The Sound of Building Coffins Page 11

  Tonight would mark the first and last time Typhus would violate that unspoken condition.

  By the time the footfalls had returned, Dropsy was back in bed, snoring gently. Typhus found himself afflicted with a sudden and uncharacteristic curiosity. Why not put an end to a mystery so easily solvable? Impulsively, he kissed the hem of Lily’s white dress with trembling lips and told her goodbye. Grabbed his multi-purpose coffee sack, kicked off his shoes for the sake of quiet, and went out.

  Typhus’ stunted size gave him the advantage of quiet steps, his bare feet hardly yielding a whisper from the moist codgrass blanketing the threshold to the brackish marsh. The sky was clear that night, moonlight barely trickling through tangled branches of towering cypress and black willow trees, not quite tickling stars. A crisp crush of blackberries beneath Typhus’ feet gave him fair warning of nearby Devil’s Walking Sticks—treacherous growths whose soft leathery leaves masked the presence of thorn-studded branches. The phantom moved ahead evenly without shadow or silhouette, his progress betrayed only by complaint of hard, spiny fruit balls crackling dully beneath his feet, freshly fallen from sweet gum trees that sprouted high above the marsh.

  Swamp-muffled moonlight distracted rather than illuminated, so much so that Typhus opted to remove light from the equation altogether; eyes shut tight, he walked on. Removing the want of light allowed a deeper appreciation for information of ear and hand. Typhus moved forward, fingers stretched before him, gently brushing rubbery leaves of unknown plant life. His legs and feet brushed and bumped against hard cypress knees, the height of which indicated how high the waters were prone to rise in a given section of swamp, but also giving some indication of how far he was from home. Nearer the house, the cypress knees were no more than six inches at their tallest—here he noted several in excess of three feet. He soon became concerned as to whether he’d be able to navigate his way back in the dark. Soon the sound of footfalls stopped. Typhus stopped, too.

  Quiet.

  Would have been perfect quiet if not for the low warble of a hundred lonely bullfrogs, hoping for love and getting none. Typhus waited. Still: No sound beyond that of lovelorn reptiles. With private embarrassment, he realized his eyes were still closed. When he opened them, a gentle illumination in the bog brought him a soft shock. It made no sense. It struck Typhus that this was not light as he understood it.

  Light—but not light. That is, it wasn’t so much light as it was a lighter shade of dark. Even this might have made sense had it been a variety of gray (as shadows tend to be)—but this shadow had color. Like fire minus the flicker and crackle; just warm, thick color, lightly painting plants, trees, and saw grass.

  Orange. Everything orange.

  No sign of the phantom, no sound, no telltale silhouette; nothing. The brightest area of swamp appeared twenty yards or so ahead where cypress knees stretched upwards of four feet. The center.

  Center of what? Typhus considered turning back. Didn’t.

  As he drew close to the light’s apparent source, the ground became muddier and the desire to inch forward amplified. Typhus’s toes wiggled in the slush, his feet sinking in, then pulling out; the quagmire lightly tugging at the soles of his feet like a living thing. He took another step. Another. And again.

  Forwards.

  In the swamp of Bayou St. John every inch of terrain is packed with unruly life, every grain of soil nourishing something that insists on being, and thus is, and so grows. This is the way of all wetlands. But the place where Typhus currently found himself didn’t follow these basic rules. Typhus was standing in a clearing—a tacit impossibility where life only competes to push forward, mindlessly crowding in on itself in the name of dumb survival. As his brain struggled to accept the strange reality before him, it dawned on him that the odd light tapered and faded from the spot where he now stood. He was standing at its source.

  A lone mosquito-fern drifted nearby, its mossy mats and two-lobed leaves bunched up death-still at the surface of the pool.

  Here there was nothing—no sound or sensation, not even of frogs. But there was a certain power in this nothing, a power with no evident bearing on human senses. There was no feeling about it, no feeling at all; just a knowing. But this “knowing” did prod a feeling from Typhus’ chest; a feeling of naked, new wonder.

  threads through a rug

  His feet were submerged, toes squishing in mud. He bent down to dip a finger in. Cool, orange water. Licked his finger. No odd flavor, only the rancid muddy taste of any stale bog. He bent down; inspected the water’s smooth surface carefully by eye before realizing that, although he hadn’t waded further, hadn’t moved at all—somehow the water had crept to his knees. Idle thought: “I’m sinking.”

