Southernmost

by Silas House

  Asher snaps his fingers to get Justin’s attention, but he doesn’t turn, so Asher sneaks up behind him and eases his hand onto Justin’s shoulder so that he turns to look back.

  Come on, Asher mouths, lips half lost to the shadows.

  Justin caps his hand over his mouth and points to the lattice, tickled by having this conversation so close to Evona’s back. She is sitting in a rocker not six inches away from them, reading a book. Asher can see through the lattice clearly, the yellow light from her window falling over her shoulders. She is holding a paperback and he wishes he could see the cover.

  Asher thinks how Evona must have been able to easily see them, too, with their porch light burning over the card-playing table, when she stood at the divider. Asher pictures her, eyeing them before stepping over to comment on how she and her mother used to play cards, too, a line so telling and inviting that she might as well have announced that she was lonesome and wanted company. And he had simply dismissed her.

  NOW! Asher mouths, arching his eyebrows for emphasis. STOP! A widening of his eyes, to let Justin know he is getting angry, although he can’t help being tickled, too.

  Justin is laughing at Asher now. He does a little dance to emphasize the fact that they are so close to Evona that it’s ridiculous they aren’t being noticed.

  Come on now, Asher mouths, trying to not laugh, but then he straightens himself and gives the look Justin knows by heart: I mean it, Justin.

  Justin relents, and trudges back to the card table. Shady follows closely behind, his nose always right at Justin’s heel.

  “Your turn to deal,” Asher says, shuffles the cards, then scoots the stack toward Justin.

  Yet while they play Asher continues to think about Evona over there, reading, alone, and the way Justin had been amazed to see someone doing this. The only reader Asher had ever really known was Luke, who read everything, all the time. For most of his life Asher had devoted all of his reading to the Bible, of course. That had been expected of him, to read the Bible and nothing else. His congregation had hired him because he had not been to seminary. Only recently had he realized the way books could give a person wings.

  He thinks about the man he had been, just a couple years ago. Judging and preaching and telling others how to live, filled up with the weight of thinking he knew what God wanted.

  11

  The dark, rocking water. Overturned cars zooming by on the swollen river, entire trees with their green leaves still intact. The bright yellow lumber from houses that had exploded in the flood. The Cumberland River filling the entire valley. Then: Luke thrashing in the water, screaming. But the roar of the churning water overtaking his voice. A wave overtakes his face, filling his mouth with water, and he is spluttering, fighting, struggling to keep his head above the deluge. And then, he’s gone. Asher: standing on the ridge, unable to move. A coward paralyzed by fear.

  Asher startles awake, sits up in bed and is surprised to find his face wet. He has not cried since before he got Justin back. There had been nights in that barren trailer out on Cheatham Lake that he had lain awake on his back with tears falling into his ears. But that seems like ages ago now. And he has not wept in a very long time.

  Now the grief—of losing Luke, of losing Justin, of what it has taken to get Justin back—climbs up from his chest. Asher doesn’t want Justin to hear, so he slips outside. He eases the door closed and the mourning breaks out of him. He tries to cough the tears into his cupped hands, but the large grief cannot be contained.

  “You alright?”

  Asher bolts up and slides into the rocker, as if she hasn’t heard every bit of his outburst. He looks across the shadowy porch but there is only the lattice, no sign of her at all. Evona must have already been sitting out there, watching the bluing darkness. Night never becomes as thickly dark on Key West as it did back home; the light is different here, even at night, as if the water surrounding them illuminates the sky.

  “You alright?” she repeats.

  “I’m okay.”

  “You want company?”

  “I’m okay,” he repeats.

  Evona comes around the lattice anyway, bends, and sits on the porch floor by his leg. She cranes her neck back to look up at him. “You don’t seem alright.”

  “I’ve been holding it in for a while.”

  “A person can’t do that,” Evona says, and lights a cigarette. “You want one?”

