Beginning (2 page)

3

COHEN EYED THE
carload parked on the road in front of his house. A station wagon with different color doors and body, a plume of purple smoke from the tailpipe. A crowd packed in and arms hanging out of the windows. He had been digging around for whatever tools he could spare from the pile of a shed out behind his house when he heard the station wagon, its engine loud and missing beats and when it stopped it backfired. He had hit the wet ground, crawled to the back of the house and inside the back door and grabbed the double-barreled shotgun that leaned in a kitchen corner. Cussing himself the entire time for not having it beside him. You have to keep it beside you now. All the time. But he took one look at the vehicle and realized he hadn't been shot at. Not yet.

Heavy gray clouds sat low in the sky and the wind made tiny ripples in the standing water of the surrounding acreage. The station wagon sat at the end of the muddy gravel driveway. Sputtering. Smoking. Cohen stood in the front room to the side of the curtain and stared. An arm pointed at the flatbed trailer he had begun to load. Another hand flicked out a cigarette. All Cohen could make out inside were shadowed heads. Several minutes passed and then he heard the voice call out.

“Hey!”

Cohen waited.

“Hey! Anybody!”

Cohen opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, the shotgun resting on his shoulder. “What?” he said.

“Hey now,” the voice called, trying to sound friendly. “This your place?”

“Yep.”

“It's nice looking,” the voice answered. Then there was mumbling in the station wagon as the voice decided what to say next. “We was thinking we might trade you some stuff for staying a night or two.”

“It ain't a hotel,” Cohen said.

“We just looking for a place to stay is all.”

“You can't stay here.”

More mumbling inside the car. Grunts of unrest. Cohen lowered the shotgun and held it at his hip.

“This place ain't yours anyhow,” the voice said.

“Yes it is.”

“No it ain't. Don't nothing don't here belong to nobody. Government said so.”

“Three weeks before the Line in case you didn't know,” Cohen said. “And after that, if I'm standing here it's mine.”

“No it ain't. Ain't no property no more. How about we just come on up and make friends.”

“I said no.”

“Maybe we don't care what you say.”

Cohen leaned back and looked inside the door. The .22 rifle stood against the frame and he grabbed it and let them see it and the shotgun together. If they had anything to fire he figured they would have fired it by now. The heads in the station wagon turned, talked, argued with one another.

“You by yourself?” the voice called out.

“Come find out,” Cohen said.

“You look like you by yourself.”

“What does this look like?” Cohen said and he raised the shotgun and fired a warning shot over the raggedy vehicle. The heads ducked in unison. One of them yelled out, “Son of a bitch.” Another moment's pause and then the station wagon shifted into gear and eased along, the tail of smoke twisting behind. Cohen held the shotgun pointed at them as they drove away and he heard the voice call out, “We just might see you again in a little while.”

4

THE DRONE OF
the rain and wind had put Aggie to sleep but he woke to the slap of a hand against his cheek. He opened his eyes and the man was standing over him.

“Hey. Wake up. You alive? Hey.”

The man wore a faded red bandana around his head and bushy sideburns ran down the sides of his face. He tongued a toothpick stuck in his mouth as he stared down at Aggie.

Aggie winced and put up his hand. The man took it and pulled Aggie to a sit.

“Damn, boy. What happened to you?” the man asked, pointing at the burgundy blood trail on Aggie's forehead.

“What time is it?” Aggie asked.

“Hell if I know. That your truck outside?”

Aggie rolled to his side, climbed to his feet. His body was sore and worn and he unfolded with a groan. He tore the ripped T-shirt at the neck and dropped it onto the floor. In the corner lay a folded army coat and flannel shirt. He grabbed the shirt and put it on in slow motion, looking out at the gray world. The rain had stopped but the winds pushed the bent and battered palm trees of the oceanfront and the waves tumbled like acrobatic children.

“You look like you lost,” the man said. He was a head taller than Aggie, twice as round. Twenty-year-old tattoos ran up and down his arm, exposed by the sleeveless Black Sabbath T-shirt that hugged him tightly. There was a cross, a ship's anchor, a heart, the fleur-de-lis. All rudimentary, oddly shaped, homemade. Others were little more than blotches of black ink that began with an idea but ended murky and unclear. Two women's names, Adelade and Stella, were stacked on top of the other and an X cut across them.

Aggie rubbed at his temples. Looked at the man with squinted eyes and said, “You got anything to drink?”

“Wish I did. Got bigger problems.”

Aggie moved around the room, holding his back.

“I need a jump,” the man said. “We're trying to get out of here and got a damn van quit on me about a mile up the road. Right where Bobby Black's car lot used to be. You got some cables?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? You got some or you don't. There ain't maybe.”

“There is if you think you got some but don't know where to find them. You take a look around and maybe I got some.”

