In Memory of Junior (21 page)

I knew about Evelyn's brother. Evelyn had talked about him often. But I couldn't have imagined the extent of his . . . his brutality.

The people I've always lived around have been tolerant—in the main. This man was bloody evil. He'd been arrested for something over near the mines and she'd been to visit him in jail and I guess gave him our address, because he came. She had gone into town that afternoon. But he came right on in the house anyway, like he owned it. He sat down on the settee and said, “So you're the queer.”

“Pardon?” I said.

He stood up and screamed at me, language I will not
repeat, and had wrestled me to the couch—his pants unbuttoned, and down—when Evelyn came in. Thank god she came in. Furniture was upset and a lamp was broken. It's with me to this day. And the horror of it all—really the main horror of it all, if you want to know the truth—was that Evelyn, even after that,
would not chastise him.
She talked to him until he promised he would leave and not come back. And then she hugged him before he left. She hugged him. I was sitting there, shaking, crying, red welts on my arms, deaf in one ear, and she hugged him good-bye.

After that, Evelyn was not Evelyn, and I was not Honour. There was no bridge back. I packed and said good-bye to Evelyn and my house. There was no choice and I knew I could never return. I've left many places, but this leaving was the most difficult. And I haven't seen her since. My Evelyn. I often wonder how she is, where she is, what she may be doing. We memorized so much about each other.

Late that night I stood out in the surf fishing, watching that sparkling stuff, phosphorus or whatever, around my waders, then looking out to the ocean, feeling the pull of that four-ounce weight on the bottom, waiting for a big fish to knock the hell out of it so I could get all that fighting going, dragging and pumping that rascal in.

The old man had gone to bed—he was washed out—but Weirdo and Faison and Tate were fishing. Lights scare the fish so we were in the dark. We had a little penlight
at the bait board. More stars out there than I've ever seen anywhere. It's always like that down there.

Finally the boy went in. He'd already been so tired he couldn't hardly walk. He probably can't help the way he is. Faison said he has a weird mama. And he gets all that lesbian stuff from the public schools.

The going stayed slow, so I finally walked in the surf over to Tate. I was mellowed out a little bit, I suppose. I figured he was getting that way, too. He'd finally started drinking, filled him a flask before we came out after supper. But he hadn't said much.

We stood there together holding our rods and reels.

“Hey,” I said, “if we don't catch another fish it's all been worth it. There are a lot of people in the world don't like to fish,” I said, “but I'll tell you one thing, a night like this, a surf rod in your hands, a cooler of beer on the beach, a mess of fried bluefish in your belly, it's the life. Second best thing to pussy.”

He didn't say nothing.

“Yep,” I said.

“That's right,” he said. Took a couple of steps away from me. Something having to do with psychology and all that. He tried to say at supper that if his mother
was
queer, it didn't make no difference to him. Yeah. Sure thing. You could tell he didn't mean it.

“Nothing better,” I said. “You know of anything better?” Seeing if I could loose him up a little.

“I'd say this ranks right up there,” he said.

“Yep. Didn't Faison say you flew fighters in Vietnam?”

“That's right.”

“That must have been kind of like flying a machine gun.”

“Never thought about it that way, but yeah, that's right. Kinda that way.”

“I had a cousin had six machine guns.”

“That's a bunch.”

We fished without saying anything for a while.

“I'm glad you can go get the snakes for me,” I said.

“Oh. Yeah.”

After another few minutes, he reeled in, walked up to our little beach camp. Faison reeled in, walked over. Then Faison said they were turning in. I said I was going to fish till two and if I hadn't had no bites, quit then.

Me and Tate get back and sit on the porch so we won't wake Uncle Grove and Morgan. The cabin had a little porch and a couple of lawn chairs. Tate pulled off his waders, then his socks, and shook them out. You could see in the starlight.

I told him his feet stinked.

“Maybe they really smell sweet,” he says. “Think about it.”

I told him he was crazy.

“No, no, no. Think about it,” he says. “You know the whole existence, the very whole existence exists in our minds and in our minds only. I been thinking about this.” He draped his socks over the railing.

