The second game was feeding the crows in the pasture. Except we used a different kind of bird food. We used Alka-Seltzer, and we loved to watch them eat it. They'd eat about three tablets, fly off to the water tower for a few sips, launch themselves back into the air, feeling light and bubbly, and the reaction would hit them about midway across the pasture. Forty flaps after the water tower, they'd buckle and dive like the Red Baron. They'd hit the earth with a thud and we'd line up some more tablets for the next flock. We knew Miss Ella wouldn't let its play the bird game from the back porch, so we snuck down to the corner grocery, bought five boxes of Alka-Seltzer, told the cashier that Rex had indigestion, and then lit out down the paved road and ducked under the fence on the north side of the pasture. We lined up all our Atka-Seltzer around some roadkill that looked like it used to be an opossum. With forty empty wrappers in our pockets, we dove back under the fence and could barely control our giggles when the flock of buzzards landed. We weren't expecting buzzards, mind you. Up to this point in the game, our opponent had been crows.
The buzzards were a true coup d'etat. Those big, black, ugly birds gobbled up those wafers like sugar tablets. For about five minutes nothing happened, and we started thinking that maybe Alka-Seltzer didn't work on buzzards. Then they started foaming at the mouth and dropping like flies. It was the most amazing thing we had ever seen. Buzzards were flapping, puking Alka-Seltzer foam everywhere, and walking around like Rex after ten or twelve drinks. About twenty of them flew off because, fortunately for them, they were the weaker birds and didn't get a chance to eat the Alka-Seltzer since the strongest ones made it to the kill first-a total reversal of the survival of the fittest.
When the flapping cleared, eight dead buzzards riddled the north end of the pasture. About that time, Miss Ella rang the dinner bell and we knew our goose was cooked. I looked at Mutt and said, 'We're in deep crap." Somewhere along in here I had grown cool and learned to cuss when Miss Ella couldn't hear me. He nodded and pointed to the field. There was no way we could bury eight buzzards before dinner, so we decided to leave them until morning, when we'd sneak down here with a shovel and cover up both the birds and the wrappers.
We hopped on our bikes and took off down the paved road, and a misty rain started to fall. Just a few hundred yards before the Waverly gate, a white Cadillac pulled up behind us with its blinker indicating it wanted to pull into the grocery store across the highway from us. The driver erratically passed Mutt, but I sped up. Thinking I had outrun the Cadillac, I turned and watched the big, long car cut directly in front of Mutt. Mutt kicked hard on his Bendix brake but only started sliding. He slid sideways, T-boned the side of the Cadillac, flew over the handlebars and the white cloth top, and landed face-first on a manhole cover just a few feet from me. When his head hit, it bounced, exploded like a red balloon, and slid along the manhole cover. The driver gunned it, spun the tires, fishtailed sideways, and took off. I looked down at Mutt, but his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving.
He lay crumpled in a pile of limp arms and legs. I dropped my bike, ran to the corner store, and told the man behind the counter, but he was already calling for an ambulance. When I got back to Mutt, he was balled up like a baby, eyes wide, and shaking. He was red from head to toe and lying in a puddle of blood and pee. The paramedics arrived a few minutes later. I told them what had happened and gave them Mutt's name and address, and they slid him into the back of the ambulance. In sixty seconds, the sound of the siren disappeared like the haunting sound of a midnight train, and I stood in the rain wondering what in the world I was going to tell Miss Ella.
Knowing I had to fens up and that I'd better do it quickly, I jumped on my bike and headed for home as fast as my legs would pedal me. I rode down the half-mile drive and ran in the back door, soaking wet and screaming, "Mama Ella! Mama Ella!" She came running, and when she saw me and no Mutt, she grabbed the keys for Rex's old Dodge Power Wagon. She threw me in it, mashed the pedal to the floor, and spun dirt out the drive. On the way, I told her what happened. Including the bit about the birds. There was no use lying to her, so I told her the truth, which caused her lips to grow tighter, her foot heavier, and her knuckles whiter. At one point, I glanced at the speedometer and it had passed ninety. We arrived at the hospital and the lady behind the counter checked her chart. She said they had admitted a Matthew Mason, but we'd have to wait while the doctors examined him. When Miss Ella said, "Can I see him?" the woman snipped, "No!" and tore off around the corner.