  Sinking.

  sinking

  No matter.

  The possibility of his body and soul being consumed by this (nothing) was unimportant at the moment. Typhus thought of Dropsy’s knack for instant bliss, and now here was his own. His own uncomplicated, painless acceptance. If there was danger here, then danger was welcome. This was right now. This was his special reality. This belonged to him. This thing. His thing.

  bliss

  In the water. The water. Water.

  water

  But from this purest moment, the worst possible thing happened.

  (…)

  Lily. Removed from his mind. From his heart and his soul.

  (bliss)

  If she remained somewhere in his heart, he was simply unaware. She was gone from him now, and he didn’t miss her. Her eyes forgotten, impossible white dress forgotten, Raleigh Rye forgotten, mysterious yellow stain forgotten, hand in a loose fist forgotten, promises made and rewards rendered: forgotten, forgotten, forgotten.

  water

  The water was a kind of false light—but not light—and, really, not even water. There was something in it. Something living in it.

  the journey of

  Streaks of reddish brown and tiny wisps of pink: jetted and swam, soared then dipped, shot then faltered.

  threads through a rug

  The pinkness was familiar to him, the familiarity a calming thing, the color of rebirth, the color of his babies. The babies he’d sent off on their way into the river, for second chances, for the tender mercy of childless mothers. Typhus didn’t know whether to feel joy or dread at the familiarity. He didn’t know whether to feel at all. There was nothing more to feel.

  No matter.

  As his eyes followed pink motion, a tinny music positioned itself at the back of his mind, the sound of a horn through a ghostly filter; not a physical sound. The water snuck to his waist—but he didn’t care, couldn’t pull his thoughts from the sound in his mind and the image in his eyes.

  So beautiful. Haunting. Lovely. Final.

  Bliss.

  Troubled about my soul…

  Sinking.

  No matter.

  As the water (not water) reached his chest, Typhus realized he no longer needed to bend at the hips in order to view (adore) the divine movement of pink. As orange gradually (not gradually) rose to the level of his throat, a fear of drowning failed to present itself. The thought of being submerged forever here was not a threatening thing.

  Typhus Morningstar was, like his faithful friend the mosquito-fern, now perfectly still. His trusty burlap sack slipped from his fingers.

  Typhus waited for the bag to float up to the top. It did not. It was lost. A nominal price for bliss, he thought. Goodbye, old friend.

  A stray thought. Unwelcome.

  Bliss = loss?

  Now Typhus thought about loss. Thoughts of loss brought Lily to mind; promises he’d made her, the guilty fact that she’d always lived up to her end of the bargain without question, complaint, argument, or negotiation.

  Unexpectedly, something like fear materialized in Typhus’ chest.

  What had been pink and lovely had become vaguely dreadful. The gliding grace of alien music stretched and tore into a colorless wail.

 
Loss = death?

  He could not do this thing to Lily, would not do this thing.

  sinking

  Paper Lily. The girl who would neither return his love nor break his heart. The girl he had promised to keep and protect.

  Death = absence of pain?

  Life = ?

  Just as the water reached his lips, Typhus threw his head back, pulled his arms above his head and frantically clutched at warm air.

  pain?

  A violent splash. Two heavy hands clasped Typhus just above the elbows, pulling his feet and legs up through cool, smooth mud, provoking a gaseous squeal from around his waist and below, the sound of resistant suction. Typhus looked down and saw his own muddy feet kicking above angry orange. Now thrown back and away from the lake of cool fire, his body smacked into a patch of moist saw grass. Typhus’ eyes blinked hard, then darted—searching for the owner of the saving hands. Finding: A black silhouette. Hearing:

  “Typhus? Typhus, you all right, boy?”

  It was a voice from his past—one he couldn’t quite place.

  A hulking shadow of a man.

  “Typhus?”

  The face was a murk of swamp grays.

