Land of a Hundred Wonders (15 page)

Squiggly heat is coming up off the road and the cicada noise is pecking alongside my mad. When I gear down to get my breath, I can hear him. No, not hear him. Feel him. I don't recall if I had Billy radar in the old days like I do now. He was there waiting for us at the cottage the day Grampa brought me back from the hospital. That memory comes to mind 'specially easy 'cause when I spotted Billy sitting on our picnic table, a bouquet of wildflowersin one hand, a WELCOME HOME sign in the other, I remarked, “Well, isn't that as thoughtful as can be. Who is that boy?” and Grampa's eyes brimmed up, and that hardly never happens.

Keeper looks up at me for permission to go track Billy down in the woods, and when I nod, he takes off. Ya know, I think that might be one of that dog's best qualities. No matter how many times he searches for Billy, never mind that he has
not once
found him—Keeper has hope, and like me, a short memory, which I have come to believe might be the most important aspect of hopeful-ness. Ya start remembering all the times hope has left you holding the bag, and ya still keep up with it, hell, that's just plain ignorant.

“Hey,” Billy hollers out from the trees.

“Where you been?” I answer belligerently, because I'm not only ticked at Grampa, I'm ticked at Billy, come to think about it. I depend on him, and he woulda been a real help when Sneaky Tim Ray jumped out of those Browntown bushes the other night, showing me how the south has risen again.

“I hadda go see Doc Sam yesterday for more tranquilizin' medicine,” Billy says, still flitting around in the woods. “Ya been okay?”

“Fine,” I answer in a clipped-off way. Don't feel like reporting everything that has happened since I saw him last. He doesn't deserve to know. Besides, it's too hot to talk.

“Where you headed?” he asks.

“Browntown Beach.”

“Why?” he asks, sounding alarmed.

I say, so ornery, “I got my reasons.” But what are they? I can't remember
what
the heck I'm doing out on Lake Mary Road.

“If ya got the time, I was hopin' you'd come up to the cave with me.”

He's
always
bothering me to go up to Blackstone with him. Back before everything happened that's happened—before the crash, before Billy went off to war, before Clever knew about hot sex, before Cooter knew how to play craps, even before Georgie died—Blackstone Cave was our hideout. Clever and Billy reminisce about those days all the time, leaving me to feel like I'm the only one not invited to a family reunion.

“Why ya always buggin' me about goin' up to Blackstone anyways?” I call.

“There's something I need ya to see up there.” Billy steps out of the brush with Keeper in his arms. “Something that might jar your memory.”

Goodness gracious. With his stomach muscles below his cutoff shirt rippling in the heat, this boy looks ripe and good enough to eat. I take a step toward him. He steps back. He smells like a slice of just-cut watermelon. I take another step toward him. He takes another step back.

“William Brown Junior . . . S-T-A-Y, goddamn it,” I command, breathy. I swear, I don't know what's come over me, but it's something real powerful. “I . . . I believe I am havin' the desire to run my tongue down your juicy neck.”

I check to see if his pants are pooching out the way Sneaky Tim Ray's do at moments like these, but that camouflage material is doing its job.

“No,” Billy takes his time saying, staring up at the sky, the bushes, anywhere but at me.

“Why the hell not?”

He cannot speak. Or won't. Just like Grampa, he's giving me the silent treatment.

“Don't you like my fine young body with titties that taste like milk and honey? Yum-yum?” I ask, repeating what Holloway says when he catches up to me.

Billy's breathing is gettin' sorta raggedy, too. Just like me, he's feeling
something
. Why won't he touch me and let me touch him? What's wrong with him?

Uh-oh.

“You're not like the Carmodys' coon hound, are ya? Ya don't like boy dogs more than girl dogs, do ya?” I ask.

Nothing comes back but the cicadas.

“Answer me right this minute,” I demand, inching closer.

“I love you,” Billy says, inching farther.

“Well, I love you, too. Now we got that settled, c'mere to me.” I reach out for him, but just like that, Billy retreats into the trees and I'm left standing sweaty by the side of the road with not the slightest idea what to do about this starving feeling that's come over me.

