Wolf at the table, p.21
Wolf at the Table, page 21
8
PADUCAH, KENTUCKY
APRIL 10, 1982
ALEC
THE BANKS OF THE Ohio smell especially rank today. Rank as a bag of warm trout left in the sun. Alec pushes the last cigarette through his pack of Pall Malls, lights it, and sits on his favorite thirty-inch cement rectangle, whose rebar shackle suggests that it used to be a hitching post of some sort, likely for smallish boats. Skiffs. Motorized rowboats. Canoes and kayaks.
According to the discarded Courier-Journal that he just used to wipe himself, it’s a Saturday. Ronald Reagan was on the front page again. Ronald fucking Reagan and his fake rubber hair. A former Hollywood actor leading the country. Go figure. It’s just past noon and the sun feels good on Alec’s face. He needs a shower and a shave and the sunlight will clarify him, purge him of all odors and bacteria. Twice a week he sneaks into the little halfway house over on Twelfth Street, where he lived for a few months after serving three weeks in jail for attempting to steal money out of the cash register at a bowling alley bar, and grabs a used razor out of the trash and whatever half-dissolved sliver of soap he can find. He’ll shower and shave and use the toilet and even brush his teeth with his finger if there’s any toothpaste on hand. If Ulysses, the ancient, half-blind Black man, is at the front desk, he can even sweet-talk him for a roll or two of toilet paper so he doesn’t have to use the fucking newspaper every damn time he has to take a crap. But for now he is content to let the early-April sun do its thing. Trust the power of ultraviolet rays. He throws the word around in his head: ultraviolet… ultraviolins… ultraviolence…
Alec is about halfway through his cigarette when a boy comes out of the brush with a fishing pole and a small pink bucket that looks like a child’s beach toy. The kid is wiry, blond, in jeans that are too large and an oversize University of Louisville men’s basketball hoodie. His sneakers are caked with mud.
As the boy approaches, Alec takes one last drag from his cigarette and flicks it behind him toward the water. “Catch anything?” he asks.
“A little-ass bluegill but I threw that bitch back,” the kid says.
“I wasn’t aware that fish could be bitches,” Alec says.
“Any living thing can be a bitch,” the kid says.
“You might have more luck if you keep walking another quarter mile that way,” Alec offers, nodding toward the small marina where he lives in his dilapidated houseboat. “There’s a little dock where you can drop your line,” he adds. “About four or five lopsided Blacks like to hang out there and fish and play dominoes but if you mind your own business they’ll leave you be.”
“I ain’t afraida no Blacks,” the kid says.
His hair has a tinge of rust, and up close Alec can see that the boy also has freckles, just like his sister Fiona, whom he hasn’t seen since he left home, more than twenty years ago. Emma, the woman he was supposed to marry and raise a child with back in Nebraska, also had freckles. Alec briefly imagines the child he will never meet. Is it a boy? A girl? Is it some afflicted, half-formed creature in a wheelchair? Is it blind? Freckled like this boy who’s just emerged out of the brush? He pushes the thought from his mind forever, like discarding a piece of litter.
But the years he’s amassed and all their weight aren’t as easily dismissed. When he thinks about his age, which is forty-one now, he can feel things slowly turning in his organs, like screws coming loose.
“What’s in your pail—earthworms?”
“Nothin’,” the boy says. “This is what I’m gonna carry my fish home in.”
“What you aiming to catch?”
“A bass.”
“With what bait?”
The kid reaches into the front pouch of his hoodie and produces a package of Oscar Mayer bologna.
“That’s not gonna get you much more than a belligerent bullhead. And good luck wrestling that off your hook without getting stung.”
“Ain’t afraida no bullheads neither,” the kid says. “I’ve caught plenty of ’em.”
“You’re not afraid of much, are you?” Alec says.
The boy just stands there with his rod on his shoulder, his blue eyes squinting in the bright sun.
“How old are you?” Alec asks.
“Thirteen,” the boy says.
“You’re small for your age.”
“Says who?”
“I pegged you for about nine.”
“Turned thirteen three weeks ago.”
