“I just wanted to know what we were having on this picnic,” I said.
“It’s a surprise. You find out as you eat it. But I bet you can guess what dessert is.”
“Is it chocolate colored and sweet and shaped like a taco and you keep it in a warm place?”
“My God,” she said, “The Amazing Kreskin. Come over here and ride bitch, big boy.”
I slid over next to her and she smelled sweet and delectable. She said, “What’s that cologne, Hap? Frog and Pond?”
I slid away from her. “Do I smell that bad?”
“Get back over here,” she said. “Always did like a man smelled faintly of frog. Maybe you’ll tell me how you came by that aroma?”
“Maybe,” I said, and slid back and kissed her softly on the neck.
We continued until we came to a turnoff that announced a Scenic Overlook. The idea of an overlook in East Texas, especially if you’ve ever been to Colorado, someplace with mountains, is pretty funny. What it means here is a high hill, and not all that high.
We drove up there, and at the top were a couple of concrete picnic tables, a chained-down metal trash receptacle, and a whitewashed chain that ran between thick white posts that designated the area.
We got out of the car, and I carried the basket over to a table. Florida put her arm around me, and we walked to the chain barrier and looked down. You fell, you’d go almost six feet before you were in a pasture. Not exactly scary or breathtaking. But the deal was this: Here, on this hill, you looked straight out, there was a big V in the usual line of trees, and you could see a long ways, and the trees in the distance, especially now at night, looked like blue and purple mountains, and above those trees, the stars were like glitter being poured into a funnel. Directly overhead, it was so clear the stars seemed close enough to snag with a butterfly net. The air was invigorating.
The depression I was feeling after the rush of adrenaline from discovering the body in the van and the brief bar fight was subsiding.
“This is nice,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” she said, and hugged me tighter. “You can see forever itself from here.”
“You come here a lot?”
“Now and then. An old boyfriend in high school showed it to me.”
“Never mind. I’d rather not hear it.”
“He was an astronomer-to-be,” she said. “He was interested in the stars.”
“Right,” I said.
“Well, he did have a theory or two on black holes.”
“Ha. Ha.”
She laughed. “I’ve never been here when someone else was. Not yet. I’ve always had it to myself.”
“Good,” I said.
A shooting star flamed across the sky and snuffed out. We oohed and aahed it.
Damn, what a day. A nude swim. A dead body. A bar fight, and now a picnic with a beautiful woman, and a shooting star. What next? A UFO encounter?
The picnic basket contained barbecued chicken, egg salad and ham and cheese sandwiches on wheat bread, and sweet pickles and hot peppers and chips and potato salad.
“That’s a lot of food,” I said.
“Figured an old guy like you might need to recharge himself later.”
“Honey, I look at you, I don’t need any jumper cables.”
We put the food on paper plates and ate and drank sweet tea out of a large thermos. There was another thermos with coffee; when we finished eating, I reached for it, but Florida stopped me. She said, “After dessert.”
She stood up and took off her shorts and she wasn’t wearing panties. She put the shorts on the picnic table. She slipped off her shirt and she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“You saving on laundry?” I said.
She put the shirt with the shorts. She moved up close to where I sat on the stone picnic bench, and I kissed her belly button. She pushed away from me and smiled and gathered her clothes and walked back to the car. She looked funny and sexy wearing nothing but those big shoes. She opened the back door and sat on the seat with her legs outside and unfastened her shoes and put them on the floorboard. She crossed her legs and looked at me. “Do I have to write you a letter?” she said.
“Don’t even need to send a telegram,” I said, and I got up and went over there.
* * *
Later, we dressed and had coffee while we lay on the hood of the car, our backs against the windshield. We must have seen a half-dozen shooting stars.
“This was a nice surprise,” I said. “I especially liked the part where you shucked your shorts.”
“Glad you liked it, but could I say—without intent to hurt your fragile male ego, because I enjoyed myself very much—you seem a little distracted?”
“I’ve had a big day.”
“Hap, I’ve been thinking, and I got to tell you, what I said the other night—”
“That’s all right. I was pushing.”
“What I mean is, I really don’t have the right to judge you. You are who you are, and that’s a pretty good thing. I shouldn’t try and make you something else.”
“You made some good points. I am coasting.”
“I suppose another thing is we haven’t had time to know each other that well. One day I see you and you’re this grungy guy, and the next day I see you you’re on top of the house sucking in your stomach—”
“You noticed that?”
“Sure. And then we’re in the sack, and I like you. I like you a lot, and I don’t really know who you are.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You don’t know me either. Not really. Let me tell you something about myself. Something to clear the air a little. I’m laying on you how ambitious I am, right? Telling you what a ball of fire I am, and what a wet ball of twine you are. So let me be honest. I’m not living up to my ambitions either.”
“Maybe no one does.”
“It was my plan to be a serious criminal lawyer. I wanted to try murder cases. I wanted to specialize in cases dealing with blacks, helping them get fair trials in a white world. The whole nine yards. But I’ve settled for divorce work and a little ambulance chasing. I’ve been in that shitty office of mine for three years, and half the time my clients don’t pay me, or if I get a percentage of something, it’s not a percentage of much, and I haven’t made one bit of real difference in the world, and I thought I’d make oodles.”
