Counting for Thunder

by Phillip Irwin Cooper

  I wanted desperately to believe the diet was still working. But I also wanted to save my mother’s life. I asked myself, if it was me, would I stick strictly to macrobiotics, forsaking all medicine in the process? My answer was, at that point, maybe I’d also do radiation. Sis later told me she was haunted by the fact that she didn’t push the radiation more. But no matter how concerned we were, Tina had to make her own decision. My mother chose a path very few take, a path I put in front of her, and we were golden for a couple of years. Not one of us would trade anything in the world for that magical time.

  When the pain increased, Sis and I drove her up to the Village. Sis asked Justin and Marsala if it would be helpful to them if Tina had a CT scan. “This way,” Sis told Tina, “you won’t really be seeing a doctor. You’ll just be forwarding the information to your macrobiotic counselors, here.” I wasn’t against the idea. But Tina would have none of it.

  Justin and Marsala said, “We don’t need a CT scan to do our work. Tina is on the healing path. She is fine. Nothing has changed.”

  So, that was that.

  * * *

  Garrett and Tina are glued to the TV when I come in from my run. Hovered over a steaming bowl of miso soup on a tray, Tina coughs hard into her dinner napkin. She doesn’t look well. I take a seat on the hearth in front of the blazing flames of the roaring fireplace, the consequence of an unseasonably cool fall.

  “Your aunt Lola called, said we needed to watch,” Garrett says without looking up from the cable news show. A faith healer in her eighties is being interviewed by the respectful host.

  “So, the irony was, as a healer, you were finally faced with this horrible, incurable illness.”

  The faith healer smiles, leaning across her side of the desk. “A study proved people who were prayed for by others fared better than those simply praying for themselves.”

  “And you believe you were healed because of the thousands of people praying for you all over the world?”

  “Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” The faith healer turns to the camera, closes her eyes, and raises a hand. “Jerry, I just want those in need to come to the TV and lay their hands on the screen. God’s unconditional perfection, I can feel it, is now moving across the airwaves. Just do as I say right now. Crazy as it sounds. Take my word—all of you.”

  Tina pushes aside her tray, pulls herself up out of the chair, and makes her way slowly to the TV. She kneels in front of the screen, her hands crackling with electricity as she lays them on either side of the faith healer’s head.

  “Lord, I just want you to come into these living rooms right now, and I want them to feel the goooolden light of your heeeealing salvation lift them up. Can you feel it?”

  As if on cue, a spark of fire discharges from a splinter of kindling and out on the carpet runner next to the hearth.

  Tina looks at me, then to Garrett, an eyebrow raised in wonder.

  “Can you feel it out there, people? Can you feel it?”

  32

  The GPS proclaims the news from the dashboard: 2694 La Grange, you have reached your destination. Easing the Lincoln down the red dirt road past a dry creek bed, I cut the engine next to the massive framework of a home nestled in the edge of a bluff populated with towering white oaks and longleaf pine.

  Joe appears from around the rear corner of the house with an armful of yellow lumber.

  “Siri gives shitty directions,” I say, stopping to keep from running head-on into him.

  Stunned, Joe stares me down without expression. “Yes, she does.”

  Feeling as though I should, in some ridiculous way, offer to help with the lumber, I opt instead to simply nod, fruitlessly attempting a smile. “How’s it going?”

  Joe turns, continuing past me around the corner of the house. “It’s okay.”

  “Listen,” I say, following. “Wait up.”

  Joe calls over his shoulder, catching me glancing up at one of the construction workers hammering on the roof directly above us. “Don’t worry,” Joe says, “Javier doesn’t speak any English.”

  Javier’s English-speaking smile doesn’t go unnoticed. “Maybe there’s a place we could talk.”

  “Sure, Phillip,” Joe says, throwing down the lumber and taking several long strides away from the house. “How far away would you like to get? Huh?” Joe turns and walks even farther away from the site, stopping next to a box of roofing shingles. “How’s this?” He takes a few steps more. “How do you feel about Memphis? Is that far enough?”

