The By-Blow Promise Land
To every bird, their nest is perfect. Wherever it has come to be built, it is their own. It is not for what it is, but the promise it holds inside of it. Its very nature, woven together by ingenuity and survival. It takes tremendous effort from the little creature to create its nest. The time spent gathering. The effort to weave grassy stalks. The hunger of waiting. The faith tested by every breath of wind, and crashing rain drop. The nest is perfect to the bird because it poured itself into the creation. No other could understand the individual heart that went into it. Anything else could never hold up. A nest made by another bird would not do. That nest was, and would be, the only nest that bird should ever need.
Houses today are built by many hands. Hands drawing out designs and tallying numbers. Hands gather nails, screws and lumbers. Hands smashing hammers down. Hands sawing and cutting. Hands scraping and pressing. It is the combined effort of many different hands to produce even a small house. Many different hands, being led by many different minds, being pulled on by many different hearts. Truett’s house was the same as Mrs. O’Sullivan’s and Jim Carter’s and The Shaw’s on Willow Ave. Truett found there was something missing in his home. Something distinctly absent, that was also missing in all the others on Willow Ave and the rest of the development. It was like looking into eyes of a friend who always said “I’m okay, thanks.” A living tomb, Truett supposed. It was an idea that he often turned over during quiet Sunday afternoons. An absent daydream of what a ‘happy home’ was supposed to be.
There was something about those places, a divinity or presence, that could only be felt first-hand. Something that Truett had not ever fully experienced. The Foxes, sweet and well-meaning, had a home. A large one that had been in the Fox family since forever it was said. A forever that Truett was often invited to but he had always had other plans. Those who have experienced this feeling locked inside of those few house’s their entire lives do not realized how incomprehensible rich they are. How declawed they are. Because what need do claws serve when there is nothing scratch? Warm house cats looking outside to the mewling strays. Often they do not feel the need to share in the same experience.
Which is perhaps why the vapid talking from Felix to their mysterious passenger upset Truett the most as the car slipped up the muddy hill.
“So why do you live out here?” Felix was barely looking at the dark flooded lane before him.
“I don’t know. Why do you live so far away?” Leticia giggled as she leaned closer between the front seats. Something about her breath on the back of Truett’s neck sent a shard of ice traveling through his back. Felix’s face turned crimson, the tension in his jaw relaxed further. “Sharp left now. Keep going forward another few minutes. Just up this hill is my home.”
Felix hooted as he cracked the wheel harder. The car bounced up violently before crashing down into a wave. Truett felt the foot well slosh with water leaking under the door. He pressed his face against the fogged window. The tires spinning through water made Truett feel nauseous. Like being on a boat with no rutter.
Truett heard Leticia’s giggling get drowned by the roar of rain and thunder before he saw her white arm strike out between the seats. “See it? We’re almost there. You boys are in for a real treat. Bolin hopefully got my buck back.”
“Bolin?” The two men echoed each other in the front seat. Truett’s eyes narrowed in on the inky horizon as Felix’s heart dropped from his throat.
“Bolin’s my brother. We grew up together. Mama Paris took us both in when we was little babies.” Leticia’s pale eyes scanned over the boys in the front seat. “Slow down a bit, this bump is rough.”
The small Fiesta scraped its under carriage as a large swell of roily water crashed over the windshield. As the car slammed back down, Truett winced as he clapped his hand over his mouth. Pain mixed with pooling blood in the back of his throat. The impact sending his teeth into the tough muscle of his tongue. His vision hazed over as the rain washed the mud from the windshield.
The car limped forward a few more yards before Leticia pointed out again. “See right up there. Park under the house, but pull close to the stairs. The cottonmouths are extra angry when the weather gets stirred up.”
Felix’s jaw hung open for a moment as Truett wiped at his eyes. Truett’s neck hair stood on end. The house had an ancientness to it. It was primordial in its materials, simple lumber, metal and glass. Lumber from trees that saw the early snakes and bugs climb from the brackish water up its deep tangled roots. The heavy rain roared off the tin roof in murky waterfall of rust and leaf litter. The roof looked alive with moss and loosely thatched branches; molting leaves off to the sagging porch floating around the house. The house rose high off the ground on thick wooden poles. The poles knobby and gnarled, like the legs of some tired old creature. A thin set of narrow stairs lead up to the hovering porch that wrapped loosely around the house. Dim warm light lead out from the hazy front windows, and high peaked widow’s window.
Truett squinted in the darkness to see the front of the house had large dark plaques mounted around it. Each a ridged oval shape with a roughness that repelled the deluge off their glossy peaks. They clattered like hollow drums as the wind swung them against dark knotty boards. It was a cacophony of thunderous chiming as the car slid to a stop under the tall rafters suspending the bygone house.
“Welcome to the By-Blow,” Leticia tittered as the water finally stopped rolling off the windshield. “Home, sweet home.”