We waited an hour. Miss Ella sat with her back to the window, purse resting atop her lap, watching the counter for any sign of life and chewing on her lower lip. When none appeared, she stood up, hung her big black purse over her shoulder, grabbed my hand, and marched up to the counter, dragging me with her. Without a word to anyone, she reached around the counter, punched a large red button that operated the two mechanical swinging doors, and we walked through. At the end of the first hallway, a great big black woman lay draped in blood and surrounded by a team of scurrying doctors. Miss Ella covered my eyes and we turned right down another hallway, but the scene didn't get much better. Two kids about my age lay spread across the next room, surrounded by almost as many doctors. And in the third lay a big, broadshouldered white man with a great big belly. Somebody had cut off his overalls and dumped them in a muddy and messy pile on the floor. His doctors were covering his face with a sheet. Miss Ella saw that and said, "Lord Jesus, have mercy!"
Finally, we turned a second corner and headed back down another hallway toward the entrance. We passed a supply closet crammed with syringes, bandages, and bottles of every shape, size, and color. In the corner, I saw a stretcher pushed up against the side with a little boy curled up and shivering uncontrollably. I tugged on Miss Ella's arm and she snapped at me. "What, child?"
I pointed. "Oh, Matthew, honey ..." She stepped in. "I'm so sorry." Miss Ella grabbed a little rolling seat like doctors slide around on when they're examining you. She rolled over to the side of the bed and looked under the railing, her eyes about six inches from Mutt's. He was shaking a lot. I stood next to the bed, watching the two of them watching each other.
He was covered by a thin sheet, but his skin was cold. He looked pale, and somebody had cut off everything but his Spiderman underwear. Miss Ella slid her hand along the bed and pulled his pale fingers from around his knees. She put one hand behind his head, and tears trickled down her cheeks. "Matthew? Matthew, can you hear me, sweet boy?" Mutt nodded and the shivering slowed. Miss Ella's voice was like that. Miss Ella grabbed my hand and pulled me close. "Tucker, we're going to pray for your brother."
"Yes ma'am."
"Lord, this boy is scared. We're all scared. But You didn't give us fear. You gave us power, love, and a sound mind." She put her hand on his head. "I'm putting Mutt at your feet and ask You to wrap him up. Hold him in the hollow of Your mighty right hand." She pulled me closer and said, "Both of them, Lord." I knew at that moment I was finished being cool and buying Alka-Seltzer. "Wrap Your blanket around both these boys. Do what I can't. Be their shields, their protectors; stand guard over these precious ones." She opened her eyes, tried to smile, and squeezed our hands. "Amen?"
"Amen," we said. I said it loud too, because I wanted her to know that I had repented from cussing and killing those birds.
Mutt opened his eyes and said, "M-M-Mama Ella?"
"Yes?"
"I don't think I like hospitals. Can I go home now?"
She touched his nose with her finger and said, "Me either, and yes." She turned to go when a tall, blond female with a long white coat and stethoscope walked in holding some x-rays.
"Miss? Are you Ella Rain?" the doctor asked in a gentle voice as if nothing dire was going on in the rooms next door.
"I am," Miss Ella said with a give-it-to-me-straight face.
"These are Matthew's x-rays. No permanent damage. Just a few stitches and a good bump on the noggin. He'll live." The doctor smiled. "Some rest and a little ice cream might do him
some good."
Miss Ella breathed easy and looked out the door. "Looks like you all've been busy."
The doctor nodded. "The driver of a tow truck had a stroke, crossed the median, and broadsided a Lincoln Town Car carrying a grandmother and her two grandkids. It's bad all the way around."
Miss Ella grabbed our hands, and the three of us walked back toward the exit. Halfway out, she stopped, nodded, said something to herself, and turned back toward the rooms-specifically, the room with the woman on the table. Miss Ella approached the door and looked inside where the doctors were sewing something above her belly. I said, "Miss Ella, are they sewing up her people place?"
