Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [65]
CHAPTER 8
AFTER A WEEK OF INDIAN SUMMER, skies deep blue and leaves beginning to turn yellow and red, a cold front blew through. Chilly rain fell out of a pewter sky for two days. Stubblefield became animated and nostalgic about the northern Gulf of Mexico in the warm days of October. And at first, Luce enjoyed hearing him describe a place she’d never been. How most of the shore was muddy, and you had to know where to go if you wanted white sand and clear water. But he knew exactly where. Plus, epic bouts of fishing to be accomplished, whether casting from shore or boat. Little cheap rental cabanas on stilts at the edge of the water. And white clapboard bars set in crushed-shell parking lots under live oaks, where the beer was ice-cold and the oysters hadn’t been out of the Gulf more than a few hours, and they handed you a zinc bucket overflowing with them, and one brown leather glove and a thick-bladed knife. You twisted the shells open and gave the live oyster three spurts of Tabasco and watched it quiver and then tipped your head back and slid it from the shell into your mouth, and chased it with cold beer. Maybe a saltine or two, depending on your attitude toward the texture of a raw oyster. And then dancing to a neon Wurlitzer full of beach music unknown in other quarters of the country. One bare light bulb swinging from its ceiling cord, pitching dancers’ shadows crazy against the walls. Later, after midnight, swimming out half drunk into the black water and not caring how damn deep the bottom might be beneath your white wiggling feet nor what big-mouthed fishes might be gliding almost between your legs.
By the time he finished talking, Luce felt like she was sinking from him, going down slow. Him still treading water in the moonlight up above. She sat quiet a long time. He had been delicate, hardly hinting at an invitation, but what she found herself wanting to say was, Let’s do that, baby. Go be careless and young. Get sunburned and drunk. Eat too much and dance too much and go night swimming. Do something entirely new. It had been so long since she had even wanted to.
Until recently, it had been theoretically possible to throw clothes in a bag and get in the car and go. By tomorrow, be sitting on the beach at sunset drinking a beer. In the new reality, though, the children.
She said, Down at the Gulf, it’s like the ocean?
—Well, it looks a lot the same. Water as far as you can see.
—No trees on the other side? No towns?
—None whatsoever.
A week later, James Brown and the Famous Flames were playing over in Tennessee, and Stubblefield asked Luce to go with him. A long dark way across many mountains on winding roads, and there wouldn’t be two dozen white faces in the whole place. And damn, James Brown, one of Luce’s favorites. What an adventure.
—Can’t, Luce said.
—People will be dancing in the aisles, Stubblefield said. I know you want to see him led off the stage totally beat, sweating and barely conscious, and then throwing the cape off and dancing back to the mike for one last time. And then doing it again five or six more times after that.
—The children.
—Please, please, please, Stubblefield said. We’d be back by dawn, and maybe the kids could stay with Maddie.
—I can’t leave them that long. But go and do. I’m not your warden.
—I don’t think you’re my warden. Just, it wouldn’t be any fun without you.
—See, I’m supposed to be flattered, but I’m not. Get over thinking I’m your vehicle like that. All you’ll end up is disappointed and mad at me. You need to quit thinking