What Dies in Summer

  “This is a nice place,” I said dishonestly. The bed smelled kind of like fish and wet dogs, which started a tickle of queasiness in my stomach. There was an old calendar on the wall over the table that showed a couple of naked boys on a wide stone porch with a lake and snowy mountains in the background.

  “Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Earl, planting himself in the chair with his back to the door and his knee against mine.

  “Where’s your TV?” I said.

  “Don’t need that,” he said. “Plenty to stay entertained with.” He scratched at the black spider tattooed inside his left forearm, then pinched and pulled at his crotch. “We can make our own fun.”

  “How about the movie?” said L.A., cocking her head at him.

  “Sure,” he said. “But listen, you guys want something first? Maybe a little Thunderbird to start us off right?”

  L.A. shook her head. I said, “No, thanks.”

  Earl seemed disappointed. He walked over and got a foil-wrapped package from the freezer compartment of the fridge and came back to sit down. He took a small twisted cigarette from the foil, used a Zippo to light it and took a long drag. He held the smoke down for a while and then kind of groaned it out through his mouth and nose. The smoke smelled like burning rope.

  “Want a little hit?” he said, holding the cigarette out first to L.A., who shook her head again, then to me.

  I took it and tried to draw on it as he had done, which made me cough. My eyes watered. Then I tried again and this time managed to control my cough reflex.

  Earl had a tiny gob of white spit at each corner of his mouth. “Maybe we ought to have a little game first,” he said. “I can think of some good ones. Y’all know Yellow Dog?”

  I drew in smoke again and had no trouble at all this time. Earl was looking back and forth from L.A. to me. He seemed anxious to get started.

  L.A. twirled the football, shaking her head and glancing at Earl out of the corner of her eye, saying, “That’s pretty dumb.”

  By now my stomach had somehow settled down completely, but I noticed the world was getting kind of cockeyed and I seemed to have dislocated my mind somehow. I began looking around Earl’s place, smiling and wondering if he had any Twinkies.

  “Hey, okay, you’re right,” said Earl. “That is dumb. I know what’d be good! Strip poker! How about that?”

  I just couldn’t stop grinning, but L.A. was serious as Saint Peter. So was Earl, only in a frustrated kind of way. By now he was beginning to pay more attention to L.A., and it seemed to bother him a lot that he couldn’t get her interested in anything. He was sweating harder than ever, and he kept looking from her to me and back again as if he were running out of ideas. The time for Twinkies seemed to be about over, and I could sense L.A. silently changing gears.

  Then Earl suddenly hunched forward and grabbed my leg, jamming his hand hard up along the inside of my thigh.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  In half a beat L.A. was up and over to the dirty window. She jerked the little doughnut on the string at the bottom of the shade and released it, letting it roll the rest of the way up, where it whapped around a few times before stopping. Outside, there were treetops in every direction, and among them a few green-shingled rooftops.

  “Hey, look, Bis!” said L.A., pointing. “You can see Gram’s house from here!” She looked excitedly back at me.

  “Hah? What?” said Earl, standing up, turning his head to the window, bending to take her line of sight.

  “Right there,” said L.A. “You can see Daddy’s new truck and everything. He must be going back on day watch this week. You should see, Bis, it’s like being up in a tree.” She turned and caught my eye. I looked out the window.

  “Day watch?” said Earl. “What day watch?” He stared at L.A., who just gazed innocently back at him. He scratched his neck, thinking. He walked over to the sink, then back to the window and looked out again.

  “Isn’t it neat?” said L.A.

  Earl shivered. He was starting to get a constipated look. Finally he shook his head.

  “Ratfuck,” he said under his breath, the gap in his teeth making it sound like “ratpuck.”

  L.A. was finally beginning to show some enjoyment, and of course I was still seeing the humor in everything, but now Earl seemed to be getting more miserable by the second.

