A Choir of Ill Children (3 page)

O
NE OF THE ROADHOUSE GIRLS FROM
L
EADBETTER
’
S
shows up at the house to tell me she’s pregnant.

I don’t remember her face at all, not even when she moves, in spasms, to kiss me like we’re longtime lovers.

But when she sits in the love seat on the porch alongside me, subtly shifting her weight to show the inseam of her thigh, a suddenly clear and painful memory hits. She is Betty Lynn, and she’s barely nineteen.

Her youth hangs off her like baby fat. She thinks she’s sly and now she’ll have something to tell the other kids down at the Piggly Wiggly and Doover’s Five & Dime. It looks like her mother did her makeup and hair this afternoon. She went light on the eye shadow, heavy on the rouge. Her flowered print summer dress has been freshly pressed and she smells faintly of an old lady’s dull perfume.

I can just see her mama giving her pointers on what to say and do now. Don’t scare him off, don’t be threatenin’. Reel him in slow like a catfish and don’t jerk the line. This is gonna be her one big break in life, Mama talking with hairpins jutting from between her teeth, telling Betty Lynn how to act in order to get a man, combing out her knotted curls. This is a chance for money and family. To get out of the river bottoms and live in a mansion. For something different to happen in a town where nothing ever changes except the extent of desperation.

Betty Lynn has never seen a home as huge as ours, and immediately she begins to imagine herself living here without her five screaming younger brothers and sisters always pinching at her legs. No chickens to feed and kill and pluck, no cows to milk, no tar-paper shack that collects heat in the summer and pours it over you like scalding water. She grins and shows off her tiny square teeth, eyes wide and starry, thinking about what she’ll buy first once she gets her fists on some cash. That’s natural enough, everyone in Potts County does the same thing.

She takes in the empty space and wonderful silence for a minute, picturing the size of the closets and the depth of the bathtubs. All this room, it’s got to be put to use. She knows she’s going to be mother to a screaming brood, that’s her fate no matter what else happens to her, but it would be so much more endurable if she could wear lavish pleated dresses and drink Chablis. If she could finally afford disposable diapers and not have to washboard the cloth ones anymore. Mama is slowly suffocating her, the kids around her knees are crushing her, the chickens clucking in the kitchen driving her crazy, oh hell yes, everything is.

Her pale blue eyes are swirling as the smile begins to creep from the corners of her mouth and broadens further. She cannot pronounce Chablis and has never tasted it, but she’ll learn to drink it. Nothing’s worse than Daddy’s mash whiskey, and he’s only got half a tongue left now because of it. Betty Lynn wants to be valued by those in high society, however they act. Wherever they are and whatever they do.
That’s
how it’s going to be, Mama said. And
that’s
exactly what she wants to tell them down at the Piggly Wiggly and Doover’s Five & Dime when they back up and turn away in awful seething jealousy.

She speaks her mind, which is how it should be. “I think we ought to get married.”

“You do.”

“Uh-huh. I’d make a good wife and a fine mother. I’ve pretty much had to raise my brothers and sisters since Papa got too sick to work anymore. I handle them all right, and I’ll handle this child just the same.”

“You seem to know what you want,” I say.

“You did too, that night in the parking lot.”

“Yes,” I admit. It’s true enough, or at least had been at the time. I used a condom though I don’t bother to press the point. Nothing I say to her is going to amount to anything much. I get off the love seat and offer her my hand. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

“You want me to go inside with you?”

“Sure.”

Perhaps she’s heard the rumors about my brothers but she can’t possibly believe they’re true. It’s a tale meant only to scare local kids. Something to be discarded alongside the bogeyman and the flat rock ghosts. Her eyes are bright as she glances at the mantel and the carved furniture. Fred and Sarah have taken Dodi with them to Leadbetter’s, and the house is silent and feels as if it hasn’t been lived in for fifty years. We walk past the stairway and the steps draw our attention like a siphon. The darkness pools.

“What’s up there?”

“My brothers.”

That gets a nervous chuckle from her as she toes the floor. She touches her fancy hairdo to make sure it hasn’t started to unravel yet. “Naaaw.”

“Yes.”

“Aw, you’re just fooling me.”

“No, it’s true.”

