"He and Amy would sit on the front porch, and every once in a while I'd look up from my old mules and quit plowing and see them sitting there in the rocking chairs on the porch. Him with that Bible on his knee-closed-and her looking at him like he was the very one that hung the moon.
"They'd be there when I quit the fields and went down to the river in the cool of the afternoon, and though I didn't like the idea of them being alone like that, it never really occurred to me that anything would come of it-I mean, not really.
"Old men can be such fools.
"Well, I remember thinking that it had gone far enough. Even if they were young and all, I just couldn't go on with that open flirting right in front of my eyes. I figured they must have thought me pretty stupid, and maybe that bothered me even more.
"Anyway, I went down to the river that afternoon. Told myself that when I got back I'd have me a talk with Amy, or if that Bible-thumper was still there amoonin' on the porch, I'd pull him aside and tell him politely that if he came back again I was going to blow his head off.
"This day I'm down at the river there's not a thing biting. Not only do we need the food, but my pride is involved here. I'd been a fisherman all of my life, and it was getting so I couldn't seine a minnow out of a washtub. I just couldn't have imagined at that time how fine that bait was going to work... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
"Disgusted, I decided to come back from the creek early, and what do I see but this Bible fella's car still parked in our yard, and it getting along toward sundown, too. I'll tell you, I hadn't caught a thing and I wasn't in any kind of friendly mood, and it just went all over me like a bad dose of wood ticks. When I got to the front porch I was even madder, because the rockers were empty. The Bible that thumper always toted was lying on the seat of one of them, but they weren't anywhere to be seen.
"Guess I was thinking it right then, but I was hoping that I wasn't going to find what I thought I was going to find. Wanted to think they had just went in to have a drink of water or a bite to eat, but my mind wouldn't rightly settle on that.
"Creeping, almost, I walked up on the porch and slipped inside. The noises I heard from the bedroom didn't sound anything like water-drinking, eating, or gospel-talking.
"Just went nuts. Got the butcher knife off the cabinet, and I don't half remember.
"Later, when the police came out there looking for the thumper, they didn't find a thing. Turned out he was a real blabbermouth. Everyone in town knew about him and Amy before I did-I mean, you know, in that way. So they believed me when I said I figured they'd run off together. I'm sure glad they didn't seine the river, or they'd have found his car where I run it off in the deep water.
"Guess that wouldn't have mattered much though. Even if they'd found the car, they wouldn't have had no bodies. And without the bodies, they can't do a thing to you. You see, I'd cut them up real good and lean and laid me out about twenty lines. Fish hit that bait like it was made for them. Took me maybe three days to use it up-which is about when the police showed up. But by then the bait was gone and I'd sold most of the fish and turned myself a nice dollar. Hell, rest of the mess I cooked up and ate. Matter-of-fact, them officers were there when I was eating the last of it.
"I was a changed man after that. Got to smiling all the time. Just couldn't help myself. Loved catchin' them fish. Fishing is just dear to my heart, even more so now. You might say I owed it all to Amy.
"Got so I started making up more of the bait-you know, other folks I'd find on the river, kind of out by themselves. It got so I was making a living off fishing alone."
That's Old Charlie's story, fella... Hey why are you looking at me like that?
Me, Old Charlie?
No sir, not me. This here on my right is Old Charlie.
What do you mean there's no one there? Sure there is...
Oh yeah, I forgot. No one else seems to see Old Charlie but me. Can't understand that.
Old Charlie tells me it used to be no one could see me. Can you believe that? Townsfolks used to say Old Charlie had gone crazy over his wife running off and all. Said he'd taken to talking to himself, calling the other self Ned.
Ain't so. I'm Ned. I work for Old Charlie now. Odd thing is, I can't remember ever doing anything else. Old Charlie has got to where he can't bring himself to kill folks for the bait anymore. Says it upsets him. So he has me do it. I mean, we've got to go on living, don't we? Fishing is all we know. You're a fisherman. You understand, don't you?
