A Choir of Ill Children (12 page)

She fell on me in the blazing sun as Drabs caterwauled from somewhere far down the muddy banks.

Now I stand and stare at her as the clouds toss shadows against her legs. She gazes steadily at me, urging me to cross the water. It’s only thigh high at this point, spanning forty feet.

If Drabs was one of the torch-bearers chasing Betty Lynn through the tobacco fields, it only makes sense to me that Maggie was the other. I search for resentment and jealousy in her eyes and find none.

The orchid in her hair is azure tipped in black. She plucks it loose and tosses it in the water, where it spins and trails slowly downstream. She sits with her arms folded over her knees, chin resting on her hands.

My father used to take hundreds of photos of her posed like that and in many other ways—picking apples, swimming, seated in the old tire swing, riding ponies, looming in the willows.

Perhaps he knew that she, like himself, was becoming more of a ghost every day.

I
’
M SURPRISED TO SEE
L
OTTIE
M
AE, THE CONJURE GIRL,
in Leadbetter’s having a vodka gimlet. She’s wearing a black leather skirt, charcoal blouse, and tiny white lace gloves, the kind that were popular twenty years ago on the dance club circuit. She’s lovely but looks lost in place and time, like a child dressed for a make-believe tea party.

Not only is she underage but I didn’t think the bartender could make a gimlet to save his soul. She holds the glass up to the light, turning it first one way, then the other, relishing the colored light coming through the thick liquid. She sits alone at one end of the bar, with maybe twenty guys packed into the other side. She scares them. The taint of Velma Coots and the Crone is upon her.

I watch Lottie Mae. The animal heads watch her too. The guys are quiet, keeping their beer in hand, maybe a little paranoid. When she glances over, they turn away in all directions.

I step up, sit beside her, and order two more vodka gimlets. I haven’t had one in years and can’t recall whether I like them or not. The bartender takes the fifty I’ve laid out, staying at arm’s length and acting as if the bill might chew through his hand. He breaks it and puts my change back so close to his side of the bar that most of it falls behind it, at his feet.

Now he’s got to bend over and Lottie Mae and I will be out of eyeshot above him. He’s thinking about me reaching over and grabbing his throat, shoving a twizzler in his eye. He’s gasping for air just imagining it. He backs off and gets more money out of the till, places that in front of me instead. I’m so entertained by his clumsy ballet of terror that I shove the change back at him for a tip, but he’s already at the other end of the bar with the rest of the guys.

I take a sip and can’t completely stifle a groan. Lottie Mae chuckles even though she hasn’t even looked at me so far. I wonder what her mission is tonight and whether I’m to be any part of it.

Her short dark hair is styled into little feathered points. The last time I saw her, in the storm of souls, we were both soaked and steaming. Now, without the drama of the lightning and the tragedy of the granny witches’ chanting, we can face the turning of the wheel.

Another laugh flits from her throat and I suddenly realize that she’s drunk out of her mind.

“Lottie Mae?”

“You asked me what I was prepared to do. Tha’s what you asked.” She’s slurring her words so badly they run into one another. She exhales everything at once, and it all smells as if it’s been inside her a long time. “Well, here it is, the answer you’ve been waiting on. I’m ready for you now.”

“Forget it.” She shakes as if laughing, shoulders rolling, but nothing comes out. “Can’t do that.”

“I think you can.”

“No no, it ain’t right, listen to me, you gotta listen—”

“You haven’t been to the mill.”

She slumps in her seat, rouses for an instant, then sags again. I keep my hand on her lower back so she won’t topple over. She relaxes and leans against me, blinks a few times trying to get through the fog. “I quit your ole mill. You don’t own me, I go where I want. Don’t you bother me none ’bout that.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Well all right.”

I shove the vodka gimlet away but the bartender won’t come over and let me have something else. The men speak in hushed tones, playing darts and trying to keep watch of us. They can’t hit a damn thing on the board and the solid thunk of the dart points nailing wood keeps snapping Lottie Mae up high in her chair.

“Where are you working now?” I ask.

It takes a second for the question to register. “Doover’s Five & Dime. Order me another one of these. I want another one of these, before the road.”

“You’ve had too much to drink.”