"Yes, child," she said, "they are sewing up her people place." Miss Ella dropped her head and said, "Lord, You're needed in here too. You've got a lot of room at Your footstool, so please do what You do best and heal this woman. Starting with her heart."
Then we walked to the room with the two children. Miss Ella walked up and looked in the window. The kids were lying on the tables, eyes closed, nurses and a doctor between them. Miss Ella put her hand on the door. "This room too, Lord."
Finally, we walked to the door of the big white man who used to wear overalls. I couldn't tell if it was still him on the table or not, because whoever was on the table had a sheet pulled over his head. The man's left hand was partly exposed, and Ave could see a simple gold band on his ring finger. Miss Ella dropped her head and said, "Lord, we need You here too. Maybe more importantly, we need You at home, with whoever is about to learn about this."
In all my life, I had never seen someone so small walk so tall as she did there and then. Miss Ella was just barely five feet tall, but that day, she stood taller than Rex.
We walked out and Miss Ella held our hands across the parking lot and told us to slide across the seat, and we drove home huddled close together. She never said a word about the birds or the wrappers, and the next morning, they all got a proper burial. Prayer and all. We even put out some birdseed for those that might come back.
It was this memory, and more important the picture in my mind of finding Mutt alone and shaking on that table, that occupied my mind as I carried my duffel bag to the truck. I didn't want to find that picture when I got to Jacksonville.
I opened the back door of the truck and found Katie sitting in the backseat with Jase.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Going with you."
"Katie, I don't have time to argue with you, and you don't know half of what is going on here. I think it's best for all of us if you two just rest here a few days. You're welcome to stay, and Mose will check in on you, but this" I pointed to the truck-"is something you don't want any part of."
She pointed to the front seat and said, "Drive!"
I didn't have time to argue. I had five or six good hours on the road staring me in the face, and I still needed to make one stop in Abbeville. If I hurried, I could do what I had to do, get back in the car, on the road, and to Jacksonville before sunup, which would give me the whole day to look. And I might need it. If Mutt was good at one thing, it was hiding. He had had a lot of practice. We both did, but that was why I, more than anyone, needed to go looking. If he didn't want to be found, nobody but me would ever find him.
I looked at Katie and shook my head. I wanted her to come. I just didn't know how to ask.
Chapter 17
A BRICK WALL AROUND THE CEMETERY OF ST. JOSEPH'S prohibited horses, or tractors, from entering, so all graves were dug by hand. And although unusual, some of the older crowd still wanted to be buried next to their kin. Wives, husbands, kids, or parents. Such was the case last week when ninety-seven-year-old Franklin Harbor passed after a lifetime of good health. With no way to get a tractor in, short of destroying the wall, there was only one way to get a hole dug-pick and shovel. For the last decade, Mose had dug every single one, averaging about one a month. With the funeral tomorrow, I knew that's where he'd be.
I drove around the back of St. Joseph's and found Mose digging in the graveyard.
"Mose?" I said, standing over the hole.
Mose looked up with the sweat pouring down his face. At eighty-one, he was skinny, but he could still work a pick and shovel. With precision. Getting the hole dug took him about three and a half hours of constant and steady work. He had hung a spotlight above his head, so it looked like he intended to be there awhile. "Mutt's gone." I kicked at the dirt in front of me, loosening a clod of clay. "Well, escaped is more like it. I'm going to see if I can find him. Will you look after things?"
"You know better than to ask me that," he said, digging again, not looking up.
"I know, but. . ." Mose nodded, rested both hands on the pick, and said, "Glue's working tomorrow and all this week. Some fellow in Albany bringing in a few mares."
I pointed to the bottom of the hole. "Don't get too comfortable; I don't want to come back here in a few days and find your cold fingers still wrapped around that shovel."
"Tucker, when I go, I'm making you dig the hole." He waved his hand across the cemetery. "I've dug enough. It's about time you learned how."
"I'll wait my turn."
The Rolling Hills Assisted Living Facility was the bottom of the dregs in Alabama. From front door to back, the smell of urine permeated every square inch. Rolling Hills was an old folks' home that held mostly Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients. Truth be known, it was basically a hospital run by hospice, and like a roach motel, all doors led in. I parked the truck, left the engine running, and whispered to Katie, "Ten minutes. Got to check on the Judge." I didn't take time to go into the truth.
