Alabama Moon (20 page)

“What're you doin'!” I yelled.

“Muddin'!”

There was a long strip of mud in the middle of the clay pit that we hit next, and a wall of rust-colored water shot up over us. The truck slowed and Hal gritted his teeth and floored it again. Clumps of mud clopped against the truck and covered us inch by inch until we could only see through what the windshield wipers scraped clean.

“Daddy made some heavy-duty wipers for us,” Hal yelled. I was so excited I couldn't answer. I gripped the seat and held on. The tires slowly caught the ground, and the wall of water fell, and I saw we were still headed straight for the high clay wall of the opposite side. Just as I was about to ball up for the crash, Hal yelled, “Hold on!” and whipped the steering wheel with one hand. We slid sideways for about thirty feet until we slammed into the clay bank. I saw cans and buckets and trash bags fly into the air through the rear window. Hal grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and I saw his knuckles go white. “Hammer down!” he shouted and jabbed his right foot to the floor.

We scraped the side of the bank for a few yards and then tore away from it.

“You're crazy!” I yelled.

“Fun, wasn't it?”

“You're gonna bend up your truck!”

“Daddy don't need no Sunday car.”

“Well then, let's go again.”

Hal's eyes twinkled and he straightened his right leg, and we tore off for the other side. The bloodhounds had almost caught up with us and made a wide circle to give chase again. They were so covered with clay mud all you could see were their eyes, like they'd been dipped in tomato juice.

We made three runs through the clay pit before Hal said we were low on gas. We drove back up to the trailer and washed the dogs and truck down with a hose. The afternoon was growing late and my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. After Hal finished washing everything, he gathered up the hose and threw it under the porch. “What you think about that?”

“Most fun I ever had,” I said.

Hal nodded and ripped one of the garbage bags from a window. “You ain't the only one that knows about stuff.”

“What else you got?”

“We'll get Daddy up. He's got a machine gun from Vietnam we can shoot those bottles with.”

“Machine gun!”

“Yeah. Real one.”

“Let's go get him, then!”

Hal woke his daddy while I waited outside. Mr. Mitchell came out in his underwear with the machine gun Hal told me about. He had scars across his stomach and tattoos on his shoulder. His underwear was split and so thin that it was little more than yellowed cheesecloth.

Hal went around to the back of the trailer and got some
empty bottles from a trash pile and stood them at the edge of the clay pit. I sat beside Mr. Mitchell on the porch and watched him load his gun. I had heard and read about machine guns, but I'd never seen one.

“Where can you get one of those?”

Mr. Mitchell rubbed his eyes like he was still tired. He scratched under his arms and took a while before he answered me. “You just kinda ask around.”

“Pretty loud?”

Mr. Mitchell nodded. “Yep. Especially for a man with a headache.”

Hal came back and stood behind us on the porch. Mr. Mitchell looked at us. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I said.

Mr. Mitchell jerked the machine gun up to his shoulders, and I slammed my hands over my ears as it shot fire from its barrel. All of the bottles seemed to blow apart at once and rain down into the clay pit as he swept the barrel once right and then once left. I was so excited my ears started to itch. I let my hands down and yelled out, “Wahooo!”

Hal ran around the back of the trailer, and I heard him picking through the trash pile for more bottles. Mr. Mitchell laid the gun across his legs and looked over at me. “Wanna try it?”

“Heck, yeah!”

After Hal set up the new bottles and returned, I took the gun from Mr. Mitchell and brought it to my shoulders. I lined up the iron sights and put my cheek against the stock. “Now?” I asked.

“Make 'em pay, Moon.”

I squeezed back on the trigger and the gun exploded. I let off the trigger and watched the one bottle I'd aimed for fall away into the clay pit. Mr. Mitchell told me to move my barrel along the line of bottles when I pulled the trigger and I could get them all. I sucked in my breath, took aim, and turned every bottle in the line to glass splinters.

“You a damn good shot, boy.”

“I told you he would be,” Hal said.

