Shelter (1994) Read online

  Once inside the screen door he leans against the pantry wall, gulping a fragrance of hot butter and bacon, batter and air. He tastes and swallows, seeing the whole reach of the big kitchen in an uproar. They're serving second platters and Mam thunders near him, sees him, bends down to peer into his face as she opens the heavy oven door to retrieve another deep pan of crisping meat. They are both panting, her smooth skin moist; it's as though she runs this fulsome oval while he runs the lines of the camp; he is cutting through, slitting space open with the slender blade of his movement, and she is filling a sphere that grows more dense and full with each revolution of her big body. The smells and the food and the rising bread all seem to evolve from the heat she generates in each repetitive pass and circle.

  She jerks her head toward the little table where he usually eats and raises her brows at him, meaning she can't take time now he's so late but sit down and stay out of the way, and she's gone back out to the dining room as he moves toward her. He glimpses through the swinging door the long benches filled with girls, the double row of long white tables all laid with place settings and tray after tray of food. He sees Lenny and Cap cross the front of the room just as the kitchen door swings back toward him, and he is maneuvering around to look again, watch the two girls sit down, see Lenny put food in her mouth like all the rest, when his errant arm catches the protruding corner of a big rectangular platter of scrambled eggs. He is too close to the sideboard and the platter hits the floor, sliding a few inches on its steaming contents. A groan goes up from one of the other women and Buddy moves as she turns to grab him, then she changes her mind and hustles away to find wet cloths and towels. Buddy opens the door to Mrs. Thompson-Warner's little room and scuttles inside, shutting the door so silently he knows he is safe; they'll think he's run off across the quad. No one is allowed here; no one will find him.

  First he sits motionless, waiting. There's Mam's heavy tread back and forth to the counter, the blam of big cans set down hard, water running in the deep sinks. He's never seen inside the old redhead's room before. It smells of sugar and it's dark, nearly dark, or seems dim after the bright kitchen and the noise. Her filmy curtains are drawn shut, with the bright shape of the window behind them. In the filtered light from that one square he sees the neatly made cot and wants to touch it, touch the white spread that is covered with little yarn bumps like popcorn and drapes nearly to the floor. The bed is edged all round with a fringe of these little balls that tremble on their strings and jump when he kicks them. Sometimes when small things move or jerk he does want to kick them, hurt them, not animals but insects and the small toads he picks up in the grass after a rain. Frogs for their watchdogs: he tries to remember Mam's singsong rhyme, the one she used to say. But Buddy can't think straight, like Dad has squeezed his head. He watches the fringe on the bedspread ripple; the little balls dangle, spin lazily in some repetitive current, like a long line of tiny animate creatures. Buddy feels a wash of air and realizes the electric fan on her bureau is turning its small round face from side to side, the blades encased in a circle of metal cage. Ain't no cage can hold me, you mays well forget trying to settle my hash. Dad said that. Hash was little cubes of potato with corned beef from a can, Mam fried it with pepper and the meat was so salty Buddy could pucker his mouth, just thinking. He feels his hunger as a vague burning and there's a sound past the door. He crawls under the bed to disappear and all around the hem of the bedspread those little yarn nubbins jump, like a shiver runs along them in time to the sweep of the fan. I told you I'm not stayin around here on no dirt road end of nowhere. Where was Dad going and when would he go? Maybe soon, in the car. He'd said so. Then it would be all right. Take you with me, get hex goat, wouldn't it. And Buddy feels his stomach seize up like he's so empty he might get sick, and then Mrs. T. will know someone has been in here when she left the door unlocked. He presses himself flat down on the floor, feels in his pockets the small, sharp rock he carries and the hard bulk of the leather bag of marbles. Always before, Dad has given him bubble gum or a jawbreaker, like what they sell in penny machines at the liquor store. You and Mam. He does things to her too, behind the blanket that hangs down. Mam knows everything but she doesn't know about Dad, or she does. Buddy knows she's afraid. She makes noises at night, and the old bed moves. She doesn't have to answer questions like Buddy does, but Dad talks to her in the same voice. Like he's got hold of them both. Like if they move he digs in deeper. Arch up there. You be in trouble you rile me. You like trouble, have some. Buddy stayed still in the dark. Dad forgot about Buddy unless he got mad at the end. Don't hush at me, I'll make some noise he can hear.

