Scarecrow Gods (26 page)

“Glad you could make it, boy. You and me, we’re gonna have a lot of fun.”

* * *

“You just gonna sit there like a bump on a log or are you gonna get up and make yourself useful.”

For an hour, Danny had been sitting on the couch with the backpack in his lap waiting for the Maggot Man to leave the room. Much to his chagrin, however, the Maggot Man had pulled out a kitchen chair and sat staring back at Danny. And there they’d sat, like two cats waiting for the other to make a move.

“I’m talking to you, boy.”

Danny thought of a hundred things to say, none of them very nice. Instead of replying, he merely sat there staring at the way the light from the window played on the speckles of dust floating in the room.

“Fine. You just sit your skinny ass there on my couch all day long and when your daddy comes to pick you up and he asks me how you done, I’ll tell him the truth.”

“You won’t.”

“Won’t what? Tell your daddy?”

“Yes,” said Danny. Although, he was unable to meet the man’s gaze, riding the wave of his own anger allowed him to say what he had been holding back. “You don’t want people to know the truth. If they did, you’d be in jail. Or worse, dead.”

“What?”

Danny grinned. “That’s right. I know what you did. We all do—me and the other boys. Even Bergen knows. He’s still alive, you know. It didn’t work.”

Danny watched with glee as the Maggot Man shook his head as if he could shake the guilt away. Then, just as suddenly, the man stopped. The lines of confusion tightened and became anger. The Maggot Man leaned forward his voice low and mean.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing boy, but I don’t like it.”

Danny glanced from the door to the window, attempting to gauge which exit was the closest. He wondered how badly he’d be hurt if he dove through the window, because it looked as if that was his only hope for escape. The door meant he had to run right past the Maggot Man. Danny was sure he could outrun the ungainly cripple, but the man had a long arm; long enough to reach out and grab him before he was able to escape.

“I’m not playing,” said Danny. “We know who you are. And we’re not going to let you get away with it.” This was it. His hands were buried in his backpack and carefully, he depressed the record button on the cassette player.

The Maggot Man stood, the sudden movement sending his chair clattering to the floor. The movement startled Danny and suddenly he had trouble breathing. His confidence evaporated and his terror mounted as the Maggot Man stalked slowly towards him. The hook of his right hand opened and shut, snapping invisible necks. When he was a few feet away he halted and did something that Danny would have never expected. The Maggot Man leaned back his head and howled with laughter. It was almost a full minute before he finished, out of breath, tears in his eyes. By then, Danny’s own fear had disappeared, replaced by anger and confusion.

“So tell me, boy. What is old Maxom guilty of now? I know I’m black. I know I’m ugly. I’m about as poor as they come. But there must be more than that, so give. Let me in on your theory.”

“It’s no theory,” said Danny, trying not to let the laughter fluster him. “First my sister. Then Bergen. God knows what other children you’ve gotten.”

“Other children? Your sister? What the hell are you talking about, boy?”

“You know,” said Danny, praying the man would just come out with it.

“The hell I do,” he said. “And if I’m to be accused of something, I sure think it’s in your best interests to tell me what it is. No more of these hints and riddles. What do you think I did? Something to your sister? Is that what she said? If so, then bring her here. Even a broken down old black man like myself has the right to face his accuser.”

“You know we can’t do that.”

“There you go again with the riddles. Damn it all, but you are a dense one.” He snapped his fingers. “What was it you said about that other boy, Bergen? That the fat kid? All I did was take him to the hospital. I had nothing to do with his injuries. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I will if—when he wakes up.”

“Oh. He’s hurt bad, is he?” The Maggot Man lost a little bit of his fury. “I was afraid of that. Then your sister, what’s she say about all this?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You go around accusing people of things when you don’t know? Why don’t you ask her?”

“I don’t know because nobody knows where she is.”

After a few seconds pause, “And you think I had something to do with it.”

Danny nodded.

“Why? Why me?”

“Cause everyone knows. Everyone says so. Cause you’re a—”

“What? Say it.”

Danny lowered is eyes.

“Go ahead. Lemme say it for you. Nigger. You were gonna call me a nigger, weren’t you? You think a man is less than a man because of his skin color.”

Danny tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work. Suddenly he wanted out of the house. He didn’t need to be here. Everything seemed wrong.

“Well then the hell with you! Get out of my house,” said the Maggot Man pointing towards the door. “Little motherfucker first tries to burn my place down and then walks into my house and calls me nigger and then accuses me of being with his sister.”

Danny stood, the backpack with the tape recorder gripped tightly in his hands.

“But I didn’t—”

“The hell you didn’t. You get out of here, or I swear, I’m gonna show you what hatred can do to a man. And trust me when I tell you, I know more about hatred than any motherless soul on the face of this planet.”

Danny walked to the door and stepped onto the porch. The door slammed behind him hard enough to rattle the hinges. “Monster,” he whispered to the shadows. “I was going to say
monster
.”

* * *

Ooltewah, Tennessee

Two hours after he’d been thrown out, his mother drove up. He explained as best he could that the reason he was outside was because the man had been mad at him. To his great relief, she dismissed it, stating it was his father’s problem and he’d deal with it later. Then she went on to explain how Bergen had awoken last night and was taking visitors this afternoon.

All the way from Booker T. Washington State Park, down Highway 58 and the edge of the Tennessee River on Amnicola Highway, Danny thought of his friend. There were a million things he wanted to tell him, not the least being their adventures in vengeance.

