(2008) Down Where My Love Lives (55 page)

He blinked. His voice was quiet and calm. "Dylan."

I stepped closer. Not smelling the fumes of alcohol I'd come to expect, I said, "You okay?"

Bryce nodded, checked the position of the safety without even looking, and handed it to me. The pungent smell of warm urine reached my nose and, evidently, Bryce's, because he grabbed the light, shone it on the front of my pants, and then clicked it off. He handed it back. "You?"

I took a deep breath, sat down again in the grass, and collapsed onto my back. Just then I heard the barn door slam and saw Maggie walk beneath the fluorescent glow of the light from the telephone pole that lit the yard between the barn and the house. Wrapped in a blanket, she strained her eyes, looking toward us.

I turned on the flashlight, shone it down onto myself, and said, "It's just me and Bryce." I decided it'd be better not to shine the light on Bryce, so I kept it pointing down on me, watching her. She craned her neck, muttered something, and disappeared again into the barn.

I flicked off the light again as Pinky crossed the trail in front of me, waddling her way back to the barn after what was apparently her nighttime feeding.

Bryce stepped closer to the corn and peered at the tops, shining black in the moonlight. He whispered, "They were a little taller than this. It was summer. I was chasing a man, and we came to a field." He raised his hands and touched the tips of the cornstalks.

"He had been assigned to me a month earlier, and I'd been chasing him ever since. That was the thirty-second day. When he cleared the corn and stepped into my row, he was forty-two paces." He pointed at the shotgun on my shoulder. "I'd been working some tunnels earlier in the evening, so I was carrying one of those. I placed the bead on his legs and squeezed." Bryce blinked but didn't flinch.

"He dropped, began spraying the corn around me with AK-47 fire, and one 7.62 round cut through my helmet but missed my head. I fired a second time, and the man stopped firing and clutched his feet. He was screaming. I walked within twenty paces and fired a third time."

Bryce dropped the imaginary gun and pulled the real Colt .45 from his holster. He clicked off the safety and, clasping it with two hands, walked farther down the corn row.

I followed, the shotgun over my shoulder, pointing away, the flashlight aimed on Bryce.

He walked to a spot twenty steps away and stood, feet apart, pointing into the dirt below him. He extended the pistol barrel into the air and stopped some two feet from the ground. He then began speaking in a language I'd never heard. It sounded like a loose cousin to what Maggie and I would hear when we went to eat sushi.

Bryce knelt, the pistol still clutched in both hands, and whispered, "I said, `Where is she?"' He paused, waited, looked further into the memory, and spoke again. "Where is she?"

Silence followed as Bryce cocked the hammer on his Colt. I backed up one step, and Bryce whispered, pressing his ear hard against the memory of the man's face. He stayed there, listening, shaking his head, and nodding. Then, without another word, he stood up and pulled the trigger eight times. He fired all eight shots into the dirt beneath him, directly through the memory of the man's head. He ejected the clip, inserted a second, and flicked the slide forward, chambering another round. He clicked on the hammer safety, holstered the still-smoking weapon, and breathed in long, measured breaths. Finally he blinked, reached into the cargo pocket on his pants, pulled out a sheet of gum, and popped all twelve pieces into his mouth.

While I tried to make sense of this nonsense, Bryce worked the gum around in his mouth. The mixture of dirt, corn, gunpowder, urine, and spearmint added to the confusion.

"Bryce?"

He blinked and looked at me.

I shone the light on his feet. "Have, umm,... have you been, uh ... do you always walk around barefooted?"

Bryce looked at his feet, the gum filling most of his mouth. "Only when I don't want to be heard."

"You know," I said, trying to sound casual, "if you're ever out this way and want to come in for a cup of coffee or a bite to eat, you can always knock. Or just come on in and have a seat at the table."

Bryce considered that for a moment, then said, "Okay."

I nodded. "Sure. You don't even have to knock."

