Shelter (1994) (23 page)

Alma let her hand draw near. The shadow of the workman fell over her. In that instant Alma felt him to be different from them, a different being, as though he were an animal or a ghost who only looked like a man. He bent, hovering close, reaching past her face with both arms. The snake he still held was like a long muscle, its flat head hidden in his fist, its tongue flicking out through his fingers. Alma was enveloped in the dense air his body made.

"There," he grunted. Gently, he grasped the egg with two fingers and let it roll back into his hand. He straightened, held it out to Buddy flat-palmed, like sugar to a horse. "You touch it, boy," he said.

Alma had moved a little away, was trying to move; she was never actually sure what happened. Buddy must have touched the egg but it seemed to break apart before he could. There was a barely audible sound and the egg seemed to fly apart with the force of a tiny explosion. Delia screamed and ran and Alma was running too, deeper into the trees, hearing Delia's short, shrill, directive screams. Alma followed, stumbling, wiping frantically at her face with her hands until she realized the wetness was tears.

His feet on the dust of the road made smoky pops. The dust was soft, warm, blond; Buddy dragged his heel and made a long dent for the scary man to walk through. He wiggled his toes to make scratchy marks like chicken tracks. He'd wanted to circle up to Lenny's tent, hide the ring in with her special things, things no one else touched. But he couldn't go when someone followed him, watched him. The scary man could follow him easy and Buddy guessed it was a game. He'd come slowly after when Buddy left Camp Shelter to go on home. He kept walking but far behind; Buddy only saw him as the road turned, through the trees, still holding the snake like pendulous treasure. Buddy had seen him all along: he was one of the river workmen but he didn't curse with the others. He drove the pickup for Mrs. T.; he stood outside the kitchen and took the trash away. He was a scary man but he was a stranger, strange among them, not laughing with them, taking time to peer up at the swinging bridge when Buddy sat there, when Buddy carved his crosses one to a board and dangled his legs over the water. Now Buddy felt for the pouch of marbles and pulled the ring free. He held it up to the light and put his finger in and out the circled gold, touched the sharp little stone. He wondered about sitting by the mailbox at home, waiting for the scary man to walk up and giving the ring as trade, but no, he should keep it for Lenny. Maybe the stranger would give the snake, just leave it, what did a man want with a blacksnake? Those girls had run away so fast, maybe the stranger was taking the snake a far ways from the camp, and he'd leave it with Buddy for no trade, nothing. Buddy could keep it in the empty rain barrel, bring it spiders. Bring it the big grasshoppers he found in Mam's tomatoes, bring it the praying mantis bugs he trapped under the broad furry leaves of the squash plants. A mantis looked grown wrong, the way it picked along so slow and stiff, all drawn up to pray.

Buddy knew he'd sinned, stealing. When that old redheaded directress sent him back into the kitchen, Mam was at the big sinks running the water, her broad back turned. He'd scuttled into the pantry and outside, quick, careful not to let the screen slam, that door a flat knife tall as a wall. Walking now, he touched the ring inside his pocket, pressed the stone hard to hurt himself. Stamped his feet to make smoke. Fly up, dust! A snake had hide that was dead and alive and a mouth straight across like a slash. Some snake might swallow a ring and keep it hid from Dad. Dad would take a ring and sell it, that's what, now he had that old car of someone's. Someone who, Mam would say, some rip is who. But Mam would take the ring too, take it back to that old redhead and tan Buddy's backside, make him tell at church what he'd done.

He stopped, turned, looked back along the road. The stranger came on like he walked with steady music, holding the snake before him like a torch that lit a path. But the sun was bright and the day glared with heat. Like frying in a pan, Dad said, no river mudhole can cool a man. In Florida there's white sand beaches, ocean like diamonds, you could squint and see the water flash all the way to where the sky lit up. Then Mam banged plates on the table: so go there, don't need you here drunk all day, mean as a viper from hell and just as useless. He'd give her a shove: hell ain't no hotter than this trash house of yours, I get me some cash and I'm gone. No sense waiting, she'd say, go right on. She wasn't afraid to talk back in the daytime, but she was careful, like she was careful with fire when she burned trash in the steel drum by the stream. Piling up dirt, moving things that might take a spark. She talked at Dad and kept the table between them, didn't turn her back. They yelled, pushing their faces close each other's eyes, and Buddy tried to pay little mind until later, when he was by himself in the woods, on the road. Then their voices floated near him, flaring up out of nowhere. Dad's laugh was like a jay's scold, a robber bird's fat screech:
I'll take that kid with me and teach him what a man likes to do.
Now the words played over and over in the bright daylight. The words were in the bushes and up in the trees, holding still. A man liked to do. Buddy sat flat down in the road and waited for the man with the snake.