Truett struggled to push the door open against the powerful winds and the sloshing of dark water. Truett watched Leticia, again, effortlessly glide out from the passenger seat. Her feet cutting through the mud, unphased by the thicket of sticks and reeds tangling around Truett’s feet, sucking his shoes down into them. Truett shook as he groped around in the darkness for the stair railing. He heard Felix grunting and strained wading around the car.
Gasping, Truett shivered as the silted swamp water swallowed his shoes off his feet. His thin socks felt like they dissolved instantly exposing his flesh to sharp twigs, and unknown lurking below the shin deep water. Truett’s heart pounded as each new unseen roughness and slipperiness felt alive against his bare flesh. It was a few more strides to the stairs that was turning into heavy march. Truett was blinded by the falling hail-like rain, and the deafened by the wind. Leticia made it to the top of the stairs, her white dress darkened and stuck to her skin. Her black hair wildly whipping in the violent winds that were rocking the narrow stair frame. She was calling something as she steadied Felix’s wobbled climb up the stairs. Truett had lost how Felix made it up before himself.
The wood of the stairs was slick under his feet, like a layer of scum algae was blossoming from the pressure of his hurried steps. Solid yet uncomfortably soft. The rain was like cold salt against his body as the wind hurdled it wildly. His hair lashed against his forehead and cheeks, as Truett tried to steady himself on the swaying railing. Leticia was still calling something down towards him as she extended her hand down towards him. Her voice lost over the chorus of hollow clattering and the angry sky.
She finally latched her hand onto his shirt. Her strength was enormous for her small frame. Effortlessly pulling him against the wind towards her and Felix at the top. Her fingernails like razors in his skin. His fine cotton threads of dress shirt tearing, puckered skin wincing from her vice-like grip. She shoved the two men down the wrapped porch into the hard wood of the front door. With another great shove, the three fell into the threshold of the rattling raucous house.
The worn wood floor felt like a relief as Truett slipped, falling to his chest. It was unfamiliar but dry, solid all the same. He could fall no further. Felix slammed the door behind them as he slid to the floorboards.
Felix’s eyes traveled along Leticia’s wet face. Water dripping down her long black hair, pouring over her shoulders and down her back in a wild abandon. Her dress turned to a sheer gossamer of muddied cotton, as her chest heaved from exhaustion. Felix counted the outlines of her ribs and traced her boney arc of her collar bone on her thin frame. Her skin bristled with a slight chill, but all Felix could feel was a fire. Felix could feel the desire rising higher up his spine as she stood there almost exposed. Her thin hands twirling and wringing out her hair, her pale eyes catching his, igniting him further. His lips curved for a moment trying to suppress the rising laugh in his throat. Leticia surveyed the two crumpled men as she clasped her hand around her mouth, missing as her mouth revealed pitiful smirk. She started in with a high cackle.
“You two look half dead! First hurricane?” She brushed her hair out of her face while flashing a toothy grin. Her laugh brough the color back to Felix’s face as it drained more from Truett. Felix had nearly all but forgotten that Truett was on the ground before him. Truett’s grounded head watched her ragged feet nervously tap on the boards before his face. “It’s called the By-Blow for a reason. Storms wind up to hit us, but we always miss the worse of it. Miss most of that trouble. Still there–”
“You’re filthy.” The voice was thunder indoors, extinguishing all other noises. It was deep and rolled far back into their chests. Truett felt the heavy steps coming from the back of dimly lit house. “I got the buck.”
“Sorry about the trouble, Bolin. It got spooked. And, you know run off and—” Leticia’s vibrant song softened as she side stepped the man. Her face dropped for a moment, as she looked Bolin in his dark eyes. Leticia brushed Bolin’s arm for a moment, insisting that she knew what she was doing. Insisting in her touch that she had it under control, to be kind. To be patience with them. “These two boys, men got me back safe. They’re… um… Felix and…”
The tall man cleared his throat as he stepped beside Leticia. To her petite form, the man stood over them like primeval southern live oak. His skin was ashen with large red swatches of rough skin wrapping around him. Like angry red fissures of burning earth spreading under the ash. His head was oddly squat and long, his face coming more forward than down. Like setting a thick book on top of soft clay, slowly pushing it out and down in equal measure. It was reptialian the way he surveyed the two men. Truett felt his heart leap into his throat as he tried to remain still. Felix smiled blankly almost unaware of the conversation happening around him. His eyes fixed on slight arc of Leticia’s mid back.
“Truett, Felix, this is my brother, Bolin.” Leticia nodded her head before turning back her brother, sensing immediate danger had passed. “Do you think you have something these two can wear for the moment? They’ll catch cold if they don’t change out of them wet cloths.”
