Drink For The Thirst To Come Part 22

"Gas is there, son." Earl pointed to the drum. It sat where it had yesterday and for fifty years, on its stone base. "Hep yourselves. Day-after holiday special!" He felt a needle-sting as a hungry mouth nibbled his nose. He swatted the bite and left a smear of blood inside the plastic suit. "Fill 'er up!" he yelled and couldn't help laughing at the thought.

He laughed again.

The family danced inside the dying car. They shouted at him, themselves, the world. What was going on, being decided behind those tent flaps? Who'd sacrifice? "That's it," he said aloud to himself. "Bet you're figuring, 'Now how far can we get on this tank and no tires?' or thinking, 'How much gas can I dip till they eat me to the knees?'"

He didn't figure the man with the pretty nails to give himself for eating. The woman? Not likely. "Send the boy!" Earl yelled. He was wondering how d.a.m.n desperate the folks were.

He stood to watch.

Earlier, he calculated why he was uneaten.

Back in the Great Depression, he'd built this shack just right, kept his sill beams off the ground on stacks of flat rocks, old granite. Even so, the sand was eating the cabin now. He couldn't miss that. It was at the wood. He heard. The mouths were at rest now, but when wind stirred, sand flew. Where each grain nested on something living or once alive-log, blade of gra.s.s, or critter-the sand ate; it ate and didn't fill. A grain here, a grain there, it nibbled, gobbled, roof, wall, floor and, sooner or later...

He wrote down: Nik, nik, nik a billyun times all ready. Billyuns to go before.

Earl watched through the day. When the sun sat on the western sawtooth ridge of trees, the sand began to stir again. Waking for nite, he wrote. The frozen wave began to murmur.

Not a bird, a bee, nor critter moved that Earl could see, just the ground itself, crawling on its mouths. Earl dozed, downing Jim Beam to kill the pain. His eye, his nose, his head. He slept not well, but hard. He woke alone. Dog gone, he wrote. Then laughed.

Brick shoes were smart, he reckoned. Keeping wind-drift sand off his floor, out of the way, became impossible. Too much, too d.a.m.n much wind and the sand, too small, too much. The plastic tarp he wrapped himself in got worn as he walked. Some of the mouths wriggled in. When they came, they ate. Nik-nik-nik at his shoes. Finally, he put something between him and the floor. Something sand didn't eat. Brick, he figured, brick would work. Knocked a couple off the base of his kerosene heater. That was that. Fine as frog fur.

From then to the end of the world, Earl clumped, thud, thud, thud. Made him laugh.

In sundown light, Earl kept watch from his porch. The d.a.m.n folk never drove off. Never tried. No one tried to fill the tank. They sat, revving now and then. Now and then the inside screamed. Sometimes the screams were at him. Every so often the car shimmied, someone inside dancing, fighting, humping.

Sundown, the car went still. The engine chugged through last light. When the crawl of shadows touched it, it coughed twice, raced again, then shuddered still.

Earl listened. A voice inside. One. Crying.

Earl took a last sip of Beam. "Go on home, now," he told the bottle and tossed it. Not light enough now to see, but he heard the whisper of the sand, the urgent chatter of the gla.s.s as it shivered into a billion parts, the parts making friends with the sand.

The voice from the car still cried. An hour after dark, it screamed. The scream lasted a minute, two. Maybe three; Earl's clock had stopped. Then the car went quiet.

Later, he gave attention to the trees, their noises as they fell. After he was gone, Earl figured, pretty soon after, he figured, the trees would be gone too. f.u.c.k 'em, he figured. d.a.m.n trees. All his life. The mother of splinters, burns and broken chairs. Tried to put his eyes out, to trip him all the years of wandering the forest, wanted to crush him when he felled them. Trees might outlive him now, but not by much G.o.dd.a.m.n them.

Gra.s.s and cranberry, sphagnum moss and fern, other living s.h.i.t, they'd all go down the mouths.

f.u.c.k trees and the horse they rode in on, he wrote down. Almost the last thing.

For a second he thought about being proper buried. Then he laughed. World swallows you anyway. Might as well lik this, he wrote.

