Authors: David Gilbert
"That's disgusting," Wilson said.
"No. It was spectacular," I said. "All this color, a swarm of it, just colorful, the fish, I mean."
"Still disgusting."
"They were hungry."
"Uh, please." Wilson squirmed, then asked, "That's how you met Gretchen?"
"Basically. At least a version of her."
"That's how the whole thing started?"
"Yep."
"That's quite a story."
"One of many. But the only one with fish involved." I reached into the backseat and dug my hand into the booze-filled bag—the
housewarming present—my face lit with the glow of what was once wild experience.
A half hour later we turned off the highway and drove past towns instead of exit signs. The darkness held squalor, you could
just sense it as you can sense rain on a clear day. Roadside buildings were put up with house-of-card construction, the light
within revealing cracks. The live oaks that seemed to twist in pain like Dante's suicide woods, the dripping Spanish moss
the drool of indulgent last words, and once making this connection, easy lugubriousness took over and tinted the odor of dank
soil and perfumed plants—azaleas, magnolias, camellias—into an open-coffin wake, and the distant sounds of swampy nature into
an unknown beast half-submerged.
"How much further?" I asked.
"Forty-five minutes."
"I need to get some food in me."
Wilson was interested in making good time, so he feigned deafness. But I pressed further. "Maybe we could stop somewhere."
"Uhm . . ."
"Get a burger or something. A drink."
"Another drink?"
"Why not? I mean, are they expecting us at the house?"
"Yes and no."
"Is there a big dinner planned tonight?"
"No."
"What's our commitment?"
"Well, hunting in the morning. Early morning. Predawn."
"That gives us about eight hours to grab a bite."
"Well." Wilson rocked his head with internal debate, then smiled like the lame duck he was and said, "We can stop in Kosciusko."
Some people don't know fun until it's their last option.
There are secrets to turkey hunting. Calling is very important. The merely adequate are able to mimic a hen by scratching
a piece of cedar on slate, while the truly adept use a diaphragm call, a small whistle tucked in the mouth, so that their
hands can be free to aim and kill.
Yelp-yelp-yelp
is the sound you're trying to capture;
yelp-yelp-
yelp
will bring you a mate. But that's only half the game. Stillness and camouflage are also essential, not moving as you rest
against a tree and pretend to be an innocent swath of moss holding a .12-gauge shotgun.
Walking into Mervin's Shack in downtown Kosciusko, I possessed none of these qualities. I was still wearing my suit from work,
and even though the jacket and tie were off, and the sleeves of my shirt were rolled up, the people inside turned and watched
me enter. All talk briefly hushed so that sizzling meat became the primary conversation. Wilson guided me to a free table,
the flotsam of spilt ketchup and french fries on its orange surface. A waiter came over and wiped away the mess and deposited
two menus. He had the loose face of a stroke victim.
"Howdy," I said, sometimes getting confused with the West and the South, between twang and drawl, talking like an Oklahoman.
"Hey."
"Can we get two beers?"
"BYOB," he said.
"Huh?"
Wilson translated, "It's bring your own," then he said to the waiter, "We'll take two Cokes on ice."
"No booze?" I asked Wilson.
"Guess not."
"Should I go back to the car?"
"Don't bother."
A man at the counter glanced over, his eyes scrutinizing us as if we were soaked in gasoline. He slipped off the stool and
made his way to our table, his left leg kicking a large cooler. "Hey," he said.
"Hey."
"You boys with the FBI?"
"I'm not," I said. "But I'm not too sure about him."
He smiled. There was gold in his teeth. He opened up the cooler and revealed the lovely brown necks of submerged bottles.
"I brought you your beer," he said. "Knew you'd forget."
"You're a friend," I answered, enjoying this black-market code.
Wilson was less at ease, his knee nervous under the table.
The man set down two bottles. "Oh," he said. "Did you remember to bring that money I lent you?"
"Sure did." I handed him a twenty.
"Can't make change," he said.
"We'll take it in kind."
When the racketeer left, we had eight bottles on the table, and Wilson was already pleased with the adventure, his nervousness
turned into giddiness, and he probably could've stopped right there and weaved a story for friends back home, of eating chicken
with gravy and mashed potatoes and drinking illegal beer.
