Sightings (18 page)

Some nights they slept, some nights they didn't, but each morning he'd wake to find her missing. And twenty minutes later, after coffee and toast and a goodbye shout into the basement, he too returned to work. All day long, The Confederate damned the present and prayed for the past, but always, he kept his grief silent. There was simply no time for it.

After all, there were always dying flowers to unearth, always weeds in need of uprooting.

The recurring dreams were too much for him. Too many gray horsemen. Too many bridles. Too many metal bits worked between the teeth of the horses' uncooperative mouths.

Always, he'd wake humming the same damn song, until eventually, even sleep became a luxury he could no longer seem to afford.

So instead of sleep, he drilled.

He drilled in the backyard in the nighttime. Drilled by the riverbed. Drilled by the trees. He drilled, kicking his feet and snapping his shoulders back, his movements amplified in shadow. Some nights, when he was brash and sleep-deprived, he stopped drilling long enough to plunge his arm into the icy heart of the river. Revenge was a word he understood and a concept he fully embraced. While the golden-flecked fish never returned – never dared a larger meal – it didn't stop The Confederate from trying.

“Come on, Yankee scum,” he baited, “why doncha give this arm a try?”

The Confederate, a good soldier himself, remained steadfast and determined. And when the river offered nothing, he had no choice but to return once more to the yard, to the oak that had long since stopped growing, to the grass in need of a cut.

When he drilled, he drilled only in his finest confederate attire – his brass buttoned grays, dark britches, the cast iron belt buckle with the C.S.A. insignia. A sword dangled from his left hip, and he carried a rusted rifle.

“Slow march,” he huffed to himself. “Slow march.” And then, when he quickened his pace: “Quick march, soldier, quick march!”

The sweat, even in the cool dew of midnight, drizzled down his forehead. He shuddered from the cold, from the heat, and, as he continued his drills night after night, he began to notice the way the trees lost their leaves only in the darkest hours when he alone bore witness.

“To the front!” he demanded.

“Change step!”

“About face!”

The gun felt light in his hand, and the sword, weightless.

One night in mid-October, when Lynda saw him there, marching in moonlight, she stayed quiet. From the screen door, she watched as he ordered, “Mark time! Mark time!” again and again, his knees kicking up from the ground.

“Mark time! Mark time! Mark time, goddamn you!”

“Charlie,” she whispered, slipping out the screen door. “Honey, I think time is marked.” Oblivious, she stepped on the
WELCOME
mat, restarting the tune from his dream.

She leapt forward, but the song repeated, electronic music blips drifting from the mat.

“Honey . . .” she repeated, moving toward him.

“Mark time! Mark time! Soldier, mark time!” he called, overpowering “Dixie,” searching once more for his gait beyond the music.

“Darling . . .”

“Mark time! About face! Mark time!”

“Shhh . . . just stop, soldier. Just halt. Please.”

The
WELCOME
mat turned quiet and so did he.

She put her hands to his grays and said, “It's time for you to just stop now.”

He peered into the woods.

“You know,” she began, picking the lint from his jacket, “you look pretty heroic in uniform.”

He didn't say anything.

“Are you cold?”

He shook his head no.

“Want me to top off the canteen?”

He held up a finger, then tilted his ear to the wind.

“You hear that? The Yankees are coming.”

“No, they're all gone now. You know that.”

He dropped his hand to his side, turned to her.

“How's your work? Are we there yet?”

“Getting there.”

“Well, march quick, soldier,” he begged. “Please march quicker.”

“I'm trying, Charlie.”

He reached for his canteen and drew deep from the metal container, wiping his face with his forearm.

“How long, you think, till it's finished?”

She stared at him, his hands quivering against his sword.

She could not give him the answer he deserved, the one he'd been waiting for.

“Well, soldier,” she said, looking down at his boots, “how far are you willing to march?”

I asked the Eskimo if he'd ever seen a vagina before.

“Because I can show you,” I whispered.

Albert Huffman, a recent arrival to Fort Wayne via Alaska, was not, in fact, an Eskimo, though I would not learn this until dinner.

“Well? You wanna see it or not?” I asked, tapping my foot. I checked my watch. It was sixth grade recess. Mr. Kenning would blow the whistle any minute now. This vagina wouldn't wait around forever.

He mumbled an okay, so I motioned for him to “step into my office, soldier,” and he followed me inside the bush beside the slide. The branches hid us pretty well, dousing us in half-light, and we sat on mulch chips with our legs crossed like a couple of Indians. For a moment, the whole world smelled like pine trees.

“Now, I'm not sure what you Eskimos have in the way of vagina,” I began, “but here in the U.S., it looks like this.” He waited, and I clapped my hands together and then split my paired hands in a V like Spock. I told him to do the same. I tilted my hands sideways and shoved my V into his V. Then, I told him to open up his palms and take a gander. He moved back some, peering in at the shadowed hole we'd created.