  “Double-dog ratpuck,” he said. He gave his head a last shake, took off his cap and ran his hand through his oily-looking dark blond hair. Then he moved over toward the door. “That’s it,” he said tiredly, reaching for the knob to open the door and let us out.

  But L.A. said, “Wait.”

  He jerked his head around. “Huh, what?”

  “Did you forget about the movie, Mr. Earl?”

  “Tell you what, little sister, I think we’re gonna just forget that whole deal.”

  L.A. was beginning to look a little put out with Earl. I heard the last of her sucker cracking between her teeth.

  “But we had it all planned,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s off now. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Not yet,” said L.A.

  Earl’s expression tightened. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t bust my nuts, all right? Y’all need to just cut right on out of here.” He glanced at the window. “Your Gram and them’ll be waiting on you.”

  “But it was all set,” said L.A., laying the stem of her sucker on the pile of Camel butts in the mayonnaise jar lid on Earl’s table. “All we wanted was a chance to make a little money. You know, like real actors.”

  “Money?” squeaked Earl in disbelief.

  L.A. watched him, looking sensible and composed. I cleared my throat. We heard the refrigerator compressor come on.

  “For chrissake,” Earl said. It looked like the air was going out of him a little at a time. “Money.”

  “Daddy always says people should be reasonably compensated for their efforts,” L.A. recited. Her eyes, without actually moving, seemed to flicker slightly toward the window. Earl’s did the same.

  Which caused me to picture Uncle Cam, who as far as I knew never owned any kind of watch. Plus I would have considered it a toss-up whether it was more likely L.A. had ever in her life called him Daddy or the sun was going to stand still in the sky. I didn’t think he had any theories about kids getting paid either, but then I admit I wasn’t exactly clear in my head at the moment. I did know he didn’t have a new truck and never showed up at Gram’s house at all, any more than that was actually her house we were all thinking about outside Earl’s window.

  “I don’t have no money, man,” Earl told L.A., putting his hand on his hip pocket and looking wearier than ever.

  “Let me see,” she said in a friendly tone, setting the ball on the bed next to me and holding out her hand for his billfold. “I bet you were gonna buy some more cigarettes and rum.”

  Earl let out a long breath and handed over the billfold. L.A. dug around in it for a few seconds. Behind a thin leather flap she found a ten and two folded fives. She took both of the fives and looked up at Earl. “This should be fair,” she said. “Five for Biscuit and five for me.” She handed back the billfold. Earl just blinked sadly as he took it from her hand. L.A. picked up our ball, and we went to the door. She kind of straightened herself up and in her most serious voice said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Earl. We do appreciate you.”

  But Earl didn’t answer, just kept staring at her.

  A minute later we were down the steps and out to the alley. The sun was lower now and looked redder behind the trees, the world gradually squaring up and losing some of its funniness. Looking back, I saw Earl watching us through the crack of his door.

  L.A. watched him watching us for a minute, then turned to me. “He really should be more careful,” she said.

  I shrugged. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Meat loaf,” L.A. said as she tucked my five inside the waistband of my jeans. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “We’ve s
till got an hour. I can do both,” I said. “You?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  We started off along the alley to head north on Lancaster toward the Dairy Delite, the idea of Twinkies losing some velocity but still bouncing around in my mind.

  6 | Unknowns

  I WOKE UP in a cold sweat, knowing for a definite fact that death was a teenage girl and that she had been standing silently by my bed during the night. For a few seconds I felt paralyzed, physically and mentally, smothering under the weight of my inability to protect Gram and L.A., or even myself, in case of attack.

  Looking around me in the gray morning light, I couldn’t see anything wrong or out of place, so I pulled on my Levi’s and went to check the house. Gram was in the kitchen heating water for tea and humming along with the radio, which was quietly playing some old Bob Wills number. L.A. was asleep under her mound of pillows, snoring softly. One of the pillows lifted an inch or so and Jazzy peered sleepily out at me from underneath it.