That was the last.

The wind freshened, blew through the empty windows. Earl looked up. The grains scoured the wood. Nik, nik, nik. Earl gathered the plastic tarp around him. Keep them out long as he could. He looked to the noise above, the roof beams crackling like small arms fire. Pieces of rafter fell, dissolving as they dropped. Through the holes, the stars shone bright.

At last, he pictured the world, the whole d.a.m.n thing spread below. Like he was one of them astronauts, a real for Christ sake traveler in the outer s.p.a.ce. He and the sand were real astronauts. In his mind's eye Earl saw the world. He looked down on it like the papers said the astronauts in s.p.a.ce had done. Ha, ha. In his mind's eye Earl watched Earth shrivel, all the living, all that was growing green and climbing, all critters, people. He watched it shiver and go down, rolling in sand like that dumb young dog. He watched it all go down the tiny mouths. How many grains of sand was there? All around the world, how many tiny mouths?

From where Earl stood-wrapped in plastic, tethered to his shack, peering through his goggles, breathing slow-his mind's eye saw the world reshape and flatten... in his mind's eye, looking down.

d.a.m.nation. He hoped that would be the way. Everyone gone when he was gone. Buster Leek. Cap Hainey, the pickers in the harvest. Folks in Filthydelphia. Folk everywhere. All gone soon after him he hoped.

When it came, the pain was pure lousy. Soon it ended. In just a minute. Maybe two.

JEREMY TAKES HIS TEXT FROM THE LIVES OF THE SPIDERS.

The door shoved Robideaux back inside where was whiskey warmth. Blues, like a bad tooth, shook his soul; the pretty noise made him wish, save-me-Lord, for a night of temptation not resisted. Still, Robideaux shoved back. On the street, cold, night, and sleet drove him against that fearsome door. Drunk out again, he figured. Who care?

Preach' Robideaux, jangling among the lowdown dives of wherever this sure'nough town was. Somewhere lights burned bright. Not here. Somewhere his barge rode Mississippi swells, tied, tight, and taking on. Amen to all that till morning. Robideaux, nothing to do except make his witness to the bottle and the bottle's folk-Lord's work. Amen to that too. Preach' Robideaux, taking his text from the lives of working folk, talking the Lord and drinking long, showing himself no better than they, no sir, none.

Guitar Blues behind him died. Whispering sleet shivered Robideaux. Looking, he could not certify his way to the tow. He sucked night, drew creosote and old oil from the railhead across the way. The river'd be a silence on one corner of his compa.s.s. He turned, turned around and around. From the hiss and chill, a sliver of warmth oozed from the south. Robideaux licked his lips. Head, like radar, top of Cap'n StDenis's bridge, turned that...

...way, and...

...there was the guy. Death for sure.

"Evening, sir," said Robideaux.

"Whoo-eee," said Red-eyed Death, chattering, about to fall, guitar sack slung on one shoulder. Dead eyes leaned close, went wide. The dead mouth worked pale gums. The eyes leaped Robideaux like wolf spiders, swallowed, ate his head, his whole self, and Robideaux figured...

Bad ride, Jeremy figured. The world couldn't shake so, f.u.c.k no.

He opened the eyes. Dark poured in. He took a breath. The world stunk like something for sure gonna blow the f.u.c.k up: diesel fuel, gasoline. Smell made his lips go dry, his tongue tasted... The tongue was named Robideaux. He remembered that. So was the rest of him, Robideaux too. Robideaux was wrapped in a greasy sheet and scratchy blanket and there was, f.u.c.k, what? A push from behind, a load of power making the whole d.a.m.n place go rumbling somewhere Jeremy didn't know where. His teeth chattered. Robideaux's teeth. How the f.u.c.k he sleep through that? He did not, purely did not know, but sure enough, everything moved, Robideaux, the bed he was on, the room he was in. First f.u.c.king impressions.

Through Robideaux's eyes, dark gave way to dirty light. Crusted windows, other bunks stacked along the wall, mess everywhere. Another stink lay inside the ga.s.sy reek, a stink of bodies, sweat, unwashed clothes. n.o.body in those clothes. No, he was alone. He was it. What the f.u.c.k?