The man slapped his hands together. He kicked around a couple of chairs. Moved to the back of the room where a cabinet stood with its doors open. Some pocket-sized New Testaments. Half a carton of cigarettes. A couple of rolls of toilet paper. Dated newspapers and magazines. He huffed. Slammed the doors that wouldn't shut and flapped open again. Then he walked into the short hallway.

On each side of the hallway were bathrooms, separated by a slick floor, and the man's feet went up and he landed on his back with a thud. His breath knocked out, he wheezed, grasped at the wall as if that might restore his air.

Aggie laughed a little. Then bigger. Then he threw back his head and cackled.

The big man turned onto his side. Calmed some. Got his air back.

“Kiss my ass,” he said.

Aggie kept laughing, forgetting the pain in his back, in his head. Forgetting the dismal nature of his circumstances.

“Like you ain't never fell down,” the big man said and he stood. He shoved open one bathroom door and then the other. “You ain't got no damn jumper cables.”

“The back,” Aggie said.

“What?”

“All the way in the back. Storage room. Middle shelf.”

“Why didn't you just say so, hayseed?”

Aggie lost his smile. Crossed his arms. His voice lowered. “It's dark back there. You're not afraid of the dark, are you?”

The man stared back at him.

“Because it's just the dark.”

“You got a strange way for a skinny little beat-up thing. Maybe you had it coming.”

“Maybe.”

“You like that word, don't ya?”

Aggie nodded. “You know why?”

The man shook his head.

“I like it because it means anything is possible. Anything. There are no certainties.”

The big man stepped out of the small hallway. “I think I've seen you before.”

Aggie uncrossed his arms and walked across the room to the cabinet. He took out and unwrapped a pack of cigarettes. “Where about?” he asked.

The man studied Aggie. Rubbed at his elbow where it had smacked the floor. “I ain't sure. But it's coming.”

Thunder roared and a hard crack of lightning caused both men to look toward the windows. Out in the Gulf ten-foot waves crashed against the shore and sirens sounded from a distance.

“Go get them cables,” Aggie said.

“I don't believe you got any.”

Aggie reached into the cabinet again and took out a flashlight. He tossed it to the man, a hard toss that smacked his chest.

“It ain't as scary as you think it is back there,” Aggie said and he picked at the dried blood on his forehead.

5

THE TWO MEN
climbed into Aggie's pickup and drove a mile up the four-lane highway. Stoplights swung in the wind, two women pushed a grocery cart piled high with stuffed garbage bags. An abandoned train engine sat on the railroad tracks covered in graffiti and a mangy dog sniffed at a mangy man asleep at the front of the engine. A policeman sat in his police car and talked to a woman who leaned in the window. Far up ahead, the red lights of ambulances and fire trucks flashed bright against a sky that was growing darker by the second, a fresh storm stretching across the southeast. The wind had begun to push in gusts and a steady rumble moved from east to west.

The man pointed and said over there. Aggie turned in to what was once the parking lot of a car dealership and the van sat solitary in the now desolate lot. The roof to the showroom had caved in and blue-tinted, wall-size windows were shattered and webbed.

Aggie parked the truck right in front of the van. The men got out. Aggie took the cables and popped the hood of the truck. The man climbed onto the driver's seat of the van and pulled a latch and then Aggie opened the van hood. He attached the cables to both batteries.

“Let it run a minute,” Aggie said.

The man nodded and got out again. Looked at Aggie curiously.

“I'm pretty, ain't I?” Aggie said.

“I know you from somewhere. You ever run the races at the track over there in Biloxi?”

“What races?”

The man shook his head. “Guess that ain't it.”

A snap of lightning made the big man jump. Aggie didn't move.

“I'm gonna figure it out,” the man said.

“You better hurry up then unless you got about ten more vans that need jumping. That storm is coming quick.”

“They all come quick. That's why we're getting the hell outta here. Can't believe I was dumb enough to be down here this long.”

Aggie took out a cigarette and bent under the hood to shield the wind and light it. When he raised back up, the side door of the van slid open and a woman came out. She walked around to them and rubbed at her eyes as if she had been sleeping.

“This here's Ava,” the man said.

Ava nodded, moved her head around and stretched her neck. Her hair was thick and disheveled and the creases around her eyes and mouth were pronounced like tiny, crossing streams. A denim skirt reached her ankles and she was wrapped in a sweater that hung past her waist and was worn through at the elbows.

“How do you do?” she said and extended her hand to Aggie.

“That's awful damn formal,” the man said.

Aggie took her hand, shook it gently. “Aggie,” he said.

“Shit. I didn't even ask you that before we got in the truck,” the man said.

“I didn't ask you neither.”

“He's Bub,” Ava said.

“Yeah. Bub,” the man echoed.

Ava asked Aggie for a cigarette and he gave her one. Bub walked to the driver's door, reached in and turned the key. Nothing.

“I told you to damn wait,” Aggie said.

Bub slammed the door. “Don't matter. It's gonna be dead next time we stop. Might as well start walking.”

