What Comes After Read online

  She quit fighting when I opened the gate, though, and she nuzzled me once I got her in — an unexpected display of affection. That moment, and the sweet afternoon with Gnarly, made me realize how long it had been since anyone had shown me any sort of kindness. I dropped down onto my knees and hugged her back.

  Aunt Sue and Book continued to ignore me for the most part. No one asked about school, or how I’d slept, or if I missed my dad. At Aunt Sue’s it was chores, dinner, and reality shows on TV. The only things Aunt Sue and Book talked about were goat cheese, football games, and the sorry knuckleheads Aunt Sue worked with at Walmart. Aunt Sue sat on the back steps every morning and evening smoking her cigarettes — one after breakfast, one after dinner, one anytime she drank a beer — and if I happened to walk past, she sometimes nodded, but that was all.

  At school, in English, the class got into a discussion about Jim in Huckleberry Finn — about what he meant when he called Huck “honey” all the time.

  “Mrs. Roosevelt,” one kid asked, “do you think Jim was on the down low? You know, like, dude has a wife and kids and all, but he’s got a thing for the Huckleberries, too?”

  Everybody cracked up when he said that, except Shirelle. She rolled her eyes in exasperation.

  “Yeah,” a girl said when things quieted down. “I wondered about that, too, if Jim’s sweet on Huckleberry. They spend all that time in their nudeness and everything.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt told them they should keep in mind that people talked differently back in those days, before the Civil War, and what people a hundred years from now would think about the way people talked today.

  “I guarantee if they write the book on us, somebody better have a whole bunch of them Sharpies to pass out in the classrooms,” said a boy. “Do some Sharpie marking on those books first thing.”

  Shirelle shook her head. I knew if I was going to make a friend in Craven County, she would probably be the one, but I didn’t try to talk to her after class. I didn’t try to talk to anyone else at school, either. Things were strained between Beatrice and me — we were e-mailing but hadn’t talked in a week, since my second night in North Carolina — but I hoped that would pass, and I still didn’t want to be a part of anything here. Except maybe Gnarly and the goats.

  One night near the end of my second week, not long after Aunt Sue left for work, Gnarly started barking. I had just fallen asleep, and it woke me up with a start. Maybe it was squirrels, or raccoons, or deer. Maybe he was just barking because he felt like it, because Aunt Sue was gone and he was happy. It didn’t seem to bother Book — I doubted anything could wake him up — but after an hour I couldn’t stand it anymore. I went outside and found Gnarly running back and forth under the clothesline, so I lay down with him in the grass, which calmed him down. As soon as I went back inside, though, he started up again. I jammed my pillow over my head, closed the window, shut my door, but nothing worked. Finally, after another noisy hour, I went back outside and unhooked Gnarly’s leash. I figured he would run around in the field for a while, maybe head for the woods and tire himself out. And it seemed to work, because everything was quiet when I crawled back into bed.

  The sun was barely up hours later when I heard someone yelling. I bolted straight up in bed, confused. I’d been dead asleep for the first time since I’d been there. Dreaming about my house in Maine, only it didn’t look like my house, exactly. The rooms were empty. I was looking for somebody. Just like in the dream I’d had about my dad. Beatrice was there, but she wasn’t who I was looking for. Then Book was there, telling me I forgot to feed the goats, I was supposed to feed the goats, what about the goats?

  The yelling that woke me up kept on, finally shaping itself into Aunt Sue’s voice: “Who in hell let Gnarly off the clothesline?”

  Book ran out of his bedroom and into the kitchen — I heard him even though my door was shut — stuttering so bad it was impossible to understand a word.

  I felt sorry for him, so I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled to the top of the stairs. “It was me, Aunt Sue,” I yelled down. “Gnarly was barking, and I let him loose.”

  Aunt Sue appeared suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, glaring up at me. Book appeared next to her.

  She said, “Gnarly don’t bark at night.”

  “He started when you left.”

  Aunt Sue turned to Book. “That true?”

  Book shook his head like he was trying to get water out of his ear. “No. Nuh-uh. I never heard him.”