“Pretty sexy, huh?”

Albert waited a moment, then closed his palms.

“I guess I really don't see it.”

“Whatdya mean you don't see it? Whatdya think it's supposed to look like?”

“Well, I guess I just expected . . . more,” he shrugged, readjusting his shorts. “Since people are always talking about it and stuff.”

“More like how, Albert?”

“I don't know . . . shinier, maybe. Or sparkly.”

“Sparkly!” I laughed. “A sparkly vagina? Oh that's rich! You Eskimos are as dumb as rocks. Did you know that?” I crouched to crawl out of the bush.

“Alaska's part of the United States,” he informed me, picking at a root.

“You talking to me, Eskimo?”

“You said,” he explained, glancing up, “that vagina in the U.S. might look different than other vagina, like the kind in Alaska. But Alaska's part of the U.S., too.”

“Well of course it is,” I groaned. “Jesus H. Christ.”

When Kenning blew the whistle, I told the kid to follow me. It was lunchtime, and I informed him that there wasn't any whale blubber for miles, and if he wanted to learn to eat the hot lunch and be normal like me, then he'd better stick close. I'd show him the way to the meatloaf.

“I packed my own lunch,” he said, holding up a dripping brown bag. “See?”

“Yeah, I see, alright,” I rolled my eyes. “But trust me, kid, that whale blubber's not gonna last forever.”

And then, later that night, I discovered the difference between Eskimos and Alaskans. And also, that his dad was my dad's boss.

“You mean to tell me that an Eskimo makes a better leg than you?” I questioned.

Dad manufactures parts for handicapped people. Mostly shins and knees – pretty much anything from the thigh down. Since he works there, we got a pretty good discount on Mom's leg, “quite a perk,” according to Dad.

Our Eskimo conversation took place at dinner, as Dad fumbled with his hotdog.

“Jackson, you have to understand that being the boss isn't just about who makes the best leg,” he explained. “Mr. Huffman has more managerial experience. That's why they shipped him down here. And for the record, bucko,” he added, “not all people from Alaska are Eskimos.”

I laughed like he was joking, but then he got out the encyclopedia to prove it. I stared at a picture of a non-Eskimo Alaskan family pumping gas into a truck.

“Well, whatever your boss is,” I grumbled, slamming the book, “his son's sort of a dud.”

“What do you mean?” Dad asked, but I said I wasn't sure. Did he want me to say that stupid Albert didn't even know what a vagina looked like?

“Well you should be nice to him anyway,” Mom said. “Since your father works with his father. Try to make him feel welcome.”

“Oh, I'll make him feel welcome, all right,” I chuckled, pressing the tips of my fingers together like an evil villain.

Dad pointed a fork at me.

“Hey. You better, pal.”

Grinning, I pointed a fork back.

Dad and I ate Mom's cooked carrots until we felt like barfing. We didn't tell her that. We just smiled, and I said, “Mmmm,” and “Now that's how you cook a carrot!” over and over again until Dad told me I was laying it on a little thick.

“Honey,” Mom said to Dad midway through the meal. “You mind taking a look at the leg later? It feels a little strange.”

“Strange how?”

She tapped it beneath the table. “Well, I'm not sure exactly. A little off. Hollow, almost.” She was talking about her fake leg; the one God gave her after He took away the real one in a car accident back when I was just some stupid third grader.

“After dinner,” he agreed, smiling, forking a carrot.

“No rush,” Mom said, lumbering into the living room, collapsing on the couch. “We're not going anywhere.”

From our place at the table, Dad and I could hear the
TV
blaring, all those cowboy bullets zinging past one another. A few more bites, then Dad put down his fork.

“All right. Better go check on that leg,” he said, nodding to me like a doctor on his way to surgery. I saluted as my father moved to the living room, then peeked around the corner to watch him bend to my mother's leg, run his hands up and down the wooden shaft. From where I stood, it looked sort of stupid, like he was trying to shine a baseball bat or polish a rifle. But after awhile it started looking less stupid, like maybe he was just trying to push a little life into a dead thing.

In science class the next day, Mr. Kenning announced that we were going to learn about the wonderful world of electricity.

“Boooring,” I moaned, giving it two thumbs way down.

“Jackson, would you care to explain to the class just how electricity works?” Kenning asked.

“I thought you'd never ask,” I said, cracking my knuckles and scooting back my chair to stand. “You see, you flick a switch, and then the light bulbs start to buzz. Thank you for your attention.”

I bowed and threw kisses to the class.

“Nope. Care to try again?”

“Magic?” I guessed, taking my seat.

“Closer,” he said as he began scribbling on the chalkboard, “only there are electrons involved, and conductors.”

“Listen,” I said, leaning forward in my desk, beginning the speech my father taught me. “You can put glasses on a pig, but it's still gonna be a pig, only it'll look smarter.”