Annie DeWitt - White Nights in Split Town City

“They’re a bitch to crack,” Fender was saying when I regained focus. He was talking about his collection of geodes. “You never know what’s inside until it’s broken.”

“I’ve never tried,” I said.

“Limestone,” he said. “The best spot to go looking is the stone wall. There’s so much you trip over it.” Fender got up from his bed and walked toward the window, pointing toward the stretch of wall that lined Otto’s pasture.

“Let’s go,” I said.

As we turned to leave, Liden stood in the doorway.

“Quit it, man,” Fender said.

“No worries,” Liden said. “I can see you’ve got company.”

“Leave her alone,” Fender said.

Liden eyed me for a moment then laughed.

“How about that new video game?” he said.

“Maybe later,” Fender said.

“Just one game and I’ll let you go,” Liden said.

The hallway to the attic was dark and stuffy, padded with tufts of insulation. As we made our way up the stairs, Liden trailed behind us. I imagined him grabbing me the way I’d seen Father grab Mother on the stairs. There was something thick and oniony on Liden’s breath.

“You were right,” he said to Fender in the darkness. “She’s nothing but a baby.”

The attic was lit by a single exposed bulb that hung from the ceiling. In one corner there was a small television. On the floor beside it was a mattress. Piles of videos and magazines were strewn about.

“Have a seat,” Liden said.

We took our seats on the mattress and flicked the television on. The thing about porn is that it’s nothing without the windup. Without the story or the stripping, it’s all just a mess of appendages. I’d seen horses rear up on each other similarly in the paddock. Two geldings sparring over a mare. Though I understood the violence of it, the sexuality for me was missing.

“Let’s see you two go at it,” Liden said. He gripped my knee on the mattress from where I sat between them. With his other hand he tugged on the fray of my cut-offs. “I’ll watch. You don’t look like you’re built for two at once.”

Fender leapt over my body and pinned Liden on the mattress with his elbow, crushing his nose with one of the controllers. Liden rolled away from me in pain.

“Go fast,” Fender said, grabbing my arm.

“You get home safe now,” Liden yelled down the stairs after us.

Outside, Fender and I sprinted through the woods in back of the house. Fender picked his way through the underbrush. By the time we reached the stone wall we were walking. He’d mined this spot before. A small wooden shelf built of two-by-fours was nailed into a tree. It held a flashlight and a toolbox. A red crow bar and a thick handled ax leaned against the trunk. In the space next to the wall there was a patch of earth devoid of grass. This was his splitting spot.

Our first day was a gutting. It took Fender nearly an hour to split anything off. We were hoping for a clean break down the middle. By the time darkness set in, the wheelbarrow was lined with small boulders.

“Get in,” Fender said. I sat perched on our pile as he pushed.

We made our way down the long drive that led to the Bottom Feeder. A breeze rushed over the flat parts of my face. Every now and again Fender let the slope of the hill take the wheelbarrow and I felt as though we were gliding. He chose the grassy part of the hill next to the drive where the ground was soft and even. The sky had on the kind of hue that precedes certain sunsets in the heat of summer when even the air is tired, all shade having burnt off by the end of the day, revealing streamers of violet and blood orange.

We unloaded the rocks onto the gravel under the spigot in front of the house. K’s car was parked in the drive. In the thin light it looked like a tin matchbook car which I might press with my thumb and roll down the hill into the marsh. As Fender dropped the last stone in the pile, K appeared on the front porch. She peered down at us.

“Where did you two get lost?” she said.

Fender looked up at her under the floodlight. His undershirt clung to his chest. Though he was significantly younger than K, you wouldn’t have known it to watch him.

“She was with me,” he said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” K said, pulling the edges of her sweatshirt over her chest.

We saw two beams of headlights on the horizon.

“You better be getting on home,” K said, nodding at Fender.

“Take mine,” I said, nodding at my bike where it was laying in the drive.

Together K and I stood on the porch and watched Fender disappear up the trailhead. Under the stoop of his stature, the frame of the bike looked dwarfed and circus like. He had to lean over the handlebars and stand on the pedals to steer. The white of his T-shirt and the rim of the bike’s fender glinted in those places they caught the light. I followed them until they disappeared in the wood over the top of the mountain.

The next day Father went fishing with Ray. That morning the house sprinted into the world. I woke to the sound of Father crashing about the crawlspace in the basement looking for his pole and box of tackle. Night was still in the air and with it that impermanent glimpse of other seasons with their welcome respite from the sun and the heat. Father had put a pot of coffee on in the kitchen. The dim yellow light shone over the stove when I came in.

“Who knew a man like that had ever seen the right side of six a.m.,” Father said as Ray powered down the engine of his truck in our driveway, relaxing in the cab for a moment to smoke the last of his cigarette. Birdie and I carried bags of ice onto the lawn. Ray tore open the bags with the back of his switchblade. He unloaded several six packs into the row of coolers closest to the tailgate, stirring the ice around with the back of his hand, burying the bottles under the frost.

“When those brews are gone, Rick, what do you say we fill those coolers with bass?” Ray said.

“I’d say you’ve outdone yourself, Ray,” Father said. “I like a man who outdoes himself. I’ll be back with the cold cuts and bread. We might have a hankering for something hearty out there.”

As the two men made eye contact, Father chuckled, running his hand under the visor on his temples. Father was a man who spent most of his life trying to cultivate a ready laugh. Though he was built like a workhouse, when it came to conversations, he had more of a dancer than a boxer in him. “Back in a minute,” Father said, jogging up the walk to the house.

“Good man,” Ray said, with that sportiness that came from years of playing football and working in the army. In his eyes, no man who knew the burden of having a wife and kids was outside the purview of an honest day’s fish.

That day, I was to spend the morning with Margaret. Birdie would stay at home with K. Mother had made arrangements from the city, Father said. Ray was tight lipped on the matter. The bed of the truck loaded, he slammed the tailgate shut and I jumped into the cab.

“You sure you don’t want to come with us, lady?” Ray said, as he hoisted himself into the driver seat, shutting the door and turning the key to the ignition. “We’ve always got room in the dinghy for a deckhand.” “Mother arranged for me to spend the day with Margaret,” I said.

“So I hear,” Ray laughed. “Do me a favor. Tell her your old man and I went fishing without a license. That should give her something to rail on for a while.”

I looked at him for a moment. For a barber, he had a rough face. His stubble was gray and patchy. There was a thin grease in his hair, which appeared rumpled from the last place he’d run his hands through it. Despite the hour, his eyes were alive and fresh. I could tell there was nothing malicious in his jest. He was a man who woke on the right side of circumstance and liked to lend some of his humor to the day when he could.