by Bill Cheng
When the music had finished, there came a loud snore. A man had passed out at one of the tables. The barman reached into a bucket for a piece of ice, then tossed it at him.
Jesus Christ, rise up, you son of a bitch.
He threw another.
The man jolted awake and squinted over at the counter.
It’s near end of the month and you still haven’t cleaned out that shithouse!
The man picked his head up. There was a deep bruise below his eye.
Hey, I’m talking to you, G.D.!
The man stood himself up and smoothed down the front of his shirt. He passed his fingers through his greasy hair. Robert watched him. The swing of his arm, the square of his jaw. The man crossed the room to a small cabinet, and he took a shovel and a kerchief. He tied the kerchief around his face so it was only two eyes then, two brown centers, the rest full of white, the dark angry slashes of his eyebrows.
Robert followed him out behind the jakes. He watched him get down on his knees and work open the pit door. The smell hit the man and he turned to suck clean wind. Then he cinched the kerchief tight over his nose and mouth and leaned into the pit, hacking down with the shovel head.
It’ll be a while. You can go across the way, the man said.
You don’t remember me, Robert said.
The man struck the shovel down hard so that it stuck and stood himself up. G.D. pulled down his kerchief and balanced himself against the frame. His face was bright with sweat. He was looking into Robert’s face, squinting, his brow beetling. Flies buzzed drunkenly on the rim of the pail. It took minutes but when G.D. recognized him, he let out a loud laugh and threw up his arms.
THE BARMAN SCOWLED WHEN HE saw G.D. come in again. He shifted a wash rag back and forth between his hands. Then he smacked it hard against the counter.
You do like I tell you with those jakes?
G.D. ignored him. He went up on his toes and reached for a bottle of shelf whiskey on the wall. The barman grabbed his hand.
Drink’s for those who can pay. Not drag-ass layabouts, G.D.
G.D. squinted into his face. He smiled broadly.
I said I’d clear them, so I’ll clear them. I got a friend come see me just now.
He pointed with his chin and the barman looked at Robert, the rifle slung around his shoulder. The barman eased off his grip and G.D. wriggled his arm free. He gathered up the bottle and two glasses, and he and Robert set themselves down at an empty table. G.D. poured and they clinked their glasses, though they never said to what. The whiskey was hot and sharp, and it bit hard against Robert’s throat. Tears rose to his eyes. G.D. looked at him and laughed.
So what? You some kind of bad man on the run from the law?
Robert shook his head. Just passing through.
Like the rest of us. G.D. nodded solemnly at his joke. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward.
Look at you. All growed up.
He smacked his hand hard against the table, then lifted it up slowly. He grinned at the squashed fly in his palm.
Well, you can see I’m doing well for myself, he said. He wiped his hand across his trousers. There was a long pause. His mood seemed to darken. He refilled their glasses and they drank again.
He leaned back on his chair so that it rested on two legs. He was talking, but Robert could not make out all the words. G.D. couldn’t stop his mouth running. His talking circled on itself, never touching on anything straight. His long muscular arms gestured widely, described the room, punched the table, stabbed his finger at the air.
He talked quickly, heatedly. Robert could feel the eyes in the room bend toward them.
The barman told him to quiet down.
G.D. scowled. He threw the empty bottle toward the bar, smashing it against the wall. Suddenly everyone was rushed outside.
It was night then. Warm. Clear. There were so many stars.
A circle had formed around G.D. and the barman. Robert stood at the edge. Just like when we were kids, he thought. For a time the two men danced around each other, the crowd goading them on. G.D. jabbed wildly before the barman plugged him once across the jaw.
G.D. straightened, dazed. The man hit him again. G.D. took a hesitant step back and sat himself down.
The barman wiped his face and spit. He looked at Robert. Take him home, he said.
As the crowd made their way back inside, Robert lifted G.D. to his feet, holding him under his arm. He jammed a kerchief against G.D.’s battered nose. G.D. muttered something, then pointed down the road with a limp finger. Robert looped his arm around G.D.’s back, his shirt sticky with another man’s sweat, and walked him toward his home.
G.D. lived out on a shotgun to the north of Anguilla about a mile from any of his neighbors. Robert could see it in the distance, sitting under all that sky, the land choked with creepers. The grass was hard-packed, gritty, dead. There was a light on in the window, and by the way it blinked he could tell there was someone inside, waiting on him.
They got to the porch and G.D. said, You’d better stay the night.
The blood had backed up into his nose, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and cottony.
Robert took him inside where a woman was waiting to collect him.
He’s had too much, Robert said. The woman made no answer.
She was small, slender, beautiful. There was a streak of silver in her hair. G.D. grabbed her and kissed her roughly on the mouth. Then he stumbled over to the couch and laid himself out, boots and all. She snuffed the candle and climbed in beside him, paying no mind to Robert.
Robert did not recognize her right then. There was the vague tug inside of him, a sense that something important was happening. He ignored it, put it off on being still a little drunk. He thought about leaving, trying to get ahead of the Dog. Instead he went into the kitchen, where he set down his things and spread out his coat. He could hear them moving in the other room, the wood creaking under their shifting weight, G.D.’s night sounds. Robert lay down on the stiff fabric; the ceiling was turning. It dawned on him that this was where the Dog had been leading him. All the miles and roads and wearied passways had been laid for him in advance. He put his arm over his eyes and felt the blood in his face.
