(2007) Chasing Fireflies - A Novel of Discovery (16 page)

We eased off the bridge, through Arnette Field, around the Turpentine Shack-an old shack where they used to sleep while working the turpentine trees, down past the picnic grounds, and finally through Gibson Island, across the canal, and around the back pasture of the house and barn. Unc's Brahman cows were milling around our end of the pasture, and in the distance I heard Aunt Lorna's peacocks raising a ruckus.

Mandy, who'd been silent a long time, said, "Is that a peacock?"

"Yeah, my Aunt Lorna thinks they're pretty."

"I thought those things only lived in zoos."

I drove into the clearing, the house in view, and smiled. "Welcome to McFarland's Zoo."

"Please tell me it's okay for us to be here. I don't feel like getting shot today."

I laughed. "Unc and Aunt Lorna live there." I pointed at the barn where the light was on and the window unit was running, dripping water on the roofline below. "And that's my second home. I stay here when I'm too tired to drive out to my boat or just feel like hanging out."

Two hundred yards down the road, Bob the Turkey strutted into the middle of the road, fanned his tail feathers, walked a big, bragging circle around a peacock, and then hopped up on the fence rail and clucked.

Mandy watched in amusement, then waved her hand across the landscape. "You all got any elephants or giraffes?"

"Not yet, but I wouldn't put it past Uncle Willee."

The sun was going down, my nose told me that Aunt Lorna was cooking pot roast, and lunch had been a long time ago. "You hungry?" I asked.

"I can eat."

"You eat meat?"

She smiled. "Yeah, when it's dead."

We walked into the kitchen where Aunt Lorna, wearing an apron, was standing over the stove stirring mashed potatoes. She came around the counter, wiping her hands on a towel, and I introduced them.

"Aunt Lorna, this is Mandy Parker. She's with the district attorney."

Aunt Lorna nodded. "Liam was telling me about you."

Mandy looked confused. "Liam?"

"Sorry." She pointed out the door at Unc, who was just then walking up the back porch. "Willee."

Unc walked in, hung his hat on a hook next to the back door, kissed Aunt Lorna, and shook Mandy's hand. "Ms. Parker. Good to see you. You hungry?"

Mandy nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

I set the table while Unc washed up and combed his hair. About the time we sat down at the table, Tommye walked in the back door. She had showered, dressed in jeans and running shoes, and looked like she was going somewhere. She waved her hand across the room. "Hi, everybody."

Unc stood up and kissed her on the cheek. "Hey, sweetheart." He placed his palm to her cheek and then sat back down.

"Tommye," I said, "this is Mandy Parker."

Tommye extended her hand. "Tommye McFarland."

Aunt Lorna stood up and began fixing another plate, but Tommye stopped her. "No, thanks, I'm not all that hungry. I'm just stopping in to ask-" She noticed the lemon pie on the cake stand on the counter. "But I'd love a bite of that." She lifted the glass top and cut a thin slice of pie. "Ouch."

Tommye had nicked her finger, and blood dripped off onto the counter. I grabbed a paper towel and was reaching out to mop it up when Tommye's other hand grabbed mine with conviction.

"I got it." She wrapped her finger in the paper towel and stopped the bleeding.

I reached in Lorna's junk drawer and pulled out a box of BandAids. I peeled the sticky end off one, and again Tommye's hand took it from me.

She smiled and tried to speak beneath the dinner table conversation. "Really, I got it."

I brushed her off. "Get lost. I can put a Band-Aid on a finger."

She smiled and held the bleeding finger behind her back. "Eat your dinner."

Mandy spoke from across the table. "Tommye, did you grow up knowing Chase?"

Busy with her finger, Tommye nodded. "Yeah, he was my date to the senior prom." She laughed. "He was pitiful. I felt sorry for him 'cause the guy couldn't get a date no matter how much he begged."

Mandy laughed, and I threw my napkin across the kitchen. "You can fix your own finger."

"You live around here?" Mandy continued.

Tommye finished cleaning the countertop and sat down at the table with her pie. "Sort of. At the moment, I live above the barn. I'm just home for a little while."

Mandy was just looking for conversation, but I could feel it coming.

"Do you work around here?"

Tommye opened her mouth, but I interrupted. "She's an actress."

Mandy's eyes grew wide. "No kidding?"

Tommye nodded. "Yes, but-"

I broke in again. "She's been in L.A. about ten years and came home for a much-needed vacation."

"You been in anything I've seen?"

Tommye shook her head. "I doubt it. Early in my career, I made a few commercials, shot some underwear ads, but for the last eight years, I've been working in the adult film business."

Mandy's head tilted sideways while the words adult film business looked for a landing inside her brain. "Oh."

Tommye smiled. "When I was a kid, Uncle Willee and Aunt Lorna took me in and gave me my own room." She looked around the house. "So when I decided to come home, this is where my heart led me."

Unc smiled and nodded.

Mandy looked at Unc. "You've done that for a lot of kids."

Unc stirred his mashed potatoes around his plate and then looked up. "Years ago, I lost a son. He was kidnapped and ... killed. Prison gave me a lot of time to think about that boy, being scared and wishing his father would show up and rescue him." Unc's eyes glassed over. "So when I got out, I decided-we decided-that we'd just open our house to kids, no matter their background or condition. We read an article about him"-he pointed at me-"about him getting older, passed over. And try as we may, we just can't get rid of him."

"Thanks. You can do the dishes by yourself."

Tommye tapped me on the knee and whispered, "Hey, can I borrow Vicky for about an hour?"

"Sure."

She said good night to the others, and we walked out onto the drive where night had fallen and the moon had replaced the sun. I grabbed Mandy's leather briefcase and my notepad from the backseat.

