Armadillos Read online

I looked at my hands sitting crossed in my lap, unable to meet his eyes which I knew were roving along the bruises on my face.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

  I shrugged.

  He stayed at the door.

  ‘I was just wondering how you are,’ he said. ‘Freak says you’re on the mend.’

  ‘Better than I was.’

  He came in to the room and sat down on the bed. My eyes shot to the door. At least he’d left it open. I wished Freak or Marjorie were here.

  ‘Man.’ He screwed his face up – I couldn’t tell if it was disgust or concern – and said, ‘Your face looks really fucking sore.’

  Really fucking mashed up, you mean.

  ‘It aint too bad.’

  Silence again.

  Jesus.

  ‘It was really swollen before,’ I added, and he looked ashamed, and I was ashamed for making him ashamed.

  ‘I understand why you did it,’ I said, to help him out. ‘I’d probably have done the same thing in your position.’

  ‘I just…’ He raised his hands, weighing up his choice of words. ‘Freak’s back, Aggie… that was fucking shocking.’

  Pause for effect. What a dick.

  ‘But I was out of order and I’m sorry.’

  My turn now. I took a deep breath and forced a smile.

  ‘What say we make a deal to stop beating each other up?’ It was an effort but I needed to lighten the mood. I winked at him, my partner in fisticuffs, causing myself a little pain in the process, but he didn’t seem to notice. He pressed his hands between his knees and began to rock back and forth.

  ‘It fucking scared me, you know,’ he said. ‘That I could do that. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.’

  His rocking picked up speed and sent vibrations up the bed. My body began to bounce along with him.

  ‘I care about Freak, you know?’ he continued, oblivious. ‘I don’t think I realized how much.’

  His hands flew from between his knees to under his armpits, but the rocking didn’t lessen. He’d thought he’d come to apologize, but he hadn’t really. He’d come to talk about himself.

  ‘I care about her, too,’ I replied, clenching and unclenching my good hand. He reached out and grabbed it.

  ‘I know you do.’

  The rocking stopped, but he had my hand now, so there was no real improvement. He leaned in closer and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, it was almost a whisper.

  ‘She’s told me about… you know.’

  A meaningful squeeze of my hand.

  ‘No. What?’ There was a challenge in my voice that I hadn’t intended. He missed it, obviously. He looked at me carefully, waiting for the penny to drop. I was overcome by the urge to spit in his face.

  ‘You mean, the strange men fucking her in the street on a nightly basis?’ I said.

  That old thing.

  He paled and nodded. ‘I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘I didn’t fucking know, Ade. And then she asked me to do that stuff to her, and I thought it would help. You don’t get it. You don’t fucking get it, do you?’

  I wasn’t sure I got it myself, but it pleased me to turn the tables on him. He shrank back from me, hands up in defense.

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t get it, I fucking don’t. But look, it’s in the past, eh? And I’m going to make sure it stays that way. Freak’s my job now, okay? I’m going to make sure she doesn’t do that shit again.’

  Good luck.

  ‘There’s just one thing I need to ask, I’m sorry.’ He gulped and looked wildly around the room, looking for all the world like he wished he could take his words back.

  ‘I just… I don’t want to see it happening again and so I just want to check… this wandering about… it’s not something you’ve… ever…?’ His eyebrows were raised in expectation, wanting me to fill in the blanks of the sentence he was too chicken-shit to finish.

  ‘Fuck, no.’ I wrapped my arms around me, locked myself in.

  ‘Because if it is, there’s people you can talk to…’

  ‘Aint no man getting near me that way.’

  ‘Okay,’ He nodded. ‘That’s good. I don’t really know… I mean, I’m not very… good at… I care, Aggie. Alright? I just wanted to say that.’

  His eyes were all wet-rimmed. It was kind of touching, and a good bit pathetic. Thank sweet Jesus that Marjorie appeared behind him in the doorway.

  ‘Friends again?’ Her gravelly voice made him jump.

  Ade looked from me to her and back to me. ‘I don’t know. Are we?’ he asked.

