LaRose(50)
Romeo’s rat-colored buzz cut flattened and his pupils smoked with fear. Landreaux’s handsome mug was squashed flat by wind and his lush hair was flung straight back. His eyes were pressed into long catlike slits, but he could see—oh, yes he could see—the lighter brown splotches in Romeo’s pinwheel irises, mile after mile. And he began to think, as minutes passed, endless minutes mounting past an hour, a timeless hour, that Romeo’s eyes were the last sight he would see on earth because their bodies were losing the tension they needed to grip the bar. Arms, shoulders, stomach, thighs, calves—all locked but incrementally loosening as though the noise itself were prying them away from their perch. If they hadn’t both been strong, light, hard-muscled boys who could shimmy up flagpoles, vault fences, catch a branch with one arm, and swing themselves into a tree, over a fence, they would have died. If the bus hadn’t slowed exactly when it did and pulled into a rest stop, they would also have died.
They were speechless with pain. Landreaux gagged a few words out, but they found they could hear nothing. They watched each other’s mouths open and shut.
They cried sliding off the bar as blood surged back into muscle. From beneath the bus, they saw Bowl Head’s thick, creamy legs, and the driver’s gray slacks. Then the other kids’ boney ankles and shuffling feet. They waited on the tarred parking lot ground until everyone had gone to the bathrooms and was back inside. The doors closed, the driver started the bus idling, and that’s when they rolled out from underneath. They dove behind a trash barrel. Once the bus was gone, they staggered off into a scrim of thick blue spruce trees on the perimeter. For half an hour, they writhed beneath the branches and bit on sticks. When the pain subsided just enough for them to breathe, they were very thirsty, hungry too, and remembered they’d left their sacks stuck beneath the bus. They sharply recalled the bread they’d squirreled away with their clothes.
The rest stop was empty, so they left the bushes and went in. They drank water from the taps, pissed, wondered if they could hole up inside for the night. But there was nowhere in the bathroom, really, to hide. Digging through the trash, Romeo found a bit of candy bar. The chocolate just got their juices flowing. Walking out the door, they noticed a car turning off the highway. They sneaked around back and flung themselves beneath the trees. A family of four white people got out of the car with two brown paper bags. The children put the paper bags on the picnic table, and then the family went into the restrooms.
The instant they vanished, Landreaux sprinted for the bags. Romeo ran to the car to look for other food, and saw that the keys were still in the ignition. He signaled to Landreaux, who walked over with an easy step, slid behind the wheel, turned the key, and pulled out as if he’d done it all his life.
Romeo and Landreaux turned off the highway onto a county road. It quickly turned to gravel. Landreaux kept on going. They ate the sandwiches, deviled eggs, everything except the two apples, and kept the lemonade bottle, the hats and jackets. They left the car parked down a side road in some bushes, and doubled back to a set of train tracks they’d crossed. They started walking west on the cross ties. When it got dark, they found a shelterbelt, put on the extra jackets, and used the caps for pillows. They ate the apples and drank a third of the lemonade. Three trains passed in the night, much too fast to hop. In the morning they kept walking.
One thing I wonder, said Romeo, and hope I never know.
Whuh, said Landreaux.
How Bowl Head really cuts her hair. With a bowl the exact same size of her head or what?
That hair went brown to white in one day, said Landreaux.
The thick brilliance of her hair was truly remarkable.
Romeo did not believe it happened in one day, but he asked how.
What I heard was she went back of the dining hall and saw Milbert Good Road the way he looked after he had drowned on that school trip. He asked why she never runned for him when she saw him go under. The water wasn’t more than up to her stomach. People said she was parasite.
Paralyzed, murmured Romeo.
She yelled for Mr. Jalynski an he jumped in. Ermine jumped in, waded in, all the kids good at swimming went in, all the other grown-ups. They never found him til later. They said it was a water moccasin.
Romeo said nothing, but sometimes he wondered about Landreaux. Some kids had heard a teacher from Louisiana mention the deadliness of a water moccasin. Some kid made up that it was a moccasin made of water that slipped around your foot and pulled you under. Romeo knew it was a snake and Milbert had drowned because he couldn’t swim. Landreaux was cool, but, parasite? Water moccasin? These lapses made Romeo uneasy. Not only that, they just hurt his brain.
This train couldn’t just run on forever, with no reason, Romeo complained. Must be a grain elevator someplace.
They could see a farm many miles away. A square hedge of green on the horizon, blank flat earth all around. The sun was low and they had drunk all of the lemonade, jealously watching each other. But Landreaux gave Romeo the last swallow, saying, Kill it, reluctantly, looking away. They’d had nothing to eat for hours but the juicy ends of tall grass along the tracks.
Maybe we could get there by dark, said Romeo.
Pretty sure there’s a dog, said Landreaux.
But they went.
From a handsome shelterbelt of evergreens and old lilac, they watched the house—two story, painted white, a trim of scalloped wood all around the first story and four plain columns holding up a meager, dignified front porch. A light went on in back. The screen door creaked open and flapped shut. An old white-muzzled black dog tottered stiffly into the yard, followed by a tall old woman. She wore a whitish dress, saggy gray man’s sweater, and sheepskin slippers. The boys noticed the slippers because she walked by them on the edge of the mowed grass. The dog dropped behind and stopped before them, nose working, eyes cataracted and opaque.