Phantom (4 page)

If there was nothing particularly attractive
about Lynnhaven, neither was it the worst place in the world to
live. If you liked seafood it was possible to eat very cheaply
there. The boats went out every morning and came back every
evening, and bargains could be had when they unloaded. Moreover,
Lynnhaven was a completely safe town. For more than forty years the
police force of two had had little to do other than keep their one
squad car polished and the drunks in line. Miss Merrion and others
like her could walk home alone after bingo on the darkest night
without fear of being bothered. Even the town dogs were well
behaved.

Lynnhaven had to do without
some things, inevitably. It had neither a local newspaper nor a
library, and the Rialto movie house had been turned into a
warehouse years ago. In fact, the last film shown there had
been
Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein
, in 1948. The nearest A &
P was ten miles away and the only church in Lynnhaven was Saint
Paul's, which retained a small but reliable congregation of
Lutherans. The fire department was strictly volunteer and was put
to the test only a few times a year, dealing with things like a
grease fire in the kitchen or a small electrical blaze caused by
old wiring. If a real fire had ever started, especially on Polidori
Street where the buildings stood one to another, half the town
could have been wiped out in very little time. But nothing so
dramatic ever happened in Lynnhaven.

There were those who would say that the last
time the town ever got worked up about anything was during World
War II. A group of local men, who for one reason or another had not
been called into the war effort, formed themselves into a kind of
unofficial home guard, armed with guns, clubs and fishing spears.
They patrolled the shore and kept watch day and night. It would be
just too bad for any German sub they got their hands on. But not
even the Nazis bothered to visit Lynnhaven.

Presidents took office and departed without
having much impact on the townspeople. Few registered, and of those
fewer still got around to voting. Politics, like crime, was
something that took place elsewhere. You could keep track of it on
television if you were interested. In spite of, or perhaps because
of its proximity to Washington, Lynnhaven could not boast a single
nuclear fallout shelter. What was the point? Only one of the town's
sons, Marv Wilcox, was dispatched to Vietnam, and he came back with
a lot of souvenirs and a tidy bankroll. Marv went into business for
himself down in Newport News, doing contract work for the Navy.

All towns have their secrets, and Lynnhaven
was no exception. But secrets are not secrets unless almost
everybody knows something about them, and then they become an
accepted, if submerged part of everyday life, too familiar and
mundane to be of lasting interest to any but a few gossips—and poor
fare for them. Adultery, cock or dog fights staged in the woods—the
Lutheran minister, Reverend Harnack, would address himself to these
goings-on one Sunday out of every four, but even he could muster
only routine disapproval. Secrets? Yes, all the usual ones.

More or less.

2. The Baithouse

The old man tied one end of the string
tightly around a three-inch strip of pork rind. "That's all there
is to it," he said.

"Aren't you going to use a hook?" Ned
asked.

"Don't need no hook to catch crawdads. You
just wait and see."

The old man tossed the pork rind into the
water and played out a short length of string. Ned watched it drift
briefly on the current before sinking out of sight.

"Now what do you do?"

"Just wait a few minutes, give 'em time to
gather round for a bite of lunch. Won't be long."

"What's this stream called, Peeler?"

"Ain't a stream, it's a creek, and it's
called Old Woods Creek. All this stretch of land is Old Woods."

"Old Woods Creek," Ned repeated. "What's the
difference between a stream and a creek?"

"If you can jump across it, it's a creek. If
you can't, it's a stream."

"What's the difference between a stream and
a river then?" Peeler snorted. "River's just a stream somebody
decided to call a river, that's all." Then he added: "Unless you're
talkin' about the Mississippi and such. They're your bona fide
rivers, but there ain't so many of them. Most rivers are just
over-growed streams."

"Think you got anything yet?" "Let's
see."

Peeler hauled in the string. Four crayfish
dangled from the piece of pork rind.

"Wow, look at them!" Ned exclaimed.

"Greedy little cusses," Peeler said,
smiling. "Old Mr. Crawdad is such a fool he won't let go of his
food, even if it means he gets caught and ends up being used for
bass bait hisself."

"Can they hurt you?"