  Fuzzy sparks of recognition triggered in Typhus’ mind as the phantom leaned closer. The man was kneeling. Dressed in ancient, filthy rags; nothing but the shoes on his feet offering any functionality. Typhus didn’t recognize the man, but he recognized the shoes. His father’s shoes.

  The hair and beard of the phantom were long; copious grays braided and flecked with traces of green and brown. The beard stretched past his naked belly with weird purpose; little curved bumps in various shapes and sizes disrupting its thick mass from chin to tip, suggesting lumpy cells of concealed code. With a sleepy sense of dread, Typhus realized the anomalies in the phantom’s beard were, in fact, a series of woven pockets, and from their mouths gleamed the edges of mysterious implements.

  “Coco Robicheaux,” Typhus whispered dimly.

  The phantom’s shadow-saturated features ignited upwards from concern to amusement, his voice deepening with a rumble of low laughter; “Temps moune connaite l’aute nans grand jou, nans nouite yeaux pas bisoen chandelle pou clairer yeaux!” The words were a Creole proverb his father had been fond of, the approximate meaning; “When a man knows another by broad daylight, he doesn’t need a candle to recognize him at night.” The phantom cleared his throat with a cough, managed to collect himself, then let his smile settle into a soft grin before switching back to English:

  “Can’t go standing in the orange water, Typhus. It’ll sing to you first, then suck you down second if you ain’t careful.”

  Typhus’s eyes struggled to decipher the man’s face. He knew this face. It was not his father, but it was someone his father had known.

  “You okay, Typhus?”

  He knew this face. He knew that laugh. He remembered. Now, he remembered.

  “Typhus, say something. Say anything.”

  Typhus meant to thank the phantom. Might have thanked him for all he’d done for his family over the years. Might have thanked him for saving his life just now. Might have thanked him for saving his life ten years previously. Might have apologized for having betrayed all past kindnesses by following him out into the bog on this night, for choosing not to respect the phantom’s simple and single condition of privacy.

  Typhus said none of those things. But he did say:

  “It ain’t right to wear the shoes of a man you kilt.”

  Beauregard Church fell still and quiet; breath hushed, warmth drained from his eyes as pain and regret felt their way through the gray. His heavy head lulled, then dipped. He stood, looked at his feet; at the perfectly fitting shoes of Noonday Morningstar that warmed and protected them. Turned. Walked into darkness, crunching grass and twigs beneath the shoes. Shoes once belonging to a man whose back had held and bled from a family heirloom.

  So many years ago.

  away

  Orange dimmed, its smooth color inaugurating a fade, then dying completely. The swamp: now black. The ground: uneventfully damp. Typhus closed his useless eyes. A thousand lonely swamp frogs warbled on.

  He made his way home quickly. Despite the dark and without moon or stars to guide him, Typhus found in himself a near miraculous sense of direction. To find his way home, he simply followed the brightest thing in his troubled heart.

  Lily, on a high shelf in the kitchen, was his North Star.

  *

  The phantom returned to the Morningstar home soon thereafter, on a night when mist stifled starlight and sky reached its richest shade of coal. Moist air corrupted the travel of sound, and so Typhus did not make note of footfalls.

  That morning, the traditional bundle was found on the doorstep. No note was attached.

  Malaria, always first to rise, joyfully carried the lumpy package through the threshold, gaily chirping, “A present from Father!” Typhus and Dropsy dragged themselves from straw mattresses, wiping sleep from dry eyes. Dropsy goosed a groggy smile from his lips, spoke in a cracked whisper:

  “Well, what’s in it, Malaria? Dump it out already.”

  Before the contents fell, Typhus recognized the wrapping. A burlap bag made for holding coffee beans, but also good for any number of functions, including rebirthing babies in muddy rivers. Malaria held the bag from its bottom corners, pinching fingers and pulling up; spilling its contents to the floor.

  Malaria screamed. Typhus’ eyes filled with water. Dropsy accepted, stating simply, “I was hopin’ fer meat.”

  On the floor, lay exactly six shoes.

  Fresh tracks outside betrayed the recent presence of a large man with bare feet.

  Chapter twenty-three

  Christ Kid is Risen

  The oversized and square right fist of the big white man arced wide to connect with the unguarded cheek of the Christ Kid—and Eugene Reilly felt a twinge of panic tickle his bladder.