  There was nothing suspicious in any of the other rooms, and now that I was all the way awake I was beginning to forget why I needed to protect Gram and L.A. The house itself felt all right. I decided to see if a shower would get the last of the dreams off me. I stood under the hot spray until I was pretty sure I’d gotten all the benefit possible from it, then as I was drying off noticed the can of Colgate shaving cream I’d bought at the grocery store the week before and decided to shave, whether I needed it or not. Finishing with no nicks or scrapes to deal with and feeling a little smug about that, I dressed and went out to the kitchen. Cornflakes, orange juice, a little hot tea with honey, Gram shaking her head sadly at something in the paper.

  She looked up at me, saying, “What is that smell?”

  “Aqua Velva.”

  She leaned forward and inspected my cheeks and chin. “I recommend lighter strokes, but more of them,” she said. “Do you have a styptic pencil?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good. And if you must use that aftershave concoction, I’d suggest you be more sparing with it.” She sat back and eyed me. “As a courtesy to others.”

  “Okay.”

  “Is there an occasion?”

  “Yes ma’am. They’re showing all the old Elvis movies at the Crest this week. I’m taking Diana.”

  “Ah, the lovely Miss Chamfort,” Gram said, going back to her newspaper. “I trust you will comport yourself as a gentleman.”

  The way Gram said “gentleman” made me think of a man in a tuxedo and top hat, with muttonchop sideburns and spats. But my instincts told me she really meant I should keep my hands strictly off Diana, an idea that made each and every molecule in my body vibrate with resistance.

  I decided silence was my best bet.

  After the movie, when Diana and I were walking home from the Crest, my usual random curiosities started to kick in. One of my theories was that getting to know a girl required understanding how she felt about rock stars, so I made up my mind to ask Diana what she thought of Elvis. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to hear, though, and I ended up waiting until we’d walked all the way to Skillern’s, where there was an EXCITING SALE! on trusses and mineral supplements, before I actually said anything, the whole time thinking about the different ways she might take the question. But since she and I were sort of going together—meaning we had dry-kissed a few times and I’d let her use my handkerchief during one of the weepy movies she dragged me to, after making sure it was clean, and then actually accepted it back afterward—I didn’t see where I had any real choice. One of the main principles Gram was always trying to drum into my head was that knowledge is power, and I figured understanding Diana as completely as possible was my best shot at getting the relationship up to a higher level.

  Diana had always been L.A.’s buddy, which made us acquaintances from way back, but most of that time she’d been just another skinny girl who thought boys had cooties. Then, before I knew it, the three of us were hanging out together, or maybe us and Dee, or Hubert Ferkin if he wasn’t off somewhere jamming with some guitar accomplice of his. Then gradually it escalated from that to Diana and me actually going places on our own.

  Lately I had really been warming up to this and therefore trying to maintain my poise, but it could sometimes be a challenge. In fact, the first time the two of us went out alone I strangled on my Coke to the point of practically coughing up my socks right there on the marble floor of the theater lobby. Diana slapped me on the back and offered me Kleenexes, which naturally did nothing to help my embarrassment, but I was hoping this one humiliation hadn’t damaged the overall dignity of our relationship beyond repair.

  Diana was fascinating in a lot of ways. For one thing, she tended to give people and animals semi-mysterious nicknames. She was satisfied with mine but she called Jazzy “Muttkin,” which actually made sense, and her little brother Andrew “Fubbit,” which as far as I could tell didn’t. Neither did “Porkchop” for her dad or “Harpo” for L.A. If you asked her why she called them that, all you got was some loopy answer like, “If I don’t, who will?”

  Sometimes she could be too intelligent for comfort. Once when we were watching a TV show about some kid whose parents had died, she started watching me instead of the show. I may have gotten something in my eye, but I definitely wasn’t crying. Diana seemed to think I was, though, and she said, “You’re thinking about your mom and your dad, aren’t you?”