  Hearing him call me by my given name for the first time, I am even more mortified and self-conscious. Moved by the degree to which he clearly cares, I’m acutely aware of my lack of ability to repair the situation. After kicking the dirt beneath my feet for a moment, I step over the scattered two-by-fours to get closer.

  “What happened to you?” Joe says. “After that day on the pier, I never heard from you again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, thinking I could have found a more original response.

  “Sorry and what?” Joe says.

  “Tina’s not well,” I hear myself say for the first time to anyone.

  Joe takes the news in for a second. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, and I can tell he truly is.

  Doing anything possible to break his pitying gaze, I take a seat on a nearby sawhorse. “And I don’t need you to do anything or say anything. I just needed to tell you.”

  The silence from behind me is deafening. But I asked for it. I pat the empty place next to me on the horse. “Take a load off, would you?” I say quietly.

  Another moment of stillness before he comes around and sits. His hair, now shoulder length, makes him look less like an aging basketball star and more like a college student playing the lead in a freshman production of Godspell.

  “You know,” I say, “Mama Louella used to tell us if we had too much on us, we’d get a pass on anything. You could pretty much commit hari kari but if you said, ‘You know, Mama Louella, I’ve had a lot on me lately,’ she’d say, ‘Whoa, sugar, that’s all right,’ and all would be forgiven.”

  “You can’t turn people and situations on and off like that, Bo Skeet. You understand that, don’t you?”

  For a moment I feel as if a piece of my gut has been removed with a dull blade. “I do now.”

  Hoping it’s not enough to scare him off, I carefully reach up to finger the curly locks hiding half his face. “I like this hair.”

  “I just forgot about it, I guess.”

  “It looks like you did,” I say, pulling my hand away before he asks me to. “Listen. It stunned me when you said you might come to California. And when I say stunned, I mean I was awestricken. The thought that you would even consider that made me happier than I’ve been in years. You always see in movies where people will go, ‘I can’t see you anymore. I’m scared.’ And I always called bullshit on that. I mean, what the fuck? Someone loves you, someone really terrific, and you leave ’em because you’re scared? But I get it now. I get it because I want it so badly. And all that’s going on with Tina? It was just too much.” Feeling as if I may cry, I dig my thumbnail into the palm of my hand, hoping to relocate the emotion to a more neutral place. “I thought maybe you’d go to Jessup and forget about me.”

  Joe shifts his feet, and I can tell our precious time is almost up. “Well,” he says without looking at me, “that’s a lot of information you’ve just given me. Thank you for being honest. You know, Phillip, honesty is a good trait in people. Without it, others can never feel they can trust you.”

  “I know that,” I say, willing to do almost anything to prolong our time together.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” Joe says. “And you need to go get back to Clarke County and forget about me.”

  Scooching over to hook my arm in his, I lean in to press my face against his shoulder. It smells like turpentine and sawdust.

  “What are you doing?” He says it with an air of annoyance because he’s supposed to, not because he’s a
nnoyed.

  “Just sniffin’,” I say, pulling him close.

  Joe pats my hand, jumps off the horse, and begins gathering the scattered pieces of lumber.

  “You know,” I say, standing, “you’re the first person outside my family to call me Bo Skeet—I mean, since I was a kid.” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “The first time you said it on the porch that day? Boy, the show was over for me.”

  Figuring I’m roughly six seconds into overstaying my welcome, I do everything in my power to push down the importunate Please tell me not to go tell me to sniff all I want kiss the back of my neck like you do when I’m asleep, but I know it’s coming out for sure if I stay, so I head back up the red dirt road. When I turn around to look one more time, I catch him looking back, too.

  When I get back to the Lincoln, I find myself thinking of a movie I saw when I was a kid. It was called Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, and at the ticket office Mrs. Bailey, the manager of the theatre, gave out cards with an inkblot of Jessica’s face on the front. The gimmick was if you stared at the image long enough, you could then close your eyes and the tormented heroine would appear on the inside of your eyelids until you opened them again.

