Soil (8 page)

11

Morning reeked of barbecue and damnation. Pyre smoke hung like haunted fog in the trees, and below, scattered across the pasture floor, lay evidence of his midnight science. Jay shot up from sleep and flopped out of the lawn chair. He found the water jug and turned it up, drinking past the taste of tepid death.

The char barrel was quiet nearby, its surface tarnished by oxidation. When he reached to touch it, it hissed and nipped at his fingers, and he drew back with a curse. He put on the giant gloves and removed the flue stack and pried the lid off. The packed kindling had burned down to ash in the bottom of the can. Little wisps of smoke escaped, and a roasty tang shot up his nose. He turned the barrel on its side, shimmied the scorched keg onto the ground, and sat it upright. The pieces were wedged in there just as he'd put them, and when he set the keg up they fell together in a chalk-stick clatter. Black powder rose and lingered like dust motes in the light. It was definitely charcoal.

He selected the cranium on top of the pile. It was lighter now and solid black. He pulled it close and sniffed, a burnt smell with still a whiff of the flesh. Shades of green and lavender were etched finely across its crystallized surface. The structure was intact, even the teeth, preserved perfectly in their upper sockets, and he plucked a molar and crushed it between his fingers, as brittle as a dried mud clod. He placed the cranium on the tarp, folded the sheet over, stomped it once, and then unfolded the plastic to find the skull in a dozen shards or more. He reached down for a broken piece, placed it on the end of a sitting log, and pounded it with the flat head of a hatchet. It went to grit in a few strokes.

He sighed in relief. He laughed. This was it, he'd done it. Cremated the body. Cooked it to its base elements. With just a bit of grinding, the man would soon be dust scattered in a thousand innocent directions.

He came to the cook pot, which had gone quiet too. The flame had expired in the night, and now the pot was barely warm. He lifted the lid and ladled up some of the black clabber. There arose from the fly-swarmed soup a fermented glandular funk, which made him crawl straight for the leaves and let his digestive tract wring itself out, all those recent sips of water and some old resident slime. He hadn't eaten in two days at least, and the hunger was having an effect on his stamina and balance. His organs were stealing nutrients from each other.

He stood up, pale white and shambling, emptied the contents of the keg into the open tarp, and sorted through the bones, breaking some with the hatchet and culling certain others that hadn't cooked completely. These would need a second run through the fire pit. He hacked the finished pieces into manageable shards and stored them in a dry plastic bucket, which he carried out of the hollow and over the pastured ridge and back down to the house. He cleared a wide surface under the carport and began smashing the pieces with a mallet. They broke easy but not fine, and each blow sent little shards skittering over the concrete. Anything less than powder was still evidence. He tried whacking them under plastic, rubbing them under sandpaper, clapping them under bricks and concrete blocks, but every friction made a greater mess. Dust blew back in his face, watering his eyes, filling his nostrils with black goo. He wished he'd bought that leaf and bark mulcher last fall. A hand grinder at least. He had to remind himself constantly what he was doing and why—rendering unto dust, playing God with a dead stranger, eliminating sin.

After nearly two hours he looked like a cartoon character caught holding an exploded bomb, all fried hair and soot face and glowing red eyes. His muscles were locking up, his mind going dim. He fell asleep right there in the grit and awoke from a brief dream in which wild dogs were tearing at his limbs. He slapped himself with a smeared hand and struggled to his feet,
knees buckling. A sophisticated new hunger had beset him with irrational cravings. He went for a rope of onions drying on a porch post, pulled one free, and bit straight into it, spitting out the dusty paper coating and devouring the flesh like an apple. Its spice ran across his tongue and revolted in his belly. He stumbled into the yard for water and collapsed beside the cistern.

He lay on his side, slurping slow and long from the cool stream. He might have lightly dozed under the stream, a wet dream in the center of a waterfall, splashing in his ears. He felt himself sinking into a lake, becoming entangled at the soft slurry bottom, lungs engorged. There was a burning sensation, a bird feasting inside his nose, and he sat up suddenly choking, banged his head on the cistern. Dripping and hacking, he caught his breath and remembered where he'd been all along. It was this same inconclusive life. Heartbeat in his ears. A low crunch, a mechanical whirring. The unmistakable sound of tires on gravel. He turned off the spigot and stopped to listen. A vehicle climbed the driveway. They were coming for him.

