Issue 3:1 | Fiction | Janna McMahan

Seeing Things

Janna McMahan

Mae tried not to look at the whisper of a man hunkered in the doorway. She kept to the edge of the sidewalk, her gaze forward. Still, she couldn't help a furtive glance. No matter how fast she slipped around him a sensation still touched her, just brushed her hair as she went by. Why didn't somebody do something about him? It was enough to make your skin crawl.

Mae leaned into the wind and gathered the collar of her school jacket around her ears. The door chimes at Corner Drug chimed loudly and every face in the place turned to her. The clean, nose-burning cold of a dim winter day gave way to the familiar smell of the lunch counter--hotdogs, coffee, cigarettes. Mae slid up onto an aluminum stool, hugged herself in mock shivers.

"Gladys, give me a chili bun," she said.

With practiced ease, Gladys forked a steaming hotdog bun out of a warmer and began ladling chili on top.

"Cold enough for ya?" It was Officer Mark Willis's low, melodious drawl. Mae had been right. He was here. Maybe he was waiting for her. Hanging out with the old guys in the back who drank coffee and talked about their aches with the pharmacist. She didn't turn around, but grinned up into the mirror behind the counter.

"Leave her be," Gladys scolded. A cornerstone of this lunch counter for thirty years, Gladys doled out hamburgers and motherly advice with the same enthusiasm. "Don't you know? Her momma don't let her drink coffee or flirt with men of the law."

Mae wiggled out of her jacket, tossed it on another stool. "In that case, Gladys," Mae said. "I'll have a cup of coffee, please." She turned and leaned back against the counter, settling into a pose that made the most of her tight sweater. Mark's eyes traveled to her breasts, then he willed them away quickly. Mae smiled. She had plans. The day she turned sixteen Officer Mark Willis would be waiting on the front steps of her house. And what would her father say then? He couldn't object to her dating a policeman, especially one with eyes the color of clover honey.

Willis made a gesture as if to touch Mae's shoulder, but his attempt wilted. At only nineteen, the new officer on the force had to watch his behavior. He was paying his dues, working nights.

"Going on shift?" Mae asked.

"Yeah. Just needed a couple of burgers first."

"Gonna be a cold one tonight," Gladys said. "You getting Spook?"

"Guess so," Willis said.

"Let me get you some chili."

"What's she mean, get Spook?" Mae asked.

"Whoever's on duty picks him up when it gets cold like this," Willis said.

"I just saw him," Mae said. "Front of Shivley's Jewelry."

"Good. Usually we have to look for him. Mostly we find him up under the high school baseball bleachers. Sometimes he's down in that culvert at Miller Park."

"What about family?" Mae asked.

"Had family one time," Gladys said. "But his daddy never was no count. Ran off and left Spook's momma when the last baby came along. That'd be his sister who died little. Spook's momma died when we was in high school."

"Where's his brother now?" Willis asked.

"Wound up in a special home for cripple folks in Louisville. Blinded or something."

"That family's got bad luck," Mae said.

"Oh, don't worry none about Spook," Gladys said. "People feed him. I feed him myself couple times a week." She handed a container of chili to the officer along with two squares of cornbread wrapped in wax paper.

"Okay. I'm off." He tilted his stiff, navy blue milkman cap. "Ladies."

Mae focused on a ghostly outline of his body against the door long after the jingling chimes faded.

Willis exhaled steam into the quickly closing dark and noted that the temperature had dropped. Day surrendered early in winter. The wind chill was piercing and he rubbed his hands together lamenting his forgotten gloves. It took ten minutes for the old squad car to heat up. On Main Street, Willis shined his hand light into the jewelry store's alcove, but there was no sign of Spook Swafford. He cruised by the Pumpkin Market and saw his little brother's car in the lot, which meant Tim was stocking this night. The tiny Dairy Twirl was crammed with teenagers, the windows opaque with sweat. He noted Mr. Hord was working late again at his insurance office, trying not to go home to the wife.

Willis rattled the entrance and side doors to the county library. He checked the high school athletic fields and the tubes of play equipment and culverts in Miller Park. He drove through Stringtown, stopping to shine his light down alleys. He surveyed the junkyard and drove around City Lake. The chili on the seat beside him swirled steam out of the bag filling his squad car with the smells of green peppers and cumin.

The cruiser's headlamps swept the parking lot at Southern States, illuminating a dozen trucks. When Willis got out, a couple of hounds whined for his attention from their dog boxes in the bed of a skinned-up pickup.

