The driver circled the drive twice, honking his horn and turning up the volume on his external foghorn speaker, and came to a metal-screaming and horn-honking stop at the steps below me. He lifted the gearshift to park, turned up "The Entertainer," and pointed the speaker toward my equilibrium. He was wearing a clown suit, orange hair, white face, painted-on smile, red nose, and striped pants. If I had been holding the Greener, he'd have made a perfect bull's-eye. He kept the engine running, filling the immediate area with white smoke, and fingernail-on-chalkboard music masked the vague resemblance of nursery rhymes. He sat with his fingers gripped around the steering wheel, expectantly looking at the front door.
I hobbled down the steps to his side window, experiencing a disbelief similar to what I felt the moment after Katie shot at me. The driver saw me coming, hopped out of his seat, straightened his wig and nose, and greeted me at the window. "Hot daw' mighty!" he hollered. "What do you call this place?"
I squinted, looked askance, and yelled back, "Locals call it Waverly. We call it purgatory."
"Well, if purgatory looks anything like this, I'm in. Sign me up."
I leaned against the truck and pointed toward the front door. "You should have seen it when the fire was really burning. That might change your mind a bit."
He rubbed his hands together. "What can I get you?" He was fidgety, not nervous-fidgety, like he was in trouble, but working-fidgety, like every second he spent smalltalking was time he could spend selling elsewhere. He wanted to be nice enough to get my business, or my money, but not so nice as to engage me in any lengthy conversation. His white-gloved fingers wiped the counter again, and he straightened his nose for the third time. I pointed to my ears and squinted. He reached above his head and turned off the music.
This kid was maybe eighteen and had entrepreneur written all over him. Had it not been for the suit, the white face paint, and the out-of-proportion smile, I'd bet there were zits on his face and a night school admission application stuffed somewhere in his back pocket. I wasn't quite sure what to say, so he filled in the space with a prerehearsed sales pitch that I was pretty sure he had written himself. "I got fudgesicles, fudge sundaes, rocket man rocket bars, ice cream bars-with or without and dipped or naked." He looked around the inside of his truck, searching for his visual clues, and kept talking. "I got twenty-seven different kinds of popsicle and fruit juice bars-my most popular item, smoothies, scooped ice cream and sherbet, regular or sugar cones, pop rocks, soda pop with pop tops"-he smiled a real wide smile to let me know he had invented that one himself-"chewing gum, bubble gum, blowing bubbles, and if you're a health food nut-like myself-I got some fat-free yogurt that tastes like something you'd use to grease the axles on a push cart." He rubbed his hands together and his eyes grew wide and more expectant.
I held out my hand and was about to ask him if he knew what time it was, but I heard footsteps. They were slow, plodding, and purposeful. I didn't have to turn around. Mutt circled the truck, taking it in, his eyes darting steadily back and forth, hands covered in rubber gloves, and a spray bottle of cleaner looped over his back pocket. He sprayed the front window, cleaned it, and then stepped up to the side window, sprayed it, and began wiping it down. The kid looked at Mutt and said, "Thanks, buddy. I'm giving you a 5 percent discount."
Mutt held out a handful of quarters and said, "I'd like two scoops of chocolate, with a fudgesicle; without some pop rocks; two cream-filled banana popsicles; and a pack of Big Red." Without batting an eye, the kid in the clown suit said, "Regular or sugar?"
Mutt thought for a moment. "One of each." Mutt's fanny pack was draped oddly around his waist and apparently stuffed tight.
The kid quickly slammed a scoop of chocolate on each type of cone, sprinkled on a conservative teaspoon of nuts, wrapped each in a napkin, slipped a pack of pop rocks and gum from a bin above his head, and then dug the fudgesicle and banana popsicles out of the deep freezer in front of him. Meanwhile, white exhaust swirled up and made me dizzy.
The kid extended his hands through the window, filling Mutt's, and without aid of cash register, calculator, or the tips of his fingers and toes, he said, "With tax, and minus five percent, that'll be $7.86, please."