You sure are looking at me odd, fella. Is it the smile? Yeah, guess it is. You see, I got it, too. Once... Wait a minute. What's that, Charlie?... Yes, yes, I'm hurrying. Just a minute.
You see, once you get used to hauling in them fish, using that sort of bait, it's the only kind you want to use from then on. Just keeps me and Charlie smiling all the time.
So when we see someone like yourself sitting out here all alone, we just can't help ourselves. Just got to have the bait. That's another reason I keep the end of this cane pole so sharp.
ONCE UPON A TIME
Once upon a time, Ug said to Gar, let me tell you a story.
This was around a campfire, you see, people sitting around with their naked asses hanging out, maybe a bearskin over their shoulders, or when that wasn't available, a dog or wolf skin, something that might have given the camp dog pause from time to time, lying there beside the fire, listening to Ug tell Gar a story, trying to determine if that dog skin looked like a relative or friend.
But I, as omniscient narrator, have departed from what I first intended to do. This is common to me, and must be forgiven, and if not forgiven, what can I say, I'll most likely do it anyway.
So Ug, he says to Gar, says it soft so his voice seems part of the night and the high full moon, the not-so-distant howl of a wolf, says: Once upon a time, I was down in the valley, the valley way low, over there where the big thickets grow and the brambles twist and the trails are thin, way down there, I heard a noise. We're not talking your usual noise, some wolf or bear or tiger or such, but something that moved silent from tree to tree, in the dark. It was like the shadows of the moon came unglued, swung swift and silent through trees. And when I saw it, I said, Damn, that don't look good, and I started moving away, slow like at first, then with a trot, carrying the rabbits I'd killed, and then I realized that this shadow, this thing in the trees, was following from limb to limb and gaining on me rapidly, and so, to keep it at bay, I began tossing one rabbit back at a time, and when I looked over my shoulder, lo and behold, that thing, that shadow, would drop from the trees and stop to maul the little hopper I had tossed back, and when it did, in the moonlight–and it was less light than tonight–I could see it had big white teeth and big yellow-green eyes, the color of pus in a wound, and I ran and ran, dropping rabbits as I went, and soon, way too soon, I had but one rabbit left.
What did you do? Gar asked.
I tossed it, too. What could I do, and I looked back, and it stopped to eat it, and I ran faster, until I thought my sides would break, and then, over my breathing, which was loud and pained, my friend, I heard it breathing, right down my neck, and its breath smelled of rabbit flesh and blood and dirt and bone and all the death you could imagine, and up ahead of me I saw a break in the trees, and somehow, somehow, I knew if I could get out of the trees, out of the shadows they made, I'd be home free.
Wow! How would you know that?
I felt it. In my heart. I just knew. But just before I reached the opening, the way out of the trees, I tripped.
Dog Butt! Gar said.
You said it, and when I fell it grabbed my ankle, pulled at me, tried to yank me back deeper into the shadows of the trees, but there was a stone in the field, and I took hold of it, and it held, and I used it to pull myself forward, but just when I thought I had it made, it came loose.
Oh no.
You said it. But I turned, rolled on my back as I was being dragged, and I threw that stone as hard as I could, threw it at its open mouth, and the
stone went in, and it gagged and swallowed, and let me go. I stood up to run, but before I turned I saw it choking, rolling all over the leaves, thrashing up against trees and bushes, twisting in brambles 'til it was wrapped in them thick as this skin over my shoulders.
And then it coughed, my friend. Coughed. And out burst the rock, like it was thrown. And it slowly turned its head and looked at me and came for me and I ran, boy, did I run, even though I thought my sides would explode.
But when I looked back it stood on the edge of the forest, looking at me, not able to go out into the full moonlight, away from the trees and shadows. So I stopped and I yelled and it hopped up and down and I laughed and called it all sorts of names and finally it quit hopping and just looked at me, as if to say, brother, you had better not come back. And then, it turned and it took to the trees, climbing up and away, fast as a spear flies. Faster.