Dad might still be drunk from this morning. Or he could rouse up from a drunk sleep if he heard Buddy and be out his head. You could never tell what might set him going. He'd rip off his own shirt and thump it with pillows. Or he'd get to throwing things at the light bulb that hung from the kitchen ceiling on a cord, pelt it with rocks or coins from his pocket. Mam didn't keep a bulb in it anymore but he still got riled and swung the cord all around, yelling words that weren't American. Mam said he learned those in the army in Korea, and he didn't talk foreign unless he was drunk. Then he got afraid. Afraid of what? He'd been in prison in Korea, Mam said, long time ago, but not for doing anything wrong. Just for being a soldier. So you got in jail for being a soldier. No, no, he was captured by his enemy, in a war back then. And the jail was like a cage. He don't like being closed in, so what does he do but throw over a job in the mines and go rob him a gas station, get himself in prison. You mean down in Carolina? Yes, but you know there's no need to talk about it to people. He gets scared locked up. Least he wasn't drinking then. That's what saved him, Mom said.

But Dad wasn't saved. Not like they said about saved at church.

A snake would keep him off Buddy. For sure he'd be afraid of a snake. Dad would take a rabbit and skin it for fun, but he wouldn't touch a snake. And he couldn't shoot it because Mam had taken all the ammunition and hid the boxes in the camp kitchen. She'd washed Buddy's hair under the spigot, saying there's no shells around here now, not even pellets for your BB gun, till I see about Dad, what he's going to do. Buddy heard her talking, her big hands circling his scalp. Her soapy knuckles on Buddy's head rubbed and kneaded behind her voice, getting rid of all the dirt. Dad's been down some hard roads, she said. Got himself into the service out of Proudytown, barely sixteen. Proudytown, what a name for a work farm. Nothin proud about it. Just kids with no folks who've got into trouble. What kind of trouble? Never mind. I stand here between you and trouble, you know that, Buddy. And her voice would get full. He knew without looking that she was biting her lip in one straight line.

Dad wouldn't get over. Dad was moving one way. And he had hold of Buddy, like Buddy's wrist he held on to, Buddy's arm, carried the print of Dad's strong hand. Dad was moving and drifting and maybe he scared himself. The snake would remind him, it was so long and black and quiet when it moved. Dad might forget to put Buddy in the car then. He'd go away alone, drive off, forget about Mam and Buddy. Buddy sat still on the road and put both hands in the yellow dust. Go down dust, flat like a powder river. A snake could move without moving, crawl out of its own skin, climb and swim. But Dad would get drunk in that car, forget to steer, forget Buddy somewhere in the dark. Here it was bright in the sun. Buddy slammed his hands hard to see some smoke fly up, rise like a fat ghost and spend itself. He would be a ghost if Dad took him away; he wouldn't know how to get home, how to get to school in Gaither and find his bus back to the road and the woods. He wouldn't know to say the right words if someone asked him. If he was far away and Dad had got him confused. He practiced now and said out loud: Gaither, Camp Shelter Road, Mam, Buddy Carmody, and his bus was Number Two. But if he was scared to talk, things got loud in his ears. Like the loud sounds in the trees. They were sounds Mam made at night when Dad was fighting on top of her, grunting and swearing, trying to climb in. Buddy shut his eyes tight and panted like he did then in the dark, shutting out their sounds; he panted and felt for the ring in his pocket, the ring and the bag of marbles and his pointy rock. The marbles he emptied out across the road. They turned their bright ripples over and over and the colors shooting through them rolled into the ditch; Buddy kicked the bag away from himself. Today he'd taken the ring instead of carving a cross on the bridge—it was no use now, because the stranger with the snake was not at the river anymore with the other workmen. He was here, just out of sight. But who was a devil? Who was a ghost? The stranger walked and nothing scared him. The crosses might have kept him away but the ring had drawn him close. He knew Buddy had the ring, that's what. He might be the Lord's own angel, come for vengeance, like Mam said angels did. But it wasn't the ring he wanted, because he could come and take it. He wanted to follow Buddy.

