John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

They should sell dead dogs, he said. They’re fun to look at.

You could get one stuffed, said Jearold, climbing back into the car. One that’s dead already.

That wouldn’t be as interesting, Diesel said, laughing again. Isaac didn’t understand him. He probably wasn’t real, Isaac decided. He was like the people in the Bible who didn’t have heads. Isaac shook to warm himself; the cold was tiring, and he needed to stay awake so Swortzel Swope would know he wanted to be saved. He followed Diesel back into the car, and the three of them drove down two hills and up three, past the Loyall turnoff and through Harlan, which was black and silent like a plague town. A floodwall hid the river from view, and lights blinked red, and banks’ bricks glowed from a crumbly yellow light. It was two-thirty in the morning.

Let’s just go to the wrong house on purpose, said Diesel.

What would the wrong house want with a dead dog? said Jearold.

Diesel shook his head. It stinks, he said.

Bones don’t stink, said Jearold; it’s your mind state.

So it stinks for you and not for me, said Diesel.

Isaac couldn’t smell it, only burning trash somewhere uphill from Harlan. Ridges rose like ramparts all around the car, and Isaac was glad his father argued with everything Diesel said. He wanted to hurry and get to their destination. He hoped it would be a real house, not just a trailer, and he hoped it would have a staircase. Preachers probably had the money for an upstairs and a downstairs. Maybe this preacher would adopt him like a heathen child from the other continents. There was probably a spare room.

I’ll bet there’s a feud on, said Jearold.

What feud? said Diesel.

I don’t know what feud, said Jearold, but he pointed to a sign they passed for Johnson’s Engine and said, We’ll tell him the Johnsons killed his dog. That’ll be real funny.

Killed it how? said Diesel.

Shot him, Jearold said.

There’s no bullet in the body, said Diesel.

We’ll shoot one in, said Jearold.

With what gun? said Diesel.

Jearold shrugged. Poisoned, then, he said.

No wonder you get arrested so much, said Diesel, with stories like that.

People believe me, Jearold said, his voice raised. People like me.

What kind of people? said Diesel.

People are the same everywhere, Jearold said. It don’t matter.

Maybe they ain’t the same here.

Suddenly Jearold was bigger and more muscular than he’d ever seemed before to Isaac. You’re gonna wait in the car when we get to Swortzel Swope’s house, he said to Diesel. You’d best not say one word.

I’ll save your life, said Diesel. Whatever you say.

You’ll sit there and shut up.

You’re scared, said Diesel. You’re holden your ass funny.

I’m not holden it any way at all.

I’ll bet the muscles is all tensed up, he said. A car on its way to Harlan passed them. It didn’t have its headlights on, only the fog lights. There wasn’t any fog; the night was clear and black. Jearold didn’t answer. He took a sharp curve at sixty, and Diesel gripped the door and gasped. They shot beneath the tree cover, skidded on the chalk of faded lines, and a bird shat on the grainy glasspane of their windshield.

So you’re quitting your job? said Diesel.

Jearold stared at him.

That’s cool, Diesel said. Now we can hang out more. Play more pool down at the bar. You hardly ever even play no more.

He was right; Jearold hardly ever did.

We’ll go cruising up in Gatlinburg and look for girls, said Diesel. It’ll be pretty cool. He looked out the window for a while. Isaac’s head was beginning to throb; he felt it with every beat of his pulse. Gnarled trees and dead mulched leaves were airbrushed onto the landscape like paint on glass. Jearold took the curves just slow enough so Rocks wouldn’t bang against the door, just fast enough to feel like they were getting somewhere.

They got to Cumberland. They saw the five lights. Diesel read the directions aloud to Jearold, who squinted at the road like it was paved in a foreign language. They passed the curves, the corner, the church, the pink toilet. Isaac wondered if this was the last time he’d see Diesel and Jearold. He hoped so. The preacher would help him. He didn’t know how courts and judges worked, but he figured they were good people, the kind who did what children hoped for. Jearold turned onto a gravel road and drove on it like it was a racetrack. Isaac couldn’t see outside; he wondered if there were cattle, if the gravel hurt the cattle when it hit them. Jearold was grinning, snickering. He tugged at his crotch and turned into a driveway with a number on the mailbox that matched his sheet of paper, and Isaac’s blood flowed fast; he wondered if his father would stab him, stab his son’s heart once he defected.

Jearold darted up the driveway and held the horn down. It wasn’t very loud. Goddamn sissy horn, he said. A porch light came on and illuminated an old log cabin on the hillside. Power lines ran to a shed outside it. A man staggered out.

Jearold turned off the car and opened the door. You Swope? he said.

The man grunted.

Which one are you? Jearold said. What number? Are you four?

This is box eight six one eight, the man said. As Isaac’s eyes adjusted to the low light he got scared, because the man skulked like an ogre. He looked like the Boogerman. Isaac got out of the car; he couldn’t see the man’s nose yet.

I’ll be goddamned if there’s that many of you, said Jearold. You got a dog?

The man didn’t answer. His head rose up to half the height of Jearold’s neck, but he weighed two hundred pounds at least, and his greasy shoes were as wide as three of Isaac’s. His green eyes shone like glowing ova. His beard was frostbound; it could crumble at the touch. Every breath was a ton of fog. He looked like the Canaanites in paintings printed inside Isaac’s Bible Stories book. He chewed tobacco; he had stains on his face. Preachers weren’t supposed to look like that. The Canaanites had knives and bludgeons when they fought, and Swortzel Swope’s front pockets bulged, and he didn’t have a shirt on; thick gray hair coated his chest and stomach, and Isaac gulped and clutched his father’s Wranglers by the side; Jearold was strong, he hoped, and meaner than this demon who observed them all at once with eyes that narrowed like they channeled sunlight from the far side of the world.

We’re the dog people, Jearold said. We’ve got Bones.

You the Delta man? said Swortzel Swope. His words were thick like swill. When he kicked gravel a piece of it hit Isaac in the chin.

You Gurney’s cousin?

Huh? barked Swortzel Swope as if his mouth was full of meat.

You the fourth?

Huh?

Diesel, said Jearold, get them bones.

Diesel was standing with his hands inside the pockets of his jacket, hunched over with a frown and laughing nervously. He muttered to himself.

What bones? said Swortzel Swope.

Your dog, said Jearold.

My dog ain’t Bones.

Jearold shrugged and said, They don’t tell me the names.

I don’t hear him, Swortzel Swope said.

That’s cause he ain’t talken, Jearold said.

I don’t hear him breathe, said Swortzel Swope.

You don’t hear anybody breathe, said Jearold. They just breathe.

I hear you doen it, the preacher said. I hear two others.

Isaac felt his father’s shudders. He didn’t understand why there was a Confederate flag hanging on the front porch of the cabin; they were in Kentucky now, which had never left the Union. Swortzel Swope refused to look at them but focused on the trees behind their backs, above them; his eyes stayed wide, and Isaac hoped his father would still be crazier than this man. He didn’t like it when voices looked different than the things they said on radios. I hear a boy, said Swortzel Swope, his skin burnt dark in splotches like a fried potato, and Isaac shut his eyes, and across the hill invisibly two motorcycles screamed into the east and lacerated asphalt on Kingdom Come Parkway.