Second thoughts.

Number three was "Where the Old Lady?" He groped floor by the bunk and there she was, dear old thing. The guitar lay safe, her bag wrapped around, soft rope held her snug, the rope Jeremy slung over whosoever's shoulder he had at whatever time. Jeremy had walked earth with that guitar, the last, what, hundred-some years? Long for a Traveler to carry any one d.a.m.n thing. Travelers took whatever body, left what was left behind.

That, f.u.c.k him Jesus, was the extent of his f.u.c.king memory, G.o.d be praised. That, and he knew how to play her, that old she-box of a wood guitar. He knew that fact all the way to Robideaux's b.a.l.l.s. Another couple seconds and he had the guitar out of her sack, hugged to this belly and cheek. He touched up her strings, made her quiver so-pretty. He whispered with her for a little. By and by she reminded him where was this dirty thumping room and who was this Robideaux he's walking 'round, traveling inside.

Jeremy remembered, finally, a bar, a bar someplace. He remembered this Robideaux, a rouster, a rouster in a bar. A bar where? Bar in Cairo. Say it right, like they say: KAY-ro. Cairo, what? Cairo, Illinois. f.u.c.k yeah. Felt more better now he's talking through the old girl; guitar made him easy.

And where they were, was in some boat, some big boat.

Robideaux's voice sat by Jeremy's heart. It said, "The Lord defend." A whimper. "I take my text from the lives of the saints and dem marted souls."

"Shut the f.u.c.k up," Jeremy said with Robideaux's mouth. Baritone. "Hhmmmmm," he hummed. "Nice," he said. He touched greasy linoleum with Robideaux's bare feet. A throb climbed the legs, settled in the b.a.l.l.s.

RmmmmHmmmHmmmHmmm, the throb said. Big. The tow, the boat, was talking. That's where they at: on the tow. Robideaux, Jeremy aboard, barging on the Mississippi.

Traveling, his Jeremy brain said...

"...home," Robideaux's body said.

RmmmHmmmHmmm, the room said. Two thousand horses of Cadillac Marine shoving downwater. Where to?

Robideaux knew.

Christ All the Mighty, they're going home to the Easy. New Oy-uns and Fat Tuesday coming sure.

RmmmHmmmmHmmm, Engine growled, quivered his d.i.c.k, Cadillac engine, stuff of song. Jeremy sang, "Cadillac's drivin' deep waterdown... shovin' long twa'ed Easy Town..."

"f.u.c.k your saints," Jeremy said to Robideaux. "Take my text from the sweated bits of pretty ladies." Robideaux's calloused pads brushed a cathouse roadsong in the left hand. The right gave the tune a delta-driving Cadillac shove.

Before the first eight rounded, a square of light opened across the room. A breath of swamp and fish washed in. Above the smell-good by Robideaux's lights-a cut of blue sky sang out: h.e.l.lo Robideaux! Who you got witchoo, Robideaux?

Jeremy laughed.

A shadow in the doorframe said, "f.u.c.k, Preach'? You playing wit' music, and we bahgin'? Get you black a.s.s topside, see Cap StDenis, wha' say?"

The door cracked shut on the voice.

Jeremy's first day, traveling Robideaux: When Robideaux wasn't bucking so to toss Jeremy from his flesh into Nowhere-Nowhen, the man was working, in a sulky way, hauling ratchet on the web of cables and couplings kept the tow laced tight, a quarter-mile of steel barges, fifteen stinking holes in the water. They carried grain this trip. Their tow-mule, a pusher boat, a little home with big engines, pilot house above it all.

Preach', his body, knew barging. So Jeremy gives Robideaux his head, just a little, takes walking-round lessons from the Preacher: Robideaux works, Jeremy tastes the life. Suited a Traveler way-f.u.c.king fine.

The world smelled older, further south they towed. Day and night, Robideaux's nose worked like an old blind tickhound dreaming long-gone hunts. Warmer, wetter, the days never give up the stink of barge. Jeremy, his soul, tasted living things everywhere. He itched at the universe of cells in the barges beneath them, each grain a tiny life dying in ferment. Dark vermin, fattening in the steel bellies, crawled so lovely in Jeremy's dreams.

