This One and Magic Life (8 page)

“Artie did like her stories,” Reese says.

“Well, Nicky was all in Vicky's mind,” Mrs. Randolph explains the story line, “because she was abused as a child.”

“Her very own daddy. Off in the head.” Reese takes another helping of potato salad. “You know, I knew a
man once thought he was a chicken part of the time, sort of perched on his steps and crowed. Never bothered a soul and nobody paid him much mind. Got run over by a train, though. Number Six on its way to Montgomery. Real slow train, too. Makes you wonder.”

Dolly and Mrs. Randolph think about this for a minute. Dolly sees the man perched on the track crowing at the oncoming Number Six.

“The mind can do strange things,” Mrs. Randolph says. “My brother Rudy was out in the field one day baling hay and not a cloud in the sky and bam! A streak of lightning came out of nowhere and knocked him down. Near about electrocuted him, but it turned out all right. Anybody want anything else?” Mrs. Randolph gets up from the table.

“Not a cloud in the sky?” Reese asks.

“Not a one. My papa was with him and had to beat him on the chest.”

“Where did the lightning come from?” Dolly wants to know.

“God knows. Bless Rudy's heart, though. He was the first of us children to go. Got it in his mind that if he went outside, lightning would hit him again. We all told him that was crazy. Finally talked him into going out.”

Dolly is intrigued. “And lightning hit him again?”

“Of course not. A bee stung him, though, and he went into some kind of shock. Died before we could get him to the hospital. He was my favorite brother, too. I don't make any bones about it.” Mrs. Randolph begins to rinse the dishes. “Eat that fruit salad, Dolly. You need something in your stomach. You're skinny as a rail.”

Dolly is having trouble with one strawberry going down.

“I knew a man got hit by lightning twice,” Reese says. “Both his arms looked like a zipper running up them.”

Mrs. Randolph sits back down. She's rubbing Jergen's lotion on her hands. “Well, some people are just plain magnets, aren't they?”

Reese agrees. “God's truth.”

On TV Vicky is waking from surgery. She reaches toward her husband who offers her a huge strawberry. Dolly knows she needs to go rest.

AFTER YOU CROSS THE MISSISSIPPI LINE, ANY EXIT ALONG
1–10 will take you into bayou country. It stretches the width of the state, swampy, fertile. Hektor turns just past Pascagoula and heads inland through swamp grass almost as high as the truck. He crosses dozens of small bridges that span dark, unmoving streams. Beside him, May concentrates on the bottle of Dr Pepper into which she has poured a package of peanuts. Every time she turns it up, Hektor holds his breath. He has only seen the Heimlich maneuver on TV. Besides, by the time he stopped the car and got her out, it might be too late. “Please be careful,” he says. May smiles at him, puts her thumb over the bottle top, and shakes it. Foam and peanuts bubble up; she clamps her mouth over the bottle. Her cheeks swell like small balloons.

“Quit that,” Hektor says.

May burps and chews.

“A lot of flying saucers land in here,” Hektor says.

May looks at the grass, the stunted palms. “Why?”

“I don't know. You just see it all the time in the
paper. Two fishermen from Pascagoula said they got carried for a ride.”

May looks at Hektor. “You don't believe that, do you, Papa?”

“No. But I think the men believed it. Something happened to them out here that scared them nearly to death. I saw them on TV still shaking.” Hektor remembers how big the men's eyes were, how they stuttered. “Never put any foreign substances in your body, May. Promise me.”

“I promise.” May shakes the Dr Pepper again. Hektor sighs.

They are entering an area of thin pine trees that lean away from the prevailing wind off the gulf. Not for the first time, Hektor thinks of the people who paved this road. There must be cottonmouth moccasins in here as big as boa constrictors. And alligators and mosquitoes and leeches that would grab you like they did Humphrey Bogart. He still wonders how they filmed that. If a flying saucer did land here it wouldn't stand a chance.

“There are some cars up there,” May says. “Maybe it's a wreck or something.”

Hektor pulls to a stop behind a rusty Chevy pickup and gets out to see why the road is blocked. A woman is sitting in the cab crocheting. Hektor nods hello.

“It's a gator,” she says.

“What?”

“A gator. Asleep on the road. Managed to get in both lanes. He don't want to, but they're trying to get him to move.”

“How?”

“Very carefully.” The woman and Hektor both laugh appreciatively. She wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. The little round crochet
piece dangles for a moment in the air. She holds it out for Hektor to see. “A bedspread,” she explains. “Our youngest is getting married.”

“That's pretty,” Hektor says. “Well, let me go see what's happening.”

He starts away and then turns back. “Who's marrying her?” he asks.

“A boy from down Gautier. Nice boy. Just got out of the Navy.”

“No. I mean the priest.”

“You mean the preacher? Brother Edwards from Ruhama Baptist. That's where we go. Why? You need a preacher?”

