Mr. Splitfoot Read online

More staring.

  “Up north? Why? You left something there?”

  Yes.

  “Shoot. What’d you lose?” And then, “What’s wrong, Ruth?”

  Ruth moves in close. She takes my cheeks in her hands as if to kiss me but looks at me instead. She has the smallest smile on her face, and for a moment she’s young Ruth again, all power and light. Like she knows I need to get out of here, away from Lord for a couple of days. I think of my job and feel very little, a dull gray fuzz. Summer’s ending and the closest thing I’ve had to an adventure was a Google search of Baja California. I don’t think of El, not just then. “OK,” I tell Ruth. “I’ll come.”

  She smiles wider.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  She looks down at her hands a moment, nodding yes, pleased even.

  “Right now?”

  Yes.

  “Where are we going?”

  No answer.

  I suppose I don’t really care where we’re going. Away from here. “Now?”

  She nods.

  “Right now?”

  She nods.

  In those years of not seeing Ruth, my imagination had time to do a number on memory. I carved her into something perfect, and even though that’s clearly not true, even though she looks like a dirty junkie, I want her. I want to know what she knows, even if it means following her into places unknown. “One second.”

  It’s tough to pack because how long will we be gone? Where are we going exactly? “I need clothes?”

  Yes.

  “OK.” Comfortable shoes, a soft sweater. I fill a small canvas bag. Some socks, a hair comb, an extra barrette, underwear, one hundred twenty-three dollars in cash from my bureau. I wear two shirts and a hoodie. I think of the baby, but right now the baby has everything it needs.

  I consider leaving El a note, but I don’t do it. I won’t be gone long. Ruth opens the front door, and I feel the dark air out there. Lord, bears, all the terrors, and irresistible Ruth cutting through them, unaware of danger, braiding a lifetime of people’s mean looks and cruelty into a smooth path that leads from my door to her waiting car.

  The lights of Lackawanna are shutting down as we pass through town, a woman removing her jewels. Electric Avenue to Cazenovia Creek, past Holy Cross Cemetery and Red Jacket, to the outskirts of Buffalo.

  “Are we heading to the Falls?” I ask, but Ruth doesn’t look from the road. No answer. Fine. I’m tired and the car is warm. Shut up, I tell myself. Stop asking questions that don’t have answers.

  Twenty-five minutes later, the car breaks down north of Tonawanda in a place called Cambria. Not much has happened here since they found a meteorite back in 1818. Something snaps. Chain dragging. Rusting. Rattling. Twenty-seven miles away from El’s house. My phone still has a charge. GPS even.

  “What?” I ask. “No gas?”

  The car coasts to an efficient end by the side of the road.

  “Should I call someone?”

  Ruth doesn’t even look under the hood. She’s as calm as if she’d seen the car breaking down in a dream, knew it was coming. She grabs a small backpack.

  “What?”

  Ruth starts to walk. Turns to see if I’m coming.

  “Walking?”

  Ruth doesn’t answer.

  “Back to El’s?”

  No.

  My foot is up on the dashboard. “How far is it?” But like the car, Ruth is broken. She’s got her reasons for being messed up. I’ll give her that. Ruth has not had a good life, but what would make her stop talking? Maybe there’s a reservoir of words we get, and hers is empty now. Maybe if we walk, some of her reservoir will fill back up. “What are we going to do?”

  And there’s that damn finger again, pointing, pointing. Ruth starts walking down the road away from me.

  I spend a hard moment with the dashboard before collecting my things. I follow her. The road is blue as a vein under skin. Ruth and I begin our walk into the blueness, into the black of the coming night.

  THERE’S MONEY TO BE MADE talking to the dead. Tonya brings her boyfriend, a kid who aged out a few years back. He lives in a shelter. No more Medicaid and the kid is sick, sick. At the periphery of the basement’s coal bin, the boyfriend stands with his legs spread slightly, his arms crossed over his chest to display his muscles. He coughs like a buffalo every five minutes.

  Tonya, Nat, and Ruth find seats on the cold ground. The basement creaks against the soil outside. Minerals grow. “Hello?” Ruth asks the dark basement. “Hello? Hello? Who is there?” But it’s hard to get the dead’s attention under the boyfriend’s scowl. “Can you sit down?” Ruth offers her hand.

