Making Waves (26 page)

“I can't understand you, man,” I told him. “You're too damn drunk to talk—just go on back to sleep.”

Somehow Tim raised himself up on an elbow and glared at me with glazed eyes. “I said, asshole, get as far as taking off the pants and you're a dead man.” And he sank back down and closed his eyes.

“Oh, yeah—I'm scared to death.” I laughed, in spite of my anger at him. “This is one time I know you can't touch me. Come on, sit up one more time and we'll get you all tucked in for nighty-night. If there's no puke on the pants, they can stay.”

But try as I may, I couldn't budge him—this time he did appear to have passed out. So I had to go to my closet and get a blanket for him. I realized the room was freezing because the damn window was still open, and I went over to pull it down. In doing so, I stumbled over the puke-stained shirt, so I tossed it out the window and closed it, still marveling that Mr. Goody-two-shoes Tim, Football Hero perfect Tim, had actually come over here dead drunk and crawled in my window.

I put one of Aunt Della's warm old quilts over Tim, tucking it around his bare shoulders so he wouldn't freeze his half-bare ass off and croak of pneumonia. Assuming of course he survived the alcohol poisoning of Pleese Davis's notorious moonshine. I was going to tell Coach Mills on his sorry ass, soon as I got to school Monday. Just as I got the quilt all tucked in, Tim's eyes flew open and he stared startled at me.

“Taylor! What you doing here?” he muttered, slobbering drunkenly all over my bed.

I sighed and sat beside him on the bed, pulling my inside-out robe closer about me. I was about to freeze my balls off.

Before I could say anything, Tim rolled over on his side. “Oh, God. I'm
so
sick—help me. Please, Taylor …” And he retched miserably over the side of my bed, dry-heaving until he fell back exhausted on my pillows.

I shook my head. “There's not a thing I can do. Believe me, I would if I could. Just don't puke on my bed. And try to go to sleep—that'd be the best thing you could do now.”

But like most drunks, Tim wanted to talk instead. He closed his eyes a minute, then opened them and looked at me. I was still sitting by him on the bed.

“Taylor?” Tim said. “The reason I came here tonight—I wanted us to celebrate like we usually do, go to Mt. Zion to the Catfish Cabin. Come on, let's go over there and get some catfish, okay?”

Again I sighed. “Tim, you are shit-faced drunk. The Catfish Cabin has been closed for hours. Besides, if you were to eat there now you'd be puking catfish for a month.”

Tim looked sorrowful, like he was going to cry.

“Tell you what,” I said, to cheer him up, “I'll take you there tomorrow night, okay? If Donnette will let you go, that is.”

Tim either missed or ignored my last remark. “You promise?”

“Scout's honor.”

There was a minute of silence, then Tim looked up at me solemnly. Again, I had to force myself not to laugh at him. I couldn't help it—it was so strange to see him drunk that it was beginning to strike me as funny as hell. What he said to me next changed that real quick.

“Taylor? You know the real reason I wanted us to go out together tonight?” he said, leaning toward me still slurring his words. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Something serious.”

“Talk away. I'm listening.” I lit a cigarette, prepared for a drunken sob story.

“Man, listen. I gotta tell you—I'm scared as hell,” Tim said.

“The game's over now—you won. No reason to be scared anymore.” I smiled at him, drawing deeply and blowing smoke into the pale moonlight. The light coming in the front windows wasn't much, but I could see him plain as day.

“I'm not talking about that, Taylor.” Tim's voice began to get a little clearer, not quite so drunken-sounding. “Tonight was my last game here. I'm scared to leave, go off to college. Ain't you?”

“Tim—come on! I've never imagined you being scared of anything,” I said, truly astonished.

“Oh, man—you just don't know. I'm scared shitless that I won't make it.” He pulled the quilt closer around him and looked up at me. I suddenly realized the two of us were half-lying next to each other on a single bed, so I scooted myself up, propping up on the pillows, giving him a little bit more room. Tim wadded one of the pillows up under his head and looked up at me.

