His Illegal Self

41

Dial finished burying Buck. She squished up her face and bashed the dirt hard down on top of him. Parrots flittered in the last wash of light, the size of circus fleas up on the tattered ridge. The boy was up there with Trevor, lost to her, that is what she imagined.

Down in the valley the mosquitoes were already rising. They could smell her body gases a hundred feet away.

Which gases, Dial?

Lactic acid. Carbon dioxide.

Except there was no one there to ask her. No one who gave a damn about what she thought.

Her papa was dead. The boy was gone. She had buried Buck. She walked across the rotting-leaf floor of rain forest, finding the shower in the deepening shadow beneath the bedroom hut. She thought, I purchased a slum but at least I have hot water I can waste.

The shower water was like an easy promise, running down the long trunk of her lonely white body, cooling in a puddle around her ugly feet. That is what she thought. Once she had been beloved. She had met the boy’s father in safe houses in four different cities. She had bathed in rose oil. She had been delivered to him like a princess to her groom, trusted servants in Volkswagens, back stairs to a warehouse tower. He kissed her calves, the arches of her feet. Even when she contracted a disease from him, she allowed that he was a man, a soldier in a war, the king.

She had been a goddess, six feet tall, a fool. Who could imagine her made so small and worthless, heartsick for a little boy.

Not till she turned off the shower did she notice anything but her own spaghetti boil of pain. The first cat’s cry was drowned. But the second time she heard it clearly and it thumped her heart, a great electric whack that left goose bumps across her scalp.

She stood naked in the pooled-up soapy water. Something rustled. The water dripped. She hadn’t even lit the lantern in the big hut but when she heard Buck again she ran down into the forest. There was only just sufficient light to see the grave was as she had left it. It was too shallow, she knew it. If it was Massachusetts there would be raccoons or dogs to dig him up and drag him through the night. What was there here? No bears, that’s all she knew. Mosquitoes jabbed their hollow noses through her skin. She dragged the blocky gray carving from in front of the abandoned hut and laid it on top of the loose black dirt.

Lady Macbeth. Exactly.

She ran up to the hut, muddy feet, dead leaves sticking, but no more thought of cleaning up than if she was six years old and scared. Buck cried again. She whimpered. She found the Redhead matches and the propane roared white illuminating her naked skin in all its fright and weakness. There was a pair of overalls by the shower but she was too creeped out to go back down there, to feel banana fronds brushing against her shoulder.

She pulled on Adam’s prickly army coat. Not his war, not hers either. She turned the light down and she sat out on the shadow of the front deck where she could keep watch to see whatever blurry black things the night would bring toward her.

She had killed the cat, taken his life to make a point, win an argument. It was Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. She listened to the ghost until it stopped which was pretty quickly, but still she had no chance of sleep.

She climbed up into the loft bed and settled in the nest of quilts and shawls. It smelled of boy. She could not sleep for thinking of him, but it was not until just before dawn, when she heard that cat meow again, that it occurred to her that there must be other cats and she had murdered her sleek lovely mischievous Buck in vain.

She tossed and turned until she heard the car descending Trevor’s hill.

Scratchy eyed and heavy headed, she clambered down the ladder and ran to fetch her dew-damp overalls and then, hearing the thump and slam of the car as it bottomed on the track, she sprinted down the hill toward the road, straight through the uncut feathery grass. She heard the bang as its engine slammed the yellow rock, and then she leaped off the cutting and she was in its deadly path.

No headlights.

She cast her hands high in the air and watched the car slide toward her, the front wheels barely missing her, the steaming nose pushed in among the blackberries.

It was Rebecca who was driving, Trevor she saw first, but she did not care about either of them. She wrenched open the back door.

Where is he?

There was nothing there but an unreal shining darkness, black plastic bags. She touched them, immediately imagined they were taking hedge clippings to the dump.

Where is he?

Slap her, said Rebecca. She’s a fucking spy.

Where is he?

Where is who?

Where is my son, she bellowed, and her voice echoed along the valley floor, across the shallow rills.

Shut up, said Trevor. He took her shoulders. Be quiet.

They were both looking at her weirdly.

Where is he? she demanded.

He’s with you, said Trevor.

He’s with you.

She began to howl then properly. It was beyond her, beyond any preparation or understanding.

She’s fucked this, said Rebecca, and went back into the car. She turned on the headlights and began to cautiously back up and turn around.

Don’t go anywhere, Trevor said to Dial. He had his two meaty hands around her upper arms. Stay here.

He got back into the car and he slammed the door so hard it hurt, and Rebecca, with her big tits and hairy legs, took Trevor back up the hill leaving Dial no comfort but the white clay dust which rose from the road and settled like wiggy talcum in her hair. The cat called. The empty day began.