“You saying you belong to John?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
She looked at me for a long time, lips pale and nostrils flaring. “Now, you didn’t come over here meaning to cause any trouble did you? I reckon they had trouble out of some of their people back a few years ago, before I started coming around.”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Did Hollis tell you something bad about me?”
Her face flushed. “I don’t pay much mind to anything that comes out of that man’s mouth. I reckon I can judge anybody for myself.”
“All right,” I said. “Can I see Frankie then?”
She paused, looking me over again. I tensed, waiting. “If you start anything, I’ll put the law on you in a heartbeat. County jail is right down the street.”
“I promise you,” I said. “I just want to visit my grandfather one time.”
“Well,” she said, eyes softening behind the glasses. “I reckon anybody can understand that. If you’re John’s boy, Frankie will want to see you. But I ought to warn you, he’s been getting senile these last few years. He might go to talking out of his head.”
She pushed open the door and we stepped into a dim foyer onto humped and scarred linoleum. There was a stack of damp-looking newspapers against one wall and a smell of ancient cooking grease. I followed Diane down the hall into a kitchen with a ceiling so bowed it looked in danger of caving. In front of the sink there was a hole in the floor showing chewed-looking boards. Sun-faded curtains hung limp and mildewed on the window above it. Sitting in a wheelchair near the table was a birdlike man with tufts of hair standing up in corkscrews, wearing a yellowed undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts that bagged around his skinny thighs, holding a cigarette with a long ash.
Diane said, “I brung you somebody, Frankie.”
Frankie Odom blinked at her and coughed wetly. “Did you get my cigarettes?”
“There’s somebody here to see you,” she shouted. “This here is John’s boy.”
I gave Diane her grocery bag and crossed the floor to stand before the wheelchair. His eyes were black and somehow familiar. Closer up, I saw dark threads left in his hair.
“John?” he said, bushy eyebrows lifting.
“Yes, this is John’s boy. Your grandson,” Diane said.
“I didn’t bet on you ever coming back.”
“He ain’t never been here before, Frankie,” Diane shouted patiently. “This is the first time you ever seen him.”
“Some of them thought I might ort to report you a missing person but Hollis reckoned you didn’t want to be found.”
“See, I told you,” Diane said to me. “He ain’t all there.”
“Eugene and Lonnie wanted me to call the sheriff,” he went on. “Said she might have done something to you.”
“Now, Frankie,” Diane scolded. “You’re talking about this boy’s mother.”
“It’s all right,” I said, not looking away from his eyes.
“She was a pretty girl. Sweet little old girl. But some of them that come in the store said it might surprise you what a woman will do.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Frankie,” Diane said, “this is your grandson. This ain’t John. If you don’t behave, you ain’t getting these cigarettes.” She put the bag on the counter.
“It’s all right, ma’am,” I said. “Can I ask you a favor?”
She paused, brows knitting together. “I reckon.”
“Do you know if Frankie has any pictures of John?”
She hesitated. “Let me think. They’re not much of a picture-taking family. I believe he might have some pictures in a box back here in one of these closets.”
“Would you mind finding me one?” I asked. “Not to keep, or anything. It would mean a lot to me just to see what he looked like.”
I waited, careful to keep my face relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “There might be one of all the brothers together. But it’ll take me a minute to locate anything in this mess.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll just stay here and wait.”
I watched her leave the kitchen, footsteps heavy on the rotting floorboards. Then I went to Frankie Odom and knelt before his wheelchair. The stench of him was powerful.
“Dad,” I said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Hollis figured you run off, but some of them said you might be killed.”
“What did you think?”
“I never did think that little old girl would kill anybody.”
My jaw tightened. “So you thought I was alive somewhere.”
He took a puff from his cigarette. “She made good coffee.”
“Where did you think I would run off to?”
“She always done a good job on the bathroom, made them faucets shine.”
“Where did you think I was for all these years?”
He plucked a shred of tobacco from his fat, purplish tongue. “I figured you went up north. You always did think you was borned in the wrong place.”
“Did you ever try to find me?”
“No, I never did try to find you. None of the rest of them did neither. They probably figured they’d divide your share. Greedy sons of bitches.”
“What about you?” I asked softly. “Why didn’t you look for me?”
“Shitfire, boy,” he said, fumbling at the baggy lap of his boxers where the ash of his cigarette had fallen. “You know you always was the meanest one of the bunch.”
I heard the creak of Diane’s feet and turned to see her watching us warily from across the room, holding a square of picture. “This is the only one I found,” she said. She came to me and I reached up from where I knelt to take it. I paused for a long time staring down at the creased black and white, a young boy with pitch hair and eyes, not smiling. I couldn’t tell if he looked like me. I tried to hand it back but she said, “You can keep it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.” When I tucked the picture into my pocket I felt something else there, carried with me for a long time, its metal warm against my hip. “There’s something I’d like to give Frankie before I go. I believe it belongs to him anyway.” I pulled out the dogtags. “The chain was broken but I had it fixed.” I rose to my feet, the chain dangling suspended between us, and dropped it over Frankie Odom’s head. He blinked up at me with owlish surprise. The dogtags hung limp from his neck, down his stained and rumpled undershirt. He stared at me for a long, uncomprehending moment. Then he said, “You can’t let a woman run over you, son. She gets to acting up, you got to straighten her out, just like we done your mammy.” He paused, still blinking up at me. “I ain’t never told nobody what we done to her. By God, you better not either.”
LAURA
Clint’s daddy was right. He should have been born a fish. I never knowed before how Clint loved to swim because we started out so far from the lake. All summer long, he swimmed every morning before work at the grocery store. At night when his shift was done, he pulled hisself with long strokes under the moon. Once me and Clint went out to the lake and took off our clothes. We got in the water and sunk like rocks. I wasn’t scared, even though I can’t swim. My hair floated up like a sea plant. I opened my eyes and it was dim. Clint had murky light all around him. His long legs and arms waved like tentacles. I wanted to live down yonder with him forever. Finally he took my hands and we floated back up. I was sad when we broke the surface. I could tell he felt like plain old Clint again, sputtering water with his hair plastered down. I missed him when he was out swimming, but I never made any fuss about it. I knowed he needed his time in the lake, like Mama needed her time in the woods. When he was ready to come in he’d dry off and climb in our bed smelling like fish and muddy water, the smells I like best in the world.