Boys of Life (16 page)

"Kinu Kong," T.J. said. The two flocks of pigeons moved closer 'her in rhe air, till they were on top of one another and then they were all swirling together like one big flock. T.J. was busy throwing corn down on rhe root. The two pigeon flocks swung in and out of each other, sometimes two flocks, sometimes only one. We watched them like that tor a while, making patterns in the sky, changing direction quick as a tinker-snap, whipping hack and forth—the way you see sheets of rain whip across a lake in a windstorm. Then T.J. starred Swinging rhe corn bucket over his head and making pigeon noises like I'd s C -cn him doing earlier.

The flock that'd been one tlock tor several minutes all of a sudden

Igain, with one of rhe tlocks tunneling hack down to rhe roof

where we were. They hit the root of the shed like thunder and then

immediately lumped down onto the root where we were and started

pecking away at that corn. AH except one bird that stayed on rhe root.

"Shh," T. J. said when I was opening my mouth • mething.

"Just watch."

□ PAUL RUSSELL

We all moved away, behind a root divider. Thev were watching the one single bird (hat was on the roof of the shed. "It's King Kong's all right," T.J. was telling Verbena.

"How can you tell?" I whispered.

"Got a red band on his foot there. See my birds' Thev got Yellow

bands. Oh, he's a beauty, isn't he? What I call a blue splash—see all

that blue color in his neck." As tar as 1 could see. it was just a pigeon.

"There're kinds of pigeons?" I asked.

"Lots," he said. "You can tell by the colors. There's blue splashes. dun nuns, heardeds, lots of kinds."

The pigeons on the ground had filled Up on corn, and now thev were going one by one through the trap door into their cage. OnCC T.J.'d said that about the colors, I could see how each one was different. Their necks were all shimmering in the sun—it thev hadn't been pigeons they'd have been gorgeous.

I'd never thought to look at pigeons before.

All the birds were inside but the one on the root. It was looking around but it wouldn't come down.

"Shy bird," Verbena said. "Maybe it's thirst\."

T.J. went Over ^\n<\ got the water pan and stuck it right inside the

trap door. All the tune he was talking pigeon talk to that bird, trying

it, but the bird wouldn't talk back. It iiist kept eyeing him, like

tlu- siu.irt one and T.J. the

down. Looking around all tlu- tune, he waddled OVet tO where the want

He looked around, one last tune, and stuck his head in to get the

: flu- instant he did that. u/unn. I |. had tlu- trap door shut and the tu-w bird was inside.

"YOU gOl him." I said.

Meanwhile T.J. had lei himself into tlu I was looking

a his bird Kong's done ripped three d mine," he said.

"I >.imi i. that inker's too gi

I in i th.it tlu- game \\-^\ been to steal each other's birds

U ," II rig. "1 Ins time last yeai I couldn't i

stngh

ild him,

I l nd with Ins l mote, s,, them out

When i m' went I

BOYSOFLIFE □

"How do you stand it in here, girl?" he asked. The instant we

walked in he took off his shirt, and 1 did the same. Atter the cold air

ot the roof, it was stifling.

She opened a bottle ot Colt -4S tor each ot us —those big bottles we used to call nigger bottles back in Owen.

'i was raised m Alabama," Verbena said. "I'm used to heat. Got it in mv bones. It's these winters that kill me. Shv girl, you want to roll some ot that weed, vou go on ahead."

"I don't smoke," I told her, "but thanks."

"That's yood," T.J. said. "Smoking that stufT'll kill you. There's riuch shit you can put inside your body." He shook his head.

"Don't listen to him," Verbena told me. "He's a old dope hog talking."

"Used to be," T.J. said. "Used to be. But I quit. I quit putting any of that stuff inside me."

"Quit shooting dope and took up flying pigeons," Verbena said. She was walking around the room with her bottle of Colt .45 in one hand and a plant mister in the other. She was giving those pot plants a good dousing.

"Tom here," she said to T.J., "has gone and made a movie with Carlos."

"That so?" T.J. studied me. "Carlos ain't too much in my book."

"Well, he is in mine," I said.

T.J. kept studying me. He nodded his head. "Yeah," he said, "I bet he is. Keep vour eyes open is all I can say." And he squinted at me, like he had trouble seeing who I was.