  Before I start the engine, I shut my eyes tight to see if I can still see Joe Tischman’s big soulful eyes looking back at me, but I can’t.

  THE DIXIE

  September 1, 2001

  Articles from Our Files

  115 Years Ago Today

  September 1, 1886:

  Our county jail now contains 11 prisoners—a pretty large family for Sheriff Chapman.

  One of the heaviest rains that ever visited this area, considering its duration, fell on last Monday about one o’clock. The Cobb grist mill, a mile east of town, was carried away, dam, house, and all.

  Tony Pace, colored, residing near Whatley, dropped dead Saturday while walking the road. He only remarked to someone with whom he was walking, “I must stop,” and, sinking to the ground, immediately expired. There was no inquest.

  33

  I was now running over twelve miles a day. I ran more than I slept. Running was the one thing I still felt I could control. I could say I was going to run fifteen miles when I left the house and do just that.

  Once I even ran all night. When I stopped just outside the carport the next morning to tie my shoe, Puffy ambushes me from out of nowhere, snagging a hunk of flesh from my index finger before dashing away to hide, shivering, behind the monkey pine.

  Which is just about the time when I hear a rustling from inside the Little House. I peek in, and there, next to the riding lawn mower, is the smallest alligator I’ve ever seen on dry land. It’s not tiny by any means, capable of doing some sort of damage, but probably not to me. Mind you, this sort of thing happens all the time on the Gulf Coast. Every member of my family has posed for a snapshot with at least one errant gator, which is crazy considering we’re some distance from the river, but the timing here is damned near awesome.

  “Heeeeeere, Puffy, Puffy,” I call out, crouching low to reach her on her own terms.

  Puffy eases out from behind the tree, weaving, growling.

  A genuine smile starts at the core of my being, a joy at being alive in times of heaven-sent spontaneity.

  “You want some of this good stuff, Puffy?” I hold out my hand, pretending I’m eating something beef-tinged and yummy.

  She puts her right paw forward but takes it back before it touches the dirt.

  I hold out the imaginary contents of my hand in Puffy’s direction. “Yeah, you want some of this stuff,” I say, pretending just how tasty it is.

  She responds more enthusiastically this time. One of her ears even twitches.

  “Goooood stuff, Puffy.”

  Still crouched, I open the Little House door behind me and toss the make-believe food inside.

  Like the entry of the gladiators, the ugly little motherfucker sprints over the threshold. Slamming the door behind her with a whoop, I plaster my back against the frame, laughing like Vincent Price in one of those Roger Corman films from the sixties.

  Crashes and bangs reverberate from inside the Little House as Garrett, netting dead leaves from the pool, calls over the fence. “Is everything okay over there?”

  I offer up a weak, transparent, “Yes, good!” I can hear imaginary crowds cheering for me and all I’m doing for mankind in this singular moment in time. One giant leap for bad dog-haters everywhere. I clasp my hands above my head—World Champion.

  I can see Garrett go back to skimming.

  “Here, Puffy, Puffy, Puffy.” I can just make out Jewel Ann’s crackly voice as I look over and catch a glimpse of the old lady standing on her front porch with a broom. “Heeeeeeere, giiiiirl!”

  More crashes and bangs from inside as I jam myself even harder against the door.

  Jewel Ann looks directly at me, goes back to her sweeping, then looks at me again with genuine concern in her face. “HEEEEEERE GIRL!”

  Eat my turds, lady.

  A furry paw makes a quick, pleading motion under the crack of the door between my feet.

  Shit. Not such an unpleasant paw without the ugly-ass face attached to it, I suppose.

  Damn hell. I glance back across the road. Jewel Ann is no longer sweeping or calling. She’s just looking at me. Like I’m evil incarnate. Which I’m not. But her shit-eating ugly-ass dog is. Crap, I don’t even think alligators like dog. I just wanted to see what it would feel like to drop something into hell’s mouth and watch it try and squirm its way out. Or not. That’s the thing about hell’s mouth, you never know.

