BOYD GOT COFFEE IN A DRIVE-THROUGH AND SPENT THE MORNING riding and thinking about Russell. He didn’t want to but he couldn’t help it. There was no reason to think that Russell had been out on that dark road for any reason other than the one he had given. He probably felt like a rat out of a cage and he had seen the lights flashing and followed them and drove up on the scene by pure coincidence. No reason to believe anything else, Boyd kept thinking. He sipped the coffee and drove out on the highway down to the Louisiana line and back and he pulled into the truck stop for gas. As he filled the tank he leaned on the cruiser and took his sunglasses from his front pocket and put them on. He held his hand on his stomach and rubbed and pretended he had lost track of how much bigger he was now than he used to be.
When the tank was full he got back into the cruiser and drove to town and then made his way out toward Mr. Gaines’s place. He hadn’t been there since before Russell was sent away and he remembered being in the little pickup Mr. Gaines had given Russell and remembered smoking cigarettes and drinking tallboys and coming in a helluva lot later than they were supposed to. He remembered the night that Shawna Louise rode between them and they both pawed at her and she slapped them away wearing big silver rings on all her fingers and lime green eye shadow and she laughed big like a game show host and how they turned off onto a gravel road and took turns making out with her and trying like hell to do other stuff but she kept slapping and cackling until they both gave up. So many nights like that after football games and double-dating and for no good reason on summer nights. The sight and sound of Russell had conjured up a long list of memories and he wished to God he would have bumped into him at the downtown café. Or at the liquor store. Or at the gas station. Or anyfuckingwhere other than out on the scene last night.
He passed a flatbed stacked with hay bales and then slowed when he topped the hill and saw Mr. Gaines’s place ahead on the right. The pond where it used to be. The house where it used to be. The sunlight falling across the water like it always had. He came to a stop in the driveway and stared. He watched himself and Russell fishing. He watched himself and Russell sneaking out the bedroom window on the back side of the house.
He sighed and ran his hand across his cleanshaven jaw. And then he put the cruiser in reverse and backed out of the driveway and drove into town. He had Russell’s new address on a piece of scrap paper tucked in his shirt pocket.
Boyd thought he recognized the small house and was fairly certain he had helped Russell cut the grass or fix the fence or perform some other odd job Mr. Gaines had once given them. He got out of the cruiser and straightened himself. He walked across the small yard and up the front steps and as he reached out to knock the door opened. Russell stood there wearing only jeans that weren’t buttoned with his hair tousled. He held a white coffee mug. Russell opened the door fully and nodded and turned and walked to the couch. Boyd nodded back and followed him inside.
“I been thinking,” Boyd said.
Russell sat down. He sipped the coffee. “What’s that?”
“I been thinking you’re a son of a bitch. You didn’t call me or nothing knowing you were getting out. Hell, I would’ve drove up there and got you.”
“It don’t work like that,” Russell said.
Boyd tapped the badge on his shirt pocket and grinned. “I got special privileges.”
“Then sit down with your special privileges. If you want some coffee it’s in there.”
Boyd sat down in a wooden chair next to the television. “You’re skinny,” he said.
“You’re fat. Your old lady must love the big rub.”
“Big rub? Never heard that one but I’ll ask her about it later on. You get any sleep?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither,” Boyd said. “We got us a situation and a half.”
Russell nodded. Drank from the coffee cup.
Say it, Boyd thought. Say you don’t have nothing to do with it though I know you don’t but say it just so I’ll hear it again.
“Shotgun still loaded?” Boyd asked.
“Yep.”
“Who smacked you around? That face looks pretty new.”
“It ain’t.”
“Just takes longer to heal when you get old, I guess.”
“Hurts longer, too.”
Boyd stood from the chair. He looked around the living room. Down the hallway. A mostly empty house and clothes lying here and there.
“You ride around much longer last night?” he asked.
Russell set the coffee mug on the floor and stretched out across the couch. “Not really.”
“Bet it felt good.”
“Bet what felt good?”
“Riding around. Free air.”
Russell sat up. “Somebody send you over here?”
“Hell no, Russell. Just trying to catch up. I’m still pissed you didn’t let nobody know you were coming home.”