By the time Keeper and me get to Browntown Beach, I recall why I've come here in the first place. Yes, to set the tone for my story. So I head straight over to where Mr. Buster Malloy should be lying out with quite the tan. Keep's got other interests. At a gallop, he sails through the air, landing in the lake with a raucous splash.

I musta mixed up the spots. There's the Geronimo rope. The lake. The sand. Dang it! First Grampa. Then Billy. Now dead Mr. Buster has up and went! Men. Bah. The lot of 'em got better disappearing acts than Mr. Harry Houdini.

White Sheets

I picked some flowers on my way home through Wally's Woods. Grampa's favorite bluebells. I have plans to apologize for my earlier outburst at the diner, eat a crispy-skinned perch, soap up the dishes, and let him beat the pants off me in Scrabble. Then spend the rest of the night trying to figure out the mystery. Never mind my corpse has up and left. The film I dropped off at Bob's Drug Emporium should be ready any minute and I'll have proof that I found Buster on Browntown Beach deader than dead.

When me and Keeper come through the cottage's picket gate, we raise our noses, expecting to inhale the odor of the catch of the day crackling over the coals, but nothing yummy is wafting our way. Matter of fact, the air has a peculiar odor to it. Unstirred.

“Charlie?” I shout out, coming round to the front. “Charles Michael Murphy?”

For some reason I cannot fathom, Sheriff Johnson is sitting on the lawn in Grampa's chair. Miss Jessie is there, too, hunched over the picnic table. What are they doing here? Oh, of course! Grampa musta invited them for supper, which is extremely good-hearted of him considering how much LeRoy turns his stomach.

“Hey, Miss Jessie, Sheriff,” I say, setting down the bluebells on top of my briefcase. “Sorry, but it looks like chow is gonna be a little late tonight. Grampa probably lost track of the time. The fish were bitin' off Witch Point.” His boat's gone. And his other knife, the one he uses to scrape scale, is missing from where he keeps it next to his whittlin' knife. “He should be back any minute. Can I get y'all a glass of lemonade and crackers to start things off?”

The sheriff isn't paying me any mind, arms twined behind his head, sweat stains running like stalactites down the sides of his sandy shirt. But Miss Jessie raises her head and rimmed rose eyes. “No, thank you, Gib.”

“Would you prefer water?”

A tiny peep escapes from her lips. “Honey . . . your grampa.” She takes my hand into hers, clamps it shut. “There's been a . . . a kind of accident.”

“Really?” I say, excited. “What kind?” Accidents, like folks slipping in the bathtub or getting kicked by a horse, always make GREAT news. Grampa calls it there-but-for-the-grace-of-God thinking. That dear, dear man, he musta motored over to the accident site. I bet he's taking notes for me 'til I can get there. That was so sweet of him to send the sheriff and Miss Jessie to come fetch me so I wouldn't miss out on the story. I feel doubly bad about losing my temper with him this afternoon. “We gotta hurry. Don't wanna get scooped.”

Guess they don't get it. They aren't budging.

“Sorry,” I say, picking up my leather-like, “y'all are gonna have to come back tomorrow. There's no supper tonight. Grampa does all the cookin' and he's at that accident, waitin' on me.”

Sheriff Johnson, fingering the whittled Peaches statue Grampa has been working on, says, “Fact is, Charlie
is
the accident.”

"LeRoy!” Miss Jessie reprimands.

“She's old enough to know the truth,” he says to her, and then, turning to me, “Frank Bailey found your grampa out on the lake, lying on the bottom of his boat, barely breathin'.”

“What?” My brain is diving down to its bottom. When it comes back up to the surface, there he'll be, flipping over a fish and humming a Johnny Cash tune and Keeper will be sneaking up next to him, vying for an eyeball.

I look over to Miss Jessie. The sheriff would lie. She wouldn't.

She nods.

“Is he . . . is he gonna die?”

“Doc Sam says it was a heart attack,” Miss Jessie says. “Ya know what that is, hon?”

“His heart is real sick,” the sheriff throws in.

Lying again. My grampa's heart is healthy and bursting with love.

“He was alone out on the lake and nobody knows for how long,” Miss Jessie murmurs.

“Coulda been most of the afternoon,” the sheriff says, offhand.