  He shakes his head.

  “I know. They’re terrible. I only allow myself one a month. But this, now—” she holds up a small glass and he can hear the tinkling of watery ice “—I do believe Jameson’s is good for the soul.”

  “That I might need,” he says.

  “Oh, let me get you a glass,” she shoots up and slides around the lattice divide, in and out of the house, and produces a glass identical to hers, full of ice cubes, all in less than thirty seconds. She shoves the glass into his hand, then splashes in whiskey; he catches sight of the green bottle in the moonlight. Then she is clicking her glass against his and downing a drink while her last word—“Sláinte”—still lingers on the air between them.

  He takes a small sip so he can savor the whiskey on the roof of his mouth and let it soak into his tongue. Smoky and oaky and sharp and soft, all at the same time. He takes a bigger drink and then breathes out a hot breath of satisfaction. “I haven’t had a drink in years.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I never took to it.” He doesn’t want to tell her he has been a preacher all these years. No use in opening that door. People get nervous around preachers, even ex-ones (especially ex-ones, he imagines). They feel judged. No wonder.

  “Does this help?” she says, and he looks down at her, not knowing exactly what she means. She is looking out at the courtyard, not at him.

  “What’s that?” he asks.

  “Does my coming over here and distracting you and giving you a drink help? Does it help with what you were crying over?”

  “I wasn’t really cr—”

  “You were,” Evona says, and leans briefly against his leg. “It’s alright. Sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry and as long as we’re alive, we can deal with everything else. You know?”

  So she is drunk, he realizes. He’s surprised he hadn’t noticed the slur of her speech until just now. And why shouldn’t she be drunk if she wanted to be, at four o’clock in the morning? She isn’t hurting anyone. And she’s right, they are alive, and sometimes a person has to get numb and deny it all. And sometimes a person has to forget, and sometimes forgive.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, when he doesn’t reply. “I’m a little drunk.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “I don’t do this often,” she says. “Turns out we both had a bad night on the same night. That’s all. I’ve had a real bad week. That’s why I’ve been so unfriendly. Sometimes I have bad nights and sometimes I have bad weeks.”

  “It’s alright, really—”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that,” she says, sounding annoyed enough to make him stop talking.

  A silence falls between them for a time and there is nothing in the night except the wind chimes over on Bell’s porch. Then, far down the street toward the Hemingway House, there is the whine of a scooter motor.

  “Your little boy is a handsome one,” Evona says, sounding more sober. She splashes another drink into her glass, then drains the entire thing in one long slide. “He’s different, though. I can tell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s like a little old man. In a good way.” A silence. The scooter is gone, now, out of earshot. Only the wind chimes. “Like he knows things he’s not old enough for yet.”

  Asher doesn’t know what to say because she has captured Justin in a way he has never been able to say out loud.

  “I didn’t mean any offense.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “God, if you say that again, I’ll scream.” She lets out one big laugh, then caps both ha
nds over her mouth. “Shit! Did I say that out loud? Sorry. Sor-eeeee.” She collapses into laughter. Serious now: “I’m not a drunk. Alright? I only do this once in a blue moon. You got me?”

  “Yes, I believe you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You feel me?” she says, laughing. She is cracking herself up. “You feel what I’m saying, Mister?”

  “Yeah, but we need to quiet down a little.” She is having such a good time that he can’t help smiling.

  “Alright then,” she says and nods, putting a finger against her lips in a shushing manner. She is barely able to keep her eyes open. “Let’s hush. Let’s listen.” She cocks her head like she is waiting for some perfect sound, but the night is silent. So she bursts out laughing again.

  He reckons that last drink has finished her off. In fact, she is much more drunk than he had thought. She wears herself out laughing and then collapses against his leg, her body limp.

  Asher hasn’t felt anybody against him in a long, long time. And he sure hasn’t felt anyone against him that he wanted there.