“Who?”
“Don’t give me that shit. You know who I’m talking about. The one who hates me. The ones who hate you are always waiting for you. So maybe you’re the son of a bitch,” Russell said and he got up from the couch. “I got to piss. Why don’t we do this later?”
“Fine,” Boyd said. “I got shit to do anyway. Hey, you know I’m glad to see you.”
“I know it. I don’t mean nothing.”
They slapped hands and then Boyd walked outside. He stopped in the yard and looked back over his shoulder and through the open door he saw Russell go into the hallway and disappear behind the bathroom door. Quit being stupid, he told himself. Stupid is a bad way to start the day.
Russell spent the rest of the day on the couch sleeping off the long night before and then late in the afternoon he got up and showered. When he was dried and dressed he stuck another Band-Aid on the small cut on his forehead though it no longer bled. He got in the truck and put the 20-gauge behind the seat and drove to kill some time before going out to eat fish with his dad and Consuela.
He rode up and down Delaware like he used to do when he was a teenager and it didn’t seem any different. Carloads of summertime kids with arms hanging out windows and ponytails flopping in the wind. Music with big bumps throbbing in the late afternoon. At a fast food joint the parking lot was filled with young bodies sitting on tailgates and on hoods. Some sipping drinks from giant plastic cups and some licking ice cream cones. He swung into the movie theater parking lot and only pickups were parked. Athletes wore letter jackets despite the heat and a couple of others wore cowboy hats and had their thumbs stuck in their front pockets. When he passed they stared and tried to place him and then one of them said what the hell you looking at.
When he pulled back onto Delaware a carload of girls in a momma’s Cadillac moved alongside him and he kept their speed. They were singing along with the radio, sweet highpitched voices that were careless and off-key. He looked over and there were three in the front and three in the back. They didn’t notice him at first but in the middle of a long note the driver looked over at him and screamed oh my God. She gave a wild laugh and the other girls stopped and saw him watching and they ducked and their squeals replaced the strained melody. Russell laughed back and the light turned green and the driver, cheeks sharp and eyes squinted, looked at him and called him a pervert and they all laughed harder and she gunned the Cadillac and it leaped like some prehistoric animal into the intersection.
That did it for the joyride.
He drove to his dad’s place where he found his father and Consuela in the kitchen. Mitchell was dipping the fish in a bowl of milk and then into a bowl of flour and she stood next to him chopping cabbage and carrots.
Mitchell looked at his son’s forehead. “What happened?”
Russell reached up and pulled off the Band-Aid and dropped it in the garbage can and said nothing.
A wooden table for four in the middle. A dishrag draped over the edge of the sink. A row of brown coffee mugs hanging from hooks underneath the cabinet. The black and white tiles of the floor. The Coca-Cola bottle magnet stuck on the refrigerator. The framed picture hanging above the doorway of a handsome Jesus with His hands folded on His lap and wearing a white robe and the light of heaven shining behind His head. Only Consuela was different. She was still barefoot.
“Come on a second,” Mitchell said. He washed his hands and wiped them on a towel and moved toward the back door.
“What is it?” Russell asked.
“Just come on. Need a hand.”
They walked out and across the yard toward the barn. Mitchell’s truck was parked in front of the barn and he walked around and let down the tailgate.
“Couldn’t get this out of here by myself.”
In the truck bed lay a concrete statue of the Virgin Mary with arms open and ready to catch anything that might fall from the sky.
“Jesus,” Russell said.
“It ain’t Jesus. It’s His momma.”
Mitchell grabbed the round bottom of the statue.
“Grab on. And be careful.”
They pulled the end off the tailgate until the Virgin tipped upright and when she did Russell barely ducked in time to dodge her left arm. She was eight feet tall with a sharp, pointed nose and a look of empathy.
“I figured it might make Consuela feel more at home,” Mitchell said as he looked at the Virgin with a sense of pride. “You know how on TV you see those plazas and squares in other countries and there’s always a statue in the middle? I know they got them in Mexico. Clive told me about it the first time he went down there. Said there were plazas with red dirt streets and Virgin Marys all over.”
“Where’d you find this thing?”