  We’d never been buddies and I didn’t see why we had to be now just because we’d beaten each other up a couple of times.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, what is this – party time?’ Freak burst in and I sure was glad to see her. In fact, the only one without a smile on their face was Marjorie. Ade got up like his ass was on fire and gave Freak a big bear hug. They stood there clutching on to each other a stupid amount of time. Marjorie looked like she’d rather hug a rose bush than be faced with the new lovebirds smooching in her bedroom.

  Ade finally stood back from Freak, but couldn’t quite bring himself to let go altogether. He kept hold of her shoulders and smiled down at her like they were the only people in the whole wide world. She reached up on tip-toe and kissed his nose. It was gross.

  ‘Take that the fuck outta here,’ Marj said. ‘Unhygienic fuckers.’

  Later on I said to Freak maybe she and Ade could be a bit more sensitive to Marjorie and cut back on the kissing. She pulled a face.

  ‘Since when did you give a damn about Beast Woman?’ she asked.

  Lying in bed smelling of lotion, I was surprised she had to ask.

  16

  Marjorie let me stay in her bed longer than she needed to. I was fit enough for the floor after a couple of days but she wouldn’t hear of it. A whole new side to Marjorie came out. Motherly, almost. She moved the bed as far to the window as she could so I could see out. The view wasn’t worth it but I didn’t tell her that. The best part of staying in Marjorie’s room was her books. I’d never even heard of graphic novels before. The days passed in a haze of heroes and explosions and wrongs put right against all odds. I’d just finished The Watchmen and was reaching for something else when, behind a pile of comics, I spied a stash of old paperback novels.

  I picked one up, carefully, and Jojo’s voice was loud in my head: Careful now, Aggie. What’s Momma gonna say if she comes back to find all her books are tarnished and torn?

  Marjorie walked in and I shoved the book back, but she took one look at my guilty face and came over. The book hadn’t landed right. She picked it up and threw it on the bed.

  ‘What’s wrong? I don’t mind you reading it.’

  ‘I don’t know, Marjorie. Guess seeing them tucked away at the back there…’

  She shook her head and pulled them all out.

  ‘There’s some people who’ll use anything to poke fun at you,’ she said. ‘That aint no reason not to read a good book. Help yourself.’

  ‘What if I damage it?’

  ‘You planning on playing frisbee with it?’

  She turned away and unlocked the wardrobe while I flicked my way through a selection of Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell and J.R.R. Tolkien. The inside cover of Lord of the Rings had an inscription: To Marjorie, better than Scotch, Ade xxx. I put that one back and tried to forget I’d seen it.

  Beside me on the floor were several cardboard boxes which Marjorie filled with the contents of the wardrobe. Hundreds of trinkets made out of tire rubber: cowboys hats, boots, guns and more of the crosses and armadillos I’d seen earlier. There was so much of it I thought she must have spent her whole entire life making this stuff.

  ‘I like doing it.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, don’t want to live like this forever. Reckon if I can get my stuff out there, sell enough of it, maybe I can get me a place on my own sometime.’

  I picked up a cow
boy hat. It was only about an inch high and two inches wide. I put it on my head.

  ‘Are they for pygmies?’ I asked.

  Marjorie didn’t laugh like Freak would have.

  ‘Aint no saying what people like or what they’ll buy, Aggie. I’ve had these flying out the Stockyard shops. Now I got a contact out of town saying he’s interested. Reckon it’s time I took a road trip to try and offload some of these little critters.’ She picked up an armadillo and kissed its nose. ‘Gonna make me some money.’

  ‘Good for you, Marjorie. That’s great.’ She looked at me suspicious. None of us were used to compliments.

  ‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘You’ve got hot-shit talent there. I love the armadillos.’

  ‘They’re my favorite, too,’ she said. ‘Poor little guys. Aint nobody got time for them.’ Her whole face tightened and her voice grew thick. ‘People just run right over them, Aggie. Evil bastards. Every time I sell one of these guys I’m gonna donate some money somewhere. I don’t know. I’ll set up an organization. Save the Armadillo. Something like that. I aint got the specifics fixed right in my head yet. Just seems like someone somewhere needs to make a stand, you know what I mean? All these harmless little creatures lying dead on the roads. It aint right, Aggie. It aint right.’

