by Christian Livermore.
TERTIUS
February 21, 1999
I don’t know what happened the night Winnie was killed. I mean, I know what happened before me and Teddy went to the store and what happened after we got back, but I don’t know what happened while we was gone.
I was out back getting wood for the fire. It was darker than usual, there wan’t no moon that night, and acourse no porch light to save money, and I tripped on the walkway where the stones was loose. I sat a minute, holdin my knee, then got up. I could feel my pant leg scrapin, so I knew I was cut. There was hardly any wood left. It’d been a cold February. Me and Teddy’d have to chop more to make it through the month. Wouldn’t warm up nights till at least March. Days was usually okay, but sometimes you needed a fire the whole time. I needed to clean the flue in our bedroom. Been ages since I’d done it and two nights before we’d woke up at three with smoke all over the room.
We slept without the fire the next night but it was a hard one. I was too tired to clean the flue after work, then I’d got watchin TV with Teddy. We’d hafta sleep in the livin room, and I’d clean it out next day. Least we got the fireplaces. One good thing about such a old house. Without em, boy I don’t know. We’d go into the little forest back of the house for the wood. It’s public, and I think the county knew we was takin wood, but they never bothered us about it. At least we weren’t beggin at their offices for relief money. Least I’d managed that much.
I took what wood was stacked by the back wall and went through the garden to check the second stack by the shed. There was buds on the trees, and the azaleas was comin out. I hoped the cold wouldnt kill em. At the shed, since I was there, I opened the door and went in. It was even darker inside, but I knew the way. I went to my workbench and picked up the figure I’d been workin on. A old washerwoman. I held it up to the dim light comin in through the window. She needed more work on her face. Still dint have the wrinkles right. Tomorrow, I figgered. After the flue. I put her back on the bench and looked at the other figures, already finished, on the sill, on tables, in boxes. I finish one, then, nothin to do with it, set it aside. There’s all kinda workers. Farmers and coal miners, loggers and fishermen. And there’s animals. Some real, some I made up in my head. Once I tried a scene. A boat on the water at sunset, with a man fishin off the back. But I couldnt get the sky.
I filled the log basket and went in. My knee was burnin and I was limpin, but Winnie was all sweet and worried over me so it was worth it.
‘Sit down and let me see.’
She pulled up my pant leg. The skin was raw, and there was a little blood. She pressed a wet paper towel on it till the blood was gone, then put on bacitracin and a bandage.
‘All better.’ She kissed me softly and went back to the counter, where she was countin out change.
‘What’s that for?’
‘We’re out of milk. I need it for the pot pie.’
‘I just bought a whole gallon yesterday.’
‘Teddy had it with his Oreos.’
I called in to the next room. ‘Teddy, you drink all the milk?’
For a second there was no answer, just the noise of the radio.
‘No,’ Teddy finally said, soundin not too convincin.
I stood up and opened my wallet. Five dollars. ‘I got enough.’
Winnie came and looked down at the five, then beamed at me like it was a million bucks.
‘Payday tomorrow, then we’ll stock up,’ I said.
‘We always manage,’ she said and patted my cheek.
I looked in at Teddy, in the TV room listenin to the game. They used to call this the drawin room, back when Jean-Paul built the house. But that was too fancy a word for what it was now. Any furniture worth anythin we sold long ago. We replaced it with musty mismatched stuff from the Salvation Army. A couch with big ugly gold flowers on it, an orange plaid chair, curtains somebody dint even care enough about to use good cloth on the insides, just that plasticky stuff. Least it was all clean. They fumigate it and all, fore they sell it. The Baptists used to come by once in a while with food baskets, but we never took em. Imagine what people would say if we did. In winter we keep to the TV room, the kitchen, and our bedrooms. I wear a coat and heavy sweaters to work in the shed.
Teddy was in the armchair, pullin at one of the frayed threads. He twisted it back and forth as he listened. I say TV room, but we got the radio in there too. We usedta keep the TV in the living room, but beetles had ate through the floor in places, so we closed it off. I’d hafta tear up the boards and replace em and then varnish, and prolly fumigate too.
It was high school baseball. Season opener, Effingham at Screven. Bottom of the fifth, Screven up by four. Two down, no one on base. Effingham batter Exley swung a millisecond too late at a fastball from Redfield and hit a pop fly into left field.
‘Crap.’
Screven’s left fielder got in position under the ball. It hit his glove and bounced out.
‘Oh oh oh!’ Teddy stopped twistin and pulled the thread tight. Exley rounded first, but instead of stoppin he tried for second. Teddy shouted and jumped up from the sofa.
‘Go go go!’
The left fielder recovered and grabbed the ball, threw Exley out at second. Scoreless close for Effingham. Teddy slumped back in the chair.
‘Man, they suck.’
‘Gotta go to the store,’ I said. ‘Come with me, okay?’
‘Why do I got to go?’
‘Cause you’re the one drank all the milk.’
You could see a little better on the road, but not much. There was dark spaces between the light from the streetlamps, and the sky was that kinda blue-black it gets when it’s cloudy and there aint no moon and the stars cant peek through. The houses and trees was just shapes. It was the kind of night makes you feel scared. Not scared of anything in particlar. Just scared. Like you dont mean nothin and life dont matter. You start to think how a million people walked down this same road and they’re all dead now and nobody remembers em and pretty soon it’ll be the same for you. I wisht I could say it to Teddy. Maybe it would make me feel better if I could say it to somebody. But I dint want to scare him. I’m the big brother. So I kept it to myself.
