Stinger

Stinger Page 14

as he swerved the motorcycle onto Brazos, Cody felt his gut clench: an instinctive reaction, like the tightening of muscles before a punch landed. His house wasn't very far, standing near the corner of Brazos and Sombra. His rear tire tossed dust from the gutter, and on her front porch the Cat Lady, a broom in her gnarled hands, shouted, "Slow down, you germ!" He had to smile. The Cat Lady - the widow Mrs. Stellenberg, her real name was - always stood out there sweeping about this time of day, and she always shouted the same thing as Cody sped past. It was a game they played. The Cat Lady had no family but for her dozen or so felines; they multiplied so fast Cody couldn't keep count, but the things sneaked all over the neighborhood and wailed like babies at night.

His heart was beating harder. His house - weathered gray clapboard, the shutters closed at every window - was coming up on the right. Parked at the curb was his father's junker, an old dark brown Chevy with rusted bumpers and a bashed-in passenger door. a layer of dust lay on the car, and Cody immediately saw that it was in exactly the same position it had been in this morning, both the right side tires pinched on the curb. Which meant that his father had either walked to work at the Inferno Bake Shoppe or that he just hadn't gone at all. and if the old man had been alone in that stifling house all day, there could be a fierce storm brewing between the walls.

Cody drove the motorcycle up over the curb, past the Fraziers' house, and onto his small front yard. The only thing growing there was a clump of needle-tipped yucca, and even that was going brown. He stopped the motorcycle at the foot of the porch's concrete steps and cut the engine; it died with a clatter that he knew was bound to alert the old man.

He got off and unzipped his denim jacket. Held inside it was his manual-arts project. It was no ordinary tie rack: it was about sixteen inches long, cut from a piece of rosewood, sanded and smoothed until its surface felt like cool velvet. Squares of white plastic had been painstakingly streaked with silver paint to resemble mother-of-pearl and inserted into the wood to form a beautiful checkerboard pattern. The edges had been shaped and scalloped; two more pieces of inlaid rosewood were jointed in place to hold the wooden dowel from which the ties would hang, and the entire piece was carefully polished again. Mr. Odeale, the shop teacher, had said it was a good-looking work but couldn't understand why Cody had been so slow with it. Cody detested anyone watching over his shoulder; a C was all he could hope for, but as long as he passed he didn't care.

He enjoyed working with his hands, though he'd pretended that manual arts was sheer drudgery. as president of the 'Gades, he was expected by his people to show a healthy disdain for most everything, especially if it had to do with school. But his hands seemed to figure out things before his head did; woodworking was a snap for him, and so was fixing the cars at Mr. Mendoza's Texaco station. He'd been meaning to put aside time to tune up his Honda, but he figured it was kind of like the story of the shoemaker's kids who went barefoot. anyway, he'd get around to it one of these afternoons.

He removed his goggles and slipped them into a pocket. His hair was wild and tangled and full of dust. He didn't want to climb those cracked concrete steps and go through that front door; but it was the house he lived in, and he knew he had to.

In and out, he thought as he took the first step. In and out.

The screen door's hinges shrieked like a scalded cat. Cody pushed on through the flimsy wooden door into the gloom. Captured heat almost sucked the breath from his lungs, and he left the inner door open so some of it could drift out. already he smelled the sour reek of the old man's Kentucky Gent bourbon.

an electric fan whirred in the front room, moving heavy air around. On the table before the stained sofa was a scatter of playing cards, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, and a dirty glass. The door to his father's bedroom was shut. He stopped to open two of the windows, then started for the door to his own room with the tie rack clutched under his arm.

But before he reached that door he heard the other one squeak open. His legs turned heavy. and then there came the voice, raspy as a warped saw blade and ominously slurred: "What're you doin' sneakin' around in herei" Cody didn't reply. He kept going, and the voice shouted, "Stop and answer me, boy!" His knees locked. He stopped, his head lowered and his gaze fixed on one of the blue roses in the threadbare rug.

The old man's footsteps creaked on the tired floor. Coming nearer. The smell of Kentucky Gent was stronger. That and body odor. and, of course, aqua Velva; the old man slapped that stuff all over his face, neck, and underarms and called it washing. The footsteps halted.