“Everyone starts somewhere, Florida. Hell, you’re young. You’ll build into a bigger career.”
“I’ve got to be willing to do that, though. You see, I found out most of the people I was dealing with, defending, white or black, were guilty. If they weren’t guilty of the crime they were up for, they were guilty of two others they got off from. Most of them were guilty as hell.”
“That could have just been your experience so far. There’re bound to be innocent people who need you.”
“Yes, but I was trying to get guilty people off. Trying to find loopholes. And I’m disillusioned with people. Not just the crooks I’ve dealt with, people in general. Not long ago there was a murder near here, over in Mud Creek. A husband lost it and shot his wife and two kids and even the dog.”
“I remember.”
“People talked about the crime for a month or so. A lawyer friend of mine was assigned to the case. She proved the murderer was insane. She told me people asked her about the case all the time, and you know what she said their most common question was about what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of dog was it? Yeah. What kind of dog? Like the people didn’t matter. But if it was a cute dog, then we’re talking tragedy. How could someone think that way?”
“You’re running idealism up against reality, Florida. It happens to everyone eventually. But don’t think the two aren’t compatible. I’ve been through that myself.”
“Point is, I’ve lost a lot of my ambition this last year or so, and just that stupid thing about the dog had a lot to do with it. What I’m saying, Hap, is who am I to cast t
he first stone? And another thing. You’re right. I am nervous about being seen with you because you’re white—”
“You never denied that.”
“But that’s not an excuse. I’m going to change.”
“Hot damn, you’re gonna take me to a movie.”
“Yeah, but you have to wear gloves and a bag over your head.”
“It’s a start.”
“I don’t think of myself as prejudiced, but when I was a little girl we lived briefly up North. My mother had gone up there to stay with relatives. She left my father for a time, and she thought, up there, out of the South, she had a chance to do something without skin color mattering. That was in New Jersey. Well, there wasn’t much more in the way of jobs there, and the relatives we were staying with were living in a white section of town and had been for a couple of months, and one morning we woke up with snow on the ground and a cross burning in the yard. Burned into the yard with gasoline was the word nigger. We moved back here, and the relatives moved out of that neighborhood and into a black one, and the whole idea of sanctuary, that there was somewhere you could go where there wasn’t any prejudice, any racial hatred, was gone.
“It made an impression, Hap. I don’t blame all whites for the stupidity of those people who put up that cross and burned those words into my relatives’ lawn, but it left something here,” she touched her heart, “that has to do with me and white skin. I’m smart enough to know it’s a knee-jerk response at times, and I fight against it, but it’s there, and what really makes me mad is, late at night, sometimes I wake up bitter. Memories like that don’t go away easy.”
“So now you don’t trust whites, and you don’t care to be seen with them—romantically, anyway?”
“It makes me feel dirty. I even feel a little inferior a lot of the time. Like I should be grateful I’m doing what I’m doing, and that I’m doing good for a little colored girl from East Texas. I know better intellectually, but emotionally, I feel maybe I am a nigger. That I’m second-best. I fight against it all the time.”
“Do you feel dirty right now?”
“No. You don’t make me feel that way. In this setting. But we went out in public, the old feelings would come back. I’m not saying I’m not willing to fight them. I’m being honest. But they’ll come back. And maybe that’s OK, as long as I confront them. All right. I’ve showed you my dirty laundry. Told you stuff I’ve never told anybody. Now, tell me something about yourself. Help me learn who you are.”
“I’m a guy who hopes he can show you there’s more to white guys than someone who just wants in your pants. More to this white guy, anyway. I don’t deny that getting in your pants is on my mind. I look at you and biology takes over, and I’m enjoying the sexual aspect of our relationship, but I want more. I’m not going to push you on the matter, but I want you to know that.
“OK. Enough on that. Let’s see. What else? I’m a college dropout. I was a draft resister during the Vietnam War, and I’m proud of it. I stood up for something and didn’t wimp out. Didn’t run off to Canada. Didn’t get religion. ’Course, there was a down side. I went to prison for refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. I did eighteen months. Let’s see. What else? I was married. The woman made a fool out of me, even after we were divorced. She was like catnip to me. She waved her butt and I followed. She nearly got me and Leonard killed once.”
“What?”
“I’m only going to talk so much about this right now. Later, maybe I’ll have more to say. But the gist of it, without being too specific, is I let her pull us into something I should have known better about. A way to make quick money, easy. Only it wasn’t easy. Leonard knew it was a dumb idea and he told me so, but I was headstrong, and he went along with it anyway, because of me. Ended up my ex-wife, Trudy, got killed and I got injured, and Leonard got his leg hurt bad. He was lucky it healed up the way it did. They thought for a while he’d lose it.”
“My God, Hap. . . . That explains those scars you’ve got?”