  I bask in my victory one last second before I grudgingly open the door a few inches. Puffy bolts out of the carport like gunshot from a .22.

  Opening the screen door for her beloved pet, Jewel Ann waves appreciatively just before she attacks a spiderweb over the porch light with her broom. Smiling, I wave back like the world-class champ I am.

  * * *

  The flat, white package I take out of the mailbox bears a striking resemblance to one of the First Baptist Church yearbooks I’ve collected with the rest of the bills since I’ve been home. But upon closer inspection, I see the parcel is addressed to me. Easing myself down on the battered silver culvert by Blue Cove Road, I tear into the box. A brightly colored hardback titled Know Your Lures stares up at me from paper bag wrapping. On the jacket, the silhouette of an old-world fisherman reels one in. I pull open the front cover; no inscription from the sender.

  I hold the book close to my nose and sniff hard. To my disappointment, it doesn’t smell like Joe at all, only a slight new book scent. A car passes, waves, I’ve no idea who. I close the book and hold it flat out in front of my eyes, squinting from the side so the title bleeds into nothingness, like a clean, colorless landing strip.

  Looking at the book on the pillow next to me in bed that night, I go back and forth on what the gift portends. Since Joe didn’t sign it, this might be his way of bringing some good-natured closure to the whole thing. It was swell. Take care.

  But as I’m drifting off, I’m thinking of the first night I spent at Joe’s. What a fool I made of myself. Lying on the ground, drenched in beer. And he’s directly over my face. Can you breathe? he asks—

  And I wake up with a jolt. Like a visitation from someone still among the living, the pseudo-dream leaves me feeling like a wartime amputee who still feels pain in the limb they’ve lost.

  I’ll have another chance with Joe. I’ve no idea when it will come. Maybe six months, maybe five years, but I know without a doubt I will. It may not even be a good chance. It may be the shittiest chance anyone ever got. But I’ll have it.

  Turning off the bedside lamp, I’m out again before my head hits the pillow, and he is situating a pillow behind my head and a blanket over my beer-soaked body.

  “Okay, brother?” he says.

  I nod and pull the blanket over me like a squirmy toddler.

  34

  Two years after Tina raised that sev
erely ailing rooster from the dead, he took sick again, but this time through no fault of my own. I again took him to my mother, expecting another miracle. But this time she made no move to do anything other than close his eyes with a gentle touch. “Safe journey,” she said. And that, unfortunately, was that.

  On the occasion of my birthday, I am weeding the garden when Tina and Sis drive up. They had sneaked off early in the morning without a word to me. A clearly shaken Sis approaches, followed by an equally distraught Tina. “Tina wanted to get an X-ray, so we did. The cancer in her lungs has spread drastically. The doctor says the macrobiotics are no longer working.”

  Tina looks at me and shrugs her shoulders like she always did when the answer lay somewhere in the cosmos.

  Within minutes, Sis, Garrett, and Tina are preparing an enormous breakfast of eggs, bacon, and burned cinnamon toast in defiance.

  The four of us are gathered around the table, ogling the greasy food.

  “Just goes to show you, Tinker Toy medicine from California,” Garrett says, shaking out his checkered napkin.

  The daggers in my eyes stop Garrett cold.

  Tina glares at me across the table. “I think I want some cheese. And some jam—no, make it syrup,” she says, speaking to Sis but still glaring at me. “No grace today, Bo Skeet.”

  Sis passes the syrup directly in front of my face.

  I decide not to look at anything but my plate. “You had to sneak out for the X-ray?” I say. Tina looks down at her plate. “You don’t think I would have approved?” I shove away from the table so fast it sounds like the glass cracks in the French door behind me. “I will not be made to feel like this is my fault. Because it’s not. You’re all acting like twelve-year-olds. And this is not my fault!”