Body and Bread (3 page)

“Why’d you do that?” I asked, not letting myself turn away. My brother had killed it, killed it just so he could show me something. I had to watch.

“Sometimes you got to do ugly things,” he said, but he didn’t look at me. Even though he was mangling the fish, I trusted him because he always took care of me.

Sam stuck his hand inside the body, tugged at the gullet casing. He ripped the intestinal sac loose with a snap. He dropped the bass, holding its insides in the air, the torn end that had once connected to the head pointing at the ground. About the size of our father’s index finger, the sac was pear-shaped and gray with threads of red membrane, muscle. It tapered into something like a tail.

Pinching what had been the bottom of the gullet, Sam squeezed, raking the casing in jerks. A larval insect with a crowd of legs popped out, landed on the ground, and thrashed its whip-shaped body back and forth, its head sprouting pincers that searched for a target. Then the sac spit out pill bugs and algae, snails, tiny clam-like animals, all dead. Alive, they’d been cramped inside what must’ve seemed like a cavernous pouch.

Sam pressed again, and shells and plants oozed free until something larger neared the opening. It was brown and had a tiny curled paw. He punched at the casing, and the dark mass fell next to the wiggling grub. This new creature had a face and white eyelids, delicate in their tiny perfection. Hair covered its limp body, and the feet touched one another, while the head curved toward the tail as if to rest there. I rubbed the fuzz around the mouse’s ears. What had it been doing in the water, and why hadn’t it chewed its way out of the fish? When a green liquid squirted from the sac onto the pile of creatures and plants, Sam tossed the limp casing to the side.

“Know what this is?” he asked as he picked up the writhing insect, allowing it to creep across his palm, fingers, back of his hand.

I giggled nervously, imagining how it would feel to swallow something alive, hoping he wouldn’t expect me to hold the thing like he’d once dared me to touch a jumping crawdad. “Uh-uh, what?” I said.

“Hellgrammite. Turns into a fly with a giant claw and only flies at night,” he whispered. “Looks a little like Granddaddy, don’t you think?”

He rested the flat of his hand on the dirt, and the insect scuttled into the grass. He flipped open one of the clam-like shells; inside laid a soft animal, cupped.

“Can you eat those?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, “let’s see,” and he scraped one loose, rubbed it onto his tongue. He chewed twice, shrugged.

“What’d it taste like?” I imagined salty flesh, slipperiness as I swallowed.

“Too little,” he said, poking at the pile of small animals and debris. His hands were child-sized but muscled, meticulous as a surgeon’s.

“Those could be you and me, Kurt and Hugh, right?”

He smiled.

“And the mouse has to be Mama,” I said.

“Nope,
that’s
you,” he said. “And these,” he pointed at the shells, “are all your babies.”

They were fluted, smaller than thumbtacks.

“I was hoping to find a young bass. They’re cannibals, you know.”

His eyes commanded an answer, so I shook my head, no. Did animals realize they were eating their own kind or did they gobble out of instinct? “Fish don’t feel stuff. I mean, they don’t hurt like us, right?”

“No, not possible,” he said. “Their brains,” he made a tiny circle with his index finger and thumb, “are no bigger’n your fingernail.” The circle’s ratio to fish body was disturbing when compared to my brain/body proportions.

He wiped his knife on his thigh, popped it closed, slid it into his pocket. “Help me pick this stuff up. We’d better get back.” He gathered bass parts in his hands.

I scooped up the fish’s head and reached for the mouse—the orange-circled eye glared from one palm, the sleeping baby curled in the other. The fuzzy hair and scales, the delicate paw and loose gills were now familiar as my own skin. From then on, I decided, I’d be as devouring as a bass, a truth scavenger.

Sam led me along the creek’s bank to a cluster of agarita bushes, and we left the animal pieces for raccoons. During our return walk, he tried to carry me at first, my body sliding down his back, my legs dangling. Near the picnic table, he tickled me and shouted for Kurt, who was climbing off the horse.

