Taft Page 22

  "Hello?" Wallace said. When nobody answered he flipped on the lights. Nothing. Clean and quiet.

  "Whoever it was went on," I said. I checked the front door. It was locked. "This happens. You should be sure to lock the door."

  "It didn't sound outside," Wallace said. "It sounded inside."

  "I know," I said. "It used to make me nervous as a cat up there with all that money. But it never does turn out to be anything. There're a lot of cops around here. They come down at closing time to check things out."

  But as soon as I said it I heard it again and Wallace was right, it was an inside sound. Somebody was trying to get out the kitchen door. The lock on that door had been broken for a month. It didn't work from the inside anymore. Rose unlocked it when she came in in the morning and she locked it back up at night when she left.

  "Rose?"

  "It's not Rose," Wallace said. His voice was quiet and steady and he went and picked up a chair off the top of a table.

  I had taken a step forward when Carl came out of the kitchen. When I saw him the first thing I felt was relieved. "Jesus Carl, why didn't you say something? I didn't know it was you. I could have shot you."

  Wallace hadn't moved. He was still holding the chair. The legs were out, like Carl was a lion he was taming.

  "You couldn't have shot me," Carl said. "I have the gun." Carl wagged a black gun in the air in front of his face. Though there was no way of telling for sure, it appeared to be the same gun I'd been pushing from side to side in my desk all these years. Carl looked like he'd been underwater for a month and had just come up, damp and white and puckered. I wasn't four feet away from him. I could smell his nervous sweat. Then I saw he had the night deposit bag under his arm.

  "This is what you're doing? You're robbing the bar?"

  "I'm not robbing," he said. "I'm reclaiming. You were the one who was robbing. I want to know what you did with my property."

  "I flushed it down the toilet."

  Carl's hands were shaking. It seemed to be all he could do to even hold on to the gun. "You sure as hell better be lying. Liar like you, I don't expect that would be so hard."

  There was Carl, his nose running and his hair soaked through with sweat. I had picked this boy up off the street, carried him in my arms to his bed. I had gone and gotten him out of jail. I had let him sit in my bar night after night and treated him fairly and now I was mad: the tone of his voice, the way his eyes were red and wet. I wasn't going to stand there and listen to him carry on about what was his. "Put down the goddamned bag, you sorry little prick."

  "You don't get to talk to me like that anymore," Carl said.

  "I'll talk to you any way I damn well please."

  "Quiet," Wallace said.

  I turned to look at Wallace and that's when Carl shot me.

  There was a lot going on at once and most of it was sound. The sound of the gun, the sound of me sitting down hard on the floor, the sound of somebody pounding on the glass window in the front of the bar and hollering, the sound of Wallace's chair being thrown on the floor and then the steady banging sound of Carl's wrist hitting the brass rail of the bar, over and over again until there was a crack that was nearly as loud as the gunshot. At first I thought Wallace was trying to make Carl let go of the gun, but he did that the first time his wrist hit the rail. It took Wallace three more tries to break it. Carl was wailing, making animal sounds.

  I stood up and saw that there was a world of blood on the floor.

  "Sit down," Wallace said, like there was still danger, but there wasn't any danger and I could see it was Fay who was pounding on the door. Sure enough, they'd thrown her out of the Rum Boogie.

  By the time I got there I was starting to get lightheaded. I was beginning to feel a pure white pain from my shoulders to the top of my head. I saw that there was blood on the glass when I turned the lock. Blood on the lock and my hands. Fay seemed to almost come through the glass and when she was inside she put her hands around my neck, one in front and one in back. I thought she was like Marion's mother, trying to strangle me. I thought she'd come in late and only seen the part where Carl's wrist got broken, that she'd missed the part where he'd shot me.

  "It's okay," I said to her, but it was a strain to talk she was choking me so hard. I tried to push her off, but she was fixed to me.

  "Hold him," Wallace said. He was standing beside her. There was blood all over Fay. It was on her face and smeared across the front of her blouse. I thought maybe there had been two bullets, one I hadn't heard. I thought she'd been shot too.