  Mrs. Thompson-Warner's room is quiet. Buddy hears water in the wall pipes. Washing up. He has to stay here now till breakfast is over, and sneak out through the dining hall after Mrs. T. gets to yakking at those girls, the younger girls that take her class about Russians. Mam has to clear off so those girls can set up the room. Mrs. T. might turn out the lights and run a film, and Buddy could get himself out the other door of her room. Two doors and neither goes to the outside; her room is just a corner between the kitchen and the vast dining room. Big old closet they punched a window in, Mam said, and nailed up plyboard around a toilet that used to be for the kitchen workers. Mrs. T. had to have her own bath; the other women could use the bigger restrooms in Great Hall. Stop work and walk all the way over there, like they had all the time in the world. But the plyboard would be ripped down when Girl Guides camp was over and Mam and him might take it home and nail it up in a tree, floor for a treehouse, Mam said. After while Mam would forget about the spilled eggs. Under Mrs. T.'s bed, the smooth floor is cool against Buddy's cheek. Not even dusty. He flattens his face against the boards and breathes; little white feathers from some pillow skitter along just out of reach. White wisps. He puts out his hand to catch one; the filaments are downy, lighter than air. Lenny's hair is not that white, but the white starry shapes of feather against the dark floor are like her when she is walking, the way she looks bright against things. He follows with his eyes the border of the shadowed space and over against the wall he sees a shape. Crawls carefully, soundless, until he touches a round silky box pushed back between the bed frame and the wall. Buddy zips it open. Some money folded up inside, and hairpins, a brooch with a ghost face, and two, three rings. He feels them, tries them on. One has a sparkle piece like glass and the gold band is cut with swirly shapes, a ring for a queen, that's what, a ring for Lenny. That old redheaded woman has a lot of rings; she could think she lost this one. Buddy sees Lenny's eyes, the sweep of her lashes, the plane of her face as she holds the ring close to study it. If he gave it to her she'd ask him where he got it. No, he would put it in her footlocker, in that little cardboard box where she keeps stamps and pictures amongst pink sheets of paper. She wouldn't even find the ring, most likely, until she left camp; he could put it into one of the envelopes and lick it shut. Hidden.

  Suddenly the door to the kitchen opens. Mam coming for him, she's found him out. Buddy holds his breath and sees, in the crack of space allowed him, Mrs. T.'s shiny black shoes, or the toes of her shoes, pointed toes, and her silk-stockinged feet. Buddy stares. Inches from his nose, the shoes are still; they're like slippers with heels. Mrs. T.'s fleshy hand reaches down to fool with the ankle strap. Then an exasperated sound from above, and the shoes turn round so Buddy sees the heels. The bed gives with a creak as she sits down hard, and the sagging box spring droops just low enough to pin Buddy fast. He nearly cries out, watching her fingers tug at the tiny buckle. He must breathe in with a desperate little wheeze but she grunts as she heaves herself up, doesn't hear; he closes his eyes, sweating. Something elastic snaps far off, is tugged, rolled down. He hears her sit, then her stream of urine clatters into the bowl of the toilet Buddy hasn't seen behind a makeshift curtain. He imagines a long acrid water falling down a hole, falling and falling, but there's no bottom; the clatter keeps rattling down, then levels out in silence as the paper turns on its wooden roller. He makes his
mind blank. Then she's up, the snap and pulling, a discreet huff, the toilet flushes. Her shoes cross the floor toward the kitchen in eight hard steps. Slam. The turn of the key in the lock. From outside.

  Buddy pulls himself to the edge of his shelter, peeks out. Pulls himself forward on his elbows and looks at the ring where there's enough light to really see. The stone looks clear as rain, but he can't see into it or through it. Cut in minuscule angles but not sharp. He puts his lips there, tasting. Lenny's hand. Do what a girl does. But Lenny wouldn't do that. Dad could never make her. Buddy sees her hand, still and open, like a flower. Pale in the air, a ghost of itself. In her fingers, a music he can't hear. He puts the ring in his pocket, thinks again, pulls the pouch of marbles free and loosens the drawstring. Drops the ring in with the other glass.

