Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

“Nothing,” Virgil said. “Just talking to myself.”

“Makes good sense to me,” Morgan said.

Virgil stood, swaying slightly.

“We ort to let Morgan go to bed.”

“No need to rush off,” Morgan said.

“Where’s that possum at?” Arlow said. “Me and him’s got a bet on its teeth. You didn’t eat that, did you,”

“I’ve ate my share, boys. Time was, these hills was hunted so bad folks raised possum for meat. I’ve eat owl once and grateful for it.”

“Owl?”

“Ain’t supposed to, you know.”

“Why’s that?”

“On account of it eating meat. Same with cat or man. They ain’t fit.”

“Owl gets pretty good sized, don’t it.”

“Ain’t hardly no meat to it. Biggest part of them is head and the rest voice. Kindly greasy, like a coon. A one of you boys ever eat lobster?”

Arlow and Virgil shook their heads.

“Me neither, but I seen pictures. They’re pretty much a crawdad growed to the size of a squirrel and covered over with a shell. By God, it was one hungry son of a bitch who thought to eat that goddam thing. And after all the work put into it, they ain’t no more meat than a baby rabbit. Well, owl’s about the same. I drawed the line at dog. Guess I got to know too many. Squirrel’s my best.”

“Why’s that?” Arlow said.

“Quick and easy, I reckon.”

“Over in England,” Virgil said, “they don’t eat squirrel.”

“Why’s that?”

“They say a squirrel’s kin to a rat.”

“Well,” Morgan said, “it might have some rat to it. It gets around like a rat, and it sure as hell chews stuff up like a rat. But I’d say it’s fourth or fifth cousin. About like them Rodales.”

Morgan was staring hard at Virgil, his eyes narrowed to folded slits. Virgil didn’t move.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with getting shut of a aggravation like that. Best way is to kill it off leaf, limb, and root. But you got to be ready for the work, same as that boy who ate the first lobster. They ain’t no easy to it. More than that, you got to be ready for afterwards. That’s the hard part.”

“What are you talking about?” Arlow said, “Killing rats is easy as rolling off a whore.” He repeated himself and laughed again until the sound sputtered out. The silence confused him and he finished his beer. “Where’d you say that possum was?”

Morgan tipped his head to indicate the rear of the house, Arlow stepped into the darkness, cursing as he bumped walls.

Virgil felt as if a hole had opened in his mind and he wasn’t sure if stuff was leaking out or coming in. He felt sober. The old man kept his vision locked on Virgil’s face. It was the first time anyone had mentioned Boyd to him without sympathy or expectation. Morgan’s tone had been practical, as if discussing the best way to keep deer out of a garden.

Arlow staggered through the narrow house carrying a stuffed possum with its mouth open in a snarl Its feet were nailed to a board.

“See there,” Arlow said. “Bet my thumb there’s more than a hundred teeth in its mouth.”

“I’ll not take that bet,”

“Arlie-boy,” Morgan said, “That’s your possum now. You can have it.”

“Now, no. You can’t give a thing like this up. Ain’t too many, my opinion. Might be worth something.”

“Take and put it in the truck, Arlie-boy. Then you set and wait for your buddy here. He’ll be down directly.”

“They ain’t nothing I’ve got to give you back.”

“You give me plenty, you just don’t know it. Now hush and go. Wait on Caudill, here.”

“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”

Arlow cradled the possum to his chest as if it were a sack of eggs and went outside. The call of a bobwhite came through the door. Virgil felt nervous alone with Morgan.

“I’m fixing to tell you something I ain’t told a soul in nigh forty years,” Morgan said.

He closed his eyes and began to talk, slowly at first, as if he were a man who’d just learned how to use his voice.

“Used to, they made firebrick from the clay herebouts. Brickyard’s been shut down a long time but my daddy worked at it. They was a union war. Not like in the coal fields, but over who was going to run things — the AFL or the CIO. They’re joined up now. Back then they was enemies.

“My daddy, he was on the CIO side. He’d moved here for work and his buddies had went CIO. They had themselves a gunfight at Hay’s Crossing. Two AFLs was pinned down by more CIOs than you could count. They was all young and it was big fan, shooting all day and pissing on the gun barrels to keep them cool. One boy got sent home for food, ammo, and whisky. Daddy said it was the prettiest day in a month.

“Long on to dark, one AFL boy tore the bottom off his T-shirt and stuck it on a stick. Hollered that he was give out on fighting. The CIOs could have the union. He just wanted to go home and eat his supper. Well, nobody shot or said nothing. He come out of the brush scratched up and waving that flag, and got shot twice and went down like a stuck hog. As forehanded a man ever walked these hillsides. He lived but limped.

“My daddy, he got the blame on account of not having no kin living here. That way it was just him and not a whole gang to fight. It was best for everybody but us. Daddy saw he didn’t have no choice, and let it stick, but he told me he never done it.

“Somebody bushwhacked Daddy walking to work. Shot him right square in the same leg as the AFL boy. Now they both limped. Folks said you could see one coming and you’d not know which it was till he was foil on you. Things got back to peaceable after that. It was the AFL boy’s father who done the shooting and everybody knowed it, even Daddy, but he let it go. He got religion. They was too many to go up against anyhow. Daddy said it was the price of moving into a place where you didn’t know nobody. Said he had a good job and his family was happy. It was just me. They’d tried to have more kids but something was seized up in Mommy’s forks.

“Daddy, he took me out to the woods and learned me how to shoot pistol, riflegun, and scattergun. Daddy said he didn’t ever want me to be crippled up. Said a crippled man wasn’t worth the extra dirt his leg dragged. Said it wasn’t religion that kept him from getting that bunch back, it was being a coward. Not even Mommy knowed that.

“Then he’d beat me with the stick he walked with, tear me up one side and down the other. If I was to try and run, he’d laugh and say nobody ran from a gimp but a chicken. Said he was beating me so I’d not be yellow like him. Said he’d quit the day I just stood there and let him do it. He’d know I was brave.

“Then a bad thing happened, the worst thing. He got blood poison and the doctor cut his leg off. Took four men to hold him, but it was too late. That poison was in him like a snake. He died.

“Well, I practiced shooting every day for nigh a year. Then I had me a growth spurt. I was sixteen and ort to have been sniffing girls out, but I never. Nobody had ever liked us. I didn’t have nary a friend and Mommy stayed at the house. They hated us for not leaving. We reminded them of what they were — a whole creek full of liars.

“I didn’t know that then. All I knew was what it felt like to grow up a stranger. I decided to give them a reason to hate me and do what Daddy should have done. He never had the chance to see how brave his beating made me.

“I worked it all out in my head. If I was to go on a shooting spree, they’d damn sure know it was me, and they’d get me. What I done was not do a damn thing different. I went to school. I chopped wood and hauled water for Mommy. I worked in the garden and every now and again I killed me a man. Nobody knew who it was. They was all scared and they took to suspicioning each other, the same way I’d lived my whole life. They laid the blame off on first one then the other. About the time they was ready to shoot somebody, I’d Mil another man and the whole thing would start again. By God, I was proud. I ain’t no more, but I was swelled up then like a poisoned pup. It was the first time I ever felt like I belonged there.