Creatures Here Below, page 11
Mason ran out of the restaurant and to the edge of the parking lot. Both directions down the road stretched long and vacant. He pressed his hands along the sides of his head and clasped them in back. Gina stood beside him. Then came the waitress holding the unpaid check. He glanced at Gina, who with one hand covering her face, peeked between her fingers at the road in front of them.
“But wait a minute,” she said, “I thought you had the keys.”
“It’s been a long time since Gamble needed keys to start a car,” Mason said.
“What’s wrong?” the waitress asked. No one responded to her. “You two have to take care of this bill.” She held out the slip of paper.
The sun was gone. The sky seemed to get dark all of a sudden. Mason kicked at the space in front of him. “That bald, fucking bastard coke head.”
“I just don’t believe this,” Gina said. “I had everything in the back of that car.” She told the waitress, “Our ride has left us.”
“She doesn’t give a shit, Gina. She just wants us to pay the damn bill. If we were from Utah, then maybe she’d give a shit.”
The waitress looked truly hurt and at a loss for what to say.
“Mase, why did you pick now to show us how stupid you can be? She didn’t know.” Gina found her wallet in her bag and paid the girl. “I’m sorry for my goofy friend here,” she said.
“Don’t apologize for me,” Mason said. But he did feel stupid, and now he was angry with himself as well as Gamble. It was acting just like his father to jump down the throat of whoever was closest when something went wrong. Mama had said it: “You’re just like your father.”
Gina glared at him and he walked away from her.
He remembered his gun. Now it was gone too. He gazed down the road again while trying to convince himself he didn’t need it. But he wanted the gun. He wanted it badly. He wanted that look on Pony’s face, the look he knew the gun would give him. The gun would have put him in control.
Gina walked up to him. “You owe me four dollars. That’s including the tip.”
From down the vacant road rolled the murmur of the highway not a half mile away. The parking lot lights flickered on.
“Can you niggers see me now?”
They both spun about at the sound of Gamble’s voice. The car had been parked on the side of the restaurant next to stacks of cardboard boxes and a Dempsey Dumpster. Mason could make out the shape of Gamble sitting on the hood of the car.
Mason strode toward Gamble.
Gina said, “Now, just be cool Mason. I mean it.”
Gamble leaped off his car and came at Mason. They closed the distance quickly until only an inch separated their noses. Gamble’s breath was stale. Mason locked eyes with him and did not blink.
“Come on guys, be cool,” Gina said.
“Where’s my shit, Mase? You took it, you little fuck. I woulda really left you if it weren’t for Gina. But don’t sweat it. You’re going to get to DC cause I’m going to kick your ass all the way there.”
Mason was very much aware of Gamble’s bigger size and his reputation for being a vicious fighter. But Mason was known to be a tough fight too. And he figured if Gamble had really wanted to fight he would have led with a fist instead of a question. In street fights, the dude who threw the first punch won almost all the time. Mason was peripherally aware that two men had stepped from the diner and were watching them all the way to their pickup.
“Just what the fuck are you talking about, Gamble? You want something from me? Take it.”
Gina was talking, a frenetic buzz around them, and stepping closer and closer to where he and Gamble squared off.
“I want my blow, Mase.”
“I don’t have it, fool. I found your raggy ass on the floor in the men’s room. Somebody must have ripped off your blow.”
“You hit me.”
“Not yet.” Mason waited for Gamble to move, a twitch of the shoulders. His skin tightened over his knuckles.
“Well, somebody hit me.”
“Hey, you two!” The silhouette of a man stood in the light of the restaurant doorway. “Take your trouble away from my place before I call the cops.”
Gamble turned to look at him. It was an excuse to break the eye contact.
Gina pushed her way between the two of them then, and Mason stepped back. “Both you guys chill before we all get into trouble. Ken, Mase found you passed out. Someone else took your little goodies. All we found on you was your keys.”
“Word, Gina?”
She looked him straight in the eyes. “Yeah, word,” she said.
