The Best of Joe R. Lansdale Page 19

  “Ah, shit,” “Lil” Arthur said.

  4:03 P.M.

  As Henry Johnson drove the horses onto the wooden bridge that connected Galveston to the mainland, he felt ill. The water was washing over the sides, against the wagon wheels. The horses were nervous, and the line of would-be escapees on the bridge was tremendous. It would take them a long time to cross, maybe hours, and from the look of things, the way the water was rising, wouldn’t be long before the bridge was underwater.

  He said a private prayer: “Lord, take care of my family. And especially that fool son of mine, ‘Lil’ Arthur.”

  It didn’t occur to him to include himself in the prayer.

  4:37 P.M.

  Bill and Angelique Cooper moved everything of value they could carry to the second floor of the house. Already the water was sloshing in the doorway. Rain splattered against the windows violently enough to shake them, and shingles flapped boisterously on the roof.

  Bill paused in his work and shuffled through ankle-deep water to a window and looked out. He said, “Angelique, I think we can stop carrying.”

  “But I haven’t carried up the —”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “Leaving? It’s that bad?”

  “Not yet.”

  Bess was difficult to hook to the buggy. She was wild-eyed and skittish. The barn was leaking badly. Angelique held an umbrella over her head, waiting for the buggy to be fastened. She could feel water rising above her high button shoes.

  Bill paused for a moment to calm the horse, glanced at Angelique, thought she looked oddly beautiful, the water running off the umbrella in streams. She held Teddy close to her. Teddy was asleep, totally unaware of what was going on around him. Any other time, the baby would be squalling, annoyed. The rain and the wind were actually helping him to sleep. At least, thought Bill, I am grateful for that.

  By the time the buggy was hooked, they were standing in calf-deep water. Bill opened the barn door with great difficulty, saw that the yard was gone, and so was the street. He would have to guess at directions. Worse yet, it wasn’t rain water running through the street. It was definitely seawater; the water of the Gulf had risen up as if to swallow Galveston the way the ocean was said to have swallowed Atlantis.

  Bill helped Angelique and Teddy into the buggy, took hold of the reins, clucked to Bess. Bess jerked and reared, and finally, by reins and voice, Bill calmed her. She began to plod forward through the dark, powerful water.

  5:00 P.M.

  McBride awoke. The wind was howling. The window glass was rattling violently, even though the windows were raised. The air was cool for a change, but damp. It was dark in the room.

  The madam, wrapped in a blanket, sat in a chair pulled up against the far wall. She turned and looked at McBride. She said, “All hell’s broken loose.”

  “Say it has?” McBride got up, walked naked to the windows. The wind was so furious it pushed him. “Damn,” he said. “It’s dark as midnight. This looks bad.”

  “Bad?” The madam laughed. “Worst hurricane I’ve ever seen, and I don’t even think it’s cranked up good yet.”

  “You don’t think they’ll call off the fight do you?”

  “Can you fight in a boat?”

  “Hell, honey, I can fight and fuck at the same time on a boat. Come to think of it, I can fight and fuck on a rolling log, I have to. I used to be a lumberjack up north.”

  “I was you, I’d find a log, and get to crackin’.”

  A bolt of lightning, white as eternity, split the sky, and when it did, the darkness outside subsided, and in that instant, McBride saw the street was covered in waist-deep water.

  “Reckon I better start on over there,” he said. “It may take me a while.”

  The madam thought: Well, honey, go right ahead, and I hope you drown.

  5:20 P.M.

  “Lil” Arthur was standing on the porch, trying to decide if he should brave the water, which was now up to the lip of the porch, when he saw a loose rowboat drift by.

  Suddenly he was in the water, swimming, and the force of the water carried him after the boat, and soon he had hold of it. When he climbed inside, he found the boat was a third filled with water.

  He found a paddle and a pail half-filled with dirt. The dirt had turned to mud and was beginning to flow over the top of the bucket. A few dead worms swirled in the mess. The world was atumble with wind, water, and darkness.