Without another word, Bryce stepped off into the night. Within ten paces, I could no longer make out his outline. A few more, and both the sight and sound of him had disappeared altogether. Ten seconds later, I heard a covey of quail flush and rise down near the river beyond my son's grave, some two hundred yards away.

I walked back to the barn, stripped, and showered. Cleaner, I walked across the yard to the house and locked the shotgun back in the closet, and only when I'd sat down at the kitchen table, hovering over a glass of orange juice, did I realize how badly my hands were shaking.

When I cracked open our bedroom door, I found Maggie snow-angeled diagonally across the middle of the bed. Her breathing told me she was asleep, so I pulled the door quietly shut and spread out across the front porch with Blue. A few hours later, I woke inside a dew-covered sleeping bag. Pinky was grunting at me from inside the barn, and Blue lay on his bed across the porch looking at me as if I were from Mars.

I sat up and looked at him. "What? What'd I do?"

He flopped his ears forward, laid his muzzle down across his leg, and let out a deep breath. Maybe now he would let himself go to sleep.

THE CALENDAR ON THE REFRIGERATOR SHOWED THAT IT was Tuesday, July 16. Another week had passed. Each day seemed like one long day that rolled seamlessly into another, where daylight and darkness had little meaning other than to suggest something I'd forgotten. According to my count, Maggie had been home eighteen days. Before all this stuff started, her cycles had been pretty regular at twenty-eight days. I wasn't sure, but I guessed we were another two weeks, give or take a few days, from knowing one way or the other. I tried to imagine each scenario. Neither was very good. Whatever the outcome, I wasn't sure how Maggie would react.

I pulled on my jeans, slid on my boots, and combed my hair. I walked around the front of the house and found her sitting in a rocker, wrapped in a blanket, and watching the bulldozer dump burned memories and brick into a Dumpster across the street.

She hadn't eaten much in a couple of days, and I was sure she had lost some weight. Her face was thinner, accentuated by her short hair, and her color was not too good. Her hollow face looked like a reflection of her insides.

I scrambled some eggs, made some cheese grits and toast, and walked out onto the front porch. She smiled, nibbled, but ate little. I kissed her forehead, she brushed my face with her palm, and we sat in the rockers, swaying.

THE PHONE RANG TWICE BEFORE THE HOSPITAL receptionist picked up. "Hello?"

It was late; I cleared my throat. "Hello. I need to speak with Dr. Frank Palmer, please."

"Hold just one minute."

Five minutes passed while the elevator music reminded me that I hadn't been to the dentist in a while.

"This is Dr. Frank."

"Dr. Frank, this is Dylan Styles."

"Hey, Dylan. How's our girl?"

"Well, sir, she's not sleeping much. I was wondering if-"

"No problem. I'll have the nurse call in something. How's everything else?"

I wasn't sure how to answer. Finally I stammered, "I-I just think it'd do her some good to get a good night's sleep."

"I'll tell you what," he said, "why don't you stop by the office. I'll have the nurse pull a few things out of the sample bin. Save you some money."

"You don't mind?"

"I'll have it ready when you get there."

"Thanks, Dr. Frank."

THE BUILDING THAT HOUSED THE DIGGER VOLUNTEER Fire Department No. 1 was little more than a tall concreteblock warehouse with four large front-and-back aluminum garage doors that allowed the trucks to drive through the building rather than just into it and one very tall flagpole that stood adjacent to Mr. Carter's dog kennels. He had donated the land.

Picnic tables and folding chairs spread across the lawn behind the building, and the enormous flag flapped gently in the 98-degree air. Three-foot standing floor fans sat in the middle of the firehouse, circulating the air through the doors and blowing across the red-and-white-checkered tablecloths covering the picnic tables. Newspaper had been spread across the tablecloths, and upright rolls of paper towels sat on top of all that, ensuring that nothing would float away. Mr. Carter's rolling barbecue pit, an old propane tank cut lengthways and set on trailer wheels-and big enough for a man to lie down in-sat smoking, lid open, currently heating three huge twentygallon vats.