Strange how the Maggot Man had so violently defended himself. The man had been so upset by the accusations that Danny had begun to doubt his earlier assumptions. The problem was that if the Maggot Man wasn’t guilty, then who was?

Danny stared at the deep green of the murky Tennessee River as his mother drove into town. He was feeling very adult lately. Responsibilities. Self doubt. Once he’d imagined how cool it was to be all grown up, now he wasn’t so sure.

* * *

“Do you know they taped your eyes shut? You looked pretty dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Bergen, grinning weakly.

“I’m just glad you’re alive,” Danny glanced around. Their mothers were out in the hall leaving the boys alone in the room. “So what happened?”

“Dunno.”

“Dunno? What the hell do you mean? How can you
not
know?”

“I was drunk, that’s how. I remember a car and I remember two people and that’s all I remember. Except,” Bergen added, “I thought the car was a boat and the road was a river. God, you know I was laughing when they hit me? Man, oh, man, I am never,
ever
ever gonna drink again.”

“You were that drunk? I mean, all you had was a few beers.”

“Yeah, well. I guess I can’t hold my liquor.”

“It’s not like we’re drinking experts. What about the Maggot Man?” asked Danny.

“The Maggot Man? What about him?”

Danny watched his friend’s face. A thick emptiness grew in his chest. “Wasn’t he…wasn’t it the Maggot Man who did this to you?”

Bergen didn’t even think about it, so fast was his reply. “No way. Like I said, it was a car. Anyway, the Maggot Man doesn’t come out during the day, everyone knows that.”

“I hate to break it to ya, Berg, but he’s the one who drove you here. During the daytime, even.”

Bergen stared at Danny, “But I’m sure it was a car. I already told the police.”

“But you were drinking. You were probably too drunk to remember it right.” Danny found himself scrambling for moral purchase. He needed desperately to be right on this.

“No, I would have recognized a big old truck.”

“But you
were
drunk, you said so. Look at me, Berg, it was the Maggot Man. It
had
to be. Tell me it was the Maggot Man.”

“No, I don’t think so. Why do you think he did it?”

“He was the one they saw. I mean he did bring you in…and…”

Danny suddenly felt the full depth and width of his stupidity. Why would the Maggot Man bring Bergen to the hospital if he’d been the one to assault his friend? It didn’t make any sense. So, then why had Danny been so quick to believe him guilty? And if the Maggot Man hadn’t beaten up Bergen, then did that also mean he had nothing to do with his sister? Danny had known in his heart the Maggot Man had nothing to do with his sister, but he had counted on the man knowing. Somehow, someway, he’d felt that the man couldn’t help but know.

Now, no one knew where she was.

“What did you do?” asked Bergen.

“I…we…nothing.”

“Bull. You did something. Danny, what did you do?”

“We avenged you is all,” came the weak reply.

“You
avenged
me? Danny, please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.
Please
.”

Stupid?
Try criminal.
Everything his parents had said, everything the Maggot man had said, it all suddenly fell into place, logic dispelling everything he’d taken at face value, purging rumor and innuendo until Danny was left struggling with the truth.

“I’m an idiot,” he said.

“I could have told you that,” Bergen said.

“I wish you had.”

“Like you would have listened to me anyway. I call you an idiot at least once a day and you’ve yet to believe me.”

“Well, everyone gets it right once,” said Danny, walking to the window.

“Hey idiot,” Bergen said softly.

“Yes?”

Bergen giggled at the exchange. It wasn’t more than a tremor of humor, but it was enough to make him reach for his stomach. He moaned. Through clenched teeth he asked, “what did you do?”

“Are you all right?” asked Danny.

“They think it’s my spleen. Stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject, you are. And what the heck
is
a spleen? Sounds weird.
Spleeeen.
Like an alien organ or something.”

“Take me to your spleen,” giggled Bergen, groaning again as his stomach reacted to the humor. “But I’m okay. The doctor said they’re going to remove it. They say I really don’t need it anyway.”

“If you don’t need it, then why do you have it?” asked Danny.

“I don’t know. I mean you have a brain, but you don’t use it. Right?”

“Very funny. Seriously, though. I’m just glad you’re okay, Berg. You have no idea how worried I was about you, seeing you lying there like that.”

Bergen sat up straighter and managed to lean forward and grab Danny’s wrist. “So what did you do to avenge me, Danny? Were the others involved?”

From start to finish Danny told the whole nasty tale, leaving nothing out. In the telling of it he realized how poor of a person he’d been. The more the story unfolded, the angrier Bergen became.

“How could you have done that?” asked Bergen.

“Because I’m an idiot, that’s how.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I was just trying to do what was right, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. You can’t go around treating people like that, Danny. What were you thinking?”

“Hey, you were there when we threw rocks,” said Danny, trying to alleviate some blame. “You called him names just like the rest of us.”

“Throwing a few rocks and burning a cross are two completely different things. My God, Danny. Someone could have died!”

“I know. I know.”

Bergen stared at Danny for a second. He did his best to shrug, but his shoulders barely moved. It was as if a switch had been flipped. Suddenly, all of the boy’s energy seemed to be gone.

“Bergen?”

“Tired,” he whispered. “So tired.” His eyes fluttered and closed.

“Berg, you okay? Berg?”

His only answer was the sound of the heart monitor registering faster and faster heartbeats.