  “Lil” Arthur took the bucket and poured out the mud and the worms and started to bail. Now and then he put the bucket aside and used the boat paddle. Not that he needed it much. The water was carrying him where he wanted to go. Uptown.

  5:46 P.M.

  Uptown the water was not so deep, but it took McBride almost an hour to get to the Sporting Club. He waded through waist-deep water for a block, then knee-deep, and finally ankle-deep. His bowler hat had lost all its shape when he arrived, and his clothes were ruined. The water hadn’t done his revolver or his razor any good either.

  When he arrived at the building, he was surprised to find a crowd of men had gathered on the steps. Most stood under umbrellas, but many were bareheaded. There were a few women among them. Whores mostly. Decent women didn’t go to prizefights.

  McBride went up the steps, and the crowd blocked him. He said, “Look here. I’m McBride. I’m to fight the nigger.”

  The crowd parted, and McBride, with words of encouragement and pats on the back, was allowed indoors. Inside, the wind could still be heard, but it sounded distant. The rain was just a hum.

  Beems, Forrest, and the two oldsters were standing in the foyer, looking tense as fat hens at noontime. As soon as they saw McBride, their faces relaxed, and the elderly gentlemen went away. Beems said, “We were afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  “Worried about your investment?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I’d have come if I had to swim.”

  “The nigger doesn’t show, the title and the money’s yours.”

  “I don’t want it like that,” McBride said. “I want to hit him. Course, he don’t show, I’ll take the money. You seen it this bad before?”

  “No,” Beems said.

  “I didn’t expect nobody to be here.”

  “Gamblers always show,” Forrest said. “They gamble their money, they gamble their lives.”

  “Go find something to do, Forrest,” Beems said. “I’ll show Mr. McBride the dressing room.”

  Forrest looked at Beems, grinned a little, showed Beems he knew what he had in mind. Beems fumed. Forrest went away. Beems took hold of McBride’s elbow and began to guide him.

  “I ain’t no dog got to be led,” McBride said.

  “Very well,” Beems said, and McBride followed him through a side door and down into a locker room. The room had two inches of water in it.

  “My God,” Beems said. “We’ve sprung a leak somewhere.”

  “Water like this,” McBride said. “The force…it’s washing out the mortar in the bricks, seeping through the chinks in the wall… Hell, it’s all right for what I got to do.”

  “There’s shorts and boots in the locker there,” Beems said. “You could go ahead and change.”

  McBride sloshed water, sat on a bench and pulled off his shoes and socks with his feet resting on the bench. Beems stood where he was, watching the water rise.

  McBride took the razor out of the side of one of the shoes, held it up for Beems to see, said, “Mexican boxing glove.”

  Beems grinned. He watched as McBride removed his bowler, coat, and shirt. He watched carefully as he removed his pants and shorts. McBride reached into the locker Beems had recommended, paused, turned, stared at Beems.

  “You’re liking what you’re seein’, ain’t you, buddy?”

  Beems didn’t say anything. His heart was in his throat.

  McBride grinned at him. “I knew first time I seen you, you was an Alice.”

  “No,” Beems said. “Nothing like that. It’s not like that at
all.”

  McBride smiled. He looked very gentle in that moment. He said, “It’s all right. Come here. I don’t mind that.”

  “Well…”

  “Naw. Really. It’s just, you know, you got to be careful. Not let everyone know. Not everyone understands, see.”

  Beems, almost licking his lips, went over to McBride. When he was close, McBride’s smile widened, and he unloaded a right uppercut into Beems’s stomach. He hit him so hard Beems dropped to his knees in the water, nodded forward, and banged his head on the bench. His top hat came off, hit the water, sailed along the row of lockers, made a right turn near the wall, flowed out of sight behind a bench.

  McBride picked Beems up by the hair and pulled his head close to his dick, said, “Look at it a minute, ‘cause that’s all you’re gonna do.”

  Then McBride pulled Beems to his feet by his pretty hair and went to work on him. Lefts and rights. Nothing too hard. But more than Beems had ever gotten. When he finished, he left Beems lying in the water next to the bench, coughing.