“Some of ’em. So, I’m an ex-con and I nearly caused my friend to lose his leg because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You’re right. I’m giving myself too much credit. It wasn’t my dick leading me around. It was some foolish vision of true love. I used to believe in that. Sometimes I still do. Maybe that’s what sapped my ambition, there not being any true love. Though to be honest, before Leonard got hurt, I wasn’t exactly a ball of fire either.
“Trudy and prison could be blamed, but I guess finally, you always got to blame yourself. I let my idealism get stepped on, and I began to think it was a sham, that there never was anything to it, because nothing ever changed. But I’ve come out on the other side, now. I’m not ambitious, but I’m not lost either. I’ve got my faith back in humanity, and it’s people like you that do it.
“There’s bad stuff out there, but you look around, there’s good too. I’m not saying I’m ready to wear flowers in my hair and tell everyone to just love one another, but I do think things can be better than they are, and that each of us, in his or her own way, can have something to do with making it better. I also like blueberry ice cream, fluffy bunny rabbits, stuffed animals, especially teddy bears, and cute shoes, if they don’t fit too tight.”
“You silly ass,” Florida said.
“Oh, one more thing. Earlier today, I found a dead body in a pond.”
23.
We got back to the house late and took the bedroom Leonard had left us. He was asleep on the couch. We made love again and talked some more. I told Florida all I knew about Illium Moon, about how we found the body. She thought we should call the police. I did too. But Leonard had taken bullets because of me, the least I could do was give him some time.
“You never heard any of this,” I said. “It comes up, except with Leonard, you don’t know a thing.”
“Oh, Hap.”
“Not a thing, Florida.”
“That poor man . . . down there.”
“He don’t know he’s up or down. Another day isn’t going to matter.”
We finally snuggled and fell asleep, and I dreamed.
And in this dream I was under water. Down there in the bookmobile with Illium, but I could see clearly this time. It wasn’t as dark as it had actually been. Uncle Chester was there too. They were swollen and spongy and their faces were no longer black. They were the color of damp oatmeal. Illium was sitting behind the wheel. He had a jar of coupons. Beside him, on the passenger side, reading a paperback copy of Dracula, was Uncle Chester. I was in the back, leaning between the seats, watching them. They didn’t seem to notice I was there. I looked over Uncle Chester’s shoulder. He was reading the part of Dracula about the “Bloofer Lady,” the vampire child murderer. I could read it clearly, even though the words were gibberish, hieroglyphics at best.
Illium unscrewed the lid on the jar in his lap, and the jar filled with water and the coupons floated up and out, paraded before him like small, wafer-thin fish. He plucked one of them between his fingers and put it back in the jar. He grabbed another, and another, but as fast as he put them in the jar they floated out. Uncle Chester turned and looked at Illium. He shut the book and held it in one hand. With the other he reached over and clutched at the floating coupons. He helped put them in the jar, and still they floated out. The process was endless. Illium and Uncle Chester grabbing the coupons, putting them in the jar, and the coupons floating out.
I turned to the back and there was a trunk in the van, and the lid was up. It was Uncle Chester’s trunk. I looked inside. There was a little black boy in there. Nude. His eyes wide open. His lips formed the words Help me, but I turned away.
On the opposite side of the van, mounted on the wall, was the painting Leonard had done of the old house amid the trees. The paint began to bead, then bubble. The bubbles filled with colors of the paint and streaked down its length as if crying Crayola tears.
I felt uncomfortable. Hot.
I realized I was holding my breath. The back door of the van was shut. I tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge. I turned and tried to walk to the front of the van, but now I was swimming. I tried to ease between Uncle Chester and Illium, make my way to the driver’s window, but it was closed. I was growing weak, dizzy. I grabbed at the window crank and attempted to roll the window down, but the crank wouldn’t work, and now Illium and Uncle Chester had hold of me and were yanking me back. I twisted and tried to fight them. Their faces were more puffed than before. Their eyes poked from their heads like peeled grapes. The little black boy was out of the trunk. He swam between them, took hold of my shirt. His eyes were pleading. His hand tugged at me. His arm came loose at the shoulder and floated up, but still his fingers held my shirt. Then his other arm came loose at his shoulder and floated to the top of the van. Then his legs. And finally his head. His torso came down to rest on my chest, and his body parts bobbed all around me, shedding flesh, leaving only the floating bones, the rib cage lying across me. I tried to pull the skeletal arm and fingers from my shirt, but I was too weak. The bony arm began to tug. Coupons swam by me. Illium and Chester Pine leaned over me and smiled. The water turned murky. I felt as if I were blacking out.
Then I woke up hot and mummy-wrapped in the covers. The moon was filling the room. Florida had rolled to the other side of the bed. The moonlight was mostly on her, and I was in shadow. I noted that the shadow made my skin dark as hers. I untwisted the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed and took in some deep breaths. After a while, I rolled back on the bed and took hold of the sheet and covered Florida and myself.
I thought about what I had dreamed. It seemed pretty silly now. There was a logical explanation for everything in the dream, but I felt my unconscious was also trying to tell me something I’d overlooked all this time. I still didn’t know what it was, but I thought I had hold of the edges of it, and if I kept my grip, I might pull the rest of it into view.