He reached for the missing pistol in his waistband and then scurried to the tarp, folded its edges hastily, and shoved it beneath the Bronco. He made a break for the house just as the vehicle pulled into view.

The pistol was on the kitchen counter. He had just six shots, the spare bullets in his other pants. How many would there be? He craned his neck to peek through the window but saw only taillights. He heard a car door slam and ducked down behind the cabinets.

It wouldn't take them long to find everything they'd need to haul him away. But he wouldn't be going with them. No, he would prefer being slain in the front yard, maybe even take a few of them with him if that's how they'd like to do it. He refused to waste away in a cell for their mistaken presumptions. If it was punishment they sought, then they could take it all at once.

If it was guilt they required, then he was prepared to give it honestly.

12

Sandy coasted over the levee road. The world had come to ruin here—great lakes on either side of the road, even the field below their house. Just as Jay had envisioned it. She pulled into the driveway, stopped at the foot of their property, and stared at Jay's field, just a big puddle. There was a large brushstroke where the water had swept in and the burnt edges where it was retreating. The river had always been just an idea to her, silently looming out there on the periphery, but now it had claimed almost everything—the greenhouse, the tractor, all the canted fencing and crooked stakes and naked framework.

She thought of last fall when Hatcher had brought them the iron fencing, a piece he'd found at the landfill up the road. It was the missing trellis for their cucumber and melon wall. The neighbor helped them stake and raise it. Afterward they sat in the dirt with cold beers in their hands, the first timid bite of winter on the air. She recalled the peculiar pink grapefruit quality of the light in afternoon, Jacob tumbling over the blank rows in boots and flannel. As a joke, Jay had planted a bed of broccoli in the shape of Mississippi with a magnolia-shaped cluster of cauliflower in the middle, and he basked in Hatcher's approval.
Call me when you need a hand, I'm all yours
, Hatcher had promised.
And by yours, I mean Sandy's
. They'd smiled and watched the sun set on everything.

How could they have gone so long without talking? Her stomach pooled with dread as she put the car in gear and lurched up the driveway. The place looked unattended, possibly abandoned. She thought she wouldn't find him here, at least not alive.

She pulled up to the carport. The Bronco was still parked there, so he hadn't gotten far. A shadow darted out from behind it. She cut the engine and opened the door to get out, but something was not right. There was an eerie burnt stillness. She closed the door and rolled down the window. “Jay!”

She called him again.

He emerged gradually from the shadows a moment later, barefoot and shirtless into the light of day, this wild-haired, sunken-eyed grisly specter of death.

When she saw and believed it was him, she felt a blush of relief that he was alive, if barely. Was he sick? Was he insane? Certainly malnourished. It occurred to her that Shoals might be right, that her husband was strung out. She thought she might have to leash him and get him into the car and back to town for rehab.

He walked over nervously and ducked to peer through the window, first at her and then at the dog whimpering in her lap, lunging to get out. He had the halting, brittle posture of someone just sprung from solitary confinement.

“Sandy?” he said with dumb uncertainty, as if they hadn't seen each other in twenty years. He smelled terribly of onions.

“Who did you think it was?”

“Well, what— What are you doing here?”

He seemed terrified. Was he shacked up with another woman, some peroxide-­blond meth skank? That was all she needed to move ahead with a divorce.

He stood upright and ran a hand through his clumped mess of hair, trying his best to recover. “I wasn't expecting you. It's been . . .” He fumbled with the car door handle but it was locked. “Where's Jacob?”

He stepped back, and she wrenched open the door, which squealed for grease. She got out and straightened herself, stood awkwardly for inspection. His eyes scurried over her, trying to discern his friend and lover. She softened toward him, despite his dreadful appearance.

“You look like hell,” she said with frustrated concern.

He inspected himself, torn and stained shorts, crust and grime etched all
down his skin. His hair and beard practically declared him insane. He gave an exasperated snort. “I do?”