  Now he stands up. At the window, the opaque curtains move. Buddy steps closer. He could climb out the window, but he sees Frank in the back, stringing a length of rope to the side of the building from a utility pole. Clothesline for Mrs. T. Buddy will have to sneak out through the big dining room when she has the lights off. If he gets well into the room before she sees him, she'll think he's snuck into her class again from the kitchen, or from outside. He has the ring. He waits at the exact center of the little space for some time to pass. The fan whirs its quiet noise from the bureau. On the bedside table, the second hand of a wind-up clock moves round. Beside it sits a pitcher of water. Buddy sighs and the brimming water stirs.

  LENNY: BRIGHT AIR

  It never occurred to her to run, to move, to get away. She stood listening. She wasn't hearing him with her ears; it was like she heard him in her head, his footsteps separate from the forest sounds, and she stood in her own space, understanding it was possible to know what she could not actually sense with her body. As though she'd always heard sounds that lay hidden under other sounds, and never quite known what they were. She had no questions. Now she was conscious of the shack behind her on its rise of ground, broken down, overgrown and hidden, exuding a specific warmth. The hum in the earth moved up through her feet. Beyond the trees Turtle Hole shimmered in the sun, oval as an egg.

  She looked at the trees, which were absolutely still, and felt him, closer. He breathed near her. She remembered suddenly: the white bars of her crib, feeling her father come home. Feeling him move through the air along the road to the house, like a spirit. A wailing in her chest, winding out like an unwieldy banner that licks the air, tasting for him. She senses her mother as cloudy, fading off like smoke on a floor. There's just Wes in his undershirt, younger, thinner. Lenny wanted to study the apparition but it vanished, went back inside her, or fled into the trees. No, something else was in the trees. The clearing motionless, densely shaded. Where the trees broke by the path she discerned a particular light, a cast of sun or gold. Lenny kept her gaze trained on the color to be certain it was there, and listened: the interior sound of his footsteps, his breath, the weight of his body. She was conscious of the heat she stood within, the turn of the humid morning as it grew denser. The sun climbed and the day was thick and still. Yet she saw the leaves move, begin to move as though a breeze riffled them. Then she felt air on her face, distinctly cool air that played across her skin. Her forehead tingled with perspiration, with the glaze of her sweat. The air was not breeze or wind; the air seemed to fall across the little clearing in a column, a long shadow, a cold space like a slice. Then he appeared, holding the coiled snake in his arms.

  Lenny stood motionless. He was a shape in the trees, wearing the same type of khaki pants her father had worn as a laborer years ago. Soft with washings, faun-colored. She felt a tug of memory, an image that pulled at her consciousness like a fish on a line. But it was gone, eclipsed in the face that loomed into her vision, very close: his dark, curly hair, a swarth of close beard, and the sculpted look of his mouth, perfect and red. He was grown, a man, but younger than her father, darker. She wasn't afraid. Instinctively, she reached up to touch him, to see if he was real; the whiskers on his face were long enough to feel soft, not bristly like her father's weekend beards. If he was real, this near her, then everything was real: the colors and the coolness in the air, the way he had come close to her without seeming to move.

  "Why is the air cold?" Lenny said. She felt she was speaking into a tunnel. Her voice sounded far away and thin. She wondered if she'd thought the words, not really said them.

  He shook his head impatiently, as though considering the air were a waste of time. His eyes were dark and full. He lifted his chin to indicate what he held in his arms. Lenny glanced down but the snake was gone and she saw dark vines in his arms, vines looped one over another, with dark reddish leaves the color of wine, and closed among them were long blossoms with curved petals, still and opalescent, nearly black.

