Flying Shoes (31 page)

Estaba perdido, pero ahora me he encontrado

Estaba ciego, pero ahora ya veo.

There was another loud bang from the fire and an explosion of sparks, and the thing was gone, taking its fantastic orange retinue of butterflies with it.

Stunned, Teever looked around the fire, but he knew that the corn and coins were nowhere, and that nobody else had seen what he had. There was no rosy desert, just the cold and mud of a deep, icy Mississippi winter night. The storm had cleared and the moon was out now, a minstrel grin in the blackface sky. His throat throbbed from his ecstatic song. The men sat slumped and passive, more committed to their torpor. How much time had gone by? He couldn’t tell if there were more beer cans on the ground, or if the fire was any smaller. The one thing that he was sure of was that he’d had a message or an omen—something.
But what the fuck?
he thought.
What the fuck?

The flower concoction bubbled in the coals. It smelled like ass. Or maybe it was the baking, sour foot. Dr. Bernardo was back outside, his sidekick strutting and pecking behind him. He picked up the steaming bowl with his bare hands and dumped the contents on the foot, patting the poultice into the gash. Teever flinched, expecting pain, but then blissfully remembered he could no longer feel either
of his feet at all. Or his hands or face, for that matter.

“Don’t smirch the pants, bro,” he said very slowly. The men mumbled but were over it now, smashed and settled. Reaching into the Walmart bag again, Dr. Bernardo brought out a Light Days maxi pad. On his arm, like a giant bracelet, he wore a wheel of duct tape, and he yanked out a long piece, biting it off with the silver choppers. He held the two sides of the nasty wound together and taped the maxi pad tightly over it. A kid came over and tugged a big, floppy tube sock on over the whole thing. The empty Walmart bag went on with more tape for waterproofing, and a flat flap of old tire made a sole. Stepping back, the two Mexicans grinned at Teever, who wanted to look thankful but wasn’t sure his face knew how. He put a hand up for high fives but only slapped air.

“Otra véz mañana, hokay?” Dr. Bernardo said, pointing at the foot and making a circular motion with his index finger. From the army Teever knew
mañana
, so he assumed that it was okay to spend the night. The gangster dude came over with a plate of meat and a new beer. He might could eat a little now, if he didn’t really think about it.

“Okay then,” he said. “Yum yum eatem up.” He thought he was smiling his most friendly, appreciative smile, but he couldn’t be sure. Looking around the fire at his new brown friends, the new niggers of this world, he thought that this might be as good as it gets. The graveyard hooch was okay, but he was glad not to have to stay there on this crazy night. He was happy his foot no longer hurt and that his fever had broken and that he was wasted and keeping some pretty good company.

“Okay then, all y’all kimosabes,” he said, “Muchas gracias. Muchas
muchas
gracias.”

The party seemed to have been going for some time, or it was way later than Ernest thought. Janky Jill’s living room was illuminated by a few stubs of candle. The air was sooty and smelled of pot, bourbon, burnt sugar, burnt hair, and gas space heater. A wood fire was petering out. From the ceiling hung an oil lamp that swayed and smoked like the censers in Sarajevo’s cathedral. Bessie Smith moaned from an old jam box, complaining about men. The song dragged a little as if both Bessie and the jam box batteries lacked the will to go on.

Catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror over the mantel, Ernest noticed that his mousse-stiffened golden coif glowed regally in the candlelight. He imagined himself, for a second, as the Emperor Jones. Or Kurtz. A few people were dancing, wrapped together tightly. Others had tumped over like the trees outside and lay on the floor. A man stumbled past him, going out the door—a music guy, a sort of backcountry Phil Spector who despised him. Good; no problem there. Everyone wore coats and boots. Ernest scanned the room looking for friends and opportunity. He was disappointed—sorely—not to see Byrd but he was in dreadful need of a woman. Sto was hitting on a French graduate student who reclined on some pillows in a corner. He remembered a night with her last summer. She was good-natured and easy, too easy for him. She’d let him wear her yellow panties as an ascot afterward, but she had bored him to death with her graduate student babble about Derrida, deconstruction, postmodernism, all that shit. What the fuck was postmodernism anyway? Besides, he said to himself, the French? Losers. Fuck ’em.