"I could tell you something about Carlos," I said, "that'd totally change your mind."

"So go on ahead, mystery man," said Verbena. "Tell us something about Carlos that'll change our mind." I could see she thought it was going to be amusing to hear something about Carlos she'd never heard before. She took a swig and went on misting the plants.

i I was blank— it'd seemed so totally clear, what I had

to say about Carlos. How it had to do with everything—the pigeons on

roof, and T.J. and Verbena. Everything that'd none on in the last

hour. It was like I'd seen it out of the corner of my eye for a second,

,\nd now it w.is gone.

But then I saw it again, and I launched in. "I had this friend Wallace," I said, "back in Kentucky. He'd come round, we'd spend time together. Down the road from where I lived there was this old

□ PAUL RUSSELL

black man. He lived in a total shack. Heaps of garbage out in front o\

it—he used to pay people to dump their trash in his yard and then he'd through it, find what he could use or sell. It always pissed Wallace otf when we drove by, to see all that trash out there."

T.J. was still studying me, and Verbena'd stopped misting the plants and was just standing there. Rut all the water drops on the leaves were catching the light—thev were glistening.

"I have to tell this storv," I said. "It" I don't tell it, then I can't he here. I mean, right here in this room. Up on your root. Whatever. So let me tell it, oka\

They were both looking very serious.

"That old black man had this mangy hunting dog he used to keep tied up in the vard. Thin—you could see its ribs sticking out. Well, one day Wallace and me were doing some serious drinking—we'd gone out hunting, but we didn't bag anything. It was drizzling all morning, and we'd been drinking to keep warm out in the woods.

"Wallace was this kind of crazj guy, but I liked him. We were driving by that old man's shack, and the doi: was but front where he

usually was. I don't know why, but Wallace stopped the pickup there in the front vard. and the don st.irtcd harking like it always did when

anybody came around. The <\m: started barking and Wallace started

selling Shut up! .it the dog. It was very tunnv. The two ot them going ,tt it, Wallace yelling Shut up! over and over, and the dog keeping up with its bark. I don't know why—-it made Wallace madder and madder, the more he veiled and the more the dog b. irked. 1 W8S laughing, I

thought it was so tunnv. Then Wallace said, I'm gonna gel that damn

ot the ntles ott the r.uk, yelli I dog, m

while he w.is aiming OUt the truck cab. I thought it was this

I I w.is ! ind laughing till .ill at once he pulled the

trigg

"Th the middle . >t .1 b.uk it w.is like \ou |ust slued

through its b.uk with •• knife. But it wasn't dead l» w.is lying on the 11 making tins whine that w.is terrible to I

but no* he w.is the one who w.is |., igh that w.is hke hiccup*. I think he w.is totally freaked it

rward, rl thai

the tna l like hin

I I

B O Y S O F L I F E □

"I had to tell you that story," I told them. Sweat was pouring otf me, these cold drops on my ribs. It was seeing those birds on the roof-how they broke loose into the air like they did. How they came tunneling hack home to T.J.

'You were going to tell us some story about Carlos," Verbena reminded me.

"I know," I said. "I just did. Carlos lifted me out of all that."

B O Y S O F L I F E D

ers, the m.nor oi New York, fishermen from Jap.»ii and Iceland who were killing whales, a hunch ot people called the Kurds who lived in

Turkey and were getting ripped to shreds K the army.

When he got going, Seth could be as talkative about what was

going on m the world in 1 unmv was about the ghetto in Lodz

and everything that happened hack then. The only difference was, Sammy'd come to terms with a lor of terrible stun* a long time ^^ and

that treed him up in some way. Bur Seth was caught right in the middle

oi ir. He hadn't seen his way clear of anything yet, and it all hurt him a lot. Every da\r, it hurt him, and he was angry about it.

I guess I'd aUo have to say, lots oi times he was angry with me too. I could never do things right tor him—I was this snot-nosed kid Carlos had picked up somewhere, and everybody in The Company knew they were going to have to put up with me until Carlos came to his senses and dumped me. On z^^d days, I think Seth thought about me BDOUt as much as he'd have thought about some lamppost Carlos had

told him to train his camera on.