Draped in a red apron that read "Fire Chief," Mr. Carter tended both the fire and the pots with the same stick. He'd poke the fire, stoke the flames, then dip that same stick into the water and poke the boiling food. He said the mesquite in the charcoal added to the flavor. Badger and Gus, two of Mr. Carter's older and most obedient dogs, had been let out of the kennel and lay at their master's feet.

I parked out of sight because I didn't want to explain the van, and then Maggie and I crossed the street and walked through the firehouse. There's no use denying it; it's pretty much a huge toy room for grown men. All of us signed up in part because of all the cool toys. From chain saws to axes to the infamous jaws of Life, we are enamored with things that cut, bang, or smash. And what boy doesn't grow up wanting to drive a fire truck?

Mr. Willard, the owner of the corner gas station and grocery, greeted us at the door with a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses. Jim Biggins, evidently taking a break from his landclearing and firewood business, walked around the side of the building with a hundred-pound sack of charcoal slung over each shoulder. Butch Walker and his boys, free between the morning and evening milking at their dairy, sat at a table laughing with a few guys I didn't know. John Billingsly, Digger's only computer guru, sat hovering over a portable bug zapper that stood like a six-foot chiminea with a purple head. Every three or four seconds it zapped.

The wives of these men all sat at one table, whispering, laughing, and trying to hide whatever they were talking about from their husbands. Which was also exactly what the men were doing, but both groups knew this, so the game continued as it had since Adam met Eve in the garden.

No matter how slowly I walked, Maggie walked a half step behind me, almost hiding behind my shoulder. She hadn't said she didn't want to come, but she hadn't seemed too excited either. I looped my arm inside hers, and we walked to the nearest table, where Amanda saw us and came to our rescue. She grabbed Maggie and led her off to the women's table.

Maggie's eyes told me she didn't want to go, they told me she wanted to run very far away from here, but I silently urged her on, so she put on a smile and acted happy.

I sat with the boys, giving the obligatory laugh when needed, but my eyes, ears, and mind were with Maggie. The women's conversation had turned to children, whose child was in what grade, what sports they were playing, how far each mom drove the car pool each day, how many loads of laundry they washed in a week, and how much their grocery bill had increased because of the rising price of milk. Maggie listened, trying to look interested, but her crossed arms, crossed legs, and stiff neck told me she needed help.

Mr. Carter came to the rescue. Stirring the middle pot, he leaned back out of the smoke and said, "Amos and D.S."

We jumped up from the table and met him at the cooker. He gave us each a hot pad, and we lifted the first vat off the cooker. It was heavy, and I almost stumbled. Amos smiled, eyed my shaking arms, and shook his head. "You need to get busy."

I looked at my deflated biceps and compared them to Amos's. Not much comparison. We drained off the water, then dumped the contents directly onto the newspaper on the center table. Red potatoes, corn on the cob, carrots, shrimp, andouille sausage, Alaskan crab legs, and about four cans of Old Bay Seasoning spilled across the table and sat steaming in the shade of the magnolia tree that towered above us.

Amos and I returned for the other two vats while everyone else grabbed plates and started helping themselves to the mound on the table. We loaded up three tables with dinner and then sat around the tables eating with our hands. A true low-country boil does not involve flatware of any kind. We just bellied up to the tables, rested our elbows on the edges, and dug in.

Everyone, that is, except Maggie and me. We did what we were getting good at. We pretended.

An hour passed. The shrimp tails and crab shells piled up, and people began sitting back and passing around the toothpick cup. Inside the fire station, John Billingsly was tending his ice cream maker, which finished churning about the time someone started telling the story of Amos's and my heroic rescue at the church.

The guys laughed. One of them imitated me with my oxygen tank and rubber boots that were two sizes too big, while another mimicked Amos's attempt to kick in a stubborn door. While they prodded, Maggie, Amanda, and a few other ladies passed out plastic spoons and peach ice cream served in Styrofoam bowls.