Gone Fishin' (14 page)

Clifton.

The only
thought in my mind was to save that sour boy’s life. I ran full
out with my eyes wide and focused on the men.

Clifton
took a step backwards and raised the shotgun by the barrel, like a
dub. And then Reese was on him.

The gun
seemed to leap into Reese’s hand of its own accord. It twisted
like a snake and Reese’s hand was at the trigger.

I yelled.

Clifton did too. Then the blast hit him.

Mouse had made it to his feet but Reese was faster that day.

Reese
turned toward his stepson before Clifton hit the ground. Mouse fired
but Reese ducked low and rammed Raymond with his shoulder.

Mouse’s
second shot went somewhere in the trees.

There was
no savouring the moment for daddyReese. Mouse was rolling away on the
ground, toward his dropped pistol. Reese was drawing his bead.

Neither
one of them heard me coming on.

I had no
plan, or dexterity to execute a plan if I had one. I didn’t
grab Reese. I didn’t even tackle him. I simply ran into him
like a fool running into a brick wall.

I felt the
recoil before hearing the shotgun blast.

The air
went out of my lungs and the ground came up to meet my face.

‘Easy,’
he said softly. ‘Easy, wake up.’

Mouse was
squatting down next to me. Beyond him I could make out a black arm
sprawled on the ground.

Mouse
pulled me up by my shirt. When I was standing I looked down on Reese.
A large part of his left temple was gone. The shotgun lay at his
side.

Clifton
hadn’t died all at once. He’d been gut-shot. He’d
ripped off his shirt and pulled down his pants to try and do
something about the wound. He died with both hands trying to push the
intestines back into his body.

Mouse’s
pistol lay near Clifton’s shoulder.

‘Come
on, Easy. We got to get outta here.’ I was light-headed,
staggering behind Raymond. Many times I stopped because there was
something I had to remember and I couldn’t walk and remember at
the same time. Whatever it was I needed to recall was like a
reflection in water and every step I took sent ripples across the
image. So I’d stop. But before the image came dear Mouse would
shake me and say, ‘Come on, Easy, we ain’t got time
t’play.’ I remember walking behind him, seeing that he
still had that tan rucksack hanging from his shoulder. It looked like
it was stuffed with clothes. No more Johnnie Walker.

Mouse
brought me in the back way of his aunt’s store. I went to my
little room and stretched out on the thin mattress. I dreamed that I
was a stone in a field lodged among different kinds of grasses. The
growth of the grass made the scrunching sound that a finger makes
when it’s pressed across the tight skin of a drum. By midsummer
the grass had grown over me and I was in the dark shade of towering
blades of green.

‘Reese
Corn was a solitary man in his last years. He didn’t come much
to Ethiopia Baptist Church. And those of you who don’t have
faith,’ and Reverend Peters looked out over the congregation,
‘might say that he had lost the way of the Lord. But brother
Reese didn’t lose his way. He knew death was comin’ an’
on his last Sunday in the world Reese came back to the Lord.’

‘Amen,’
Mouse said. He was standing next to the open coffin, his gloved hands
folded before him. He wore a spotless black suit with a black tie and
an ivory-white shirt. I never did know where he found that outfit.

‘Yes,
he came to the Lord at the last moment, but you know that’s
enough for Jesus.’ He surveyed us again. ‘All Jesus needs
is for you to look his way an’ he’s gonna save your soul.
That’s why we’re here; to be saved. All’a you here
today are alive but you’re gonna have to face it too. Yes you
are. Every one of you in this room is going to have his moment of
reckoning and her moment of reckoning and in that moment you will
have to take Jesus to your heart, or you will perish.’

I thought
of Reese’s dogs and went cold somewhere; that one spot in my
heart has never kindled again.

‘I
believe that in his final moments Reese Corn opened his heart and he
was saved.

‘You
all knew Reese. Miss Alexander was his sister-in-law. Nine years ago
we laid her loving sister to rest.’

Miss
Alexander sat next to me. Her eyes were dry and there was a slight
smile on her face.