  Lenny touched the flowers and they stirred, cool beneath her hand, rolling and smooth. The flowers seemed to flatten, move and coalesce in a darkly patterned blur. Lenny saw the trick, the spell he cast: how the vine became the snake and the snake became the vine, shining, moving over him. His crossed arms were sinewy and firm, sun-dark, close to her, and she felt the cool glide of the snake just at the level of her chest. Again, a picture of Wes, or a sense of him, flashed into her. Throwing her toys over the top bar of the crib into his arms, soft toys, fuzzy bears, a white lamb that wore a hat. Lying flat on the mattress. The blur of the white bars, the toys raining down on top of her and the mattress bouncing. Then the pictures blurred like film run too fast, and Lenny stepped back. Immediately, the man with the snake stepped closer, one step, no more, a mirror image of her own movement. He filled her vision and she focused on his mouth, his parted lips, the line and shape of his upper lip like a tipped bow, the roseate color deep, lines in his flesh deep, the flesh thick, cushiony. He seemed about to speak but he only breathed, his mouth pursed, open. She saw his teeth, the pink tip of his tongue. All around, the light seemed by turns shaded and bright, as though clouds blew quickly across the sun. Or a light was lifting and settling in her head; she heard a window shade in her room at home, pulled fast by the wind, blown forward, pulled fast, and the other curtains were drawn. It was all confused; her father was there. She saw herself in a crib, falling asleep. After something. Sleeping with his finger in her mouth, the smallest finger of his right hand. The pulsing of her tongue against him, sucking. She pushed out hard with both arms, pushed away, heard the sharp exhalation of her own breath. Again, the man with the snake moved with her, leaning far back with the force she'd exerted, then moving back toward her. Two of them, moving. She understood he was not going to hurt her, that he was, in fact, waiting for her, waiting for her to see. He only stood near, not touching her. She put her hands on his chest and felt the thud of his heart, a pounding inside him that seemed to ripple through her and into the ground. She was certain she saw a glow move across the planes and curves of his shoulders, his throat, up into his face. She couldn't look into his eyes; she saw his wide brow, his dark, tousled hair. The glow seemed to move outward and emanate, a violet blue, completely transparent, like a rainbow, or the light that shows motes of dust moving in bright air. She could see a whiter glow around her own hands, her forearms against him, like a buzz over her skin, an after-image.

  He was telling her something without speaking. She suddenly heard him, in the interior way she'd heard him walking toward her, in the way she must have heard other things, a long time ago. Ways she'd forgotten. She leaned subtly closer and found herself seeing into his eyes. Instantly, the sounds and images came clear; a deluge of rain, and glass between them, like a long, curved window. She seemed to look down at him through glass, a glass box, or he was in a box, enclosed. The air felt fluid, as though the water from her dream this morning were all around her, the water of the stream she'd lain within, floating. But he was real; she felt him moving onto his knees and looked down at the top of his head, at his upturned face. He had knelt in front of her and her hands were on his shoulders. The vine was around his neck, the dark vine that w
as alive, and the dark flowers were turning and moving. They were slender, closed blossoms, turning up their barely open lips, glistening. He extended his arms and Lenny saw how the flowers were the dappled black of the snake's hide, the darkest gleaming, shining, moving over him; she felt the snake on her own wrist, how it moved, a heavy shiver, undulating and smooth. The weight of it moved along her arm to her throat; she felt the flick of its tongue, the small, blunt probe of its head. It moved along her skin, across the cleft of her collarbone, long and blind and silken. She could smell burnt sugar, the buttery, darkened sweet of the burnt sugar cakes Audrey would make Wes on his birthday when the girls were little. Caramel icing she stirred with a spatula in a tin saucepan. He drank that dark, bitter beer with the sweet black cake; she saw her mother's lips on the mouth of the bottle. A burnished liquid fell through space. She felt the white heat of someone's touch, a fingertip tracing each of her ribs; she saw the room, her parents' bedroom with the high windows along two walls and the lilac branches waving outside. She couldn't see who else was in the picture. A white form lay its head on her chest, and the light cracked open and shut; everything grew bright, and the long flowers in the flat leaves of the moving vine were white. He was giving them to her, lifting them with his arms, and she knelt down in the bright white that was left, in what was there when the colors had bled away, before the picture went blank.