Maybe Byrd was in the kitchen. He made his way to the back of the house where he recognized more late-night people: the vicious dude in the wheelchair who also hated him—how could he be out in the storm?—a line chef from the Bear dancing sensuously with a waitress from Ajax; a young doctor; a shaggy, smelly blues enthusiast; the girl and the two guys who played in Blue Mountain; a handful of pale, scrawny boys in dresses. Ernest thought them not to be gay, or even sexual at all, but he shied away from them anyway. Sorry bastards. Damn. No Mary Byrd. Someone had lit a small fire in the sink, and the two groupies for the Lords of Chevron, Holly Springs girls known as Hump and Pump, were toasting tiny marshmallows with roach clips. Ernest admired their skanky pulchritude. Healthy, pretty girls, they worked hard at maintaining their sickly, fluorescent pallor. Their hair was mayonnaise-colored; one was buzzed soldier-short, and the other’s hair hung lankly on one side as if it had been pressed, the other side short and oddly frizzled. Grayish straps always hung out of the few clothes they wore although tonight they were wearing what appeared to be dog-fur coats.

“Ernest!” the frizzled one said in a cheerful voice. “Want some marshmallows? We’re on a bourbon and marshmallow diet.” Her eyes glittered with reflected candlelight and god only knew what else. “That’s all we’ve eaten for two days. Unless you count the X.”

“Girls, I’ll just skip the sweets if you don’t mind,” he said, reaching behind them for a jug of black Jack. “I’m on kind of a liquid regime, myself. Anyone seen Teever?”

“It’s not, you know, totally unlike, you know, a mint julep,” the other girl said, raising a glass in which some blackened marshmallows floated. “But without the mint. Maybe we could throw in an Altoid.”

“I haven’t seen Teever in forever,” said the buzz-head. “Maybe he’s back in the pokey.”

Ernest poured a big plastic cup half-full of sour mash. “What the hell happened to your hair?” he asked Hump. Or Pump.

“Caught fire in a marshmallow-related incident,” the girl said. They laughed.

“Scorch becomes you,” said Ernest. “Na zdorovye.”

Jill was in the pantry with Boudleaux and one of the dress boys, a waiter with a shaved head named Porter. They were smoking a number and offered it to Ernest, who declined. “I’ve got some X, if you’d rather,” said Jill.“Or a Dilaudid? Or one of these?” She pointed to a few flat little packets about the size of a half stick of Juicy Fruit. Each was stamped white bronco.

“I don’t shoot, but I think I’m in some pain,” Ernest said, chewing a proffered pill.

Porter, who had what looked to be either a busted lip or a small disease, was leaning slightly on Boudleaux.

“Are y’all ever gonna play?” Ernest asked him, trying to focus his eyes on Jill.

“Man, we just played for an hour!” Boudleaux said. “Where you been?”

“Jill,” said Ernest. “You look lovely this evening.” He took in Jill’s long, skinny form and scant but downy, freckled cleavage. A hot glow came over him and he sprang an equine tuffy. “Happy birthday, darlin’.” He tried to thump himself down but it wouldn’t go.

“Some thing, this ice storm, eh?” said Jill, smiling at him, checking him over. “You clean up pretty good, too, Ernest. Want to see something cool?”

“Uh, sure,” said Ernest, thickly. He was suddenly finding it difficult to speak.

“Watch.” Jill stood a flashlight on end and held her fingers close over the lens. Each long, witchy fingernail was punched through with a tiny star. Shining through the stars, the flashlight beam projected a little Fourth of July galaxy across the ceiling. Ernest was transfixed. Jill moved her fingers as if casting a spell. The stars danced sensuously. Ernest thought he’d never seen anything so wonderful. Fuck Byrd.

“Porter and I were just saying, in an emergency like this, nothing is true, everything is permitted,” said Jill. “None of the rules apply.” She smiled; not young, but beautiful.

“Ernest don’t go by rules anyway,” said Boudleaux. “
Pimp
law, maybe.”

Ernest tried to say, “Son, I take exception to that,” but his jaws had gone numb. He could only manage to mumble between teeth that were beginning to clench.

Porter said, “Ernest, you okay? You want to go lie down?”

“Prayer,” he muttered as his legs gave out and he sank to his knees in front of Jill. He buried his face in her long coat. “Lil prayer.” The AK clanked heavily against the floor.

When Ernest came to, he was on a bed with Jill and Porter, sandwiched between them. His shirt was open and his pants were undone. Good god. He was freezing. He vaulted sideways over Jill’s comatose form, pulling his clothes together. His coat lay on the floor and miraculously still had the gun swaddled inside. Jill and Porter were wearing their coats but both of their dresses had hiked up. No underwear. He sniffed the air for clues and tried to focus on his various orifices to see if anything seemed amiss. Everything seemed to hurt, but nothing hurt inordinately, except his head. Maybe his pride. Ernest left the house in a hurry, hoping nobody had seen the threesome on the bed. He’d never live that down.