“So that makes you, what, an eighth-grader?”
“Seventh.”
“I was small for my age, too,” Alec says. “Don’t worry, you’ll grow.”
“As long as I get a big dick I don’t care,” the kid says.
“Well, I wish you luck,” Alec says, laughing. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Grady.”
“Hi, Grady,” Alec says. “I’m Jack.”
“Why you sittin’ there like you ain’t got nothin’ to do?”
“Oh, I got plenty to do,” Alec says. “I’m just tryin’ to enjoy the sun a bit before I get to doing it.”
Grady visors his eyes with his hands and studies Alec. “You from around here?”
“I’m sort of from all over the place,” Alec says. “But Paducah is currently where I choose to make my residence. What about you?”
“I live in Brockport. Other side of the river.”
“You don’t like fishing in Illinois?”
“My mom’s over here today,” he says. “She lets me fish when she’s got work on this side.”
“What’s your mom do?”
“She cleans people’s houses.”
“There’s a lot of dirty houses out there,” Alec says.
“She does offices, too. She’s gonna start her own business soon. Her and her friend Nona.”
“You get those freckles from your mom or your dad?”
“Prolly neither.”
“Did your dad teach you how to fish?”
“No.”
“Where’s he today?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
“He skedaddled, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“My mom says he’s a scumbucket with a capital S.”
“Most men are.”
“I think her and Nona are lesbos.”
“Whatever floats your boat,” Alec says.
“The other day I walked in on them sticking their fingers in each other.”
“Like I said, whatever boats your float.”
“Nona’s got gorilla hands.”
“You don’t like her?”
“No, she’s cool. We watch Hill Street Blues together. She used to be a powerlifter. She can do like fifty push-ups.”
“Sounds like an interesting lady.”
“You got any more cigarettes?” Grady asks.
Only then does Alec realize he’s still holding his empty pack of Pall Malls. “Just smoked my last one.”
“Lotta good you are.”
“You shouldn’t be smoking anyways,” Alec says, scrunching the empty pack into a ball. “Especially at your age. Damn things’ll stunt your growth. You’ll never get that big pecker you’re hoping for.”
“If you had one left, you’d give it to me,” Grady says.
“I would, huh?”
“I can tell.”
Alec laughs and forces the crushed cigarette pack into the front pocket of his jeans. He wipes the film of sweat off his face with the red bandanna he keeps in the pocket of his windbreaker, then folds the bandanna into a square and returns it to his pocket. “Know anything about drumfish?” he says.
“Never heard of ’em,” Grady says.
“They got a stone in their skull.”
“Drumfish?”
“You can hear them vibrating when they come close. That’s how they get their name. Each stone has a letter on it. If you catch one with the first letter of your first name on it, it’ll bring you good luck for the rest of your life.”
“Sounds like utter horse-pucky.”
“It’s the God’s honest,” Alec says. From the back pocket of his jeans he removes an old leather wallet, opens it, and takes out a folded piece of white paper. “Check it out,” he says, and unfolds the paper to reveal a small gray stone the size of a child’s first tooth.
Grady steps close and peers down at it.
“See the J on there?” Alec says.
“That ain’t no J.”
“Sure it is.”
“I seen dead bullfrogs that look more like a J.”
“It’s a goddamn lowercase J,” Alec says. “Look closer.”
Grady lowers his head. His hair has that feral musk that boys get when they don’t bathe. The sour funk of his unlaundered hoodie rises sharply above him. His ears are probably filthy.
“You see it now?” Alec says. “How it curves at the bottom there?”
“I see it,” the kid says, a tad mesmerized. “A little J.”
Alec folds the stone back into the piece of paper, feeds it back into the billfold.
“So how’d you get lucky?” Grady asks.
“In many ways,” Alec says. “I got my own houseboat for one.”
“Like a boat you live on?”
“I sleep on it, eat on it, do any damn thing I please on it.”
“Can you fish off it?” Grady asks.
“If I want to,” Alec says. “But I don’t like to fish where I sleep.”
“What kinda bait do drumfish like?” Grady asks.
