Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward [21]
“It’s good,” Marquise says.
“It tastes burnt,” says Skeetah. Big Henry, beside him, laughs.
“It tastes like shit. I can’t believe y’all eating that.” Big Henry gulps more of his beer, which is so warm the bottle doesn’t even sweat water in the hot night. “Might as well give that little bit of nothing to the puppy.”
I hardly chew the sandwich, just bite it small enough to get on my tongue, wet with spit, and swallow. Skeetah hands me the half-jug of juice, and I swallow a mouthful of warm colored sugar. I am not hungry, but it is better when I eat because I don’t feel so sick. If I throw up again, somebody would ask me what my problem is. And I don’t want to have to speak the lie, to be convincing. To have them looking at me and asking. I pass the jug along to Marquise. This is the closest drink to real fruit juice we’ve ever had in the house. Mama used to put it in the cart while I rode in the basket through the grocery store, wedge the red punch alongside me in the seat so the jug turned my leg cold. But I liked it, because later in the truck that didn’t have any air-conditioning, my leg would stay cold, like a piece of ice melting in my hand.
The puppy in the bucket scratches and Skeetah sits over him, his head hanging low, staring. Every once in a while, he’ll touch the rim of the bucket like he wants to reach in and rub the puppy, comfort it, but he doesn’t.
“You ain’t never gave him a name, huh, Skeet?” I ask.
“No.” He doesn’t look up. “You can give it a name if you want, Esch.” He sits with his chin in his hands. “It’s a girl.”
A name. I knew a girl once in school that was named after the candles you burn to drive the mosquitoes away: Citronella. She always had at least two boyfriends, lip gloss, and all her folders were color-coded to match her books. I used to kneel in the water up to my neck and watch her when we ran into her and her folks swimming at the river. She was golden as those candles, so perfect that I wanted to hate her. And I did, some. But sometimes I would say her name when I was walking along, talking to myself, and I liked the way it sounded, the way it rolled around my tongue like a mouthful of ice cream. Citronella. I want to name the puppy this, but I think Marquise, at least, will laugh at me, because he knows her. Probably was one of her boyfriends, walked down the street to the park with her and held her hand.
“Nella,” I say. “I want to name her Nella.”
Skeet nods. Big Henry tries to pass me his forty, but I shake my head. The hot sauce is still pulling spit from my tongue, but I know I’m probably going to cry when Nella goes, and I don’t want any more salt. Marquise shoves a stick in the fire and stabs at the ashes.
“It’s a good name,” Big Henry says, with a smile half shining and then fading. Skeet looks in the bucket like he didn’t hear. Still, the little bit of happiness that was inside me at coming up with the name flutters and snuffs out. What’s the use of naming her to die?
There’s a breaking sound coming from the woods, the crunch of leaves crumbling underfoot, and Randall and Manny appear. Manny catches all the light from the fire, eats it up, and blazes. He smiles. His scar gleams, and my heart blushes.
“Junior finally fell asleep,” Randall says. “Manny say his cousin Rico lost the dog he had before Kilo to parvo.”
Manny sits next to Randall at the fire, drinks so much of the punch when Marquise hands it to him that there is only scum left at the bottom.
“You should kill it now,” Manny says. “Save it the pain. Rico sliced his dog’s throat soon as he saw it getting sick. Right now, you just torturing it.”
“No,” Skeet says. “It’s not time yet.”
“You going to shoot it?” Manny eyes the gun. “That’s quick, at least.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, how you going to do it?”
Skeetah looks up, but