  Jojo once told me there were people who cared more for animals than humans. Given the variety of humans I’d met since leaving home, this didn’t surprise me as much as it used to. Besides, Marjorie had done a pretty good job of looking after me, so who was I to criticize?

  ‘You need some help there, Marj?’

  She looked at me hard for a minute, trying to decide if I was for real or not. Then, unsmiling, she gave me a pile of tissue paper and told me to wrap the armadillos in pink, the hats in green, the boots in blue, and the crosses in black. We worked in color-coded silence, filling the boxes ready for her road trip.

  A couple of hours later she was taping the boxes up and thanking me for my help. She was biting tape off the roll when she said it, so it came out through gritted teeth. She stood back to admire our work

  ‘I never had help before. That was fast work,’ she said. ‘Even for a cripple,’ and she nodded down at my bandaged hand.

  ‘Uh, yeah,’ I replied. ‘I guess I’m good to return to my own room now.’

  She nodded, as though she’d been waiting for me to say this. ‘You can choose a book to take with you,’ she said. ‘And return when you’re done.’

  That was Marjorie. Always careful.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  I chose a book from the pile and lingered in the doorway, awkward.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  It was hard to walk out. I took a last look around the room, pictures on the walls, scarves over lamps, the sun-catcher that was done catching any sun for that day.

  ‘I guess I just want to say thanks, Marjorie. You know, for taking care of me and shit. That was… that was real nice of you.’

  She didn’t look up as she taped another box closed. I turned to go.

  ‘Aggie,’ she said.

  I waited but she was quiet. Just the sound of tape ripping off the roll and Marjorie slapping each box as she sealed it.

  ‘Yes, m’am?’ I said, just to remind her I was still there.

  ‘I’m gonna need a second person with me on this trip. Don’t wanna be leaving boxes lying in plain sight with no one to guard them. You fancy a trip with me?’

  Now it was my turn to be quiet. Spending the afternoon with Marjorie was one thing; a vacation was a different prospect.

  ‘It aint a vacation,’ she said, reading my mind. ‘There’s money to be made.’

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked, wondering how I could say no without offending her.

  ‘Down on the coast, near Corpus.’

  The coast: lapping waves on sandy beaches, gulls sailing on high winds, keening like discordant angels; the coast, a place where Mommas come from, a place where Mommas and honest brothers run away to; the coast, a place where we forget everything.

  ‘Well?’ she snapped, her eyes flying to mine for the briefest moment.

  ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Good.’

  She began to stack the boxes.

  ‘Only thing is, Aggie – don’t call me m’am again. I aint losing teeth yet.’

  My first job was to go with her to her mom’s place which was twenty miles out of town. Out on the highway, I was reminded of why I never found my way out of this place. If hell was construction, this was it. Gray concrete lanes, stabbed through with orange cones, stretched for miles. Marjorie had got hold of a car for the trip but it was ropey compared to everything else on the road. Marj said the car was called Oprah, because it was big, black and took shit from no one. Squeezed between lanes of pick-ups and long-haulers, I prayed she was right. The horns that blasted us as they passed were louder than anything coming out of the few wires that passed for a stereo in that car. The roads were rough and the ride bumpy.

  Eventually we turned off and found ourselves heading down a quiet street all lined with trees and single-storey shacks with chicken wire running around dried-out lawns. Plastic toys lying out told the story of a busy neighborhood, but there was no one to see.

  We drove on, leaving the town of no one behind, eventually coming up against a trailer park situated right at the end of the road.

  ‘Nice spot,’ I said.

  By the way Marjorie slammed the door when she got out, I guessed she hadn’t appreciated my comment. I caught up with her as she rattled the gate into the park. A padlock was hung off it on the other side.

  ‘Did they know you were coming?’ I asked. I swear I didn’t mean it the way it came out.

  ‘Very fucking funny,’ was the response.

  She stood back and studied the wire fence running round the park.

  ‘There used to be…’ and she began to rip out some weeds that had sprouted alongside the perimeter. ‘Here it is. Follow me.’