“Jay! I can see your skeleton!”

He looked back at the carport. “What? What are you saying?”

“I'm saying, you're skin and bones! Are you not eating?”

She wanted to take him home and clean him up, feed him, phone in sick the rest of the day to care for her child of a husband. But there was something wrong here. “It smells weird,” she said.

“I know,” he replied. “I burned a deer in the pasture.”

“What?”

“It died, I had it in the shed back here and it smelled horrible so I took it out there.”

She withdrew unconsciously against the car.

“It must have died in the flood. I don't know if it just wandered up or somebody hit it with a car. It was the strangest thing, Sandy, you wouldn't believe me if I told you . . .”

“Relax,” she said. “I believe you.”

“Okay.”

She asked him about the flooded field. “Did it reach the house?”

He told her that it had not flooded near the house, though she wouldn't have guessed it with all the trash flung about, the dead grass and the mud-slide face of the hill out back.

“Where's Jacob? How come you didn't bring him?” he asked.

“Jay, I— He's at school.”

“School? Already?”

“Yes, we both are! For like over a month now!” He had a drugged vacancy that annoyed and worried her. She dared not mention the deputy's allegation.

“How's he doing?”

“Jacob?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“He's fine . . . considering.”

“Considering what? What's wrong?”

She sighed. Now that the shock had worn off, and she was relieved to find him alive, she could vent her anger. “Considering that he's moved into a shitty rental and hasn't seen his father for almost two months, and his father hasn't cared to visit or even call or to write and ask about him. That's been a little confusing for him, Jay!”

“I—” He stammered, trying to lob something back. “I didn't leave!” he cried. “I didn't walk out on our life here!
You
walked out! You took him and you left me here to deal with this alone!
You!
” He wagged a dirty finger at her.

“We had an agreement, Sandy. We were supposed to do this together. You left me holding the bag, and now you send a . . . a . . . a fucking
divorce lawyer
out here . . . without a word of warning?”

“What lawyer? Get real! I've sent no lawyer. I can't afford a lawyer. When would I have time to arrange that? I've had to make a new life for me and Jacob!”

He squinted in disbelief.

Here was the Jay she'd fled, bound up inside a withered husk. “And what have
you
been doing?” she demanded.

His eyes went wild and rolling. He spun around, speechless, unstable. “Ha! What have I been doing? Well, let's see . . . Do you really want to know?”

“No, I don't think I want to know,” she said, seething now. He wouldn't be let off the hook, no matter how poorly he seemed. “You've let this place slide all the more to hell, and then look at you. You can't even take care of yourself.”

Her words had twisted him appropriately, and he'd gone all twitchy trying to form a rebuttal. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This was to be a reconciliation, the beginning of the mend.

She opened the car door and released the beagle, which jumped out and drilled Jay in the crotch with his snout.

“I just came to make a delivery,” she said.

Jay pushed the dog aside and watched him dart around the yard, taking in all the exotic and old familiar scents.

“I need you to keep Chipper,” she said. “Jacob needs you to keep him.”

“Why?”

“My landlord won't let us have him.”

“Your landlord?”

Sandy sighed. It was as if he'd woken up from a coma, never imagining that any time had passed since they were last together.

They stood in awkward silence, watching the dog scramble around the yard, nose down, lifting his leg now and then to squirt his claim, and finally disappearing over the hillside into the pasture. Jay watched him with a pained grimace, as if terrified at the prospect of keeping something alive besides himself. She popped the trunk, retrieved a giant sack of dog food, and heaved it into the yellow grass next to the driveway.

“You don't seem well,” she said. “Can I get you some help?”

He stared into the yard with a lost gaze, nibbling his lip, scratching violently at his head and body. Was he even listening?

“Are you on something, Jay? You seem high or strung out.”

He shook his head. “How would I get drugs? I can't even afford to drive into town.”

“Yeah, the electric company has been calling to collect the bill here. I can barely scrape mine together, I can't support you too.”

It was a bit of a fib. Sandy's father had been helping them. She could have paid enough maybe to get the lights turned on, the water up and running.