  “No.” He doesn’t move.

  Her arm remains extended.

  “I said no.”

  Ruth buries her lips.

  “This is bullshit,” the boyfriend says. His posture is rigid, eyes straight ahead. “You’re wasting your money, Ton.”

  “Uh-uh, babe. He’s for real. He talks to our parents all the time.”

  “Oh yeah?” the boyfriend asks, though he doesn’t mean it. “He’s making it up.”

  “He knows their names, Trey. He knows things no one ever told him.”

  It’s true. Children from the home pay five dollars, a fortune, and Nat talks to their parents. He knows their names. He says what they would say. I love you. I miss you. I’d be with you if I could.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Well.” Ruth lifts up to her knees, ready to adjourn. “If you don’t believe it, let’s skip it.”

  “No,” Tonya says. “We’ve got nothing else to do.”

  That is true.

  Nat looks to the boyfriend. “You don’t have to believe it. It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe it, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.”

  The boyfriend stays standing. “You don’t believe your own shit?”

  Ruth sits again, takes Tonya’s hand.

  “No.”

  “Well, I do.” Ruth calls again into the dark to the ranks of dead people waiting to chat. “Who’s there?”

  Nat starts to shimmy. His shoulders twitch. Ruth sways slightly, a humming groupie. Nat feels Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry. “Calamine. Calamine. Calamine. Mine.” He moves his tongue and body, whispering, lashed from side to side. He borrows heavily from the Father’s playbook. Rolling his eyes back, his jaw gets ready to deliver, huffing an exorcism of their boredom. Nat thumbs back and forth over a word that sounds like “prick.” Nat tells Tonya that her mom would be with her if she could be. He tells her that her mom’s name was Cleopatra.

  “No. Her name was—”

  “Eunice,” Nat fills in.

  “Yeah.”

  “Nah,” he says. “That’s just what the kids in school used to call her.”

  Tonya nods. “Is that right?” and lifts her chin like the daughter of a queen.

  Even the prick’s mom makes an appearance. Nat says her name. “Ursula.” So the boyfriend drops to his knees and cries like a hungry calf until Ruth puts her arm across his shoulders and tells him that really, everything is going to be OK, everything’s going to be just fine.

  After Tonya, Shauna and Lisa take a turn, the sisters.

  Nat’s a bull ready to toss its rider, foaming like a terrifying moron.

  “I see your mom roasting a chicken in her pajamas.”

  “That’s her.”

  “She’s brushing her teeth while talking on the phone.”

  “Oh my God. How do you know?”

  “She says she’d be with you if she could.”

  Nat doesn’t even say hello to some of these kids upstairs, but down in the cellar their mothers’ words are in his mouth. “Miss you” and “Still” and “Soon, love,” and “Remember when.”

  Ruth carries a box of tissues into the basement each time they go. She also works security when necessary. The first time Nat contacted Tika’s mom, Tika went ballistic. “Dirty whore! Let me at her!” In his trance Nat kept saying, “I love you. I l
ove you, honey. I’m sorry.” Tika charged Nat, knocking his head back against the concrete floor, scratching at his cheeks. Ruth pulled her off, told her she wasn’t allowed to come back to the basement anymore.

  A few days after the sisters, the tiny, quiet Raffaella has her turn, and this is how they move through the months.

  Ruth holds one of Raffaella’s hands. It looks and feels like a flipper. Nat takes her other hand. “Yaawwchappa chappa chappa,” Nat yammers in the murk.

  Raffaella’s flipper grips Ruth’s hand tighter. It’s the girl’s first time. She thought Jesus wouldn’t like her talking to dead people until Ruth pointed out that Jesus himself is a dead person who came back, talking.

  “Choo chug choo chug.” Nat’s pupils are vacant. “Hello?”

  Ruth opens her eyes a slit. Raffaella watches Nat, so hungry she’d eat him.

  “Jumper. Juniper. Jennifer. Jennifer. Jennifer.” Finding the right ghost is like selecting an entrée off a menu.

  Raffaella’s mouth opens. She straightens her spine. “That’s her.”

