A Gracious Plenty (15 page)

“Are you trying to talk his ear off, or what?” Lucy asks.

“Do you hear him crying?” I retort, and as soon as I say it, I see his face crumpling, his lip pouting ugly, and I realize I’ll have to watch my tone. But I don’t give him time for the tears.

“You got a big old lip there, boy,” I tell him. “Looks like you got stung by a bee. You ever been stung by a bee?”

He stares at me puzzled, threatening to cry. It’s a wonder his lungs haven’t worn away.

“One time I got stung by a bee right on my lip, ’cause I was eating clover by the handfuls. I was little like you—a little bigger, I guess—and a bee stung me right on my bottom lip, and it swoll up just like yours. Felt like that bee’d somehow got inside my lip and was buzzing around in there, humming fat. Did a bee get your lip? Is that why you’re pouting?”

Lucy begins to relax as I put on a show for Marcus, poking out my own lip. I’m walking backward, too, turned around to address him but still moving toward the river, and when I stumble over a root and almost trip, he laughs.

“The boy laughed!” I call out loud. “Did you hear that, Lucy? The boy laughed!”

And Lucy laughs, and baby Marcus laughs harder. We all laugh to hear him tickled. It’s a new sound, like the first drips of a thaw coming to end a silent freeze. His laugh is the sound of hope, and it surprises me and Lucy—and maybe even Marcus himself.

But I don’t trust it. I don’t give him time to remember what it is that plagues him so.

“You ever eat clovers?” I ask. “Lord, they’re good. Medicinal, too. If you have indigestion, eat a clover—but watch out for bees.”

“He doesn’t understand what
medicinal
means,” Lucy notes. “He’s a baby. Besides, he’s dead. How’s he gonna get indigestion?” We’ve reached the edge of the water, and I find my green wooden boat that I’ve chained to an oak.

There’s a water moccasin curled up next to the cooler, beneath the seat. Nothing a snake likes more than a boat left in shade.

“Hold up,” I say. “Gotta get rid of this snake,” and I look around for a stick or boat paddle.

But Lucy puts Marcus in the boat, and he chases the snake away, right over the side and into the water.

“I forget you don’t have to worry about things,” I joke. “Maybe you can come over later and talk some of those black widows living in my woodpile into moving to Kalamazoo.”

Marcus giggles.

“You like that word?” Lucy asks. “You like Kalamazoo?”

“Zoo,” he says, and me and Lucy nearly choke.

“Damn,” I say, and Lucy stares at him.

When we’re on the water, and we’re paddling along easy beneath big limbs dripping with moss and shadow, Lucy declares that we should play River King and Marcus can be the king. She makes him a crown from fishing lures, and then she belts out an opera about how Marcus is the mighty commander of the legions. Her voice is pretty enough, but just so loud. Marcus wrinkles his forehead and looks at me.

“Lucy,” I say. “You’re scaring the child.”

“He likes my singing. Don’t you like my singing?”

But Marcus just grunts.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s make this an educational trip. Facts and distinctions. We’ve got to teach you the facts and distinctions. Where to start?”

Marcus stares at me, all serious, like a little scholar, or maybe like he thinks I’ve lost my mind. He’s reverted back to his pout, though. I’m not sure if he’s sad or if his mouth has grown that way.

“Bees,” I say. “Now, bees are round, but hornets are wiry. And dirt dobbers, in their mud caves, are black and do not sting.”

“Bees live in hives, but hornets live in triangle nests. And yellow jackets live in holes in the ground,” Lucy tells him.

“Like you,” I say. “You’re like a yellow jacket.”

He looks at us, back and forth, quiet for a change and taking it all in.

“Bees make honey, and dirt dobbers make tunnels. But yellow jackets just make noise.”

And we all get silly, and I splash at the water with my paddle to wet them, and I point out a snake swimming nearby.

“Snakes,” I say. “Snakes travel just as fast in the river as they do on the land. But they can’t bite you as easy, ’cause when they open their mouths, they fill up with water and start to sink. When you’re fishing, you have to look up in the trees to make sure a snake’s not about to drop in your boat.”

And we all look up, but there’s no snake.

“A dying snake will tie itself in a knot,” Lucy tells him.

“Is that the truth?” I ask her.

“I think so,” she says. “If you hit one on the highway, it’ll make a ball and bounce right down the road.”