  Aunt Sue swore again. She disappeared for a second, then reappeared holding two dead chickens upside down by their feet. “Look at what that dumb-ass dog did when you set him loose.” She shook them at me, and their blood splattered on her jeans and dripped onto the floor. “You’re lucky he went after the neighbors’ chickens and not mine.” She pointed to the puddle with her boot. “Now get your ass down here and clean this up.”

  “OK,” I said, halfway down the stairs before she’d finished talking. “I mean yes, ma’am.”

  Aunt Sue shifted both chickens to her left hand.

  Then she slapped me.

  I stumbled back into the wall and fell to the floor, more from the shock of it than from the force of the blow.

  Before I could say anything, before I could make sense of what had just happened, Aunt Sue stormed back outside.

  I touched my face and felt blood.

  “Don’t worry,” Book said. “It’s just from the chickens.”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me up. “Come on, already,” he said. “You ain’t hurt. She usually hits a lot harder.”

  Still stunned, I followed Book across the kitchen, and we watched Aunt Sue through the window: she pulled the chickens’ heads off, plucked the bodies, then stuffed the feathers and heads and beaks into a trash bag.

  Book seemed relieved. “She don’t like the neighbors, anyway,” he said.

  For dinner that evening we had chicken potpie — the first time since I’d been there that it wasn’t a sandwich night. Aunt Sue parboiled the chickens, opened canned beans and carrots, boiled some potatoes, and hauled out a couple of frozen Walmart pie crusts. When I finished pasteurizing the goat milk and starting the new cheeses, Aunt Sue called us to eat. Book practically jumped up and down with excitement.

  Aunt Sue pulled the chicken potpie out of the oven and set it on a worn pot holder in the middle of the kitchen table, then she scooped out enormous servings onto all of our plates.

  She almost seemed happy about what she’d done. Her anger had vanished as quickly as it had come on.

  “Dig in,” Aunt Sue said, though Book’s mouth was already stuffed full. I picked up my fork and thought about eating the chicken-soaked vegetables just to keep the peace, but my stomach revolted at the thought.

  Aunt Sue noticed my hesitation and stopped eating. “Well? What’s your problem now?”

  “I don’t eat chicken,” I said.

  She gave me a blank look. “Say again?” she said, licking her fork. Book already had his face practically buried in his own potpie and only looked up every now and then to breathe.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” I said, my voice smaller than I liked it. “Maybe I can just make a sandwich? Or if there are some vegetables left over, I could cook those separately or something.”

  “Sandwiches have meat,” Aunt Sue said.

  Book stopped eating long enough to chime in. “Not hers, Mama. I seen her. Iris don’t ever put meat on her sandwiches.”

  Aunt Sue pointed at me with her fork. It was a big fork. All their silverware was big; I don’t know why.

  “Around here you eat what you’re served,” she said. “Sixteen years old should have already learned that lesson in table manners.”

  I didn’t say anything, so Aunt Sue tried again. “Looky,” she said. “You can fish you out some carrots, and some crust, and there’s potatoes in there, too. See those peas? Don’t you like peas? Everybody likes peas.” She held one up, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger like maybe I h
adn’t ever seen one before. Like it was one of the great marvels of nature.

  I kept my eyes on my potpie while she talked. “Well?” she said. “Don’t that sound like a good idea?”

  “I can’t,” I said reluctantly. I didn’t want her to hit me again — and I didn’t know what might set her off. But I hadn’t eaten meat since I was twelve, and I wasn’t going to start now, or ever. “It’s been cooked with the chicken, so I can’t eat it. I’m sorry.”

  That stopped her cold. I think she’d used up what little store of nice she had in her by then, anyway. “Fine, then. Just fine,” she said. “But I ought to point out that since you were the one let out Gnarly, it’s kind of like you were the one that got the chickens killed in the first place. But you just go ahead and be that-a way, and while you’re at it, you march yourself up to the bedroom we were good enough to let you have all for yourself and you go on and do your homework and go on and eat air for dinner tonight, because you’re not getting anything else. Nobody ever did nobody a favor by coddling them, and I’m not about to start now. So go.”

  So I went.