Buddy wanted the stranger to follow closer.

He got up and kept walking. He looked back and saw the stranger come up. The sounds in the trees were louder now, long-drawn breathing, sighing, not Mam's sounds but sounds that sat behind heat and light. Buddy had heard them before, roaring like water or wind through the trees' heavy limbs. The trees held still in the heat but what was about to happen roared behind the stillness. He looked back and the stranger was there, just at the rise of the road, coming on slowly and letting Buddy see. He nodded at Buddy to go on, like he knew where they were going. The snake was curled up small in the crook of his one arm.

Now the house was in sight, nestled in brush to one side of the curve. The red car was still there, parked askew. The high board front of the porch was a storage for hoes and rakes and junk, and Dad would be sitting up above, looking over the road, waiting for something. Or asleep on the porch, waiting. Drinking on the porch, if there was something to drink. But Buddy couldn't see him. He stepped to the side, behind the brambly chokeweed, and looked back to see the stranger was waiting too. Waiting for Buddy to go on. The light was different back there, like the trees were a cooler, lighter green, and the dust of the road looked gold and thick as fur, like someone could lie down in it, cover up. The stranger stood carefully, in the open, peering into a hotter light. Buddy was close enough to see his eyes move side to side, taking in the picture; he looked like a man in an army comic, tawny and dusty, his bare chest the color of the dust. He put his finger to his lips, nodded at Buddy, pointed forward with the same finger.

Buddy looked and saw Dad, standing in the road, come back from behind the car. He looked to be blind drunk, leaning up against the driver's door. He was trying to get in the door and then he fell down and was feeling above the tire. Buddy heard the hot roar of the trees above them all and he walked into the sound. He could feel the stranger behind him, standing and watching. So the stranger knew who Dad was, knew enough to wait. And he knew more: he stood right out in the open, like he knew Dad didn't see past his nose if he was drunk. If the stranger was an angel he would bind Dad up:
tongues of heavenly flame
like they talked about in services; angels in the pictures couldn't burn, their feet were on fire but they walked in a gold light and didn't feel any hurt. If he would make Dad leave in the car. The car could be the flame.

Dad started talking when he saw Buddy. He was sitting in the road by the tire and at first he didn't seem to know who Buddy was. The sound the trees made stopped; the warning was over and Buddy was standing in the center of the picture. Buddy watched Dad: the gray eyes, hooded in his gaunt face, looked flat and pounded. Then his wandering gaze snagged on Buddy, passed over Buddy, came back. Suddenly his pupils seemed to go small and dark and he held still. Like a cat gets still.

"Gimme the key," he said. "Empty your pockets."

"I got no key." Buddy moved back a step, looked over his shoulder. The stranger was gone. Not there.

"Turn your face back here. You got the key. You took it off me earlier when you had me up there on the porch."

"You mean the key to the car?"

"Key to the car, key to the car," Dad mimicked in a high sneer. He was up on his haunches now. "You damn girl. I'll get that key and take you for a ride."

"I never saw no key."

"You want yourself a good long ride. You gonna get one."

Buddy moved to run, started to yell, but his breath went out of him when Dad sprung, tackling Buddy's feet and bringing him down so hard he felt himself bounce. Dad's hands came up and got him by the pants and upended him. He pulled Buddy into the air by the cloth of his shorts and shook him in a fury. "You got the damn key," he screamed, his voice breaking. He rammed his hands into Buddy's pants and for a terrifying instant there was a fire that came on bright and hot, everything frozen in the heat, but then his hands were out again, ripping at Buddy's pockets. Dad was crouching over him on all fours and he had the pointed rock and he had the ring. He flung the rock down and turned the ring side to side, rubbing at it, smelling and tasting it. "What's this? Jesus. Where'd you get this?"

Buddy was trying to breathe and Dad had him by the back of the neck, his long fingers squeezing, nearly meeting in front where there was a small space to get air. Dad had pulled him up to sit forward, and Dad's shape was black, and behind Dad's black head a bright sun moved back and forth like a ball. Sparkles came off the ball. "Camp," Buddy whispered. "In her room."