Counting for Thunder

by Phillip Irwin Cooper

  “Anybody home?” I ask, opening the door an inch or two. The inside of the house is dark, except for the stove light in the kitchen. Torn between wanting Joe to know I heard him and pretending I didn’t, I call out again. “Joe? You here?”

  A few seconds pass before Joe materializes in the hallway entrance. “You’re early,” he says.

  “I know, sorry,” I say, startled at his disheveled appearance.

  “It’s all right,” he says, camouflaging his emotional state with a yawn. He rubs his eyes like a kid after a nap. “Come on in. Let’s put some lights on and get this barbecue thing on the road, shall we?”

  “You bet,” I say, still standing in the back door, afraid to disturb the air in the sorrowful place.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry,” Joe says, placing his half-eaten veggie burger on the wooden patio table. “I’m afraid I’m not good company tonight.” He props his feet on one of the wooden benches built into the sides of the deck.

  I hold up the bottle of wine over his glass.

  “No, thanks,” he says. “I don’t think I should.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Well, you can ask,” Joe says, “but I can’t guarantee I’ll have an answer.”

  For a second, I consider making something up, scrapping my intention to probe the situation. But before I can back out, I’m already forging ahead.

  “I heard you earlier tonight. You sounded very upset. And I’m sorry I heard you. I had no business coming here early. Maybe I should have gone home. But I’m here. And I want to know if there’s anything I can do.”

  Joe sucks his teeth once, twice, like he’s figuring a math problem.

  “Do you want me to go?” I ask. Listening to his soft, rhythmic breathing, I watch his chest rise and fall. He still hasn’t looked at me. “Hey,” I say, placing a hand on his forearm, golden brown from all the days working outdoors. “What’s going on? Joe. Tell me.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  The minutes tick by, but I still can’t manage to make myself leave.

  “Several of us, we were acclimating before we took Manaslu,” he says, “with some high-priced guide from London.” He reaches for the wine bottle and pours.

  He doesn’t say anything else for a good while longer.

  Then he downs the cup in one gulp.

  “That glacier, man, that was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Like some big, dodgy bowl of sugar and diamonds. The whole thing could have gone at any minute.”

  I can tell from the recurring silence that this next part is going to be hard for him.

  “And Kyle, he got skittish. You could see it in his eyes. He wanted to go through with it, but he couldn’t. Said he had a feeling. So he stayed behind…”

  Joe’s voice becomes harder to understand. It’s like he’s talking to me from another planet.

  “And we went ahead…with the rest. And he…he never made it back to camp. It was almost worse than actually seeing him go, you know?”

  Joe is now speaking over his shoulder in my direction. I breathe a tiny sigh of relief, grateful he’s finally including me.

  “He just wasn’t there. Like smoke, there was something in the air. It seems uncommon, I guess, to hear of someone dying that way, but if you climb, you know a lot of people who…”

  Joe holds up five fingers. “Five people died on the mountain that year. He was one of ’em.”

  For a long time, neither of us says anything. There are no tears from Joe—all cried out, I guess. My tears are another story. Getting up from my chair, I walk directly behind him and dry mine on the sleeve of my shirt. Not once during the story was I ever thinking this was what sent him over the edge. In fact, I was so shaken by the harrowing tale, the thought wouldn’t cross my mind for another day.

  I put my hands on either side of his head, tilt it back, and kiss him on the lips.

  “Would you do something for me?” Joe says.

  “Anything.”

  “Hand me the other half of my burger?”

  I grab the plate and sit in his lap. He groans like I’m too heavy, but I ignore him.

  “Here,” I say, pulling off a bite of the burger. “I’m going to feed you this burger like you’re a fucking ancient Egyptian king.”

  “Ha. I will not let you feed me like I’m an ancient Egyptian king.” He takes a slug of wine. “Okay, maybe I will.”