  She lifted a section of fence that had come loose from the bottom and climbed under. I followed, catching my hair as I went. I wrestled myself free, leaving a chunk of hair behind me. Fine first impression I’d make.

  The trailers were a real mixed bunch. Some of them had curtains hanging up and flowers in pots outside, almost inviting. Most of them were just grubby.

  ‘This is it.’

  Marjorie stopped outside a trailer that was bashed all down one side, the reminder of a tornado from a couple of summers back. All manner of junk cluttered the ground outside: an old bath, a rusty bike, a shopping trolley with one wheel missing. ‘Ma deals in antiques,’ Marjorie said, by way of explanation. She looked around the site and shook her head. ‘It used to be a whole lot nicer around here,’ she said. I had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about the junk.

  ‘Marjorie?’ A woman’s voice came from inside.

  ‘Yes, Ma, it’s me. How come the gate’s locked? I told you I was coming.’

  There was a small thud and the trailer wobbled as her mom came to the door. Marjorie turned her face to me and whispered, ‘If you laugh, or if you’re rude in any way, I will dump your ass on the highway and you can walk back. Got it?’

  Before I could reply, the trailer door swung open.

  ‘Marjorie!’ Marjorie’s mom squeaked. And it was a squeak because she was hardly bigger than a mouse.

  ‘Hi, Ma,’ Marjorie bent down to receive her mom’s hug.

  Dumbstruck, I followed the giant woman, who followed her dwarf mother back inside the trailer.

  Marjorie pointed at one end of a shabby sofa and told me to sit. I thought of trying to brush the mat of cat hairs away first, but only for half a second. I sank down way deeper than I expected. I pulled a cushion over and wriggled it under my ass. It wasn’t great but at least my knees weren’t brushing my chin any more.

  ‘Ma, this is my friend, Aggie.’

  I struggled back to my feet to shake Ma’s hand. I felt like a giant as I wrapped her tiny hand in mi
ne. I shook her fist and a sizeable portion of her forearm gently as I could, while she smiled and nodded like she didn’t notice anything strange.

  ‘Pleasure to meet you, Aggie. You can call me George. Short for Georgia.’

  She cackled at my attempt to pretend she hadn’t said ‘short’.

  Marjorie rolled her eyes at me. ‘Does that every time she meets someone,’ she said.

  I felt my old blush start to prickle. My shoplifting days with Freak meant I was almost blush-proof these days, but I’d never met a fifty-year-old midget in cowboy boots, skinny shorts and a vest before. I smiled back at George and pretended I didn’t know what Marjorie was talking about. ‘Good to meet you too, m’am,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, honey, call me George,’ George said. ‘Aint losing teeth yet.’

  I sank back down into the sofa as George busied herself making coffee. She had a row of stools lined up along the counter that she used as steppingstones between cupboards.

  ‘Hank’ll be happy to see you,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘He’ll be back any minute.’

  ‘Sure he will,’ Marjorie said, beneath her breath to me. ‘Happy as a clam at high tide.’ And then to George: ‘No coffee, Ma. We aint staying long,’ but George shooed her out of the kitchen and insisted she sit down.

  Marjorie’s weight collapsed down on the other end of the sofa and I almost shot straight up in the air. I tried to catch her eye to laugh about it but she kept her eyes trained on George the whole time. I had terrible giggles just bursting to get out but somehow I kept them on lockdown.

  Unlike Marjorie, George could talk a blue streak. After she’d filled us in on the comings and goings of most of her neighbors, expressed regret over her cat’s recent disappearance (turned out I was sitting on all she had left of her poor kitty. She didn’t want to clean up the hairs but didn’t mind me sitting on them, natural dispersal being kinder than a vacuum), and cursed the weather inside out for over an hour (when would it damn well ever rain?), she finally fell silent, but kept looking between me and Marjorie, smiling a weird grin as she took sips of what must now be stone-cold coffee.

  ‘And how you been keeping, Ma?’ Marjorie asked in a serious voice. George didn’t reply. ‘Still bad?’ said Marjorie.