“Have not.”

“You’re going to be ill.”

“Am not.” She draws back and eyes me as if seeing me for the first time. A moan fills her chest and quickly dies out as if she’s lost her breath. I enjoy the weight of her small body against my hand and rub her back gently. She sticks out a forefinger and tries to tap me on the chest but misses by six inches. “You think I’m afraid, don’t you.”

“No.”

“Yes, you do, I can tell. You’re so goddamn smug, aren’t you. Sitting there like you’re emperor of Potts County. Well, I’m not scared of you. And I’m not scared of doing it either, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve done it plenty of times. So you just come along.”

“Where?”

That thwarts her and she frowns. The aftertaste of vodka is starting to work its way back up her throat and she keeps scowling, scraping her teeth across her tongue. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something. I don’t want to go home to do it. Oh wait, your truck. I heard you got a truck. Do you have a truck?”

“Yes.”

The glow of triumph lights her face. She looks like a little girl who’s just unwrapped her favorite Christmas present. This might be good for my ego if it didn’t make me feel like such an imbecile. “Ah, they was right, come on then.”

“No.”

“But I’m all set.” She takes another sip of her drink and she’s got a death grip on her glass. “You wanted to know, and now you know.”

“Yes, now I know.”

“I’m ready.”

She tries sliding off the chair but I hold her in place. “No, Lottie Mae, you’re not.”

“Am too, I say. Don’t you want me?”

“I—”

Her lips quiver as she begins to snicker. It’s a harsh noise made even uglier by the fact that she’s on the verge of crying. “I know you want me.”

“I like the gloves,” I tell her. “They’re a nice touch.”

“You making fun of me, you sonuvabitch?”

“No.”

“Let’s just get it over with.” Lottie Mae stirs and raises her head some but can’t focus on me anymore. The darts striking the wall make her buck as if she’s being stabbed. She manages to wheel away from me and I know she’s going to fall off her chair and be sick. I catch her as she drops over backward still holding tightly to her glass. Liquor spills onto her lap and she flinches and lets out a soft noise. It’s partly a sigh but mostly an infant’s grunt of dissatisfaction.

We barely get outside into the parking lot in time.

She heaves in the middle of the gravel walkway just as a couple of bikers are striding up. I rub the back of her neck and make soothing sounds the way I did when my mother first started going out and drinking, hiding bottles all over the house.

I don’t know what the hell she had for supper but it comes out raw, mean, and bloody-looking. The granny witches could probably read signs in the spatters of bile but it’s all just a mess to me. She goes to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand but notices she’s wearing the gloves. She doesn’t want to ruin them and holds her hands up and flutters her fingers, groaning and sobbing now. I grip Lottie Mae under her shoulders and drag her to the bushes where she continues retching.

An open hand slaps me hard in the middle of my back.

The biker is six inches taller than me and much wider. He isn’t a body builder but he’s moved some steel or stone in his time. He wears heavy motorcycle boots, a faded red T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and black jeans frayed at his ankles. He has a small knife concealed in his belt buckle, the kind you pull like an old beer can tab. There are poorly done prison tattoos all over his huge arms that remind me of Sarah’s masks of Comedy and Tragedy.

One of his biceps reads DARR, which is either a misspelling, an acronym, or his name. He has a shaved head except for three thin, smooth stripes of hair, one on each side and another down the middle.

The other biker—short, slender but well built—is entranced by Lottie Mae’s vomit and kneels over the puddle, grimacing and pursing his lips.

Darr asks me, “Are you planning on doing anything unsavory?”

“Not at the moment,” I tell him.

“She’s underage.”

“Yes.”

“And I think she ought to come along with us.”

That stops me for a second, and now I’ve got to look at him a bit differently. “Why’s that?”

“A young girl could get badly hurt in just these sorts of circumstances, being she’s so muddled in a place such as this.”

I’ve got to agree with him. “You’re right, but outside of an upset stomach and tomorrow’s hangover, she’ll be fine.”

“I’ll take her on home then.”

I settle back some trying to get a bead on Darr. I find it odd that if he knows Lottie Mae, he doesn’t speak directly to her. True, she’s throwing up, but still, he could make some sort of an attempt.

