by Don Noble
Now she pulled a pillowcase over Aunt Sip's head, hiding the stricken face, and lugged her, arms hooked under her armpits, down the narrow hallway of the apartment. Out back, the property was enclosed behind a seven-foot wooden privacy fence. The museum's visitors, when there had been any, would wander through the "garden" looking at the wildlife, which in the old days included swamp rabbits, a great blue heron, two bald eagles, an osprey, a spoonbill, six different kinds of poisonous snakes, a sting ray in a big aquarium, a mangy coyote in a chicken cage, Russell, and some parrots imported from the Virgin Islands. There weren't any parrots native to this area, but people liked to think there were. Out of all that, the only thing left now was Russell, who'd gotten so old and fat he could hardly move except to raise his head to snatch, with surprising vigor, his two-week-old yellow pimply chickens or hunks of gray and sheeny beef.
Russell's hide was so dark as to almost be black, and he was broad as a barrel. She could hardly see his clawlike feet poking out from his fat sides. He lived in a few inches of water in the bottom of his too-small pit, the walls of which were just four feet high and slippery on the inside, though Russell was far too fat to climb out now even if he'd had the opportunity or the inclination. Which he might have had during the past few days, since Betty had avoided feeding him, and the last couple of nights his call had woken her up, a loud bellow and a hissing moan. She hoped Russell would be able to handle Aunt Sip, and that she wouldn't have to cut her up into pieces for him. She didn't think she could do that.
She heaved Aunt Sip's head and shoulders up onto the top of the pit's wall and rested a moment. Russell took no notice except to cut his old slit eyes toward them and stay still. After a little rest, Betty took hold of Aunt Sip by her fleshy hips, like grabbing a giant sack of tough blubber or something, and shoved her a little more over the wall, so that now Aunt Sip's hands touched the dry floor where the pit's water had receded in the heat. Russell blinked. Betty rested again, then took Aunt Sip by her wrinkly, discolored knees and heaved her so that most of her went on over into the pit, then pushed at her old horny feet and fell hard onto her bony bottom from the effort. The silence just after was huge, the scuff of her nervous sneakers on the concrete as loud as the scratch of some great beast at the door. But then there was a thrashing noise from the pit and she looked up to see Aunt Sip twirl rapidly through the air, and heard another little splash, and a crackling, ripping sound, the pit walls getting knocked so hard they might crack and fall over.
Betty backed away from the pit on her bottom so as not to see inside there, until she reached the door, got up, and went inside without looking back. She walked through the apartment and into the museum. She stopped in front of the Je'sus diorama. Looked at the mummy boy standing there, holding his little spear, ever in between whatever had summoned him to stand and what would've come next. A hunt, maybe, or some kind of a dance. "Would you want me, Laughing Boy?" she said aloud. "Would I be a holy woman in your tribe? Or would y'all just sacrifice me to the gators?"
She went out into the shell parking lot and across the still-deserted highway, debris and sand skittering along it from the wind picking up hard from the gulf, the sky full gray and beginning to boil. She made her way to the beach. No one was out, not a soul down toward the public beach or east toward Perdido Pass. The waves white-capped and thrashing, brown, seaweedy, wind whipping her thin, limp hair. Windblown sand stinging her bare legs and face. It was a big storm coming in, maybe the worst she'd ever seen.
TRIPTYCH
by Daniel Wallace
Shelby County
How to Build a Coffin
Building a coffin is a demanding but satisfying project for the ambitious carpenter to undertake, and entails a number of skills, including edging, corner joinery, trim, and finishing. You don't have to be an expert carpenter, but the more experience you have the stronger the coffin will be. The last thing you want is for your coffin to fall apart. Ninety-four pounds may not seem like a lot, but if the corner joinery is weak you can bet on disaster. You can bet on catastrophe. Better safe than sorry, as my wife would say.
