Wrapped in Rain(81)

I shrugged and lifted Jase onto my back. "Thought I'd make a stop first."

Katie took two steps and stopped. Her face told me that it had begun to sink in. She turned white and reached for Jase's hand. "Tucker, I'm not sure this is such a good idea."

"Come on. He's been defanged, declawed, and neutered. He won't bite you."

I stood in the doorway and looked into the dark room. The judge was sleeping and the nurses had parked Rex in his usual bird watching position. I turned on the light, and the judge woke up. "Oh, Tucker! For the love of Betsy! I been salivating ever since you left." I led Jase into the room, and Katie followed closely. The judge raised an eyebrow and laughed at himself. "Well, if I'd have known you were bringing visitors, I'd have cleaned up a bit."



`Judge, I'd like for you to meet some friends of mine. Katie Withers and her son, Jase"

Jase hid behind my leg and looked around the room. He pulled on my pant leg and pointed at the judge's squash-colored bladder bag, which was full. "Unca Tuck, what's that?"

Katie walked around Rex in a circle, as if she was honoring the safe striking distance of a snake. When she got around in front of him, she raised her hand to her mouth and looked away. Jase let go of my leg and walked over to his mom. He pointed in Rex's face. "Momma, who's that?" Katie knelt down and looked at me. The Judge kept quiet and stopped licking his lips.

She picked him up, placed him on her hip, and moved around the side so he could no longer see Rex's disfigured, quivering, and drooling face. Jase pointed again. "Mama, who's that and what's that smell?"

She walked toward the door and said, "Son, it's just an old, sick man. Somebody you don't know." Jase wiggled loose, ran back to Rex's chair, and peered around the side. "But, Mom . . . " Jase pointed at Rex's hand. Rex's skin was thin, almost translucent, and would cut with the slightest scratch. Somewhere in the course of the day, the top of his right hand had been cut and a single trickle of blood had flowed down the side. Due to years of blood thinners, the blood remained wet, gooey, and dripping.

Jase pointed at the cut again and said, "Unca Tuck, look!" I circled Rex and reached for Jase's hand, but he was focused on that cut. Jase reached in his pocket, pulled out one of his two spare Band-Aids, and bit the paper off. He stood next to Rex, looked at me expectantly, and held out the Band-Aid.



I knelt an arm's length from the chair, and Jase laid it in my hand. Katie stood in the doorway, bit a fingernail, and looked from me to the judge and back to us. The Judge didn't say a word but blew into his diaphragm, sucked twice, and blew once more, turning on a recessed light above my head. I peeled the Band-Aid and held it over the cut, considering.

I looked at his hand, studying the veins, wrinkles, age spots, and fading scars. I thought of how many times that hand had hit Miss Ella, of how many times it had hit me and Mutt, and of how much anger had flowed through those gnarled and twisted fingers. The instrument of my pain. I pressed the Band-Aid quickly on Rex's hand, wiped my hands on my pants, and watched Jase's little fingers smooth the edges of the Band-Aid, making sure it stuck. Jase pulled the second spare Band-Aid out of his pocket, placed it inside Rex's left hand, and patted Rex on the leg. "For later, in case that one comes off." I stood up and Jase placed his hand inside of mine. "Unca Tuck, why're you crying?"

"Because, little buddy, sometimes grown-ups cry too."

Jase looked confused and tugged again. "Unca Tuck?"

I knelt down. "Yes, partner."

"Do you need a Band-Aid?"

My eyes met Katie's. "Yes ... I need a Band-Aid."





Chapter 35


THE BANQUET CAFE WAS A CLOPTON LANDMARK AND offered the best nightly buffet in Alabama. Part grocery, part restaurant, and mostly gossip. If you wanted to let the town know you were selling something, getting divorced, had committed adultery, or had just had a baby, you mentioned it at the checkout of the Banquet Cafe and they'd get the word out faster than CNN. The sign out front had long since rusted off and disappeared, but nobody bothered to replace it. They didn't need to hang their sign out. Everybody knew what it was and where it was.

Family-owned, a husband and wife team cooked in the back while a couple of down-on-their-luck women and one old man worked the front, fluctuating between wait staff, hostess, and stock boy. They didn't offer menus and nobody ever took an order, because they only offered one option. The buffet. The usual offering included several vegetables such as collards, yams, stewed tomatoes, fried okra, mashed potatoes, and spinach. The meat options were roast beef, pulled barbeque in a vinegar-based sauce, meat loaf, fried chicken, and my favorite, chicken-fried steak smothered in biscuit gravy. The desserts were banana pudding, peach cobbler-with or without vanilla ice cream-and chocolate cake that was heavy on the icing. Everything was homemade, fresh, cooked with Crisco, and could put the weight on you in a hurry.

Three muscular, hyper, and protective Jack Russell terriers, named Flapjack, Pancake, and Biscuit, scurried about the floor begging, licking up scraps, and violating every health code ordinance on the books. Our waitress, decorated with multiple body piercings-including one through her nose that attached via a silver chain to her ear-seated us, threw a wad of napkins and a handful of silverware on the table, and said, "Food's hot. Plates're over there. Serve yourself."