  “Sire,” I say, holding a piece of burger in front of his mouth. As he takes it and chews with a weak, closed-mouth grin, I know better than to think the joviality of the last couple of minutes has scared away the spirit of a long-lost love. But at least we both know he’s there.

  THE DIXIE

  May 10, 2001

  Crime Scene

  Man Shot Dead in Casket Store

  Ferris Drinkard, 68, of Chancey, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head and was pronounced dead Friday morning at Casket Emporium in Trinity Village Shopping Center.

  Harry Gates, 70, of Dukes, who was treated for minor stab wounds, was charged with the murder. He was taken to Pugh County Metro where he was being held pending a bond hearing.

  “Drinkard and Gates were business associates at one time,” said Chancey police spokesman Dewey Rotch. “They’ve had disputes over business matters in the past,” Rotch added without elaborating.

  Rotch was unable to say whether the two men were still business associates or whether their past association was in the casket business.

  “It’s a terrible thing,” Rotch said. “The business of death is tough enough without heaping added strife and discord to the mix.”

  27

  Two years and three months had passed, and I had still not left my parents’ home in Alabama. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I had actually taken control of a situation and accomplished something worthwhile. I wanted nothing in my way to thwart that success.

  My mother was, for all intents and purposes, a different person. When Tina smiled, she now seemed to expect the world to smile back. And if they didn’t, then screw them. I felt I was the catalyst for that change, and walking away from her at this delicate time didn’t seem right.

  Weeks flew by as quickly as the hand on my travel alarm clock ticked off seconds, always set just past dawn. This way I could log in my daily diary on my laptop, an undertaking that had become the most important part of my day.

  The drought continued across the southeast. Lakes and rivers were drying up. Two-hundred-year-old oaks were dying at the root. There were times we had to run for cover in the heat of the day to avoid the swarms of thirsty bats coming to drink from the swimming pool. Naturally, it fell on my shoulders to net out the furry dive bombers that didn’t make it. Allergies were at a peak the medical community had never seen. But we no longer had allergies. Colds and flu, Justin and Marsala said, would be a thing of the past.

  I had never seen an unshakable faith like Tina’s. She never cried, never worried, never questioned. I fed my faith by staying in constant motion. I was always bringing something new to the table. I felt like the buck stopped with me, and it was my task to keep all of the balls in the air.

  Tina wanted to go see her doctor to request he turn over her files so she could burn them in effigy on our next visit to the Village. A few days before the appointment, we heard through the grapevine Rose O’Sharon’s only child had been killed in a terrible car accident on her way home from college. I wondered whether the incident would affect the nurse’s worldview, not to mention her bedside manner.

  When the day came, I was entering the medical center from parking the car after having dropped Tina off at the door. As I rounded the corridor, I saw a strange sight. Tina was holding a withered Rose O’Sharon, who looked like she’d lost everything she held dear. I watched for a moment, feeling very uneasy. Rose O’Sharon pulled away from my mother, reeling. She must have been on some sort of tranquilizer to help her cope. After an unbelievably kind and understanding Spielberg sent us on our way with hi
s blessing, Rose O’Sharon stuck her head out the door. “Y’all take care, now,” she said empathetically, with a slight smile, before hollering down the hall in the other direction. “Hey, Wanda, we need a death certificate on Mr. Lo, stat!”

  Ah well, guess some things never change. But to say things were through changing around the Stalworth house would be an understatement. Only two years in the business, Sis was suddenly selling more houses than she could count but still spending every other weekend with us so I would get a break from my duties. Her Brittany spaniel, once an aging layabout, was now eating an informal version of the macrobiotic diet. Vacating her doghouse at dawn, the revitalized mutt disappeared to chase squirrels and didn’t return until dark.

  The phone started to ring. People wanted my help. I was asked to pay a visit to the ex-wife of a local politician. Laura Holden was bedridden, desperate, and in a great deal of pain when I arrived. Her family was at her side: her son, daughter-in-law, sister. Her husband had divorced her months earlier, and soon after she was diagnosed with advanced stage pancreatic cancer. She motioned me to sit at the foot of her bed.