  “Remember that lightning storm? We sat and watched it.”

  Raffaella nods, whispers, “I remember, Mommy.”

  “I’d be with you if I could.” Every mother says that every time.

  Raffaella asks, “What’s stopping you?”

  Ruth tilts her head. “The veil between the worlds is hard to pass over.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s hard to come back from the dead.”

  “My mom’s not dead. She’s in Miami.”

  Ruth’s eyes open. “Miami?”

  “It’s like she’s dead.”

  “Like she’s dead?”

  Nat comes to. He rubs his forehead and stretches.

  “It’s over,” Ruth tells her.

  “OK,” the little girl says. “Well. Thanks.” Raffaella releases their hands. She doesn’t press it. She wants to believe. She pays them to not admit it’s fake. Her footsteps are light on the stairs as she goes. The basement door shuts.

  “Her mom’s not dead.”

  Nat shrugs.

  “I guess there are even more mysteries than I thought,” Ruth says.

  “I guess so.” They climb out of the cellar. Nat lets Ruth hold the money.

  Breakfast was seven hours ago. Ruth had a half bowl of Crispy Hexagons. Food supplies are low until the State makes its next payment. Ruth drinks water and a dandelion tea the Father brews when food runs out. Hunger’s slowing her down, eating her brain. Hunger darkens her eyes on a young man speaking with the Father on the front porch. His hair’s long as a gypsy’s. His fingers are covered with thick metal rings, stones and skulls, some sort of fancy pirate. There’s a suitcase beside the man, but he’s too old to be a new charge. His pinkie nails are painted black. The Father won’t like that one bit. Homosexual, he will say. The Father doesn’t know anything. Ruth sucks her thumb, wondering if her hunger invented the man.

  Nat and three of the other children watch a Father-approved television program in the living room, something about a boy and his monkey. TV is a luxury allowed during the lean times. Ruth tries to glean a word from the porch. The Father keeps his voice low, but the young man, a bright penny, can be heard plainly.

  “My own household has been kindly increased in the arms of this product, sir. My solemn word.” A salesman in graveyard boots. He’s young to be a salesman. “I’ll have you know, this product is held in surplus by not only the residents of the White House but their cabinet members as well.”

  “I don’t much care for the government.”

  “No. I’m only saying—”

  “What is it? Let me see what you’re hawking.”

  “Indeed.” The man eyes his case. “But is there perhaps a lady of the house I might converse with? A mother to these lovely children? She might better understand what I have to offer.”

  From just inside a living room window, Ruth buries her eyes in the young man’s burgundy suit. He could be snapping baby photos at Sears in that suit. He could be pumping formaldehyde at a funeral parlor or even heading off to prom. Ruth falls away from the sway of Nat to a place of swords and sticks where it’s every man for herself.

  “Let me ask you something. Have you invited our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into your heart?” That old saw. The Father tries it on everyone.

  The man eyes the Father, his soft hands. “Invited him in, sir. He didn’t care for the decor.”

  “A wise-ass, huh?”

  The man blinks.

  “What is it you believe, son?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I’m curious.”

  The young man clears his throat, surrenders his sale. “Heaven is a dream of Disneyland for those unable to act here on Earth.”

  “That so?”

  Ruth is surprised by the Father’s calm.

  “That’s what I believe.” The young man winks.

  “Then I have one question left. How many orphaned children have you sheltered, fed, and educated? Two questions. How are you helping your fellow humans?”

  The young man lifts a hand to his chin to think, which is unlike most people the Father engages. Most can’t listen because they’re already certain they’re right. The man chews his top lip. “I beg pardon, sir. You’re absolutely correct. I have done next to nothing to better my fellow man. That’s the truth. God’s honest.”

  But the Father’s not done with this soul. “Christ forbid you should ever become guardian of a child who uses feces as paint; drools for his mother; screams profanities in your face for hours; refuses to bathe, speak, eat; kicks you in the kidneys at bedtime; breaks your nose at breakfast—because in those situations, if you’ve got no God to ask, ‘Why Lord, why?’ you’re going to have take all your questions out on that child’s flesh.” The Father concludes business. “We don’t want whatever you’re selling.” He shuts the front door, leaving the young man alone on the porch, hands open and empty.