Before leaving, I called Gretchen from the back of Mervin's Shack, at a pay phone surrounded by industrial jars of mayonnaise.
The answering machine picked up but I knew enough to disregard that as any sign of vacancy. After the beep, I said, "Hey Gretch,
it's me. Are you home? Hello hello hello."
There was a click, and a fumble, and a curse, then she answered.
"It's you."
"Just wanted to tell you I made it here all right."
"You sure did."
"Met Wilson, no problem. Flight was easy."
"Good," she said.
"You know, I was thinking," I began telling her, "that I don't think I've been away from you for the last nine months. Not
one night. Not one single night. Nope."
"You don't have to call."
"I want to. Thought maybe you tried the plantation and I wasn't there and that might've—" My hip edged a mayonnaise jar from
the pile; it fell to the floor but luckily it was plastic and all it did was sway in a mesmerizing half-circle. "Just calling
to say hi."
"Where are you?" Her voice had lost the ability to clothe a question properly; instead, she spoke with the threadbare tone
of a bureaucrat.
"I'm at some restaurant in a town I can't pronounce," I said.
"Oh. You been drinking?"
"A little. Well, a lot. What have you been doing?"
"Killed a turkey yet?"
"No. That's tomorrow. What did you have for dinner?"
"Warm there?"
"Yeah. Everything all right?"
She took a deep breath, though it was far from a sigh, more of a public access of air. "Do you want me to say no?"
"What?"
"Just curious. Strap on the old Superman outfit and fly back, maybe?"
"Come on, Gretch," I said.
"I'm all right," she said.
"Huh?"
"I'm all right, that's all. Truly."
"Great." I looked over toward Wilson, sitting alone, uncomfortable in such a place, his eyes concentrating on a beer bottle,
his fingers picking at the label. "I better get going," I told her. "Just wanted to touch base and say I made it here in one
piece."
"You sure did."
Outside, the streets of Kosciusko were busy with cars cruising the strip of Main Street, making constant circles from one
end to the other, like animals too long contained in a cage and now left to pace the edges of their existence. "We should
probably get to the plantation now," Wilson said.
"Still early," I said.
"Not really. Not anymore. Long day tomorrow."
"Come on, a couple more drinks. Let's have some fun, Mr. Governor. The campaign's over and we lost."
Wilson smiled. "I don't know if I can keep up," he said.
"Sure you can."
"I don't know if I want to."
"Sure you do."
I started walking ahead, happy to take charge in such circumstances, a man with an understanding of what to do and where to
go, a man with contingencies, a man more interested in the military than the political. Nights of depravity made for mornings
of pain which led to days of grace. A syllogism for drunken behavior. Wilson soon followed.
Oftentimes, when turkey hunting, you'll sit for hours against a tree, calling and calling; listening; calling and calling,
yet nothing will answer, nothing will happen, nothing will emerge in that early morning to awaken you. These are smart birds,
though most people know them as domesticated livestock waiting for the November hatchet of a mass sacrifice, so stupid that
they can drown in a rainstorm, so ridiculous that their name has become a put-down. Gretchen cooked turkey only once, and
that was last July in the midst of a heat wave. She sporadically tested herself as a homemaker—knitting, gardening, interior
design—each foray lasting only long enough to prove that she was capable of the task. This led to a complicated sweater with
missing arms, a garden halfway planted in colorful annuals, a chintzy living room that didn't match any other room in the
house, and a perfectly prepared turkey served with potato chips and raw, uncut carrots.
Wilson asked, "Did you talk to Gretchen?" We were heading down Main Street, in search of a proper bar to have a proper drink.
"Yep."
"How is she?"
"Off and on. Mostly on, nowadays."
"That's good."
"Sure."
To our left, in a small gated park, we passed a grass mound, bulged as if an elephant had been buried beneath. A plaque informed
us that this was a tribute to Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish patriot who fought on the side of the American Revolutionary Army
in the War of Independence. He was a hero in many a campaign, and in 1934 the town of Perish was renamed in his honor. Three
thousand schoolchildren contributed cupfuls of earth from their yards to build this monument.
I said to Wilson, "Have you ever heard of him?"
