“Natty?”
“Natty Bumppo,” he said. “Braving the frontier, descending among the savages, showing us the way. I did a little research on you, pal. A friend of mine was a colleague of yours at your last teaching job.”
“What’d you find?”
“You’re a drunk. Know what a drunk is? A titty baby. Always looking for the nipple. Read Freud on the subject.”
“I have,” I said. “He nailed it, cocaine addict that he was.”
“You were hired because your grandfather was hot shit in Louisiana.”
“That’s probably true.” I reached down in my pocket and opened the main blade on my Swiss Army knife. I sharpened it every three days. The blade could cut a stiff piece of paper as cleanly as a barber’s razor.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Not much. Natty Bumppo–type stuff.”
He took his arm from behind his h
ead and started to get up.
“I’d stay where you are,” I said.
“Hey, fellow,” Lindsey Lou said. “Yeah, you! Look at me. Cut this shit out. This is our home.”
Orchid was getting to her feet. “She’s right. Come on, man. You want to take a drive? That’s cool. Hey, Marvin, Mayday in here! Stop playing pocket pool!”
“I told you he was a do-gooder,” Moon Child said. “One with a twenty-four-hour hard-on.”
I sawed the lantern loose from the ceiling. It was a Coleman, heavy in my hand, loaded with fuel. I unscrewed the cap on the base and poured kerosene oil all over Henri’s head.
Stoney was crying and picking at his clothes as though they were filled with insects. “Don’t do that! That’s bad, and I mean really bad and not made-up bad, and the kind of shit crazy people do! What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?” His needle was stuck, his face terrified. He hammered his feet up and down on the floor; his hands flailed in the air.
I shoved the lantern into Henri’s hands, the wick still burning. “Early merry Christmas, you bastard,” I said. “Pay Jo Anne the money you owe, or I’ll rip out your spokes.”
“What are you guys doing in here?” Marvin said behind me. He held a splintered board in his hand, a nail in the tip.
I pushed him backward off the bus, into the dark, then stepped down with him and pushed him again. He stumbled and righted himself, his mouth agape. The hogs were grunting and snuffing in the pen. A star dropped across the sky and disappeared behind a blue-black butte shaped like a chimney. “Lay off my threads, man,” he said.
“You want to take the professor’s fall?”
He dropped the board. It made a thunk when it hit the ground. He raised his palms so the light from Jo Anne’s house would reflect on them. “I got no beef, chief.”
“A big ten-four on that.”
I started toward Jo Anne’s house.
“Hey, man, I’m conwise and know where you got your rebop,” he said at my back. “The pay is rotten when you pick state cotton. You been on the hard road, Joad. Way to go, Moe. We got your back, Jack. I didn’t mean you no pain, Wayne.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Alcohol and drug-induced psychosis can come in many ways. I suspected Marvin had tried them all.
Chapter Twelve
THE NEXT DAY I replaced the previous foreman, who had retired after thirty years of working for Mr. Lowry. Three weeks passed, and I got up each morning with a feeling that something good was going to happen that day, the way you feel when you’re a kid and every day is an adventure. Mr. and Mrs. Lowry were fine people to work for. I had the run of the farm; the sky was blue from one horizon to the other, the days cool, the cottonwoods gold and green and shredding in the wind. Twice Mr. and Mrs. Lowry invited Jo Anne and me to supper. Something else was happening also. I was falling deeply in love with Jo Anne McDuffy. I had known only one other girl like her, the Jewish girl I had loved in high school, the girl with whom I had lost my virginity. Her name was Valerie Epstein. I loved Valerie with my heart and body and soul and would have given my life for her without a moment’s hesitation because I believed she already owned it.
How did I lose such a wonderful young girl? Easy answer. It comes in bottles. The Broussard family had the patent on its destructive elements.