She presses a finger to my chest, so shy here in this maze of hallways. My wrist flicks against the underside of her right breast and her perfume doesn’t smell so bad anymore. She looks up and down the stairs, smiling but drawing away, expecting some fun surprises. “I don’t think I believe you.”

“Come see for yourself.”

We head up the steps hand in hand. We’re going to visit the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. She can hardly contain herself and lets loose with a few giggles. It’s a sweet sound. We’re going to make love for hours on a grand bed, and then I’ll present her with my grandmother’s three-carat diamond ring. Or maybe Betty Lynn thinks I’m taking her to the master bedroom to show her all the excessive closet space. To lay her down on silk sheets, dapple her pale cheeks with rose petals, and read
Les Fleurs Du Mal
to her in French. I’ve done it to others.

I pause at the bedroom door and let the moment extend. I’m giggling a little too, and that startles me. She steps closer as if I might lift her into my arms and carry her across the threshold. I open the door and take her by the hand, leading her into the gray shadows to the bodies on the bed.

For a second you might think there are parts of corpses stacked up on the mattress, pieced together, still quivering.

“I’m getting married!” I tell my brothers.

They struggle off the bed, thrusting the tremendous conjoined head forward first, followed by the three trunks and a circle of stunted tangled limbs.

“Oh my sweet Jesus,” Betty Lynn whispers in a feeble voice, “save my soul. Mama, Mama, you never told me—”

Sebastian, who despises and detests, uses all three of their mouths to softly spew his venom. “Get out of here, you useless stupid cunt.”

They begin laughing weakly, and hearing that fluted sound is like listening to a choir of ill children.

I reach for my wallet and grab enough cash to cover the abortion. I hold a handful of bills out to her but she rushes past without taking any.

The faint rippling laughter follows Betty Lynn’s scuttling and cries as she clambers down two flights of stairs, tripping and tumbling. Awful moans dredge up from deep inside her. She’s bitten through her tongue and droplets of blood spatter the steps. She beats at her somewhat flabby belly, hoping to kill the creature inside her before it can grow into
that
.

Before it can become me.

B
Y THE TIME THEY GET BACK,
F
RED HAS PRETTY MUCH
scrapped the idea of making a documentary and now wants to film a porno movie starring Dodi Coots and Drabs Bibbler. He hasn’t met Drabs yet but he must’ve seen him naked and sobbing on the back roads with his pecker flouncing in the breeze. I hate to admit it, but the flick would probably go over well on the amateur video market.

“How much money we talking about here?” Dodi asks him. She catches my eye as if she’s just kidding around but I’m sure she toys with the idea.

“Depends on the number and variety of scenes we get.”

Fred, who’s always thinking, has to keep his target audience in mind. The kink market isn’t as large or prevalent as the main porno scene out of Van Nuys, but they’re willing to pay a lot more for something genuinely original. If he could get his camera into our bedroom, set the lights up right without any filter this time, and find the proper angles—

“Can they ejaculate?” he asks.

“Who?” Dodi asks.

“Who do you think? The triplets. Can they ejaculate?”

“The hell kind of question is that?”

“An honest one,” he says. “They share the same forehead, for Christ’s sake. I was curious, that’s all.”

“Yes, they can. Now you’ve got your answer.”

“Good. Then we can get the money shot. Three of them, in fact. Can you handle that?”

It doesn’t bother him talking in front of me, treating me like this in my own house. He’s leering so widely that I can see his rotted back teeth, the partial upper bridge that isn’t quite making it.

The stink of rum wafts by. Sarah is drunk, and it’s not mixing well with the cocaine. She’s frowning so hard that you could stick a tenpenny nail in the wrinkle between her eyes and it wouldn’t fall out. She’s muttering names loudly and spitting like a cat.

Fred is filled with the idea of his new destiny as an independent porno maker: you’ve got freaks, gang bang, underage Dogpatch vixen, just put her in pigtails, and each new element of kink drives up the going price. What else can he add? He looks around the room and takes a couple of hesitant steps toward the fireplace. Torture with the poker? Branding? He eyes Sarah. She’s wasted enough not to notice if he urges her into a dark room to bed a mutant.