“Supper is late. Wash up.” Bolin sneering at Leticia’s disheveled state. Her dress dripping down into the growing puddle around her feet. The muddied waters and wind splattered her once ivory dress to a dingy brown. Her alabaster skin streaked much the same.
“Don’t be impolite! Get’em something to change into, they’re guest in this home until the storm passes. What does Mama Paris say?” Leticia waited a long moment for Bolin to feign an interest in her musical words. “Hospitality isn’t something one does, it’s the way one is. You were raised better than that, so manners now please and thank you!”
Bolin sighed like a low growl, impatient on the two men to drag themselves off the floor of his home. Felix pulled himself up against the door, as Truett tried to remember how the gelatin in his legs helped stand him back up. Truett’s clothing hand a new weight as it sagged off his body. Drenched in water and heavy with mud that sat in the folds. Truett walked gingerly on the floor as the soles of his feet slipped on the shiny floors. Having a chance to really take in this play, the By-Blow he was struck by awe.
Simplicity was the word that came to mind first, then quaint next, as Truett marveled around. The house’s dim light was from old Victorian floor and desk lamps. Ornately threaded and tassels dipped down around the orange haze of the lightbulbs. A dark grey couch was accompanied by two simple rocking chairs. Arranged to face the front door and front windows. No television, but a simple board bookshelf filled with books with well broken spines. Creaked so repeatedly that words on the binding had disappeared entirely. The unearthly rattling, banging outside did not penetrate the bare board walls. It was quiet. Quiet except for Felix’s nervous talking.
“It’s surprisingly clean,” Felix blurted out as he looked down the house as he pretended to hold a long gun pointing down the hall to kitchen. “Is this why it’s called a shotgun house?”
“Please,” Leticia said casting her eyes down from Bolin. “I’ll start making up supper.”
Truett had not noticed the three doors lining the right wall as Leticia walked into the room behind the first one. Bolin moved slowly as he pointed the two men towards the second one.
“Shoes off. Pants at one end, shirts at the other. Leave your dirty clothes in the bathroom hamper. Bathroom is before the kitchen.” Bolin nodded his head towards the second door, without taking his dark brown eyes off Felix.
Felix kicked his mud caked loafers off, peeling his wet socks off like casing from his foot. He jauntily marched passed Bolin into the second door.
“Thank you,” Truett stammered while looking down at his bare feet. Once he felt Bolin’s gaze rest upon him his tongue stopped, and his heart hammered in his chest. It felt like prey in the presence of an ancient predator. Bargaining for favor felt foolish, Bolin had already made up his mind. Truett was too scared to venture a guess about which side he feel on.
Truett scurried to the second door and closed it behind him. Truett’s eye grew larger as he looked at the large piles of clothing on the floor. The clothing laid on the floor waist deep. Mixed sizes and styles of pants and shirts. Small skinny leg jeans, large cotton trousers, shorts, dress shirts, smoking jackets, tank tops, and other garments strown about the floor. The only object that suggested Bolin may sleep here was a bare mattress in one corner of the room. Felix was rifling through the stacks, holding up a red t-shirt next to his chest.
“Can you believe this?” Felix smirked.
“I don’t know what has gotten into you, but you’re acting like a jack ass. When Leticia sat down in the car, you’ve been different. There’s something not right here. We need to leave,” Truett hissed under his breath.
“Relax. Everything is fine,” Felix tossed the shirt over his shoulder and gathered a pair of draw-string cotton shorts off the floor. His brown eyes dimming under an eye roll. Felix cracked his jaw and smirked back at his friend. “You’re the one trying to find all the problems right now. You’re just upset from the funeral and getting lost out here. This storm will clear in the morning, the car will be alright. Hell, maybe Leticia will see the light when the storm clears and want to get away. We can save Letty from whatever this shithole.”
“What?” Truett felt his tongue fall to the floor, as his blood boiled over. “Saved? Who are you? The only people in this place who need to be ‘saved’ is us. There is something between those two out there. I don’t feel safe being in the same room with them. We have to get out of here.”
Felix scratched at his thin beard, broadening his smirk to a smile. He watched Truett’s twist into a knot of disgust like a child. Truett always had a hard time accepting a good time when it presented itself to him. A pretty girl, offering a free place to stay and maybe some homecooked food. Even if Truett could accept the generosity of Leticia, he’d never appreciate it. He could never appreciate it the same way Felix could. “Truett, you wear your heart on your forehead. You’re also green with jealousy that Leticia’s been flirting with me and not you. Don’t think I didn’t notice. I had to tell you to quit it.”
Truett’s face burned as he looked down at the floor. His own smooth swollen feet becoming tangled in the collar of a grey polo. Thinking of Leticia’s dark blotchy plaques of scales molting her porcelain skin made his skin crawl. Plaques looking like scaled armor placed onto of smooth baby skin. Armor signaling to Truett like road flare, warning of what waits just beyond that fleeting glow. “That’s not it. Not it at all. You were so eager to talk to that gypsy at the bar. Were you not listening?”
