Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward [78]
“Junior?”
He is standing next to Daddy’s bed, his small, narrow back to me, his bald head bent. One arm hangs at his side, and the other he holds in front of him like he’s in an Easter egg race, balancing a boiled egg on a spoon. But there is no spoon here, only his pointer finger, which he holds steady in front of Daddy’s sleeping nose, nearly brushing Daddy’s scraggly mustache, the naked chicken skin above Daddy’s lip. I have never seen Junior so still.
“What are you doing?”
Junior jumps. He turns and whips his finger behind his back. There are bruises under his eyes, so he looks like a little brown nervous man. I grab the finger and pull him out of the room, shut the door.
“Esch,” Junior whispers. He looks at the floor like he is looking through it, down to his hollows in the dirt under the house.
“What was that?” I ask. I squeeze, and there is only skin over bone. His finger is still pointed. He moans and tries to pull away, but I hold.
“He wasn’t breathing.”
“What do you mean, he wasn’t breathing?”
I drag him down the hallway, and he curls and drops and digs in with his feet, but I get him to our room. I kneel in front of him.
“What were you doing?”
Junior is looking at my throat, my hand, anywhere but my face. I yank, and he looks at my face.
“He looked like he was asleep but then he looked like he wasn’t breathing so I wanted to feel him breathe. Let me go!”
“Don’t go in there when he’s sleep no more.” I shake Junior’s arm again. “He’s sick.”
“I know,” Junior mewls. “I know he sick.” Junior closes his hand and pulls suddenly, and his hand slides between mine like wet rope and is out. “I know about his hand and the beer and his medicine.” He bounces. “I saw it when he smashed it. I found it!” Gets louder. “I see things!”
“Found what?”
“His ring!”
“Junior!”
“Here!” Junior yells. I can’t see his baby teeth, small and yellow like candy, only his throat, wet and pink, and he is an infant again, his mouth always open, always trying to find the nipple so that he’d grab our fingers, the blanket, his bib, the paws of his lost dogs, and suck them. He is the baby Junior and then he isn’t; he is a miniature Skeetah, and the hand he hadn’t been using to check Daddy’s breathing digs into his pockets and whips something out, something small and maroon, the size of a quarter, and throws it across the room. “It wasn’t no good to him noway!” He is breathing like he’s been running, and then he is skittering down the hallway like a spider. I almost catch him at the steps.
“Randall!” I yell, “get Junior!”
Randall jackknifes out of the truck, and he is a long black line streaking around the corner of the house where Junior has gone, and then I hear him banging underneath the house. Junior is laid so flat I cannot see him.
“Junior,” Randall yells, “get from under there!”
Junior is silent.
“You going to make me come under there and get you!” Randall says from between clenched teeth, and he must be crawling because Junior has popped up on my side of the house and is trying to run, his eyes white and rolling like a rabbit’s, but I have him, and he is kicking, kicking, and I’m surprised he doesn’t have fur.
“What did he do?” Randall walks around the corner, the front of him red with dirt.
“He had Daddy’s wedding ring.”
“He what?” Randall is frowning.
“He had Daddy’s wedding ring. He found it on the finger and took it off. It was in his pocket.” Each word makes Randall’s face slide and break until it looks like a broken glass with all the lines in it, and I know it’s because he can’t believe what I’m saying.
“Boy, what the hell is wrong with you?” Randall yells. He yanks Junior from me, and his other hand comes down hard on Junior’s skinny bottom. “What is wrong with you?” Randall yells, and his voice is higher. He hits again. “Junior!”
Junior runs in circles from Randall’s hand, so they spin, but Randall is faster and stronger, and his hand comes down again and again.
“That’s so. Nasty. You.