(2005) Wrapped in Rain (37 page)

"No." Mutt shook his head. "Gibby said I'm clinically-"

I fell back against the rock. "That's not what I meant." Mutt sat motionless, but his eyes darted about the quarry. He was trying to make sense of me and waiting for the next blow. I dried my face and tried to ask a question he could answer. I knelt next to him and held his cheek firmly but softly in the palm of my hand. "Mutt, what were you doing before I dove in the water?"

His eyes darted from corner to corner while his head remained still. "I was swimming around the bottom, tied to a hundred and forty pounds of weights and breathing through that hose while sifting the sand with this flour sifter."

"Okay." I paused. "But what was going on in your head? Why had you gone to all this trouble?"

"I was trying to find a nickel I lost here."

"When did you lose it?"

Mutt scratched his head. "The day we sunk the jolly Roger."

"And you thought you could find it down there?"

Mutt looked around as if the answer was obvious and I was the crazy one. "Um ... yes. See, the day we sunk the Jolly Roger, I had a buffalo nickel in my pocket. And I think it must have come out down there because I've looked everyplace else." He pointed beneath the surface. "It was down there somewhere."

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a quarter. "If you need money, all you've got to do is say so."

Mutt shook his head. "No, I was looking for a particular one."

"Why is that particular nickel so all-fired important to you?"

"Because"-Mutt looked at me like it all made perfect sense-"if I found it, if I could put it back in my pocket, then maybe that day never ended. Maybe I could go back there and start again. Pick up where I left off. Maybe ..."

Katie stood on the ledge above us, her arm wrapped around Jase. Mutt looked at me with no inkling that he had just taken ten years off my life and brought me two seconds from coronary arrest. I climbed out of the quarry, squished back to the house, and stood under the hot shower until the water ran cool.

The time to call Gibby had come, and I knew it. I had found the root, but no amount of digging would ever uproot it, because the taproot had already split the rock.

KATIE CREPT DOWN THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE INTO THE basement and shook my shoulder at 3:00 a.m., but she didn't need to wake me. I wasn't asleep. "Tucker," she whispered. "Tuck, I need to talk to you, to tell you something." Her lips were close; I felt her breath on my face, and the smell of lavender wrapped its arms around me. The basement was cold and dark, and she was barefoot. She held a single candle in her hand and was wearing silk pajamas that did little to conceal the fact that she was cold. "I haven't been entirely truthful. There's more to the story." She slipped her hand beneath mine, pressed it firmly to her stomach, and clenched it tightly as if she was afraid I'd escape. "When Ave went to Colorado .. . Trevor and I ... we tried to start over. I'm not sure"-tears welled in the corners of her eyes-"but I think ... I'm pregnant." She stood and turned to go. "I'm sorry." Katie walked out as silently as she had walked in, the sound of sliding silk climbing the stairs and silently fading away.

Tucker?

What could you possibly want right now?

To bring something to your attention.

I think I've had enough brought to my attention in the last twenty four hours. You ever heard of not piling on?

Child, I just want you to remember one thing.

Yes ma'am?

I spent half my life taking care of two bastard children.

I CLIMBED THE STEPS TO THE GUN CLOSET, GRABBED THE same field-grade Greener, and broke open a box of shells. I slid two number fives in the chamber and brought the rest of the box with me just in case. I went to Rex's room first and took aim at his portrait above the mantel. I squeezed, blew his head off the canvas, and then turned on his bed where he slept. The steel shot landed in the center of the bed and sent feathers floating about the room. Next I aimed at the desk and blew the roll top completely off. Finally, I turned on his dresser, where he emptied his pockets and set down his glass.

Having killed Rex's room, I threw the Greener on the bed and climbed back down the stairs to the kitchen, where Katie ran in, white as a sheet. She saw me, stepped aside, and I climbed downstairs, studying the wine cellar. At the perfectly good, perfectly expensive, perfectly useless wine cellar. I picked my thirty-four-inch Louisville Slugger off the wall and cocked it in the slot above my shoulder. Placing Rex in my mind, I swung. Wine, dust, balsam wood, and glass exploded, painting the walls in six different decades of grape red. I reloaded, stepped to the side, and swung again. I swung until every inch of the walls dripped red. I had reduced the balsam frame to toothpicks, and wine trickled down the drain in the floor and echoed through the pipes. I sat down, sticky with wine and covered in glass shards, and felt the spasm climb down my leg.