I said, “You hear Uncle Grove's snowsuit story?”

Didn't faze him. “Wait a minute,” he says. “Listen. I mean all beliefs about everything are in our heads, not
out there in the world. Tha's where everything is and always will be unless we take our brains out our heads, so that means that what somebody
believes
is their whole world. See?”

“No, I don't. What is this? Philos'phy? Psycho'gy?” Tate gets off on this crap sometimes. But I hadn't seen him this looped in fifteen years. “The difference between me and you, Tate,” I said, “is I
know
stuff, and you know
about
stuff. Hit on that, you want to talk some philos'phy. Hit on that.”

“Shit, Faison. You damn redneck,” he says.

I had one of my socks halfway off. “You drunk, Tate. I know what it is. Are you talking all this crap because you think it means Mama should get off the hook for being queer? Is that it?”

“I hadn't said that. I'm talking something different. Try to think for a change. And listen very carefully to what I'm about to say. And
think
about it. The way something smells is not in this world. It's in our heads, because if it was in the world then you wouldn't have flies landing on shit, because shit would stink to flies too, to everybody, to all living creatures. Why you think a goddamn fly will land on shit instead of a flower? Because a turd smells good to them, that's why. In his head it's beauty and in ours it's ugly . . . ugliness. Who's to say? Who's to say? That's what I say. Who's to say? And think about this: We see light waves. What if we saw sound waves? We been conditioned by the kind of waves we see. Think about—”

“I don't have to listen to all this, Tate,” I said. He was looped. “You talk like a damned atheist. I need a beer.” Then I told him, “You won't ever get over going to college,
Tate, you know that?” I got up, opened the beer cooler, got out a beer. When I had raised the lid to the cooler I had this sudden understanding—this golden thought more or less. So I said, “If the world is in your head, then why can't you catch a fish in your head? Why you got to come to the damn ocean? Answer me that one.”

Jimmy came up. “Catch a fish in your head?” he says. “Whoa.”

“We just talking some bullshit,” I said. “Philos'phy.”

“That's a load off my mind,” he says. “Count me out.” He stepped over to the beer cooler. “Who needs a beer?”

“Not me,” said Tate. “You do any good?”

“Naw.”

“I'll take one more,” I said. “No, wait a min. I aw-awready got one right here. Hell, I'm be up all night pissing.”

“I'll piss for you,” said Jimmy.

Tate laughs, lights up a cigar. And he don't smoke, either. The glow was bright in the dark.

“What a day,” said Jimmy. “What a day. Best hour of fishing I ever had in my life. I tell you one thing,” he said, lighting him a cigar, too. He shook out the match. “I tell you one thing.” He blew out a puff of smoke. He pushed a flip-top box of cigars toward me. “Here, have one,” he said. I took one. He drew on his, looking at it, his eyes kind of crossed. “I tell you one thing . . .”

“Wha's that?” I said.

He looked at me, thought for a few seconds. “I forgot,” he says. “Wait a minute, I know what it was. Die ever tell you bout the tie we stayed in a condo?”

“You told us at supper,” I said.

“That's right. I thought I did. Whoa. Who far'ed?”

“Don't say fart,” I said, “we get a speech from Tate bout how a fly goes to college.”

“Eat shit, Faison.”

“I've
always
been able to whip your ass, Tate. I can do it right here, now, too.” I would too. In a minute.

But all the time I was talking, I was thinking: Mama was a lesbian. Uncle Grove didn't have no reason to make up something like that. If I hadn't known her it would be different. That's why it don't make no difference to Tate. He didn't know her. I had actually known the woman. The first and last lesbian I ever knew, I guess. That's a hell of a thing.

Jimmy went in in a minute and Tate was laying on the porch on his back, getting sauced, more sauced. He talked some out of his head and I just kind of went along with him. Then he asked me this—and I could tell from his tone of voice that he'd all of a sudden got real, real mad—he asked me did I know I didn't say good-bye when I left home thirty, thirty-five years ago. Hell of a thing. I didn't remember anything about that. I was a kid. Then he asked me if I'd say I was sorry. He was raised up off his back and staring at me. I said, “Sure. I'm sorry I didn't say good-bye.” Hell, I didn't remember anything about that.