  McBride said, “Next time you piss, you’ll piss blood, Alice.” McBride got a towel out of the locker and sat on the bench and put his feet up and dried them. He put on the boxing shorts. There was a mirror on the inside of the locker, and McBride was upset to see his hair. It was a mess. He spent several minutes putting it in place. When he finished, he glanced down at Beems, who was pretending to be dead.

  McBride said, “Get up, fairy-ass. Show me where I’m gonna fight.”

  “Don’t tell anybody,” Beems said. “I got a wife. A reputation. Don’t tell anybody.”

  “I’ll make you a promise,” McBride said, closing the locker door. “That goddamn nigger beats me, I’ll fuck you. Shit, I’ll let you fuck me. But don’t get your butthole all apucker. I ain’t losin’ nothin’. Tonight, way I feel, I could knock John L. Sullivan on his ass.”

  McBride started out of the locker room, carrying his socks and the boxing shoes with him. Beems lay in the water, giving him plenty of head start.

  6:00 P.M.

  Henry couldn’t believe how slow the line was moving. Hundreds of people, crawling for hours. When the Johnsons were near the end of the bridge, almost to the mainland, the water rushed in a dark brown wave and washed the buggy in front of them off the bridge. The Johnsons’ wagon felt the wave, too, but only slid to the railing. But the buggy hit the railing, bounced, went over, pulling the horse into the railing after it. For a moment the horse hung there, its back legs slipping through, pulling with its front legs, then the railing cracked and the whole kit and caboodle went over.

  “Oh Jesus,” Tina said.

  “Hang on,” Henry said. He knew he had to hurry, before another wave washed in, because if it was bigger, or caught them near the gap the buggy had made, they, too, were gone.

  Behind them the Johnsons could hear screams of people fleeing the storm. The water was rising rapidly over the bridge, and those to the middle and the rear realized that if they didn’t get across quickly, they weren’t going to make it. As they fought to move forward, the bridge cracked and moaned as if with a human voice.

  The wind ripped at the tarp over the wagon and tore it away. “Shit,” said Clement. “Ain’t that something?”

  A horse bearing a man and a woman, the woman wearing a great straw hat that drooped down on each side of her head, raced by the Johnsons. The bridge was too slick and the horse was moving too fast. Its legs splayed and it went down and started sliding. Slid right through the opening the buggy had made. Disappeared immediately beneath the water. When Henry ventured a look in that direction, he saw the woman’s straw hat come up once, then blend with the water.

  When Henry’s wagon was even with the gap, a fresh, brown wave came over the bridge, higher and harder this time. It hit his horses and the wagon broadside. The sound of it, the impact of it, reminded Henry of when he was in the Civil War and a wagon he was riding in was hit by Yankee cannon fire. The impact had knocked him spinning, and when he tried to get up, his leg had been ruined. He thought he would never be that frightened again. But now, he was even more afraid.

  The wagon drifted sideways, hit the gap, but was too wide for it. It hung on the ragged railing, the sideboards cracking with the impact. Henry’s family screamed and lay down flat in the wagon as the water came down on them like a heavy hand. The pressure of the water snapped the wagon’s wheels off the axle, slammed the bottom of the wagon against the bridge, but the sideboards held together.

  “Everybody out!” Henry said.

  Henry, his weak leg failing to respond, tumbled out of the wagon onto the bridge, which was now under a foot of water. He got hold of a sideboard and pulled himself up, helped Tina down, reached up, and snatched his cane off the seat.

  Clement and the others jumped down, started hustling toward the end of the bridge on foot. As they came even with Henry, he said, “Go on, hurry. Don’t worry none about me.”

  Tina clutched his arm. “Go on, woman,” he said. “You got young’uns to care about. I got to free these horses.” He patted her hand. She moved on with the others.

  Henry pulled out his pocketknife and set to cutting the horses free of the harness. As soon as they were loose, both fool animals bolted directly into the railing. One of them bounced off of it, pivoted, made for the end of the bridge at a splashing gallop, but the other horse hit with such impact it flipped over, turning its feet to the sky. It pierced the water and was gone.

  Henry turned to look for his family. They were no longer visible. Surely, they had made the mainland by now.

