‘Use your head,’ he said. ‘We pull up here in a big, dust-covered Buick. We say we’re on our way to Florida. If we were going from Macon to Florida, we’d be nowheres near this place. We’d be on Route 16, going over to 95. Or going straight south on 75, and then cutting over to 95 at Orlando. Listen, that lady’s no idiot. She knows we’re running and need a place to hole up for a while.’
‘Then why — ‘ I began.
‘Needs the money!’ he said, shrugging. ‘Wants the company. Whatever. When she was looking at me, it was nip-and-tuck; she knew but couldn’t decide. Finally she figured we were good for the green and wouldn’t cop her knitting needles. But that’s why she’s clipping us ten each per day. I’ll bet her regular rate is five.’
‘She won’t talk?’ Fleming asked nervously.
‘Nah,’ Donohue said. ‘It’s no skin off her nose who we are or what we done. If we behave ourselves she’ll keep her mouth shut. Most of the folks around here are like that; they mind their own business. It’s some of the white trash in town who’ll sell us out. But not Mrs Pearl Sniffins. She’s a lady, she’s seen a lot, and there’s no way you can surprise, shock, or scare her. Hey, listen, let’s take a look around this place. The land’s hers, but she’s got tenant farmers. She says it’s mostly peanuts and corn. Some okra. And she’s got a mud crick back aways. That I gotta see. Let’s go.’
As we walked slowly across the stubbled fields, it seemed to me that day was so splendid that we would live forever. A fulgent sun filled a blue, blue sky, and even that hardscrabble land took on a warmth and glow that made me want to lie down naked in the dust and roll about. I began to understand why people might choose to live in such a bleak landscape — for days like that one, when the sun seemed created for that plot alone, coming low to bless, the firmament serene, the air as piercing as ether, the whole universe closed in and secret.
We paused in the middle of an empty field, swallowed in silence. We followed Jack’s pointing finger and there, high up, saw a black thing no more than a scimitar, wheeling and soaring.
‘Chicken hawk,’ Donohue said somberly. ‘Big bastard.’
We watched that dark blade cut through the azure. Then it came between us and the sun and was lost.
‘See that line of trees?’ Jack said. ‘That’s gotta be the crick. We’ll just go that far. How’s the ankle, Dick?’
‘I’ll live,’ Fleming said. ‘If there’s a drugstore in town I’ll pick up an elastic bandage.’
‘If not,’ Jack said, ‘Mrs Pearl will wrap it in rags for you. These country women can doctor anything from an ass boil to a mule down with colic.’
I’ve seen bigger creeks than that after a water main break in Manhattan. But Donohue was enchanted with it and we humored him. It was a muddy stream, no more than twenty feet across, and looked to be about waist- deep.
‘Smell that?’ Jack demanded. ‘Catfish in there — I’ll bet on it.’
‘Where does it go?’ I asked him. ‘I mean, does it run into a deeper river?’
‘Who the hell knows? The Oconee maybe, but 1 doubt it. Probably just pisses out in a field somewheres and disappears. Most of them do.’ He looked around. Not a soul in sight. Not a sound. He began to unbutton his shirt. ‘I’m going in,’ he said.
‘In that?’ I said, astonished. ‘It’s a mudpuddle.’
‘So?’ he said, continuing to undress. ‘It’s wet and it’s cool. Used to be a crick just like this where we lived when I was a tad. A big old hickory hung over from the bank. My pappy rigged up a rope and an old tire so we could swing out and drop off. Jesus, those days!’
Dick Fleming looked at me doubtfully, then sat down on the dirt bank and began to pull off shoes and socks. I sat down too, lighted a cigarette, watched the two men undress and wade, white-bodied, into the shallow stream.
They plunged and began to shout, laugh, splash, dunk each other. They floated awhile, then leaped up into the air, glistening, and then slipped below the surface again. I watched them awhile, smiling. Then I ground out my cigarette, kicked off my shoes. I rose, stripped down. Took off my wig. Waded cautiously into the muddy water. It was colder than I expected. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and belly-flopped in.
