From the flat roof of the kitchen Patch looked out through serried pin oaks and white pine to the loom of St. Francois Mountains that pressed the small town of Monta Clare into its shade no matter the season. At thirteen he believed entirely that there was gold beyond the Ozark Plateau. That there was a brighter world just waiting for him.
Though later that morning, when he lay dying in the woodland, he’d take that morning still and purse it till the colors ran because he knew it could not have been so beautiful. That nothing was ever so beautiful in his life.
He climbed back into his bedroom and wore a tricorne and waistcoat and tucked navy slacks into his socks and fanned the knees until they resembled breeches. Into his belt he slid a small dagger, metal alloy but the bladesmith was skilled enough.
Later that day the cops would crawl over the intricacies of his life and discover he was into pirates because he had been born with only one eye, and his mother peddled the romance of a cutlass and eye patch because often for kids like him the flair of fiction dulled a reality too severe.
In his bedroom they would note the black flag pinned to hide a hole in the drywall, the closet with no doors, the fan that did not work, and the Steepletone that did. The antique treasure chest his mother had found at a flea market in St. Louis, doubloon movie props, a replica one-shot flintlock pistol. They would bag a roll of firecrackers and the June 1965 Playboy, like they were evidence of something.
And then they would see the eye patches.
He looked them over carefully, then selected the purple with the silver star. His mother made them and some of them itched, but the purple was satin smooth. Eighteen in total, only one carried the skull and crossbones. He decided he might wear that one on his wedding day should he ever work up the courage to speak to Misty Meyer.
He removed the hat. His hair touched white in summer months and sand come winter, and he combed it but a tuft by the crown stood to attention like an antenna.
In the kitchen his mother sat. The night shift mortified her skin.
“You picking up signals with that thing?” she said, and tried to fix his hair with her palm. “Pass me the Crisco.”
He ducked away as she laughed. Patch liked his mother’s laugh.
The weekend before she’d taken him to Branson to see about a job. Ivy Macauley chased near misses like acceptance of place was the greatest sin. He’d fill up the Fairlane with just enough gas and she’d fill up the cab with excitement, fixing her hair into a Fonda shag and squeezing his hand and telling him this was it. He’d wait the interview hour alone in towns he did not know.
She’d fixed eggs, and he wondered just how tough it was to be a parent, and if at times all poor kids were some kind of well-intentioned regret.
“Today will be the best day of my life,” he said.
He said that often.
Because he could not know what would come.