The judge was scanning the door when I walked in. "Hey, boy! Where you been? I've been having withdrawals and even the shakes for five weeks."
I stood next to the hospital bed and nodded. "I left you a couple in this drawer."
"You know the nurses aren't going to let me have that. And your father, God bless the stodgy old mute, couldn't light the match if his life depended on it. So here I am, three feet from satisfaction and unable to get any."
Rex made no verbal or visual response when I looked at him. He never did. He sat in the corner, looking out the window just as he had been six weeks ago when I last passed through. Rex's shoes were loosely velcroed, his shirt unbuttoned, his fly unzipped, his face unshaven, and his hair uncombed.
"Sounds like a personal problem," I said with a smile.
"Don't you get smart with me, you little squirt. I may be stuck in this bed, but"-the judge nodded his head toward the mouth diaphragm just inches from his lips"this phone isn't."
The judge couldn't move a thing from the neck down. His body was a gnarled mess. His fingers and toes were curled up, his body lay flat and sagging into the sheets, his colostomy bag was a regular mess, and his catheter was constantly infected and therefore his bed a puddle. But the judge just wouldn't die. So for the last six years, Rex and the judge had been roommates. And in that time, Rex had never been able to carry on a conversation. He couldn't remember how to tie his shoes, where to pee, or how to defecate in a toilet. As a result, he spent his days in running shoes with wide Velcro straps and an adult diaper that made a shuffling noise every time he moved.
Air fresheners covered their room. Plug-ins filled every outlet, fresheners hung from every fan blade, and hot oil fresheners framed every lightbulb heating up when the light was turned on. On the floor behind the television sat a surge protector with the television plugged in one outlet and five air fresheners filling the others. Depending on the wind, theirs was both the best-and worst-smelling room in the whole place.
I pulled two cigars from the top drawer, ran one beneath his nose, cut the tip, and lit it. I held the flame a long time, turning the cigar several times, lighting it evenly. Then I took long, deep breaths, letting the sides of my cheeks suck in and almost touch each other. Meanwhile, the judge licked the sides of his mouth, tossed his head back and forth, and almost came unglued. "Come on, boy, don't hog it. For God's sakes, have merc
y."
I blew a mouthful of smoke into the judge's face and placed the tip of the cigar between his salivating lips, where he immediately vised it between his front teeth and sucked in a chestful. He drew on it so hard that the insides of his cheeks actually touched. For two minutes, the judge puffed and sucked. Finally, his eyes turned red and he nodded and exhaled in a satisfied whisper, "Thank you." The judge, floating amidst the rush of nicotine, closed his eyes and whispered, "Ahhh, that's almost as good as sex."
I laid the cigar down on the table, opened the window, and pointed the fan out to draw the smoke with it. "How about turning the fan on?" I said, nodding at the Judge. He sucked twice on the diaphragm, blew three times, and sucked once more. His little machine beeped and the fan responded by turning itself on low. Between his mouth and the fifteen-thousand-dollar, diaphragm-controlled computer mounted above his bed, the judge could control every electrical or thermostatic device in the room. Even the fire alarm and telephone.
I propped my legs up on the judge's bed and asked, "How's he doing?" Before the Judge could answer, I lifted the cigar and held it next to his lips.
"Tuck," said the judge while taking another draw, "it ain't good. He can't hold his bowels, his bladder, or his tongue. Every few days he shouts the worst vulgarities at the top of his lungs. Much worse than me. Sick stuff. And then that's all he says. And it's not directed at anybody. It's like he's talking to people who aren't even there. Maybe they were at one time, but I sure can't see them. I'm not sure there's a whole lot going on up there." I looked at Rex, who sat leaning against the window with dribble falling off his quivering bottom lip. The judge drew another chestful and smiled. "I think he's about half a bubble off plumb."
We sat in silence for about ten minutes while the Judge devoured his cigar. At one point an orderly walked by and stuck her head in the door. The judge saw her and said, "What? You think it's gonna kill me?"
"I don't care what it does as long as you make that phone call and take care of my speeding ticket."