He sits and cuts his stash and does a few lines of coke off a handheld mirror, offering the rest to the girls. They each snort enough to ice their higher brain functions nicely. It surprises me that Dodi would try it. She begins to chuckle at the dust motes falling in sunbeams. Her mother’s swamp spells never prepared her for this and a sob breaks inside her chest. A deep red flush washes across her chest and up to her neck as she draws nearer to Sarah. I’m aroused but I also find myself rankled and feeling wedged into a violent corner.

Dodi’s in the mood and I have a voyeuristic streak. I watch, still giving my dim vague smile as she reaches over and grasps Sarah’s chin with both hands, pointing their lips toward each other. Fred starts playing with his cameras and tapes. Dodi is barely five feet tall and weighs ninety pounds, but she’s pure muscle. Sarah struggles a little but not much as Dodi drops forward and forces an open-mouth kiss. One of them lets loose a soft growl. Or maybe it’s me. For some reason I keep thinking this is going to end in murder.

They work into it slowly, Sarah making small whines and trying to push Dodi off, both her hands on Dodi’s breasts. Shove, shove, and then she begins to squeeze gently. It’s the thing of male fantasies. Dodi coos and hums, the same as she does when she’s snaking among my brothers. She gives a sidelong glance to see who’s watching. I am. Fred, though, is thinking only of freaks, and suddenly makes a beeline toward the stairway.

I sigh because this good thing is over even before I get to see either of the girls naked. Fred is fast and light on his feet, but I beat him to the corridor and block the way. He’s so used to looking through me that he seems unsure as to why he can’t make it to the stairs. His head tilts to one side. He’s puzzled, wondering what’s stopping him. He can’t figure out what the problem is.

I have to clear my throat a few times before Fred finally focuses in. He’s got me by twenty-five pounds and three inches, and puts a heavy palm on my chest to nudge me aside. He looks confused when I don’t fall over. Fred exerts more pressure and still nothing happens. He makes a noise like an infant trapped in a playpen who wants to get out.

“Move it!” he shouts. “You stupid bastard! I’m on a mission, this is a lifework now. Get out of the way!”

His vehemence makes me think I’m wrong about the way this is going. Maybe he’s the one who really wants to get it on with my brothers. An extra kink, go for the gay gang bang mutant market.

It’s a little surprising that the situation has arrived at critical mass so soon. Things must be resolved quickly, cleanly, and efficiently. If I simply throw Fred out then Sarah will leave too, and Jonah will be inconsolable. It’s going to happen eventually but I’d rather put it off for as long as I can.

Jonah’s up there already beginning to squawk and croon, the poetry pouring into the air.
“For where she lies, my swept drifted spirit follows, the course unmatched and not known, nor cared for, whether it dies or is kept . . .”

Fred grabs me by the throat and starts tightening his grip. “You retarded banjo-playing backwoods son of a bitch! Didn’t you hear me? I said get the fuck out of my way!”

I try finding a place where I can strike without doing any real internal damage to him, but he’s got my blood up. Maybe it was the banjo line. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play. His fists tighten even more and he’s trembling in his fury, his bad upper bridge squeaking against his splintered teeth as he snarls and squeals.

I follow my course. I let go with two taps to his solar plexus and he immediately crumples at the foot of the stairs. If I brought my fists down on the sweet spot of his skull it would shatter like ancient pottery.

Instead, I grab him by the hair and drag him into the kitchen. Fred puffs his cheeks up with air and lets his breath out in one long streaming hiss. He’s trying to shake it off and those fists flash out again. He’s had enough coke to wire a rhino so this has to be done carefully. It shouldn’t take much scotch to get him under, but the question is how much can he swallow before his heart gives out.

I pour about a quarter pint down his gullet before he lets out a twittering burp and his eyes roll up into the back of his head. Every muscle in his body liquefies at once and he slowly crimps and spreads across the floor.

Dodi and Sarah have left the living room and are nowhere in the house. My truck is gone.

“. . . unmatched and not known, nor cared for, whether it dies . . .”

S
OMEBODY HAS BEEN KICKING DOGS IN TOWN.

Children cry in the streets hysterically calling their pets’ names while parents glower at every neighbor. The dogs are angry and won’t accept offered treats. The boot size appears to be a twelve, just a little larger than my own. The dogs have grown cautious and suspicious, slinking around the yards and hiding behind the water elm and white oak.