me, Robert?, she’d said and it struck him as odd that she knew his name. He turned and already his daddy was starting back across the field, clutching his head, speeding across the dewy grass.
He was not sure when he decided, but at some point he knew that Ellis and Etta were dead. Five years had already passed, and he sprouted like a weed, tall and awkward, while the features of his face smoothed into a serious and sullen mask. When he passed by a mirror, it shocked him sometimes, how much he looked like his brother. The nose was flatter and the mouth a little less wide, but it was there in the eyes and cheeks and the small flare in the nostrils.
IN THE BEGINNING IT HAD been difficult. Miss Lucy had tried her best to explain—how his daddy thought he’d be better off here, with a roof over his head and a hot meal every day with plenty of people to look after him. For weeks, Robert cried himself to sleep. Miss Lucy would sit beside him stroking his back, and his muscles tensed against this woman’s touch. This woman who was not his mother, who was not anyone he had ever seen before.
But with time and work, the hot burning in the pit of his gut passed into a dull throb. He buried himself in the duties of the house—sweeping and cleaning and running errands for Miss Lucy’s girls. He came to like Miss Lucy and even some of the other girls at Beau-Miel. He liked seeing them day in and day out, listening to their idle talk and dirty jokes, smoking their fancy cigarettes, chewing their food with their mouths open; the bickering and fussing and making up. It gave a rhythm to the days, the months, the years, smoothing out the rougher edges.
If he let his mind wander, he could almost feel at ease. He would be in Miss Lucy’s parlor, nestled in that big red armchair of hers with the fire going, bone tired and head buzzing, and he’d coast along the gray moonless space between wake and sleep. He’d hear Miss Lucy at her desk with her ledger books and her fountain pen, the warm hum in her throat. It was not home but it was something.
It wouldn’t take much for this feeling to disappear.
A crass word. The pained and animal hollers of drunken rutting coming from one of the guest rooms. One night, one of the girls had burst into the kitchen screaming. She was clutching her breast, holding the blood in from where she’d been bit. The police were sent for, but the man had already left. That night, after Robert had mopped up the blood and bleached out the sheets, he could not get to sleep. He s
at up in his cot, his arms across his chest, trying to keep from trembling.
In the first week that he’d been at Beau-Miel he’d overheard one of the girls call him “abandoned.” When Miss Lucy found out, she docked her two weeks’ pay, but the damage had been done. He knew the word already, had read it in one of Miss Lucy’s books. Now the word stained deep into his meat, its edges ringing in the hollows of his body. Abandoned.
Thirteen years old and already broken.
The heat was stifling, and Miss Lucy and the new girl had gone out on the porch to cool. The new girl moved to the railing. She wiped the slick from her neck, sighing into the still air. Standing there, she could seem almost graceful, her long limbs swishing slowly in the heat.
She turned and watched as Miss Lucy rolled back her head, the tips of her two gold teeth peeking over her ripe lip. Bees, fat and honeyed, went drunk through the azaleas. One of them buzzed the flower of Miss Lucy’s ear and Miss Lucy swatted it away. The girl leaned over the railing and tried to catch a breeze. There was nothing.
It’s too hot for rutting, she said.
Miss Lucy offered her the ice bowl. She pressed a chip against her forehead and let the melt run through her eyebrows, the swell of her cheeks, down onto her neck.
Can’t we go over to the creek?
You just keep your eye on the street.
It’s too hot. Nobody’s going to come out.
Wouldn’t be so hot if you stopped your jawing, Hermalie.
The road had been empty all morning. Two blocks over was the end of the Negro quarter and not a soul stirred in the heat. Across the road, a yellow dog had lain itself down under a leak of shade coming off Percy’s Pharmacy.
Miss Lucy offered the girl another shard of ice and she tongued it for a moment before spitting a clear lozenge into her palms.