12
My father kept farting, silent but deadly, filling the entire downstairs of What Rocks. The smell was potent, sulfurous -- so bad that I had to leave the front door open. But I wasn’t worried about the squirrel sneaking in because I knew he’d get a whiff and change his mind. He’d probably pack his squirrel things and head for the hills. And I wouldn’t blame him.
'Stop cuttin’ muffins! Pooh in the yard because that’s where you do it!”
I was in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on crackers, making lunch for my father, basking in victory: the army ants had finally been defeated; their bodies smushed along the countertop. They’d already dwindled in number-finding less and less to take away-so the decisive battle was easy. And if I hadn’t killed them, the farts would have. It was a massacre of mercy.
Cuttin’ muffins.
That’s what my father called farting.
Or air biscuits.
'In China,” he told me, 'they got a whole different understanding of things -- the louder the burp, the better the meal. And a powerful air biscuit delivered with grace will get you a free dessert. It’s almost an art form there.'
'That’s gross.”
I didn’t want to live in China.
And sometimes, when the two of us were eating together, he’d let a fart and then say, 'Jeliza-Rose, I can’t believe it. You’re cuttin’ muffins at the dining table. Man, that’s nasty.”
But it was never me. It was always him. And when I protested, he’d grin and fart again.
'Stop it!'
'Jesus christ,' he’d say, pretending to be annoyed, 'put a plug in it. I’m trying to eat.”
And the madder I got, the more amused he’d become.
'Don’t!' I’d scream, verging on tears. 'It’s you! You’re doing it!”
'Whoa, what died in here?'
He’d wave a hand in front of his nose, laughing.
But my mother hated his air biscuits. She’d storm from the kitchen and slam the bedroom door. Or she’d throw something at him, like a spoon or the TV remote control. Once, while she ate at the dining table, he ripped a loud one in the living room -- and she hit her fists on the tabletop. She just hit and hit, rattling her fork and frozen dinner and the salt-and-pepper shakers. Then she walked calmly from the room, glaring as she left, not saying a word.
And licking peanut butter off my finger-knife, I was glad my mother wasn’t at What Rocks that day. She would’ve gone crazy for sure, probably yanking his wig and bonnet, slapping him. Then she’d choke him with his ponytail, or bash his skull until it cracked. So it was good she wasn’t there, otherwise I’d be preparing lunch for her too; I’d rather smell muffins forever than do that.
'You’re a real stinker,' I told my father, 'and don’t say it’s me ‘cause it’s you. And you know it.'
His meal waited on the floor -- six crackers with peanut butter, three by the left boot, three by the right boot. But he didn’t look hungry. In fact, he looked stuffed; the tip of his tongue poked between his scarlet lips, his face was bloated, the rouge had faded some on his puffed cheeks.
'What’re you eating? You’re all big. That’s why you’re farting too. And you’re fat -- your belly is poking.'
I imagined him rising from the chair in the middle of the night -- his boots creaking on the floorboards -- and going outside to a cache of candy bars and Little Debbie Snack Cakes, his favorites.
'Daddy, you can have crackers tonight,' I said, spotting my reflection in his sunglasses. 'You don’t have to have them now if you don’t want to. But I made them for you so-”
I cupped a hand across my mouth, horrified:
The Bog Man was on the front porch; his footsteps thudded against the slats, briskly. Peeping around the chair, I glimpsed his tall figure darting by the open doorway, heard his footsteps thumping further along the porch, where they stopped abruptly outside the living room window. And then he was gazing in at me -- I almost saw him from the corner of my eyes -- but I couldn’t look.
Clutching my father’s clammy hand I yelled, 'You go away! Go! You go! Leave me alone!”
His high-pitched voice was muffled behind the panes.
'Oh no, I’m sorry, no!”
Dickens. That was his name. It was him.
'She’s isn’t here anymore, I know that,” he said, alarmed. 'I’m going. Don’t be mad, please. I’m wrong again. She’s isn’t here anymore.”
I glanced sideways, catching sight of him, shirtless and boney. And he was frightened, I could tell.
He was hugging himself.
'What do you want?'’
With the blue goggles pushed up on his forehead, he was nodding at me and my father while stepping from the win- dow. Then he turned and ran, flashing past the doorway, saying, 'I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I thought she was here!' His footsteps pounded the slats, banged the steps, and then crunched quickly through the yard.
And without thinking I tore after him.
Jumping the bottom porch step into the yard, I shouted, 'Dickens, don’t be scared! Dell is my friend! We ate a picnic too!'
He was already hurrying toward the cattle trail, glancing back every so often with a spooked expression. He moved like those athletes on TV, those Olympic walkers, the ones my father and I always laughed at -- foot in front of foot, elbows swinging out, head straight. And he couldn’t run very fast because of the flip-flop sandals clomping under his feet.
'Dickens!”
Flip-flops and green swimming trunks, skin as white as a saltine, he wasn’t scary at all.
'I’m Dell’s best friend!'
When I reached the grazing pasture, he was nowhere to be seen. He’d been right in front of me on the winding trail, but now he was gone. And so I stood where the trail ended, searching the pasture ahead, the bus, the weeds beyond.
Scotty beamed you up, I thought.
Then I caught his breathing, all congested and difficult, like his nostrils were filled with snot. He was nearby, crouching in the Johnsongrass. The goggles showed among the sorghum. And I could see his eyes, wide and alert, fixed on me.
'Come out,” I said, parting the grass. 'I see you.”
Dickens shook. His knees were at his chin, and he stared down at his flip-flops with embarrassment. He smacked his lips but said nothing.
'I know who you are.”
His head tilted slightly up.
'If I run too fast,' he said quietly, out of breath, 'I faint like a girl.'
He had a small boy’s voice and face, an old man’s body.
'I’m a girl,” I told him, 'and I don’t faint like a girl.”
'Oh,” he said, 'I guess you’re different.”
'I think so,” I said. 'I’m Jeliza-Rose. My daddy wrote a song about me because I’m special.'
The sorghum enclosed us as I squatted before him, bringing my knees under my chin. I was on safari in the jungle. And Dickens was an African scout, an albino. Deeper in the Johnsongrass lurked tigers and lions.
He closed an eye, touched the goggles on his forehead. 'How come you know my name?”
'That’s ‘cause Dell told me. She’s my best friend.'
'She’s my sister,' he said. 'You’re the vandal. You’re the What Rocks baby, she said that.”
'Tell me about it. And I thought she was the ghost, and I thought you were the Bog l/Ian. I thought you were him until I saw you.”
'No, I’m not that man. I don’t even know what that man is.”
