Part 23 (1/2)

I COULDN'T SLEEP THAT NIGHT, AND IN THE MORNING I checked myself out of the hospital and went home. The doctor had asked me how I felt. My answer had not been quite accurate. I felt empty, washed-out inside, my skin rubbery and dead to the touch, my eyes jittering with refracted light mat seemed to have no source. I felt as if I had been drinking sour mash for three days and had suddenly become disconnected from all the internal fires that I had nourished and fanned and depended upon with the religious love of an acolyte. There was no pain, no broken razor blades were twisting inside the conscience; there was just numbness, as though wind and fleecy clouds and rain showers marching across the canefields were a part of a curious summer phenomenon that I observed in a soundless place behind a gla.s.s wall.

I drank salt water to make myself throw up, ate handfuls of vitamins, made milkshakes filled with strawberries andbananas, did dozens of pushups and stomach crunches in the back yard, and ran wind sprints in the twilight until my chest was heaving for breath and my gym shorts were pasted to my skin with sweat.

I showered with hot water until there was none left in the tank, then I kept my head under the cold water for another five minutes. Then I put on a fresh pair of khakis and a denim s.h.i.+rt and walked outside into the gathering dusk under the pecan trees. The marsh across the road was purple with haze, sparkling with fireflies. A black kid in a pirogue was cane fis.h.i.+ng along the edge of the lily pads in the bayou. His dark skin seemed to glow with the sun's vanis.h.i.+ng red light. His body and pole were absolutely still, his gaze riveted on his cork bobber. The evening was so quiet and languid, the boy so transfixed in his concentration, that I could have been looking at a painting.

Then I realized, with a twist of the heart, that something was wrong-there was no sound. A car pa.s.sed on the dirt road, the boy sc.r.a.ped his paddle along the side of the pirogue to move to a different spot. But there was no sound except the dry resonance of my own breathing.

I went into the house, where Bootsie was reading under a lamp in the living room. I was about to speak, with the trepidation a person might have if he were violating the silence of a church, just to see if I could hear the sound of my own voice, when I heard the screen door slam behind me like a slap across the ear. Then suddenly I heard the television, the cicadas in the trees, my neighbor's sprinkler whirling against his myrtle bushes, Batist cranking an outboard down at the dock.

”What is it, Dave?” Bootsie said.

”Nothing.”

”Dave?”

”It's nothing. I guess I got some water in my ears.” I opened and closed my jaws.

”Your dinner is on the table. Do you want it?”

”Yeah, sure,” I said.

Her eyes studied mine.

”Let me heat it up for you,” she said.

”That'd be fine.”

When she walked past me she glanced into my face again.

”What's the deal, Boots? Do I look like I just emerged from a hole in the dimension?” I said, following her into the kitchen.

”You look tired, that's all.”

She kept her back to me while she wrapped my dinner in plastic to put it in the microwave.

”What's wrong?” I said.

”Nothing, really. The sheriff called. He wants you to take a week off.”

”Why didn't he tell me that?”

”I don't know, Dave.”

”I think you're keeping something from me.”

She put my plate in the microwave and turned around. She wore a gold cross on a chain, and the cross hung at an angle outside her pink blouse. Her fingers came up and touched my cheek and the swelling over my right eye.

”You didn't shave today,” she said.

”What did the sheriff say, Boots?”

”It's what some other people are saying. In the mayor's office. In the department.”

”What?”

”That maybe you're having a breakdown.”

”Do you believe I am?”

”No.”

”Then who cares?”

”The sheriff does.”

”That's his problem.”

”A couple of deputies went out to the movie location and questioned some of the people who were at Mr. Goldman's birthday party.”

”What for?”

”They asked people about your behavior, things like that.”

”Was one of those deputies Rufus Arceneaux?”

”Yes, I think so.”

”Boots, this is a guy who would sell his mother to a puppy farm to advance one grade in rank.”

”That's not the point. Some of those actors said you were walking around all evening with a drink in your hand. People believe what they want to hear.”

”I had blood and urine tests the next morning. There was no alcohol in my system. It's a matter of record at the hospital.”

”You beat up one of Julie Balboni's hoods in a public place, Dave. You keep sending local businessmen signals that you just might drive a lot of big money out of town. You tell the paramedics that there're wounded Confederate soldiers in the marsh. What do you think people are going to say about you?”

I sat down at the kitchen table and looked out the back screen at the deepening shadows on the lawn. My eyes burned, as though there were sand under my eyelids.

”I can't control what people say,” I said.

She stood behind me and rested her palms on my shoulders.

”Let's agree on one thing,” she said. ”We just can't allow ourselves to do anything that will help them hurt us. Okay, Dave?”

I put my right hand on top of hers.

”I won't,” I said.