Wrapped in Rain(19)

With Rocco mesmerized by his own lust, Missy erupted. She collected her purse and stood up, but Rocco put a firm hand on her thigh and she sat back down with a defeated leash-stretching sigh and crossed her arms and legs. Dixie left in the direction of the kitchen, returned quickly with a small side plate of steaming cheese grits, and placed it and two spoons in front of the two of them. She took one spoon, carved out a small bite of grits, and held it up to Rocco's mouth as if she were feeding a child. Rocco opened and closed his mouth around the spoon without ever taking his eyes off Dixie. Missy threw her spoon in the creek. "Oh, and one more thing," Dixie said as she set the spoon in front of Rocco. "Coffee-which often accompanies grits and precedes tea-is not brewed; it's percolated. And you don't `make coffee,' you `put some on.' Most folks down here don't really get into cappuccino, but with a Starbucks on every corner, a few of us are moving into lattes." Dixie turned, took a step, stopped, and turned again. "Oh, and `dinner' is what you ate at noon. This is `supper."'



While Missy gnawed on her leash, Rocco enjoyed cheese grits for the first time in his life. Mutt smiled and eyed the kitchen door where a tray of food turned the corner like a steam locomotive. No sooner had the waiter put it down than Mutt dove in with a spoon and two fingers.

Smeared with cheese grits, grease, and tea, Mutt watched Missy sit frowning and tight-lipped as she looked out over the water. Rocco, unfazed by Missy, slowly dipped his alligator tail in the cocktail sauce and tried to get Dixie's attention, which she was giving liberally to two out-of-town execs sipping green-glassed beer at the next table. After several unsuccessful attempts, Rocco finally wiped his mouth with Missy's napkin and made for the men's bathroom.

Mutt finished his meal in about eight minutes and still hadn't heard the sirens. That meant dessert, and it required no decision. Not even the voices disagreed with key lime pie. He ordered two pieces, downed both, and watched Rocco slip behind Dixie at the napkin station and then return to Missy with a smile pasted across his face. Dixie, happily folding napkins, slipped the hundreddollar bill in her back pocket and paid no attention to Rocco's cell phone number written across the back.



Mutt finished the pitcher and left two twenty-dollar bills-enough for the meal and a 241/2 percent tip. He walked past Missy and Rocco, but as a concrete thinker, he couldn't help himself. "Ma'am," Mutt said, pointing to Missy's necklace, "if you really want people to read your name tag, you need to put it on a shorter chain."

Mutt turned, said good night to Dixie, and then walked out onto the dock. He slipped a quarter into the turtle food dispenser and sprinkled it into the water, where the snapper turtles surfaced, jockeyed, and tried to drown each other en route to the rabbit pellets. When his hands were empty, he walked to the end of the dock and noticed the dusk and the absence of sirens. The commotion at the table next to him had been a welcome entertainment, but he knew he didn't have long before he wouldn't be able to hear himself think.

Mingling through six or eight kids diving off and swimming near the end of the dock, Mutt dove in, swam a few hundred yards along the north bank, and untied a yellow canoe owned by the marina. He climbed in, loosed the oar, and silently slipped along the bank northeastward, past Clark's, and then farther east into the fingers of Julington Creek.

By 6:15 p.m., Mutt was paddling like Osceola beneath the moonlight, where neither the darkness nor the shadows bothered him. Like the voices, he had befriended both years ago. A mile up creek-maybe half a mile as the crow flies-he heard the first of the sirens.





Chapter 4


I CROSSED THE ALABAMA LINE, DROVE THROUGH Taylor, and took the northern loop around Dothan while keeping one eye on my rearview mirror. I turned right onto 99 and switched my wipers to intermittent.



South of Abbeville, I popped four antacids in my mouth. Bessie was right-her coffee bordered on real bad. Lights appeared in my rearview mirror, along with the glint of a chrome dirt bike strapped atop a car. A minute later, the Volvo pulled up behind, hesitated, and then passed erratically while the driver gunned the engine. I took my foot off the accelerator and watched as the driver crossed my line and inadvertently sprayed my windshield with rainwater.

Bubble gum boy was lying in the backseat, apparently asleep. If the Volvo was out of place at Bessie's, it was really out of place on the highways of southeast Alabama. Not interested in me, the baseball-capped mother sped up, and the red taillights disappeared into the rain. I finished my coffee, swallowed the stale and crumbling cinnamon roll, and switched my wipers to low. On State Road 10, I turned head-on into the rain, slowing my progress even more. I was ready to climb in bed, but the rain wasn't cooperating. Compared to normal traffic, I was crawling. Fifteen minutes from the house, I downshifted, switched the wipers to high, and started rubbing the inside of the windshield with a dirty T-shirt.

The wipers squeaked across the windshield and brought me back to Alabama. With home around the bend, my thoughts led to Waverly Hall. The land of Rex. Scorched earth. The beginning and ending of most thoughts. The epicenter of hell.



Unlike hell, Clopton, Alabama, is a map dot-and little more. There is no stoplight and no stop sign. Just a potholed and graveled intersection marked by a boarded-up corner grocery store, a faded mailbox, and an abandoned tobacco warehouse built with slave labor from chipped brick glued together by weeping mortar. Were it not for the mailbox, the word "Clopton" would probably not appear on most maps. Actually, were it not for my father, Clopton would have died long ago.