Gamble headed toward the diner. “I’m gonna get something to eat,” he said and laughed, “Don’t leave without me. And Mason, payback is a real bitch. Watch for it.”
“I don’t think he believed you,” Mason said to Gina. He hurried to the car and to his duffle bag. He rummaged through the bag until his hand felt the gun’s rigid shape. Turning his back toward Gina, he quickly inspected it. Half the chambers showed light through them. “Okay,” he whispered and secreted the gun back into his bag. He smiled when Gina came near. “Guess I’d better throw this away.”
He pulled Gamble’s baggy of drugs from his pocket and tossed it over his shoulder into the dumpster.
Mason had wanted to stay awake, but far down the highway he must have drifted off. Awareness returned slowly. His head rolled heavily and pain stabbed between his shoulder blades, lancing up to his neck.
The windows were glossy black. Nothing of the landscape could be seen and he imagined the sensation resembled hurtling through space rather than driving down a highway. Lights from billboards or windows streaked behind them, abandoning them to plummet ahead on their own. The car ate up the miles mindlessly. It seemed as if the road was being created just beyond the reach of the headlights, only to race beneath them and disappear again.
Gina’s face rested against his shoulder. Some dampness soaked his shirt sleeve there, but he did not mind. Her left hand rested on his lap. The right lay buried somewhere between them. Without thinking, he touched her hand, allowing his fingers to caress hers, and marveled at her softness, not so different than Cole’s. Gently, he squeezed the hand, hoping not to wake her, but simply enjoying the contact of skin and the press of her body against him. He felt a mild stirring, then suddenly remembered Gamble. He let go of Gina’s hand. Gamble stared straight ahead. The green dashboard light illumined his features, exaggerated his bottom lip, highlighted the circles of his nostrils, and reflected wetly from his eyes. The rest of him blended from green into the blackness. Gamble had been watching Mason touch Gina. Mason was sure at first, but the longer he looked at him the less certain he became.
Gamble’s fat hands locked on the steering wheel. Mason experienced a disturbing uneasiness, realizing his safety and well being rested in those hands. Gamble was flaky, and he’d let Mason off the hook much too easily. A twitch from Gamble would send the speeding car into a tumble, or rocketing off into trees. But Gamble wasn’t crazy enough to hurt himself, and an accident was unlikely; he seemed fresh. After all, he’d slept the entire day.
Besides, what would it matter if the nothing nigger was found spread along the highway? Mason turned back to the passenger-side glass, a black mirror now, except for random comets of light.
GAIL
Reverend Carter Wilson stood on the other side of the screen. Gail, who’d been right by the front door dusting when she heard his knock, opened the door so quickly that he hadn’t had time to put his pastor’s face on. She caught a brief glimpse of him in the porch light that she hadn’t seen before. He’d looked pensive and troubled, or maybe just tired. His head hung down. The fleshy half-moons under his eyes were more pronounced. His forehead wrinkled in waves that pushed his eyebrows down over his deep-set eyes. His brown-black lips were small and pinched. In that moment, he had seemed wholly human and vulnerable, plagued by the same doubts and ambiguities of spirit and nature that assailed everyone else. Not, it seemed to Gail, the man so certain of his link in the chain between God and man. Not the man who plucked verses from the Bible as readily as a farmer would peas from a pod. Not the man whose every strutting, jumping, spinning move radiated his supreme confidence in the supreme being. Who could clasp hands in prayer with the same surety of getting a connection as when dialing a phone.
“Reverend Wilson.” And Gail thought it sounded more as if she’d asked a question than offered a greeting.
He looked up. The familiar pastor’s face magically reappeared. The same face he used to cajole, embarrass, flatter, and tactfully rebuke the members of his flock. It wasn’t a salesman’s smile—nothing so phony or self-aggrandizing as that. And if his smiling, confident face was something less than earnest, she didn’t see it as a deception, or at least not as a cruel one. In that second, Gail saw perhaps the pressure he placed on himself to be the sure, wise, and happy steward. The face, like the robe and Bible, was a tool of his trade.