And it was gone.
Damn, Gar said.
ONE DEATH, TWO EPISODES
First Episode:
"One minute he’s all right, then the little fucker cut a fart and he was out of here, gone for good, like the five-cent candy bar."
"Shit. He was what? Twelve. Kid like that, you’d think he could stand a kick or two to the head."
"You don’t know your own strength."
"That begging stuff. I couldn’t stand the begging."
"He ain’t begging now."
"Naw he ain’t. It just went all over me, him begging like that. Them cigarette burns wouldn’t have killed him. He didn’t have to beg like that."
"You always got to push your fun, son."
"I don’t know what it is. Guess him being a nigger and talking the way he did, all educated and everything, being young and talking better than a grown man, his family having all that money. It just went all over me. Hell, we’re the ones, the chosen people, not this jigaboo."
"I don’t know who’d choose him now. And the Jews that are chosen are Yankee Jews. It’s all right they hate niggers, long as they don’t talk with a Southern accent. They must think them Yankee vowels don’t hurt a person’s ear. Well, they hurt mine plenty."
"I guess I kissed twenty thousand goodbye, didn’t I?"
"Next time you kidnap somebody, don’t kidnap a nigger, no matter how much money they got. A nigger seems to get on your nerves worse than anybody. And stay away from women. I don’t think I’d like you to kidnap a woman."
"Oh hell, Mama, you know you’re the one for me. You’re always the one for me."
"Yeah, I’m all the woman there is when your root’s talking, and your root’s talking right now. Doing things to niggers, it always did get you hard."
"Oh, Mama, it ain’t that. It ain’t that way."
She goes into his arms and they kiss: "What kind of way is it, baby? Show Mama what kind of way it is."
Second Episode:
A big guy is bouncing a basketball, taking some shots. A younger guy comes out drinking a beer. He says: "There’s a nigger swelled up in the living room."
"Yeah. I killed him."
"Y’all kidnap him?"
"Uh huh."
"You know how you are about niggers. You should have got a white boy."
"I don’t care for gentiles all that much neither."
"Yeah, but their color doesn’t excite you."
"He died easy. Mama wasn’t too happy."
"Hell, she wasn’t. I bet you killed that nigger she got wet, probably fucked your brains out."
"Yeah, well, she did me pretty good."
"Where is she?"
(Grins) "Sleeping it off."
"Whatcha gonna do?"
"Thought we’d take the nigger and dump him."
"You could still get the money."
"Whattaya mean?"
"Tell ‘em he’s dead, but they want the body back, they still got to pay."
"I hadn’t thought of that. Hey, I take after daddy. I think a little."
"Yeah, he was a good thinker all right. He wasn’t thinking so good the night they cut his balls off."
"Well, he let the drink get ahead of him. Said some things to those Mexes when he thought he had a gun."
"I’d like to seen his face when he reached for it and didn’t find nothing."
"Yeah, that would have been something. He’s up there looking down on things now, I bet he’d think what happened to him was funny."
"I can just see the way his mouth used to do. You remember." (Mimics)... "But you’re right. A nigger dead ought to be worth as much as one alive."
"Don’t ask me what I’d pay. They ask me to pay for him he’d be a nigger in a ditch somewhere. I wouldn’t give you five cents for his pecker to feed my dog with."
QUACK
The thunder pulled Pete out of sleep. He rolled over in bed and looked out the window. Great bolts of lightning stitched the sky. The rain pounded on the roof like nuts and bolts.
He made a mental note that tomorrow he would move his bed to the far wall, away from the window. Mildred was the one who had wanted it here, and that no longer mattered. He could do as he pleased now. Being this close to the glass was too creepy, always had been for him.