“How can you
not
make it, Tim? You've got everything—you're smart, hard-working, good-looking, a great athlete. You're going to blow them away, wherever you decide to go,” I told him sincerely. It was too late, or rather early in the morning, to be bullshitting.

If I thought Tim had surprised me all he was going to that night, I was wrong. What he said next blew me away.

“I wisht I was more like you, Taylor,” he said, looking up at me with bloodshot but earnest blue eyes.

Jesus Christ! I stared down at him a minute then started laughing like hell.

“You're drunker than I thought, fool.”

Tim reached out from under his quilt and grabbed my arm with an iron grip. “No, man—listen to me—I'm serious! You don't let things bother you, eat at you like I do. I wisht to God I was more like that. The reason I got so drunk tonight was because I was so damn nervous about the game—I was a wreck. You'd never let anything get to you that much.”

“Not a football game, that's for sure. Maybe getting laid, or something really important.” I laughed again.

Tim let go of my arm and settled back down on his pillow. “That's another thing—the way you make everything out to be a joke. God, if only I could do that, instead of taking everything so serious!”

“Well, Tim, as you should know, my life is a joke. In the deck of life, I'm the joker.”

Tim was quiet for a minute and I looked to see if he'd gone back to sleep. Instead, he was looking at me, frowning. He sure sobered up in a hurry. Thinking about what Tim said to me next gives me a chill to this day. And kind of scares hell out of me.

“You know what, Taylor? I have this bad feeling that I'm
not
going to make it—that I'm never going to get out of this hick town, make something of myself. I just have this feeling.”

“That's the booze talking, Tim. You'll be Mr. Football Hero again tomorrow—folks interviewing you left and right. Though I warn you, tomorrow you're going to feel like you've been dipped in shit and rolled in cracker crumbs.”

Tim was quiet again, then spoke up, his voice no longer so slurred. “Taylor—level with me, man. You really think I can make it going away to college? Some place like Tulane? I could stay here, play for Alabama. Bear wants me bad.”

I looked down at him, dragging on my cigarette before turning my head to put it out. When I turned back to him, he was still looking up at me. “Donnette going with you, Tim?” I asked.

Tim shook his head. “She don't want to go to college. She says she'll wait for me, be here waiting when I get back. I hope so.”

I didn't tell him I couldn't imagine her, as possessive as she was, letting him go off anywhere, much less some of the faraway places that had been scouting him. She'd figure out some way to tag along, probably want him to marry her. I hoped he had sense enough not to.

“Donnette thinks I ought to stay here, play for Bama,” Tim continued. I lit another cigarette to hide my fury at Donnette's conniving to keep him under her wings. I looked away from him, out the moonlit window, as I puffed angrily. “She says I ain't got the background to pass otherwise,” Tim added.

“That's bullshit, Tim! Sure, CHS's not so hot, but they'll have tutors for you jocks. And, if we go to the same college like we've talked about, I'll be there to help you, too.”

“I—just don't know if I have enough confidence—” Tim began, but I interrupted him furiously, the only time I allowed myself to say anything against Donnette.

“No damn wonder, hicks like Donnette telling you that you can't make it! Sorry, Tim. But I can't stand to hear you talk like that, man.”

“You really think I can make it, Taylor? You really believe in me?”

“Move your ass over; I'm about to fall off the bed,” I told him, giving him a push with my shoulder. “Of course I believe in you. Anybody who'd climb in the window of a dark house at three in the morning has the balls to do anything. So shut your damn-fool mouth—I refuse to listen to any more cowardly shit from you.”

He was the one not to listen to me, of course, though we talked on and on that night until the sun began to come up over the dead honeysuckle vines in the yard, and it began to gradually lighten in my room. Tim finally just passed out, in mid-sentence. I sat for a while looking down at him as he slept. I should have realized Tim would be scared to leave here; he'd never been anywhere but west Alabama. I reached down and pushed back the tousled blond hair that had fallen over his forehead, letting my hand rest for a moment on his cheek. Crazy drunk fool. Then I eased over to my bed and fell asleep immediately. When I woke up later that day, he'd dressed in one of my shirts, taken his jacket, and gone. Neither one of us ever said a word to the other about that night.