She felt closer to him, to the man she’d spied for that moment through the screen.
She said again, “Reverend Wilson, please come in. Aren’t you putting in a full day.”
“Sister Neighbors,” he grinned, “why do they call it a day of rest?” He exhaled with exaggeration to feign exhaustion, smiling to show he joked, but Gail suspected it neared the truth.
She let him in and motioned him toward the big recliner, the one left by Dan.
He went to sit down, then straightened back up. “I just want to say again how wonderful, what a blessing, truly, to hear Tyler sing today. I believe every soul at Calvary would agree to that.”
Gail thanked him for his words, silently reprimanding herself for being the only member of the congregation who’d missed Tyler’s debut.
“Is he here?”
“Should be back any minute. He’s with friends. Can I get you some coffee, Reverend? Iced tea?”
He said yes to the tea and followed Gail into the kitchen. “Does he have plans for college?”
“Yes, we’re applying for scholarships now. He has a good chance.”
“You must be proud. And the other boy? You’ve heard nothing?”
Gail shook her head. When she told Carter Wilson that Mason had left without word, he had unexpectedly announced it to the congregation at Wednesday night’s intercessory prayer meeting, the last one she would attend. At those meetings, the truly devout prayed for each other and for those who, for one reason or another, could not attend church or pray for themselves. Hands were clutched to form human chains from pew to pew.
Gail had stiffened with embarrassment at first as Wilson informed everyone of her wayward son, and as the wide, dark faces of overweight women turned their sympathetic eyes in her direction. She stared toward somewhere in the space beyond the pulpit and would not make eye contact with them. The praying and loud pleading began. Wailing voices lifted as if baying at the moon. “Dear Father God, we beseech thee to return Sister Neighbors’s son to her loving, mother arms. Help him to know the way home. Keep him safe on his long and twisting road, and let him know the straight and narrow path leads to you, oh God in heaven …”
Blood had flowed to her face. Gail had burst into tears, crying “Please, Jesus,” and fallen into the arms of the big-bosomed woman next to her. Strange hands squeezed her shoulders and patted her back. Whispered consolations were breathed into her ear.
Searching Wilson’s weathered face there in her kitchen, she wondered if all those well-performed prayers would work if she didn’t believe in their power. Was it enough that those who’d prayed believed? Would that do? Could Mason come home then? Could Lilly? She wanted to ask her pastor.
He was saying, “I’ve been visiting the sick and shut-ins ever since service ended today. We do need a bigger ministerial staff. I’ve written to the bishop about it. Twice in fact. Everything is numbers-driven, never mind that we have such a great many elderly who need particular attention.”
Gail handed Carter Wilson his tea. He seemed to want some response from her. “I imagine you must stay very busy,” she finally said. She felt awkward standing in the kitchen with him, but he would not move.
“I came to see Sister Anna.”
“Annie,” Gail corrected. “It’s always been just Annie.”
“You are not related, isn’t that right?”
“She boards here.”
“On social security?”
“Yes.”
“Any relatives?”
“None I know of.”
“How is Sister’s health?” he asked.
Gail wondered what Wilson wanted. He asked questions, but they were perfunctory. He didn’t seem too interested in the answers. “You could visit with her, but she usually turns in at nine, so …”
“Is she provided for, Sister Neighbors? When the time comes?”
Gail had not thought about that—about who would pay for Annie’s funeral. It seemed morbid to talk about. Practical, yes. But morbid.
“The church will try to help if we can.”
Maybe he wanted Gail to volunteer to take care of the expense herself. She supposed it would probably come to that, but she didn’t wish to commit to anything just yet. “I don’t know her finances completely. You’ll have to get with her sometime.”
“I have a counterpart at a Lutheran church on the east side.” He sipped his tea, managing to nod his appreciation while continuing to speak. “When he visits the elderly of his congregation, it’s not to find out if they can pay their doctor or the undertaker, or to make sure they have a way to the pharmacy, but to ask that his church be remembered in their wills.”