  "Fay," I said, and touched her cheek with my hand. "Where're you hurt? Tell me."

  She was crying some but not sobbing. "Get me a towel," she said to Wallace. "Get me something from the bar."

  Where had Carl gone? He was quiet all of the sudden. "Carl doesn't still have that gun, does he?"

  "I took it from him," Wallace said.

  "Fay's been shot," I said, still trying to see where. "Sit her down."

  "I'm not shot."

  Then Wallace was back with the towels. When he went to give one to Fay she took her hands away and in that second I could see the blood, my blood, come shooting out onto her. I bent my head and it poured like a river into her hair. "Jesus Christ," I said, feeling sicker than I had before. I'd been shot in the neck. It didn't seem like a good place to get shot. Wallace and Fay tied me up with towels and then Fay put her hands back in place. They felt better once I knew what they were there for.

  "We've got to get to the emergency room," Fay said. "We have to go right now."

  I was all ready when Wallace turned around to Carl. For a minute I had forgotten about Carl. I could see him then. He was heaped underneath the bar, pressed against it. Some stools had been knocked away. "The second we show up at that hospital they'll be coming for you, Carl."

  He didn't act like he heard. "The hospital will come for him?" I asked.

  "The police will come for him. Gunshot wound and they have to call the police."

  Gunshot. Gun and someone shooting. I knew it was Carl who had shot me, but even knowing it I felt myself forgetting. I was all the way to the door when I remembered and turned around. I'll tell you what turns a person to salt: it's pity, the awful sin of taking pity on someone who doesn't deserve it and never asked for it. Carl was nothing like a man. He'd wadded himself up, made himself smaller than I would have thought anyone could. I knew how it would go once the police got a hold of him. In that minute I saw the rest of Carl's life. There was salt in my mouth. "Shit," I said. I wanted to go over there and kick him, but I didn't have the energy.

  "Come on," Wallace said.

  I wished I had a day or an hour even. An hour could be enough time to think. I wanted a lot of things. "We can't go to the hospital," I said. The words made a sick sound. It was a little hard to talk, but I couldn't tell if that was because of Fay or the hole in my neck. "That's armed robbery, attempted."

  "Right," Wallace said.

  Fay was looking at me. She knew what I meant. Punishment, terrible punishment, but not ten years in prison. That would be the end of it for him. As much as he had it coming I couldn't end a boy's life. "They can have him," she said quietly.

  I started to shake my head, but that was a huge mistake on my part. I almost blacked out from the pain. Wallace slipped a hand under my arm. "Take me to Marion," I said. "Marion can fix this."

  "We're going to the hospital," Wallace said.

  "No."

  "Damnit, you can't let him off for this."

  "Don't fight with me now," I said. "I don't feel like fighting."

  Wallace looked around for a split second. He was a football player. He had to make his decisions quick and get behind them. "Fay," he said. "Wipe your face up and take Carl to the hospital. I broke his arm. I'll take John to Marion's."

  "Carl can take himself to the hospital," she said. "I'm coming with you."

  There wasn't time for this. We were going to stand there bickering until I bled to death. Wa
llace disappeared and came back with Carl underneath one arm and the blue bag in the other. I could see the butt of the gun sticking out of his belt. Carl made some sort of sound, but it wasn't a word. He was limp and dangling under one of Wallace's arms. He was too small to hurt anything, to be anything. The four of us went out into the clear night. Wallace was good enough to carry Carl across the street and down a ways before he dropped him on a grassy slope near the sidewalk. That way he didn't look so much like he was tied to our bar.

  "I'm going to get my car," Wallace shouted. "You stay right there." He took off running. Even with those bad knees he could still move faster than any man I knew.

  "You want to check Carl?" I said, but I didn't care if she did or didn't. I was bored with Carl. I had forgotten about him.

  "Not a word," she said. She didn't look over at him. She kept the pressure on my neck steady and even. "You've done enough for Carl. Does it hurt bad?"

  It hurt bad, so much that at some point it stopped being pain and started being something else, something more complicated and complete. "Yes," I said.