When he could, Jeremy walked Robideaux to the fore. There, the air was not yet steeped in boat stench. There, the bow wave rose from the flat iron face of the fore-barges. Smooth and green, the 10-foot-high liquid snakes curled into morning mist or evening dark, both sides.

Robideaux was two ways. Times were, Jeremy had to grip, keep Preach' from throwing himself overboard with the despair. These times, the man'd moan and sigh, preach on his sins and cry the casting out of devils.

The other men shook their heads.

Other times, Robideaux walked smug and chuckling. Those times, Jeremy purely wanted to jump into another someone entirely, bash Robideaux's big black face with his own wrench, Wham. That notion had its wonders. A long while had come since Jeremy'd done the murder game and been hung up to swing for it or got sat down to sizzle before jumping out and into another blinking face nearby. Ah, yes.

But this one, this preacher? Jeremy wanted to burn him out from his d.i.c.k inward. Whoo-ee. Sometimes, midnights, after day had frictioned Robideaux scant, Jeremy latched tight. They sat in the fore-barge while night swallowed them. Small towns came and pa.s.sed sparkling with life and silence along the dark sh.o.r.es then winked out around a riverbend. Jeremy played and preached with his old guitar. The men in their bunks, aft, or in the wheelhouse, heard the music from the dark, ahead. He knew that, knew they shook heads, wondering what going on in that nappy haid of Robideaux's since Cairo?

f.u.c.k them.

Bad disaster almost got them just once. The way it happened: Robideaux, walking barge, checking lines, fore to aft, staring down at oily cable, rusty steel and big-toothed pawls, paying no heed to the one beautiful bright blue and golden day around. Nothing happening. Then something happened. Jeremy looked up and saw a thing. Thing sparked and gave him wonder. High and all 'round, the air was filled with bright threads. Little things. They drifted over, ahead, across their bow, their wake. How long had they been barging through them? He didn't know, he'd been looking down at cables, chains and such. Mile on mile they shoved through the pretty things on the wind, so silver-flashing, way, way up.

"What is that?" Jeremy said.

Robideaux didn't say.

Jeremy tasted, touched life around him. They lived, each thread a little life, an urge, a yen to go, to be. He stood dumb wondering, said, "What IS that?" He tried to catch one as the boat floated through like a dream. "What the f.u.c.k is that?" He jumped and yelled but couldn't catch-hold.

Aft, in near-disaster, none of the others noted the crazy Preach' jumping, yelling.

At just that time, the tow was riding the chop of the main channel, a busy stretch of water. Just prior, they'd woven through a delta-maze of chutes and runs. They'd dodged other tows, northbound, and slipped by slower moving southbound commerce. To that, add the tidal rush running upriver from the Gulf; its easy swell flexed them, soft and dreamy, along their thousand-feet of bound-together parts and pieces.

In all that, one cable worked loose, enough to put a gap between three barge and number six. This little whoopsie slip, a hundred-ton steel mouth, opened man-wide slow, then closed down, chop, like that.

And there's Jeremy, wondering into the sky, reaching for bright threads and Robideaux, not tending barge business underfoot.

Then of course, it was Swede Lewis near got himself gummed in half by that steel maw. Would have if he hadn't slipped all way through and only caught himself, last second, by a dangling chain, feet dragging almost in the rushing river till the other men could pull him out, portside.

Robideaux's fault. Ratchet man. He allowed the slip get loose. Big dumb n.i.g.g.e.r.

On the dock at payoff, the men were eyes and growls, Swede Lewis, worse than most.