Choosing the wood. Hardwood veneered plywood is made of thin slices of hardwood, including oak, birch, maple, ash, or cherry, that are factory-glued to a soft, plywood substrate. You can buy this at any lumber store. Depending on the time of year it may have to be special-ordered, so it's a good idea to start the process a week or two before you're actually going to need it. You may find this difficult: building a coffin while its future occupant is still alive presents a number of questions, among them being, You're not God, how do you know for sure she's going to die? Well, just look at her. She weighs ninety-four pounds! You think she's going to live? You hope so, sure, but hope was something you gave up last month, so the most productive thing you can do now is to build a coffin. It's a good—and practical—distraction. Just hope she doesn't hear you hammering.
Corner joinery. I know: I'm a broken record when it comes to corner joinery, but it's by far the most important part of this project. You can use fluted dowels or plug-covered screws. Screws are especially attractive for three reasons: they don't demand special equipment; they act as their own clamps by drawing the sides and ends together; and they are ideal for caskets destined to be shipped long distances, if, for instance, the future occupant insists on being buried in a plot in California, beside her mother and father, even if she moved to North Carolina years before, following her husband, who could find work nowhere else. One thing to take into consideration here is if this decision, this desire, to be buried so far, far away was made under duress, or if her mind was muddled by medication, or maybe the chemo. In those instances it should fall to the husband to decide, regardless of what other family members might think. But just in case, use the screws.
Trim and finishing. Moldings make an enormous difference to the look of any do-it-yourself casket. As a general rule, put the largest moldings along the bottom, smaller moldings around the lid. Personalizing your coffin, of course, is one big advantage of the handmade option. Create a design. Carve her initials on the side. You can add custom cushions to the interior, or maybe just wrap a favorite quilt around some bed pillows. Are you really going to keep those pillows anyway? They're covered in hair, her hair, hair as brown as it was the day you met her. What kind of life would that be? Especially if you fulfill her last request, which is to remarry. The new wife can't be expected to sleep with that quilt, those pillows, in that bed—not that you have plans to remarry, but who knows, things might change. Things will change. That's the thing about things: change is all they do.
Summary. That about covers it. Following these instructions will ensure your coffin will be the best possible coffin you could build, a box you can be proud of—or a box of which you can be proud, for those of you, like her, whose goal in life it was never to end a sentence with a preposition. I don't mean that. She had other goals, many, among them: to be kind, to love me with all her heart, to live a longer life. But what can you do? Nothing, it turns out. You can't do anything, so you might as well build her a coffin. In a way it's like holding her forever—like that, but not that. Nothing is like that. Nothing nothing nothing.
Neighbor
I remember the old man perched in his second-story window, milky behind the wavy glass, glaring at all us kids like we were the mice and he was the hungry hawk. We played in his yard sometimes. I never met him. I thought—in my nightmares—that one day he'd pitch himself through the window and grab one of us, hold us in his arms until we crumbled, sucking our life out through his withered chicken-skinned body and dragging himself back inside, appearing at the window again, waiting for another one of us to drift into his gaze, living forever. He didn't live, though: one day he died. It happened the way it happens when you're young: on a different plane, like clouds. I just remember wearing the coat and tie I never wore, the shoes so tight my toes bled, in a church we never went to, surrounded by the smell of the strange and old. We headed back to his house after,
and I went inside for the first time. His ancient wife shivered in a big green chair on an Oriental rug, not even crying: I think she was all dried up. I ate a little sandwich, then I went outside to see if he was still there at the window—and he was. I knew he would be. He waved, all friendly now, and I waved back, I don't know why. My throat felt strangled, my eyes so dry I thought they'd crack. Then he disappeared, fading back into the dark, and I never saw him there again. I didn't tell anybody. How could I? I didn't know what it meant, or could mean, because even that young I knew I didn't believe in anything. I told my wife about it, though, twenty years later. We were in bed in the dark. Just married, our lives ahead of us—so far ahead we couldn't even see them from where we were. I wanted to tell her everything, though, everything about me, and so I did, and part of the everything was this. It had stayed with me all these years. The story scared her, of course, but not the way it had scared me. I asked her what she thought it meant. It means you'll be a ghost one day, she said, and so will I, and she cried as if this was the first time it had ever occurred to her, because she never wanted to think that even this—all of this, our brand-new world together, the love so big we almost couldn't bear it—wasn't going to last. It means I won't be with you forever, she said, and she was right.