‘You
know when Reese’s wife died,…’ Reverend Peters leaned
his elbows upon the podium. ‘He was broken. You could see that
he lost faith because he let his house fall into disrepair. He didn’t
have any kind words to say because he felt that the Lord had
abandoned him. He stopped saying good morning and left the church. He
lived a lonely mean life out there on his farm, and who knows? Maybe
that loneliness called out to the poor boy who followed him there.
Maybe it was the Lord in his infinite wisdom calling Reese Corn
home.’

Ernestine
started crying, and Jo folded the girl under her arm.

‘That
boy was a messenger of the Lord, calling out. And once Reese came
back to the Lord’s house that messenger was sent to Reese.
Because everything we do is governed by God. If you wake up in the
morning and hear the whippoorwill or if you meet a young girl and
fall in love, that’s God workin’ on ya. If you find
yourself full of strength choppin’ cotton on a beautiful
Tuesday morning and you breathe in the sweet smell of earth, well you
know the Lord is with you then.’ The minister held up his
opened hands and stared into his palms, then he put them back down.
‘But when your babies get grippe and the life burns out of them
before your eyes; when you tear at your clothes and beg God to take
you instead; when you’re left in the room with a dead child
innocent as can be — the Lord is with you then too.’

‘Yes
Lord!’ the old woman, in the same raspberry dress, shouted.

‘Yes
the Lord is a hard master! Because you know you cain’t raise a
child right if you don’t raise your hand.’ He paused.
‘And we are the Lord’s chirrren. Reese and that boy
Clifton were the Lord’s chirren. He’s called them home.
And in callin’ them home he’s taught us a lesson; a hard
lesson. In despair comes ruin, in despair comes ruin. Reese tore down
his house. Yes he did. He knocked the what-do-you-call-em?’ He
looked around as if there were someone there to answer. ‘Yeah,
he knocked down the beams, the main beam of his house, and the walls
fell in. The walls fell in on Reese and he turned his back on the
Lord. There’s a lesson in that. I don’t know what
happened to that boy Clifton. I hear that he was violent man, a man
who lived by violence. It’s said, I don’t know if it’s
true, but it’s said that he killed someone in Houston.’

The
minister looked up at the ceiling and shook his head as if he were
arguing with the next words the Lord was putting in his mouth.
Finally he returned his gaze to earth. ‘What is our lesson?
That’s what you wanna know. What is God trying to say to me
here today? Well… no one can truly understand the mind of God
because the mind of God is what we call infinite. That means he’s
everywhere. As far as you can go God is there. He’s at the
bottom of the ocean and he’s way out past the moon and stars.
He’s in this room right now, sittin’ next to ya. Reese is
with him now, and if Reese could pierce the veil I think he’d
say the lesson is the infinite forgiveness of the Lord…’

The
minister kept going in that vein but I was distracted by an amazing
sight: There were tears streaming down Mouse’s face. He was
crying outright. You’d think that real love was pouring out of
his heart onto the floor at his dead stepfather’s feet. ‘What
could it be?’ I thought, but no answer came.

Miss
Alexander leaned to my ear and whispered, ‘I want you t’com’on
wit’ me when it’s over, Easy. I wanna make sure that
bastard who kilt my sister is dead.’

Those were
the only words that crossed her lips about Reese. And it came to me
that they were all happy to see him dead. The minister had remarked
that it was ‘the Lord’s infinite mind that called his
stepson back,’ to be there when Reese died.

Reese was
a hard man and an angry man. He had turned the whole world against
him and no one cared to look beyond what seemed to be the story.

It was
told that Reese was out at his house when a fugitive from Houston
came upon him to steal his money. The fugitive, Clifton, had heard
that Reese was rich from Raymond Alexander who was coming to tell
Reese about his coming marriage. Reese shot Clifton but Clifton
managed to get his gun and shoot Reese before he died. Mouse came
upon them when he’d come to tell Reese that he was returning to
Houston.

There was
no money found.

Big Jim,
the colored deputy, was at the funeral, and I think he suspected that
there was more to the story. But you don’t go doing police work
for a colored killing when you got an answer lying cold at the back
of the barber’s shop.

Jim warned
Mouse that Navrochet wouldn’t take it so easy. He said that
Mouse’s stepbrother would wonder at how Clifton got to Pariah.
But Mouse just smiled and shook his head.

‘…The
Lord is with you, brothers and sisters… keep him in your hearts.
Because no matter how hard you hurt, he will comfort you as he did
brother Reese in his last moments. Amen.’