"Nope. I thought it was some local tribe." Wilson was a buff of the War of 1812, feeling that the Revolutionary War and the
Civil War were already overfilled with buffs. He loved to discuss the Battle of New Orleans and the consequences of poor communication.
I was still stuck on the Battle of Actium, where Cleopatra abandoned Mark Antony in the face of defeat.
"I like Perish better," I said. "Easier to pronounce at least.
Perish. I live in Perish. I'm Perishian."
"Yeah, whatever."
Down the street we came across a place with a glowing sign scripted in the window: The Deja Vu. I peered inside, my hands
shading the streetlight glare. I saw people milling along the feedline of the bar; I heard jukebox music playing Motown; I
felt social vibrations reverberating against the glass; I asked, "How about here?" in a fog of moist breath.
"Here?"
"Yeah."
"You think?"
"Why not?"
"One drink," Wilson said.
And I said, "Let's just play it by ear."
We pushed through the door. The atmosphere cooled as if we had brought in a draft and sucked out warm comfortable air, the
two of us an arctic front that swept toward cracked leather stools. The bartender, a chubby man wearing a Key West T-shirt,
paced back and forth in the trough behind the bar, popping off tops of beer bottles with a powerful flick of his wrist. He
had the avuncular appearance of a fishing guide. He asked us, "What can I get you?"
"A beer," Wilson said.
The bartender nodded, then he turned to me. I pointed to a juice dispenser positioned behind the bar. Liquid cascaded down
the clear plastic shell like turquoise rain on a window. "What's that?" I asked.
"We call it a hand grenade," he said. "Knock your socks off."
"Yeah?"
"You want?"
"Two."
"I'm all set," Wilson said.
"No no no no," I told him. "We have to soak up the local flavor. That's part of the experience."
The bartender ended up listening to me, the machine humming when it poured. "Six bucks," he said. I paid with a twenty and
left a four-dollar tip. My wallet was bursting with twenties. Whenever traveling, I always overestimate my expenses. Wilson
nervously noticed the wad.
"So cheap," I said.
"You better be careful with so much cash," he said.
"That's racist," I said.
"What?"
"If we were in some fancy place you wouldn't think that."
"Jesus, that's an asshole thing to say."
"I'm sorry." I lifted up the glass. "Cheers," I said.
"Yeah."
I tossed the hand grenade down my throat. Wilson sipped. It was sweet, a combination of lemonade and grape juice mixed with
the unmistakable numbing of grain alcohol. After the first taste everything else dwelled in the aftertaste. "Whoa," I said.
Wilson pushed the glass away. "I can't drink this."
"Sure you can."
"No. I don't want to drink it. I think we should go," he said.
"Don't be a pussy."
"I'm leaving."
"No, you're not."
"My uncle's probably worried."
I touched him on the shoulder. "Wilson, you're a thirty-two-year-old man."
"Exactly why I'm going." He slid off the stool. "You coming?"
"No. I'm staying. I'll meet you there. Cheeawah Plantation, right?"
"That's insane. We're hunting in the morning, remember? It was your fucking idea."
"But this is fun."
"How you going to get there?"
"I'll hitchhike."
The conversation continued, trapped in a long rally, until I put the point away with an overhead slam of rudeness—"You're
still that fucking college loser nobody liked!"—and Wilson flashed anger and left the bar. Game over. I thought for a moment
that he was going to hit me, really pummel me, but he just reeled and walked away.
Turkeys are prized for particular characteristics. A great ruffled tail. Sharp spurs on the legs. Those items are often cut
from the bird and kept as keepsakes to the hunt, the tail fanned on a wall, the spurs hanging from a rearview mirror. The
more dedicated will actually stuff the bird so that the long beard can be remembered, and the puffed body, bronzed and iridescent,
can be preserved in its last living pose. Others will ask the taxidermist to mount the bird in flight, so that the mighty
wingspan is spread and any indication of death is left behind on the ground.
At the Deja Vu, a large clock, the type often seen in classrooms, filled in the seconds between minutes, a full circle that
somehow encompassed the sun and the planets and the laws of brilliant men passed down to ignorant me, sitting in this bar,
drinking hand grenades, pretending that this repetition of time was gentle when in reality it was painfully linear.