The Men in the Woods
The men who live in the woods behind my house have been getting out of hand for some time. They are all in their midfifties, golfers formerly, and meat eaters—jolly men in general—but since their wives sent them away to live in the woods they have become grumpy and discontent. At night they bellow and howl. They want their televisions and ice makers and chairs beside the vents. They live like animals now in badly made straw huts and eat anything that wanders too close to their turf. We know what's happening to our dogs and cats, but there's nothing we can do: some of these men are very powerful; all of them belong to the country club.
Last night from a window I saw them leaving the woods and marching, single file, toward my home. They knocked at the door.
"What is it?" I said, staring at their wretchedness through the peephole. "What do you want?"
"Your telephone," they said. "We'd like to use your telephone."
"That's out of the question," I said. "You can't come in. My wife—"
"Your wife?" one said.
"She won't allow it."
"His wife won't allow it!" said a second man.
"His wife says no," added another.
"She must be wonderful," the first one said. "Really, I bet she is."
"She is," I said. "My wife is wonderful."
"We knew your father," one of the men said. "You're not your father."
Then they went away, grumbling, back into the woods.
Later in the night, in bed, I told my wife what had happened.
"They came here?" she said. I nodded. She was appalled. "I want you to go down there and tell them not to do that. Tell them never to come here again."
"Now?" I said. "It's like midnight."
"Now," she said. "For me." She kissed me on the cheek.
I walked down the little trail which led to the woods behind our house. I saw a light, followed it. The men were cooking squirrel around a fire. They were drinking coffee from old tin cups. They bellowed and wailed. But they seemed to be having a pretty good time.
"Hey, fellas," I said, and all the bellowing stopped, and they looked up at me and smiled. "Please don't come around our house anymore. Okay?"
They looked at each other, then into the fire.
"Okay," they said, shrugging their shoulders. "Fine."
It didn't seem to mean that much to them. All they had wanted was the phone.
When I turned to go I could see my house on the hill above me, and watched as one light after another was killed and it was all darkness. It seemed I could even hear the doors shut and lock, as my wife prepared for sleep. My house seemed to disappear into the black sky. I paused.
"Going away so soon?" one of the men said. The fire was bright, warm.
"Yeah," said another. "And just when we were getting to know you."
THE JUNCTION BOYS
by D. Winston Brown
Ensley, Birmingham
Colesbery Simon had been home three months and seven days before he decided that the way to get his life back was to deal with his ex-girlfriend's father. Years since they'd seen each other, but her story had become his, no matter how long it had been, or how far away he was in the world. He and his ex, Chelsea Gradine, first met in a small side room of the library in their high school, a connected but isolated spot with walls of dusty books and a few shoulder-high shelves lined up in the middle, which created a space where Colesbery met Chelsea frequently in the months that followed. That first day he'd been looking for The Invisible Man, the Wells book, but Chelsea gave him the Ellison one with its near-identical title. He read the prologue that night and the next day asked her was she trying to be funny. She told him no, that her choice had nothing to do with them being different races, it was only that she had a crush on him and thought he'd like the book. She'd been like that about most things, direct, except when it came to her father. That, Colesbery learned on his own.
