On Archimedes Street (19 page)

Just a moment before, Lotte LaNasa had been critically examining something called “The Stink Detective,” on sale at Gretna Best Hardware. The package claimed that the Stink Detective could locate organic residues on carpets, upholstery, and bedding. The package insert showed five circled, colored blobs with the legends “Saliva,” “Urine,” “Blood,” “Feces,” and “Semen.” Lotte squinted dubiously at the circled blobs. They looked nearly identical to her myopic eyes, because she was too vain to wear glasses.

“You gotta use it in a dawk room,” said Doodie. “At night best. It like a black light.”

What did this fool woman want with such a thing? Still, he’d be glad to get it off the shelves. It had languished there for two years. And this time, he would make sure the LaNasa woman understood, in no uncertain terms, the returns and refunds policy of Gretna Best Hardware.

“What a black light is?” asked Lotte.

“Dunno why it call’ dat. More like a violet light.”

Lotte handed the package insert to Doodie and pointed to the circles. “Can you make out any diff’rence between ‘Semen’ and ‘Saliva’? Look the same to me.”

Doodie sucked in his breath. He was beyond shocked. “Miz Lotte, please! I a
Krish
tian gen’elman! Bin at Mount Calvary for near forty years, an’ a deacon for twenty.”

And it was at that moment that they, too, heard the racket on the street, and the barking babel.

Four heads popped synchronously out of the doors to Rita’s and Doodie’s shotguns. Flip and Dutch, who’d been stunting, stood in their bikes and stared frankly at Elwood.

“Los’ cat! Los’ cat! Los’ cat! Los’ cat!” he stomped up and down the middle of Archimedes Street. Larceny barked at his master in chorus.

“Los’ cat! Los’ cat! Los’ cat!” Elwood stomped up and down before Manny’s shotgun double until Dominic popped his head out and Manny stepped out of the shop.

 
Manny. Manny, who along with a few others, never taunted me in fourth grade. Yes, I need Manny to hear this.

 Doofus bounded out from behind Manny and ecstatically joined Larceny’s barking.

“Los’ cat! Los’ cat! Los’ cat!” Elwood stomped in front of his own shotgun single until Special Ed stepped onto the porch.

Special Ed. He needs to hear me too. He deserves this most of all.

A quorum had been reached. Wailin’ Elwood withdrew a folded notice from his hip pocket and cleared his throat theatrically. He hissed at the dogs, and they instantly ceased their racket. Using slow, deliberate motions, he unfolded the notice and peered at it with mock concentration.

“Los’ cat! Black an’ white wit’ one white sock on his front lef’ paw! Las’ seen Monday mornin’ on the four hundred block of Seneca Street!” Elwood spoke with stentorian volume and force.

What in the world was crazy Elwood up to, Honoria wondered. But then he’d always been a loose cannon.

“
Ree
-ward for any in-fo’-ma-tion,” Elwood pronounced the four-syllable word in triumph, “leadin’ to his retoin!”

Rita was glad for the interruption. Honoria had been getting testy. She regarded Elwood’s muscled arms, sinewy body, and heart-shaped face appreciatively. Just typical Elwood nonsense, like that junk he pounded out on the piano on Saturday mornings. But sure easy on the eyes. She savored the chestnut goatee, and the white blaze in his chestnut curls.

“Call 555-1276!
Answers
”—Elwood looked at Special Ed with significance—“to the name….”

Special Ed was almost in tears. It was rare—the true breakthrough, the quantum leap. He’d seen it only a few times in his years of teaching. He was so damn proud of Elwood. The tears swamped his eyes and threatened to brim over. And—hell—he was proud of himself too. Had it not been for him… that thought stanched the tears.

Elwood dropped the hand holding the notice to his side and spoke in his own words. “The cat
name’
”—he turned to face his cousin Lotte.

“The cat name’,” he boomed in accusation, “
Raymon’ LaNasa
!”

“Mother Cabrini!” said Lotte. She fell back into Doodie, as if shot. She brought one hand to her bosom. She couldn’t think. What? Why? Why would some woman—for she had no doubt that it was a woman—have named her cat after her dead husband?

Beaming in triumph at his audience, Elwood the showman suddenly realized that he’d made an amateur’s mistake. He hadn’t thought it through, beyond the dramatic reading of the notice. He had no ending. No tinkle of keys. No jump off the stage. He couldn’t expect applause. The people were just looking at him standing there “wit’ his teeth in his mouf.”