  Clearly once very beautiful, the disease had left her weak, brittle, and bitter. “He asked to come back after I got sick. I told him I didn’t want anything he had. That included him.” She winced, looking longingly into my eyes like she thought I held the power to raise the dead. “I’ll do anything to get rid of the pain.”

  This wasn’t anything I had planned—to minister the sick? Still, I offered what I could. The family looked on as I shared stories of those worse off than Laura Holden who had bounced back, prepared a simple meal in the adjacent kitchen, and unloaded stacks of books, one of which translated the word Macrobiotic into Big Life on its cover. Her mother sneered like I was a high priest in some Tinseltown cult.

  I left the house on cloud nine. I was officially spreading the gospel. Not only was I guiding Tina’s life, I was now guiding the lives of complete strangers!

  Shortly thereafter, a morbidly obese cousin began dropping in to watch me prepare my food. An old friend from high school who had prodded me into sharing my macrobiotic knowledge called at six a.m., nattering on over the ear-splitting racket of a vacuum cleaner. “I just have one question. Does your head ever feel like it’s gonna blow off ’cause you’re gettin’ so clear? ’Cause mine does. My whole damned body’s vibratin’. I feel like I have the gift of prophecy. And it’s telling me if I eat one more fermented soybean, I’m gonna leave that sorry-assed husband o’ mine. You know what? I think I’ll do that anyway, as of right now.”

  Big life indeed.

  28

  I am tiptoeing through the living room with two fistfuls of crinkly Walmart bags past a snoring Garrett.

  “Hey, Bo Skeet,” he grunts, eyes shut tight.

  “Shh!” I say forcefully, the only surefire way to get an extra ten minutes of silence from the sleeping lug.

  He snorts fiercely and conks out again.

  “Shit damn hell.”

  Sounds like Tina’s voice from down the hall. I drop my bags on the floor of the living room.

  “Shit damn hell. Kiss my ass.”

  This one’s Tina, no mistake. I take a couple of careful steps down the hall.

  “Eat my tuuuurds…Hmmm, okay, hold on,” she says, like she’s trying to get something right.

  Entering the master bedroom, I am met with what appears to be a giant pile of clothes, pillows, and shoes Tina has tossed from her walk-in closet. When she appears around the door, her forehead is wrinkled in concentration. “Turds. Why don’t I know that word, Bo Skeet? And shitass. I think that’s my favorite,” she giggles, going after another load. “Shitass.”

  I follow her inside the closet and watch her snatch a pile of sweaters off the top shelf.

  “I am reinventing myself,” she says, swiping an armload of cocktail dresses off their hangers. “I’m getting rid of everything that doesn’t work for me anymore.”

  “Good for you!”

  “Cathy and Dana are going to teach me how to cuss.”

  Cathy and Dana are Tina’s walking buddies, neither of whom have a lick of trouble speaking up for themselves.

  “It’s been a year and a half since I stopped the chemo. I’m a new person. My life has to reflect that.”

  I have nothing to say. Everything that comes out of her mouth is music to my ears.

  Tina blows the hair out of her eyes and heads back out to the bedroom. “I’m not even sure I can stay married to your father. Hell, I may go to Mexico and never come back.” Tina heads back into the walk-in and stops. “And another thing. I want to worship with a group of people who are more about life than about death.” She walks over to the bedside table, takes up a notepad, and waves it in front of my face. “I’ve made a list of alternative worship venues,” she says, pointing to one on the list. “This guy? Rumor has it he was run off by a neighboring Baptist Church for having New Agey thoughts. I thought you might want to come with me to check him out. What do you think, huh?” An impish grin slides across the face. “Sounds like one of those California things.”

  * * *

  “It’s more of a slow, steady rhythm,” Joe says from behind, his hand over mine, guiding the reeling mechanism on the fishing rod. My feet dangle over the swamp below the pier, his legs on either side of mine.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I say incredulously.