He didn't make a plan. Instead, he called Lincoln Fontaine, an old friend who'd always had a knack for knowing what needed to be known. They were meeting at a pizza place on Birmingham's Southside, a few blocks from his old high school. When Colesbery turned off University Avenue onto 20th Street and headed up the hill toward Five Points South, his mind entered a maze of memories, most of which involved Chelsea. A minute or two later he passed the new coffee shops and restaurants, the Storyteller's fountain, the pizza place, and then turned right. The street was narrow, with cars parked on both sides and a canopy of trees that cast everything in shade until near the intersection, and when the reddish brick of the block-long high school finally came into view, Colesbery felt his breath, momentarily, snatched. He found a parking space, and stared through the windshield. The school rose up like a brick horizon, one that had not changed since he graduated five years earlier. In reality, the school both had and hadn't changed. A few buildings had been added on either end, some cosmetic niceties done, but the main building was the same, still with the brick ramp that curved up and in front of the school and spanned much of its length, before curving down and back toward the street.
"Thinkin' of a master plan."
The voice was a smooth baritone and came from behind Colesbery, and he knew who it belonged to without turning around. "'Cause ain't nothin' but sweat inside my hands," Colesbery replied. By the time he finished the lyric, Lincoln Fontaine was standing next to him. Even though they'd seen each other a couple of times since Colesbery came home, they grasped each other's right hand, smiled at each other, then leaned in and embraced.
"What's up, army man?" Lincoln said.
"Like I told you last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, just happy to be home, bro." Somehow Lincoln had found out Colesbery was home two days after he got there. He stopped by the apartment the next day with a slab of ribs from Rib-It-Up and a prepaid cell phone for Colesbery, told him it was for when he needed something. Lincoln had kept his distance since, stopped by once or twice, mainly just called here and there to check, a minute conversation at the most.
"Thanks again for the ribs," Colesbery said, turning back to stare at the high school.
"You don't want to know," Lincoln said.
"You found her?"
"I find everything."
Lincoln was one of those people who could always make money, who could always talk to people, anywhere, and get them to talk to him. He was wearing jeans, an Ensley High School sweatshirt, and a pair of Converse, but he was equally at ease when in a pinstripe suit. He'd started his own computer consulting company out of college while he worked at Alabama Power, but he quit Alabama Power when it took off.
"Tell me," said Colesbery.
"Tell me how you are," said Lincoln.
"I'm good. I already told you that." Colesbery turned toward Lincoln now. He'd heard some rumors about Chelsea having come back, and he wanted to know what Lincoln had found out. "How long since you seen her?"
"How long you gone play games?"
"Bro, relax." Lincoln turned his head toward the high school. "You remember being there and—"
"Of course."
"—how we use to sit in the parking lot after school listening to old-school rap. Remember when we first heard Eric B. and Rakim, drinking Thunderbird and smoking that good Bush Hills bud."
"Of course I remember." Colesbery knew Lincoln wasn't stalling, but rather, trying to figure out if Colesbery really meant to do what he'd told him he was going to do. They'd been friends since they got into a fight on the playground as second graders at Holy Family Elementary. They had already known each other, but fighting made them respect each other, especially because neither of them had really won, just sort of knocked each other around and down, then wrestled to a stalemate.
"What do you think happened to her?" Lincoln asked.
"You know what happened."
"I don't mean the drugs," Lincoln said. "Something was always off with that girl, always walking around with those feathers in her hair, disappearing for days." He paused. "You dated her for two years. What was really up with her and those mood swings?"
"Just tell me what you found out."
Lincoln turned away, started walking down the hill. "Let's get that pizza first," he said over his shoulder.
Colesbery watched him disappear around the corner. He turned and looked at the redbrick school once more, and began thinking about the library. He'd had girlfriends before Chelsea, but none like her. She wasn't that glow-in-the-dark pretty, but her eyes were open whenever Colesbery asked for something in the library, like she actually heard him, like she wanted to help him. She cried right there between the shelves in that back room when Colesbery told her about how he'd walked in on his parents doing drugs so often as a child that when he walked in that last time, he just thought they were asleep. She'd taken his hand in hers, leaned her head on his chest, and cried.