Bluff City Pawn (7 page)

When the grass went dormant, Joe worked at a gas station. Which is how he hooked in with short-haul trucking and then eventually with a building contractor. But that was later. At first, Joe even did some scrapping. Took his truck out and filled the back with metals ditched at the curb, ladders and dishwashers and water heaters and electrical motors and stainless steel sinks and aluminum cans. Went to restaurants, commercial businesses, siding shops. Brought salvage wire out into the backyard and built a fire, and while he cooked out the insulation to get to the copper, he’d go work on the mower, sharpening blades. Huddy asking to work alongside him, Harlan asking to have some cash, Joe not answering either, so Huddy asking for advice.

Keep your blades sharp, Joe would say. Try not to run over anything.

Harlan asking about where he can get money.

“Go catch chickens,” Joe said.

“That’s what daddy did, way back,” Harlan said.

Joe not looking up, so Harlan saying, “Money’s right there on the table, too. That’s easier to catch. ’Member daddy said catching chickens was ’bout the nastiest thing you could do. He used to say how bad the chicken house smelled.”

Joe added some name or number to his book. “You know what your problem is, Harlan. You think you’re a kid. You think you’re a person. You ain’t neither. You a laborer. Go bust some concrete. Go be a scrapper.”

“Like that nigger, the one me and Huddy seen? Had his bike filled up with junk. ’Member, Huddy? We saw him go by and he got so much junk he tipped over.”

Joe shaking his head, looking at Huddy, then fixing back on Harlan. “You gonna be a nigger your whole life.”

Huddy stands, feels his head fuzz but not spin, but he doesn’t want more brothers’ voices. He flips open his phone to reach Christie. When she answers, he asks, “Wrong time again?”

“What are you talking about?”

“From before. Forget it. After lunch.”

“You still at Joe’s?”

“Guess I am.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m here—but I ain’t never been back here. His new backyard. Yeah, I’m at Joe’s.”

“Hold on.”

Huddy waits, looks around, stares at a glazed porcelain ball atop a pedestal. He hears shouts and cries and Christie shushing. “Dealing with Cody?”

“Who else is screaming in my face?”

“I don’t know what’s going on over here”—he eyes metal birds and butterflies, all these flying creatures stuck in the ground—“so I figure I ask what’s there.”

“What’s going on is a diaper. Why’s it so quiet on your end? How are you with Harlan and there’s no noise?”

“Break in the action. Surprised you can’t hear the ocean. That surf?”

“Hold on. Git your leg—shh . . . Damn tabs. What you saying?”

“Just me and the horsetail.”

“Huh?”

“Helicopters and cannons.”

“Huddy, what you babbling about?”

“Some plants. I’m sightseeing. I’m calling you from a different time zone. Is it morning where you at? I better check the tank, make sure I got enough to get home.”

“Oh, you sound like you filled up fine. Look: I already got a one-year-old I can’t understand. Try not to drive home to the wrong house. Good luck with the porch steps.”

“Ain’t all that.”

“Did that car seat come out of pawn yet?” And when he doesn’t answer she says, “We need it now, Huddy. Cody’s busting out of the seat. I gotta get him the next size.”

“This guy’s gonna default, I’m sure of it.”

“You always say that. I’m buying the thing.”

Okay, he thinks, and he says bye. He follows the path back, his hands slashing at plants brushing his face, and he imagines his arms as saws, the branches lopping down around him. Harlan squats at the edge of the pond, staring at the water. He glances down at his hand and Huddy sees the right sleeve rolled past the elbow, the shirt wet to the shoulder, and when he hears Harlan’s hand tapping on the paving stones he knows what he’s holding.

Harlan turns and grins. “I don’t got no fishing license, so I guess I had to get this.” The hand comes up fast, the nugget held between two fingers. “Ain’t worth shit?”

Huddy steps closer, examines the cavities and crystals. “Worth something,” he shrugs.

“What’d you call it?” Harlan says, the glistening rock moving to his face like a magnet.

“Fool’s gold.”

“The other thing.”

“Pyrite.”

“Yeah, pyrite,” Harlan says. “Semiprecious pyrite.”

