Wrapped in Rain(74)

Mutt looked around suspiciously, sniffed the air, sniffed his armpits, nodded, and walked around the side of the house, carrying his trash and pulling off his rubber gloves. I'm no M.D., but I knew he was steadily sliding downhill, growing more withdrawn each day, and the look of fear across his face was more prominent and permanent. Gibby had warned me, but I wasn't quite sure what to do.

Jase polished off his breakfast and tore off in search of his bicycle. Katie blew bubbles and studied me suspiciously. Bubbles floated through the air and danced about us. Some landed on the gravel in front of me, a few popped on my legs, and one brushed my cheek before it drifted into the needles of a Leyland Cypress. I don't know if she knew it or not, but Katie began humming. Bubbles floated above us and spread across us like a blanket.



I hadn't seen Mutt since breakfast, so I started to get a little worried. At two, I walked to the barn where Katie and Jase were playing catch, but still no Mutt. I dropped a rope around Glue, and we took a disguised walk around the pasture. The quarry was empty, as were the foot of the cross and St. Joseph's, so with relatively few options left, I stopped to listen and think. Northwest of the pasture, beyond the dog kennels, was the old slaughterhouse. Covered in thick vines, kudzu, and waist-high weeds, the slaughterhouse was little more than a tin roof on four poles, covering a bathtub-size scalding pot, big enough for a man to lie down in. It had been sunk into a brick base about four feet wide, eight feet long, and three feet high. It actually made a pretty good bathtub, as long as you didn't mind knowing what had once been there. The base held the tub above a small fire below that heated the water for scalding the slaughtered pigs-somewhere between 150 and 155 degrees. Mutt and I used to play down here as kids, but we didn't do it often. No matter how much you rinsed it, the smell of dead pigs just never went away. I suppose death has a way of hanging on even after you wash it.

I stopped to listen and heard the unmistakable sound of someone splitting wood. I turned Glue in the direction of the sound and asked myself, "What is he doing now?"

Tucker you two aren't all that different.

I told Glue, "Whoa," and stood stroking his mane and searching the pasture's perimeter.

Mutt's standing at the precipice, standing at the very chasm of insanity, and it's going to take a mighty leap for him to cross it, but Mutt's in the Lord's hands. Not yours. You, on the other hand, you're standing at the precipice of life, and the only way across is to stop letting your past determine your future.



I leaned against Glue and spoke aloud. "Miss Ella, every time I garner up enough guts to hope, they end up shattered and my heart torn in more pieces than it already is. You of all people should know this."

I know it's painful, child, but I watched you strike out twice in the final game before you hit that ball over the center field fence. Why re you living your life so differently than you played baseball?

"Because I was good at baseball."

You might find you're good at living if you'll bury the bitterness and cut away your coffin.

"Everybody needs an anchor, Miss Ella."

Forgive men and your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you don't, you're the one who will suffer.

"Miss Ella, I'm not you. Sometimes all that religious stuff just seems like empty words."

He who believes in Me ... out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

"You think you've got an answer for everything, don't you?"

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

"I'm not talking to you again until you start speaking in English and in sentences that I can understand."

For I am persuaded ...

"I know, I know. `Nothing can separate us."'

... that neither life nor death, nor ...

I shook my head, placed my hands over my ears, started humming, and walked off without another word, Glue trailing behind me. Arguing with Miss Ella was futile when she got in these moods. And it didn't take a genius to know that she was fired up now. I wouldn't be surprised if all the other angels had nominated her to serve as acting choir director for the entire heavenly host.



At the slaughterhouse, I tied Glue to one of the four posts, walked beneath the tin roof, stepped over a rather large pile of vine, weed, and kudzu, and found Mutt, sitting upright and scrubbing in the scalding pot. He was surrounded by soap bubbles and steam rising off the water. The iron doors of the brick base were open, and a small fire made from kindling wood climbed around the base of the tub. I doubted it was scalding temperature, but the steam rising off the water made it look good and warm.

"You okay?"

Mutt nodded.

I walked around the scalding pot and dipped my fingers in, testing the water temperature. It felt pretty good. He may be crazy, but in the short time he'd been home, he'd installed both a swimming pool and Jacuzzi. I pulled a single vine of kudzu off one of the four corner posts and said, "You need anything?" Mutt shook his head and turned the soap in his hands. "See you at five thirty?" Mutt nodded again, ducked beneath the surface of the water, rinsed, and began lathering up. The near-empty bottle of liquid soap next to him and large amount of ashes at the base told me it was not the first time. I left him scalding and walked back to the barn, where I crept up the loft ladder and counted the number of missing pills.

I walked out of the barn, thinking about a nap, when Jase stopped me. "Unca Tuck?" Katie was lying on a towel on the grassy lawn next to Miss Ella's cottage. She was reading a book, facing the sun, and had her feet wrapped up in a blanket.