IT WAS MORNING AND ROBERT lay there, awake but not moving. He heard the woman talking to herself, softly. He roused up his head and peered down into the next room. She was squatting on the balls of her feet, working a soapy rag across the floor. He saw her from behind, the morning light streaming in through the door. He watched her work, her round bottom bobbing, the blades of her shoulder flexing. She laughed lightly, chided herself, and then started to whisper.
Robert sat up and cleared his throat.
She turned toward him, startled.
Her mouth hung open. She looked down at the rag, folded the corners into its center, and then looked back up. Her hands were thin and slender, passing a slip of hair behind her ear. She looked like she was about to say something, but instead, she wiped her forehead and gathered the rag again and started polishing the wood.
Robert stood up, his erection painful. He stepped around her and walked barefoot out of the house and around the side. He closed his eyes against the sun and let loose into the grass. The pressure eased in his kidneys.
He finished and went inside. The rag was still on the floor, and for a second he was afraid that he’d dreamed her up. But then he saw movement in the other room. She’d found his rifle and was holding up the stock.
Don’t, he said.
It seemed too heavy for her, the barrel bending to the ground, her finger feeling around the guard.
He stepped slowly toward her and she wheeled it on him.
Dora, he said. He realized it was true as he said it. His voice was a dry clack. If she heard him, she made no sign. She stared, not at him, but past him, somewhere far away.
&n
bsp; Dora, he said again. Don’t.
She took her hand from the barrel and the thing dropped and discharged into the floor. She jumped and started laughing. Her hands were up in the air shaking. She looked at Robert, covering her cheeks. Her laugh was throaty, stupid. He felt the warm trickle between his toes. Robert looked down. There were splinters in his shins. Blood dribbled down slowly. Dora saw it too and gasped. She grabbed the rag and started soaking the blood from the floor.
It was her. He was almost sure of it. The span of her brow, her lips. He recognized these first, then the eyes, the deep taper at the edges that called out from some place dark and deep and ancient. From there the rest rushed into place. Dora. Dora who had kissed him under the old Bone Tree, who’d slipped her hand into his and put in his palm a question. The name had flown out of him like a dragnet through the dark. It was her. But she was different somehow. In his memory, the girl was sharp and bright as a knife edge. Now she knelt before him, seeing him but also not seeing, her dumb attention on the rag she crushed to the floor.
Robert picked up the rifle and hurried off to the field behind the house. The land was a stretch of dead earth, marked with crows. Along the furrows, where the ground was still soft, he dug himself a shallow. Then he dismantled the rifle and buried the pieces. Blood was pumping through his heart. He could not catch his breath. Seeing her, he felt a claw dredge a fresh stinging trench through his life. He had not thought of her in so long.
In the distance sat what was left of an old plantation house, its walls choked with ivy so that when the wind blew through, it would lift its scales and shudder. It was a grave-head grimacing over the surrounding flats. He walked across what must’ve once been a cotton field. There were faint lines in the dust marking where the earth had been plowed. He came around the back, found the servant’s entrance, and pulled a sheet of vines away from the door.
He passed through the doorway, into the dark and mildewed air. He was inside the kitchen. The walls had rotted and the ceiling sagged down above him. The drawers had been ripped out. Looted. He passed through a swinging door. A shaft of light touched down in the center of the room. He looked up at the ceiling and saw a wound of sky passing through two floors, through the roof.
In the parlor, he could see on the wallpaper where the furniture once was—a full-size mirror on the wall, a bureau, a settee. There were boot prints of ash tracking around the carpet that marched to where a sideboard used to sit and then disappeared altogether, like someone had walked straight through the wall.
He came to a set of stairs and climbed a flight up before the wood started to strain. Something buckled underneath him. He stood still, not moving. If he fell through and hurt himself, no one would ever find him. He looked up the staircase. Just one more landing. He gripped the railing and decided to chance it. He took up the steps, testing the wood with his foot first. When he got upstairs, he saw that the floor was completely rotted, the boards warped, the nails thrusting from their holes. He stepped carefully along the edge of the wall. The hall was long, the walls scorched black. He entered a room on his right and saw the holes in the floor and ceiling.
This had been someone’s bedroom. There was a rocking chair in the corner. Between the ceiling and the roof, he could see where a bird had built its nest, learned itself better, and moved on. In his dizzy and agitated state, the room felt like a puzzle piece that somehow fit with Dora’s reappearance in his life. Robert sat down. He stared up through the space in the ceiling, a cone of dust and sun, waiting for someone to answer.
BY NIGHTFALL, HE HEADED BACK to the house. From the field he could see a man approaching from the road. It was G.D., staggering and weaving, barely able to keep on his feet. Robert ran to him and helped walk him inside. G.D. stumbled into the main room, huffing, gripping hard to Robert to keep his balance. Dora watched as Robert carried him to the couch. G.D. stretched out across the cushions, coat and all, his eyes full of shine.