Mutt dropped a handful of quarters in the clown's hand and said, "You owe me fourteen cents." The kid reached in his pocket, handed Mutt a nickel and dime, and said, "Thanks, pal." Mutt took two steps backward, sat down on the first step, and began methodically licking the sides of his chocolate cone. I turned back to the kid, who was smiling even more widely under the weight of thirty-two quarters, and was about to ask my question when I heard the second and third sets of footsteps. The first was short, choppy, and light; the second was slower and more purposeful, yet still light.
Jase reached the truck, jumped on the back tire, and pulled himself up on the window, where he hung, straining to hold his chin barely above the countertop. He said, "I'd like a rocket man rocket bar, without, and ..." He lost his grip and fell backwards, where I caught him. While I held him two feet above the ground, he finished his order, ". . . a cherry popsicle." I set him down and he said, "Thanks, Unca Tuck."
Katie walked across the grass, onto the gravel, and stood by the window with a five-dollar bill in her hand. The clown reached through the window, handed Jase his goods, and then turned to Katie. "Anything for you, ma'am?"
"You said you have bubbles?" The kid nodded and quickly retrieved a huge bottle of blowing bubbles from a bin next to the seat. In the two minutes he had stood there, he had been able to reach around the cabin of that truck without ever moving his feet. Evidently, he had designed the operating space with an eye toward space and time studies.
Katie said, "Thank you," and the kid turned to me. "Sir, that'll be $3.79."
"Oh ... yeah, right." I reached in my pocket, which was empty, so I shoved my hand in the other, but it was empty too. Katie laughed, handed the kid the five dollars, and waved him off when he tried to give her back a dollar plus change. While the dumb look continued to spread across my face, the kid reached below his seat, pulled out a green thermos, refilled my coffee cup, and handed it to me. "You folks have a great day." Three seconds later, he jumped into the squeaky front seat, dropped the gearshift into drive, gunned the engine so it wouldn't stall, and showered our feet with pebbles and clouded our lungs with carbon monoxide.
The four of its sat on the front steps licking, sucking, sipping, blowing, and just breathing. In my entire life at Waverly, I had never seen an ice cream truck venture down our driveway, yet the three of them acted like it happened every day.
Mutt finished his ice cream and began tearing the paper off his cream-filled banana popsicles. "Morning, Mutt," I said. He never even looked at me. He bit half of the first popsicle and sat chewing on it like a piece of steak, oblivious to the effects of cold on his teeth. After three or four hearty bites, he swallowed it whole and then consumed the second half in like fashion.
With the second popsicle just inches from his mouth, Mutt paused, looked out the corner of his eye, and saw Jase sitting next to him, shoulder to rib cage. Mutt's eyes turned to me, then Katie. He said nothing but scooted three inches to the left, opening the space between himself and Jase. Jase, not noticing Mutt's intention, subconsciously leaned closer to Mutt and continued licking the chocolate off his rocket bar. Mutt's eyes darted from Katie to me to Jase, and his face contorted and grew more nervous and fearful. While Jase spread chocolate across his cheeks, Mutt stood up, stepped over me, and sat at the far end of the step, alone. Jase, engrossed in his breakfast, straightened and continued digging his teeth into the layers of chocolate. Katie sat on the step next tojase, leaned back against the second step, watched the clown drive out of Waverly, and dipped her bubble stick in the bottle.
Having finished his breakfast, Mutt stood up, his hands filled with wrappers, and stepped in a wide circle around us. He smelled like the barn, but I didn't quite know how to tell him. "Hey, Mutt, if you want, I'll go with you to get a new hot water he
ater for the barn. I need to pick up a few things anyway."
Mutt looked around suspiciously, sniffed the air, sniffed his armpits, nodded, and walked around the side of the house, carrying his trash and pulling off his rubber gloves. I'm no M.D., but I knew he was steadily sliding downhill, growing more withdrawn each day, and the look of fear across his face was more prominent and permanent. Gibby had warned me, but I wasn't quite sure what to do.
Jase polished off his breakfast and tore off in search of his bicycle. Katie blew bubbles and studied me suspiciously. Bubbles floated through the air and danced about us. Some landed on the gravel in front of me, a few popped on my legs, and one brushed my cheek before it drifted into the needles of a Leyland Cypress. I don't know if she knew it or not, but Katie began humming. Bubbles floated above us and spread across us like a blanket.