‘Amen,’
we all said.

‘Time
t’go, Ease,’ Mouse said. We were standing in Miss
Alexander’s general store. Everyone was there. There was
homemade wine and cornbread and people from all over the county.
Theresa was standing next to Mouse; she and Ernestine were the only
ones who truly looked sad; they both lost men that day.

‘Yeah, I’m ready,’ I said. I couldn’t even
look him in the eye.

‘Easy.’ Her voice came from behind me.

‘Yeah, Jo.’

‘I guess you ain’t comin’ back out here soon.’

‘I don’t know, Jo. You never can tell what might happen.’

‘Well I think me an’ Dom an’ Ernestine might be
comin’ to the weddin’.’

‘You
know I’ll be there.’ I looked up into her flat, dark
eyes. She put her hand to my throat again.

‘Bye,
Easy!’ Domaque yelled. He and Ernestine were standing dose
together behind Jo.

‘Bye,
Dom. I’ma start my readin’ soon as I get home.’

Dom gave
me a strong handshake and a crooked smile. He said, ‘Remember
to make it in yo’ own words, Easy. That’s how ya do it.’

The car
had been moved to the edge of town by one of Mouse’s friends.
He’d gotten the key from my pocket when I was sick. Raymond
hefted the stuffed rucksack on his shoulder.

‘Weddin’
gifts,’ he said.

I wondered
if Theresa was coming to the wedding.

Just
before we left for the car Miss Alexander took me by the arm to an
empty spot on the wooden sidewalk.

‘Easy, I’m” glad you’re feelin’
better…’

‘I been meanin’ t’thank you…’

She waved
her hand for me to keep quiet. ‘I feel bad that you ain’t
seen us in a good light, Ezekiel. You know we was all glad to meet
you and have you with us. It’s always nice to meet one’a
Raymond’s boyfriends, he got a real knack at gettin’
friends.’

We shook
hands and then she kissed me on the cheek.

Sweet
William and Mouse were standing next to the car when I got there.
They were the same height and looked so much alike that you would
have had to be blind not to see the relationship.

I don’t
think Mouse ever suspected that William was his father. Some men are
just lucky.

‘Well,
Easy, I guess you gonna get back to the city to rest from the
country, huh?’ William smiled.

‘Yeah,
you country people is too wild for me.’

He shook
my hand. The rest of them came up and waved to us; Theresa ran to the
window and kissed Mouse on the lips.

‘She
sure have grown,’ Mouse said to himself as we took off.

It had
been gray all morning but the drizzle didn’t start until we
left Pariah. It wasn’t a rain that cleaned the leaves of dust
but a mist that changed the dust to caked mud on everything. The
whole world turned filthy and streaked.

Mouse said
some things to me but I ignored him for the most part. There was a
weight on me. It seemed like the air was too heavy and that the trees
along the road were so loose that any minute they’d crash down
on us. My fingers felt thick and numb.

Mouse was
smoking store-bought cigarettes and whistling; you’d’ve
thought the sun was shining on him.

When we
got to the main road the bugs came out. We smashed them by the dozens
on the windshield. They exploded into blossoms of blood and body
parts, then they slipped away into the thin film of drizzle. Every
time we hit one I thought of Clifton, with his dour expression,
sitting in the backseat; I thought of Reese on his knees in front of
his broken house.

There were
dead animals in the road too. Armadillos, porcupines and even a
couple of dogs. Cars ran them over in the night and kept on going.

Their
bodies were torn open and they still seemed to be bleeding because
the rain had kept the blood fresh. Flesh burst from the fur like
cotton from a ripped sofa.

‘Here
ya go, Ease, maybe this brighten up yo’ face.’ Mouse put
a fat envelope, folded from a sheet of newspaper, on the dashboard in
front of me.

‘What’s
that?’

‘I
might not be able t’read like ole Dom but I can count like
anything,’ he said.

Another
time that might have gotten a rise out of me but those days were
over.

‘Yeah,’
Mouse said. ‘I cain’t read but I can count to three
hundred in my sleep.’

I didn’t say a word. I wouldn’t even look at the
envelope.

‘What’s wrong wichyou, man?’ he asked me.

‘Ain’t nuthin wrong.’