Huddy laughs, shakes his head. “Get you a gem box. You a gem salesman right quick.”

“Fool’s gold, pure gold. Sounds the same to me.” Harlan blows on the rock like pyrite’s just a dusty coating keeping down the value.

Huddy studies the others. “I’d go with the quartz, if you’re taking. That pyrite’s probably a tenth of the agate.”

“Yeah?” Harlan says.

“Bigger,” Huddy shrugs. “If you want to get scientific. Probably a fraction of the other.”

“Well I’m sticking with gold.” Harlan buffs the pyrite on his shirt, then pockets it. “Unless you want it? For collateral. Or how ’bout you scoop the rest up and then you and me square.” But he doesn’t smile. Instead he yanks his head back like his hair got pulled, his face pinched in anguish.

“The stuff I was saying before . . .” Huddy says.

“You weren’t saying nothing.” His shoulders jerk. “I know what I am. Third down the line. I know where Joe is and I know where you are.”

“It ain’t like that.”

“Ha, I guess that makes me your buffer from the bottom.” Harlan flexes his hand and the fish flee. “See, it’s dark, so they getting spooked ’cause they think I’m a predator.” He skims his hand along the surface and Huddy watches the water ripple out. “He really got the works out here,” Harlan says, shaking his head. “This is some dream, ain’t it?”

A dream or a display. But sure, Harlan’s right, Huddy won’t argue.

“Were me,” Harlan says, “I’d build it exactly like this and I wouldn’t even need the house. I’d just stay out here and make this my water bed.”

And Huddy feels it, too, this floating peace. Moon and stars and the air a part of Joe’s arrangement. You build something like this, you’d feel like you can reach up to the sky and move constellations around like potted plants, flick stars with your fingers. His eyes open dizzy to the fish, slashes of red and orange brilliant in the water. It’s the biggest success story he knows, and it’s gotta be a consolation that it’s a brother.

“Can’t everybody win, I guess.” Harlan scoops water, spreads his fingers and watches it pour through. “This ain’t just a pond. It’s a wishing well. ’Cept everything already came true.”

Huddy imagines a shining penny pitched out from his thumb, his life tossed away and remade. “If you work for me, Harlan, I can’t pay you as much.”

“Sounds like you needing me more. Unless you pulling the plug.” Harlan steps lightly over stones, climbs the small embankment edging the waterfall. He reaches into the running water and pulls a clump of algae from the wet rocks and flings the slick green muck over his shoulder into the bushes. Huddy thinks of Harlan’s arm sinking down, his panning hand moving through the water, groping for the gold, his fingers crawling along the terraced steps, circling until the nugget’s pinched in his fingers.

“Lemme tell you something,” Huddy says. “Some people. Like Joe, he got his gravel he’s digging out the ground. Others digging gold out the ground. I dig it out of people. Out the ground or people is the same thing. As long as folks coming into my store, I’m fine, ’cause I’m mining.” But he’s shaking his head the whole time he says it.

“Good deal,” Harlan says. He steps back to the front of the pond. “Now where’s that fish called Stubby? I’m naming ’em all right now. That calico, she’s thinking she’s special. We gonna call her Lady Jane. This fantail, he likes me, he’s my follower. I’ma call him Shadow.”

Huddy watches Harlan rub his bloodshot eyes. “You really fixing to stay with KayKay?”

“Might.” He slides his head. “You never liked her.”

“Kind of a dark mystery, that’s all. Crack her open, never know what’ll pop out.”

Huddy remembers her car. The front end bashed in. From driving into her ex’s truck—and the way Harlan explained it, the ex had driven into her car the week before, so she was just retaliating. Huddy thought there was a restraining order, but he couldn’t remember which side, or maybe that was just him thinking there ought to be one. The guy had asked to marry her, right after he went to jail, and Harlan thought that was a hoot, the ex doing everything backward and late. “If you want,” Huddy says, “I got a spare room. Till you lovebirds connect.”

Harlan nods. “That’s brain coral there,” he says, pointing. “And water hyacinth. Gotta be careful with that one, it’s a choker.” He looks around for something else to name or know. “Those dots on the rocks is tadpoles.”