Then we were talking about Junior's footstone and he agreed with me about the name. I was kind of surprised that he actually went right along with my line of thinking about all that.

“You and June Lee made an agreement, didn't you?” he said.

“Right. A promise.”

“Well, I think that ought to stand. I mean it's not like
you and him didn't get along. Y'all got along great. And him and his first daddy didn't get along at all, and so it makes perfect sense that he'd be named after you. What's on that footstone will be around one hell of a lot longer than you, or me, or June Lee, and let's face it, this guy was a asshole. And for sure y'all would have adopted him. It ought to be Faison Bales, Junior, on there. I'm with you one hundred percent, Faison. You know, Junior was like Uncle Grove too, you know what I mean? I mean you know what I mean? Even though he won't blood kin.”

I swear it was hard to talk about Junior out there under that sky, knowing how much he would have loved to be there. “That's right. And you know, we're talking about passing something along. You got Morgan. You're passing something along.” And then I wondered if he'd been expecting
me
to pass something along to
him
back when I was a kid.

And I'm thinking, what if you can't pass nothing along? See what I mean? About Junior. And see, I knew Junior was this other guy's son. I mean by blood, right? But I figured by the time I got him going fishing and hunting with me enough, a good bit of me would wear off on him. Enough for a name change, at least. It'd be like he really was my son. And June Lee agreed right down the line. And then in the end she got pissed off cause I hadn't ever told her I was married before. I mean, that didn't have nothing to do with it, for Christ's sake.

“You know what I wish sometimes?” says Tate. “I mean, deep down?”

“Wha's at?”

“I mean don't tell nobody this.”

“I won't.”

“Sometimes I deep down wish that Morgan was a little more like Junior was. He ain't ever been that way at all.”

“Hell, who knows, just be glad Morgan ain't dead, Tate, that's all I got to say. That's all I got to say. Just be glad.”

We didn't talk no more, and when we went to bed finally it was getting the slightest bit light in the east. Just the slightest bit. I reckoned Mama might already be dead and why the hell should I worry about something happened over forty years ago. It's all history. I can't do a thing about it. I can't do nothing about Junior either, but be sure his name stays what it is on that footstone.

I finally told Teresa the whole story about the cut on my forehead. We were at the lake, parked, talking before we, you know. I held off until then. It was in me like an explosion waiting to get out. The story. It had just happened and nobody hardly knew yet. So I told her.

What happened was—and this really happened—after the fishing trip, Dad, Uncle Grove, and I took off from Beaufort and flew to Wilmington to pick up these four snakes. What we were supposed to do was fly them on into Summerlin for this guy Jimmy, who we went fishing with. He does snake shows and stuff like that.

It was my dad flying in the one seat up front and in the wide backseat was Uncle Grove and me. And behind us on top of the storage compartment was a snake cage with this small notched stick through the latch holding the top down, see.

We landed in Wilmington and spotted the snake guy and followed him over to his truck. He was this little guy with a mustache and big hands. He shook the four rattlesnakes from his cage down into our cage. Two big ones, a
medium, and a small. The rattles all started up, then died down. Awesome.

“They're all feisty,” the guy said. “I ain't had them long.” He looked at me. “You ever seen fangs close up?”

“Nope.” I kind of stepped back.

He had this stick with a metal hook on the end. He stuck it down in the cage, slid it around the small rattlesnake, and pulled it up. All the snakes' rattles started up again. He dropped the snake on the ground, pinned the head with the hook, reached down with another stick that had a rope loop on the end and looped it around the snake's neck, pulled it tight, and then lifted up the snake. It wrapped around the stick. He pressed the hook into the snake's mouth and opened it wide so that these two little white, you know, like nipple things dangled down. Then it looked like he pressed harder, and these two white, sharp, curved bone-needles came pushing out. One was dripping. Really.