John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

Don’t you touch my boy, said Jearold.

Is there one? yelled Swortzel Swope. I hear the breaths.

You heard me, Jearold said.

I just said I heard one, Swortzel Swope said.

You touch my boy, said Jearold, you won’t never get your dog back.

Swortzel Swope was grinning like an idiot in chains. Jearold clenched his fists, and Isaac felt ashamed; his father was protecting him, and he knew he wouldn’t have done the same. He was small and scared. He held his breath. He hoped his father couldn’t read his mind; it had harbored wickedness, and he looked at Swortzel Swope and understood why they were doing what they did.

I need my dog. I better get my dog.

Swortzel Swope looked like Isaac’s nightmare mother. His eyes made Isaac want for things to burn. When Jearold tried to slaughter blackbirds with the car, Isaac secretly liked it, and his mother screamed at his every snore to tell him he was hellborn, that she didn’t love him anymore, eight hours a night to keep him meek. He didn’t need that. Jearold wouldn’t make him do what God said, or what his mother said, or anyone else who didn’t make sense.

You need your dog like holes in your goddamn head.

Jearold made sense. When Swortzel Swope leaned over to hack up sludge from his lungs, his left eye twitched. It popped out and it popped back in and Isaac’s heart stopped for a moment. He squeezed his father’s hand.

Are you the man on the radio? said Jearold.

I done some time on there, said Swortzel Swope. You play it for my dog?

What was all that shit you preached? said Jearold.

That was my sermon.

Invasions and all that eyeball shit, said Jearold. The preacher nodded. Isaac shivered, and Jearold as if he sensed it said, Were you tryen to scare me, you old fool?

It wasn’t me, said Swortzel Swope.

Then who the hell was it? said Jearold.

I’m just a receiver, he said. Like a radio.

You’re a radio? said Jearold.

Swortzel Swope didn’t answer.

You don’t look much like a fucken radio, said Jearold louder.

He’s not a radio, said Diesel.

He just said he was a goddamn radio, said Jearold.

Well, Diesel said, he’s not.

Like one of them worm things, said Swortzel Swope.

What worm things? said Jearold.

The ones that’s in your body.

I ain’t got a worm thing in my body, Jearold said.

Everybody’s got one, Swortzel Swope said.

You don’t know what I’ve got and don’t got, Jearold said.

That was the invasion, said Swortzel Swope.

There ain’t no invasion, said Jearold.

Will yuns shut up about the invasion? Diesel said.

It’s what builds your shit up, Swortzel Swope said.

I’ll build your damn shit up, Jearold said.

It’s an intestine, Isaac said, and everyone turned to look at him, even Swortzel Swope whose eyes refused to look at anything at all.

Say what? said Jearold.

Isaac’s cheeks turned red. Intestine, he said.

I knew there was a boy, said Swortzel Swope. I heard them breaths. That’s how I know things. Jearold growled, and Isaac closed his eyes. He had known his speaking would make somebody mad, but he didn’t know whom. That’s it, said Swortzel Swope, but he didn’t hear a dog, and he staggered down the driveway toward the car. Isaac stood between it and the preacher’s body that groped toward him, taking baby steps on gravel, grunting, single hairs upright on his bald head; he picked at the insides of his ears and tilted them from side to side. Isaac stood transfixed, looking in terror up at Jearold, who looked back the same.

I know your kind, said Jearold to Swortzel Swope. I know how you try to make me afraid. I know you want me scared.

Isaac’s blood felt warm when he saw his father raise his arm. Jearold wasn’t crazy after all, only scared. He feared things. Isaac had never known his father had emotions. His eyes stung and teared, and he knew that such a feeling must be happiness. His father’s fears were his own, and they could share them now. Don’t lay your hand on the boy, said Swortzel Swope, whose eyes lay numb like dead zeroes when he saw Jearold’s arm. Isaac stood on a pile of twigs that snapped and split. The preacher stumbled when he heard it, so the bone of Jearold’s elbow missed him, struck the air, and when the old man leaned down to the dirt to right himself, his eyeballs fell out and rolled and wobbled to the feet of Isaac, who screamed inside himself. The spheres were glass. Diesel charged into the black yard. In darkness and confusion Jearold halted, spellbound like a shield against invasions, and Isaac hid behind his strength and wished that time would stop so he could wrap himself forever in that safety.

I’ll show you a damn invasion, Jearold said. You dickless old fuck.

Diesel had walked back up to where they stood. He watched Jearold open the car door and unleash the carrier from its seat belt and take it out and drop it to the ground, and Swortzel Swope, who hadn’t found his eyeballs yet, jumped at the sound it made.

That’s to show how scared I am of you, said Jearold.

Help me, said Swortzel Swope. He sounded far away and pitiful, and Isaac didn’t feel sorry for him.

There’s something you orta know about Bones, said Jearold.

What bones?

Invasion hit him, Jearold said. That damn invasion.

Swortzel Swope didn’t move.

Go on, said Jearold. Look at your dog. Look what the invasion done to Bones.

Jearold, said Diesel. Look at his eyeballs.

Will you shut up? said Jearold. Look and see, he said to Swortzel Swope. Get that stupid grin shet off your face.

Jearold, said Diesel louder. Eyeballs. Eyeballs.

If I hear one more godforsaken thing about an eyeball, Jearold said, I’ll put em out myself. He drew back his arm as if to prove his threat and punch the absent eyes, but the preacher staggered backwards, revealing gaping holes that twitched like phantoms.

Please don’t hurt me, Swope pleaded, staring straight at Jearold helplessly, his front teeth twitching and the gap between them wider for a moment. Jearold dropped the dog carrier and opened his mouth wide and said nothing.

Don’t do anything to my eyes, said Swortzel Swope.

Isaac wanted his father to crush them. He wondered would they squish or would they shatter into shards like marbles.

Your dog died on the way up here, Diesel said to Swortzel Swope. It was back around the state line. I don’t know quite how it happened.

You don’t have my dog, said Swortzel Swope. You’re not the dog people.

There’s its bones, said Diesel. See for yourself.

My dog’s not bones. It’s a dog.

Jearold staggered backwards to the car. Isaac bent to the carrier himself and opened its latch and tilted it, became the force that rained bones to the gravel earth.

It was the invasion, said Diesel, sounding like he believed it.

Get in the car, said Jearold.

Isaac obeyed.

Get in, his father said again to Diesel.

We have to find his eyeballs, Diesel said.

Find em, then, said Jearold.

Isaac followed his father into the car and watched him turn the ignition. Swortzel Swope didn’t notice when Jearold turned on the headlights, but Diesel did; he ran toward the vehicle as it backed quickly down the driveway. Diesel looked like a gargoyle. Bugs were crawling like shadows in his beard. He probably had bugs inside him too, in his stomach, in his head to make him crazy. Go, said Isaac, and his father looked at him and seemed to smile, and they escaped, and Isaac smiled at Diesel as he made it to the front seat.

Isaac was glad Jearold could drive so drunk and tired; there were a lot of folks who couldn’t. He settled back and put his seat belt on and took it off again. They were back on the main road. Isaac felt so tired that he wanted to cry, but not even dogs cried. Their eyes just got bigger and bigger until they held a body’s weight of tears. Dogs knew crying was just how other people were.