  He stands and leans down to shake her shoulder. “Hey there,” he whispers. He takes note of the sadness that shapes her face. “Come on, now,” he says, quiet.

  Evona’s eyes flutter open and focus on him. “What is it?”

  “I’m gonna help you get to bed.”

  She puts out one limp arm and he helps her stand so she can lean against him. She smells musky and sweet, the way hickory nuts smell when broken open in the woods of autumn. She smells like the woods back home.

  “Hey, what’re you doing, mystery man?” she mumbles. Her eyes are still closed even though she is taking little shuffling steps. He has to put his arm around her waist to steady her. She’s putting all of her weight on him, her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m going to put you in your bed, alright?”

  “Yep.” She nods.

  Asher has some trouble opening the screen door while holding her up, but he manages. A lamp lights the living room dimly. Books are stacked everywhere. A record is spinning on the record player and only now he hears the Cuban music playing, as she has turned the volume down very low, probably to keep from waking up Justin and him. Trumpets quaver and a woman sings “Tamborilero!” in a voice she pulls up from the bottom of her belly.

  Evona starts moving her hips in a feeble attempt to dance, the music prodding her awake. “Let’s dance,” she says, pulling his hands to settle on her hips, then locks her hands behind his neck. She is dancing now, but still has trouble keeping her eyes open. She struggles to focus on Asher, squinting hard, laughing.

  “You’re not dancing,” she says.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Aw, shit, yes you do.” She grabs his hips, pushes them back and forth. She might as well try to get some moves out of a tree stump. She laughs at his awkwardness.

  Now men are singing along with the woman, “Tamborilero!” over and over.

  “Come on! You can do better’n that!” Evona shakes at his hips again and he responds with a brief motion just to pacify her.

  “Dance, dammit!” But then she has lost her burst of energy and has to lean against him again, sliding her arms around his sides to lock at the small of his back. She lays her head on his shoulder. “I’m not a drunk. I should be. But I’m not.”

  “I don’t think you are.” Asher finds himself moving his feet so that they’re turning in the room in a little box step. She feels so good against him, breathing, sad, and most of all, alive.

  The arm of the record player lifts itself at the end of the song and before it can click back and settle its needle on the first track Evona stumbles away. “Yeah, I better go on to bed,” she stammers. “I can’t remember your name.”

  “Asher.”

  “Yeah,” she says, and falls into the door frame, slurring out his first name. He goes to help her but she has passed out standing up this time. He gathers her up in his arms—she is light as a child—and carries her into her room.

  The bedroom is dark but washed in hints of whitish-gray light that falls in the open windows where curtains breathe in a passing breeze from the Atlantic. There are three framed pictures on the nightstand, all of the same little boy.

  Her words drift away as he eases her down onto the unmade bed and pulls a quilt up over her bare legs where her skirt has worked itself up high on her thighs. He does not want to think that she is beautiful, but he does. He pauses, trying to figure out if he should turn her on her side in case she gets sick and needs to throw up. He reckons it is best to leave her but as soon as he takes a step back, she stirs.

  “Where you going?” She raises her hand and starts to grab his wrist but drops it weakly. “Please.”

  He steps out of the bedroom and puts the record player out of its repetitive misery. He places the needle on its perch, clicks off the machine and closes the door behind him.

  She has left the bottle on the porch, so he pours himself a little more of the Irish whiskey. He watches as the sky turns from a dark blue to a dark purple to a bluish-lavender glow. Another Key West morning. He thinks again of Zelda and he feels sick to his stomach at what he has done to her, leaving her there in the middle of the floor like she was nothing or nobody. He deserves to go to jail. He deserves whatever is coming.

  He finishes the whiskey and goes into his side of the house. He slips into Justin’s bed with him and the boy doesn’t flinch, his breathing an even purr. He lies there, worrying for all of them as light moves around the walls and ceiling, claiming the world again.