“I'm looking for a priest who lives around here somewhere. You know one?”

“Maybe you mean Father Audubon. They say he used to be one. They call him that because he likes birds.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“No. Bouchet at the store could probably tell you, though.”

“Thanks. Where's the store?”

“Down the road. We'll get there after while, I guess.” She wipes her forehead again.

“Thanks.” Hektor walks back to his pickup. “It's an alligator across the road,” he tells May. “Come on, let's go see what's happening.”

“Hey, that's great.” May jumps from the truck and starts running toward the front of the line of parked cars.

“Wait,” Hektor calls. But May doesn't slow down. She pushes through the small crowd and disappears. “Lord God,” Hektor hears her say.

“Excuse me.” He wedges between two men and grabs May's arm. On the road before them is the largest
alligator Hektor has ever seen. It stretches at least ten feet across the middle of the road. Dead, Hektor thinks. But even as he is thinking this, the alligator moves its tail slightly. Twelve people move backward as one. Hektor snatches May back so hard she is airborne.

“Don't you ever do that again!” he hisses.

“What?”

What? Put yourself in danger? Leave me?

“Say ‘Lord God' like that. And get so close to an alligator.”

“I just wanted to see him.”

“So did Captain Hook.”

“What?”

Hektor sighs. He is raising a culturally illiterate child who won't test well and who will never make it into a good college and it's his fault.

“That gator's Big Ben,” the skinny redheaded man beside him says. “He does this ever now and then. We just wait till his nap's over usually. Yell at him some.”

“How long does he usually sleep?” Hektor asks.

“Differs.”

“I thought Big Ben was a bear,” May says.

“That's Gentle Ben.”

“Big Ben's a clock, though.”

“Right. Goes tic toc because it swallowed Captain Hook's arm.”

“Whose arm, Papa?”

“I'm not sure.” Hektor turns to the man next to him. “You want me to call the Highway Patrol or something? There's a phone in my truck.”

“Won't do any good. But I sure would like to call my wife and tell her why I'm late.”

“Sure. It's that blue pickup.”

“How does it work?”

“I'll come get it for you.” Hektor turns to May.
“Move an inch and I'll send what's left of you to the reform school.”

“What's the reform school?”

“You don't want to know.”

“You're not going to send me to the zoo to shovel elephant doo?”

“Same thing.” Hektor leaves a grinning May and accompanies the man to the pickup. While the phone is doing its roaming bit, he thinks this is a perfect example of irony, space age technology to inform someone an alligator has the road blocked.

“Honey?” the man says when the satellite cooperates. “I'm down by Big Swamp. Ben's got the road blocked again.” He listens a moment and hangs up.

“She says I'm lying.” He looks sadly at the phone in his hand. “Can I call somebody else?”

“Sure.” Hektor shows the man how and goes back to join the crowd gathered around Big Ben. The crocheting woman is sitting in a frayed aluminum chair in a patch of shade.

“Hot,” she says, but to Hektor she looks cool and peaceful, her fingers moving like little flashes of light. He thinks of his mother and Artie and Dolly, none of whom he has ever seen crochet.

“Could you show my daughter how to do that?” he asks.

“She can come watch me if she wants.”

“Why?” May asks when Hektor tells her the lady is going to teach her to crochet.

“Because it's a good thing to know how to do if you get stopped on the road by an alligator.”

May shakes her head no.

“Or waiting at an airport, or watching TV. It's something every lady should know how to do. You could make us a tablecloth.”

“Why?”

“Because they're pretty. And idle hands are the devil's workshop. Take my word for it.” He turns her around. “Now get over there.”

May looks at Big Ben who has not moved an inch and decides to go see what the lady is doing.

An hour later, when the sheriff arrives, she is asleep, her head against the woman's thigh. The man in Hektor's pickup, still using the phone, spots the flashing lights first. “Here they come,” he calls.

The group, which has grown much larger, parts for two uniformed men, one of whom carries an electric cattle prod.

“Y'all move way back,” he says. The crowd obeys. “Sorry, Ben,” he says, “but you gotta nap somewhere else.” He lightly touches the alligator's tail with the prod and Ben comes to life, swishing his tail toward the running sheriff and then waddling slowly to the side of the road, down the bank, and into the swamp.

Everyone claps and laughs. The sheriff grins and holds up the prod. “These things are illegal, you know. Just for emergencies. I'd say that's what we had here.”

Hektor wonders if it would take them over an hour to answer a real emergency but he thinks he already knows. He goes over to the sheriff, however, and thanks him and introduces himself. “I'm looking for Father Audubon,” he says. “Do you know where I can find him?”

“Probably fishing. You know where Hurricane Lake is?”

“No.”

“Well, it's a right big lake. You won't have any trouble finding it. Turn left up the road at Bouchet's store. When you get there somebody will know where he is.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.” The sheriff points the cattle prod at a small boy who screeches delightedly and runs.