The Captain, Mister Raymond StDenis, thank you very much, jostled Robideaux aside. "Have woids wit you, Robideaux," he said. He held the fat pay envelope saying "Robideaux" in big letters out of reach. Snapping and breathing, Captain said, "You tink we takin' you, come next trip up and back? You tink I'm takin' a man who leaves he cables woik loose between my numbers tree and six bahges and looses me almost a man's laig, snip, off like dat?" He snapped his fingers under the big man's nose. With a bit less snap, Captain added, "Even if it was a bitty dumb-sumb.i.t.c.h Swede who'd have gone chop off his udder laig later, jess showin' the story, how it happen." Captain was a bitty guy, too, but he could be big with mean. Then the snap was back. "Even so. You tink I gone take you back?" he said right in Jeremy's nose. The money envelope waved, waiting for Jeremy to answer him back some ways.

"No, sir, Cap'n" Jeremy said, "I purely do not expect it, Mr. StDenis. I sure was a f.u.c.kin' mess, this trip."

It was the Captain then, not expecting Robideaux to be so easy about it all, who stood back shuffling. "Now Robideaux. You, there..." Captain said, "got to get yourself shut." Then he stopped saying.

Jeremy figured Captain was thinking about what it was Robideaux had to shut himself from.

"You get youseff shut of dem woman problems, Robideaux, you pure must," Captain said. "d.a.m.n," he added. "You get youseff right 'fore you come back to woik my river, y'heah?"

Then, like that, he gave Robideaux his money.

Women problems? Well, who didn't have women problems, he was a man, man problems if he was a woman? People were such a f.u.c.king bore, people were. Jeremy's laugh nearly seeped from Robideaux's hung-down head. Robideaux was near jumping, near yelling, "No, sir, no sir. Ain't women's. Got me a bad spirit what took me down in Cairo, trying to stick me in some dark place where there ain't no G.o.d A'mighty, and is gone ride me till he wear me out, toss me aside like a wore-down boot. It ain't me, Captain, it surely ain't me, I pays attention, my woik."

Which he never said; Jeremy gripped Robideaux and made him take his dressing like a man. Then, reluctant, like he didn't for real deserve his pay, Jeremy took the envelope. "Yessir, I hear you, Cap StDenis," Jeremy said. "No mess of a man need work your tow, Cap." Jeremy threw Robideaux's truck-sack over one shoulder, hung his old lady guitar from the other and headed, sad and slow for looks, toward the city.

Captain StDenis yelled down over the dockside's banging cranes and growling donkey engines, "Y'get yourself right, now, y'hear? Get y'self right and we glad to hev you back 'nuder trip."

Jeremy smiled and nodded.

"'Sides, Preach', we used to dem songs you been making since Illin-wa."

"Ya.s.sir, Captain," Jeremy hollered out, deep day washing up his nose from town. Then: "Cap'n, oh Cap'n, one more ting."

He waited till everyone had turned for listening. "f.u.c.k y'all to a fare-thee-well. You, your boat, all who work the boat, all the boats that work the river you float on, the world you crawl across and the G.o.d that grinds you up like the meat you truly are. f.u.c.k you each and every one." A whimper squeaked out Robideaux's nose. "'Kay, Cap?" Jeremy added. A tear rolled down a valley of Robideaux's cheek. Jeremy threw a smile, tossed a wave. The captain and the men stood round-eyed. Swede Lewis most of all. And Jeremy was gone. Some fun in sweet-home tonight.

Two things, now. One, even after humiliation, his bridges smoking ruins, Robideaux was home, and two, Jeremy had no idea where the f.u.c.k he's at. The river was small. On the tow, everyone knew this Robideaux Jeremy walked in. Jeremy was Robideaux, who tended cable and held the barge together, big dumb preaching man as got himself drunk in every lowdown the whole Mississippi way. Being him, there? Easy.

In the big world, now, he was just another laid-off, paid-off river man with a guitar, come down for a dirty time, catching at Mardi Gras.

Robideaux was kicking. Jeremy hadn't traveled anyone, man or woman, with so much thrash in him, not in half a thousand year maybe he hadn't. Took some fight to make those big feet go where Jeremy wanted. Other side of that was, Jeremy didn't have any particular place he wanted. If Robideaux eased north, though, Jeremy figured, he ought to bear south. Pain in the a.s.s that was, but there 'twas. Oh, yes, he'd have to hurt this Robideaux.

By and by, walking got easier.

"Give up?" Jeremy asked.

Silence.