"Where's your boy?"
David Allen poked his head out of the kitchen. "He lives with his grandparents in Farberville. Mustard or mayonnaise?"
"Both," Hammet said decisively, since he wasn't sure what either was. He recommenced to wandering. "Whose toys are these?"
"Mine."
"What does you do with them?"
"I launch them into the air, then try very hard to find them when they come down. Then I glue them back together and launch them again."
"Iffen you don't want to bust them, why do you launch them in the first place? Why not jest leave them on the shelf?"
David Allen stopped spreading mustard. "A good question. I enjoy the launch, and I have a radio thing to help me track them when they crash. It's sort of exciting…I guess."
"Mebbe if you was a kid," Hammet said, dismissing the crazy notion. "What happened to your little boy's mama? Was she kilt too? How come he don't live with you no more?"
"Because he needed a mother to take care of him, and the best I could do was a grandmother. He also needs to live near a doctor. As for his mother, she died from a nasty disease."
"My ma was kilt by a bear. She damn near kilt him first, but the ole thing was bigger than the broadside of a barn, and he had teeth sharp as knives, and big, long claws that could rip out your guts," Hammet said, proud of the way his ma'd tried to fight off the bear. "She din't die of some dumb disease."
David Allen came into the living room and put a plate on the coffee table. "It would be more exciting if a bear attacked your mother, wouldn't it?" (Techniques for Today's Intervention Therapy, Chapter Three: "Denial as an Expression of Grief.") "But you and I both heard Arly say that your mother was killed in a hunting accident, didn't we?"
Hammet hadn't studied the technique in effect. "Yeah, she said that 'cause she thought it'd make me feel better than iffen she described how my ma's guts was all ripped into tatters by a fuckin' bear. There was most likely blood splattered up in the trees to the top branch. Arly probably had to look all over the place to find my ma's arms and legs-or what was left of 'em. Why, little Sissy'd start bawling and keening and carryin' on if we told her that." He snatched up the sandwich and jammed it in his mouth, regretting the reference to his sibling. He sure din't want to remind David Allen they wasn't doing what Arly'd told 'em to do.
"As soon as you're finished, we're going. We are not going to relate this wild story about the bear; instead, we're going to say as little as possible. Right, partner?" (Ibid., Chapter Six: "Eliciting Cooperation from the Client.")
"You know," Hammet said through a mouthful of sandwich, "You could have your little boy here with you if you was to get married. You already knows how to be a parent and make little boys take baths and all that crap. All you need is a woman to be his ma. She doesn't have to know much about doin' it."
"That's a possibility, I suppose. You don't happen to have anyone in mind, do you?"
"Guess your little boy's right sad that he don't have any siblings." Hammet let out a lengthy sigh of despair over the plight of the siblingless boy. "He don't have nobody to play with or to punch in the mouth when he gets all riled. I bet he has to sleep by hisself in his bed, and gets colder than a widder woman's feet. He most likely-"
"He has several friends in the neighborhood," David Allen cut in, "and he doesn't mind being an only child."
"Only a child? If he's littler than me, he's got to be only a child. How old do you reckon I am?"
"Old enough to know what went on at the cabin," David Allen said, opting for a diversion. "Old enough to recognize the men who visited your mother on occasion, and old enough to tell me about them. I almost laughed when Arly suggested I talk to Bubba, simply because he's the oldest. Anyone with the sense God gave a goose can see that you're the smartest."
Hammet had that much sense, if not more. He figgered if he admitted he could recognize his ma's visitors, he might well find himself having to go live with one of the sumbitches. Instead of comin' up with a lie, he clutched his belly and doubled over, howling like a January wind coming through one of the cracks in the cabin. It ended the conversation, at least for the moment.
10
"And if you don't mend your ways, why-you'll all spend eternity in the blazing fires of hell," Mrs. Jim Bob concluded in a pious spray of spittle. Steeling herself to be charitable about the big rip in the upholstery of her sofa, she folded her hands in her lap and gazed at the nearest Buchanon bastard, who happened to be Sissie. "Now, just what do you who have to say for yourself?"
"How do I know you ain't lying?"
"Because, young lady, I am a God-fearing Christian woman who was brought up to tell the truth if I didn't want to be beaten on the buttocks by my father's leather strap. I was not reared in some filthy pigsty by a woman with no morals or sense of decency. And now that's she dead and burning forever in the fiery furnace of damnation, you'd better heed what all I say to you." She turned to stare at Bubba, who held a sniveling Sukie on his lap. "And as for you, young man, you're likely to spend your life on this earth in a rat-infested prison cell if you don't mend your ways, not to mention enduring ever-lasting torment after you die some terrible death."
"Big fuckin' deal," Bubba said. "I still think you're a-lyin' about what happened to Her. We don't have to pay any mind to what lies you tell us, or listen to all this shit about devils and fires and furnaces." He pushed Sukie off his lap and stood up. "Come on, y'all. We're gittin' out of here. This holyfied lady's jest tryin' to bumfuzzle us."
Mrs. Jim Bob resisted an urge to smack the smirk off his face, because that wouldn't be charitable in his hour of grief. "If you don't believe me, I'll call Brother Verber to come over here and tell you all the details of how you'll burn in hell until you look worse than a charred marshmallow. But let me point out that you were brought here by the police, which means you're arrested and in my custody. For another thing, you don't have anywhere to go. Your mother is dead, and there's no one in this entire world who has one whit of concern about any of you. If you had any sense at all, you'd drop to your knees and beg my forgiveness for all the wretched, horrible sins you've committed against me, right here in my own home. I'm liable to throw you out myself, and let you sit in the cold night until you all starve to death."
Sissie looked at her brother. "Do you think Her is really dead? Iffen she is, we hafta do something."
Sukie got up off the floor and stuck a finger in her mouth. "Where's Hammet?" she whined, as saliva dribbled down her wrist like a brown crayon mark.
Mrs. Jim Bob stopped being righteous long enough to run a head count. "Where is that little heathen? Did he have the nerve to leave my house without asking permission?"
"You was upstairs," Bubba said. "He'll come back when he's a mind to." He wrinkled his brow for a minute, then frowned at Sissie. "Where the fuck is Baby? You was supposed to watch out for him, and I don't recollect hearing him howl for a long while. I ought to whup you up the side of the head for losing Baby."
He took a step toward her, his hand raised. Shrieking, Sissie dashed behind the sofa and lit out for the kitchen. Sukie began to moan and hiccup, sending more rivulets of brown down her arm to collect on her elbow. Bubba yelled at Sissie to get her ass back afore he kicked it across the county. Sissie yelled that he was gonna be shit-faced sorry, 'cause she was coming back with a goddamn butcher knife to carve out his heart and feed it to the hawgs. Bubba began to stalk toward the kitchen as he loudly opined that she had a fat chance of doin' that.