My grandfather held the reins, calling, “Okay, Sarah.” He waved. “You think you can handle this animal as good as your mama?”

“I’ll try,” I croaked. Determined to practice my new resolve, I joined him. But while I stood waiting as he bent to shorten a stirrup, yanking the strap’s buckles, an object glimmered in the grass. Leaning closer, I recognized his gold money clip, bills folded inside like handkerchiefs.

“That ought to be about right,” he said, gauging my match-up with the readjusted stirrup. I muttered, “Yes, sir,” so he moved to the other side of the horse. Casually, I edged closer. While he raised the second stirrup, I crouched, sliding the clip into my pocket. Jittery but smug, I popped my knuckles. Maybe I
was
like my mother.

Once in the saddle, my tongue-clicks and tug at the reins sent the horse trotting forward. Leaning, I loosened the reins, and the stallion cantered, his lumpy hooves whacking ground in a rhythm I controlled. A crisscross of branches and sagebrush expanded when I looked behind, so I stared ahead at patches of brown and blue. The wind pressed and whirled, while the horse, panting, waited for my command. Was Mother watching? I steered him under the train trestle, then back up the other side. His feet slid in gravel as he strained, heaving with jerking steps.

Standing, wobbly, on the ground, I scooped a handful of those stones, and in a flat area close to the tracks, I stacked them in another pyramid, twenty-four rocks in all, with my grandfather’s clipped bills in the center. The stranger could come back and find my gift, his dirty fingers smudging the gold. Maybe I’d end up riding with him to New York or Mexico, nothing but rumbles and scattered light surrounding us.

I turned toward the clearing below, looking for Sam, not finding him. Only flicks of color and constant stirring, the rest didn’t notice me:

#
1. not my grandfather as his white shirt reflected the sun;

#
2. not my father reaching into the basket of peaches;

#
3. not Kurt fishing at the creek;

#
4. not my grandmother;

#
5. not my mother bending close to the ground.

I blocked the glare then shifted my arm, concealing my view of them with my open hand.

C
HAPTER 2

S
INCE
I
MISSED
T
EREZIE
last month at my father’s funeral, I wouldn’t have recognized her but for having seen her eight years ago at my mother’s service. When she was a girl, her nonchalance had been key to seducing Sam. Now, standing on my porch in Austin, her housecoat hugging a sausage waist, this woman only hints at the sister-in-law I knew. Seeing her brings me one-step-removed from Sam.

“I wouldn’t be here unless I had a good reason,” she says. “Sam would’ve wanted me to come. I’ve never asked you for anything before, but now I need to.”

I let her in, of course, but mumble an apology that I’m meeting someone for lunch. It’s an obvious lie, rude, cruel even, but I can’t stop myself.

“As you know, I have a daughter, Cornelia.”

I don’t need to see the photo. Terezie introduced her while we stood together after my mother’s funeral. If the daughter had knocked on my door instead, I’d have known her immediately. She’s the Terezie I remember.

“She’s a good girl, uncomplicated, hard working. Ma says she’s ‘old country.’” Terezie chuckles, thinking she’s made a joke. “Thing is, she needs a kidney transplant.”

I hold up my hands. “I’m sorry, Terezie. Don’t you think you should talk to Kurt or Hugh about this?”

She licks her lips, taking back her photo. “We don’t need your kidney, if that’s what you’re thinking. Cornelia’s father’s the donor, God bless him.” She zips her bag. “But her condition’s scary. She’s got polycystic kidney disease and blood pressure so high it’s really gotten her in trouble. On top of that, she’s had a delayed autoimmune reaction. She’s on dialysis and steroids to stabilize everything, but she’s got to have the transplant at Mayo.”

“Oh, this is way out of my league.” I move toward the door, ready to usher her out. “Please, phone Kurt,” I say, tugging Terezie’s arm. “I’m sure he’ll want to help.”

