Bluefish (12 page)

You said you got saddled with me and never had a say in it. It's not my fault you're stuck with me."

"No, but it's your fault you're a shit about it." Grandpa stalked around the counter. "And it's my fault to think it'd make any difference to you if I quit drinking. Here, you're a baby? You need somebody to feed you?"

Grandpa yanked open the cupboard, then the fridge.

He squeezed a line of ketchup on a cracker and poked it under Travis's nose.

"There, feed your face on that."

Travis smacked the cracker backhand, and it flew.

Then he swung hard, connecting with Grandpa's jaw.

Grandpa went down like a bag of rocks. Travis turned away, slapping his hands flat on the counter so they couldn't do anything else.

His face flamed. His breath came ragged and hard. He stared at the faded yellow design beneath his hands.

"Feel any better?" Grandpa's voice came from the floor.

"No." Travis said it to the counter.

The fire juice raged through his body. His knees shook so hard he'd fall if he didn't have the counter to hold. He didn't want to see blood or a bruise or a scared- eyed face.

The sludge oozed in, cooling the fire and churning his stomach.

"Me neither." Grandpa got to his feet.

Travis kept his eyes down and his hands flat as the keys jingled and the door slammed. The truck started up, and Travis was alone.

Later on TUESDAY in Nightmare Land

I watched To Kill a Mockingbird this afternoon. It made me so sad and so lonely because I used to have someone like Atticus and now I don't. I don't have anybody. I fell asleep crying, and somewhere in my sleep, I heard this banging, and I managed to unstick my eyelids, only I thought maybe I was still asleep, because just like in a really bad nightmare, someone was standing in the doorway.

"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my father's trailer?"

Sylvia didn't yell it. She said it in this mean, low voice like she was about to slit my throat wide open. She looked even meaner than she did at the funeral. I scrabbled up off the couch and tried to make some words, but I couldn't do it.

"How did you get in here?"

Because I'm stupid and I was barely awake, I pointed at the key on the counter. She grabbed the key and pointed at the door with it.

"Get out of here."

So I did.

Travis wrenched his eyelids open. Gray light oozed in through the yellow towel, and a growl of thunder slunk around the house. Storming again.

Grandpa hadn't come home, still hadn't been there at midnight when Travis went to bed. He untangled himself from the blankets and listened. No sounds.

What if Grandpa's jaw was broken, or he'd gotten drunk and arrested or in a crash? What if he never came back?

Then Travis smelled smoke. He rolled out of bed, pulled on sweats, and opened his door. Grandpa sat at the kitchen table. No black eye, no broken jaw. Not even a bruise.

"I heard you whimpering in there," he said. "Bad dream?"

Travis turned into the bathroom. He stayed in the shower for a long time. When he opened the door, Grandpa was still sitting there, staring at him.

"Sit down here, boy," he said. "I've got some things to say."

"I have to get ready for school."

"You've got time. Sit down."

Lightning flashed in the morning gray. A wind breezed through the open window, slicing through the clouds of cigarette smoke. Travis sat across from Grandpa in jeans and no shirt, the wet towel still around his neck.

Grandpa flicked his lighter off and on. He stubbed out the last of his butt.

"Whoever taught you to fight did a hell of a job," he said, touching his jaw.

"Gave me a goose egg." Looking closer, Travis could see the swelling.

"Sorry."

"No, you're not. Listen, we need to get some things straight here."

Grandpa lit up another cigarette. Travis leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. He didn't want to hear it. Not with dried ketchup still stuck on the wall and a storm outside getting ready to pounce. Thunder snarled past the window.

"We had to move. I was three months behind in rent.

Your dad's life insurance is almost gone. This house is cheap, I got the job at the bakery, and AA meetings are close. That's where I went last night."

Relief and irritation swirled through Travis, twisted his stomach. Rent, insurance, AA, whatever. Drinking or not drinking. Rosco was gone. He and Grandpa didn't like each other. That's just how it was.

Grandpa shoved his chair back and walked over to stand at the window, staring out and smoking. The morning sky darkened, as if someone had just thrown a blanket over the barely risen sun.