"Big one can give you a pinch, I guess, if
you're not too careful with 'em. But these lowly fellers can't do
nothin' to you."

Peeler gently separated the crayfish from
the line and dropped them into a pail of water. Then he and the boy
moved a few yards further along before plunking the bait back into
the creek. Peeler rummaged around in the old burlap sack he carried
and pulled out a can of beer.

"Can I have some?"

"How old are you, Nedly?"

“
I'll be ten in
August."

"Good enough," Peeler said, grinning. He
handed the can of Iron City to Ned, who took a sip and grimaced.
"Better not tell your folks I give it to you."

"I won't. I don't like it anyway."

"Wait a few years and try again."

"Peeler?"

"Hmmn?"

"Is that your real name?"

"Is now."

"Did you used to have another one?"

''Fraid so."

"What was it?"

"Now that's a secret."

"I won't tell anyone."

The old man arched an eyebrow in
mock-seriousness and studied his young companion for a few
moments.

"How do I know you won't tell anybody?"

"I promise."

"You do?"

"Honest."

"Okay, I'll trust" you, but you better keep
your word or you'll get in big trouble."

"I will, I promise."

"Okay. My name was Hamish."

"Hamish?"

"Yep."

"What kind of name is that?" Ned asked. He
had never heard it before.

"Goddamned if I know," Peeler replied.
"Always hated it."

"So why are you called Peeler now?"

"Better'n Progger, ain't it?"

"Progger?"

"Yep."

"Is that a name?"

"Could be," Peeler said as he took three
more crayfish from the pork rind.

Ned watched silently. Sometimes the old man
didn't make much sense, or if he did it wasn't always easy to
follow. But that didn't really matter. Ned just enjoyed being with
Peeler. They had met only a few weeks earlier, shortly after the
Covingtons had moved to Lynnhaven. On one of his first rambles
around the place, Ned came across a long, low shed on the spot
where a street ended and an open field began. He could just make
out the word BAITS in faded paint on the gray boarding. Curious,
Ned walked through the thick and tangled grass to the open doorway.
Inside, all was darkness and the faint sound of running water. Ned
almost turned and left, but he noticed a little light coming in
through two small windows in the middle of the shed. He stepped
through the doorway and let his eyes adjust from the bright sun
outside to the gloomy interior. The air was cool and had a rich,
sweet smell, like freshly turned soil. Ned could see why. There was
no floor, just bare earth. The shed was full of wooden tables with
boxes built on top. In each box was a layer of dirt several inches
deep, home for hundreds of writhing worms. A perfect place for a
vampire, Ned thought. A little further into the shed he found two
chipped and battered bathtubs holding dozens of crayfish. It was
the first time Ned had ever seen one, although he knew what they
were from pictures in books. A hose had been rigged up to run a
thin stream of fresh water through both tubs. Other tables held
large metal washtubs full of what looked like clumps of weeds in
water, and boxes of sand and moss. Ned couldn't see any sign of
animal life in these containers, but he wasn't about to stick his
hand in and poke around. The two windows were so fly-specked and
dirty they provided only the barest illumination.

When Ned turned to leave he saw the figure
of a tall, heavy man standing in the doorway. In one hand the man
held a wire basket full of live crabs, clicking and crawling over
each other. Ned jumped in fright. But then the man was laughing
good-naturedly and he came and introduced himself as Peeler and
made the boy welcome. Ned ended up staying more than an hour,
talking and watching Peeler dismember the crabs.

"So you just moved here from Washington,
D.C.?"

"Yes."

"Lot different here, ain't it?" Peeler
reached into the tub full of weeds and came up with a can of cold
beer.

"It sure is," Ned agreed.

"Your father work in Washington?"

"Yes, he does."

"He drives back and forth all that way every
day?"

"Sure."

"He must love his car."

"It's brown, with a white vinyl top."

''I'll be damned."

Peeler was a tall, solid man who had to walk
slightly stooped in the baithouse. His face was as rough and
weathered as the sign outside, but it was not without a measure of
warmth and friendliness. When he smiled, which he did almost every
time Ned said something, it came entirely from his eyes. To the
boy, Peeler might have been a hundred years old, but he was an
immediate, natural friend. His hands were like those of a giant,
huge and leathery, but surprisingly nimble as they took apart a
crab or tied a complicated knot.