  “No, why?” Joe’s voice teases the back of my neck like a waggish dragonfly.

  “Do you know that I was called Kingfish as a child because of my fishing prowess?”

  “You were not,” he says, trolling the line, pulling my hand gently up with a tug.

  “You ask anybody.”

  “I will. I’ll ask anybody as soon as we’re done here. And I’ll bet you a jillion dollars you were not known as Kingfish due to your fishing prowess.”

  “We’ll see,” I say with a chuckle.

  “So…um…I’m done here. With the house, I mean.”

  I am aware of the slackening in my grip as the words hit me. “What?”

  “I’m done,” he says. “With my folks’ house.”

  “No, you’re not. It’s still a mess.”

  “The finishing carpenter’ll take care of that,” he says. “Look, Bo Skeet. Ordinarily, I’m a fast worker. But I stretched out a ten-month job here to two frigging years. And I sure didn’t do it because I love Clarke County.” He pretends to look for something in the tackle box.

  We’d never had a conversation about how long his job was taking. And I’d never thought about it. “So. What are you—”

  “I’ve got another job. Over in Jessup. A big place. And I need to get started on it. I have to work.”

  “In Jessup.” I have to remind myself it’s only an hour from here.

  “Yup,” Joe says, pushing the hair out of my eyes. “And I’m leaving in a few days.”

  “A few days?” The thought of our time in this jacked-up Eden we’d created coming to an end is almost more than I can stand. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”

  “And after that, I dunno where I’ll be,” he says. “I was thinking maybe eventually even California.”

  He’s back in the tackle box.

  I try and focus on my line, pretending I’ve heard nothing. The suggestion that he’d even consider joining me in California makes me feel light-headed. I suppose I’ve had too few wonderful surprises in my life.

  “What do you think about that, Kingfish?”

  “Hmm?”

  The control freak in me is already trying to figure all this out. In the time since I heard his anguished cries about Kyle, I wondered if I could ever compete with that. I’ve pictured Kyle the essence of perfection, inside and out. And then there’s me with my fears, neuroses, and love handles. No comparison in any way, shape, or form.

  My intuition tells me my time here with Tina isn’t finished. And besides, Joe didn’t definitely say California. I am overwhelmed.

  �
�You got a bite, there,” Joe says, pointing to my line. “On your reel. A fish.”

  “Shit!” I say, sitting up straight.

  “Easy.” His hands lightly shake out my forearms like a fistful of wet lettuce leaves. “Not so fast. Give it some play.”

  Ignoring Joe’s advice, I yank fiercely on the line, a battle of wills more between myself and the man behind me than with the pathetic creature fighting for his life. Joe removes his hands from the top of mine and several seconds pass before I belatedly detect a loosening in the line. I watch the fish blissfully skate the surface of the swamp before disappearing into deeper waters.

  Joe squeezes the tops of my shoulders. “Better luck next time, Kingfish.”

  “Dang.” I toss the rod down next to me and crawl out of his lap.

  Joe grabs me hard, climbing on top of me.

  “Cheeky know-it-all,” I say, kissing him on the mouth.

  “You didn’t answer me,” he says, pulling back. “About California.”

  Damn. Now he’s acting like it’s definite or something.

  “No,” I say with a reassuring smile. “But I will. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he says, with a look of disappointment and a half-hearted peck on my lips.

  “Look,” I say, placing my hands around his neck. “I like the sound of it. I do. But I still have so much going on here. I mean, I don’t even know when I’m going back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I tell you something? Something really crazy? I’m scared if I leave now—”

  “Something will happen to your mother.”

  “I bring the food, the books, visualizations, the chants—”

  “Her entire life is in your hands, and your hands alone.”

  “Yup, crazy. Just like I said.”

  “Any mother would be lucky.”

  “To have a nutcase son like me,” I say.

  “Well, it comes from a very good place,” Joe says.