Hick - Andrea Portes [34]
I don’t have to lie or coddle or butter it up. it’s true. He’s big-eyed and dark, stick skinny, like he’s been working dawn to dusk since you could get work out of him. He’s got muscles but they’re tucked away, twined beneath and around the bone.
“Look. I’m sorry if I made you mad. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to make an impression or something back there. I dunno. I mean, I never met anyone who couldn’t talk before and I guess I got a little spooked.”
He writes again in the dirt, finishes and looks up. It says, “BOO.”
“Ha ha. Very funny.”
We both sit there, leaning on our respective railings, looking out into the grasshopper hum and the night air, hay sweet, the moon so close, like you could reach out and freeze your fingers.
I want to apologize to him for his made-silent life. I want to ask him why. I wonder why some people get to have the world on a string and others come up with a shit sandwich and dirt for dessert. I want to make it better. There’s something about him that reminds me of my dad, helpless and still, like the air around him has to be gentle or he just might break.
“Luli!”
Glenda interrupts, swaggering out the back, framing herself mid-circle inside the moon.
“Hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch cause we ain’t leaving.”
She throws my bag at my feet and points inside. She turns to Angel.
“Blane said for you to make up a bed on the couch. You can sleep on the floor or make Luli sleep on the floor, either way.”
She struts around, heads back, sensing my hesitation.
“Well. Git. Git going.”
“You sure, Glenda? Cause maybe we could—”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Well, good, cause you know I don’t like naysayers.”
“Yeah, um, me neither.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Angel heads inside the gray shack. Glenda strides back into the bowling alley. She starts laughing hard, cracking a joke. I sit there a moment, trying to get a fix on this new situation, Glenda’s bag of tricks thrown at me on the fly. I check my money in my fancy bag. Still there. I decide to trust in Glenda and the end of the day and Indian summer, most of all, and make my way over the rickety porch inside.
I saunter into what looks like the living room and find it immaculate clean. Everything inside looks like it’s been waiting here since the Forties, placed pristine and never moved. There’s white lace doilies on the tables and Old West kerosene lamps. From the middle of the wall a cattle skull stares down in the moonlight. The wooden floor is covered with an old-style rug, trodden and ancient, burgundy battered into gray. That skull looks like it’s just waiting for you to ask for directions.
Angel is putting the finishing touches on my makeshift bed, preening a bit, making it extra-special. I watch him start to make up his own bed on the floor, far less careful. I guess I get the good quilt.
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor. I’ll take the floor. I don’t mind.”
He doesn’t respond and, instead, lays purposeful down on the floor, tucking himself snug under the quilt. He turns away from me, closing his eyes.
It seems early to go to bed, but I guess when in Rome do whatever. I lay down in my good quilt bed and stare at the ceiling. Glenda’s bar laugh drifts through the wood-panel walls. The crickets keep planning their attack, softer now, getting sneaky. There’s a little breeze, crisp, like fall’s sending its regards from the sidewalk before stepping across the threshold. I close my eyes and try to bury the day.
I get woke by a weird stillness. There’s a quiet now, a pitch black hovering. Then I realize that Angel has crept up next to me, kneeling beside me on the floor. I pretend not to see him. I make believe I’m still asleep, curious.
He sits over me, staring underneath the blanket. He’s looking at me like I’m made of crystal, a new invention.
I half-hearted toss and turn, throwing the quilt over my eyes so I can peek through the yarn without him knowing. His eyes swirl in the moonlight. We stay this way for a long time.