"That's not really what I have to tell you."

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and then crushed the end as he sat back down. He picked up the lighter and flicked. The flame came up, blue on the inside with bright yellow quivering and dancing at the tip. Something sat heavy on the table between them, something bad. The smell of it filled the room, choking Travis, making it hard to breathe.

"Gotta do it," said Grandpa softly. He set the lighter down, put both hands flat on the table, and looked Travis full in the eyes. "Rosco. I killed him."

The words hit Travis like a slap on the face. He sucked his breath in and held it.

"Didn't mean to. I backed out the drive. I thought he'd gone with you to the swamp."

Travis stared, his air slow- leaking out.

"I didn't even look, and you know how Rosco wouldn't move unless you made him."

Travis shook his head no, but he could see Rosco sprawled in that sunny spot on the drive, too lazy to even twitch an ear.

"I rushed to clean everything up before you got home. Put his body in the back of the truck and ran away to hide it."

Rosco's body limp and dead. Tongue hanging out, blood on the gravel.

"Buried him on the back edge of Lenski's cornfield."

Travis stood, knocking his chair over. He turned into his room, shut the door, and slid to the floor, holding his head in his hands.

Rosco. Run over in his own driveway, just because Travis was too selfish to take him to the swamp. Because he wanted to see the foxes. Stay, Travis had told him, and Rosco had stayed.

Ba- bam - the bedroom door vibrated, and Travis jumped, his hands flying off his ears.

"Get out here," said Grandpa. "No hiding. We're going to deal with this."

Travis stood up and threw the door open.

"You did it on purpose!" he yelled.

"I didn't!" Grandpa yelled back, his face boiling red. "I loved that old hound before you were even born."

Travis pushed past Grandpa, out to the front porch.

The wind was electric with threat, and lightning flickered.

He pressed against the house, arms crossed over his chest, trying to get the pictures out of his head. A jagged crack lit across the gray western sky, followed by a sharp crack of thunder. Hailstones dropped, popping off the sidewalk.

The wind picked up, blowing hail and rain onto the porch.

Grandpa opened the door.

"Come in here."

"No."

"You're half- dressed and barefoot."

Travis kept feeling the thump, the gravel, the blood.

The mud lump rose in his throat, and he tried to swallow it.

"I'd never hurt Rosco," Grandpa said through the screen. "Rather run over myself."

Why couldn't he stop, just quit talking, stop it? When Travis grabbed the door handle, Grandpa stepped aside and let him pass. He went directly to his room to get a shirt. Grandpa followed, standing in the doorway.

"Stormed like this the night your mama got sick. They left you alone in the house when they went to the hospital. Called me to babysit, said you were sound asleep."

Travis grabbed a pair of socks, sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled them on.

He had to get out of there, storm or not.

"You weren't in your bed when I got there. Rosco found you hiding in your mama's closet. You latched right on to him. Squeezed his big long ear, and he didn't yipe or say a word. From that day on, he was your dog, not mine. You think I'd take that away from you? What kind of sonuva bitch do you think I am?"

Every word felt like a punch to Travis's chest, opening up the places he kept sealed off and secret. He couldn't remember the things Grandpa was saying, but he could feel them. He yanked his shoes on.

"When I hear you whimpering in your sleep, it always reminds me of that night."

Travis grabbed a sweatshirt and slammed through the kitchen and out the front door. The second he got outside, the mud ball in his throat broke loose for the first time in years. The hail had turned to rain, and he walked into it, fast and hard. The water from the sky mixed with the water on his face. The raindrops dove into puddles like bullets.

In that dark closet, reaching out for Rosco, the only thing he had. . . . Only Rosco wasn't there. Travis almost doubled over with the pain of it, sobs jerking him so hard he could barely walk.

He stopped at the bridge and grabbed the railing. His breath shook its way in, raggedy, and came out in sobs.

The rain pulled, heavy and cold, on his sweatshirt. A passing car sprayed up water, soaking him from behind. He shivered as the cold crawled under his clothes, under his skin, all the way inside. He gulped in a bite of air, and another, but he couldn't stop the sobbing. He leaned over the water, hair dripping in his face.

