C. Morgan - All the Living

Why are you laughing then?

Lord, calm down, Aloma.

Shit! she said and she leaned forward, staring up at him so that he could see the whites all around her eyes. I don’t calm down just cause you tell me to. I stay in here every day doing what all you want and all I ask you to do is kill one goddamned rooster. Why can’t you do that one thing for me, Orren?

He looked about to say something, but then eyed her and rerouted his tongue. He put his hands on his hips. I don’t know. I just ain’t got around to it.

But that’s all I ever asked for!

Well, it tore me up too, he said lamely. A bunch of times. God almighty, what do you want from me?

Her tongue spilled. I want to not be murdered by birds! I want somebody to show me how to cook something! And I want to play piano again! I want a piano that works, one that’s not ruined! The words came out so fast and so much louder than she’d intended, she looked even more surprised than he did.

Well, make up your mind, he said, his voice rising. You want a new piano or you want me to kill that goddamn rooster? I can’t make high nor low of you. Orren made a move to rake a hand through his hair, but then lost the will halfway through the motion so his hand remained at the top of his head like a spigot.

Aloma sat up straight again and her voice arched. I want a piano right now, and I want you to kill that rooster right now! If you loved me, you could just do one simple thing! Her voice was losing its balance and he heard it.

Woman, he said, as if it were a full sentence and not just the single-word warning it was, I will kill that fucking rooster on my own fucking time.

Aloma allowed herself to look more wounded than she really was, and deciding it was time to make her exit, she bolted up from her chair in a huff and started angrily for the door. Except she’d forgotten her shorts were still pooled around her ankles, so she stumbled and Orren had to reach out to steady her. She pushed at him impatiently, and for a second felt a furthering wild urge to beat at him, strike him across the face and chest for having brought her here to the sorry edge of the mountains, the one place in the world she wanted to leave behind her, where nothing worked, where every last thing wasted flesh into bone. She wanted to say all that with her fists, but she kept her head about her enough to just swat at his arm once without doing any real damage so that he stepped back with his hands raised and she kicked instead with extra fury at her shorts till they flew under the table like a bird under a tree and she stormed out of the room in her underpants, her bottom shaking behind her.

That night when Orren eased into bed, she expected him to treat her like something that had just come out of the fire, still too hot to touch. And he did, at first. He said nothing. He coughed quietly, as if to himself. She heard him scratch at the stubble on his cheeks and jaw. And then, when she had just begun to relax, he slid both his arms around her and began to forcibly turn her around in the bed. She would not go easy, scraping and grabbing at the sheet until the elasticized edge lifted with a snap off the corner of the mattress and she found herself flipped around and facing him, the sheet in her hand. She brought the heel of her other hand up against his forehead and pushed his head back until he had to let go of her with one hand to save his face. But then, instead of rolling back to her side of the bed where she could show him the cold of her shoulder, she struck at the meat of his arm once and in the hollow space under him reached for his neck with her mouth. For a moment he offered himself without moving. But he had brought his own anger to bed with him and they ended up scrabbling and tangling across the bed in a way that was not so much loving as mean. And sometime in the middle of it all, she became aware of the difference that had come over them and it seared her to know that it did nothing to damper the want. She did not want to like it, but she did. She had no idea what that said about them and would not look any closer as she held him. She sensed there were things that suffered from close inspection and in its bittered pleasure this was an easy mystery to accept.

Afterwards Orren said, I been thinking. Mama’s church is down in Hansonville and you might could go down there.

She waited for more and when it didn’t come, she said with a sigh, To do what?

See if you might could pick around a bit on their piano. During the day or something, I don’t know. If they need a piano player, maybe.

She made no reply so he would know she was still mad. But she stored it away in her mind where she could find it again later and then she fell asleep with her back to Orren and one cold hand tucked between her tired legs.

Late the next afternoon, with the light trooping west and the heat trailing after, Orren walked into the kitchen, bringing with him the smell of old cured tobacco and dirt. He looked pleased with himself, the way he leaned back against the door when he closed it and folded his arms over his chest and just waited. Quiet, watchful.

Aloma stood over a stove of soup beans and chicken. She glanced at him suspiciously over her shoulder, took in his hint of a grin and the way he patted at his breast pocket meaningfully with one hand like he had something there, then she looked away. I’m as mean as you, Orren Fenton, she thought.

Dammit, woman, just ask, he said.

Ask what? she said without looking up again.

Ask what I got in my pocket.

She sighed. What’s in your pocket, Orren?

Come here and close your eyes and give me your hand.

Hell’s bells, she said.

Come on now, he said. And it was the sound of his voice — the barest crooking of humor now straightened — that caused her to turn from her position at the stove and walk directly over to him with her hand held out.

Close your eyes, he said and she did. What he laid in her hand was sharp and cool, hollowed. She opened her eyes and looked down. For a long moment she could not comprehend what she was looking at and then she gasped and dropped them to the floor where they scattered, nacred and edged with gristle, across the faded linoleum.

What’d you do that for? Orren said.

What’d you bring me those for? she cried with her hands still open before her.

His face then was a tableau of confusion and irritation. I figured you’d want em for a kind of souvenir.

A souvenir of what? Of a dead bird?

He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

Orren, my God, she said and then, in a heat, as if it explained something, My God, Orren, I’m a girl. Her words stilted out, sputtering in exasperation. Orren’s brow twisted and he looked down for a second as if he might stoop and pick up the spurs, but he didn’t move. And when she knew she should have stopped, she went on: Lord, just think a little bit next time. She heaved a sigh, not knowing how he could live with her and hear the words out of her mouth and lie with her every night and yet think she’d want keepsake spurs he’d ripped from a rooster’s feet. It didn’t suit and she didn’t know why he couldn’t see it, she would never know, she would never know him.

Orren leveled her with a look then, and she felt as if she’d swallowed an ice cube whole. Suddenly she wanted to scoop up the spurs off the floor and start all over again and she even made a move to bend down. She did sincerely want the moment back, but he didn’t give her the chance. He turned on his heel, tore open the kitchen door, said, Fuck you, and disappeared into the dark in a way that was becoming familiar.

She acted like she hadn’t given his suggestion about the church a second thought, but it stuck in her mind and it rattled there. She had worked as an accompanist in the school church from the time she was fourteen, charging through the hymns every Sunday morning and boring to sleep under the tepid sermons of the pastor who led the students away from the raucous ecstasies of their mountain churching. She’d been proud of the little money she earned while still a student pianist at the school, she’d saved it up, and though it wasn’t enough to send her to college when she graduated, it was enough to buy her a red truck with a spiderwebbed back window and a tailgate that wouldn’t latch. She’d bought it the day after she found out she would come to the farm. Now, grown increasingly weary of the shell of the big house, her hands always smelling like onions from supper or piney almond scent from cleaning and polishing, she began to study on Orren’s suggestion. If she could play on Sundays, she might have access to a piano during the week, maybe they would even give her a key. She could play again and, for once, be the one leaving the house. The least she could do was drive down and ask.