When it was his turn, Hal walked to the edge of the pit and fired the gun from his hip at the far side. Puffs of dust spit from the clay bank. Before he was done, a giant wall of dirt fell away and slid to the bottom.

It was well after dark when Hal and I stopped shooting. Mr. Mitchell had made a seat for himself on the tailgate of the truck and drank whiskey and scratched and chuckled at us. “You boys would have been hell in 'Nam,” he said. “I reckon you two gonna be icin' them shoulders tonight.”

Hal made hamburgers for supper, and I'd never tasted anything better. I ate two before I sat on the sofa and held my stomach. Mr. Mitchell watched me. “Touch easier than killin' your own food, ain't it?”

“Yessir,” I said.

“Don't hurt yourself over it. You gonna blow up, you don't slow down a little bit.”

“He always eats too much when you give him regular food.”

Mr. Mitchell played country music on his record player and lay back in a big chair across from me. He took a pouch of tobacco from a table beside him and stuffed some in his cheek. Hal sat on the kitchen counter and pulled his shirt off. He licked his finger and began to clean his belly button.

“What's today?” I asked.

“Saturday,” Hal replied.

“You get a lot of people comin' by here to get dirt?”

Mr. Mitchell spit in an empty whiskey bottle beside him. “Sometimes,” he said. “Depends on what they got goin' on construction-wise.”

“I'll bet you can make a bunch of money sellin' dirt. You don't ever run out, do you?”

Mr. Mitchell seemed to think for a few seconds. “Guess you don't.”

“We gonna go see Kit, Hal?”

“How we gonna do that? They catch me or you both, they gonna take us away.”

“We could sneak into the hospital.”

“He's prob'ly not feelin' better yet.”

“Well, I hope he doesn't think I forgot about him. Hope he doesn't think I'm mad at him.”

“I told you we'd call him in a few days.”

“You think he'll still wanna go to Alaska”

“Moon, what you gonna go to Alaska for?” Mr. Mitchell asked me.

I was about to tell him what Pap had told me, but I didn't. It didn't seem right anymore. “I've just been plannin' on goin' there for a while. I told Kit I'd take him.”

“You'd freeze up there.”

“I don't really care where we go. I just don't wanna go by myself.”

“I'd rather live out there in that clay pit than Alaska,” Mr. Mitchell said.

“Clay pits don't bother me.”

“Any place you don't wanna live?”

“Pinson. Jail. Most anyplace where you get locked up. It makes my insides tighten up like somebody poured bad water down my throat.”

The wiener dog jumped into my lap, and Mr. Mitchell watched it. He spit into the bottle again and said, “I'll bet you Sanders's momma raised hell on him for losin' that dog.”

“I'll bet he got lost lookin'.”

“For you or for the dog?”

We lay in Hal's room that night with the window open because the weather was pleasant. The wiener dog nosed under the blanket with me and lay throbbing against my side. I trained my ears to listen for the night sounds, but all I heard was the rustling of pecan trees.

“What else do you have around here?”

“Got a chainsaw. Bet you ain't never used one of them.”

“Let's go get it.”

“Not now.”

“Is it loud?”

“Yeah.”

“Loud as that machine gun?”

“No.”

“Bet you don't have many wild animals around here with all that shootin'.”

“Daddy don't shoot it much. Just when he's got company.”

“You're lucky,” I said.

“I know.”

“I could ride in clay pits and shoot machine guns and eat hamburgers for a long time before I'd get tired of it.”

“Yeah. And it's good to be back with Daddy again.”

“Yeah,” I replied. One of the bloodhounds moaned outside the window. “Hal?”

“What?”

“I don't miss my pap as much anymore.”

“How come?”

“I don't know. You think that's bad?”

“No.”

“I think he might have been wrong about a lot of things.”

“About wantin' you to live out there in the forest?”

“I like livin' in the forest. I don't know where else I'd live, but I don't wanna be by myself. We were always by ourselves. We didn't ever see anybody except Mr. Abroscotto.”

“Why don't you stop thinkin' about everything so much?”

“You reckon Kit's all right?”

“He's fine.”