“Fiddler crabs is their favorite. You got a halfway decent bait shop in Brockport?”
“Yeah,” Grady says. “The lady who runs the place’s got a mustache but she brags about havin’ everything.”
“Then she’ll definitely carry fiddler crabs. Here,” Alec says, taking a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet, holding it out to the kid. “Go get yourself a dozen fiddler crabs and meet me tomorrow. I’ll be right here at my spot. I might even have an extra cigarette for you, but I’ll only let you have a puff or two. I’ll help you find your special drumfish.”
“I can’t come tomorrow,” Grady says. “It’s Easter. I gotta go to church.”
“Well, do me twice with a curling iron,” Alec says. “Look at me forgettin’ my high holidays. When’s the next time your mom’s got work on this side of the river?”
“I don’t know,” Grady says. “Prolly sometime next week. But I could come meet you on Monday.”
“Don’t you got school?”
“I’ll come after. I get out around three. Bus drops me off around three-twenty.”
“Can you do five o’clock?” Alec says.
“I can prolly be here earlier,” Grady says.
“Let’s make it five bells,” Alec says. “Drumfish are easier to catch in the evening.”
“Why, ’cause they get sleepy?”
“Somethin’ like that,” Alec says. “Their hormones and whatnot.”
“Fish got hormones?”
“Fish are practically people,” Alec says. “Hell, everyone thinks we come from monkeys, but we’re definitely more like fish. We swim. Monkeys can’t swim.”
“Once I saw a monkey jerk off and fling his mess at a swimsuit model,” Grady says. “Up at that fancy zoo in Chicago.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get that image out of my head for quite some time,” Alec says.
“Hit her right in the hair,” Grady says. “She was tall, too.”
“I’ll bet she was,” Alec says, laughing. “Flying monkey spume.”
Grady picks his nose and wipes it on his jeans. “What’s your name again?” he says.
“Jack,” Alec says. “You can call me Happy Jack.”
“You think there’s one of them drumfish stones with a G on it?”
“You’re damn straight there is. And it’s your G. And it’s gonna bring you good luck, I swear to Elvis.”
“I hear he died shittin’ his brains out on the toilet,” Grady says.
“That might be true,” Alec says. “But that was his throne and Elvis was the king. Do yourself a favor, though. When you go home tonight, when you go to bed, before you say your prayers and fall asleep, imagine that drumfish swimming toward you.”
“Like I’m in the river?”
“You’re just on the dock with that fiddler crab bait on your hook and that drumfish with the letter G on the stone in its skull is miles away out in the Ohio, like way the hell over in western Pennsylvania or someplace, but it’s swimming your way.”
“Okay,” Grady says.
“If you don’t imagine it, it won’t come,” Alec warns.
They are quiet for a moment.
Grady starts moving his mouth around like he’s chewing tobacco, and then spits. “How come you didn’t know it was Easter tomorrow,” he says. “You don’t got no calendar?”
“I s’pose I don’t,” Alec says.
“You’re so lucky now that you don’t need one?”
“The sun goes up, the sun goes down,” Alec says. “That’s all the calendar I need.”
Grady finally accepts the ten-dollar bill, which Alec has been holding between his thumb and forefinger for some time now, and studies it hard. “Who is that s’posed to be?” he says of the face on the front.
“I believe it’s Alexander Hamilton.”
“Was he a president or somethin’?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Alec says. “Maybe. But he looks like my old Aunt Frothingslosh.”
Grady erupts in a fit of laughter. “Frothingslosh!” he shouts, still laughing.
“Now don’t go spending that on cigarettes,” Alec says after the boy’s laughter finally dies down.
“I won’t,” Grady says.
Just then a small girl jogs out of the brush toward them. She’s about half Grady’s size, in yellow overalls with mud all over her knees and elbows. “I seen it!” she cries to Grady. “I seen the blobfish!”
“Shit,” Grady says to Alec. And then to the girl: “Doris, look how dirty you are! Mom’s gonna be straight-up pissed! Dirty-ass dummy!”
“But I seen the blobfish!” she cries. “I seen it, I swear! It was big as a dang dog!”
