Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

After Nashville, the landscape changed dramatically and so did the weather. From Tennessee we headed south into Mississippi. Rivers began to snake across the land, swamps appeared beneath the shadows of trees, dark and still like they had secrets to keep, and everything started to cling and sway and drip—

Like the humidity clinging to the air;

The braids of Spanish moss swaying in the trees;

The sweat dripping down the nape of my neck.

Occasionally Joan Collins rattled and gave a jolt, but for the most part she seemed to hold together pretty well, at least at first. Whatever the mechanic in Nashville had done—something to do with “oil filters” or “cooling systems” or “the timing belt”—it had been worth the four hundred and eighty dollars. How long the Dynasty would hold together though was anyone’s guess.

All I wanted was to get to Clara’s Crossing in one piece.

We crossed the border from Mississippi into Louisiana, and the crisp New York autumn we left behind seemed like a distant memory. It grew too hot to drive with the window down, much to Chet’s chagrin, and so we sealed up the cabin and drove as far as we could with cool air blowing on us from the conditioning unit. It was somewhere south of Baton Rouge when the air-con packed it in, blasting hot air from the vents that turned the interior of the car into an instant furnace. I shut it off and rolled down the windows again, letting the sticky air and a symphony of droning insects envelop us once more.

On the near horizon, black, densely packed storm clouds tried to split the sky with lightning and crack open the heat. But all it seemed to do was ratchet up the pressure, the rumbling thunder only adding to the mounting tension in the air.

Suddenly the navigation system on my phone was telling me to take the next right.

The next right was a dirt road running long and straight between two cotton fields, heading west.

The rear of the white Dynasty quickly turned brown from the cloud of dust that billowed in our wake. Joan Collins gave a splutter of disapproval.

In the cotton fields, a billion bugs thrummed in waves, as though warning of our disruption on this otherwise deathly still day. At times their chorus was low and soft, at other times ear-piercing, causing Chet to whimper.

The sky was low, as though pressing down upon the flat earth. A growl of thunder joined with the insects, seemingly opposing our presence that day.

It felt as though we traveled for miles in the claustrophobic heat before finally, we arrived at a dirt crossroad.

The road we had driven east to west on now intersected a road running north to south in a perfect X, both roads deserted and stretching long and straight as far as the eye could see.

I braked the car in the middle of the crossroads.

I mopped my brow with one palm, then wiped it on my shirt before clutching the wheel with both hands again. I noticed a handful of cotton pickers working in a field that stretched all the way to a cluster of skeletal trees gate-keeping a nearby bayou, and I muttered to myself, “Don’t they have machines to do that sort of thing these days?”

I looked around us.

There wasn’t a single other vehicle on either road, but there was an old sign posted on the edge of the intersection.

The sign was itself an X made from two planks of wood.

One read— Clara’s .

The other read— Crossing.

My phone promptly announced, “You have arrived at your destination.”

I cut the engine of the car, pushed open my door and stepped up to the sign. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand, looked up the length of one empty road, then down the length of the other. I breathed in the thick, hot air, then huffed it out with a confused and annoyed, “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

The volume of the insects rose to a deafening crescendo, and when their warning song died down again, I heard another noise trying to cling to the hot autumn sky.

It was a tinkling sound, like a windchime.

It was coming from behind me.

I spun about, then jumped with surprise at the sight of a young boy no older than eight or nine, atop a wooden crate on the side of the road. His arms and legs were skinny, and his clothes were too big for him, his trousers needing a pair of suspenders to hold them up, and in one hand he held a pair of spoons.

No, he wasn’t holding the spoons.

He was playing them.

Tappety-ting-ting-clatter-clang-ching.

His feet danced to the melody he made, his tattered shoes clunking against the old crate, and on his face was a grin that let slip a giggle when he saw me. “What be shitting you, mister?”

For a moment I didn’t answer him.

I looked around, up and down the crossroads again.

Again, I saw nobody else around.

I was also pretty sure this kid and his spoons weren’t there when I first pulled up.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

“Some believe it be science. Some believe it be storks. Some believe it be a miracle.” Tappety-ting-ting-clatter-clang-ching. “You need a lesson in the birds and the bees, mister?”

“What? No. No, I’m not talking about the birds and the bees. I’m talking about you. Here. Now. Where did you come from? You weren’t there when we pulled up.”

“We? Is you a we? I don’t see nobody else here.”

“The ‘we’ is me and my dog. Chet.”

At the sound of his name, Chet clambered across his seat and mine to peer out the open driver’s door of the car. The second he saw the kid, his tail started wagging. He barked with delight, then jumped from the car and ran over to the boy.

The kid beamed with just as much joy, jumping down from his crate and opening his arms wide to hug the pooch as Chet began slobbering the kid’s neck and face.

The boy giggled even louder. “He be an angel!” the boy cackled.

“Yeah, he’s friendly. You still haven’t told me where you came from. What the hell are you doing out here?”

“My job.” As though the words reminded him of his task, the kid jumped back up onto his crate and continued playing his spoons. “I’s just here doing my job.”