  Ruth’s nearly proud of the Father, nearly buying his bull, until he breezes past her and she smells food coming from the Father’s pores: scrambled eggs, meat, cheese. The Father’s been eating bacon and not sharing it. Ruth is starving.

  The young man palms his suitcase. Ruth steps into sight, clears her throat. “Hello, little sister,” he says. Something new in town after so long living with old things. “That’s some gorgeous explosion on your face, huh?” Ruth lifts a hand to her cheek. “Yes, it is,” he answers for her. The young man takes his leave, throwing an arm up in farewell, whistling as he walks away. Ruth can’t tell if he’s a boy or a man. Closer to a man, she thinks. The shadow of a bird crosses his back. He doesn’t even see it, doesn’t know how lucky he is, free as that bird. Or maybe good things just happen to him all the time.

  Her hunger burns worse when the young man is gone. “Apples?” she asks Nat. The farm has a number of hoary trees. Each fruit is good for two bites before a hard blue spot crops up. There are tons of them because the other kids won’t eat what the worms left behind.

  “Not today.”

  Troy is a tipsy municipality built on top of three powerful confluences: Panhooseck and Paanpack, the old peoples; shirt collars and steel, the old industries; Hudson and Erie, the old waterways.

  People with cars pass Nat and Ruth on their walk into the city. The drivers pretend to focus really hard on their driving so that they won’t have to, all Christian-like, stop to offer them a ride.

  But as previously reported, he isn’t a Christian. The young salesman’s car is stopped up the road, a quarter mile from the home. He’s attempting to turn the engine over again and again, but the engine won’t fire. Nat slides past the car, but Ruth stops at his window. She touches the pane. The man turns the key one last time and the engine engages.

  “Look at that.” He rolls the window down. “You fixed my car.”

  Ruth smiles.

  “My name’s Mr. Bell. You’re in need of transportation? Perhaps I could be of assistance
. If you can trust a vehicle as wobbly as mine.”

  “Mister?” Ruth asks. She hears his funny way of talking, using more words than necessary as if he enjoys them. Maybe he went to college. Maybe he’s Canadian. Ruth nods. He’s too young to be a mister. Twenty-four tops. His car and clothes are clean. He wears his seat belt. There’s no sign of his case. “Nat.” Ruth calls Nat back quickly like a well-trained dog.

  They press their faces against the back window to see what such an unusual young man has inside his car: a seasonally premature ice scraper, a well-used road map. They climb in the back as if riding in a taxi.

  “Where to?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Downtown.” Mr. Bell laughs. Something about town is funny. They drive in silence, stealing glimpses. They pass the Roxy Laundromat. Ruth can see the side of the man’s shaven neck, his suit and collar, the sloppy cut of his long hair, the length of his sideburns. She sees his hands on the wheel and the chunky skull rings. His fingers have sprouted dark down on each knuckle.

  “Suppose you all heard about Pluto?” The man makes conversation.

  Of course, they’ve heard of Pluto. They nod slowly, and he catches the nod in the rearview mirror.

  “Glad old Tombaugh was already dead when they announced it.”

  More slow nodding.

  Mr. Bell looks at them quickly. “They decided it’s no longer a planet?”

  “Right.”

  “Right.”

  Nat and Ruth begin to wonder whether or not they will be getting out of this car alive. Pluto not a planet? This man is clearly deranged.

  “Pistachio?” Mr. Bell offers, raising a bag over into the back seat.

  “No, thank you,” Nat says, but Ruth decides to try one. She’s starving.

  The city of Troy, New York—after a brief shining role at the center of the steel industry—fell off the map of the modern world. Head of the now more-or-less dead Erie Canal, a number of buildings still display versions of Troy’s once-bright future. Frear’s Troy Cash Bazaar. Marty Burke’s South End Tavern, with its separate entrance for ladies. The Castle, the Gurley, the Rice, and the Ilium. Burden Iron Works and Proctor’s Theater. Some of the buildings have been emptied, some just collapsed. There are a number of 99¢ Shops and opportunities for mugging RPI students after dark. There’s Pfeil Hardware and DeFazio’s. There are quiet people making things in secret. And the mighty Hudson.