Stress Test Ch. 24

Billey slept late the day after Elwood whupped him like a man. Nobody came around with a shovel at dawn to make sure he was ready to dig. By the time he crawled out of the camper, he didn't cast much more shadow than a bowl of beans.

He rubbed his eyes to clean out the sleep grit, but he winced and pulled his hands away. Instead of sand, he found blood crumbs on his knuckles. His tongue tasted salt as it touched the inside of his lip through a new gap in his teeth. Dark purple lumps—as big as fists and boots—spread over his body.

Digging the hole always made Billey ache, but the whupping pain that shot through his body this morning turned him into a crooked old man. This kind of hurt didn't make him stronger. It only made him hobble as he went around the shack to the faucet. He clutched his belly and tried hard not to puke his guts out.

Once when his daddy drove him to some old warehouse in the pickup, they'd seen a ghost-white man in a long coat clutching a brown bag, steadying himself against a dirty brick wall. After they passed him, Elwood stabbed the brakes and ground the gears into reverse. "Damn if that ain't Acer," he said. He honked the horn and shouted, "Hey, Acer, you son of a bitch! What the hell you doin' out here?"

The man's stubbly face started to turn toward them, but suddenly his body shook and squeezed out a stream of pungent liquid. "Gah dam," Elwood had said as he threw the truck back into gear. "That was Acer."

Billey felt like that ghost man today. The hot water gushed brown from the spout, but Billey cupped his hands and drank. He straightened himself, groping for the wall. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help it: he puked his guts out. The stuff on his feet was thin, yellow and filmy, nothing like the puke he used to make when he was a kid.

Billey knew what it was like to be a man. He limped back to the camper and curled up, trying to find a position that moved the pressure off his bruises. And somewhere in the day or night, he dreamt of his daddy's voice, booming like a whirlwind across the rocky field. "You never brung me a nickel," the thunder roared, over and over. "You never brung me a nickel."

It was dark when Billey heard Otis's bugmobile sputter to life. He breathed softly and waited a few minutes after Otis pulled away before peeking outside the camper. He felt hungry now and thought his side teeth could chew some beans well enough while his gums were scabbing up in front.

In the moonlight, he moved around to the front of the shack, but stumbled to a standstill and lost his air when he saw Elwood leaning back with his feet on the spool, snoring like a heat bug in August. The smell of beans in the bowl between his daddy's boots drew Billey one cautious, quiet step at a time. He eased himself onto the porch's creaky boards, holding his own breath against the slightest change in Elwood's breathing.

Billey eased the bowl up from the spooltop and edged backwards down the step. He nearly spilled his prize in the dust when Elwood snorted at something in a dream.

When Billey got to the corner of the shack, he turned and jogged around the back where he sat on a flat rock and savored each bean's soft explosion of flavor. He wondered where Black Wolf might be and if the dog felt any better than he did. Maybe Billey didn't dig fast enough, but Black Wolf sure never did anything bad; nothing to get his tail all shot off for.

Billey leaned back and stared at the man in the moon. That big old face looked as white and lonely as Acer's, with its mouth wide open and ready to puke down on the world. It made Billey shiver even though the air felt warm on his blotchy skin.

It wasn't fair that the moon never had to break a sweat as it moved across the sky. It wasn't fair that Otis got to sit on his fat butt and Elwood got to cuss and shoot while Billey and Black Wolf dug a hole clean through the earth. Black Wolf had helped him every day by pawing out craters in the floor of the hole and by softening the dirt with his pee. How could Elwood shoot at him if he really wanted his hole finished? How would Otis like it if somebody shot his peter in two? How would the man in the moon like it if somebody puked up in his mouth?

Billey wanted to run away, but he didn't know which way to go. Every place in the world might be just like this, with some people digging, and some people cussing and shooting.

He thought back to Tommy Lagocki's house and how maybe that was different. Tommy had lived in a playground, with his mother carrying in trays of cookies and milk even before he felt hungry. Mrs. Lagocki's hands were clean and smooth as creek rocks, her voice as soothing as the birds. But then he remembered how she'd cast him out. She didn't use the same words as Elwood, but her tone, her eyes and the pinch of her nails on his shoulder could have all been borrowed from him.

Billey struggled to his feet again and patted the dust from his jeans. He walked, very slowly at first, and then a little more freely as he worked the stiffness out of his muscles. He went to the tank which glowed like some monster lightning bug in the wash of the moon. He wanted to dig the hole so deep he could bury the damn thing forever—and his daddy and Otis with it.

He called softly to Black Wolf, but he was afraid to raise his voice much, even though he was far enough away that a death shriek wouldn't have pulled his daddy out of his drunken stupor. Black Wolf didn't come a'galloping with his floppy, pink and black tongue wagging in time to the staccato stride of his stumpy legs. Maybe he didn't hear. Or maybe he watched from the shadows, wondering why Billey had let his tail get shot off.

Billey knew he'd see his daddy again, and Otis and the bugmobile. But he wondered if Black Wolf was gone for good. It wasn't fair and it made his chest turn sour.

He slid down to the creek and walked its bank a long, long way. When the scrub thickened, or a tree limb blocked his path, he usually didn't mind getting his feet wet. But tonight he picked his steps with care. He was in no hurry because he had nowhere to go.

He came to the train trestle, about as far up the creek as he ever went. He felt tired, but had walked the pain out of his body, at least for awhile.

He slumped against the heavy, dark beam—so old it didn't even have splinters anymore—and called out to Black Wolf, louder now than he had before. "Black Wolf!" he screamed. "Where did you go, Black Wolf?"

When his throat hurt, he became quiet and leaned his head back to look through the railroad ties at the moon. It seemed smaller now than it had earlier in the night.

Billey realized he had soaked his shirt with sweat. He ran a hand through his wet, untidy hair and shook the drops off at his side. He listened to the bugs and the stillness and felt a million miles away from everything he knew.

Maybe the sweat stopped up his ears more than usual, but Billey didn't notice a thing until the voice rang out right behind his shoulder.

"I'm Uly Bondarbon," the voice said. "So, what's your name, big guy?"

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Go back to Chapter 1 of Stress Test.

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