I scratched my head. “And what job is that?”

“I be fendin’ off the Devil. That damn Flim-Flam Man hates the spoons. This way I be keeping the cotton pickers safe.”

Tappety-ting-ting-clatter-clang-ching.

At the foot of the crate, Chet barked excitedly, jumping up on his hind legs.

I was becoming increasingly confused and annoyed by the boy’s words, and irritated as all hell by the sweat that drenched my shirt and dripped down my back. I felt like a stranger in a strange land, having a strange conversation with a strange boy, and the entire encounter became quickly jarring. Chet’s barking rattled me even more, and I snapped at him. “Chet! Stop it!”

“He just be havin’ fun! The Devil hates dogs too… at least the good ones. Let him do his job.”

“Listen, kid, it’s been swell…” Oh God, did I just use one of Margot’s stress indicators? “I mean, it’s been nice meeting you. But I gotta be honest, I’m not getting a whole lot of sense out of you. Unless you can tell me how to get to Clara’s Crossing.”

The boy pointed to the sign. “You here already. Can’t you read?”

“Yes, I can read. But I’m looking for a town… I think. I’m looking for someone who lives in a town called Clara’s Crossing. I didn’t expect to simply arrive at a crossroads.”

The boy gave a grin. “Mister, we all arrive at a crossroads sooner or later.”

“But I thought there was a town called Clara’s Crossing. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m looking for someone.”

“Who you be looking for, mister?”

“I’m hoping to find a man called Lovesong. Do you know a Lovesong Valentin?”

“Yessir! Everyone knows Lovesong. Lovesong be like the lullaby that rocks you to sleep. He be like the full moon that lights the way. He be like the river that leads you back home. Everyone loves Lovesong.”

“I don’t,” I mumbled through teeth that were grinding harder and harder by the minute. “Surely, he doesn’t live here… at a damn crossing. Surely there’s a town nearby.”

“Course he lives in town. Ain’t nobody lives here at the crossing. Sure, there’s people here, but none of them be living.”

“Enough of the riddles, kid. Can you please just tell me where the town is?”

The boy jumped off the crate and walked over to me. Sliding his spoons in his pocket, he took my hand, led me back to his crate and gestured for me to stand on it. I checked it would take my weight, pressing down on it with one foot, then stepped up on it.

The boy took hold of my hips and turned me around, lining me up to look due south down one of the roads leading away from the crossroads. From atop the crate I could see over the fields of cotton that seemed to stretch on for miles until I spotted something in the distance.

“You see it, mister?”

I saw something, yes. “What is it?”

“That’s the bell tower of Reverend Jim’s church. All’s you gotta do is head south and you’ll find the town you’re looking for. Who knows what else you’ll find.” He gave me a look like he’d just stolen something from the cookie jar and knew he was going to get away with it. Then…

Tappety-ting-ting-clatter-clang-ching.

He danced his way into the middle of the crossroads playing his spoons.

I stepped down off the crate, picked Chet up and put him in the car. “Thanks kid.” I didn’t want to say much more for fear he’d prattle on all day if I gave him the chance.

I slid behind the wheel, shut the door and turned the key in the ignition.

Joan Collins gave a wheeze and a chug, then nothing.

“Aw shit.”

I tried to turn the engine over again.

Again, the car coughed then jolted as it backfired, then the engine quit altogether.

The boy giggled. “Oh mister, you best get that car started, otherwise he be comin’ for you.”

“Who?”

“The damn Flim-Flam Man. This be his crossroads.”

I was in no mood for more riddles. “No, it’s not. The sign says it’s Clara’s.”

“She be the one who died here,” the boy said, jumping back onto his crate. “But the Flim-Flam Man’s the one who calls it his own. Best you get that car started now. I’ll play the spoons to keep him away as long as I can.”

Despite the nonsense that came out of the dancing, spoon-playing boy’s mouth—despite the irritating sound of the clink of his spoons and the clunk of his shoes against the wooden crate—a feeling of dread crept into my heart.

Sweat dripped into my eyes.

Thunder rolled across the skies.

I glanced into the rear-view mirror, and I didn’t know why.

Were we being watched by someone other than the kid?

Were we not alone?

Did we really need to get out of there?

“I think we need to get out of here,” I uttered to myself as I turned the key one last time and Joan Collins roared to life.

I leaned out the window and said to the boy, “Do you want to come with us? I think you should come with us.”

A flash of lightning lit up the sky.

The boy simply giggled again. “Thanks mister, but I told you, I got a job to do. Now git going while you can. You don’t wanna stick around here… otherwise, you might be stickin’ around forever.”

Something told me the boy didn’t need to leave those crossroads.

Something told me Chet and I did.

I put my foot on the accelerator and turned south, heading along the road that led to the bell tower protruding high over the cotton fields.

As we trailed away from the crossroads, I tried to look through the cloud we left in our wake for the boy I’d left behind.

But I’ll be damned if I could see him through the dust.