Thunder boomed and caused Pete to jump. Lightning, bright as mid-day, lit up his yard, the street and his neighbor’s garage, which was directly across from his drive. His stupid neighbor had forgotten to close his garage up again. In that flash he had been able to see their station wagon and their kid’s toys strung out on their drive. Dumb kid never remembered to put up anything. And with them being uphill, and him living on an incline, about half the time it rained, the kid’s junk washed up in his yard. He told himself that next time it happened, he was going to burn the stuff.
"Damn," Pete muttered. If there was one thing he needed right now it was sleep. It had been one hell of a day. Work had been lousy. The board had rejected his idea after he had invested six months of hard work on it, and then he came home to Mildred’s goodbye note. He had been expecting her to run off with their dentist ever since she had come back from having her teeth capped with more than a proud smile on her face. That did not concern him. He was glad to be rid of her. The fact that she had left before fixing dinner did concern him. He had been forced to eat out at a pizza joint, one of those quickie-service places, and that damn pepperoni had been wrestling with him every since.
And now this. A storm complete with bass drums and light show. Grumbling, Pete rolled out of bed, went to the bathroom to fix himself a seltzer for his stomach. When he went back to bed he saw a peculiar thing. So peculiar he shook his head to see if he were dreaming. No. He was wide awake.
On the tail of a lightning flash, Pete felt certain that he had seen something fall from the sky and land in his yard. It looked as if it had hit at the tip of his drive, just off the cement and on the grass, but he couldn’t make it out.
Lightning flashed again, and Pete was positive that the object was closer now, perhaps a couple of feet. And it looked to be bigger than he remembered. But the flash was so brief he could not make it out.
He climbed back into bed, put his face to the window and watched for a long time, but he could see nothing, the rain had grown so thick.
Just getting jumpy, he decided. What with a day like this one, and then that pizza, it was no wonder he was imagining things. He hoped Mildred’s caps fell off her teeth.
Pete pulled the covers up around his neck, and at that moment the lightning flashed. Out of the corner of his eye he felt certain he had seen something, movement, and the object was considerably bigger now. Maybe a foot long and half a foot wide.
He was reminded of a science fiction film he had once seen, Invaders from Mars. A kid had seen a space ship fall from the sky one night and land in a sandlot in back of his house. Of course no one believed him, and one by one, the aliens turned his family into zombies.
Lightning again, and Pete saw it this time, recognized it. A wave of relief washed through him. Halfway between his neighbor’s house and his own was a large ru
bber duck. The biggest he had ever seen, but nonetheless, a rubber duck.
It was clear to him now. The neighbor’s kid had left the duck out with his other toys and the water had washed it into his yard. That was why it had seemed larger with each lightning flash. Optical illusion. It was slowly sliding down the incline, getting closer, and since lightning can play tricks on the senses, it only seemed to be growing. It was merely getting closer at a faster rate than he had realized.
The lightning flashed again.
Pete blinked. The duck was very big now, too damned big to be any optical illusion. It was less than a yard away from his window.
It was some kind of trick, had to be. Someone had inflated a huge rubber duck and . . .
Lightning flashed again.
The duck’s rubbery bill punched through the glass not less than an inch from Pete’s face. Fragments of glass flew every which way. Pete opened his mouth, froze. He could not move. The duck was as big as a cow.
"Quack," it said, revealing dagger-size teeth in its otherwise duck-like countenance.
And then it grabbed Pete by the head, pulling him through the window before he had time to scream or see the other rubber-like ducks falling from the sky, growing rapidly as they touched ground.
THE SHADOWS, KITH AND KIN
"…and the soul, resenting its lot, flies groaningly to the shades."
The Aeneid, by Virgil
There are no leaves left on the trees, and the limbs are weighted with ice and bending low. Many of them have broken and fallen across the drive. Beyond the drive, down where it and the road meet, where the bar ditch is, there is a brown, savage run of water.
It is early afternoon, but already it is growing dark, and the fifth week of the storm raves on. I have never seen such a storm of wind and ice and rain, not here in the South, and only once before have I been in a cold storm bad enough to force me to lock myself tight in my home.