They hear the glass door slide open, see Joe come out.

“I’ll give your place a spark, man,” Harlan says fast. “That’s what I bring to the table. And I got the truck. It’s running good.”

“Harlan, you can be all that. But you also gonna be my guard dog.”

“Hell, I can do that. Easy. See, when I told you about losing my tail, I didn’t mention: I’m a salamander. So it grows back fast.”

Huddy pats Harlan’s shoulder, cups the back of his neck. “I know you everything from a puppy dog to a rattlesnake.”

A twitch of a smile fading. Harlan’s face darkens. “Florida, man,” shaking his head, “nothing happened down there.” Saying it like it did and it didn’t and both were the problem, and Huddy can’t tell which he’s hearing more, Harlan worried or Harlan bored.

They both turn to look at Joe approaching, a six-pack hooked in his fingers. “Guess we’re switching gears,” Harlan says. “You think . . .” he says, staring hard at the water, his face concentrating, “if you’d been firstborn, this would’ve been you?”

“Can’t know. He always been a workhorse, gotta give him that. Ain’t just about order.”

“I think it would’ve been good for me, if I’d been oldest. If it was me taking care of things, putting bread on . . . if he’d been behind us, instead of vice versa . . . me taking the lead . . .”

But Joe’s close enough to stop Harlan. “What are we arguing about now?” He shuts his eyes, rubs his lids, blinks himself awake. “She said she heard the whole thing. Got ears like a squirrel.”

“Guess this is one big doghouse,” Harlan says.

Joe glances at the pond and Huddy wonders if he’s seeing the missing gold, if he might frisk them or just smile at their petty crime. “So what’s with the blood bank? You got a name for the contractor? It’s probably too late to snuff out the permit.” Joe glances at his watch but then turns back to his house, the windows huge with glass. “Stay long if you want,” he shrugs, ripping one of the beers and passing the rest. Amazing how little they had as kids, their daddy swiping the valuables on his way out the door, and now Joe’s got all this, and he looks like he’s about to drop, breathing hard from all the long years of climbing and chasing.

“You ever drive with this guy?” Huddy says, not knowing why he’s saying it, because the last time he’s been driving with Joe’s been years, but man, what a maniac driver. He throws a hearty arm around Joe, hears himself laugh. “The worst tailgater ever,” Huddy says, laughing more, three rear-end collisions to Joe’s credit, Huddy in the passenger seat and Joe right up on the guy’s ass, the guy thinking he’s playing some sick game. “The guy flipping him off in the mirror and he’s not even seeing it, ’cause he’s on the phone, yelling about work.” Cell phone, Huddy thinks, so it couldn’t have been too long ago.

Joe smiles, smudges his fingers across his eyes.

“You done some craziness out here,” Harlan says, and Huddy laughs, his arm still around Joe, thinking about a playful push toward the water, let’s all jump in.

“Sit down,” Harlan says. “You falling over. We heard your creaking bones from the door. We gonna drink that beer and name your fishes. That big one, we gonna call him Lucky.”

Driving home, Huddy waits for Harlan’s headlights to flicker and signal that he’s peeling off elsewhere, but the beam stays bright and steady in Huddy’s mirror. His cell phone rings and Huddy pushes the button to tell Christie he’s nearing home.

“Miss Deanie called,” Christie says. He checks his watch. It feels like he hasn’t seen her for weeks, even if she went missing today. “Said she tried you at work.”

“How’d the surgery go?” Huddy says, unsure if she’s had one.

“She says she can’t work for you no more. She finally got disability and she’s scared to mess with it. If she comes in, someone might see her and rat her out. She knew her thinking wasn’t running deep. Maybe she’ll work with you later, she says.”

He laughs. It’s funny if it were someone else’s life and since he’s laughing it must be. “It’s fine,” Huddy says. He looks in the mirror, sees Harlan, his car staying tight. He feels like changing lanes to see if Harlan’d switch, too, some kid’s game. “Harlan coming home with me,” he says, and he hears hesitation before she says okay.

“Did you tell me that before, Huddy? I might’ve listened for that.”

“First time. He won’t stay long.” But he hears more worry. “Where’d you think he was staying?”