He improvised. “Well, what it take to fine a cat? A dog, natural! C’mon, Manny! C’mon, Dominic! Lawsony! Doofus! Let’s go fine ourselfs a cat!”

Elwood raced off, and the dogs loped after him. Dominic followed, but Manny, grinning, went back into his shop.
Elwood’s always been such a kick. A true original, and a total hunk even when we were boys together. So stop crushing already. He’s never been for me.
Then Manny grinned even wider.
He must have it in for LaNasa, to have staged this little drama. She probably short-changed him.

“
Well, well, well
,” whispered Doodie, to no one. “
The boy done finally loin hisself to read
.” Then Doodie cast a speculative glance at Special Ed.

A
N
ALOOF
Raymond LaNasa stretched his thigh muscles on the tree branch, ignoring the milling and howling dogs below him.

“Raymond! There you are, you naughty boy!”

Raymond hopped into his mistress’s outstretched arms and submitted with complacency to her stroking and cooing.

Elwood would not accept the twenty-dollar bill. But, when Elwood’s back was turned, Dominic pocketed it.

Chapter 27

“D
ID
YOU
find Raymond LaNasa?”

“Yeah, hidin’ out in a tree, happy as a pig in shit—wondah why he name’ Raymon’ afta ol’ man LaNasa? But fo’get ’bout Raymon’—didja hear, Special Ed?”

“I heard. I think they heard you down in Frenchman’s Bend.”

Elwood beamed. “I can read, Special Ed! The woids jes’ kinda came togedder, you know? Like they jump in my brain. An’ not jes’ the los’ cat. Dey sellin’ a pickup. Dey wan’ a fry cook.”

“I’m so happy for you, Wailin’ Elwood. And so proud.”

“It woik! All dat crazy stuff, the balancin’, and the beanbag, an’ everythin’. It woik! You know what you doin’, Special Ed. T’anks. T’anks from the bottom of my hawt.”

“I didn’t do it, Elwood. You did. It was
your
work. If you had had a real teacher in the first place….”

“Dat water unner the bridge. Now I wanna read, Special Ed. I wanna read everythin’. I wanna
know
everythin’. I wanna be like ever’body else.”

“It’s not always going to be like today,” Ed warned. “People learn in plateaus with sudden leaps. But if you keep at it, you will learn, anything you want to know.”

“What a plateau is?”

“It’s a flat place. It means you won’t learn everything right away. You keep at it slow and steady, staying in a flat place, and then all of a sudden, you make a leap, just like you did today.”

“Dat don’t mattah. Now I know I can. I can do it, Special Ed!”

“Yes, you can. I’ll figure out a curriculum. You can sample stuff as you sharpen your reading skills, find out what you’re interested in.”

“Curriculum?”

“A course of study.” Ed knew that the real challenge lay there. To stimulate Elwood, he’d need to find simply written materials, but for adults. Dick-and-Jane stuff would just kill it. But he knew. He knew a publisher that specialized in just such materials, dealing with adult matters, plainly written and cogently organized, with no condescension. He’d send off for them if he had to.

“Yeah, do it. Get me a cur-ric-ulum. Oh, Special Ed, I so happy! Dey all hoid! Manny hoid! Dey all hear me read. Nobody fine out I nebber could befo’.” Elwood could hardly contain himself. He kept pacing and pacing, repeating himself. “Dey all jes’ come togedder, like I broke a code or somethin’.”

Ed was beginning to get a little worried. Elwood was wound so tight he might explode. “Dey all hear.” Elwood paced some more, in tighter circles.

“Shit! I jumpin’ outta my skin here!” Elwood flung himself at the piano and pounded out a few chords, then left off abruptly. “Nah. Shit. Don’t want no fuckin’ piana. Dat ain’t gonna woik.” He resumed his pacing. And then Elwood realized that his excitement was going to his dick. He could feel it plumping up in his pants. He stopped his pacing midstride and cut his eyes sharply to Ed.

“It’s rare, you know, the breakthrough. But it happens; it happens. I could tell you a story about one of my students—”

“Nah. Lemme tell
you
a story.”

Ed looked at Elwood quizzically.

“It a story ’bout a man.” Wailin’ Elwood narrowed his eyes at Ed, pinning him with a determined stare.

“Dis man dyin’a thoist, see? He go so long wit’ no water dat his tongue hangin’ out. He practical dead! An’ you know what happen den?”

“No.”

Wailin’ Elwood sat down in his overstuffed, ratty kitchen chair and drew off his boots. As usual he had foregone socks. He threw one boot with great force against the wall. Special Ed jumped at the unexpected thump.