“Huh,” I say. “I’ve hit a snake before and it just lay flat.”

But Marcus isn’t listening to us anyway. He’s pointing to another little head stuck up in the water, like the snake I’d pointed out, but on the other side of the boat.

“That one’s not a snake,” I tell him. “That’s a turtle. And they’re hard to tell apart when they’re swimming, but if you’ll look at the way they move, if you’ll look really good, you’ll see that snakes do more of a wiggle. They skim over water, while turtles are bobbers. But turtles are much faster in the water than they are on land.”

We look at some turtles sitting on a log, sunning, and a big one plops off for us, splashing fine. Then Marcus cocks his head and listens, and I can only wonder which sound has caught his ear. He begins imitating toads, calling back to them so clearly that there could be a toad in the boat.

“Sounds,” I say. “He likes sounds.”

Lucy takes the paddle and slaps it on the water. “This is what it sounds like to spank, and the sound that comes right after is the sound of a splash.”

“This is what it sounds like to breathe,” I tell him, and Lucy leans his ear up to my chest. I cannot feel him, but I can see the recognition in his eyes. I breathe deep and let him hear that air moving in and out.

“And this is what it sounds like to wait,” Lucy says, and puts his ear next to her chest.

“This is what it sounds like to burn,” I say, and I sizzle for him,
szzzzzz
.

“This is what it sounds like to blow up,” Lucy says, and goes
k-Pwoooooww
.

Marcus rasps from deep in his throat, “Ahhow, ahhow.”

“That’s the sound of cancer of the larynx,” I laugh. “Or emphysema.”

Marcus keeps doing it, his face distorting so much, he begins to purple.

“Or the sound of gasping,” Lucy says. “Is he strangling on something?”

But we don’t get much further than that, because Leonard shows up, pushing his way between branches and clodding down to the bank, calling out, “Finch? Finch!”

“Shit,” Lucy says, and I notice that Marcus has begun to cry, though I’m not sure exactly when he started. I’m glad that he’s at least found air again. His coloring’s coming back—though it was never all that good.

“I’ll ignore him,” I tell Lucy. “I’d rather be with you.”

“Like it’s that easy,” she answers. “The bastard. And Marcus was doing so well.”

And I paddle the boat around a bend, hoping that Leonard can’t see.

“Finch!” he hollers out over the water. “Who’re you talking to? Come on to shore. I gotta speak with you about this letter you sent Lois Armour.”

“That wasn’t me,” I claim. “It was my secretary.”

“What letter?” Lucy asks.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got no choice,” Leonard shouts. “Come on, now.”

“What
letter
?” Lucy asks again.

And I can’t keep up with both worlds at the same time. They’re speaking to me, but saying different things, and it’s too much. Just seeing both worlds crosses my eyes, back and forth. It spins in my head, and I begin to understand how difficult it is when realities overlap. It makes sense why truths exclude each other.

I only have one mouth.

“I forgot to tell you,” I say to Lucy. “I invited your mother to visit like you asked.”

“I’m coming,” I call to Leonard, who has already waded out to the top of his boots.

“Go see what he wants,” Lucy says. “We’ll be watching.” And then she dives overboard, with the screaming Marcus beneath her arm. They don’t even splash when they enter the water, but I can still hear Marcus, muted and miserable beneath me.

I paddle my way back toward Leonard but stop short of shore. He wades out midway to his knees and says, “Come on in. Toss me the rope.”

But I say, “No. I haven’t even caught a mess for supper. Whatcha want?”

“I wanna talk to you,” he says.

“Thank you for the flowers,” I tell him, and as I say it, I feel a thump directly beneath my boat, as if an alligator’s smacked the underside with its tail. But there’s no real reason for an alligator to care one way or another about the flowers Leonard sent.

“You’re welcome,” he says. “I’m glad you liked them. Throw me your rope.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t believe I want to.” And without even paddling, I feel my boat backing up. And I know it’s Lucy and Marcus moving me out to the center of the river.

“Then I’ll have to come get you,” Leonard says, and he goes under, swimming beneath dark water. Water ripples all around.

I can hear Marcus screaming and Lucy cussing, distantly, and I know that all three of them are down there together.

But the closer Leonard gets to me, the farther away Marcus swims. And Lucy has to chase him, of course. She’d have a hard time explaining it to the Mediator if Marcus got lost.