Pouring herself the dregs from the tea pitcher, Gail heard the reverend, but she was thinking that she hadn’t given Annie Gant much time or thought lately. They used to watch TV together on Friday nights.
“Well, on to topic two, which is, Gail,” the switch from Sister Neighbors to Gail was not lost on her, “we miss you down at Calvary. Now, I know you haven’t missed a Sunday since I can’t remember when. Some people I can just count on seeing when I look out from the pulpit at all them brown, yellow, and black faces. Yours is one of them, Gail. Good weather or no. Might be late sometime but that’s okay. Now I am alarmed. You’ve quit the Gospel choir, the Sunday School Board, and I’m told you haven’t baked any of those delicious pecan pies for the building committee fund drives in a long time.”
Cole was crying.
“I never could hold a tune,” Gail said under her breath, thinking about having quit the choir, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. She listened for the sounds of Jackie going to Cole’s aid.
“I feel this has to do with your missing young man. Always headstrong, you said.” He peered over Gail’s shoulder in the direction of the crying, then returned his eyes to hers. “You mustn’t close yourself off, Sister … not in your hour of need. Remember, ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord and he will give thee the desires of thine heart—’”
“Psalms. Yes, I know.” She looked down the hall toward the unabated crying.
Years of Sundays had been spent in her search for the right church and the right pastor, visiting every denomination from sedate Methodist to energetic Sanctified, listening intently for answers, for a truth she could believe. Why was Lilly taken from her? Why couldn’t they be reunited? Why did Jesus answer some people’s prayers and ignore others? Every church had promised her “the desires of her heart.” She finally joined Wilson’s church not because he impressed her with his speaking, or because she found the congregation friendlier or the message clearer. In the final analysis, what she loathed to admit to herself was that she’d chosen Calvary because it was within walking distance. Simple.
“Sister?”
Her hand came up between them asking for a moment. “The baby’s mother must be asleep,” she said.
At Jackie’s doorway, Gail flicked on the light and stared at the vacant bed in disbelief. “She didn’t!” She immediately went to Cole’s room, where the baby stood in a corner of his crib, wetfaced, slapping at the headboard in frustration.
“Where’s that scrawny, silly, boy-hungry mama of yours, Cole, huh?” She hefted the baby into her arms with a faked groan. “Oh, you stink, yes, you do. Now hush—the way you smell, I’m the one who should be crying.” She placed her anger at Jackie on a back burner. Rather, she felt grateful for this distraction, a chance to get away from Reverend Wilson and his nosiness. She was not in the mood for religion, had not been so inclined for a long time now, even before Mason went his own way. She lay Cole on the floor on his back, making quick work of changing him, talking to him all the while, “What does that pastor think he can tell me I don’t already know, huh?” She thought she spotted a rash beginning high up on the boy’s fat thighs, but Jackie had no ointment in the room.
Cole quit crying, even seemed to gurgle a thanks to Gail.
“Well, you’re welcome,” she said, pushing to her feet and holding him closely. He had that much nicer baby smell now. “Much better, sugar pie.” He tried grabbing her nose, but she kept it just out of reach. “Sugar pie, honey bunch,” she sang and whirled around. He beamed a toothless pink grin. She danced back into the kitchen with Cole, prepared to handle the pastor’s prying, but Wilson was not there. Voices came from the front room.
Gail recognized the heavier voice immediately, before she even stepped into the living room and saw him leaning on the opened screen door. Something flushed around her heart at the sound of him, an involuntary, quick-spreading, warm sensation, as if a flash bulb had gone off in her chest. A response she wished neither to name nor analyze.
“Hey, Gail,” Dan said, not waiting for an invitation to step inside. “Getting chilly out there. Can’t scold me today, padre, I was at service this morning. Wasn’t I Gail?”
“I saw him outside, after service.”
Reverend Wilson raised an eyebrow in Dan’s direction.
“Aw, Gail, now you know I was there. How’d you like my boy, padre?” Dan’s obvious pride widened his face. “He’s something, don’t you think?”