  I had told Wallace there were cops around there, but I guess I was lying. A gunshot and any amount of screaming and still we were the only ones on the street. Wallace's car came down the alley doing seventy-five and he leaned over and opened the door for us. We eased into the car. Fay had to practically sit in my lap in order to keep her hands around my neck. I could have held onto it myself, but I didn't think she'd let me. She touched my chest just as lightly as she could with her chest.

  I gave Wallace the Woodmoores' address. I started to tell him the best way to go, but he stopped me.

  "I know," he said.

  "We all have to be quiet when we get there," I told them. "I don't want to wake up my boy."

  "I should be taking you to the hospital," Wallace said, and he hit the steering wheel with his open hand. "I don't know what the hell I'm thinking about."

  Wallace kept rattling on, but the lights were leaving trails and so I didn't listen to him. Every car we passed, every streetlight, had a tail a block long and they were weaving themselves together into ropes. Then we passed Marion, waiting at a bus stop and I wanted to stop but I didn't say anything about it.

  "Marion can fix this," I said. I believed that, too. She was smart, smarter than all of us. She was sitting at the kitchen table, studying so hard for her examinations, getting good grades in every class. I sent her through nursing school. I sent her for just this reason.

  Wallace got on the interstate. It wasn't the way I would have gone. I watched the green exit signs pass over our heads: Eastmoreland, Linden, Lamar. Getting off at Lamar you still had a ways to go. Even with there being no traffic and Wallace driving like a madman, we weren't getting anyplace. I wondered if I was bleeding much. My chest was damp and cold and I started to shake. Then I realized it wasn't me, it was Fay. Her hands were shaking. She was shaking up against me.

  "Hey," I said, and bounced my knee a little. "You okay there?"

  "Maybe I need to go home now," she whispered.

  "Now?" Wallace said.

  "In Coalfield nothing like this happens. It wouldn't have happened."

  "She doesn't mean go home," I said to Wallace.

  "Maybe it would be better if I was closer to my father," Fay said, her voice gone all dreamy. "I've got a piece of hair stuck in the corner of my eye. Can you get it out for me?"

  I reached up and brushed her hair away from her face. I tucked her hair behind her ear. Pretty little seashell ear.

  "If he was alive, he wouldn't have known what to make out of all this. He could never have believed what's happened. But I think he understands more now that he's dead. He's smart and he's so patient with me. He protects us. He protects all of us. I think he forgives us."

  Wallace was looking over at Fay. I could see him out of the corner of my eye. Don't worry about him, baby, you go ahead and talk. A night like this, the girl deserves to say anything that might make her feel better.

  "You're so cold," she said, and touched her cheek to my cheek. "You're turning all gray."

  "All of this is going to be fine," I told her. "You'll see."

  Fay moved in closer until her mouth was against my ear. I will tell you this, the person who is holding your neck to keep you from bleeding to death is closer to you than anyone has ever been in your life. "Promise me," she said.

  And out of nowhere came the Woodmoores' house. They always kept their front light burning. Something about Mr. Woodmoore growing up in Mississippi and looking out after your own.

  Wallace got out and knocked on the door. He was gone for so long I forgot about him altogether and went to sleep. Then Ruth started crawling around in the bed. She got up on top of me. She was licking my face. I was going to tell her I was tired and that it wasn't the time for things like that, but she saw Fay there in my lap before I had a chance to say anything. The two of them were frozen there, staring.

  "Jesus," Ruth said. She reached into the car and put her hand on my face.

  "Go get the baby off the couch," Wallace said.

  "Okay," Ruth said. "Okay." She ran her thumb over my forehead and then hurried back inside.

  "It'll just be another minute now," Fay whispered.

  When I looked up again Ruth had split into Ruth and Marion. They were holding hands, but it was only so Ruth could pull Marion and make her go faster. They never wanted to stand next to each other. They wouldn't let their mother cut their dresses from the same cloth. If one got up to dance, the other would sit out.

  Marion rubbed her free hand across her face. She had a hard time waking up. Franklin is crying in the next room and it's all she can do to make herself get out of bed. "Nickel?"

  "I'm here," I said.