"Hey, there Rufus," he said and stuck his fingers inside the mesh to scratch eager noses. "Finis, how you doing, boy?" Tails thumped, erratic and hollow on the sides of the box. "You two keep warm."

"Deuces wild," the dealer called to the table. Tobacco smoke twisted in the air. Willis held his hands to the stove's open mouth. Its guts hissed and cracked sending small streams of sparks onto the concrete floor. He always felt comfortable here, a place his father brought him as a boy. The men's place to hang out, swap stories, size up crop prices, gamble.

Heads shook. "Ain't seen him," was mumbled around the table.

"What's that old fool done to get locked up?" one fellow asked.

"Nothing, sir. Just when it's cold like this, we let him sleep in jail," Willis said.

"Got heat lamps on the chickens," another farmer offered. "This keeps up, cows'll stop giving milk."

Back in the cruiser he felt the bag of chili and cornbread and found it cold. The radio crackled. Willis snatched the handset from the dash, clicked it and spoke.

"Willis, here. What's up?"

"You find Spook yet?" It was Wilma Dean, the weekend dispatcher who came on at 11:00 p.m.

"Still looking," Willis came back.

"Want me to call the Sheriff?"

"NO," Willis said, then added more calmly, "I'll find him."

Willis searched for hours but only found stray cats huddled on porches and opossums raiding garbage cans. He ran off a couple of kids parked near City Lake. It was nearly 2:00 a.m. when Wilma Dean radioed Willis to pick up his brother at the Pumpkin.

"Car won't start?" Willis asked as Tim yanked open the passenger door.

"Mark," Tim nearly shouted. "Spook's here and I swear to God I think he's dead. Found him when I came out."

Willis scooped Spook from the pavement. Underneath his beard the man's skin was translucent, his lips white. Tim opened the door and Willis slid the raggedy man into the back seat.

"Is he dead?" Tim whispered.

"Don't think so," Willis said, fighting to keep panic from his voice when he thought of how stiff Spook was in his arms. "Damn. Should have found him. It was my job."

Willis radioed ahead and a nurse and doctor were ready with a gurney when the cruiser pulled up to the emergency entrance. When the nurse covered Spook with a heated blanket, he opened his eyes and muttered a weak, "Thank you ma'am."

"Severe frostbite," the doctor told Willis later. "It can go either way."

Mae despaired there was no lady-like way to wipe her runny nose. Her eyes stung from the cold air howling up the hillside. Hard clumps of dirt made hollow thuds on the poplar box. The ground was solid, the grave shallow, only sufficient to keep animals away. A thin column of wind separated her from Mark Willis. He stared ahead, only glancing down to meet her eyes once. Her cheeks were ruddy as much from his presence as from cold.

That afternoon her father and Uncle Lyman had pulled into the barnyard with a homemade casket in the truck bed. They had skipped cleaning the body. There were no relatives to call. No one brought food. Stranger still, had been the arrival of Mark Willis in his Sunday clothes with Brother Philpott in tow. The four men unloaded and hefted the coffin to their shoulders. They struggled to move their awkward burden through skeletal trees and gnarled underbrush and up the steep ridge to where their family cemetery sprouted.

The hole was ready and in one swift movement the box was lowered into the ground. Mae's father and uncle moved dirt non-stop through the preacher's short service. Brother Philpott recited the Lord's Prayer in a quivering voice. When the grave was adequately covered the procession stumbled numbly down the hill toward the little house.

Mae's mother busied herself with coffee and ham biscuits. The men congregated around the wood stove in the front room. Mae slipped away to her bedroom to apply lipstick and gather herself. From her window she could see the raw grave. She heard the rumble and thud of logs being hefted into the stove downstairs. Sparks crackled as they rushed up the flue.

Mae swept back down the stairs to find only the preacher sitting primly, sipping coffee. Through the kitchen window Mae saw Mark Willis matching her father's long strides on their way to the barn. Her mother wiped soapy hands on a dishrag and raised eyebrows at her daughter. "Cow's bawling. Daddy had to milk. Took your feller with him."

Mae opened her mouth to make a denial, but her mother waved a hand as if to say the matter was nothing to figure out.

"Reckon it's up to us to see to Brother Philpott," her mother said. "See if he needs more coffee."

Mae's lips trembled as she followed her mother back into the sweltering front room with the radiating stove.