“When are you going to get a job and start acting like a grown-up again?” she wanted to know.

“Do you really want to help, or did you just come here to further humiliate me?”

She'd come here to save him, hoping that he'd come to his senses. Hoping they could put their life back together because this wasn't good for any of them. Obviously they were only capable of functioning as a unit.

“I told you,” she replied. “I came to drop off the dog.”

His eyes glistened and swelled. “I'd still like to see him, Sandy. I just . . . if you knew what I've been dealing with.” He rubbed his face, which appeared red and ready to slide right off his skull.

“I should really explain something. What I'm dealing with here, what this flood has brought . . . I'm not sure I can even . . .” He gestured wildly with his hands. “Look, before when you left, that was one thing, but this is . . . it's entirely different. There are things that will never be fixed. I've done—”

“It's all just
stuff
, Jay. And besides, I don't think you need to worry about fixing this right now. You need to get your hands in something structured and earn some money until you get back on your feet.”

He inspected his hands. “I don't think you—”

“Why not ask Hatcher if he has any work? Or better yet, go back to the agency and ask Burt Petit for your old job back.”

His eyes cut into her, slashing up and down until it made her uncomfortable. “God almighty,” he said, “you look so good to me right now.”

She couldn't help but laugh and had a compulsion then to embrace him, to let him know that she hadn't given up on him completely. But he was so grimy, and then she imagined the bell at school ringing and knew the kids would be crowding into the auditorium, and she'd bought all the time she could with this. He was fine, he would survive.

She apologized for having to leave so soon. They shared a fraught silent moment in which anything could have happened. A quiet tension shuddered between them.

Finally she climbed back into the car. He crouched down beside the open window and stared at her, reached out and pulled down her sunglasses.

“Sandy, you
can
help me.”

He worked up the nerve to say something. She thought he was going to ask if he could come with her.

“Give me ten dollars for gas. I really want to see you and Jacob.”

Unflinching in the face of his crypt breath and jittery eyes, she judged his sincerity, considered telling him to get in the car and come now to see him. Instead she sighed and dug into her purse for a twenty. He took the bill and inspected it. “Thank you.”

“Just come see Jacob.”

“I will, I promise.”

“And take a bath, for God's sake.”

He sniffed himself and frowned.

“A shave wouldn't hurt. You look like a festival groupie.”

She gave the car several wheezing attempts to crank.

He sat back on his haunches and smiled. “You're right, I'm gonna be okay,” he said. “I'm just tired, worn out. You're right, as always. I've been working too hard. It's gonna take a lot to get everything back in shape, but you'll see.”

She dipped her brow skeptically.

“You wouldn't know it now, but at one time during all of this, it was really beautiful out there,” he said, nodding down the hill. “The entire front field shimmered. Like the lake house, remember?”

Many years ago, before Jacob, a friend had let them spend two weeks at his lake cottage in Michigan, two of the most relaxing and enjoyable weeks of their entire relationship. Since then it had served as a touchstone for when times were tough. A better life was only a two-week vacation away.

She nodded up the hill. “What's he into?” The dog bolted over the bluff, carrying a large blackened stick, possibly a bone. “What on earth is that?”

“No,” he hissed and ran after the dog, shouting and waving his arms, chasing him back over the hillside and into the pasture.

She waited a moment for Jay to return. They'd been on the verge of acknowledging something, but in typical fashion, he'd run off into his field. She gave the car another crank and it sputtered to life. She maneuvered a turn and was headed back down the hill when she heard him shouting. He came running into the rearview.

He ran up beside her, breathless, keeled over and barely able to stand. “That's funny, Chipper had a deer bone.”

“Jay.” She smiled. “I gotta go.”

“Okay,” he huffed. “I'll see you . . . in a day or two.”

“I hope so.”

She drove away and then stopped short, put her head out and looked back. “By the way, you remember we used to laugh at that teal house sticking out like a sore thumb on Waller, across from the baseball field?”

“The shitbox?”

“Yeah, that's the one. We live there now.”

He winced.

“I know, right,” she said, pulling away. “Nowhere to go but up.”