  12

  Asher spies on Bell while she receives communion from the priest who brings it to her from the big church down on Duval. They carry it to shut-ins and sick folks. Asher doesn’t know if Bell is sick or if she just doesn’t want to fool with the world but every Sunday around three o’clock here comes the little man in the white robe that flutters out behind him, glowing in the afternoon sunshine like a moth. Asher reads his lips when he holds the bread up for her (the body of Christ) and then when he put the wine to her lips (the cup of salvation).

  It has been too long since Asher took communion. He wonders if he would be able to feel the bread and wine spreading all through his body like light.

  He has paused behind an enormous aloe vera plant and a wall of bougainvillea dripping over a low wall to watch and feels it would be wrong to move until the Eucharist is completely finished, so he stays very still while the priest says the concluding prayers, then rushes off to the house so he’ll have some time to rest before supper. Justin is in the pool when he gets to the cottage, swimming back and forth with his face down in the water.

  They have been in Key West three weeks now. Rain almost every evening or morning but there is hardly ever lightning like back home and sometimes Justin swims even during the rain showers. There are fewer guests now so Asher doesn’t worry so much about leaving him alone there. Sometimes Justin trails along behind Asher during the workday and helps. He loves seeing what disgusting things he can find in the rooms when people leave. But mostly he stays at the cottage, or in the pool. He does a lot of drawing. He has three sketchbooks full of drawings he won’t allow Asher to see.

  “Hey,” Asher says, when Justin finally comes up for air. “It’s almost suppertime. You better go change clothes.”

  He’s finally agreed to have supper at Bell’s, which Justin is excited about since he’s taken a liking to both Bell and Evona. He climbs out of the pool immediately and the water pours from the legs of his swimming trunks as he runs a beach towel over his hair.

  “You can’t say too much about who we are at supper tonight,” Asher says, settling into a rocker, “and you especially can’t say our last name, even if you’re asked point-blank.”

  “You want me to lie?”

  “No,” Asher says, although that’s exactly what he’s telling Justin to do. “Just don’t volunteer it. That’s something they might ask me, but I can’t imagine
anyone asking you.”

  “And will you lie?”

  “No,” Asher says, not knowing what he will do. “I’ll probably just tell them that’s my own business.”

  “That’ll sound rude,” Justin tells him.

  “Justin, listen to me.”

  But then Asher can’t think of what to say. He is leaned down close with his eyes right on Justin’s but he needs a moment to gather his words.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry I’ve done this. I know that it was wrong. You know that I don’t like lying. It’s wrong—”

  “I know,” Justin says, as if to say: God, I’ve heard this shit about a thousand times. “Let’s go.”

  When they sit down to eat at Bell’s she asks Asher if he will pray. He freezes. He has been trying to pray in his mind for so long now, finding only silence.

  “I’ll say the blessing,” Justin says.

  Evona lets out a delighted little laugh.

  “Well, good!” Bell says. “Go on then, buddy.”

  Justin puts his hands out to the others the way they always had at home, back when Asher said the prayer before every meal and they all joined hands. What seems like ages ago now, when Asher was a pastor and they prayed all the time. Even when they went out to eat, right in the middle of the restaurant. Had he been showing off, making sure others knew that he was a preacher? Now he wasn’t sure.

  Justin is sitting between Bell and Evona so he takes hold of their hands.

  “Thank you for this food and these people,” Justin says, squeezing his eyes closed. “Thank you to the Everything. Amen.”

  “Amen,” they all say together.

  “That’s a pretty perfect prayer,” Evona tells Justin.

  From the time Justin was very small Asher has taught him how to say a simple but succinct prayer of always being thankful for the food and the people who were gathered to eat it. For so many years Asher worried about making sure Justin understood the Bible and attended church, although over the last year he hasn’t attended to his ways of believing at all, resigned himself to the fact that Lydia was going overboard with it all. Somehow Justin has already come up with his own way of thinking.