Ava walked around to the back of the van and opened the double doors. When she returned she was holding a hammer. She took a long drag and then smacked each battery connection twice with the hammer.

“Now try it,” she said flatly.

Bub dropped his head in disgust. “Are you kidding me?”

“Just try it.”

“That worked one time a hundred years ago.”

“Try it,” Aggie said.

Aggie and Ava stared at each other. Bub looked at each of them.

“I know who you are,” he said to Aggie in a singsong tone of discovery.

Aggie shifted his eyes from Ava to Bub. “Who?”

“More like what,” Bub said.

“What then?”

“You're that snake preacher.”

“What's a snake preacher?” Aggie asked. He sucked on his cigarette and then spit.

“Shit. You knocked up my cousin. She used to go to your church. Me and her went looking for you at that old gas station where y'all used to congregate outside Ocean Springs. Except you weren't there no more. Nobody was. I bet that was ten years ago.”

Aggie shook his head. “That sounds made up.”

“Damn sure does, Bub,” Ava said.

“Except she didn't call you Aggie. Something a little more fancy. August. Augustine. No, no, Augustus. That's it. Augustus.”

“Don't listen to him,” Ava said.

“Hell, he was on the news,” Bub said, looking at Ava. “He even licked one of them rattlers, right there with the news woman in his face. It looked like she was gonna bend over and puke right on the six o'clock news.”

“Shut up, Bub,” Ava pleaded. “This man's helping us out and you're talking all crazy at him.”

“I ain't crazy,” Bub said.

“Why don't you try the truck?” Aggie said. “I ain't standing out here 'til the eye crosses over.”

Ava swung again at the battery just as another strip of lightning smacked in the sky.

“Quit doing that shit!” Bub yelled.

“Then try and crank it,” Ava said.

Bub backed away, careful eyes on Aggie. He opened the door and reached in. The engine turned feebly, then caught and cranked. Smoke rose from the van's engine and Aggie reached in and disconnected the cables from the van battery just as Bub laid on the horn.

Aggie jumped and banged his head on the hood. The cables dropped to the concrete.

Bub got out and pointed at him and laughed loudly, mockingly. “Ha ha, asshole. It ain't so funny, is it?”

Ava took two long steps to Bub and slapped him on his big, bare arm. “What's wrong with you?”

Bub ignored the slap and laughed again. She slapped him again.

“You should've seen him hacking it up at me back at his church or whatever you call it. I slipped and busted my ass and you would've thought he was gonna fall out it was so funny. Ain't funny now, is it? Is it, Snake Man?”

Aggie rubbed the top of his head, already tender from the brawl. His eyes welled up and he gritted his teeth to try to squeeze out the pain.

Ava slapped Bub again. “Shut up and say you're sorry.”

“Quit slapping me.”

“Then do what I told you.”

He laughed a little more and then let it fall. He walked over to Aggie and put his hand on his shoulder. “Sorry about that, old man. Hope you ain't hurt too bad.”

Aggie snuck his shoulder away, bent over and held his head with both hands. Spit up. He then went down to a knee.

“Come on now,” Bub said. “It ain't that bad.”

The pain crawled through Aggie's head, down his spine. He paused and listened to the thunder. Saw another flash of lightning. Ava moved to Aggie and knelt beside him. “You all right? Move your hands and let me see.”

Aggie slid his hands apart and there was a half-inch cut on top of his head, the blood in a small puddle and clumping his hair. She set the hammer on the concrete and pulled a wadded tissue from her sweater pocket.

“He's bleeding,” Ava said.

“Well,” Bub said. “He shouldn't have made fun of me.”

More lightning flashed around them. The echo of a single gunshot came from somewhere and cut through the wind.

Aggie pushed Ava's hand away and looked up at Bub.

“Aw hell,” Bub said. “We'll call it even, Snake Man. I ain't even gonna hold what you did to my cousin against you. God knows how many kids she's got anyhow that she don't know where they came from. Anybody who plays with snakes while shooting his mouth off about hellfire and damnation has probably got a hard head in the first place. Probably dented my damn hood.”

Bub laughed again, a short and patronizing chuckle. “So we're good and even,” he mumbled. And then he bent over to pick up the jumper cables that Aggie had dropped.

“Maybe,” Aggie whispered.

Bub looked up just in time to see the hammer coming at him, Aggie's fist tight around the handle and fire in his eyes and Bub opened his mouth to shout out but instead fell silent and stunned in a heap onto the concrete. Aggie pounced and busted his head with three more quick thrusts and then came the blood and there went the eyes.

It was over in an instant. Life there and then gone. And Aggie's pain dissipated in the charge of adrenaline and satisfaction of vengeance.

He stood up and looked at Ava, still on her knees where she had knelt to care for him. Her mouth agape. Her eyes hollow. The hammer hung from his hand, and he swung it back and forth as if it were some lethal pendulum. The first heavy, hard drops of rain fell and smacked around them like nickels.

“You have lost someone,” he said. “Or, you have found someone.”