April 21, 2008
THE TABLE ROUND, ITS SIEGE PARLOUS, AND THE UNRAVELING OF KINSHIPS
| BERRIEN C. HENDERSON |
Almost everyone had arrived for Art’s shindig.
Art sat on the overturned five-gallon bucket. It had been—what? months?—since he’d had friends over. The old pack. The comitatus. Back for some esprit de corps.
C.V. kept the fire stoked. Lance and Morris bickered over the virtues of Fords and Chevrolets and immigration and gas prices. Vera had come by, fashionably late, to play madame socialite and flittered like the sparking, soon-flashed-out sparks tumbling in the fire’s convections. She stayed near Lance.
In the night it was easy for them to come unstuck, especially Art, especially amid the orange arcana of flames and the inky press of night. Somewhere on the far side of the pond, the witch Eva sang, and they listened to her alien tongues as Art got up and went inside, returning with a case of beer which he plunked on the old industrial sized utility spool now serving as a table.
”What y’all waiting for?” said Art, and the beer went fast. By the time he’d gotten three in himself, he’d stopped mingling and took a moment to compose the haiku that had been tumbling through his head all day.
nighttime jets flashing
along a hedgerow of clouds
fireflies at Mach two
”Can’t you leave off that fuckin’ shit?” said Morris.
”Says the troglodyte,” said Art, getting another beer.
”An’thing else snobby you got to say? You got a book coming out. Won our daddy’s land.” Morris stood and dusted off his pants from the hay bale.
Lance stepped in as he always had. “Morris, ain’t the time nor the place. High school’s been over for five years now.”
”Ain’t never been time nor place, Lance, so don’t touch me, goddammit,” hissed Morris, and Lance saw in the other’s eyes that there would be absolutely no honor, no rationale, no peace even for a few hours this night.
”Knew I shouldn’t've invited you,” said Art, holding off opening the beer as Morris swaggered over.
”You’d've been informed not to have invited a couple folks,” said Morris, his eyes darting to Vera and Lance. “Too damned nai—”
And Art popped him in the head with the unopened beer; Morris crumpled and got shakily to his knees. Red ire flashed across his bleary eyes. The bottom of the beer can had imprinted on his forehead; the red weal inscribed thereon spoke wrath.
”One more word, and I will stomp a mudhole in your ass and walk the fucker dry.” Art stood over Morris, and a wave of déjà vu swelled over him the way it had yesterday at the pond. Old hatred—old bitterness—welled in his eyes. If only there had been a snake insinuating itself in the yard between them, how apropos? From across the pond the witch’s song paused in some tenuous caesura. Art said, “Pick yourself up and go. Or stay down.”
As Morris wrenched himself up to trying lunging for Art, who just stood there in dread calm, Lance and Wayne each found one of Morris’s arms.
”Not so fast, big un,” said Lance.
”Let go,” growled Morris.
”And let him prove he’s not so drunk now as you? Maybe some other time,” said Wayne. “Good seein’ you, Art.”
”Wish it had been longer,” said Art.
”I won’t forget this,” said Morris as the other two carted him off to Lance’s truck.
”Promises, promises,” muttered Art.
So, the fire died by degrees with the sullen turn of events, but C.V. hung around and kicked his feet up on the utility-spool table. He waved bye to them.
”Just like Morris to go and kill the whole mood,” muttered C.V. He craned his neck to look at Art. “Toldja.”
”Good night, C.V.” Art had a thousand things to say. One of them was that C.V. was right. Just not right now.
”Later, tater.” C.V. stood and flickered an index finger wave. He walked into the night, which folded him into itself. “Well enough. Even ol’ girl never showed.”
A piece of wood popped in the fire.
”Art.”
Vera stood at the front stoop of the trailer.
”Thanks for coming,” he said as he negotiated the steps. That they were already wobbly, and so were his alcohol-infused legs didn’t help. He grabbed the doorknob.
Vera folded her arms. “My ride left.”
”Shame, that.” He turned the knob.
”Could you drive me home?”
”Sure, if I weren’t halfway drunk,” he said with a snort. “You know, Lance ain’t seen Wayne in over a year. Some catching up to do. You know how Lance gets.”
Vera just stared at him.
He pulled from his pint of Southern Comfort. “Far be it for me to turn away a damsel in distress.” He took another draught.
”Smartass sonuvabitch.”
”There’s plenty of wood for the fire,” said Art, opening the door. “It’s ‘posed to get cold tonight.”
”Couch still warm?”
Art went in and left the trailer door open. In she came, and in the low light of the interior, her face shimmered as Art plopped onto the couch.
”Thought the couch was mine tonight,” she said.
”Mine every night,” said Art, sighing drunkenly, his eyelids thickening and drooping.
She plied him with charms and spangles and not a little Southern Comfort while her face swam in shadows—first her own, then somehow Eva’s, and the strange river-girl Morgan.
”Wha?” he managed as her hands fluttered over his belt buckle and button and zipper.
”Shhhhhhhhh,” came a rippling voice, at once in his ear and across the room. “Just taking care of you.”
And the shadow of a feminine trinity that wrought glamour and warmth in his veins and against secret places along his skin.