Lexi
Up in my bedroom I kicked off my flip-flops. Unbuttoned my dress and let it fall to the floor. Pulled a chair to the window and sat in the dark with my feet sticking out into the hot night. The sweat on my skin clung to the wooden seat. I wanted to see Edgar Allan when he came back. I wanted to watch him come over the hill and cross the yard and come into the house.
But the night and the heat and the humid air and Cristofer’s violence weighed on me and after a while I slept. And dreamed of hot white sand on a hot white beach. Under a hot white sun. The white points on the ocean waves were as bright and hot as pins.
Until voices woke me.
Edgar Allan was talking with Tilson outside my window in the yard by the porch. The moon hung overhead. Tilson had gotten Walter’s .22 and held it across his chest. He said, ‘I caught you pissing when you was just this high. You come to make trouble you surely do. But I tell Miss Kay—’
Edgar Allan grabbed Tilson’s shirt. Threw him against the house. ‘You’ll tell no one. You’ll forget anything you think you know.’
‘Take you hands off of me. Goddamn it. I save you life boy. You treat me right. I got stones.’
Edgar Allan threw Tilson down on the ground. And said, ‘You’ve got what?’
‘Stones,’ Tilson said.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Edgar Allan said.
‘Talking about you treating me right,’ Tilson said. ‘I got stones. In the belly. In the heart.’
‘What are you—’
‘You put me in water and watch me sink,’ Tilson said.
Edgar Allan turned away from him. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said.
‘If I crazy it because a long time ago I take a boy that look like you but he ain’t got no fancy clothes and he can barely sleep the night without wetting his blanket. I break all the rules with that boy.’
‘Shh,’ said Edgar Allan. But now he was soft. As if Tilson’s words had crushed a bone inside him.
‘Yeah?’ Tilson asked. Now his voice got quiet too. ‘You know about that?’
‘Shh,’ Edgar Allan said.
‘Yeah I do believe you know that boy,’ Tilson said.
Then Edgar Allan helped Tilson to his feet. ‘Shh,’ he said.
‘I believe you do,’ Tilson said. He sounded happy. ‘You don’t let us sink. Right? These reasonably good people now. You don’t got to hurt nobody. You see what you want to see and then you go away.’
‘Shh,’ said Edgar Allan. ‘Shh.’
Then Tilson pulled Edgar Allan into his arms. And they held each other like that. If they weren’t crying I don’t know what they were doing. In the moonlight. Holding each other. Then Tilson seemed to force Edgar Allan to his knees. And he put his mouth on Edgar Allan’s forehead. His lips touching his skin. For the longest time. Then he said, ‘You a good child. I always know it. You a good child.’
I could have yelled.
But I climbed into bed. And was awake. For the longest time.
Why did Tilson and Edgar Allan hold each other like that? How did they know each other? How did Tilson save Edgar Allan’s life? Why did he call us good people? Cristofer was good if you didn’t mind the keening and the violence. I was good some of the time or tried to be. But Mom was seriously questionable. And there was nothing good in Walter except his love for Mom. The rest of him was nasty from his boots to his beard. Why did Edgar Allan throw Tilson against the porch when Tilson said he was bringing trouble? Why did Tilson kiss him?
When I slept I found no answers and dreamed no dreams. No white hot beaches. No touching a stranger’s hand or axe blood either.
I opened my eyes again when it was still dark. A dry breathing woke me. A dry heaving. A long breathing and a gasp. I thought my friend Martin had followed me home from the bridge. Climbed into bed with me. Was breathing out a mouthful of smoke. Then I smelled real smoke. Wood smoke. Burning-hair smoke. Smoke from cardboard and old rags and oil. It hung in the air over my bed and bit my throat. I left off the lamp as if the dark would make it a dream. Outside, the moon shined on curling blankets of gray and black. Then the sound of breathing turned into the cracking and hushing of a fire. As if the breathing animal had burst into flames.
I ran to the window. Mom’s studio was burning. It looked like the balls of flame that swelled out of the tar kiln when Walter poured in kerosene. The fire spread into the Spanish moss on the branches of the oak. Sparking and flaring. Lighting the living wood of the tree.
I yelled. Like I also was on fire. Like the burning stars of the night were falling into our yard.
Walter and Mom and Paul the driver ran through the hall and down the stairs. Mom went into the yard and ran to the burning shed. Turned away. Ran to it again and away. As if pulled and pushed by the heat. She wore underpants and a bra. Walter caught her and locked her in his arms. She hit and scratched him. Paul the driver went to the bin by the poultry pen. Dumped the medicine from the bucket. Took the bucket inside to the kitchen sink. Carried it to the studio and threw the water on to the fire. The fire drank the water and spat steam back at him. He threw the empty bucket on to it.
In the middle of the fire. Inside the black skeleton of the burning shed. The frames of Mom’s paintings crumbled.
Edgar Allan walked downstairs from his room. His footsteps were easy. When he came into the yard his suit looked like he had cleaned and ironed it. The flames danced and gleamed on the toes of his polished shoes. He watched the studio burn and then turned and raised his eyes to me up at my window.