I think we spent about a half-hour in that shallow stream. I never knew muddy water could wash you clean, but that creek did. Washed away fears and tensions, terrors and regrets. We played with each other, then lay side by side, drying on the dirt bank. I wanted the moment never to end. Thought was lost, thankfully, and all I could do was feel the hot sun on my bleached skin, feel a finger-touch breeze, feel the closeness and the intimacy. No one spoke.
After a while we rose, brushed ourselves off as best we could, dressed, and went struggling back across those shaved fields, still in silence. We heard Mrs Pearl moving about in the kitchen, and Donohue called to tell her we were back. She didn’t reply.
We trudged upstairs, all of us weary with a divine, sunbaked tiredness. We took turns in the big bathroom, showering away the dust and the sun-sting.
Then we went back into the big bedroom, locked the door. Got out a quart of vodka and drank it warm, passing around the big bottle like a loving cup. Then we all, the three of us, threw back the patchwork quilt and the top sheet (unbleached muslin, many times laundered) and got into bed together.
It wasn’t the sex, but it was. What I mean is that it just wasn’t randiness that drove us together. It was sweet, loving intimacy. We had been through so much, shared so much. And perhaps we were all frightened; there was that, too. Whatever it was, we huddled, and were kind, solicitous, and tender with each other.
I think that’s what I remember most — the tenderness. We comforted each other. I make no apology for having sex with two men at the same time; it was a delight. There was nothing vile, sweaty, or grunted about it.
I think, after a while, we all slept for an hour or two. When we awoke, in a tangle of limbs, the room had cooled, and darkness was outside. We hadn’t banished that.
That night we drove into town for dinner. We knew where we were going; as Mrs Pearl had said, in Whittier, it’s Hoxey’s or nuthin’.’
Hoxey’s looked like it had been designed by the same benighted genius responsible for the Game Cock. It had identical scarred wood floor, bar, tables, booths, kitchen in the rear, raucous jukebox, and glittering cigarette machine. Even the odor was similar, although now the grease had a fried chicken flavor. In addition, Hoxey’s had a pool table off to one side and a table shuffleboard up near the bar.
Just as at the Game Cock, conversation temporarily ceased and heads turned as we walked in. But things got back to normal when we slid into a booth, and the waitress came over to take our order. She was an older and plumper version of the Game Cock’s houri, and looked a lot jollier.
‘Evenin’ folks,’ she beamed. ‘My name’s Rose. You drinkin’, eatin’, or both?’
‘Both,’ Donohue said. ‘We’ll have vodka on ice to cut the dust. Then we’ll take a look at the menu, if you got one.’
‘Sure, we got one,’ she said. ‘Whaddya think, this is some kind of a dump? Don’t answer that question!’
She left us three sheets of dog-eared paper, spotted with grease, that looked like they had been ripped from a memo pad. Each sheet was headed, in longhand: ‘Hoxey’s: Where the Elite Meet to Eat.’ The menu read: ‘Soup. Bread and but.’ Then it listed the entrees, followed by: ‘Pots and vegs. Ice cream or Jello. Coffee.’ Across the bottom was a stern admonition: ‘Don’t take this menu for a suvenire.’
‘Too bad,’ I said. ‘I wanted it for my Memory Album.’
‘Sounds like a real banquet,’ Dick Fleming said. ‘Should we start at the top and work our way down; a different entree every day? If we stay around here more than six days, we’re in trouble.’
Rose came back with our drinks and a bowl of peanuts in the shell.
‘Just throw the shells on the floor, folks,’ she advised us breezily. ‘Keeps out the termites. You decided yet?’
‘What’re catfish balls?’ I asked, consulting my scrap of a menu.
‘Delicious,’ Donohue told me. ‘And very hard to find. They can only get them from the male catfish, y’see.’
‘Oh,
‘What’s the soup?’ Dick asked.