“You know how he hates those hospitals.”

“I'm sure he hates dead a lot more.”

“You know, my pap didn't seem like he cared if he died. I don't wanna die for a long time.”

“Moon, I'm tired.”

“I'm not. This is the best bed I've ever slept in, but I'm not tired. Stay up and talk to me.”

“Tell you what. Let's go to sleep and I'll show you that chainsaw tomorrow.”

“That sounds good to me. I'll stop talkin' now.”

 

The next morning, I lay in bed an hour before daylight watching Hal's eyes and waiting for them to open. He was still asleep when the sun slipped over the trees, and I felt that I couldn't lie there much longer. I saw the lump of the wiener dog near his stomach. I picked a toothpick off the floor and tossed it at the lump. The dog rose under the covers and stuck her head out and looked around. Hal opened his eyes and stared at me. “What are you lookin' at?”

“Waitin' for you to get up.”

“What time is it?”

“Thirty minutes after daylight.”

Hal moaned and rolled over.

“We're gonna do the chainsaw today,” I reminded him.

“Why don't you go outside and help Daddy while I sleep.”

“He up?”

“Yeah. He's prob'ly out in the clay pit.”

The wiener dog watched me for a few more seconds and then sighed and nosed her way back under the blanket. I pulled on my clothes and left to find Mr. Mitchell.

I walked down the road to the clay pit as the sun rose over the pines, which were powdered orange thirty feet up from the clay dust. A hawk soared overhead and a rabbit darted into the brush at the edge of the road. I hadn't gone far when I heard the clanking of someone working on a piece of equipment. I rounded a bend in the road and saw Mr. Mitchell
leaning under the hood of a front-end loader. He wore greasy khaki trousers and was barefoot and shirtless. I walked up behind him and watched him for a few seconds. “Hey,” I said.

Mr. Mitchell jumped up and bonged his head on the underside of the hood.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” I said. “I can sneak up on just about anything without even meanin' to.”

He climbed down from where he stood on the loader shovel, sat on the ground, and held the top of his head with both hands. I watched him rock back and forth, taking deep breaths. Finally, he looked up at me. “Damn, Moon,” he said.

“You need some help?”

He took one hand from the top of his head and studied it, then pushed himself up to stand again. He winced and went to lean against the front-end loader. “All right,” he said. “Why don't you go over to that shed and get me some oil. You know what that looks like?”

“Nossir, but I can read.”

He nodded. “Good. Go get me some that says ‘400.' ”

When I returned with the oil, he was leaning under the hood again. He reached back and I climbed up and put the oil into his hand. “I've never seen an engine up close,” I said.

“You're lucky.”

“Looks like a bunch of parts.”

“It is.”

“How do you know what it all is?”

“ 'Cause I been runnin' these for close to twenty-five years.”

I nodded. “You gonna wash it?”

“Don't gotta wash this thing.”

“You gonna put some dirt in some people's trucks?”

Mr. Mitchell began pouring the oil into the engine. He looked at me while the can drained. “Maybe,” he said. “It's Sunday, so might not be anybody until tomorrow. Where's that boy of mine?”

“He's bedded down with the wiener dog.”

Mr. Mitchell spit to the side and shook his head. “You got to twitchin' in there, didn't you?”

“Yessir. I can't sleep much past daybreak unless I'm in jail where there aren't any windows.”

He looked at the oil can and shook the last of it out. He tossed it into the weeds and shut the hood. I climbed down after him and followed him to the shed, where we sat on five-gallon buckets. Mr. Mitchell pulled some chewing tobacco from his pocket and packed his cheek full. I watched him work the wad around and spit out a long line of juice. “You know what I can't figure?” he said.

I was watching the brown spit bead in the dust. I shook my head.

“Why your pappy wanted to live out in the woods like he did.”

“He hated the government.”

“What started all that business?”

“I don't know.”

“Your pappy have any friends?”

I shook my head. “Only person we ever talked to after Momma died was Mr. Abroscotto. He had the store up the road.”

“He know your pappy for a long time?”