May, groggy with sleep, is waiting in the truck. “He didn't hurt Ben, did he, Papa?”

“No, honey. Just startled him and woke him up. It got him out of the road, didn't it?”

May yawns. “He was so big.”

Hektor yawns, too. “Did you learn how to crochet?”

“No, but the lady was real nice. Her name is Annie Dolores. Isn't that a pretty name? Mrs. Dolores. She's sixty-six and her daughter who's getting married's name is Delnora. She was a change-of-life baby. Do you like that name, Papa? Delnora Dolores? She works for Gulf Power and she's gonna have six bridesmaids. They're gonna wear blue dotted swiss. Mrs. Dolores says she's so glad dotted swiss has come back. Delnora's dress is peau de soie, though. Do you know what that is, Papa? And her veil is the same one Mrs. Dolores and her other two daughters wore. She's been married forty-eight years and says that's why she has high blood pressure. She has to take eight pills a day. That's a lot, isn't it, Papa?”

Hektor marvels at his girl child. He feels her words flowing over him like warm rain. Women, he thinks, picking up her small hand and kissing it. Bless their hearts.

 

The road to Hurricane Lake is not paved. There are deep mud holes that people have gone around so much they have worn down a new roadbed. Spanish moss brushes the windshield.

“I think Spanish moss is pretty,” May says.

“One time Artie and Donnie and I decided we would pick it and sell it to florists to put in hanging baskets.”

“Did you make any money?”

“We got red bugs. That stuff is covered in them. I had them the worst because they made me go up the trees. Mama soaked all of us in salty water. Didn't do a bit of good. They were all up under my arms. My legs.”

“But did you make any money?”

“We wouldn't go near the stuff. We left it out in the backyard. I think maybe mama used some of it after it dried.”

“I would have used a rake and not climbed up the tree,” May says.

“Good thinking.” They come around a curve and see the lake before them. The road ends at a boat dock; the water is unusually blue.

“Hey, neat.” May jumps out as soon as the truck stops and runs out onto a small pier.

“Wait, May!” Hektor scrambles from the pickup and hurries after her. If she fell in, he would panic; they would both drown while he was trying to get her out. Things happen. He knows.

“You wouldn't panic, Hektor.” It's Artie's voice, clear as if she were walking beside him.

“Yes, I would. I know what drowned people look like.”

“What, Papa?” May is smiling at him.

“I said you could drown in this lake. It looks deep.”

May looks back at the water. “There's lots of boats. Reckon which one is Father Audubon's?”

“I have no idea. I guess we'll just have to wait for him to come in.”

“But that could take all day and I'm starving.”

“There are some boiled peanuts in the truck.”

“They make me thirsty.”

“There's some water in the thermos.”

But May shrugs and sits down on the pier. A tiny lizard darts across the piling in front of her. The sky is bright blue, not hazy like it will be later in the fall, and the dark green of the pines is punctuated with the lighter green of willows. For the first time, Hektor wishes he could paint what he sees, the child, the lake, the day. He wants Artie to see this and put it on canvas so he can keep it. But he wants even the light breeze that stirs the water, and the earthy, fishy smell that rises from the bank. Not even Artie could do that. He sighs and sits down beside May.

“Aunt Artie would like it here,” she says.

“That's just what I was thinking.”

“I guess she's in heaven.”

“I guess so.”

“Reckon what it's like?”

“Nice. Peaceful.”

May nods. “That's what they say.”

Hektor thinks of all the things he was taught in Sunday school about heaven. Artie and Donnie had said it sounded boring. Well, maybe she could get something going. Or come back as somebody terrific if that's an alternative. Who knows? Hektor isn't sure what he believes about the afterlife except you shouldn't take chances.

A small boat is coming toward the pier. A man waves at them.

“Are you Father Audubon?” Hektor calls.

“He's over there.” The man points in a general direction toward several boats. “You want me to get him for you?”

“I'd appreciate it.”

“They're not biting anyway.” He turns the boat around and chugs toward the other fisherman. Tiny
waves slap against the pilings of the pier. Hektor and May hear him shout, “Hey, Audubon!” They hear an answering “What?” and in a few minutes the man Hektor assumes is the priest is pulling his boat up beside the pier.

“You want me?” he asks, throwing the rope to Hektor and cutting his motor.

“Hektor Sullivan, and this is my daughter May.”

“May,” the man says, shaking hands with her, too. “Yep, I'm Father Audubon. Beats hell out of Delmore Ricketts, doesn't it?” He pulls off his straw fishing hat and runs his fingers through thinning red hair. In his late forties he is a small man with the freckles that go with his hair. He has on a stained blue many-pocketed mechanic's outfit that seems to be two sizes too large with the cuffs turned up several times. “Bye, Bud. Thanks,” he calls to the man who had gone to get him and who is pulling out of the parking area, boat attached to an old Buick.