Florida Heatwave (26 page)

“Paul,” Arlen said, “you got to help me do a bit of convincing here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We aren’t getting back on this train. Not a one of us.”

They piled out of the cars and onto the station platform, everyone milling around, stretching or lighting cigarettes. It was getting on toward ten in the evening and though the sun had long since faded the wet heat lingered. The boards of the platform were coated with swamp mud dried and trampled into dust, and out beyond the lights Arlen could see silhouetted fronds lying limp in the darkness, untouched by a breeze. Backwoods Florida. He didn’t know the town and didn’t care; regardless of name, it would be his last stop on this train.

He hadn’t seen so many apparitions of death at one time since the war. Maybe leaving the train wouldn’t be enough. Could be there was some sort of virus in the air, a plague spreading unseen from man to man the way the influenza had in ‘18, claiming lives faster than the reaper himself.

“What’s the matter?” Paul Brickhill asked, following as Arlen stepped away from the crowd of men and tugged his flask from his pocket. Out here the sight was enough to set Arlen’s hands to shaking – men were walking in and out of the shadows as they moved through the cars and down to the station platform, slipping from flesh to bone and back again in a matter of seconds, all of it a dizzying display that made him want to sit down and close his eyes and drink long and deep on the whiskey.

“Something’s about to go wrong,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Paul said, but Arlen didn’t respond, staring instead at the men disembarking and realizing something – the moment they stepped off the train their skin slid back across their bones, knitting together as if healed by the wave of some magic wand. The swirls of smoke in their eye sockets vanished into the hazy night air. It was the train. Yes, whatever was going to happen was going to happen to that train.

“Something’s about to go wrong,” he said. “With our train. Something’s going to go bad wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, damn it!”

Paul looked to the flask and his eyes said what his words did not.

“I’m not drunk. Haven’t had more than a few swallows.”

“What do you mean something’s going to go wrong?” Paul asked again.

Arlen held onto the truth, felt the words heavy in his throat but couldn’t let them go. It was one thing to see such horrors; it was worse to try and speak of them. Not just because it was a difficult thing to describe, but because no one ever believed. And the moment you gave voice to such a thing was the moment you charted a course for your character that you could never alter. Arlen understood this well, had known it since boyhood.

But Paul Brickhill had sat before him with smoke the color of an early morning storm cloud dancing in his eyes, and Arlen was certain what that meant, had seen it too many times before. He couldn’t let him board that train again.

“People are going to die,” he said.

Paul Brickhill leaned his head back and stared.

“We get back on that train, people are going to die,” Arlen said. “I’m sure of it.”

He’d spent many a day trying to imagine this gift away. To fling it from him the way you might a poisonous spider caught crawling up your arm, and long after the chill lingered on your flesh you’d thank the sweet hand of providence that you’d been given the opportunity to knock the venomous beast away. Only he’d never been given the opportunity. No, the stark sight of death had stalked him long, trailed him relentlessly for many a year. He knew it when he saw it, and he knew it was no trick of the light, no twist of bad liquor upon the mind. It was prophecy, the gift of foresight granted to a man who’d never wished for it.

He was reluctant to say so much as a word to any of the other men, knowing the response he’d receive, but this was not the sort of thing that could be ignored.

Speak loud and sharp, he thought, just like you did on the edge of a battle, when you had to get ‘em to listen, and listen fast.

“Boys,” he said, getting at least a little of the old muster into his tone, “listen up now.”

The conversations broke off. Two men were standing on the step of the train car, and when they turned, skull faces studied him.

“I think we best wait for the next train through,” he said. “There’s bad trouble aboard this one. I’m sure of it.”

It was Wallace O’Connell who broke the long silence that followed. He was standing under one of the platform lights, which restored his bone hand to rough calloused skin.

“What in the hell you talking about, Wagner?” he said, and immediately there was a chorus of muttered agreement.

“Something’s wrong with this train,” Arlen said. He stood tall, did his damnedest to hold their eyes.

“You know this for a fact?” O’Connell said.

“I know it.”

“How do you know? And what’s wrong with it?”

“I can’t say what’s wrong with it. But something is. I got a … sense for these things.”