G.D. looked up at the two of them and smiled wide. Tonight we gonna feast like kings, he said.
From his left coat pocket, he drew out hunks of bread and cheese, and from the right, three potatoes. He offered them up to Dora.
Go ahead and make these up. That’s a good girl.
Without a word, Dora gathered the food into her arms and went into the kitchen.
You all right? Robert asked. Let me get your coat off.
G.D. waved him away. His collar was soaked with sweat, and there was blood rimming his nostrils.
Go help her with the supper. I need a sec. Need to catch my breath.
His head lolled back and he shut his eyes.
Robert went into the kitchen, but Dora made no notice of him. She’d drawn a pail of water and was busying herself dunking the potatoes one by one, trying to wash the soil from the skin.
Dora, he said. You remember me? My name is Robert.
She paid him no mind.
He went beside her and tried to take her hand. She jerked it away back to her work. Robert sighed, took a potato. They were still gritty with dirt. No doubt stolen. He clutched the bulb in his palm and started cleaning.
AFTER DINNER, THEY CLEARED AWAY the table and made some space on the floor. G.D. dug out the wireless and switched it on. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were performing live from the DeVoy Hotel at WMPS Memphis. Dora seemed to brighten at its sound. The band struck up. Then the horns. G.D. clapped his hands together and she took them in hers. He danced her there on the floor, both of them out of time and sync. Robert was seated in his chair, watching them. G.D. tugged at her hard and she laughed and spun into his arms. He was so much bigger than her. She buried her face into his chest and put her arms around his hips and they swayed a little for a while. When G.D. was danced out, he rubbed his head and sat down.
Okay. No more dancing.
She whined and tugged his arms.
No more. I can’t. Why don’t you dance with our guest?
They both looked at Robert.
I can’t dance, Robert said.
G.D. grinned. Hell, you done worse than dance, I’m sure.
G.D. stood up and steadied himself on the wall. He shook his head and smiled to himself. I need a bath, he said. Then he turned up the dial on the wireless and went into the other room. Robert cleared his throat. He stood up out of his chair, and he walked over to the radio. The music was something different now. The shimmer of fiddles. The slow roll of a horn. He leaned toward her and held out his arm.
Just one, he said.
She looked at his arm, her chin down, trying not to meet his eyes. She took it and they started to dancing, not close but close enough. She kept her head down, watching her feet while Robert stared out past her shoulders. Her hands were clammy. His own were rough. He could hear her dress crinkling, the alien swing of her body off time from his own.
When the song had finished, they both stepped away from each other.
She still would not look at him. Her hands rose protectively to her neck, and she kept looking at the floor. Robert sighed and switched off the music.
Thanks for the dance, he said.
It’s nothing, she said.
He looked at her, startled. A small smile flitted across her face. For the briefest of moments, she looked back at him. Her eyes were brown, large, wounding. Then immediately the moment was gone. She broke away, brushing past him, into the other room, to help G.D. with his bath.
ROBERT PASSED THE NIGHT IN the small room next to the kitchen, a heap of quilts and blankets to pass for a bed. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Finally he roused himself and went out into the morning air. Outside, the sky started to blush, rose suffusing into the deep high ink. He perched himself on the back stoop and rolled his hands to fight the chill.
His head buzzed. His lungs burned.
The plantation house sat in the distance, dark against the rising sun. Even from here, he co
uld feel its size. Its presence. Its long shadow threw a cape over the dust fields. He needed to leave. Now. Before they woke up. Before the Dog could catch up to him.
Behind him, he heard the back door open. G.D. stepped from behind him, turned to the side, and aimed a hot stream of piss into the weeds.
You sleep okay?
Robert nodded.
G.D. shook himself dry, then hawked a wad of phlegm into the dust. Then he sat down beside Robert.
Tell you the truth, I’m glad to see you’re still here, he said. Didn’t know if you’d stay when you saw her. The way she is, I mean.
What happened to her?, he asked.
G.D. scowled. Well, what happened to you?
Robert saw G.D. was looking at the scar beneath his chin. The sparse beard that was growing could not hide the long purple streak along his neck. Robert touched it. It was smooth and rubbery.
Something that couldn’t be helped, Robert said.
G.D. sucked his teeth. Uh-huh. Well, Dora’s a good girl. It’d surprise you how kindhearted she is. Like she’s got all of her right on top, right where the skin is. All her sweetness, all her kindness.
Robert didn’t say anything. He had suddenly become very tired, like the muscle had become dead and slack on his bones.
And she’s smart, too. Don’t go thinking she’s not.
I never said a word otherwise, Robert said.
Good. ’Cause that’s something I won’t stand for. She’s all my family now, you understand?
The flesh had become puffy on G.D.’s face. Around his eyes the skin was still swollen, and it made him squint through those bloodshot and mucousy globes. Robert was surprised by how upset G.D. looked. His jaw tensed. His eyelids fluttered.
Robert held his gaze.
You take care of her, don’t you?
G.D. softened. He worked his lips back and forth.
We take care of each other, he said finally. I’m sorry if I came on a little hot. I hate mornings.
G.D. let out a sigh and rubbed his face.