“Mom’s gonna spank your stupid ass silly!”
“It had a face like a man’s,” she says. “Like it could talk words to you. Hey, mister.”
“Hey, you,” Alec says.
“This is my sister, Doris,” Grady says.
“Nice to meet you, Doris. I’m Jack.”
“Nice to meet you, Jake,” Doris says.
“It’s Jack,” Grady corrects her. “Happy Jack, you fucking butterhead! And call him mister.”
“Nice to meet you, Happy Jack,” she says.
“Where the hell is Lisa?” Grady says to her.
“Oh, no,” Doris says, covering her mouth.
“Better hope that blobfish didn’t eat her.”
Doris turns and runs back into the brush from where she emerged.
“She your only sibling?” Alec asks.
“Yeah,” Grady says. “I don’t think I could handle another little bitch like her.”
“I have four sisters,” Alec says. “Two of ’em are younger.”
“Four sisters!” Grady says. “That must be hell. You like any of ’em?”
“Not really,” Alec says. “Doris reminds me of my youngest one. Same color hair. Same blue eyes.”
“Doris still shits her pants. I keep tellin’ my mom to put her back in diapers. Shittin’ her damn pants in the first grade like a complete idgit.”
“She probably can’t help it.”
“She can, though,” Grady says. “She does it for attention.”
“She’ll figure it out.”
“She better,” Grady says. “I’m tired of cleanin’ up after her stanky ass.”
“You’re a good brother,” Alec says. “I can tell. Better than I ever was.”
The kid scratches at his neck, leaving streaks of pink.
“You meet me here Monday and I’ll help you catch your drumfish,” Alec says. “Get you that G stone.”
“Five o’clock,” Grady says. “I’ll ride my bike.”
“And don’t tell nobody or that drumfish’ll know and he won’t show up. You can’t tell your mom or Nona. Don’t tell a soul, you hear me?”
“I won’t say nothing.”
Doris reemerges from the brush carrying her Cabbage Patch doll, whose stunned little granny face makes Alec think briefly of his sister Joan, the retard. When he was in high school Alec used to sneak into Joan’s room and plug her nose while she was sleeping just to see what it would do to her face.
“Was the blobfish still there?” Alec asks Doris.
“No,” she says. “Lisa told him to go away.” She turns her doll toward Alec, and it’s as dirty as Doris herself, with splotches of mud marking her quilted arms and legs.
“Lisa’s obviously got special powers,” Alec says of the grubby little doll.
“Come on, skank, let’s go,” Grady says to his sister.
He grabs her hand and they head back toward the brush. As they are walking away, Grady turns back toward Alec, who is still sitting on his cement post. Alec salutes him like a general and Grady returns the salute.
LATER ALEC BUYS A fresh pack of Pall Malls from the 7-Eleven and on his way to the bathroom he steals a microwave burrito. After washing up in the sink he eats the burrito cold in about three bites. Walking the gravel road back to his houseboat off North Water Street, he belches grotesquely.
He laid claim to the abandoned houseboat over a year ago, after he’d left the halfway house. When the marina officer, an old, arthritic, walrus-faced man known as the Colonel, came by to check on it, Alec had moved in. The Colonel wasn’t up for haggling over it and simply told Alec he could have it. The former owner had purportedly “gone fishing and never come back.” All Alec had to do was pay a minimal monthly lease for the marina plot and some marginal city taxes. The Colonel said he’d have to go fill out some official paperwork at the county courthouse building, and when the next day Alec did just that, the boat became his, as if it had been fated.
The houseboat is decrepit, riddled with fleas and bedbugs. Oftentimes after he’s had too much to drink, Alec has considered setting fire to it to get rid of the pests. He even stole a fire extinguisher from a local bar where he’s no longer welcome so he might execute a controlled burnout, but he doesn’t trust the possible downside, which is the entire thing going up in flames. Then he’d have nowhere to live and would find himself back at some fucking halfway house where you have to do group meetings with a bunch of other degenerates and talk about God and forgiveness and setting off on various paths of reconciliation.