A slow grin crept across O’Connell’s face. “I’ve known some leg-pullers,” he said, “but didn’t figure you for one of them. Don’t got the look.”

“Damn it, man, this ain’t no joke.”

“You got a sense something’s wrong with our train, and you’re telling us it ain’t no joke?”

“Knew a widow back home was the same way,” spoke up another man from the back of the circle. He was a slim, wiry old guy with a nose crooked from many a break. Arlen didn’t know his name – hell, he didn’t know most of their names, and that was part of the problem. Aside from Paul there wasn’t a man in the group who’d known Arlen for any longer than this train ride.

“Yeah?” O’Connell said. “Trains talked to her, too?”

“Naw. She had the sense, just like he’s talking about. ‘Cept she got her sights from owls and moon reflections and shit like you couldn’t even imagine.”

This new man was grinning wide, and O’Connell was matching it. He said, “She was right all the time, of course?”

“Of course,” the man said, and let out a cackling laugh. “Why, wasn’t but nine year ago she predicted the end of days was upon us. Knew it for a fact. Was going to befall us by that winter. I can’t imagine she was wrong, I just figured I missed being raptured up and that’s how I ended up here with all you sinful sons of bitches.”

The crowd was laughing now, and Arlen felt heat creeping into his face, thoughts of his father and the shame that had chased him from his boyhood home threatening his mind now. Behind him Paul Brickhill was standing still and silent, about the only one in the group who wasn’t at least chuckling. There was one man near Wallace O’Connell whose smile seemed forced, uneasy, but even he was going along with the rest of them.

“I might ask for a tug on whatever’s in that jug of your’n,” O’Connell said. “It seems to be a powerful syrup.”

“It’s not the liquor you’re hearing,” Arlen said. “It’s the truth. Boys, I’m telling you, I seen things in the war just like I am tonight, and every time I did men died.”

“Men died every damn day in the war,” O’Connell said. The humor had drained from his voice. “And we all seen it – not just you. Some of us didn’t crack straight through from what we seen. Others …” he made a pointed nod at Arlen, “had a mite less fortitude. Now save your stories for somebody fool enough to listen to them. Rest of us don’t need the aggravation.”

The men broke up then, drifted back to their own conversations, casting Arlen sidelong stares, some pitying, some disgusted. Arlen felt a hand on his arm and nearly whirled and threw his fist without looking, shame and fear riding him hard now, leaving him ready to lash out. It was only Paul, though, tugging him away from the group.

“Arlen, you best ease up.”

“Be damned if I will. I’m telling you –”

“I understand what you’re telling us, but it just doesn’t make sense. Could be you got a touch of fever or –”

Arlen reached out and grabbed him by his shirt collar. Paul’s eyes went wide but he didn’t reach for Arlen’s hand, didn’t move at all as Arlen spoke to him a low, harsh voice.

“You had smoke in your eyes, boy. I don’t give a damn if you couldn’t see it or if none of them could, it was there, and it’s the sign of your death. You known me for a time now, and you ask yourself, how many times has Arlen Wagner spoken foolish words to me? How many times has he seemed addled? You ask yourself that, and then you ask yourself if you want to die tonight.”

He released the boy’s collar and stepped back. Paul lifted a hand and wiped it over his mouth, staring at Arlen.

“You trust me, Brickhill?” Arlen said.

“You know I do.”

“Then listen to me now. If you don’t ever listen to another man again for the rest of your life, listen to me now. Don’t get back on that train.”

The boy swallowed and looked off into the darkness. “Arlen, I wouldn’t disrespect you, but what you’re saying … there’s no way you could know that.”

“I can see it,” Arlen said. “Don’t know how to explain it, but I can see it.”

Paul didn’t answer. He looked away from Arlen, back at the others, who were watching the boy with pity and Arlen with disdain.

“Here’s one last question for you to ask of yourself,” Arlen said. “Can you afford to be wrong?”

Paul stared at him in silence as the train whistle blew and the men stomped out cigarettes and fell into a boarding line. Arlen watched their flesh melt from their bones as they went up the steps.

