Lyla, page 17
“You didn't bring a hat, Scrubs?” I commented.
“Naw, I don't need one.”
He'd be sorry about that.
“I don't see what the big deal is,” he said. “About fishing.”
Emma Claire smacked him on the chest with a dull thud.
“Hush, now,” she said. “It's my birthday. I can do whatever I want today. Don't complain.”
Scrubs laughed at her with a cackle, not altogether unlike a bird.
“I just don't see what's so great about it,” he said. “I think it should be called waiting instead of fishing. That's what it is. A bunch of waiting around.”
This kid was priceless.
“Just shut up and fish,” Emma said.
Scrubs took another sip.
“You know,” I said. “There is one way to cure boredom with fishing.”
“There is?”
I nodded once. “Time-tested, through millions of years.”
“How?”
“By catching a goddamn fish.”
Emma Claire looked at me and I stopped talking.
Scrubs' frustration was understandable. The boy hadn't caught a fish all morning, and it had dried up his enthusiasm. Too bad for him. Emma Claire and I were having a spectacular day on the water. We reeled in hogs from every direction. After an hour, Emma had caught two speckled trout, and one ladyfish.
She was on a roll.
Suddenly, Emma Claire's rod bowed downward again, her reel whined out a high-pitched scream. She didn't make a face. She worked the beast back and forth like a woman who knew her way around a rod and reel. She tugged at it and then cranked up the slack, back and forth. Her lithe wrists were nothing if not coordinated.
She pulled the fish closer to our boat and finally lifted the wild thing out of the water. It gleamed like a piece of silver, twisting back and forth in the air. Then she flopped the bright trout into the wicker basket and closed the lid.
“Nice one,” I said.
“But he's not a lunker.”
God, I loved that word.
I suspected I always would.
“That fish'll eat just fine,” I said. “Especially with hushpuppies.”
She laughed. “That's because anything eats good with hushpuppies. Even boot leather.”
I'd never tasted boot leather, but my sister had a point.
“Well, I think it's a fine birthday fish,” I said.
“Thank you, Sir Quinlan of the River, esteemed fisherman.”
She tipped her hat to me.
I pretended to understand what she said.
Scrubs did not see Emma Claire's fish. He was too busy fidgeting with the fishing rod in his hands. He cranked his reel, letting the clicking sound pollute our silence. It sounded like a ratchet wrench. I exhaled in aggravation and wedged a cigarette between my lips. That boy was beginning to annoy me worse than room temperature beer.
Scrubs stood up again, jolting our boat side to side. He threw his line out into the water with a splash.
“Scrubs,” I said. “You know, you don't have to keep casting your line out like that. You'll get a better response from the fish if you relax.”
He looked at me with vacant blue eyes.
“How about you fish your way, and I'll fish mine?”
I bit my cigarette in my teeth and imagined what he'd look like wearing the jaws of a gator as a helmet.
I took solace in that image.
͠
I drove us home through the hot sunshine. I sat alone in the truck cab, with my arm draped across both seats. I watched the blurry marshlands zip past my windshield in a streak. They were striped colors of gold and green.
Emma Claire and Scrubs sat in the bed of the truck close together like turtle doves. I could see him sipping from his flask in the rear view mirror while she leaned against him.
He was burnt to a crisp.
It was God's little gift to me.
I looked at the basket of fish on the passenger seat. They kicked and twisted like angry devils, unhappy about their fate. They fought against their ultimate end with all their might. They were fighters.
We all lose in the end.
The fight in between is all that counts.
We caught five fish in total that day, nice looking animals, too. They would make a fine birthday dinner for Emma Claire later that night. Nothing on earth was finer than fish. Not even making love, or early morning cigarettes.
Or both at the same time.
Our broken family didn't have many traditions, but we did have a birthday tradition. We bookended each birthday with a heap of fried fish and boiled crab. Every year I attempted to surprise Emma Claire with a mess of blue crab, but she was never surprised. She always knew it was coming. Every year.
I was predictable.
That particular year, I'd caught eight blue crab altogether. I had them hidden beneath Mother's porch in a big bucket of water. I caught one large male that looked as big as a horse cart–with pinchers.
I hoped Scrubs would choke on the thing.
I watched Scrubs in the rear view mirror, burnt red as an apple. Emma Claire saw me watching them; she poked her tongue out at me and wrinkled up her forehead.
Still a child.
She crawled forward and rapped on the back window with her knuckles. I reached behind me and slid it open.
She popped her head through. “How're things going up here?”
“Fine as wine.”
She pressed her finger on my neck to test my ugly tan.
“You never get sunburned. You're brown all year round.”
“It's not as glamourous as it sounds.” I stabbed my cigarette in the ashtray. “How's Red Man doing back there?”
“Oh, he's fine. Just sunburnt.”
Damn.
I was hoping it was worse than that.
“I wish I were brown all year round, like you,” she said.
“No you don't.”
She rested her chin on her hands and looked straight out the windshield of the truck. She let out a sigh, a satisfied one.