"So what it isi" the old man asked. "You didn't want me to hear youi" "I... thought you were sleepin'," Cody said. "I didn't want to wake you u - " "Bullshit and double bullshit. Who told you to open those windowsi I don't like that goddamned sun in here." "It's hot. I thought - " "You're too dumb to think." The footsteps moved again. The shutters were slammed, cutting the light to a dusty gray haze. "I don't like the sun," the old man said. "It gives you skin cancer." It had to be ninety degrees in the house. Sweat crawled under Cody's clothes. The footsteps came toward him once more, and Cody felt his skull earring being tugged. He looked up into his father's face.

"Why don't you get one of these in your other eari" Curt Lockett asked. His eyes were muddy gray, sunken into nests of wrinkles in a square-jawed, bony face. "Then everybody would know you were a whole queer instead of just half a queer." Cody pulled his head away, and his father let him go. "You been to school todayi" Curt asked.

"Yes sir." "You kick a wetback's ass todayi" "almost did," Cody replied.

"almost ain't doin'." Curt ran the back of his hand across his dry lips and walked to the sofa. The springs squalled when he flopped down. He had the same wiry build as his son, the same wide shoulders and lean hips. His hair was dark brown, shot through with gray and thinning on top, and he wore it combed back in a stiff Vitalis-frozen pompadour. Cody's curly blond hair came from his mother, who had died giving him birth in an Odessa hospital. Curt Lockett was only forty-two, but his need for Kentucky Gent and long nights at the Bob Wire Club had aged him by at least ten years. He had heavy bags of flesh beneath his eyes, and deep lines carved his face on either side of a narrow, chiseled nose. He was dressed in his favorite outfit: no shoes or socks, jeans with patched knees, and a flaming-red shirt with pictures of cowboys lassoing steers embroidered on the shoulders. The shirt was open, showing his thin, sallow chest. He took a pack of Winstons from his pocket and lit a cigarette with a match. Cody watched the flame waver as his father's fingers shook. "Wetbacks gonna take over this earth," Curt announced as he exhaled a lungful of smoke. "Take everythin' and want more. ain't no way to stop 'em but kick 'em in the ass. ain't that righti" Cody was a second late in answering. "ain't that righti" Curt repeated.

"Yes sir." Cody started for his room but his father's voice stopped him again.

"Whoa! I didn't say you could go nowhere. I'm talkin' to you, boy." He took another long pull from the cigarette. "You goin' to work todayi" Cody nodded.

"Good. I need me some smokes. Think that old wetback'll give you a cartoni" "Mr. Mendoza's okay," Cody told him. "He's not like the other ones." Curt was silent. He drew the cigarette from his mouth and stared at the burning end. "They're all the same," he said quietly. "all of 'em. If you think different, Mendoza's got you foxed, boy." "Mr. Mendoza's always been - " "What's this Mister Mendoza bullshiti" Curt glared across the room at his son. Damn the boy! he thought. He's got rocks for brains! "I say they're all alike, and that finishes it. are you gonna get me the smokes or noti" Cody shrugged, his head lowered. But he could feel his father watching him, and he had to say, "I will." "all right, then. We're settled." He returned the cigarette to the corner of his mouth, and the ash glowed red as he inhaled. "What's that thingi" "What thingi" "That thing. Right there." Curt jabbed a finger at him. "Under your arm. What's thati" "Nothin'." "I ain't gone blind yet, boy! I asked you what it was!" Cody slowly took the tie rack from under his arm. His palms were wet. Sweat trickled down his neck, and he longed for a breath of fresh air. He had trouble looking at his father, as if his eyes couldn't bear the sight; and whenever he was close to the old man, something inside him felt dead, heavy, ready to be buried. But whatever that dead thing was, it sometimes gave a surprising kick, and the gravediggers would not come to dispose of it. "Just a tie rack," he explained. "I made it at school." "Lordy Mercy." Curt whistled, stood up, and came toward Cody, who retreated a pace before he caught himself. "Hold that up so I can see it." Curt reached out, and Cody let him touch it. His father's nicotine-stained fingers caressed the smooth rosewood and the simulated mother-of-pearl squares. "You made thisi Who helped youi" "Nobody." "I swear, that's a fine piece of work! Them edges are smoother 'n free pussy! How long it take you to do thisi" Cody wasn't used to being praised by the old man, and it made him even more jittery. "I don't know. awhile, I guess." "a tie rack." Curt grunted and shook his head. "That beats all. I never knew you had it in you to do somethin' like this, boy. Who taught youi" "I just learned. Kind of hit-and-miss." "Pretty thing. I swear it is. I like those little silver squares. Makes it fancy, don't iti" Cody nodded. and bolstered by his father's interest, he dared to step over the line that they had drawn between them a long time ago, over nights of shouting, cold silence, drunken brawls, and curses. Cody's heart was pounding. "Do you really like iti" "Sure do." Cody held it toward his father. His hands were trembling. "I made it for you," he said.