But then every once in a while this other thin^ happened between us. Some kind ot tenderness, I guess 18 what it was—the kind only somebody who gets really angry can give you. The kind Carlos knew about too, in a different way. It never Listed very long, a few seconds or a minute, and after it happened I was never completely sure it'd happened—but it happened enough that, looking hack on it now, I remember it, and I remember how it was important to me at the time.

The first re.il talk I ever had with Seth was one day in the collective. Carlos had gone out to do some errand, and the lady who was doing the movie ahout the deaf children sin^in^ wasn't there—she got depressed tor weeks on end and couldn't work—so it was just the two ot us. Serh was handling a strip oi film, and he put it in the viewer.

"Here." he said. "Look at this."

I looked through the viewfmder and there I was, pretending I was

dancing with this old floor lamp—I'd found it in a pile of junk some-

body'd set out on the sidewalk, and I was uisr spoofing around. We were in her ween scenes. 1 never knew Seth had caught me with that. en doinu it just tor myself. "Recognize it?" he asked.

"I didn't know yotl were filming me. You sneak." "What do you think ot it. 1 "

I shrugged. "Well, it you can't get a date," I said.

"Look ar ir again," he told me, so I played it hack through.

□ PAUL RUSSELL

"Well?" he asked. •Well." I said.

"Don't you see, it's fabulous?"

"It

He took the him out of the viewer and held it up. "It's terrific.

And you know what. 1 It's only you and me who's seen it. Carlos hasn't

seen it. He'd give anything tor a scene like this, h's exactly what he needs—and he has it and doesn't even know it vet."

There was white dandruff all down the front of the black turtle-neck sweater he was wearing—if you ask me, 1 think he wore black BS some kind ot defiance.

"We could hum this," he said. "There's no record. Nohodv'll ever know you made poem hv dancing with a tloor lamp on Avenue C one winter morning m nineteen eighty. That could all just disappear. What do you sav.'"

"What're you getting at.'" I didn't exactly follow Seth .» lot ot the

time.

It was funny—I hadn't even remembered that little daiue. It he hadn't got it on film, it would already he gone.

"Keep it," I s.nd.

"Oh- definitely keep it," said Seth. "Definitely. And even you

didn't know wh.it you were doing, did you.'"

"I never d^," I told him.

"1 et me tell you .1 s^ret," he laid. "Nobody e\er does. Rut the

ten knows. That's the real s CH ft -t the camera always knows. I hat's why we invented the camera 10 it would know exactly what we

up t.», even if We didn't. Not jUSt the main moments, ihe big putuie

hut the h ns. All that httle stuff. Don't evei forget that. I

<. i.il U when \< 'u're around me."

It v. mes when Seth would launch into something,

., and I didn't know why

"led.

I think inting to have completely dropped out o( the

worl ibout anythii

Tint 1 I main thr

• itf 1 iv 1 ,d .mtiw.it stuff all through the

LSI .»ll th

from making him angry but It didn't

u\vl he'd

BOYSOFLIFE □

Ricked up. And I guess that caring somehow, now and then, included mc. I think Seth made up his mind at some point it was some way ot staying alive with all his anger—dial the one thing he had to do with hi> lite waa he Carlos's eyes. Win he ever decided that I don't know, hut then why did any oi us evei decide to do whatever it was we decided to do with Carlos? 1 don't have any answer. I've spent an awful lot oi

tune thinking about it, and 1 just don't have any answer. 1 mean —why

Seth or Sammy or Netta or Verbena didn't get the hell out any number mes before they actually did, 1 just don't know. 1 guess it's what

made Carlos some kind ot genius: keeping all those people together, and keeping them together through the kind ot weird stuff they were doin. illy toward the end, when anybody else would've lost them

in a week.

Tart ot the reason must've been that Carlos's hrain was just always working. You couldn't tear yourself away from that. I remember lots of nights sitting around with him and Seth and Sammy and Verbena, where we'd spent all day working on a movie and everybody was exhausted. But Carlos wouldn't be content to relax; he'd be going on about all the other movies he wanted to make in the future, talking nonstop tor hours with evervhody else mostly wowed into just listening.