That's when the sound reached me.

Notes from Rex's grand. They filtered down through the house and lifted me out of the cellar. I walked into the den looking like I'd been shot with grape puree and found Katie sitting at the piano, singing through her fingertips. I don't know who or what she was playing, but next to Miss Ella's voice, it was the most beautiful sound to ever fill our house. Mutt walked in holding a funny-looking wrench, lifted the lid of the piano, and leaned in, listening. Every few seconds, he'd reach across the strings and tighten or loosen one just as calmly as if he were adjusting a carburetor. Mutt sat next to Katie on the bench and watched her fingers dance atop the keys. I set the bat in the corner, sat on the floor, and picked the glass from my hair, tasting the bitter wine on my lips. It stung the cuts on my face, and its acrid taste burned my throat.

Katie played until the first hint of morning lit the window. I don't know how many pieces. Maybe a hundred. All from memory. Every few moments Mutt would stand, walk around the piano, tinker with a string, and then sit back down next to Katie. He in his striped polyester suit, her in silk pajamas, and me in grapes, glass, balsam splinters, bitterness, and beauty.

MIDMORNING, I STOOD WITH WET HAIR, WRAPPED IN A towel, and pouring a cup of coffee when Mutt walked through the kitchen carrying a chain saw in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other. Yes, he piqued my curiosity, but given the last twenty-four hours, anything was possible.

"Good morning," I said, but Mutt was gone. Entrenched in his own world, he had checked out and didn't acknowledge me. His face was pointed out over his plodding feet like a man walking a very big dog. I walked downstairs and began dressing when I heard the first crash.

To be honest, I didn't care if he destroyed the entire house. Any change would be an improvement. I will say, though, that I climbed the stairs hoping Mutt was being constructive with his destruction rather than just plain destructive.

I nursed my coffee and watched from the door while Mutt struggled to shove Rex's dresser through the window. He pushed it onto the ledge, slid it halfway through, and with a single finger, tipped it out the window and watched it fall, crashing into a dozen pieces onto the marble and granite porch below. He pulled his safety glasses over his eyes, cranked the chain saw, cut Rex's bed in two, and sent it to a violent and glorious granite death. Next, he hip-tossed the remains of the rolltop desk through the window and followed it with a Frisbee throw of the now faceless portrait hanging above the mantel. He dislodged the mantel with one strong whack from the sledgehammer, ripped the bedroom door off its hinges, and flung both onto the pile below. Having emptied the room, Mutt picked up his tools, nodded at me, walked outside, and began piling up the splintered furniture on a little section of grass at the foot of the porch. Glue sauntered across the pasture and stuck his head over the fence with curiosity. As did Jase and Katie, who were sitting on the porch by then, watching and listening to the fireworks. Mose mucked Glue's stall with a look on his face that told me he'd been expecting this. It also told me he was enjoying it.

Mutt turned the barn inside out looking for kerosene but found none.

I raised a finger. "I've got just the thing." I fetched Whitey's two jugs from beneath my bed, and Mutt emptied both onto the pile. "You'd better stand back," I said to Jase and Katie. He threw on a match, the white lightning sparked, and flame erupted and climbed twenty feet into the air, sending a black plume upward as it burned off the glue and fabric.

Mutt walked into the kitchen, washed his hands, grabbed a box of popsicles from the freezer, pulled out a banana-flavored one, and peeled off the paper. With half the popsicle sticking out of his mouth, he offered the box to me. I lifted my coffee cup and shook my head. He pointed the end of his popsicle at me and said, "I don't understand why anyone would eat any flavor other than banana." We watched as the flames licked the bottom of Rex's portrait. It wrinkled like Saran Wrap on a hot stove, balled up, turned black, and then disintegrated into ashes.