I hadn't seen Mutt since breakfast, so I started to get a little worried. At two, I walked to the barn where Katie and Jase were playing catch, but still no Mutt. I dropped a rope around Glue, and we took a disguised walk around the pasture. The quarry was empty, as were the foot of the cross and St. Joseph's, so with relatively few options left, I stopped to listen and think. Northwest of the pasture, beyond the dog kennels, was the old slaughterhouse. Covered in thick vines, kudzu, and waist-high weeds, the slaughterhouse was little more than a tin roof on four poles, covering a bathtub-size scalding pot, big enough for a man to lie down in. It had been sunk into a brick base about four feet wide, eight feet long, and three feet high. It actually made a pretty good bathtub, as long as you didn't mind knowing what had once been there. The base held the tub above a small fire below that heated the water for scalding the slaughtered pigs-somewhere between 150 and 155 degrees. Mutt and I used to play down here as kids, but we didn't do it often. No matter how much you rinsed it, the smell of dead pigs just never went away. I suppose death has a way of hanging on even after you wash it.
I stopped to listen and heard the unmistakable sound of someone splitting wood. I turned Glue in the direction of the sound and asked myself, "What is he doing now?"
Tucker you two aren't all that different.
I told Glue, "Whoa," and stood stroking his mane and searching the pasture's perimeter.
Mutt's standing at the precipice, standing at the very chasm of insanity, and it's going to take a mighty leap for him to cross it, but Mutt's in the Lord's hands. Not yours. You, on the other hand, you're standing at the precipice of life, and the only way across is to stop letting your past determine your future.
I leaned against Glue and spoke aloud. "Miss Ella, every time I garner up enough guts to hope, they end up shattered and my heart torn in more pieces than it already is. You of all people should know this."
I know it's painful, child, but I watched you strike out twice in the final game before you hit that ball over the center field fence. Why re you living your life so differently than you played baseball?
"Because I was good at baseball."
You might find you're good at living if you'll bury the bitterness and cut away your coffin.
"Everybody needs an anchor, Miss Ella."
Forgive men and your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you don't, you're the one who will suffer.
"Miss Ella, I'm not you. Sometimes all that religious stuff just seems like empty words."
He who believes in Me ... out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
"You think you've got an answer for everything, don't you?"
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
"I'm not talking to you again until you start speaking in English and in sentences that I can understand."
For I am persuaded ...
"I know, I know. `Nothing can separate us."'
... that neither life nor death, nor ...
I shook my head, placed my hands over my ears, started humming, and walked off without another word, Glue trailing behind me. Arguing with Miss Ella was futile when she got in these moods. And it didn't take a genius to know that she was fired up now. I wouldn't be surprised if all the other angels had nominated her to serve as acting choir director for the entire heavenly host.
At the slaughterhouse, I tied Glue to one of the four posts, walked beneath the tin roof, stepped over a rather large pile of vine, weed, and kudzu, and found Mutt, sitting upright and scrubbing in the scalding pot. He was surrounded by soap bubbles and steam rising off the water. The iron doors of the brick base were open, and a small fire made from kindling wood climbed around the base of the tub. I doubted it was scalding temperature, but the steam rising off the water made it look good and warm.
"You okay?"
Mutt nodded.
I walked around the scalding pot and dipped my fingers in, testing the water temperature. It felt pretty good. He may be crazy, but in the short time he'd been home, he'd installed both a swimming pool and Jacuzzi. I pulled a single vine of kudzu off one of the four corner posts and said, "You need anything?" Mutt shook his head and turned the soap in his hands. "See you at five thirty?" Mutt nodded again, ducked beneath the surface of the water, rinsed, and began lathering up. The near-empty bottle of liquid soap next to him and large amount of ashes at the base told me it was not the first time. I left him scalding and walked back to the barn, where I crept up the loft ladder and counted the number of missing pills.
I walked out of the barn, thinking about a nap, when Jase stopped me. "Unca Tuck?" Katie was lying on a towel on the grassy lawn next to Miss Ella's cottage. She was reading a book, facing the sun, and had her feet wrapped up in a blanket.