Once he was on I-55, heading back to Wallett, he relaxed a little. The interstate was a longer haul but he’d stupidly tried the back roads and they were a mess and he’d had to turn around. On I-55 the pines had been bowed to the ground and had been chainsawed back to the shoulder of the road, their pale cut ends turned to the traffic like hundreds of clock faces. Beyond them, scattered around the edges of the cotton and bean fields, the hardwoods stood, stripped and raggedy. By Dundee things were considerably improved: the trees, all but the tall, skinny loblollies, looked okay. The landscape was frosty, but not crystalline like last night. By Coffeeville, it was completely clear. He stopped at the Stuckey’s in Vaiden for beer, smokes, and some BC powder, and he mentioned the ice storm to the woman taking his money.

“What ice storm?” she said.

The beer and BC eased his headache a little; his head felt cleaved. Taking the Dixie Crystals sugar packet out of the glove box, Ernest unfolded it, tapped the contents onto his fist, and held it up to each nostril. He chewed the packet and swallowed it. Feeling around to see if he might have sustained any wounds, he located nothing other than a small, scabby knot on his head. It would take a little extra mousse to make his hair lay back and cover it, was all.

By the time he crossed the Hatchatalla County line, it wasn’t even cold. The sun shone warmly and there was no ice on the ponds. It was a drag not to have hooked up with Mary Byrd; it would have been a totally different night if he had. She must have gone ahead up north, goddamn it. He wondered how that shit up there was going for her. That sicko was going to beat the rap even if they caught him. He really ought to go up there and see what’s up; he could find the sick fuck and turn him in, and the bounty would be Mary Byrd, in gratitude. And it would be good to lay low for awhile after last night.

No use thinking too much about whatever had
happened. What happened in the storm stays in the storm, he decided. It was really a gorgeous day. The red MG buzzed along on the wide, dry road, perfectly ten miles over the speed limit. The sky was blue. He could go home, sleep some, get fresh clothes, and drive to Virginia in the morning.

Ernest reached to put in a tape. He wanted to hear “Tangled Up in Blue”
and think about his bounty-hunter trip. He couldn’t seem to punch the track up. As he turned off onto the long, ascending exit for Wallett, he was fiddle-fucking with the buttons, finally finding the song.
I helped her out of a jam I guess . . .
He bent his head to light a cigarette and looked up to see a beat-up pickup truck coming at him. Maybe it wasn’t moving at all. The cigarette fell to his lap. He had time to yell, “Wrong way, bastard!” and then Jack Ernest was sailing again, remembering last night’s magical skate down the icy street, the sparkling winter wonderland of frozen trees and the stars in the deep, infinite night sky, twinkling and winking at him like so many beautiful, beckoning women.

“Everybody looking for something in this world,” Teever said to himself out loud. He knew he’d have to find a way to be useful to the Mexicans, make a place for himself, if he was going to hang with them. He had keys to shit, knew things, jungle-war things that could come in handy, but these dudes probably knew that kind of stuff—desert
and
mountain shit. It was all basically about the same thing: fucking people up before they fucked
you
up, finding and taking what you needed to survive. There was nothing he could offer them: substances, maybe, but with no money and if he couldn’t find Ernest, he had no game. Teever’s heart clamped into a tight fist of regret. He knew better than to think he was anything but a loser.

His thoughts turned back to the glorious, coiling monster thing that had risen out of the fire. Suddenly he understood what it had wanted him to know. Like he’d put a key in the ignition, his heart loosened and gave a violent chug.
A garden!
He’d make these dudes a big-ass fucking garden just the way he’d helped his Grand make hers. It was time—nearly past time—to set out collards, onions, sweet potatoes, peas. Peppers and tomatoes first weekend after Easter. These dudes would be jonesing for peppers, no doubt, and he could find out what those beans were that they liked, plant some of those. And
corn
! Big, juicy sweet corn! Tools from his hooch, manure from Big Lars and Yimmy, who he’d borrow—have to muzzle that biting-ass muvva Lars—to turn up some rows by the trailers. While all these guys were out working on condos, laying bricks, making other people’s gardens, he’d make theirs. He thought about it, ideas popping in his head like firecrackers. When they returned from work in the evening they could all shuck corn and drink beer and shell peas—beans or whatever—and shoot the shit. Some of them would cook. He could cook! He cooked in the army for a lot more guys than this! Then they’d all eat around the fire and chunk in bones and cobs and drink more beer and piss in the fire and listen to their music—the happy kind—with all the brass and shit. Go to sleep in the back in their trailers; he’d even be happy to sleep in the one with Muhammad Ali. He knew about chickens, too. He’d get some of those chicks off Cong, he thought. They could have eggs. Boil eggs, devil eggs, fry eggs, poach eggs, scramble eggs, egg and olive sandwiches, egg McMexicans with that saucy shit and melted rat cheese on them. Hatch some and have more chickens. Fatten ’em up with the corn! For a second he thought about raising some to fight—hook ’em up with that Ali—but that wasn’t really his way. He didn’t like to see anything get hurt, or die. Unless, of course, it deserved it.