Mutt polished off his popsicle, threw the stick at the fire, and began relieving the rest of the house of furniture he didn't like. It didn't take me long to gather that if he had a negative memory associated with that particular piece of furniture, it found itself in the fire. Three dining room chairs, several rows of books, two sets of fireplace pokers, half a dozen lamps, two bar stools, pretty much the entire bar, two sofas, three large chairs, several end tables, a globe, all of Rex's clothing, shoes, or anything he had ever worn, a small oriental rug, the carpet out of one of the bathrooms, five or six paintings, a bathroom sink, every picture of Rex he could find, the dining room table which came out in pieces, most if not all of the curtains, a ceiling fan, several seat cushions, all of the bedding, and finally, the Greener. He carried the Greener down the steps and looked at me. I nodded and he threw the fivethousand-dollar shotgun atop the pile.

It was a warm fire. Expensive, but comforting. Mose walked out of the barn with a pitchfork in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He leaned against the fence, smiled, and raised his cup at me. Katie walked off the porch and said, "Tuck, aren't you going to stop him?"

.Why?„

"Well"-she waved her hand across the house"couldn't you two do something good with all this?"

"Like what?"

"Sell it."

"Yeah, but the money we earned wouldn't buy as much therapy as that fire. I'm thinking about grabbing some marshmallows, a few Hershey bars, and pulling up a chair."

While the flames grew hotter and higher, I sat down, crossed my legs, and basked in the glow. Jase ran off the front porch, jumped on my lap, and said, "Unca Tuck, do you think Unca Mutt would like to drink some beer with us?"

Our therapy burned on for several hours, but the plastic box in my pocket and Mutt's quick disappearance reminded me that the inevitable was coming. Maybe this was the calm before the storm. What would he do after the fire died? Late in the afternoon, I dialed the number. It rang once. "Gibby, this is Tucker."

"Tucker, good to hear you. How is he?"

"That depends. Some days, I see progress. Others, I see digression. But ..."

"Tucker, what is it?"

"I think I found the root."

"How do you know?"

"It's a long story, but you remember him telling you about that dream where he was caught under a desk or table and unable to help someone in need?"

"Clearly."

"Well, that actually happened. About fifteen years ago. We were both there and I didn't know it until last night. I'm ... I'm at a loss. When I look at him, I think he could both slowly improve and spontaneously combust."

"Christmas is day after tomorrow. I'll overnight a different medication that should arrive on the twenty-sixth. In three days. Think you can make it that far?"

I had lost track. I had no idea it was the eve of Christmas Eve. "I think so. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know if his fuse is burning fast, slow, or not at all."

"Have you used the injections? The Thorazine?"

"No, not yet."

"Keep them close. If he's half as bad as you say, that may he your only salvation."

Gibby was right, but now I had two problems-Mutt, and what to get Katie and Jase for Christmas.

GROWING UP, MOST OF MY FRIENDS DREAMED ABOUT fighting fires, shooting the bad guys, hitting the winning home run, saving the girl, or even getting kissed. My dreams had nothing to do with firemen, cops and robbers, girls, or playing first base for the Atlanta Bravesthat all came later. My first dreams, at least as much as I can remember of them, revolved around Rex coming home early from work, putting down his briefcase, picking up a glove rather than his glass, and throwing me the ball. And if he could have done all that without screaming and hitting me, well then, all the better.

I daydreamed that Rex would step out of his black Lincoln or Mercedes, wearing his white, starched, Frenchcuffed, embroidered, Egyptian cotton shirt, sweaty and stuck to his back, his tie swinging side to side with every toss, smiling and offering a slow, steady stream of encouragement. "That's right, keep the elbow up. Point, step, and throw. And hit the target. Throw through the mitt." Rex could have told me that I was the most important kid in the world by hurrying home during a summer deluge, tossing me my glove, and saying, "Hurry, before it lets up." When it didn't happen, I threw the ball to myself, pretended, and made excuses for his absence. It didn't take me long to run out of excuses.