I knew returning to Hicksville would cause all the old ghosts to come back—stuff the shrink had been trying to pry from my subconscious these past two years. Ever since I'd been back in Clarksville, I'd been haunted by my recurring nightmares of the accident, not half sleeping because of the different scenes tormenting my mind when I woke up gasping for breath and nauseated. The morning after Aunt Della gave me such a scare, I woke up tired and spent, dark circles under my eyes, looking like the haggard Macbeth I was becoming.

And on that morning, who should show up at my door but old Ellis Rountree Clark. Okay, Banquo—let's get all the ghosts out, have a goddamn parade, how about it?

Aunt Della seemed much better when I finally dragged my sorry ass up—I would have laid around until noon if I hadn't been so concerned about her. She was up and dressed, had made the coffee and was even pulling out eggs and crap to make her pancakes. I swear, there's no stopping her—Uncle Cleve and Pleese will be wheeling her out one of these days and she'll sit up, pull the shroud off, and say, “Wait just a minute, boys. I got to make my sweet baby Taylor some pancakes before I go.”

I was having none of it today, though. I forcefully put all the stuff back into the pantry and made her sit down, taking her walker away and pushing her into a kitchen chair.

“Aunt Della, you're going to have a rare treat this morning.
You
—lucky you—are going to be the first in Zion County to sample my famous Cajun omelet,” I said as I tied one of her aprons around me. Of course I had no idea how to make a Cajun omelet, but I figured I could fake it and she'd never know the difference.

Evidently it worked. Aunt Della fussed like hell, but she picked around and ate the eggs I'd scrambled with onions and bell peppers, with a dash of Tabasco for the Cajun touch. I studied her as she ate; her coloring looked a little better and she didn't appear as shaky. Maybe she was right—the dizzy spell last night was just a result of eating fried catfish and being out so much later than her usual bedtime.

“Now, sugar, I'm feeling so much better I'm going to go bathe and dress,” she informed me when she finished.

I jumped up and retrieved her walker. “Let me run your bathwater for you then. You don't need to be bending over the tub.”

Aunt Della chuckled as we started the journey out of the kitchen to her room. “Not this morning, baby. I'm going to have what Papa called a spit bath, where I just run some water in the sink and wash only the most important places. I can manage fine.”

I kept an ear out for Aunt Della as I cleaned up in the kitchen. It was then that I heard the banging on the front door—Aunt Della had never had a doorbell. And most people knew to come around to the back door. Puzzled, I dried my hands and went quickly down the hall to quiet whoever it was before the banging disturbed Aunt Della. And who should be standing there but old Ellis Rountree Clark!

We both stood looking at each other for a minute. I couldn't help but notice that Ellis almost looked good—anything, of course, would be an improvement. She was all dolled up in some kind of tropical-print jumpsuit which showed off her figure, scooped down in the front revealing some nice cleavage. But she was wearing these ridiculous earrings fashioned like parrots swinging upside down. Well, you can take the girl out of the country but…

Maybe old Ellis was changing in lots of ways though, because the first thing she said to me really surprised me, surprised me that she'd ever allude to that other time, if even indirectly.

“Do you always come to the door half dressed, Taylor?” she said in her stilted, prissy way of talking.

I sighed. “Only when I'm expecting you, Ellis. Hang on just a minute.”

I left her standing on the doorstep, stepped quickly into my room and buttoned on a denim shirt. I'd be damned if I was going to change from my cutoff jeans, even for prissy old Ellis. Though maybe I did owe her something … my eyes fell on my bed, still rumpled from my restless night. It was the spring of the next year, after Tim's nocturnal visit, that I had another visitor to my bed. Only it wasn't night; it was a stormy morning. She had come in to dry off from the rain, and I'd helped her, first loosening her long, wet hair from the tight bun, toweling it dry, then reaching for her rain-soaked blouse, never imagining … I shook my head and reluctantly turned to go back to the front of the house.