Mae's father smacked a milk cow on the haunch. She ambled forward into the stall and began to crunch hay. He settled down on his three-legged stool and situated a bucket underneath the cow. He pulled her teats and milk squirted into the bucket and steam swirled up. Barn cats circled hoping to lap up stray shots.

"Cold hurting these old cows. Not as much milk," the farmer mumbled.

"Can I help you, Mr. Spratt?" Willis asked.

"Call me Foster, son."

Willis made himself comfortable on a wooden feed bin. Tobacco hung from the rafters, an oppressive mass of dangling, warm-smelling leaves. Bits of leaf trash littered the packed dirt floor. Their breath made graceful, fluid mist in the harsh spotlight of the milking area.

"Son, you ever see anybody charm bees?"

"No, sir."

"My grandma, that'd be Mae's great-granny, was a right smart bee keeper. But sometimes bees just up and leave a hive for no reason. When that happens, you got to go find you some more bees. My granny had a knack for putting spells on bees."

"Spells?"

"That's what I used to think it was. We'd walk through the woods and she'd see a swarm up a tree. Bees bunch up on limbs and crawl all over each other when they run out of room in their honey tree. She'd tell me to run get the big enamel pan and a wood spoon. She'd bang that pan and stir those bees up. She'd walk back to the house whacking that pan and bees would follow her, flying down around the ground all the way. She'd stand at the hives and make that pan ring and those bees would move right in and take up housekeeping.

"One day, me and Lyman and Spook was down to the creek fishing. Spook's family used to live up to our family's old place. Anyway, Spook never was bright, but we used to let him tag along. So we was fishing and we heard my granny banging a pan. Course, me and Lyman, we knew what she was doing. But Spook, you should a seen him. He looked like the devil was gonna get him. See all them Swaffords believe in haints. All the time crossing themselves and throwing salt over their shoulder. Spook came by his name natural, I guess. Anyway, about a week later we see Spook crossing the field to our orchard. He's moving fast to get through the woods before dark. So, we get us a couple of pans and some spoons."

Willis laughed and shook his head. "Ya'll was mean."

"True. Boys have the devil in 'em. Anyhow, Spook come through our woods with his bucket and we started in to banging. He dropped that bucket and apples rolled. He was a lanky little fellow and he climbed straight up a tree. We kept up the racket and he climbed so high he was nearly out of sight. We was just rolling laughing. Then a branch cracked. Must of hit every limb on his way down."

Foster released the cow and she sauntered out of the barn, happily relieved of her burden. Another cow waiting her turn stepped into the spot.

"He hit the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of him. Didn't catch his breath for a while. Worst part was his head hit smack on that bucket. His eyes was open, but he didn't move. Thought we'd killed him. Picked him up and carried him back to his house. Laid him on the kitchen table. His momma said he woke up later that night."

"Did you tell her what you'd done?"

"Hell, no. We was just kids. Didn't want no trouble." He let out an exasperated sigh. "Spook never was the same after that. He always was slow, but . . . well, you see my meaning, son? Things happen. Things you don't plan on. Things you can't help."

Willis said softly, "Yes, sir. I understand."

"So don't go beating yourself up over this. None of it was your doing."

"Yes, sir," Willis said. He paused then asked, "That why you buried him?"

"Thought it was only fitting to bury him here, where he grew up."

"Kind thing to do."

"Reckon so. Life goes on."

The cow mooed low. Cats circled and mewed with anticipation as Foster tilted the bucket and poured a heavy stream of milk into a tall metal container. He pressed the lid down and hefted the container to where it would be collected by the dairy company the next morning.

Sensing that Foster had said his piece, Willis moved toward the barn door. "I need to go take Brother Philpott home."

"Son," Foster said.

"Sir?"

"You're a good boy. If you want to start coming round to see my Mae, well, that'd be all right."

Willis smiled, then nodded. "Thank you, sir. 'Preciate it."

"I expect you're an honorable man. Being with the law and all."

"Yes, sir." Silence fell between them, then Willis cleared his throat. "Mind if I ask her now, sir?"

Foster went back to milking. "Might as well."

Officer Mark Willis hadn't slept in 48 hours, yet he felt wildly awake. Brittle grass crunched under his feet like straw as he made his way across the frozen barnyard.

He stopped suddenly and stood motionless, his shivers forgotten. Mae was at a front window. She peered from behind a lace curtain, her eyes wide and fixed on him. She smiled and his chest swelled with that familiar ache he'd grown to crave. His bare hands hung limp by his sides, but he didn't feel the lick of icy wind.