Me and Teddy shuffled along. Teddy kicked a stone along, caught up to it, kicked it again. The cold cut right through me. Teddy shivered.
‘Told you to wear your heavy jacket,’ I said.
‘You aint wearin yours.’
‘I aint cold.’
‘Me neither,’ Teddy said. He kicked the stone hard and it went skippin down the road. Take awhile to catch up with it that time. He took a pack of Newports from his pocket and tapped it against his hand to get one out. He lit up and puffed a few times, watchin the cigarette bob up and down.
‘Thought you wanted to quit,’ I said.
‘No, you wanted me to.’
‘Bad for you.’
Teddy puffed away, grinnin at me.
‘Go head kill yourself then.’
I realized somethin then and stopped short, and Teddy plowed into the backa me.
‘Sorry.’
‘Great, let’s give the neighbors a show. Watch the retards fall all over themselves in the street.’
‘Nobody saw.’
‘Forgot my wallet. Be right back.’
I jogged back up the road to the house. When I got back, Teddy was jumpin up and down and blowin into his hands to keep warm and his breath was all round his head like fog. I held out his coat. He cut his eyes at me but he put it on.
We turned onto Benham Road. Cars rushed past us now and then, folks comin back from work in Savannah, prolly, hopin to make it home in time for the lottery numbers. A guy was comin towards us, and when he got close enough he saw Teddy was smokin and he ast for a light. Teddy took out his lighter and flicked it. The guy hung the cigarette from his lips and dipped it in the flame, cuppin a hand to shield it from the wind. He puffed until he had a good light. He was shiverin. I said it was a cold night and he said yeah it was, ‘colder n a witch’s tit’, and passed on by, and we went on our way. A man in a house across the street was draggin the trash to the curb. He lifted his hand, bout to wave, but then he saw it was us and made like he was just scratchin his head. We acted like we dint see it. Couple minutes later we got to Miss Patsy’s.
‘You walked all the way down here at this hour for milk? Looks like a person would wait till the morning,’ Miss Patsy said, ringin up.
I told her Winnie was makin pot pie, and she said how you couldnt make a pot pie without milk could you, and I agreed no you couldnt, and she asked Teddy did he want his Newports and reached for em fore he answered, cause she knew he did.
‘Got to wait till payday on them,’ I said.
‘Pay when you can,’ she said and went ahead and handed Teddy the Newports.
Connie Jr come out of the storeroom then, wipin his hands on a filthy apron that used to be white. ‘You been listening to the game?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Radio’s dead,’ Connie Jr said, jerkin his thumb at the radio he kept behind the counter.
‘What’s the score?’
I told him it was four-nothin Screven and rolled my eyes, then Connie Jr rolled his eyes and blew out a disgusted breath and said they got no hitters, which Teddy agreed they dont.
‘How’s my boy’s arm?’
Connie Jr’s boy pitched for Effingham. I told him he was doin good. Never mind Screven got four runs off him. I hoped he’d blame it on bad fielding.
‘I hate like hell to miss the first game,’ he said.
Connie Jr was one of the people who treated us normal.
‘If you two are going to talk football–’
‘Baseball, mama.’
‘Mind the register, I’m going to watch my stories.’
Miss Patsy limped to the storeroom where the TV was, favorin her right side. She had a hip replaced or somethin.
Well we went on talkin, and fore I knew it we was havin a little game in the aisles.
‘Hey, batta batta batta batta batta…’
Connie Jr underhanded the ball. He’d made it hisself by wrappin hundreds of rubber bands round and round till the ball was baseball-sized. I swung and caught it dead center with a rolled-up newspaper. Line drive into the potato chips.
‘Base hit for Lafontaine! He takes off for first–’
I ran slow toward the dairy case. Teddy lunged for the ball, caught it for a second, then fumbled it. I jogged on toward the cat food.
‘Oh, oh, Lafontaine’s making a break for second while the opposing Lafontaine fumbles the ball. As you listeners know, the Lafontaines are brothers. Yes, it’s brother against brother tonight in this winner-take-all game-’
The whistle at the firehouse went off. I froze halfway between the Doritos and the Friskies, hopin it was a actual fire stead of the whistle. If it was, it would be a bunch of little short blasts after the long one. I mean I dint want a real fire, just like a garbage can fire or somethin, just somethin that meant it wasn’t already eight o’clock. I waited, hopin, but the horn stopped, and nothin else came after. It was eight o’clock. I said I was gonna get it, and I grabbed the milk and me and Teddy took off for home. I heard Connie Jr call after me to call him with the score.
When we got to the back porch, the door was open. I was sure we had closed it. It was cold. Why would Winnie have it open? I went real slow up the three stone steps. It was one of those times when you feel like somethin’s wrong. Only difference was this time I dint tell myself it was my imagination. I knew it wasn’t, cause I already felt alone. I pushed at the door. It creaked. I looked into the kitchen. Winnie was lyin on the floor. The carton slipped out of my hands, and I felt my knees hit the ground.
Excerpted from The Execution of Tertius Lafontaine