  I tried to clear my throat. “I miss them,” I admitted.

  Diana thought about that for a minute, finally saying, “I don’t think that’s really true.”

  I just looked at her.

  “I think what you miss is how you think things used to be.”

  In spite of her quirkiness Diana was intelligent and beautiful like L.A., but in almost everything else they were opposites, L.A. being sort of dark and solemn and never wasting any words, especially nowadays, whereas Diana was sunny and a lot of fun and of course always had something to say. She had easy-looking brownish blond hair that came down to her shoulders, and if you looked closely you could see a few light freckles scattered across her nose. Her eyes, which seemed to be smiling most of the time, were as big as L.A.’s but instead of almost black they were green with some blue mixed in, and little coppery specks around the edges.

  Diana’s relationship with L.A. was one you’d never expect to happen, but now that it existed it was impossible to imagine them not being friends. They were so close it didn’t bother them to be apart.

  One day when my nosiness got the best of me, I said, “How’d you and L.A. get to be such good buds?”

  Diana shrugged the way she did when she was being patient with me. “She’s the only girl I know who’s smarter than I am.”

  “Smarter than you?” I said. “You’re like a calculus magician or something—you’re gonna be an architect.”

  Another shrug.

  I said, “Doesn’t really matter, I guess. You’re both smarter than me, that’s for sure.”

  She took a long look at me, then said, “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  I didn’t answer, because I was still thinking about how friendship works and where it comes from.

  Diana said, “Harpo could be anything she wanted. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “So what are you talking about?”

  “I guess it’s the way you never have to explain anything to her. Or maybe because it’s impossible to lie to her.”

  “How do you know? You don’t lie to her.”

  Diana gave a little snort, saying, “I’ve seen it tried.”

  “Well, she trusts you, I know that,” I said. “And she remembers stuff you said and did even way back when we were little kids.”

  Diana thought about that for a minute. She said, “I was a kid—I mean, I guess I still am—but I don’t think she ever really was.”

  This was a new idea for me, but I immediately felt the truth of it. I said, “It’s weird—I live with her but
you know her better than I do.”

  Diana didn’t answer right away, and when she did there was a hint of sorrow in her voice.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I think it’s what I don’t know that really matters.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” she said.

  At this point I hadn’t exactly lost track of the conversation, but I was a little preoccupied with pretending not to look down at Diana’s legs. I knew better than to say so, but one of the reasons I liked her so much was the way she looked in her summer shorts, like the white ones she was wearing today. She had long legs for a girl, and I really enjoyed the way she’d cross one over the other when she and L.A. were sitting around talking. Once when I mentioned their smoothness to L.A. she looked at me in a way that left no doubt I’d just run the flag of my ignorance up the pole again.

  “They’d be about as hairy as yours if she didn’t shave them every week,” L.A. said, inflicting on me a whole new gallery of mental images I could have done without.

  Anyway, the movie Diana and I had just seen had been about Elvis in the Army, and I was remembering his song about not having a wooden heart. But Diana apparently wasn’t too impressed with him, which struck me as uncanny.

  “Don’t you think he’s good-looking?” I said.

  Without looking at me, she dug her elbow into my ribs. “You tryna be funny, Biscuit?”

  “Hey, really.”

  “Sure I do. He used to be almost as pretty as Paul Newman. He’s kinda fat now.”

  “Okay, so how come you’re not impressed?”

  “When I see Elvis in a movie?”

  Like we might run into him at Piggly Wiggly.

  “Anywhere,” I said.

  She thought about this for a while, which was another thing I liked about her—she actually considered things. She shook her hair back as we walked along and kind of frowned. Finally she said, “Because he doesn’t seem real.” She glanced at me. “Like Batman.”

  “The cartoon?” I asked, wanting to make sure she didn’t mean the guy who played Batman on TV, who seemed entirely real to me because he looked exactly like my shop teacher from last year.