"Yeah, buddy?"
Jase held out his left hand. "I've got a splinter. Mom said you could get it out." I looked at Katie, who looked at me over the tops of her glasses and then returned to her reading.
"Let me see." We sat down in the grass, and I held his hand up to the sun. A splinter had dug in deep into the fleshy meat at the base of his left thumb. I pressed lightly on his skin to see how much of the splinter I could get to without hurting him. Not much. "Are you tough?"
He reached up with his right hand, grabbed his left wrist tightly, looked me square in the eyes, and nodded. I placed his hand in my lap, pulled out my Swiss Army knife, and extracted the tweezers from the end. His eyes watched my hands but never flinched. I picked up his hand again and said, "You sure?" He nodded without hesitation and watched the tip of the tweezers. The splinter was dug in deep, so I pressed in, grabbed the covering layer of skin, and peeled it back. He winced but forced his right hand to hold his left steady. "You want your mom to do this?" He shook his head and kept looking at his hand. Katie looked at me again over her glasses and smiled.
"Thanks, make me the bad guy."
I dabbed the spot with my shirtsleeve and cleared away the blood. I grabbed the tip of the splinter with the tweezers and tugged, but it was a good-size splinter and didn't budge. I got a better grip on the tweezers, pressed in, and pulled again. It budged but needed one more pull. Jase bit his tongue and strengthened his grip. I loosened the tweezers, got a better hold, and checked his eyes. I pulled. A thorn, about a centimeter in length, slipped out. I held it up to the light. "Oh, that's a good one."
Jase leaned forward. "Let me see." I placed it in his palm and dabbed the spot where the blood had bubbled up.
"We're not finished. You'd better come with me." I led him by the hand and we walked into Miss Ella's house. I turned on the kitchen faucet, warmed the water, and said, "Hold your hand right here." I pulled out the box of Band-Aids from the cabinet above the sink, peeled open a medium-size Band-Aid, dried his hand, and placed it over the small hole. "There. All better."
He held up his badge of courage and turned it over. "Thanks, Unca Tuck."
"Here," I said, sliding two spare Band-Aids in his pocket. "For later." It was something Miss Ella had done for me a hundred times.
He patted his pocket, tore out the door, and headed for his bicycle.
Child, you did that pretty well.
I had
a good teacher.
Chapter 31
MUTT WANTED TO GET A GOOD SEAT, SO WE PULLED INTO the parking lot of St. Peter's Catholic Church at about a quarter to six. Located on the outskirts of Dothan, the church property covered four city blocks that were dissected by two perpendicular streets and one stoplight. The locals called it "Catholic Corner," which was fitting because if you stood beneath the stoplight, every corner was covered by the church. The grounds were sprawling, and everywhere you looked, the parish had spread farther from the stoplight-this was a working church. The parking lot was more than half-full every day of the week, and many of the homeless shelters and veterans' hospitals in surrounding counties were funded by donations from St. Peter's. On the grounds, they sheltered abused mothers, ran an orphanage, funded a youth baseball association, and a few blocks away, turned a run-down house into a drug rehab center.
At the center of the property sat a large sanctuary that certainly made a statement, but it was not ostentatious. Every time Miss Ella drove by here, she'd tap the steering wheel, lick her lips, and say, "That is a house fit for God!" She'd tap her Bible sitting next to her on the seat and say, "We may not agree on all the theology, but they're reading the words in red and doing them."
It seated a couple thousand, and come Saturday nights, seating was not easy to find. This place drew people from everywhere. The center of the ceiling might have been eighty feet tall, and most of the inside construction, except the pews and altar, was marble, red velvet, or gold flake. The huge silver pipes from the organ covered the entire back wall, and the fans needed to generate the air filled two entire rooms in the basement. Most every Christmas Eve I can remember, Miss Ella drove us around town to see the many houses decorated in lights, and inevitably our route ended with a twenty-minute stop in the parking lot of St. Peter's during the organ concert. She'd sit, hands clasped, eyes closed, head slightly rocking, and smile. "When I get to heaven, I hope it sounds like this."