“Guy out on the highway with all those concrete angels and dogs. Had it put away for himself but I got it out of him. We were out riding around. Hitting junk stores here and there. She saw it and grinned and nodded and I took that for her wanting it, so here it is.”
“Here it is.”
“Or here she is.”
“Yes. It’s a she.”
“Think I should move it closer to the house?”
The men looked toward the house and Consuela was standing at the edge of the yard watching them. She was wearing one of Liza’s aprons.
Mitchell got a dolly from the barn. Russell got behind the Virgin and wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled back and Mitchell slid the dolly under her. She weighed as much as them together and her weight helped her roll across the slightly downward slope toward the house. Mitchell directed them to stop when they got to the middle of the yard where a blooming vine had run up and around an old metal post that was once the anchor of a clothesline. They wrestled her off the dolly and faced her toward the kitchen window. Mitchell looked at Consuela and she said something that he didn’t understand and then she went back into the kitchen. Russell stepped back from her and admired her strong arms, her caring eyes, her open hands, as if news of the Christ child would flow from her lips any second.
“I ain’t even gonna ask what you paid for her.”
“Good,” Mitchell said. “Let’s go eat.”
Back in the kitchen Mitchell put his hands back into the fish. The deep fryer sat on the porch just outside the kitchen door and he went back and forth from the fryer to the counter. Dropping fish in the fryer. Preparing more. Russell moved along with him, sipping at a beer, getting hungry. Soon there was a plate sitting in the middle of the table stacked high with crisp, golden fillets. While the men went back and forth Consuela had mixed the cabbage and carrots with some mayonnaise and oil and vinegar and pepper and a bowl of coleslaw sat next to the fish. When it was all ready Mitchell told Russell to open the fridge and get beers for everyone. He got the beers and then the ketchup and the hot sauce and then the three of them sat down around the table.
Russell reached for a piece of fish and Consuela folded her hands and bowed her head. Russell stopped and he and Mitchell waited while Consuela said her grace and then there was no more waiting.
Russell wanted to talk about his mother. About her last months and about the funeral but it didn’t seem like the right time. So instead he talked about how hot it was and how good the place looked. When they were done Consuela cleaned up and Mitchell and Russell went outside and smoked cigarettes. When Consuela finished she met the men outside. Father and son sat down in rockers and Consuela stepped out into the yard and began walking toward the statue. She stopped in front and paused. Gazed at the concrete face. Then she began walking around again with her eyes toward the ground as if she were looking for something.
“What’s she doing?” Russell asked.
“Walking around. Does it every night. Sometimes you can hear her singing to herself. Pretty songs. Sad sounding songs. Reminds me of your momma humming to herself when she was in the kitchen or working around in her flowers.”
The twilight surrounded them now. The first crickets chirped. An evening breeze. They watched Consuela. Her arms behind her back like a schoolchild in line. And then she started to sing and her voice blended with the coming night.
“Still think it’d be best if you stayed out here with us,” Mitchell said.
“Still think it’s best I don’t,” Russell said and he thought of Larry and Walt being there. Promising to come back. He knew they’d follow him wherever he went.
“What’d you do with the gun?”
“Sold it at the pawn shop.”
“Damn you, Russell.”
“Got thirty bucks.”
“Thirty bucks?”
“I’m kidding, old man.”
Consuela reached the pond and began making her way around it and she was only a silhouette in whatever light was left.
“How long does she do this for?” Russell asked.
“Don’t know. Sometimes I’m back inside before she’s done.”
Russell got them two more beers and they sat and rocked. Russell started to say something about finding a house to paint but he liked it better with nothing to say. Consuela finally came back and she went into the house and got a beer for herself and she sat down with the men.
“You know it. Don’t you?” Mitchell said.
His father drank. Paused.
“It’s a pretty night,” he said.
“That ain’t what you were about to say.”
“No. It ain’t.”
“Then what?”
“Just that he’s gonna come for you, Russell.”
“He already has.”
“He ain’t all there. Never has been.”
“I’m aware.”
Mitchell raised from the chair and stood at the edge of the porch. He spit into the yard and looked out at the deepening night and said he’s gonna come and keep on coming. Until he thinks he’s done.