  "Why isn't he in the hospital?" Marion turned on Wallace, like everything was his fault. Poor Wallace, standing there on the sidewalk, taking it.

  "He won't go."

  "Get out of the car," Marion said. "Can you walk?"

  "Sure," I said. The truth was, walking was getting a little bit harder. Everything was getting harder. My feet caught on the curb and Wallace had to help me. I noticed my left shoulder was pulling down. Fay came with me, holding on to my neck. It was a stretch for her. She was walking up on her toes.

  "Who's she?" Marion said.

  "That's the waitress from the bar," Ruth told her.

  The party went into the Woodmoores' house, all of us pressed together. I didn't want to raise a lot of commotion. I didn't want anybody else waking up, but as soon as we were in the door here came Marion's parents down the stairs in their bathrobes and slippers. Mrs. Woodmoore took one look at me standing there and she started to let out a yell. It was all Ruth could do to stop her. "Quiet," she said sharply. "Don't wake up Franklin."

  "What?" Mr. Woodmoore said, taking off his glasses. "What?"

  "He's been shot," Ruth said.

  The light inside woke all of us up. I could see how bad we looked. Wallace's shirt had blood all over it and Fay was a horror show. It showed up more on her. Standing between me and Wallace she looked like a child not much older than Franklin. She looked like she'd just gotten swept up with us somehow and that we'd best take her back to wherever she came from. I wondered what I looked like. A person only has so much blood. After a while you can't bleed like that anymore.

  Marion led me into the kitchen and the whole pack followed.

  "Who did this to you?" Mrs. Woodmoore said. She had a look in her eyes I knew, like she was ready to kill somebody. "Where are the police?"

  I was starting to panic. It was a little room and my feet were cold as stones. There were Woodmoores all around us.

  "I want everybody out except him," Marion said, pointing at Wallace. "I've got to take a look at this."

  I closed my eyes and when I opened them again it was just like she said, everyone gone but Wallace. Except Fay was there too, but she didn't count. She had attached herself to me.

  Marion shuddered like it was the
first time she'd seen me. "Jesus," she said. She opened up a drawer in the kitchen and took out a stack of dishtowels. The kitchen was too yellow, yellow cabinets and yellow curtains. A yellow refrigerator. "I'm going to take a look at this now." She gently worked loose Fay's hands. "You did a good job," she said to her. "You saved his life." I was glad to see Marion talking sweet to Fay. Fay wasn't holding up so well. She smiled at me when she stepped back. She stretched out her fingers, then rubbed them together like they hurt her. Marion started to roll back the bar towel, which felt thick and crusted, but the second she pulled it loose the blood came rushing out of my neck and covered up Marion like a sheet. Fay grabbed right back on.

  "Shit," Marion yelled, wiping her eyes. "What're you thinking about bringing that over here? You're going to die. The second that girl lets go of you, you're going to die."

  If that was the case I figured on living forever.

  "We're going to the hospital. I mean right this second. Goddamn you coming over here all shot up like this."

  "For Christ's sake, Marion. You can fix this," I said. She never would do a thing to help me.

  "With what? You want me to get my mother's sewing kit? Listen to you. Get up and get in the car."

  "No," I said.

  "Why?" She looked to be on the verge of shooting me herself, finishing me off.

  "He won't go," Wallace said. I was glad to have him talking for me. It wore on me, trying to talk. "He knows who shot him. He's just a kid. He doesn't want the kid to go to prison. You take him to the hospital, there'll be cops."

  "Let the kid rot in prison for all you care," she said to me.

  Fay kept quiet. She was concentrating on her job. I didn't say anything either. I was looking at the blood on Marion's chin.

  "He won't argue with you," Wallace said. "Think of something else."

  Marion stood there and I could see she was trying to do exactly that. She was so serious when she was thinking. "I know somebody," she said finally. "I'll see if I can't get him to come down to his office. You'd see a doctor, wouldn't you? If he wasn't in the hospital?"

  I nodded, which is to say I started to nod, but the pain that came up was like a knife working around in the hole and it brought tears to my eyes. The pain made everything in the room bright. I knew everything again. I was there.