Curt Lockett stared at him, his face slack. His haggard eyes moved to the tie rack, to his son's face, and back again. Slowly, he reached out with both hands and took the tie rack, and Cody let him have it. "Lordy Mercy." Curt's voice was soft and respectful as he drew the tie rack to his chest. "Lordy Mercy. This is better than you could buy at a store, ain't iti" "Yes sir." The dead thing deep inside Cody suddenly twitched.

Curt's fingers played over the wood. He had the scarred, rough hands of a man who had dug ditches, laid pipes, and mortared bricks since he was thirteen years old. He cradled the tie rack like a child, and he went back to the sofa and sat down. "This is mighty fine," Curt whispered. "Mighty fine." Cobwebs of smoke from the burning cigarette drifted past his face.

"I used to do carpentry," he said, his eyes focused on nothing. "Long time back. Took the jobs that came along. Your mama used to pack a lunch for me, and she'd say, 'Curt, you do me proud today,' and I'd answer, 'I will, Treasure.' That's what I called your mama: Treasure. Oh, she was a pretty thing. You could look at her and believe in miracles. She was so pretty... so pretty. Treasure. That's what I called your mama." His eyes glistened, and he bowed his head with both hands curled around the tie rack.

Cody heard his father make a choking sound, and the thing inside him kicked at his heart. He'd seen his old man cry drunk tears before, but this was different. These tears smelled of hurt instead of whiskey. He didn't know if he could handle the sight or not. He wavered, and then he took a step toward the old man. The second step came easier, and the third was easier still. He lifted his hand to touch the old man's shoulder.

Curt's body shook. He wheezed like he was having a choking fit; and then he suddenly lifted his head, and Cody saw that even though his father's eyes were wet, the old man was laughing. His laughter got harder and harsher, until it boomed from his throat like the snarl of a wild beast.

"You're the damnedest fool!" Curt managed to say, snorting with laughter. "The damnedest fool! You know I ain't got no ties!" Cody's outstretched hand clenched into a fist. He drew it back against his side.

"Not a one!" Curt hollered, and his head rocked back as the choked laughter spilled out. Tears ran through the cracks around his eyes. "Lordy Mercy, what a fool I've raised!" Cody stood very still. a pulse beat at his temple. His lips were tight, and they hid his gritted teeth.

"Why the hell didn't you make me a footstool, boyi I coulda used a footstool! How the hell am I gonna use a tie rack when I don't own no ties!" The boy let his father's laughter go on for another thirty seconds or so. and finally Cody said, clearly and firmly, "You didn't go to the bakery today, did youi" The laughter gurgled to a halt like a clogged drain backing up. Curt coughed a few times, his eyes still watery, and crushed his cigarette out on the burn-scarred tabletop. "Naw. What the fuck is it to youi" "I'll tell you what it is to me," Cody answered. His spine was rigid, and his eyes looked like scorched holes. "I'm tired of takin' up your slack. I'm tired of workin' at the gas station and watchin' you piss the money down the toi - " "You watch your mouth!" Curt stood up, one hand gripping the tie rack and the other cocked into a fist.

Cody flinched but did not retreat. His guts were full of fire and fury, and he had to get it all out. "You heard me! I'm not coverin' for you anymore! I'm not callin' that freakin' bakery and tell 'em you're too sick to work! Hell, they know you're a drunk! everybody knows you're not worth a piss-ant's damn!" Curt bellowed and swung at his son, but Cody was faster by far. The man's fist plowed through empty air.