Ned also met Cloudy, an elderly black man
with a shiny moon face, gold teeth and a silver halo of hair.
Cloudy was Peeler's "partner at baitin' and crabbin' and so
on."

"He tell you how he caught them crabs?"
Cloudy asked.

“
No."

"I didn't think so. Well, I'll tell you. He
goes down to where the water's shallow and he knows there's some
crabs, and he sticks his big white toes in."

"His toes?" Ned wasn't sure whether to
believe it or not. "That's right, and when he feels the clappers
latch on, he knows he got a crab."

"I'd like to meet the crab who'd touch your
toe," Peeler said.

In the days that followed Ned stopped by to
visit Peeler and Cloudy as often as he could. They were always the
same, joking, telling stories, glad to see him. And they always
wore the same clothes. Peeler's outfit was a flannel shirt, green
work pants and heavy shoes. Cloudy had on a suit and sneakers. In
each case the clothes were wrinkled and torn in places, and
appeared to be about as old as the men who wore them. Sometimes
Peeler wore a washed-out gray-and-green baseball cap. The breast
pocket of Cloudy's jacket held a plastic case crammed full of
ballpoint pens, none of which Ned ever saw the man use.

The baithouse was a place of wonder. At the
far end, beyond the tables and tubs, was a cleared area. Two beaten
old armchairs without legs sat on the ground, along with the front
seat taken from a car. The walls here were covered with tools and
equipment, every item of which was a mystery in itself to Ned.
Rusted beer cans lay all around the place, and new empties were
constantly being added to the collection. It was a crude and trashy
shed, but to a boy of nine-going-on-ten recently delivered from
city life it was a place of enchantment, a cool dark comfortable
haven from the heat and light of summer.

"That's enough for now, I guess," Peeler
said. The pail of water teemed with crayfish. "They'll start eatin'
each other pretty soon if I don't get 'em into the tanks."

"Eat each other?" Ned asked. "Like
cannibals?"

"All I know is the longer we take the more
of their arms and legs you'll see floatin' around loose in
there."

Back at the baithouse, they found Cloudy
sitting outside on a wooden crate, leaning against a pile of old
tires.

"Look at that lazy son of a biscuit," Peeler
said loudly. "Hey, ain't you got enough tan on you already?"

"Lunchtime," Cloudy said without bothering
to open his eyes.

"He always sleeps through lunchtime," Peeler
explained to Ned. "You won't never see him eat no lunch."

Peeler went inside the baithouse to take
care of the crayfish, but today Ned hung back, standing a few feet
away from Cloudy. He was curious about something, and it didn't
seem right to ask Peeler.

"Cloudy."

"Mm?"

"What's that?"

Cloudy opened his eyes a crack and saw that
Ned was pointing to the shack out behind the baithouse. It was a
tiny structure, four walls and a flat roof with a chimney pipe
sticking out, a door and a single window. Altogether, about twelve
feet square. Nearby was the wreck of an old car; the windows were
still intact but the body was covered with rust and the bare wheels
were overgrown with wild grass. It was a Studebaker, but now it
looked like the remains of a beached monster from another age.

"That? That's Peeler's house."

"Oh. I thought that's where he lives," Ned
said, nodding.

"He don't live there,"
Cloudy corrected. "That's his house but he don't live in it. Oh,
no, he
can't
live
in it."

"He can't? Why not?"

"Go see for yourself," Cloudy suggested with
a wave of his hand. "Go ahead, open the door."

"Won't he mind?"

"Naw, Peeler don't mind. He show you hisself
if you ask him. Go ahead."

Ned went over to the door of the shack and
hesitated briefly. What did he expect to find—a gutted interior, a
caved-in floor, a swarm of rats? It had to be something serious
enough- to drive a man from his own dwelling. Ned pulled the door
open and jumped back a step. Empty beer cans, dozens of them,
tumbled out of the shack and onto the ground. Ned could hear Cloudy
laughing behind him. .