The basement was filled with tar.
It looked like two pages of a book, with a wad of black chewing gum squished between and stretched out as the book came open. Jump-rope-thick strands of tar stretched from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, casting shadows as black as itself. The strands twitched now and then, and before long, Shelly’s eye was drawn to the likely cause of that twitching — two shapes suspended in the middle.
Her brother Blaine and the tar baby were locked together there, hanging about five feet off the cement floor, directly over the floor drain, and the now-empty washbasin the tar baby had come in.
The tar baby had come in the washbasin, but Shelly figured it would never leave in it. The tar baby had stretched and fattened to the point where it was almost as big as Blaine; bigger, she realized with a chill, than she was. Its legs were wrapped around Blaine’s waist, and its arms, long and spindly, hugged Blaine around the chest. Its head — once the size of a softball, now about as big as the Nerf football Blaine kept on his desk upstairs — pressed against Blaine’s cheek.
Blaine struggled to look up the stairs at her. His face was blackened with tar, and as he moved, one of the tar baby’s hands slithered up his neck, to the back of his scalp. His eyes screwed shut and he sobbed, as the hand fell away again, pulling a small clump of tarry hair out with it.
“Oh, Blaine.”
Shelly whispered it — she was pretty sure Blaine couldn’t hear her she was talking so quiet, but it seemed as though the tar baby could. Its head fell back from Blaine, like it had from Mom earlier in the night, and it cricked back on its skinny neck, so it was looking straight at Shelly. Last time she’d seen it, the tar baby seemed to open its mouth. Now, there was no doubt about it: the cut in the tar of its chin was fully formed, into a jagged grin like a jack-o-lantern.
“I’m sorry, Shelly. I’m sorry, Shelly. I’m sorry, Shelly.” Blaine’s eyes were still closed, and his voice was strangled with tears now as he repeated the apology again and again. It was like he was apologizing for every shitty Shelly he’d said upstairs. As Shelly thought about it, she started to feel the heat of anger come up in her again.
“Do you mean it?” she said, her voice low.
“I’m sorry, Shelly.”
One of the tar baby’s arms unfastened itself from Blaine, and the creature started to dangle. There was a sucking sound, as a strand of tar snapped away from Blaine’s ankle, and he kicked his foot free of the other two still there.
“Do you really mean it? Or are you just saying nice to get in my good books? So I’ll help you down?”
“Dad was right,” said Blaine. The tears had stopped, and he was able to look at Shelly with a directness that made her want to cringe. There was a twang, and a couple of strands came loose of his shoulder, even as the tar baby’s legs started to unwrap from around his waist. “We got to be better to each other.”
Dad was right. Shelly felt her own anger melt away at that. Mom may not have understood, but at least Blaine did.
“Dad was right,” she said. “That’s right — teamwork.”
“What?”
“Something Dad said,” said Shelly.
Gingerly, avoiding the strings of tar along the way, Shelly made her way down the rest of the stairs to where Blaine still dangled. She held the tea-towel under her arm, and unscrewed the top of the turpentine, and soaked a corner of the towel with it. The tar baby’s free arm dangled gnarly fingers near her cheek, but Shelly pulled away and the tar baby didn’t follow. She handed the towel up to Blaine, making herself think kind thoughts.
“I hope you learned your lesson,” she said, as Blaine touched the turpentine to the tar baby’s other hand. Shelly stepped back as that arm came free. The tar baby was completely disentangled from Blaine, but it didn’t fall to the ground — as it came free it swung up among the tar strands nearer the ceiling — like a big, sticky spider, in a web spun of its own substance.
Blaine fell to the floor as he came loose of that web — and it seemed as though he landed all right. But he winced as he stood, and his legs trembled under him.
“Dad was right,” he said. “I wanted to hit you upstairs, and when I went to, I took a swing — and then I was down here! Hitting the tar baby, getting all stuck up like Mom.”
Shelly nodded. “That’s how it worked for Mr. Baldwin at prison, I bet,” she said. “The tar baby smells the mad, and it doesn’t matter who it’s directed at; it draws the mad to itself.”
“So why didn’t you wind up down here? When you kicked the bed?”
Shelly thought about that. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. “I just wanted you to quit it — I didn’t think you’d hit your head.”
Blaine looked down. He really was a sad mess, Shelly thought — hair all black and sticky, and his pyjamas just as bad. And he looked weaker, too — the tar baby had taken it out of him, like it had from Mom. The only reason he was standing, Shelly thought, was because maybe Blaine had had more in him to begin with. “I guess it was because I wanted to hurt you then.”
“I guess that’s how it works,” said Shelly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Stop apologizing.”
“Okay.” Blaine started scrubbing at himself, but it was clear even with the turpentine, it was going to be a harder job than he had the strength for right now.
“Come on,” said Shelly — and she took his arm, sticky as it was. They started up the stairs together.
“What in fuck you get into, kid?”
Mark Hollins was sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of bourbon open and half empty in front of him, when they came out of the door. The sleeves of his denim jacket were rolled up, and Shelly could see a dark green shape that had been tattooed underneath the thick black hair on his forearm. There was no telling what it represented. Dad sat across the table from Mark Hollins, and there was a paper bag on the table between them.
Dad didn’t even look back.
“Don’t curse in front of the children,” said Dad.
“Ah, fuck you,” said Mark Hollins. “Gonna learn it somewhere.”
Now Dad did turn around, and he looked Blaine up and down. He nodded slowly.
“Learn your lesson, son?” Dad was smiling ever so slightly.
“Yes, sir,” said Blaine.
“Good. Take that turpentine upstairs to the bathroom, and start washing yourself. I’ll be up to help in a minute.”
Mark Hollins finished a long pull from his bottle, and slammed it down again onto the tabletop. He spoke directly to Blaine.
“You take your time, son. Your daddy and me got some business.”
As Mark Hollins spoke, Shelly saw Dad reach up and put his hand on the paper bag. Mark Hollins saw it too, because his eyes darted immediately to Dad’s hands. They had that same discouraging look to them they had when he’d smiled at Shelly, and now even the smile was gone.
“Ah, shit, Scott — don’t try this crap on me. We’re splitting it like always.”
“No,” said Dad, his voice as level and calm as could be, “not like always. Not like when I did time for you. I’m keeping all the cash. And the truck. You owe me.”
Shelly felt Blaine’s hand on her shoulder — he was squeezing too tight, but she could tell he wasn’t trying to hurt her. He was just scared — like she was starting to get. She was piecing things together, or maybe just admitting things to herself: like, where did that truck come from? Dad didn’t even have a valid driver’s license anymore, and the family hadn’t owned a car for years. And cash? She wondered if the cash was in that bag on the table; and if so, just how they’d managed to get it.