“Yeah, I heard her. She said you were going to find an ugly girl with whitening strips to move in with. She called me an animal and told us to get the hell out. It was just a dumb thing I’m sure her dumb ass tells every tourist. Don’t tell me you believed her?”
Truett bit his lip and turned his back to Felix. He kicked through the piles of clothing scattered on the floor. Roughly combing through the mixed sizes and styles of pants and shirts on the floor. He noticed on a pair of purple corduroys large holes perforating leg up the inseam. Examining them on the ground he followed the jagged holes up the seam and notice they arced back down the other side. “Are you even really looking at this? I’m just saying this is all a little too convenient is all.”
Truett’s words to roll off Felix’s ears. A soured note of indifference curled over his tongue as he spoke, “Yeah, I’m sure it does sound a little too convenient to you. A little too much fun is trying to go on here. You always find a way to turn something awesome to shear torture. Mr. Truett Fox the only the alchemist trying to turn gold bars back into lead anchors. You care so much. So much about making everyone around you feel just as shitty and alone as you do. I’m going to go get cleaned up and try to have fun with a pretty girl. A girl, it turns out, you’re terrified of for no reason. I’m sure you and Bolin will be two peas in a pod this evening. Part of me almost wishes you were right so I wouldn’t have to deal with your bullshit any more.”
Truett did not look up from the floor as Felix, his only friend in this strange place and life, walked out of the room slamming the hollow door behind him. He waited a long moment until he heard running water in the room next to him before he breathed again. Felix was not himself. His care-free lightheartedness was sharpened. He used it to cut straight through him. Truett felt the lead of his bones pull him back towards the floor. Still solid, unable to go any further down.
He grabbed the grey polo from his feet and examined it. A small black dog was embroidered on the chest. A small hound dog pointing back to the bottom button. His hands running around the soft collar catching the faded words “Rhys” scribbled on the inner collar. Beneath the name was a well sown-in tag, “Rodd & Gunn”. By no means was Truett in the know of designer brands, his own soiled shirt from a discount store, but fine cotton was like crushed powder in his hands. It was light and softer than any shirt he had ever held.
He held the shirt up to his face and sniffed it. A cold chill picked its way over his goosed-flesh as he marveled at the oddity before him. The shirt did not stink like old laundry. For a matter of fact, the entire room did not smell. It did not smell like the water pouring over the windows. It did not carry the same staleness he was beginning to tune out. There was no mildew scent, or rotting cotton leeching out from an unknown center of heaps around him. It also did not have the ripe odor of filth and sweat on it. It was odorless, clean. Like all fresh laundry is. All the mixed styles and sizes did not make sense for such a large man who resided in this space. As he examined the heathered veins of cotton spun in the shirt, a thought crept into the back of his mind. Stalking its way to the front with each new turned over item of clothing. He bit his tongue as he pulled out a pair of khaki shorts.
He ran his fingers through his hair. The wet curls crackling with mud, trapping his fingers as he hastily dragged it through. He felt his skin tighten, beginning to itch. It was like a fine powder had begun to set in on his skin. The dampness of his cloths kept his back and legs slick with wet mud, but felt it crack around his joints. His feet were coated in a thin varnish of pale-grey soot. A soot that felt like chalk as it set between his toes and fingers. It pulled the rough dryness to the surface of his skin. It was overwhelming as he listened to the water run between the walls. The slow gurgling of wastewater draining back out.
The pipes pumping water, in and out. The wet slow breathing of the vents, in and out. The gurgling of wastewater, in and down. Down further into the flooded plain beneath this strange house. The skeletal-frame of the house, solid but sinking down. The water below rising up the stiles, higher and faster. The grey soot coating his body, tighter and coarser. The piles of clothing on the floor, lifeless and forgotten. All in a place that is forgotten and lost. Bile coated the back of Truett’s teeth. Spit choking it back down his throat.
Truett dusted his hands before placing them over his eyes. In the darkness he could finally hear the thunderous racing of his heart.
“Stop. Stop it,” Truett whispered to himself. You aren’t going to die like a Claiborne or Truett. Alone and Helpless. Alone. Helpless. Floating in a flooded toilet, or bleeding out. Focus. A Fox focuses on an exit.
He heard the water stop and Truett Fox’s hazel eyes shot open. He jumped to his feet, shaken but more assured. Whatever the By-Blow and Hurricane Marie had to offer him, he was going to accept now. There was no fighting it. There was no logic to it. It was a natural disaster, things just happening as they should. Falling apart, being torn apart and blown away, was the world putting itself back together in the way it needs to be. Before Truett could help anyone, he needed to help himself. That meant getting washed up, changed, and some food in him.
RE Bunch 