  Book knocked on my door a couple of hours later. “Mama says you’re supposed to come with me and Tiny. There’s a field party and we’re going, and she says we have to take you with us.”

  I hadn’t opened the door yet, but I could tell from his voice that he didn’t want me to go.

  “That’s OK,” I said. “Thanks for the invitation. I’ll just stay here.”

  Something bumped high against the door. Probably his head. “Mama says you have to. She’s having company and doesn’t want anybody else here.”

  That surprised me. I opened the door. Book nearly fell in on top of me. “Damn it, Iris,” he snarled. “Give me some warning next time you’re just gonna open the door.”

  He backed out into the hall.

  “Who’s the company?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” he said. “Just company.”

  “But who?” I said.

  “Damn, you’re nosy,” he said. “Is that how all y’all are up there — so nosy like that?”

  “Forget it,” I said, retreating.

  Book waved his hands in front of him. “No. Come on. You have to come with us. Mama’ll be mad. Come on. Tiny’s outside in his truck. Come on.”

  I stopped backing up when he mentioned Aunt Sue. I didn’t want her any angrier at me than she already was. “Who’s going to be there?”

  “Just people,” Book said. “From school. It’s a field party. What do you care? You don’t know anybody, do you? You can meet some people. Don’t you like to meet people?”

  “Not particularly.”

  He blinked. This clearly wasn’t in his plan.

  “Iris.” He lowered his voice until it was almost a whisper. “You’re gonna get me in trouble. So come on. Mama’s downstairs. She’s waiting.”

  I told him all right, I would go, but I wasn’t happy about the idea of sitting between him and Tiny.

  “You can sit in the back, then,” Book said. “Tiny’s probably got a blanket or something you can sit on.”

  We heard Gnarly yelping and growling before we got outside. He was lunging at Tiny but could only get as far as the end of his leash and the give of the clothesline. Book laughed.

  Tiny grinned his stupid grin. He looked at me, and the grin widened practically to his ears, which looked like question marks jutting out from the sides of his shaved head. Tiny’s bigness always surprised me whenever I saw him. Everything about him strained against whatever tried to contain it: the seat of his jeans, the buttons on his shirt, even the flesh of his face.

  “I was just showing Gnarly my karate,” he said. He made chopping motions with his hands, then pirouetted in a spin kick that just missed Gnarly’s face. Gnarly lunged at his shoe.

  Book shook his head at Tiny. “Come on, Ninja Turtle,” he said. I knelt to pet Gnarly and calm him down, then I climbed into the back of the truck. Tiny’s face fell when he saw, but Book just pushed him toward the driver’s seat and said, “Let’s go.”

  Twenty minutes later we bounced off the highway and careened down a set of tire tracks that turned into ruts so deep I felt the oil pan scraping the ground. Every bump bounced me hard on my tailbone, and I yelled for them to take it easy. They couldn’t hear, though. They had their white-boy rap music cranked up too loud, with the bass set on Headache.

  At last we stopped. We were at an open field lit by a fading red sunset and headlights from a dozen other trucks. Book and Tiny parked between a couple of Jeeps, then jumped out and yelled “Craven Ravens rule!” A huddle of other big white boys roared something back that was too southern for me to understand. I stayed next to Tiny’s truck, but Book and Tiny headed straight across the field to join a bunch of their friends at another truck that had a keg in the back. When they got there, Book grabbed Tiny around the neck and wrestled him to the ground. Three other guys grabbed Tiny, too, and they piled on top — a mountain of guys, pinning him down. Somebody locked his arms around Tiny’s head and held on while somebody else shoved a funnel in Tiny’s mouth and a girl poured in a cup of beer. Tiny bucked and shuddered, but they held on. Other guys poured in their beer, too, then the girl moved the wide end of the funnel to the keg and opened the tap. I thought about the waterboarding they did with secret terrorist prisoners overseas.

  When they finally stopped and let him loose, Tiny sat up gasping and coughing. He staggered to his feet and swung his fist at someone he must have thought was there. Then he dropped to his knees and vomited. Everybody laughed and yelled, and in a minute Tiny roared and laughed and yelled with them. The sun vanished behind the tree line, and people turned into shadows. They threw sticks and paper into a barrel off the back of another truck and doused it with gas and flicked matches in until one of them caught and the fire exploded ten feet into the sky.