And that's all it takes, the sound of his not caring about my grampa and his hurt heart, for me to fling myself at him. Start beating on him, screaming, “You goddamn liar, you bad bully, ya aren't worth—”

“Gib!” Miss Jessie shouts, pulling me off him and enveloping me in her arms.

This is all my fault. I shoulda gone fishing with Grampa like I always did when he asked. He woulda been okay if I had. Because I attended that Red Cross class Miss Jessie taught at the library, I know what causes a person to have a heart attack. Their blood begins to boil. And one of the reasons their blood can get to boiling is if they get
real mad
at somebody. Somebody they sacrificed their life to take care of. Somebody who just this afternoon acted sharper than a serpent's tooth ungrateful.

I used to close my eyes and hold my breath whenever Grampa drove past St. Mary's. My mama and daddy died in a hospital and I spent months in one recovering from the crash. They shouldn'ta named it after our lake. A hospital is nothing like a lake.

Miss Jessie is by my side. “You gonna be all right?” she asks.

“I doubt that very much.” I am leaning my shoulder against the glaring wall outside room 123. I snuck Keeper in beneath my shirt and he's making a whimpering noise I never heard him make before and never want to hear again.

“They've given him something to make him sleep,” Miss Jessie says, placing her hand on my back and pressing me through the doorway.

Up against the far wall, next to a shaded window, there's a silver bed. Tubes on a pole are emptying something clear into his arm. It's dim in here, so I edge closer. “Praise you, Mighty Lord,” I moan after gettin' a good look at him. Someone has made a tragic mistake. This cannot be
my
grampa. This grampa's face is slack, lips shiny with drool. And his hair is mussed up. There's-a-place-for-everything-and-everything-has-its-place Charles Michael Murphy would never stand for that.

I whisper to Miss Jessie, “What we're experiencing here is a classic case of mistaken identity.” Mr. Howard Redmond in
The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation
in his chapter entitled
Mistaken Identity
writes:
Be sure you have
the right subject. Many people bear a remarkable resemblance to each other.

“Gib,” Miss Jessie says, “don't.”

I study the old gentleman again to make sure. How pale his skin. My grampa is as brown as a nutberry. (I knew the sheriff was lying like a no-legged dog. Just knew it.)

“I bet Grampa's over at the Tap chatting with Mr. Bailey about the army days,” I say, backing away. "C'mon, let's go find him. I need to tell him a couple of urgent-type things 'fore I forget. ” On the drive over, I decided to let him in on me finding that dead body on the beach. It's the least I can do.

As Miss Jessie bends down to adjust the sheet, Keeper shoves off my chest, landing in the empty space right below his knee, and I cannot bear to look. Over in the corner shadows . . . there it is. The fake leg with the shiny black shoe and blue diamond sock that never needs washing. His cowboy fishing hat sitting on top.

Miss Jessie reaches for me, reels me to her side. “I know he doesn't always come right out and say it 'cause that's not his way, but you . . . you mean the world to him. I'll give you two some time alone,” she says, kissing the top of my head.

The door to the room sighs shut behind her, slow enough that I can hear her suffering start up.

Patting his hair into place, I slip onto the bed next to him, stretch my body up close to his and pick up his hardworkin' hand in mine, whispering into his ear, “Charlie? Ya in there?” He seems so delicate, like something that clumsy me has no business touching. Pressing my cheek against his, I breathe him in and he doesn't smell sick. More like the sun, and the sky, and the lake at dawn. He wouldn't like it if I cried, which I'm fighting so hard against, 'cause I just remembered with no problem at all what I yelled at him this afternoon, when we fought at the diner.
Ah, the hell with you . . . you goddamn peg-legged-fishin'-cowboy-whittlin'-bird-watcher. I can do just fine all by myself.

I was lying.

On My Ownish

After I held Grampa's hand tight two days straight, Miz Tay Lewis, the nurse who was minding him in the hospital, told me he was in good hands and that I should get some rest. Miss Jessie suggested I stay at her farmhouse. I told her—“No, thank you.” Though being around the horses'd be comforting, I didn't need to be keeping an eye out for Sneaky Ray. No. I needed to be back at the cottage with my mama's paintings, Grampa's Lucky Strike-smelling shirts. The lapping of the lake.