“I tell you what happen den.” He hurled the second boot with even greater force, making Special Ed wince. “The man be walkin’, his tongue hangin’ out, and he seen a sign. Guess what dat sign say?”

“What did the sign say?” And what did this mean? Why was Elwood looking at him in that strange way?

“The sign say, ‘Dis way to the well.’” Elwood pulled his T-shirt off and threw it to join his boots. “The man so happy. ‘I gonna get a drink at las’,’ he say.” Elwood started to rub his dick through the fabric of his jeans. Special Ed watched narrowly. He could feel the hairs on his arms rise into gooseflesh. Oh.
Oh. Yes!

“But I bet you can’t credit what happen next. The man followin’ the road to the well, see? But den he look by the side of the road. Guess what the man seen.”

“What did he see?” Ed’s voice was a whisper. His gaze did not waver from Wailin’ Elwood’s crotch. The lump seemed bigger than usual. And just like that, Ed was so hard it hurt.

Elwood undid his waistband and shimmied out of his jeans. Today he wore loose boxers instead of briefs.

“He seen a pile of bricks. An’ right next to dem bricks? A wheelbarra full of fresh cee-ment, wit’ a trowel stickin’ right out. Guess what the man say.”

“What did he say?” Ed was fixated on the fly of the loose boxers.

“He say, ‘What a coincident! Why, I a bricklayer!’ An’ so the man fo’get all ’bout the well, an’ he stawt layin’ row an’ row of brick ’til he finish an’ he had hisself a nice wall.” Elwood hurled his jeans violently to join the shoes and shirt. “An’ guess what the man say den?”

Ed stared at the tenting boxers. “What did he say?”

“The man say, ‘Why, I can’t get to the well. Dere’s a big brick wall keepin’ it from me.’”

Elwood moved to stand nose-to-nose against Special Ed. He laid his hands lightly on Ed’s shoulders. “Drink from the well, Special Ed. Ain’t no wall ’cept the one you put dere. Drink from the well.”

Even though Elwood’s hands barely grazed his shoulders, Ed experienced them as a heavy weight, a strong force pushing inexorably down. He sank to his knees. He watched, like a rabbit before a snake, as the foreskin uncoiled itself from the rising glans. A pungent, irresistible scent flooded his nose. Elwood reached down and rubbed the head of his dick against Ed’s upper lip.

“Go ’head, drink from the well. The well don’t mine bein’ drunk from. The well
wanna
be drunk from. It fulla water. You take some out, an’ it fill right back up again. Drink, Special Ed. C’mon, drink from the well.”

Now, Special Ed was an accomplished well-drinker. He first drank when he was the equipment manager for the football team and the quarterback lingered after his shower. The quarterback promised not to tell anyone, but he did. He told the fullback and the wide receiver. At first, Ed felt betrayed and fearful, but the fullback, and then the wide receiver, made him forget why. That was in junior year. By the end of senior year, he’d zealously perfected his technique through extensive and conscientious practice. They weren’t shy about telling him what felt good, and he wasn’t shy about giving them just what they asked for, and more. The lesson he’d taken away was that, in well-drinking, as in most performances, the audience would forgive anything if you came up with a strong start and a strong finish. The beginning was especially important. It set the stage for all that followed.

In his experience, he’d found that one beginning in particular riveted the audience. He drew Elwood’s pale-blue boxers down. He had to get off his knees and into a crouch so he could bring his mouth near the dickhead without using his hands. He didn’t want to pull Elwood’s dick down to his mouth. Mouth without hand, that was the ticket, so the hand didn’t distract from the mouth. He opened his mouth in a wide O and surrounded the dickhead only with the moisture and warmth of his breath, but no tongue or lips. As Elwood’s penis pulsed in that hothouse atmosphere, Ed let the saliva pool in his mouth. When he finally closed his lips around it, it was bathed in that warm pool.

Elwood hissed through his teeth. “Shit!
Shit
!” Ed grinned around Elwood’s dick and sank from a crouch to his knees. Then he grabbed it by the root and swirled his tongue around the glans to Elwood’s vocal appreciation. “Lawd!
Fuck
!” Finally, he took it all the way in, no small feat, but he had long ago conquered his gag reflex. He swallowed to work his throat muscles.

“Shit! Fuck!
Fuck
! How you do dat, boy?” Elwood’s cock had clearly never received the attention it deserved.

Another thing Ed had learned was that the compulsion to thrust was innate in most men. He reached up, led Elwood’s hands to his head, and positioned them behind the ears.