Tommye hooked her arm inside mine and whispered in my ear, "She's pretty."

I turned. "She's with the D.A. She's been assigned to this kid I'm writing about. And she probably carries a gun in this bag."

"And she's pretty."

I shook my head and pointed at the clutch. "She's gotten a little sloppy, so be easy."

She nodded, did that ponytail-rubber-band-flip-thing with her hand and hair, and then eased off down the driveway and out onto the hard road. I watched the taillights disappear and walked slowly back into the kitchen.

Mandy was standing over the sink, an apron tied around her waist and her arms covered in soapsuds. Unc was sitting at the table sipping his coffee. He looked at me and nodded at Mandy. "Hey, Chase, you can have her back anytime."

Mandy rinsed a plate and slid it into the dish drainer. "Well ... if Judge Thaxton gives us a favorable decision, that could be tomorrow afternoon."

Unc let me borrow Sally, and I drove Mandy home. She sat in the front seat, looked around, and said, "I thought my first ride in one of these would be my last."

"Well-" I aimed toward a tree, swerved into the grass, then corrected back onto the drive. "You haven't seen me drive yet."

"Does he really drive this thing?"

"Yeah ... this is Uncle Willee's way of laughing."

"At what?"

"His past, mostly. He quit caring what the world thought about him a long time ago."

two blocks off Main, down near the docks, the shrimp boats, and the seagulls who dine there, sits Kilroy's-an old militaria store that caters mostly to tourists. Half museum and half retail, the entire place is decked out like a World War II headquarters complete with Willys Jeeps, a Sherman tank, ham radios, and leafy, netted camouflage draping hanging down from the ceiling. They sell everything from hard to find surplus like flak jackets, empty mortar casings, and German wool clothing to full sets of armor for knights and their horses. In addition, they sell miniature collectibles. I saw what I wanted in the window, so I stopped in, bought the display, and then drove out to see Sketch.

His room was empty when I got there. I heard some boys playing and screaming out beyond the building, so I set the package on the bed and walked toward the double doors that led outside.

The janitor saw me and said, "He ain't out there." He leaned on his mop and pointed toward the cafeteria. "That boy ... the one that don't talk ... he ain't real social."

I waved, said "Thanks," picked up my brown paper package, and walked down the hallway to the cafeteria. Sketch sat alone at a table. He was still wearing Uncle Willee's Braves hat and was putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It was one of those puzzles with five thousand pieces, each one smaller than a quarter.

I set the box on the table, sat down across from him, and smiled when he looked up. He eyed the box and then me. "Go ahead," I said.

He set down the puzzle piece in his hand and studied the package. He slid his finger under one piece of tape, then another, and slowly unwrapped the paper. When he pulled off the bubble wrap, exposing the box, he looked at it, then at me, then back at the box. He flipped open the clasp that locked the lid, slowly lifted it, and his eyes grew wide when the fluorescent light from above began glistening off the pewter pieces.

Slowly he pulled each piece out, examining the detail. First something that looked like a castle tower, then something with a horse's head, and then two pieces that must have been the king and queen. He shut the lid, grabbed a paper towel from the wall above the water fountain, and wiped off each piece. Then he set the pieces in their proper places atop the board and looked at me.

I shrugged. "I've never played this ... ever."

He raised one eyebrow, reached across the board, and moved a pawn one space toward me. That done, he pulled his feet underneath his butt, raising him up higher, then reached again and slid my outside pawn one space toward his. When he'd done that he looked at me, then back at the board. I caught on, copying his moves, making a few of my own, and as a result, he had me at checkmate in about three minutes. When his rook captured my king, he placed it on the table in front of him and raised both eyebrows twice. I looked at his side of the table, decorated with most of my pieces, and said, "You're a good teacher."

He flipped open his notebook, wrote without looking, and slid the paper toward me. You STINK.

I laughed. "Thanks."

It was quiet in the cafeteria. I saw some women busy in the kitchen, but for the most part we were alone. The kid was competitive-he liked winning, but he'd also grown comfortable with me.

After he'd captured my king for the fifth time, I asked, "How's your back feel?"

On the table in front of me lay one of his few pawns that I'd captured. He reached across, stood it up, set it in front of me, and crossed his arms. I had learned that while his mouth didn't work, he could talk just fine. Knowing what he said meant learning how to listen.

"Can I ask you something?"

He shrugged.

I looked around the room. "You like it here?"

He looked at me like I was from Mars.

"Okay, bad question." I paused, gauging my words. "If you could leave here and go to a foster home, would you?"

Again he wrote without looking, using his left hand as a straightedge guide for his right. He turned the paper toward me. THAT DEPENDS.

"On what?"

He wrote while looking over his shoulder. ON WHO'S DOING THE FOSTERING.

The kid was smart. "You remember my Uncle Willee?"

He tipped his hat at me.

"What if Uncle Willee took you to his house, just until they try and find out where you live and who you belong to?"

He pointed at me.

I nodded and said, "I don't live there anymore, but I'm around a good bit. I think they're gonna put you in my old room."

He looked at the chessboard and pointed.

I smiled. "It's yours. It goes where you go."

He wiped each piece again, placed them back into their fitted forms inside the box, locked the lid, and placed both it and his notebook under his arm like a stack of books. As we sat waiting on each other to speak, the only sound was his heels tapping like machine guns underneath the table.

sat on the bow of my boat looking out across the marsh. My boat had at one time been a seaworthy vessel, but after the shootout that nearly sank it, it needed more money than I had to get her back on the ocean. Automatic gunfire has a way of bursting more than just your bubble. This did not mean she couldn't putter up and down the inland waterways or float in one place for a guy who wanted to sleep in her. She floated just fine.