His ankles went under. “ Quicksand! ” He screamed at me, his eyeballs bulgin’ so big and white. “Quicksand, Bennett, quicksand!”
He kept yellin’ like I should do something. I walked over slow, just as the mud sucked in around the twin poles of his legs, draggin’ him deeper. He reached out with the gun barrel, holdin’ it by the stock. “Grab it, Bennett!”
I started to but I was afraid he’d pull the trigger on me.
“For God’s sake, Bennett, grab it!”
I got scared and started backing away. And when his thighs disappeared and then his big dough stomach, he started hollering and screaming. He layed out flat like he was goin’ to swim out of it and when he seen he couldn’t, he fired on me.
The blast brought down a tree limb over my head. He tried to fire the other barrel but the mud was already suckin’ his hands in. And with all that squishin’ and suckin’ I felt funny-like. ’Cause every inch of Mr. Herm that went in, was an inch that couldn’t hurt me no more.
It was him what made me bad and do what I did with Miss Lottie. I don’t know why he hated me so. Maybe ‘cause his factory was doin’ poor and he din’t like bein’ married and he had to take it out on someone. I never talked back to him. Not once. Even now, while he was bein’ swallowed up — I never said nothing.
The shotgun and his shoulders went under about the same time, real smooth. Only his head was stickin’ out now and I watched real close. I didn’t want to miss none of that. And it was only then that I found the words.
I walked up to the edge of the darker mud. “How can I help you, Mr. Herm? You always told me true that white trash don’t eat, don’t sleep or breathe — and don’t exist at all. And if I don’t exist, Mr. Herm —” I laughed kinda “— how’m I goin’ to pull you out?”
He started to say something, but his mouth filled up with mud.
Then his head went under, went down with a sucking, puffing noise, and the bubbles came up real slow for a little bit, till the mud closed over his hair with little ripples and movements, and the top was all smooth and quiet.
I could of helped him, I guess. But I was scared and after I wasn’t scared no more, I din’t care. He hated me, Mr. Herm did, and bein’ as hate can run both ways, I guess some of it rubbed off on me. Maybe if he wasn’t always tellin’ me I din’t exist when I knew I did …
Anyway, it’s too late now.
Sittin’ with my knees pulled up like before and thinkin’ of Miss Lottie instead, I knew it’s bad what we did an’ Mam’ll be mad with me, but it felt good just the same.
In a little while, I’m goin’ back — after I’ve thought a little bit more. I hope they’ll believe me; I won’t lie none. If Poppa Jango will allow, I’ll work the Deepwater same as always. No — not the same as always. Things has changed now, I guess. Won’t no one say I don’t exist. No one — ’specially not Miss Lottie.
Eleven: Thicker than Blood
“Blood may be thicker than water.… but there ain’t no getting away from it: money’s thicker than blood.”
“No, no, no and no , Roger, we are not going to give you the twelve thousand dollars! We put you in business when you married Felice — because you married Felice — and we thought it was a bad investment then; you’ve only borne out our contention. I speak for Harold and Madge and Ralph, as well as myself in this. No money. Not a cent.”
Roger Singer stared moodily at his right shirt cuff. It was frayed. Only slightly, but it somehow seemed indicative: he was going downhill. He looked up at the florid man who had spoken.
“But, Uncle Bob, you’ve got to understand. I’m in debt twelve thousand dollars .”
The florid man nodded in annoyance. He sucked on the imported Cuban cigar between his lips, rolled it to the opposite corner of his mouth. “I know, I know, Roger. You’ve been saying that all evening … it seems to be the only thing you can say. And you’ve got to understand, too. You’re not getting the money from us. Just because we’re Felice’s brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, don’t think you can lean on us because of your own mismanagement.”
His deep-set black eyes flashed, and he removed the cigar, adding with vehemence, “And stop calling me Uncle Bob!”
Roger Singer ran a shaking hand through the short hairs at the back of his neck, feeling the loose hair from the barber shop; he had gotten the haircut specially; rented the evening jacket specially; invited the family to dinner specially. All for nothing.
He knew it was hopeless, all hopeless now. They would force him into bankruptcy; force, too, his working for someone else, probably the family. He would lose the linoleum shop, lose his independence, lose his integrity working for those filthy rich, filthy fat relatives of his — who hated him.
He stared across momentarily at Uncle Bob, sitting there with legs spread far apart because his belly got in the way. Uncle Bob looking fat and florid and surly because he’d had to refuse that wastrel Roger again.
Roger saw the gleam of pleasure in Uncle Bob’s eyes; they’d been waiting for this, waiting for him to get so far in debt he’d have to come begging, so they could refuse him.
“You — won’t — reconsid …”
Bob’s fat, oily hand came down on the kitchen table with a thump. “No! I will not! Now let’s get out of this kitchen, and back to the family. Thank God Penny is more like her mother … not like you. It’s the only reason I came tonight. To see Felice and the child.”
He rose heavily, straining against the fat, and waddled toward the living room of the apartment.
Roger watched him go for a moment, thinking. You can spare the money, you bastard! You just won’t, that’s all!
In the living room Harold and scrawny Madge and Ralph were coaxing Penny to do her imitation of Lily Tomlin. Roger stared at his stepdaughter from the doorway of the kitchen, and knew he couldn’t go in there immediately.
“I’ll be right in,” he said. “Just getting a glass of water.” He backed into the kitchen. He turned off the lights.
He stood in the darkness and let his hand glide over the angry sharpness of his jawline. It was all so futile, just when it could have been so right.
He flipped back through his memories of the past six years as he might have flipped a series of animation cards, letting sequence after sequence pop into sight before descending into blackness.
He had married Felice for her money. He had no compunctions about admitting it to himself; but he had been justified. There was no other way to get the money for the shop. And it wasn’t selfishness entirely; Felice’s first husband had been dead two years, and she had needed someone to lean on badly. Penny, too, had needed an object of male affection. It was so true; the way she called him “Daddy” and hung on him. Roger’s face quirked slightly at the nauseating thought of the nine-year-old girl hanging on him, literally begging for affection. So it had been a fifty-fifty bargain, and Felice had not come off badly at all.
In fact, it had been he who had come off badly. Those dollar-clutching relatives, with their millions. They had made his road as difficult as possible. They just hadn’t liked him. Right from the first.
Now they had their revenge.
He would lose the linoleum shop, and they would put him to work in some menial office job at the mill, or in the brokerage, or perhaps even in the shipping office of one of their many small businesses.