  Others had come along to fill their place; people in wagons, and buggies, on horseback and on foot. People who seemed to be scrambling on top of water, since the bridge was now completely below sea level.

  Then Henry heard a roar. He turned to the east side of the bridge. There was a heavy sheet of water cocked high above him, and it was coming down, like a monstrous, wet flyswatter. And when it struck Henry and the bridge, and all those on it, it smashed them flat and drove them into the churning belly of the sea.

  6:14 P.M.

  Bill and Angelique Cooper, their buggy half-submerged in water, saw the bridge through the driving rain, then suddenly they saw it no more. The bridge and the people were wadded together and washed down.

  The bridge rose up on the waves a moment later, like a writhing spinal column. People still clung to it. It leaped forward into the water, the end of it lashing the air, then it was gone and the people with it.

  “God have mercy on their souls,” Angelique said.

  Bill said, “That’s it then.”

  He turned the buggy around in the water with difficulty, headed home. All around him, shingles and rocks from the roofs of structures flew like shrapnel.

  7:39 P.M.

  “Lil” Arthur, as he floated toward town, realized it was less deep here. It was just as well, the rain was pounding his boat and filling it with water. He couldn’t bail and paddle as fast as it went in. He climbed over the side and let the current carry the boat away.

  The water surprised him with its force. He was almost swept away, but it was shallow enough to get a foothold and push against the flow. He waded to the Sporting Club, went around back to the colored entrance. When he got there, an elderly black man known as Uncle Cooter let him in, said, “Man, I’d been you, I’d stayed home.”

  “What,” “Lil” Arthur said, “and missed a boat ride?”

  “A boat ride?”

  “Lil” Arthur told him how he had gotten this far.

  “Damnation,” Uncle Cooter said. “God gonna put this island underwater ‘cause it’s so evil. Like that Sodom and Gomorrah place.”

  “What have you and me done to God?”

  Uncle Cooter smiled. “Why, we is the only good children God’s got. He gonna watch after us. Well, me anyway. You done gonna get in with this Mr. McBride, and he’s some bad stuff, ‘Lil’ Arthur. God ain’t gonna help you there. And this Mr. McBride, he ain’t got no sens
e neither. He done beat up Mr. Beems, and Mr. Beems the one settin’ this up, gonna pay him money.”

  “Why’d he beat him up?”

  “Hell, you can’t figure white people. They all fucked up. But Mr. Beems damn sure look like a raccoon now. Both his eyes all black, his lip pouched out.”

  “Where do I change?”

  “Janitor’s closet. They done put your shorts and shoes in there. And there’s some gauze for your hands.”

  “Lil” Arthur found the shorts. They were old and faded. The boxing shoes weren’t too good either. He found some soiled rags and used those to dry himself. He used the gauze to wrap his hands, then his dick. He figured, once you start a custom, you stick with it.

  7:45 P.M.

  When Bill and Angelique and Teddy arrived at their house, they saw that the water had pushed against the front door so violently, it had come open. Water was flowing into the hall and onto the bottom step of the stairs. Bill looked up and saw a lamp burning upstairs. They had left so quickly, they had forgotten to extinguish it.

  With a snort, Bess bolted. The buggy jerked forward, hit a curb, and the harness snapped so abruptly Bill and his family were not thrown from their seat, but merely whipped forward and back against the seat. The reins popped through Bill’s hands so swiftly, the leather cut his palms.

  Bess rushed across the yard and through the open doorway of the house, and slowly and carefully, began to climb the stairs.

  Angelique said, “My lands.”

  Bill, a little stunned, climbed down, went around, and helped Angelique and the baby out of the buggy. The baby was wet and crying, and Angelique tried to cover him with the umbrella, but now the wind and rain seemed to come from all directions. The umbrella was little more than a wad of cloth.

  They waded inside the house, tried to close the door, but the water was too much for them. They gave it up.

  Bess had reached the top landing and disappeared. They followed her up. The bedroom door was open and the horse had gone in there. She stood near the table bearing the kerosene lamp. Shaking.