He acts like he’s defending her virtue, a knight of the realm. Maybe that’s just posturing on his part or maybe he’s just hoping to steal off a drunk beauty without too much of a hassle.

None of it quite adds up. I’m pretty certain the bikers aren’t headed for the monastery. They don’t have the stale air of belief, theological pursuit, or world-weariness about them. But it’s clear they’ve got their own objectives. I look over at the small guy, who’s still inspecting the splashes.

Darr crosses his arms over his burly chest and takes a deep breath to inflate himself.

“She’s my responsibility,” I tell him. “I’ll make sure that she gets home safely.”

“Somehow I tend to doubt that,” he says.

We’re both getting itchy standing there talking when we really want something to happen. “It’s good you’re a man who can express his views succinctly. Thanks for the colloquy. Enjoy your night.”

I give him my back again. If any action is going to go down, now’s the time.

Right on cue his massive fist comes from down low near his knees, aiming for my kidneys. I roll with it, turn aside, and he’s so hyperextended with the looping punch that he nearly tips over. He’s tough but awkward, and I still can’t get past the feeling that all of this has been coordinated for some reason I can’t figure out.

I say, “Okay, let’s see where this gets us.”

He throws a stiff left that I slip but he’s already following up with a right cross that catches me on the hinge of my jaw. It’s a bad place to get hit, in that nerve cluster. Pain flashes up my face and showers my vision with fiery blots. I dodge and he makes another pass with the left, which taps my temple.

I go low and he thinks I’m reaching in to grab his nuts. He blocks his groin while I yank the blade out of his belt buckle and bring it up to his forehead. Directly at the start of his middle stripe of hair I give a little slash, and the blood immediately begins pouring down his forehead and into his eyes.

The other biker comes over and tells me, “I’m Lottie Mae’s brother.”

I believe him. He passes by me without another word, takes her gently around her waist, and holds her in his arms.

She coughs and sputters. “Clay, I screwed it all up. I was ready. He didn’t want me. I tried. I’m sorry.”

“You gotta stay away from them crazy old women and their ways, Lottie Mae.”

“Them’s our ways too.”

“No more.”

He gets her onto his Harley, where she leans forward heavily against his back. In a few seconds they’re gone. Darr keeps bleeding and shambling all over the place, growling and blindly lashing out for me. I take him by the wrist and lead him inside. There’s a first-aid kit near the phone. I put a butterfly Band-Aid on him and head home, still tasting that goddamn vodka gimlet.

G
LOWERING,
V
ELMA
C
OOTS SITS ON A SYCAMORE
stump outside her shack, one-eyed newts springing around her feet, wingless bats flopping. She holds the short, curved blade tightly in her fist. I can hear the sloshing of the black liquids in her brass cauldron from here, spitting.

“You come to make things right?” she asks.

“That depends on whether you’re still on that vinegar kick.”

“Don’t mock, chile. That’s what makes the magic work best.”

“So you’ve said. But the storm’s over.”

She sneers, shakes her head, and makes little “feh” noises that might be derisive laughter. “That’s what you been thinkin’. But if you believed it you wouldn’t be here again. The dead ain’t at rest and they got plenty of mischief to make. Evil’s still on the lookout.”

“Of course it is.”

“Well, at least you ain’t completely stupid about that.”

“No,” I say, “not completely.”

“The ghosts are comin’. They in the air. Can’t stop them none without some offerings.”

We enjoy the evening like that for a while. I smoke a couple of cigarettes and watch the stars appear in the roiling purple sky of the east. Finally, she gets up and leads me into her shack where I sit in a rickety ladder-back chair. There are no flames in the fireplace, just red-hot embers that boil her potions.

She offers me a jug of moonshine and I take a tap that slams down my throat like a runaway freight. I should be going into a coughing fit but my gag reflex has completely seized up. Tears leak onto my cheeks and Velma Coots says, “Made it myself. Smooth, ain’t it?”

“Gah!”

“Feh. I thought you’d like it.”

I haven’t had shine in a while and can already feel the enamel on my teeth beginning to peel. The black liquids splash onto the hot stone and sizzle and pop. The reek of flesh and fish strengthens for an instant and then subsides.