“Mother told me about your diploma,” she said. “Said you went and took a high-school equivalency test.”
I nodded.
“Was it hard?” she asked.
“Hard as a row to hoe.”
“But you passed?”
“By the hair of my chin.”
“Well, I'll bet Sonnet is proud of you,” she added.
I turned to face Emma Claire. “Yes, I think she is.”
“Well then, that means that you've graduated before me. I hope you're happy, you little ass.”
I was.
She thought for a moment, then said, “Hey, but I caught two more fish than you did today. At least I'm still a better fisherman than you are.”
Emma Claire was nothing if not competitive.
And I loved her for it.
͠
Scrubs leaned against the post. He watched me insert my knife into the soft white belly of the dead fish. The wine-colored blood leaked out of the fish, sticky on my fingers. I plopped the guts out onto the wooden table. Scrubs scrunched his nose and said something I couldn't hear.
“Say again?” I tilted my right ear toward him.
He cupped his hands over his mouth. “I said that's gross.”
“You don't have to shout.”
He shrugged. “I said that's gross.”
“I know, you've said it three times now.”
I looked down at the fish on the table. I tried to forget about the sunburnt donkey standing there beside me. I concentrated on happier things. I imagined my family seated around a small supper table for Emma's birthday. Each of us stuffed tighter than ticks.
Me especially.
I slid open the drawer and removed a meat cleaver. It was a huge rusty blade, big enough to hack up an oak tree. I lifted it high up in the air and hammered it down onto the wood table, lopping off the fish's head. The head bounced off the table, landing in the dirt.
Scrubs leapt back a few steps.
I bent down, picked up the head, then tossed it into the bucket. The metal rang like a bell with the direct hit.
“So, where'd Emma Claire run off to?” I asked. “She likes to help do this part.”
“She does?” his face bunched up.
“Sure, she loves to gut a fish.”
“Why?"
“Oh, I don't know, maybe because she likes blood.”
“Huh?”
“We crackers like blood.”
It wasn't an exaggeration.
Not in the slightest.
I slid the knife along the skin of the fish. “She's good at it, too, she can clean a fish without tearing it up, that's an art, you know.”
He didn't know.
Nor did he care.
I took the pink hunks of meat, set them aside, then flung the skin into the bucket.
“Hello, boys,” I heard Emma Claire say behind me.
I turned to see Emma Claire walking toward us. She wore a crisp white evening gown that came all the way down to her ankles. Her dark hair was drawn up into a loose bundle behind her head, and she wore a string of pearls. I recognized the white-heeled shoes she wore; they were Mother's. Emma Claire came closer to us. She hiked the sides of her dress up, tip toeing over the red dirt.
“Well, my stars.” I set the knife down.
Scrubs turned to see her walking toward us and let out an indecent whistle.
I could've gutting him for it.
“You like my new dress?” she asked.
I wasn't sure if she was asking Scrubs or me, so I didn't answer.
“Yes, ma'am.” Scrubs slid his hands around her waist and held her close to him. “You look good enough to eat.”
She pecked him on the lips.
“What do you think, Quinn? About the dress?”
I nodded my head and smiled.
She was as pretty as a placemat.
“Mother helped me make it,” she said.
“It's mighty fine,” I said.
“We worked on it for two whole days.” She looked at Scrubs with a silly grin on her face. “Two long, full days.”
Mother was faster than that.
Emma Claire must've slowed her down.
Scrubs stroked her bare white shoulder with his finger. “I think my parents will be impressed.”
“Parents?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, Quinn. Scrubs' parents invited me over their house for a birthday dinner tonight. I won't be here for dinner.”
͠
The sky was like a painting. Brilliant golds and purples streaked sideways above us. One thing I like about the Floridian sky: it changes with every passing moment. Always has.
Always will.
Before he traded me for moonshine, Old Mister McRyan would sometimes tell me no man could look at the same sky twice. He said everything was changing and replacing itself, bit by bit. He was right. I'd never seen a sky look as beautiful as the one above me did.
And I'd never see one like it again.
I hugged Emma Claire and wished her a happy birthday. She draped her arms around me and squeezed me tight. She crawled into Scrubs' car and tucked her white dress around her in the bucket seat. I closed the door for her.
“Hey,” I said to her from outside the car window. “It's still your trout. We won't touch it until we're all sitting down together. Maybe we'll even have some blue crab too, you never know.”
Emma Claire smiled at me from behind the glazed car window and gave me a thumbs up. Her face was mature, but it was the same smile that she'd had since birth.
Mischievous.
Scrubs fired up his car, and it hummed like a baby lion. And just like that, they were gone. I watched his red taillights disappear down the driveway in the dusky evening. The screen door squealed behind me as it swung open, and Mother walked out.
Without saying a word, I handed her a cigarette.
She only came out to the porch to smoke.
“Thanks,” she said.
“She's gone.” I motioned toward the driveway. “On her own birthday.”
“She never told you?”
“Nope, I guess she doesn't tell me much anymore.”