  The Christ Kid was looking punchy and incompetent—this had not been the plan, had not been the agreement, not at all in accordance with promises made by Crawfish Bob’s allegedly disenfranchised right-hand man Stiffy Lacoume. Still, Reilly held out a hope. Maybe this was all part of the act. Just to make it look good. Believable. Everyone knew Windmill Willie was the easy favorite, a win from the Christ Kid was near unthinkable—and a quick win would smell like the rat it was.

  The Christ Kid ducked a second windmill—but a hard right jab to the midsection followed shortly. The Kid flurried in return; sending six but delivering only two.

  On the bright side, the Kid did manage the occasional connection. On the grim side, the white giant hardly seemed fazed. The bulk of the crowd, having gone with shorter odds and smarter money, whooped and hollered for the Christ Kid’s inevitable demise. Reilly tried to ignore his nagging bladder as he fantasized of slow and creative ways to end the life of that double-crossing Cajun charlatan who’d suckered him with every sucker’s favorite bait: the words “sure thing.”

  Then, as if Reilly’s distress was spelled out across his forehead, Stiffy materialized in apparent response. Placing a hand on Reilly’s shoulder, he bent to the Irishman’s ear, “Pretty good show, eh, Mr. Reilly?”

  “I think our boy’s in trouble,” Reilly grumbled.

  Stiffy made an injured expression. “Have a little faith, my friend. Those boys both know the score—and neither has an ounce of love ner loyalty for that shameless skinflint Crawfish Bob. They were told to make it look good, and that’s just what they’re doing.”

  Reilly, unconvinced: “I dunno. The Kid looks like he’s losing his footing. Like he’s losing consciousness, fer chrissakes.”

  Stiffy smiled wide, exposing large brownish teeth, two of which were chipped enough to expose blackened centers. “Of course he does, pardna! Of course he does!”

  “If this is Willie’s idea of a dive, I don’t like it. Not one bit, I don’t.”

  “Well, perhaps business of this sort is conducted less subtly in the Great St
ate of New York, Mr. Reilly. Here in the South we enjoy adding a little dramatic flair to everything we do.”

  Shit-grinning swindler, thought Reilly. “If this is a double-cross, I swear to Christ…”

  Stiffy gave Reilly another firm pat on the shoulder, followed by, “Just relax and enjoy the show, friend. You’ll see.” Stiffy vanished into the crowd, waddling with confidence.

  “Smug bastard,” Reilly hissed under breath, although he had to admit the old coot’s confidence had bolstered his own somewhat.

  The Christ Kid failed to block a quick succession of brutal blows to the ribs and fell hard to his knees, gasping for air. The pudgy, balding man who functioned as referee angled his body between the two fighters and began the count:

  “ONE…… TWO……THREE…….”

  “Goddamnit,” said Reilly through clenched teeth.

  “FOUR……”

  If this was part of the show, it was too damn convincing. A one-sided workout at best, Willie was only slightly winded, a thin sheen of sweat lightly coating him from forehead to ankle. The white boxer easily caught his breath and casually examined his swollen knuckles while the Christ Kid wheezed in apparent agony on the canvas. This couldn’t be happening, Reilly thought. He had five thousand dollars riding on this “sure thing.” Someone would pay for this, by God.

  “FIVE……”

  He couldn’t look. Reilly’s eyes surveyed the room, eventually settling on the kid they called Ratboy, who immediately preceding the boxing match had dispatched a record forty-three rats in three minutes with a wide, nail studded stick. Ratboy was now sitting on the floor near the bar dabbing a collection of small, bloody ankle wounds with a moist cloth. At first glance, Reilly mistook the expression on Ratboy’s face for a pained grimace—but after a moment he deciphered the expression more accurately: The kid was grinning from ear to ear. Holy Jesus Harold Q. Christ, thought Reilly. Does the whole state of Louisiana need to be fitted for a rubber hat? Oh, how he longed to return home, to the place he’d always considered the toughest, most dangerous place on earth, his beloved New York City. Up north, at least, the dregs of society retained the smallest crumb of dignity. Up north, they only pitted dogs and niggers against rats in the fight pits. Not light-haired children snatched from the looney bin.