  Then they went after Book. The whole mob of them, yelling, singing. Book took off running, out of the headlights and through the field. Somebody jumped into the cab of another truck, and a bunch of them hopped in the back and they took off, too. They turned on floodlights for spotlighting deer, mounted to the truck roof, and the beams caught Book running hard away from them in the thickening dark. Once they had him trapped in the bouncing lights, it took seconds for the truck to catch up. Two guys dove onto Book and tackled him to the dirt. The driver slammed on the brakes, and then more guys piled on, too. They dragged Book over to the truck and then lifted him into the bed. They sat on him as he kept fighting, and drove him back to the circle of headlights, and the keg, and the funnel.

  None of the noise sounded like any language I knew or had ever heard. There was the headache bass line from the giant speakers, a screeching rap song that was mostly distortion, the singing boys, the screaming Book, then something like a chant — “Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!” — as they pried open his jaws, shoved in the funnel, and poured down the beer. This must be what those girls in the restroom meant on my first day at Craven High when they said “Welcome to Hell.” I wanted desperately to leave and thought about hiking the ten miles back to Aunt Sue’s. And maybe I could just keep going after that — out of Craven County altogether. Out of North Carolina. All the way back to Maine.

  But I didn’t have a chance to go anywhere. Three football guys came over to Tiny’s truck and saw me before I could leave or hide.

  “Hey,” one of them said. “Know what this is?”

  He had unzipped his pants. The other guys laughed. They were all already drunk.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, trying to be nonchalant, even though my heart was pounding. “But it kind of looks like a birth defect.”

  The guy with his pants open looked confused, but his buddies laughed even harder. One asked if I would judge their contest. Before I could answer, they all unzipped and took aim at a blue Camaro six feet away. One mostly peed on himself, one made it halfway, and the third hit the Camaro’s passenger-side door.

  “Congratulations,” I said.
I knew I needed to stay calm, as if I saw this sort of thing all the time and dealt with these sorts of guys. “That’s quite a talent. You could probably get a scholarship for that.”

  The winner took off his baseball cap and grinned. “Don’t I get something right now for pissing the farthest?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. You get another beer. You better hurry back over, though, because I heard they were running out.” I waited until they left, then I climbed into the cab of Tiny’s truck and locked the doors with shaking fingers to wait out the rest of the night.

  I stayed in the cab for the next couple of hours, watching the beer funnels, the waterboarding, the fights, the drunk couples pulling off clothes and grinding on top of one another in dark corners of trucks or the field. Finally, well past midnight, I saw Tiny and Book staggering toward the truck, covered in mud and vomit and blood and beer and, from the smell of it, cow shit. They didn’t quite make it, though, before they collapsed on the ground. Book pulled them both up into sitting positions, and he leaned on Tiny for balance. Then he started crying and talking, though Tiny didn’t respond. I wondered if he’d passed out. It took a while before I understood that Book was talking about Aunt Sue’s “company.”

  “I gotta leave so he can come over on her like that, at our house? That ain’t a date. A date, he takes her out to a movie and dinner and flowers and candy and opens the door. Isn’t that a date? Isn’t that a date? He thinks a six-pack is a date. That’s not a date. Is that a date? Is a six-pack a date? Is a twelve-pack a date? Is kicking Book out of the house a date? Where’s Book supposed to go? You think I want to be here? You think anybody cares I’m here? Why are we here? Ah, hell. Move over, Tiny. I gotta lie down, too. Let me lie down, too.”

  I thought about taking Tiny’s truck and just leaving, but I was in enough trouble with Aunt Sue as it was, and knew I couldn’t actually abandon them. I climbed out of the cab and tried getting Book and Tiny up, but they were both passed out now and wouldn’t budge. They were too heavy for me to drag. “Just come on!” I said, gritting my teeth and pulling on Book’s heavy arm. “Just come on.” But they were too drunk. It was useless.