“Don’t let that fool bastard convince you to stay here, boy,” Wallace O’Connell bellowed as he stepped up onto the train car, half of his face a skull, half the face of a strong man who believed he was fit to take on all comers. “Ain’t nothing here but alligators, and unless you want to be eating them come dinner tomorrow, or them eating you, you best get aboard.”

Paul didn’t look in his direction. Just kept staring at Arlen. The locomotive was chugging now, steam building, ready to tug its load south, down to the Keys, down to the place the boy wanted to be.

“You’re serious,” he said. Arlen nodded.

“And it’s happened before?” Paul said. “This isn’t the first time?” “No,” Arlen said. “It is not the first time.”

BY MARK RAYMOND FALK

Fifteen minutes
outside of Sopchoppy the sun had disappeared completely, and with the way the trees grew over Smith Creek Road, you would have thought the damn thing wasn’t ever coming back. So when I tell you it was dark I mean it was
dark.
No streetlights. No headlights. Only the glassy reflections in the eyes of raccoons and the deer as they jumped out in front of my car on a mission for death.

Whether it was theirs or mine, I can’t say for sure.

I crawled along under the speed limit, my foot heavy on the brake. Lurching to a stop for threats both real and imagined. My blood and my heart unable to tell the difference.

The AM signal I’d been listening to since Gainesville grew dim, turning the Baptist preacher to static as I drove deeper into the forest. And then it was gone and the radio was turned off and I was left alone with only myself to keep me company.

A poor choice of companion.

It could only get worse.

I caught her body in the high beams. And like any other son of a bitch with too little sense and too much curiosity, I pulled over to see what the fuck she was doing there.

Dying, I guess you’d call it.

She was wide eyed and shaking, warm from the night air, but growing colder by the second. Even before she said anything to me, we both knew the truth.

“Am I gonna die?”

She held both hands over her stomach. Grimaced.

“What happened? I asked.

“Kenny,” she said.

Kenny happened.

“What do you mean?”

“He stuck me.” The words came out like hiccups. “He stuck you?”

“Hunting knife. Just like he said he would.”

“He stabbed you?”

Her eyes closed. Her mouth opened.

Nothing but breath.

“Who is Kenny?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Where is he now?” I asked. “Where is Kenny?” She winced and clutched her stomach. “Goin’ to Mobile.” “What’s Kenny’s last name?” “Don’t have one.”

I don’t know what made me do it, but I put my hand on top of hers and gave a little squeeze. That’s when I felt the life she was trying to hold in. It had made her fingers slick.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Jesus,” she begged.

I reached into my pocket for my cell phone. The battery was almost dead and no matter how I held it—east, west, up towards the moon looking for a satellite—there was no signal to be found.

“I need help.”

I nodded. “But tonight there’s only me.”

And there was only me.

And I was no good for anyone. I looked at my cell phone again but still didn’t have service. I looked down the road for headlights, but only saw the high beams of my Chevy.

“Why did Kenny stab you?” I asked.

“Because he’s crazy. I love that man. Wanted to be with him forever. But he’s so damn crazy.”

“That’s all?”

“Says I slept with his brother.”

“Did you?”

“Does it matter?” I could hear the water in her words. The choke. The soft horn of approaching death.

“Not to me it doesn’t.” I said.

She shifted slightly, reached with her fingers for my hand, held us both against her leaking stomach.

“What’s in Mobile?” I asked.

“His brother.”

“Is his brother expecting him?”

“When it comes to Kenny … don’t nobody expect anything … it just happens.”

Her grip tightened then went loose.

“You think he’ll stick his brother?”

The question hung in the humidity of the night air.

I didn’t wait for her pulse to go still. There wasn’t anything left but counting minutes. Besides, I figured, if I drove long enough, sooner or later I’d get reception, and I could let the cops know that Kenny had gutted his old lady somewhere deep in the Apalachicola National Forest. If I got a signal fast enough, the cops could wait for Kenny at the end of Smith Creek Road.

So I left her to die on the side of the road and I wound along the dark road with my high beams leading the way, keeping my eyes right down the middle, trying hard not to see anything I didn’t want to see. Keeping an eye out for Kenny’s taillights.