"Yeah, try to hit me!" Cody backpedaled out of range. "Come on, you old bastard! Just try to hit me!" Curt lurched forward, tripped, and stumbled over the table. Hollering with rage, he went down onto the floor in a flurry of playing cards and ashes.

"Come on! Come on!" Cody urged wildly, and he started running to the windows and flinging the shutters open. Searing white sunlight flooded the room, exposing the dirty rug, the cracked walls, the beat-up secondhand furniture. The sunlight fell upon the man who was trying to stagger to his feet at the center of the room, and he threw his hand over his eyes and screamed, "Get out! Get out of my house, you little fuck!" He flung the tie rack in Cody's direction. It whacked against the wall and fell to the floor.

Cody didn't look at it. "I'll go," he said, his chest heaving but his voice cold now, his eyes as muddy as his father's as he watched the old man shield his face from the sun. "Sure, I'll go. But I'm not coverin' for you anymore. If you lose the job, it's your ass." "I'm a man!" Curt shouted. "You can't talk to me like that! I'm a man!" Now it was Cody's turn to laugh - a bitter, wounded sound. Inside him the weight of the dead thing had gotten heavier. "You just remember." He turned toward the door to get out.

"Boy!" Curt's voice boomed. Cody paused. "You'd better be glad your mama's dead, boy," Curt seethed. "'Cause if she was still alive, she'd hate you as much as I do." Cody was instantly out the door; it slammed shut like a trap at his back. He sprinted down the steps to his motorcycle and drew the desert air into his lungs to clear his head, because for a second there he'd felt like his brain was being squeezed inside a small box and one more ounce of pressure would've made it blow. "You people crazy over therei" Stan Frazier called from his own porch, his gut hanging over the belt of his trousers. "What's all the hollerin' abouti" "Kiss my ass!" Cody flipped the man a bird as he got onto the Honda and kickstarted it. Frazier's face turned crimson; he wobbled down the steps after Cody, but the boy accelerated so rapidly that the motorcycle's front wheel reared up and the rear tire shot sand into the air. Cody tore across the yard and swerved onto Brazos Street, spinning the red Honda around in a skidding turn that left its signature on the pavement.

Inside the house, Curt stood up and squinted. He stumbled forward, hurriedly closed the shutters again. He felt better when the light was sealed away; he remembered that his father had died with the brown blotches of skin cancer all over his face and arms while the deeper, darker cancer ate his insides away, and that memory was never far from his nightmares. "Damn kid," he muttered. Shouted it: "Damn kid!" If he'd talked to his old man the way that kid spoke to him, he'd be six feet under; as it was, his back and legs still carried a few scarred welts, some of his old man's best swings with a shaving strop.

He walked to the screen door, could smell the exhaust of Cody's motorcycle lingering in the air. "Lockett!" It was Frazier's voice. "Hey, Lockett! I wanna talk to you!" Curt closed the inner door and turned the latch. Now the only light came through cracks in the shutters, and the heat settled. He liked to sweat; it cleared the poisons out of a man's system.

There was enough light for Curt to see the tie rack on the floor. He picked it up. One end of the little wooden dowel had split and come loose and one of the perfectly carved edges was a splintered ruin, but other than that it was okay. Curt had never known the boy could do such work. It reminded him of what his own hands used to do, back when he was young and tough and he had Treasure at his side.

That was long before Curt had been sitting in a hospital waiting room, and a doctor with a Mexican name had come to tell him that he had a son. But - and Curt could still feel the pressure of the Mexican doctor's hand on his shoulder - would he please come back to the officei There was something else, something very important, that needed to be talked about.

It was because Treasure had been so frail. Because her body was giving everything to the baby. Odds were ten thousand to one, the Mexican doctor had said. Sometimes a woman's body was so tired and worn out that the shock of childbirth was too much. Complications set in - but, seior, your wife has blessed you with a healthy little boy. Under the circumstances, they both might have died, and for this baby's life you can give thanks to God.

There had been forms to sign. Curt couldn't read very well; Treasure had done all the reading. So he just pretended, and scrawled where his name was supposed to be.

