“You oughta be ashamed of yourself, peeking in at people.” He pushed me inside. “Look what I found.”
“Hey, hey, just in time,” said Wendell. He winked at his brother.
Martin looked at me angrily. He was still upset about Ma and the baseball game. It didn’t matter to him that I had been embarrassed, too. “Make him touch it.”
I fought Bucky’s hold and then Fred helped him control me. Wendell grabbed my hand and pulled it toward Naomi’s crotch. Wendell moved the back of my hand against the smooth panties. I looked right into Naomi’s eyes. Her eyes were soft, vacant in a way, somehow stupid.
“No, make him touch it, really touch it,” Martin said and then he yanked Naomi’s underwear to her knees.
I struggled, but slowly Wendell pulled my hand down again. I closed my eyes tightly as my fingers pushed against the soft hair and soft flesh. I opened my eyes and found Naomi smiling a stupid smile. I screamed and ripped away from their grasp and ran out of the shed. I ran home and into the bathroom, where I held my fingers under the running water for a long time.
I went into my bedroom and looked out the window. Ma was sprinting back and forth across the yard. I could hear Bud playing the piano downstairs. I kept hearing his words. He said that maybe Ma was just different. I was searching for “just different” in the woman dashing back and forth, back and forth, but all I saw was crazy. And again I was scared to death that whatever sickness was loose in my mother was also loose in me. I closed my eyes and told myself I wasn’t crazy. I left my room, walked down the back stairs, and entered the garage. I took the hatbox of dead birds from behind the tires and carried it to the trash can by the street. I went back into the house and sat on the sofa while Bud played. I fell asleep.
“Wake up, Craig.” Sid is shaking me.
My eyes open and I yawn and I stretch a little. “What is it?” I ask in the middle of a second yawn.
“Time to get up,” he says, walking across the cabin. He stops at the counter and pours two mugs of coffee. “I must have had some time last night.”
“I guess.”
“I remember doing pushups.” He comes over and gives me a mug of coffee. “But that’s about all I remember.”
I reach down and pick up my britches.
“How’d you like the honey I picked out for you?”
I’m pulling on my pants. “She was okay.” I stand up and fasten my belt and then I stretch. “So, what are we up to today?”
“I thought we’d take a little trip,” he says, moving up the steps to the deck.
I follow him and I’m pulling my tee-shirt on and I step out into the morning. “Where are we going?”
“South.”
“Where south?”
“San Francisco.”
“Why?”
Sid looks up at the sky. “Good weather. I figure we’ll load up the deck with barrels of fuel.”
“I don’t know if I want to go all the way to San Francisco,” I tell him.
“Well, I’m going and if you want to come you’re welcome, but I ain’t gonna beg you. I got business in San Francisco and I mean to take care of her.”
I look out over the Sound. “I’ll go.”
Sid leans against the railing. “You know, I wasn’t ever happy playing baseball.”
“No?”
“No, and I resented the reason they let me into the majors.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Well, when I started there wasn’t but four or five blacks playing in the big leagues and they was all excellent — Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, and like that. And they brought me in because they was looking for a darky that wasn’t so good.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I guess they figured they had to show that dark folks could be bad, too. I mean, every black playing was great and then came Sid Willis, Mr. Below Average. And I ain’t even black.”
“You ain’t?”
“Hell, no. I’m a Narragansett Indian. I was born in Rhode Island.”
“You sure look black.”
“Well, I can’t help that. Those damn white boys on the team would call me nigger and I’d tell them I was an Indian and they’d just laugh.” He stops and looks up at the sky. “Then one season things just fell into place and I was hitting like three-fifty and they let me go.”
“Why’d they do that?”
“Because all of a sudden I was another excellent dark-skinned ballplayer, that’s why.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I says.
“That’s white folks.” He looks at me with a single raised eyebrow. “This slump of yours — pretty bad?”
I nod. “I can’t seem to get anything right. I can’t seem to shake it.”
“Problems in bed … with the wife?”
I look over the side of the boat at the water.
“That happened to me with my second wife. Her name was Wendy. Wendy the Witch. Except it wasn’t no slump that kilt my wiener. It was sober vision. I dried up and there she was. Arf, arf.”
“Well, Thelma’s no witch. And I’m sober.”
“I wasn’t saying nothing about your wife.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I was just telling you what happened to me.”
“I don’t want a divorce.”
“I didn’t want one neither.”
“But I thought you said she was a witch.”
“Well, yeah, but I couldn’t afford no divorce.” He pauses. “So, I killed her.”
I stand up straight and look him in the eye.
“Right out there”—he’s pointing out into the Sound—“I dumped her right out there. Didn’t nobody miss her. Who misses a witch?”
I chuckle.
“You think I’m bullshittin’. I killed the bitch with my bare hands clamped around her ugly throat.” His hands are up in front of him like he’s choking someone. “Then I cut her nasty fat body up into chunks and stuffed her into this great big tuna I caught. Dumped her right out there.” He’s laughing. “Too bad that fish was dead. That would have been a meal for his ass.”
“Come off it,” I says.
He just laughs. “It’s gonna take a couple of days to get to San Francisco. I figure we’ll make a stop in Oregon. Maybe Newport. How’s that sound?”
I nod.
“Right out there,” he repeats. “Damn, that was exciting.”
Chapter 12
I’m standing on deck and the early-afternoon sun is real bright and I’m practicing with my saxophone. This old pickup truck stops at the end of the pier and two young fellas hop out. One of them is skinny and he’s got a beard and the other is real big and they’re heading my way.
“Sid Willis around?” asks the beard.
“Yeah,” I says and call down into the cabin for Sid.
Sid comes up and sees the two fellas. “Good, you’re here with my fuel.”
“Yeah, the fuel,” says the big guy, with a stupid grin on his face.
The two fellas start back toward the truck and Sid turns to me. “You wanna give them a hand?”
The skinny guy turns around and says, “We don’t need any help.”
They walk on to the truck and when they get there the beard lowers the tailgate. Then this big fella picks one of the barrels up and puts it on his shoulder. He carries the drum all the way to the boat and the beard is behind him, guiding him. They do this six times.