“I’ve already talked to him.” She shakes me loose. “Listen, since I teach part-time and my husband has his own business, we don’t have insurance. I know how stupid that is, but who thinks something like this will happen?

“I’ve already told Hugh and Kurt everything, but they won’t give me an answer.” She winces; her jaw clamps. “Cornelia’s got to be operated on in the next six months, Sarah, or she’ll be in real trouble. If Sam were here, you know what he’d do.”

After Terezie is gone, I reach for the phone, dial Hugh’s number.

Hugh is driving over from Nugent, so I wake feeling pissy. I don’t want to talk about the farm. I love my memories of little boy Hugh, but our past is all we’ve got in common. I’ve agreed to meet with Hugh today in part because my hallucinations are coming more often. The
Mixe
shamans in southern Mexico see dreaming and waking states as the same, and although I understand this, it scares the hell out of me. I never know what will trigger one of my
episodes
, so I’m trying to hang onto whatever’s real.

At four-thirty, I dress then grade student essays, an intentional distraction. At noon, I treat myself to the gastronomic beau ideal, cinnamon toast. I fix two slices of a bran loaf I baked, as usual, on Sunday. As lunch browns, bubbling under the broiler, I put the butter away. The door closes with a suctioned click, and I think,
here
, this appliance is
now
.

The Frigidaire’s nearly empty shelves (my usual diet: bran loaf, Winesaps, camembert) are a relief, the porcelain and steel requiring no tending, the shell sturdy as a punching bag. Sometimes, deprivation can bring comfort, sanctification like the celebration of
Xīpe Totec
by the Aztec Triple Alliance. An effigy’s flayed-skin costume commemorated the body’s deterioration in a vegetable cycle of transformations. If the effigy was human, the worshipper emerged from the rotting skin after twenty days, signifying rebirth. A ghoulish ritual, to be sure, but so are enactments of Jesus’ crucifixion. In both cases, the sacrifice brings solace. This morning, of course, my little ritual is free of gruesome drama.

When the first whiff of cinnamon, East Indian yet familiar as
Pelton
, turns to the stench of scorched sugar, it seems an omen. My brother, the farm sale papers tucked under his arm, might make fun of my unconventional life. But Terezie’s poor child needs emergency surgery. I stack my charred toast on a fluted Royal Dalton and carry it with a matching cup of hazelnut espresso to my captain’s chair, but the third mouthful gets me. I’ve bitten my tongue, and like most mature women at such moments, I have a tantrum. After that, I work on my book.

I write for an hour about the metaphysics and social hierarchies of the
Mexihca
. For another hour, I write about
īxīptla
: richly dressed and accoutered stone images, elaborately constructed seed-dough figures, ecstatic priests in divine costumes, captives prepared for sacrifice. Rituals transformed these into vehicles for
teōtl,
the self-generating, transmuting energy. Each was carefully constructed, named for an aspect of the sacred, adorned with characteristic regalia, and destroyed.

Īxīptla
were part of
Mexihcayōtl
protocol designed to pacify the inscrutable, uncontrolled power called
teōl
. Rituals bombarded the senses. Drumming, jangling of shells, copper bells, cries from sacrificed victims, conch trumpets, flutes, and antiphonal chants merged with the smells of flowers, incense, and blood as dancers twirled, their feathers brushing.

Class divisions continued beyond the grave. Those who drowned went to the Southern Paradise. As I describe
Tlāloc
—his fangs, absent lower jaw, goggled eyes, elaborate headdress, with a lightning bolt in his hand, controlling rivers, thunderstorms, and crop-devastating hail—I think again: What kind of life is this, sitting alone, dissecting a pre-Columbian culture? I know the answer but have no idea how to change it.

A spatula on the kitchen counter, its tip blackened with crumbs; student papers in ordained stacks next to my chair across the room; sunlight in amoeboid patches in the fanlight of my front door.
Here. Now.
Hugh is late.