“I dug there once,” says Walker, pointing back at the tunnel. “I dug and grouted in that place.”
* * *
He cleans the cut at the side of her eye meticulously, dabbing the bandanna in the boiling water, twirling the cloth’s edge, rinsing it out in the pan until, even in the half-light, he can see that the water has turned red. What was she like as a child when the water was iron-colored and warm? Did her father take her down to the swings to play? Did she sit in the backseat of the car with her arms folded in her lap? Did she ever think there was somewhere darker than even an Iowa cornfield at night? And what sort of map could he make of her flesh if he used the tiniest of little scales and became a cartographer of the corpuscles there in the little rim of violence at her eye?
He can feel Angela’s breath at his neck as he touches the wound. Across the tunnel the morning rays shine through — light enough now for Elijah to come calling. He should have buried the spud wrench down Elijah’s throat; he should have hit him harder, like his own father did, his unknown father who buried that cop and that car mechanic. For a moment a vision flits across Treefrog’s mind and he sees a shovel handle get buried deep into a white man’s head. His father winks at him and says, It’s all right, son, I hit a homer.
Treefrog wets the clean end of the bandanna with his tongue. If he had some gin he could sterilize the cut, but no matter, it will heal soon. He folds the bandanna into a square and gently presses the cloth against the side of her cheek. Leaning across, he kisses the top of her forehead. She says to him, “You stink, man.”
“Go to sleep,” he says.
Treefrog pulls the zip of the sleeping bag, grabs a couple of blankets, and moves back to his chair. He removes the pot of bloodwater from the fire pit. As the flames jump, he warms his hands, thinks about the harmonica, but Angela’s eyes are fluttering and soon she will be off to sleep.
Tightening the blankets around himself, he lets the fire die down and listens in the silence for Castor. Angela turns a little in the sleeping bag, her lips touching against the pillow. He smiles and echoes her: “You stink, man.” Sometimes, when he lay in bed next to Dancesca, she would smell the sweat from the construction site even after he showered. She would toss away from him and say, “Traffic violation!” “Huh?” he’d ask. “Parking ticket!” “Huh?” “You smell, Clar.” “Oh.” And he would rise to bathe again, shave himself close, splash cologne around his cheeks, get back in bed, and snuggle close to her. She had grown thinner since they married. He missed the bigness, the ample bosom, but he didn’t mention it to her; he sometimes even carried the idea with pride — while other men’s wives fleshed out and away, she came in toward him.
She went with him once to Houston where he was working on a skyscraper with his crew. Lenora was left with Dancesca’s family. It was Dancesca’s first time on a plane; she loved the thin red straws in the drinks. She collected seven of them — one for each of Lenora’s years. The Texas heat was oppressive even in winter, and it weighed down on them. After a day’s work they mostly stayed in the hotel room — the good times, the best of times. The air conditioner hummed. Dancesca was fascinated by the tiny bottles of shampoo in the bathroom. The plastic glasses were sealed in Saran wrap on the bedside table and they stayed unopened. Dancesca and Clarence Nathan poured gin straight into each other’s mouths. She loved to let ice cubes melt on her belly. They wanted to send a telegram to Walker but could think of nothing to say except, “We’re in the Lone Star State.”
In a suburban bar one night, he, Dancesca, and Cricket sat drinking cocktails. The music was loud. Alcohol thumped in them. There were some oil riggers sitting at a nearby table. Cricket challenged them to walk the roof of the bar — it was, Cricket said, a question of balance. The bet was for one hundred dollars. Everyone stepped out into the night. The building was a two-story affair with a roof shaped a sharp inverted V. He and Cricket walked with their eyes closed. The nervous oil riggers stumbled behind, amazed. Back inside, he and Cricket collected their winnings, drank shots together, slapped each other’s backs. Suddenly a pool cue smashed down on the back of Clarence Nathan’s head. He fell to the floor, tried to get up, slipped in his own blood. Dancesca screamed. Cricket was set upon by a group of four. A knife slashed hotly across Clarence Nathan’s chest. He was taken to the hospital. His first scar. Dancesca stayed at his bedside and for months afterward — when they got home to New York — she attended to him with a special poultice smeared lovingly across his chest. She would rub the yellow paste over his chest, and then her fingers would meander lower to where they would pause in their ecstasy.
He opens his eyes and looks at Angela as she sleeps.
Tenderly, Treefrog touches the side of her eye where blood still oozes from the cut. He cleans it once more and then retreats back into his own pungent darkness. He blows on the fire to rekindle it. Only a small amount of rice and some cat food in the Gulag. He takes out the rice, apportions it in a cup, washes out the saucepan, and wipes it with the flap of his second shirt, the cleanest one. He stirs the rice with his finger, waits for it to cook, and then wakes Angela with a kiss to her cheek. She eats hungrily and, when finished, says, “What’re we gonna do, Treefy?”
Treefrog looks at her and shrugs.
She reaches down into her coat pocket and unfolds the piece of graph paper he has drawn of her face, and she looks at it, touches her cheek, and says, “I bet them mountains is even bigger now.”
“I could make a map of you without any bruises,” he says.
“Why d’ya make maps, man?” she asks.
“I make maps of everywhere. I even make maps of my nest.”
“Why?”
“In case God comes calling.”
“What?”
“So He can follow the contours all the way back here.”
“You a Jesus jumper or something?”
“No. It’s just so He can find me.”
She turns in the sleeping bag and sighs. “You’re weird.” Touching her loose tooth, she bites the top of a long thumbnail off with the other front tooth. She uses the slice of nail to pick out the remaining plaque in her lower teeth. “I used to have the nicest teeth,” she says. “Everyone said I had the nicest teeth.”
“You still got nice teeth.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I ain’t lying.”
He watches her through the candlelight as she spits the slice of thumbnail away. “Treefy?” she says. “I’m thirsty. I wanna get some candy.”
And all at once Treefrog knows that this will not last, that soon she will be gone, that she will not remain in his nest, that there is nothing he can do about it; she will leave as quickly as she came. Knees to his chest, he pulls the blankets tight, feels the dull thump of his heart along his kneecap. His liver gives out gentle jabs of pain. He asks her for a cigarette and she rumbles in her handbag, comes up empty-handed.
“Shit,” she says. “I’m gonna go see Elijah.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Blue washcloth,” he says.
They remain in silence for almost an hour, and he wonders if perhaps they will remain like this forever. Maybe someone will come down and find their bones, bleached high in his nest. If he had a clock he could put a value on all this silence. One cent for every twenty minutes. Three cents an hour. Seventy-two cents for a day. He could be a millionaire by the end of his life. He rocks the chair from side to side and flicks a long hair out of his eyes.
But suddenly he sits up and claps his hands together, reaches down into his pocket, and takes out his Swiss Army knife.