Finally his chest stopped heaving. That was almost worse. Hollow and freezing cold. He hurried through town and into the school building, sloshing in his shoes.

Down the stairs to the locker room. He landed on a bench and dropped his head into his hands. The tears rolled again, and his whole body shook with each breath. Those long soft ears. They felt like safe. Like not alone. Th- thud, blood. Did Grandpa run over his head?

He shivered harder.

"Travis?"

He almost jumped out of his goose- bumped skin.

"Are you okay?"

Bradley sat on a roll of wrestling mats in the corner by the showers. Travis hadn't even looked that way when he'd walked in, never thought anyone would be there so early. He wiped his hand over his face.

"Fine."

He cleared his throat to cover the quaver in his voice and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. It sucked and clung to him, hard to get off. If only he could hide in there forever. He took it into the shower area and wrung it out, his hands still shaking. He dumped the water out of his shoes, took off his socks, and wrung those, too.

"Here." Bradley appeared in the entryway with a towel. "You can use this."

Travis took the towel and rubbed his hair dry, wishing Bradley would go away.

When he finally pulled the towel away from his face, Bradley was perched back on the wrestling mats. Travis took off his clammy T- shirt, full of cold rain and heat from his skin. He scrubbed the towel over his arms and back and chest, trying to rub in some warmth.

He wrung the T- shirt as dry as he could get it, and then pulled it back on.

That made him cold all over again.

His jeans were still dripping. He pulled on his wet socks and forced his feet into his shoes. He dried his face one more time and came out of the shower, tossing the towel to Bradley.

"You okay?" Bradley asked again.

Bradley had seen him sitting on the bench, must have heard those chokey noises coughing up his throat. Knew he'd been crying. Travis glanced at the clock.

"You look like you swam here," said Bradley.

Travis turned up one corner of his mouth and shrugged, the closest he could get to saying thanks. He left the locker room and ran upstairs to McQueen's office.

"Not an umbrella user, Mr. Roberts?" McQueen said when he showed up in the doorway.

"No, and I forgot to bring the book." Another cold shudder ran through him.

"How far do you live from here?"

"Not far."

"Here - here's a tardy pass." McQueen scribbled on a pad. "Go home and get some dry clothes on. You can't sit in school like that. We'll work on Haunt Fox fourth period. You won't miss anything."

on WEDNESDAY

It's lunchtime and I'm in the girls' bathroom. Everything sucks so bad. This morning I snuck checked Calvin's doorknob and it's locked and me with no key. My scarves are in there, What if I can't get them back?

I walked to school in the pouring- down rain. First person I saw was Bradley.

He held up this little sign in front of his face: SAY YES. At first I couldn't figure out what it meant, but then I remembered about the stupid dance. I will not be saying yes.

Travis was absent. What if he really does have leukemia and now he's dying?

What if our fight in the library pushed away his will to live?

Fourth period, I met with McQueen. I asked him how Travis was doing, and he said it was none of my business.

Can you believe that? He one- trick- ponied me into helping and then says it's not my business and we're here to talk about me, not Travis, and Travis is turning his life around and what about me? He said, "Word on the street is you're not doing any homework." I told him we don't have streets in Russet. We only have roads. Then his social- worker starey eyes pounded me into a corner, and he said it's time to decide while I still have choices and I lose a choice or two every day I don't do homework.

I told him my only choices are which bar I waitress at.

He asked if I was trying to make that be so.

By the time Travis passed the farm where Grandpa had stopped him on the first day of school, the sun peeked between the layers of gray, and a cool breeze had come up. His hair was almost dry, but his feet were still soggy.

McQueen's tardy pass was soaked in the pocket of his wet jeans.

Lenski's cornfield. He should be able to get there before nightfall. It'd be easier if he had some water. Or money, so he could buy something when he passed through Salisbury. His stomach was hollow, and his mouth dry.

The sun climbed the layers of clouds, and big holes of blue opened in the sky.