Chapter 40
LEAVINGS OF THE SOUL
After two weeks they moved Buzzy down to Glassville General from Louisville Trauma. The bullet shattered his femur but missed an artery by millimeters. The doctors pinned and plated the bone back together and he was bed-bound in a hip-to-ankle cast while bones knitted. On the morning of his arrival, I stopped in to see him on my daily visit to Pops.
“I was comin round the corner a the trail an he was comin the other way. We saw each other at exactly the same time. He raised up the rifle an I went down on one knee an we both shot.”
“What did it feel like when you shot him? Was it like Pops said?”
“I was jus happy to not be kilt an all, but I ain’t feelin no respect for that fucker.”
“Why was he trying to kill you? Because you saw him kill Mr. Paul?”
Buzzy shook his head.
“Why then? I don’t get it.”
“On account a I seen him doin stuff with another boy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fag stuff… you know.”
“What!” I nearly shouted. “Where was this?”
“In the woods after I ran away. I was hunting with the crossbow pistol up on Round Rock—that’s the mountain with all the big rocks on it. So I’m huntin and I hear noises on the other side of a rock; I think it’s a deer or something, so I sneak around it all quiet, an there’s Tilroy with some boy from Knuckle leanin against the rock with their pants dropped down jus wackin each other off. I mean, I’m like five feet from them an they’re goin at it on each other an don’t even notice me. So I start to back up an accidentally step on a twig or somethin. Tilroy opens his eyes and looks straight at me. I mean straight frickin at me. I jus turned an ran.”
“You mean Tilroy is a homo? I don’t get it.” I shrugged my shoulders with frustration, confusion.
“All the older kids at school kinda thought he was, an when Cleo an his friends started teasin him about bein a fag at Mr. Paul’s, I guess he wanted to show them how much he wasn’t.”
“And he was trying to kill you for that?”
“For a kid like him, from a family like that, me sayin what I saw woulda been the worst possible thing.”
I paused for a moment and thought about this new revelation and the sad wisdom in Buzzy’s words. Finally the pieces started to make sense and I began to feel a pensive awareness of circumstances other than my own; a knowing that brings with it a kind of stillness that I didn’t quite understand but accepted it for its own.
“Cleo told everything,” I said after a few more minutes with the still.
“He tole me. Says he don’t know what Notre Dame’s gonna do.”
“You two okay?”
“Yeah, we’re good. He pologized for bein a dick.”
“That’s good.”
More stillness.
“What did it feel like, getting shot?”
“Like someone stuck me with a red-hot poker—hurt like a mutha. But the worst part was the dyin part.”
“You didn’t die.”
“But I dint know that. I plugged the hole up best I could, but I kept bleedin an gettin weaker. Right before I passed out, I figured I was a goner.”
“Were you scared?”
“Hell yeah I was scared. But then it went all weird when I got weaker. The pain stopped an I felt kinda peaceful. Like my body was ready to give it up.”
We were silent for a while more. A comfortable silence built on shared accomplishment and the confidence of courage earned.
“Heard you faced down a cougar.”
I nodded and recounted the whole story, from river to hollow. “I swear it was just like Pops and Red Cloud—like the White Stag was protecting me, giving me strength to keep going.”
Buzzy nodded, thinking on it. More comfortable silence.
“So why did you drag yourself through the bushes? We almost couldn’t find you.”
“After bout a day, them buzzards come an started pickin at him. I tried to throw sticks to shoo em off, but they jus ignored me after a while.” He paused and swallowed. “I seen one pull his eye out an fly off with it.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t stay there an watch.”
I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“What the hell took you so long, anyway?”
“I had to carry Pops back by myself twenty miles. That’s what took me so long.” I paused and tried to remove the image of Tilroy’s empty eye sockets. Tried to get back to the still.
“How’s your momma doin? Bet she’s glad you an Pops ain’t hurt.”
“She seems a little better, but Pops says she may never be like she was. Says losing a kid is like a piece of your soul dying. Says it’s different from a wife dying or a brother dying.”
“I think they all suck.”
“I guess when terrible crap happens, how much of your soul that’s left behind is how much you can heal. I think losing Josh and watching it happen the way it did took most of hers with it.”
He turned toward the window and was silent.
“Hey, look, I’m going to go visit Pops. I told him I’d bring him his mail.” I held up a bundle of envelopes.”
“When are you comin back?”
“Tomorrow. I see Pops every day.”
“I mean when are you comin back here?” He looked out the window again as he said it.
“Tomorrow, dumbass. After I check in on Pops.”
He nodded but kept his eyes fixed on a birdbath in the garden in the middle of the courtyard where two blue jays were fighting over water rights.