Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward [72]
“No,” says Jerome. “My dog didn’t lose. Most it is is a draw.”
“I gives a fuck what you say,” says Rico, his finger now swinging to Jerome, his eyes on Skeetah. “And I want the white one.”
“It’s a draw. It’s a tie.” Randall blocks Rico, stands in front of Skeetah. He rolls his shoulders, grabs the stick in one hand, swings it wide and holds it like a baseball bat. Everyone is drawing together in a knot, tighter and tighter, black against the day. “You can’t decide it.”
“Yeah,” Skeetah says. “We can.” He unhooks the dull heavy chain from China’s neck, smiles; she smiles with him.
How you going to fight her? Randall scream-whispered at Skeetah after Rico started laughing and led Kilo across the clearing to rub him down. She’s a mother! The boys and their dogs spread around the circle of the clearing; the knot loosened, frayed. And he’s a father, Skeetah said, motioning toward Kilo, and what fucking difference does it make? China nosed Skeetah’s side. Her titties, Randall said. Are for the puppies, and you don’t have to worry about that, Skeetah breathed. The puppies, Randall said, what about the puppies? We all fight, said Skeetah. Everybody. Now leave me the fuck alone so I can talk to my dog, he said.
“Randall?” Junior and Marquise’s little brother have scampered down from their mimosa tree. “Skeetah going to fight China?”
“Go back to your tree,” Randall says, “I mean it. Up.”
“Go ’head,” I tell Junior. “And don’t come down til it’s done.”
Junior picks up a stick, throws it at Marquise’s little brother, who wears a bright green shirt dusted with pink flowers from the tree and jean shorts with creases. His mother did that, I think.
“Don’t fall,” I say.
“All right,” Junior huffs, to let me know that I am getting on his nerves, and then they are running away.
Marquise is speaking loudly in the kind of voice that wants to be heard and saying that he thinks Rico is a bitch, his dog is a weak bitch, and hell naw Kilo didn’t win. Big Henry is shaking his head, rubbing his forehead over and over with his sweat rag. Jerome is agreeing with Marquise, loudly. I can see why they are cousins. Boss is lounging again at Jerome’s feet, bleeding faintly, tongue out, grinning again. Blood runs in his eye and he blinks. Kilo lolls on his back in the straw, curving into a C again and again. Randall is swinging his stick back and forth, again and again, like a golf club now, catching vines, ripping them down from their branches. He looks at me, his upper lip tight.
“Well?” Randall swings, and the stick flings up dirt and dry pine needles. “They’ll die. Fucking camp!” he spits.
Across the circle, Manny is watching us. When the dogs were fighting, rolling like the spokes around the wheel of the clearing, gnashing and struggling muscle to muscle, tooth to tooth, it was easy to narrow my vision, to avoid Manny. Manny’s eyebrows are together, his eyes are big; they almost look sorry. I tell myself I don’t care and imagine myself tall as Medea, wearing purple and green robes, bones and gold for jewelry. Even though it feels awkward, I pull my shoulders back when I walk toward Skeetah, who is on the edge of the clearing in a cluster of ground palms, kneeling, whispering into China’s ear, rubbing her so hard her skin slides in ripples with his hand. Skeetah smooths her, talks to her. Her fur looks silver in the shade. China is standing very still, staring across the clearing. Skeetah’s tongue darts out of his mouth and a razor I did not know he had in his cheek flips out and over the tip of his tongue before he sucks it all back inside. He is reciting something, and he is saying it so fast that it sounds like he is singing it. China White, he breathes, my China. Like bleach, China, hitting and turning them red and white, China. Like coca, China, so hard they breathe you up and they nose bleed, China. Make them runny, China, make insides