The squatty, big-eared baby who named the feral cats, who climbed the oaks behind our house, who dangled upside down like a monkey, who wasn't bothered by fish blood, who was too afraid to sleep alone, had changed.
She was a girl in pearls now.
“I know.” Mother inhaled her cigarette. “She don't tell me much, either. But I knew she was going tonight.”
“You knew she was going over there?”
“Mmm hmm.” She sat down on the front steps and tapped her ash onto the ground. “That's why we made the dress. I forgot to tell you.”
How considerate.
I hitched my thumbs in my pockets and let out a breath.
“Oh, cheer up, Quinn, she can't be your little girl forever.”
I glanced over at Mother. She was lean, her features were sharper than they used to be. She let out a breath of blue smoke that rose upward and evaporated into the air.
“Don't worry.” She looked up at the sky. “Scrubs is a good kid. And he's so damned handsome.”
I did not respond, neither did I concur.
Not in the least.
͠
Sonnet and I walked up the wooden steps into our half-finished stilted house. It was beginning to look like a legitimate home. Less like a shack. If you used your imagination, you could almost see it painted white. Complete with green shutters and a wraparound porch.
“Oh, it's going to be lovely.” Sonnet touched the rough yellow post and ran her hand along it. “So very lovely.”
“Careful,” I said. “Don't catch a splinter.”
She walked over to a wall and stared out of the window.
“The kitchen will be over here?” she asked.
“Why, Miss Applewhite, the kitchen can be wherever you want it to be.”
She walked to the other side and spread her hands out. “What about here?”
“Sure. If that's where you want it.”
“Well, I suppose it's your decision, you're the one who cooks. You're the chef.”
“Not anymore. I've been promoted to dishwasher.”
“I thought you were the dishwasher and the chef.”
“No, it doesn't work that way, I can't be both.”
“You can, if the house president say you can.”
She walked over to me and slung her arms around my shoulders, leaning her head into my chest. The crude charm of our new home liberated us, made us lighter. We held each other underneath the open roof, waltzing from side to side. Neither of us could dance a lick, but we were good pretenders.
I looked down at the wood floor and watched the raindrops start to fall. They made little polka dots on the floor. The pitter patter sound became louder with each droplet.
“We'd better take cover,” I said.
The words had not left my lips before the sky opened up and poured onto us. Sonnet yelped and covered her head. She darted down the platform to the truck. Her dried, coarse auburn hair turned dark, soaking up the rain.
“Come on!” Sonnet yelled. “Hurry up!”
I crawled into the truck, slammed the door, and shook my wet hair like a dog. The drops of water flung all over the truck cab in every direction.
“Hey.” Sonnet slapped my shoulder. “You're getting me all wet, you big fool.”
“How's that?”
“Don't play deaf with me, your good ear's facing me.”
“Ma'am?”
Sonnet looked out the window.
“Hey, look.” Sonnet gazed out the window. “Who's that over at your mom's house?”
͠
“Isn't it a little early for Scrubs to be dropping Emma Claire off?” Sonnet said. “School's not out yet, it's still the middle of the day.”
I squinted through the truck window. I could see the fat white tires of Scrubs' fancy green car in Mother's driveway.
“You're right,” I said. “It is odd.”
I pulled my truck beside his car.
The rain battered my metal hood. Crashing sounds of water engulfed all other noise. Sonnet leaned over and said something to me, but the rain was too loud to hear. I hopped out of the truck and shut the door behind me, clomping up the house steps. I eased Mother's front door open and looked around.
The house looked empty and quiet.
“Hello?” I called out. “Mother?”
There was a loud crash in the back bedroom.
I followed the sound, walking through the narrow hallway. My wet boots squeaking on the floorboards, trailing long puddles of water behind me.
Mother's bedroom door was closed.
“Hello?” I rapped my fist on her door. “Mother, are you in there?”
There was no answer.
I knocked again. “Mother?”
“I'm busy,” Mother said, muffled behind the door. “Go away, please.”
I thought for a moment.
Something was wrong.
I turned the metal knob and pushed the door open.
She was naked.
So was he.
Mother screamed.
I stood motionless looking at them.
The lanky boy, with coal black hair, was behind my mother, shirtless. He slid on his jeans and boots as fast as he could move.
“Quinn!” she pressed her hands into my chest. “Don't hurt him! Please!”
I ignored her. My teeth clenched together, and I heard one of my molars crack. I charged forward and grabbed Scrubs by his throat. Both of them screamed at me, but I couldn't hear their shouting. I could only see their mouths wrench open.
She threw her fists at me, trying to beat me off him. Then Scrubs lurched his arms out and joined the fight. He socked me in the mouth. My head flew back from the blow, but I felt no pain.
I felt nothing.
I tossed Scrubs out of her room and he slammed against the wall of the hallway. I shoved his body through the narrow hall like a sack of grain. He banged into the hollow walls and the framed photographs fell from their nails, crashing to the floor.
I tugged him through the front door by his belt, then slung him into the railing on the porch. I lunged forward at him with every bit of strength I had. Scrubs fell backward, over the railing, arcing through the air. He thumped onto the wet mud.