I see Lucy and the screaming baby surfacing and making their way to the bank, dripping and scowling, just as Leonard comes up beside the boat.

He nearly tips me over climbing in. I have to reach my hand out to tug him and then lean backward, pulling him toward me.

“Now come on, Finch,” he says, dripping everywhere, water pouring in streams behind his ears. “Truth is, I gotta take you to jail. You violated the terms of your restraining order. Either give me the paddle or take this craft to shore. You’re under arrest.”

“I ain’t going to jail,” I tell him. “I’m going fishing. I happen to have an extra pole, and you’re welcome to join me.”

Leonard’s breathing hard. He wipes the water from beneath his chins. He’s had a new haircut, a buzz, and with his hair so short, it doesn’t look as dark. He’s out of shape, and drenched and heavy. The front end of the boat’s sunk so much lower that I’m lifted up like a queen in the back, like somebody able to walk on water.

“Please don’t make me charge you with resisting arrest.”

“I’m not
making you
charge me with anything,” I say.

“Why’d you send that letter?”

“I sent one to everybody with a relative buried here. Didn’t you get the one I sent on your brother Marcus’s behalf?” And I have to stifle the screaming I hear from the bank. I pick up a pole and adjust the hook and cork.

“Probably went to Daddy,” Leonard answers. “I don’t know nothing about it.”

“I see,” I tell him, and bait his line, then hand the pole to him. “You done much fishing?”

“No,” he tells me. “Finch—”

“You mean your daddy never took you fishing?”

“My daddy never took me nowhere, and you know it. He didn’t want to be seen with me ’cause I was a
crybaby
.”

I like his passion, so I leave him alone.

“You
know
all that. Why’re you trying to rub it in?” he asks.

“I ain’t rubbing nothing in,” I tell him. “I just figured I ought to know how much fishing experience you’ve had. I didn’t expect to get a confession about your relationship with your daddy. You volunteered all that.”

“Oh,” he says.

“See here,” I tell him. “Here’s all you got to know.” And in my mind, I think of him a little bit the way I think about baby Marcus. He’s not so awful—just annoying. He needs some teaching. That’s all.

“Here’s your first lesson in fishing,” I tell him. “Fish won’t bite when the moon’s full. They’ll just nibble at the bait, but they won’t pull the cork under. That’s okay, though. We’re under a new moon, so we should be able to catch a mess. Throw your line right there in that grass bed.”

“Finch,” he tries to interrupt.…

But I don’t let him. “That’s good. Make sure the line went down. Yeah. Now, today we’re fishing for brim. Brim bite the heads off crickets first. And they won’t bite at a cricket after the head is gone. You can forget it if the head’s gone.”

And then the cork goes under and the line starts singing, and I clap my hands for Leonard and tell him to pull it in.

But he’s too slow. He loses the fish, and, of course, it got his bait—the head anyway.

“Give it here,” I tell him, and I stick another cricket on his hook. “Try it again.”

“Finch, that piece of paper you signed was like a contract,” Leonard tries to explain. I reckon he thinks I’m simple. “We had faith in you to uphold your end of the deal, and you didn’t.” He speaks to me, but he stares at the orange cork, bobbing there at the end of the line.

He gets another bite, and loses the fish again.

“Hand me the hook,” I say, pretending to be put out.

“I can bait my own hook,” he says. And he does. It takes him a while and he loses a cricket, but he does manage to get one on.

But by the time he’s done it, I’ve paddled us down beyond the grass bed, to a place with a hollowed-out tree and lots of stumps.

“Throw it up near that tree,” I tell him. “Not too high, now. There’s a nest of hornets in that limb.”

He looks up at the buzzing hornets and cuts his eyes. “Are you trying to kill me? What’d you move me for? I had a fish
waiting
for me back there.”

“No, you didn’t,” I tell him. “You ran him off, spanking at the water and jerking your pole like you did. And you ran off all his brothers and sisters, too. Brim are nervous, scared fish. When you hook one, you have to pull it around to the other side of the boat to keep from scaring the other ones. You have to make it look like the caught fish is just swimming away. It’s kind of like lying,” I tell him. “You tell a lie, you got to pull it off for the entire crowd. You any good at lying?”

“Not as good as you are,” he says.

“I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t a liar,” I tell him. “And I didn’t never put my name on that piece of paper y’all gave me to sign.”