Curt's hand clenched the tie rack, and he almost smashed it against the wall again. It was just like Cody, he realized. What damned good was a kid without a motheri and what damned good was a tie rack without a tiei But he didn't smash it, because it was a pretty thing. He took it with him into his bedroom, where the bed was rumpled and the clothes were dirty and four empty bottles of Kentucky Gent were lined up atop the chest of drawers.

Curt switched on the overhead light and sat down on his bed. He retrieved the half bottle of Kentucky Gent with its trademark happy colonel on the label from the floor and unscrewed the cap. His elbow bent, his mouth accepted, and the taste of life shocked his throat.

But he felt so much better with whiskey inside him. already stronger. His mind already clearer. He could reason things out again, and after a few more swallows he decided he wasn't going to let Cody get away with talking uppity. Hell, no! He was a man, by God! and it was high time he cut that damn kid down a few pegs.

His gaze wandered to the framed photograph on the little table next to the bed. The picture was sun-faded, many-times-creased, stained with either whiskey or coffee, he couldn't remember. It showed a seventeen-year-old girl in a blue-striped dress, her blond hair boiling in thick curls around her shoulders and aglow with sunlight. She was smiling and making an okay sign for Curt, who'd snapped the photo with an Instamatic four days before they were married. even then the kid had been growing inside her, Curt thought. Less than nine months later, she would be dead. Why he'd kept the kid he didn't know, but his sister had helped him out before she got married for the third time and moved to arizona. The kid was part of Treasure, and maybe that was why he'd decided to raise Cody himself. That was the name they'd already decided on if the kid was a boy.

He ran a finger over the sunlit hair. "It's not right," he said softly. "It's not right that I got old." Swig by swig, the half bottle died. The burn pulsed in his gut, like the center of a volcano that demanded more sacrifices. When he realized the bottle was gone, he remembered that there was another up on the closet's shelf. He got up, stumbled to the closet - howdy there, legs! - and reached up for it, groping amid old shirts, socks, and a couple of cowboy hats to where he'd stashed the juice. He didn't trust the damn kid not to pour the stuff down the drain when his back was turned.

He had to stretch way up to the dusty rear of the shelf before his fingers found the familiar shape. "There y'are! Gotcha, didn't Ii" He pulled it free, dislodging a leather belt, a ragged blue shirt, and something else that fell to the floor at his feet.

Curt's cocked grin fractured.

It was a necktie, white with red-and-blue circles all over it.

"Lordy Mercy," Curt whispered.

at first he couldn't place the thing. But then he thought he recalled buying it to wear when the federal safety boys had toured the copper mine and he was an assistant foreman on the railroad loading dock. Long time back, before a Mexican took his job away from him. Curt leaned over to get it, staggered, lost his balance, and fell to the floor on his side. He realized he still had the tie rack gripped in his other hand, and he carefully set the Kentucky Gent aside, righted himself, and picked up the necktie. From it wafted a stale hint of Vitalis.

He had to concentrate to steady his hand; he looped the tie around the tie rack's dowel. It looked real pretty against the smooth wood and the silver squares. a thrill coursed through him, and he wanted Cody to see this. The boy was in the other room; Curt had heard him come in just a minute ago, when the screen door's hinges squealed. "Cody!" he shouted, trying to get up. He finally got his legs under himself and was able to stand. He stumbled to the bedroom door. "Cody, looky here! Looky what I - " He almost fell through the door into the front room. But Cody was not there, and the only noise was the fan's sluggish stuttering. "Codyi" he asked, the tie trailing from the tie rack in his hand. There was no answer, and Curt rubbed the side of his head with numb fingers. He remembered having a fight with Cody. That was yesterday, wasn't iti Oh, Lord! he thought, speared by panic. I'd better get to the bakery or Mr. Nolan'll skin me! But he was very tired, and his legs were unsteady; he thought he might be coming down with the flu. Missing one day at the bakery wouldn't hurt anything; those cakes, pies, and rolls would get baked whether he was there or not and, anyway, there wasn't much business.

Cody'll cover for me, Curt decided. always has before. He's a good ol' kid.

Mighty thirsty, he thought. Mighty, mighty thirsty! and cradling the tie rack with its single ugly tie against his chest, he staggered back into the bedroom, where time folded and refolded and the happy colonel held dominion.