The Little Friend

The jacks ball was a hard miracle plastic that bounced higher than rubber. If it struck a particular raised nail head it zinged off at a crazy angle. And this particular raised nail head—black, slanted to one side at an angle that suggested a Chinaman’s tiny sampan hat—even this nail head was an innocent, well-meaning little object that Harriet could fasten her attention to, a welcome still point in the chaos of time. How many times had Harriet stepped on this raised nail head with her bare foot? It was bent over at the neck by the force of the hammer, not sharp enough to cut, though once when she was about four years old, and sliding on her rear end down the hall floor, this nail had snagged and torn the seat of her underpants: blue underpants, part of a matched set from the Kiddie Korner, embroidered in pink script with the days of the week.

Three, six, nine, one to grow on. The nail head was steadfast; it hadn’t changed since she was a baby. No: it had stayed where it was, residing quietly in its dark tidal pool behind the hall door while the rest of the world ran haywire. Even the Kiddie Korner—where, until recently, all Harriet’s clothes had been bought—was now closed. Tiny, pink-powdered Mrs. Rice—a changeless fixture of Harriet’s early life, with her big black eyeglasses and big gold charm bracelet—had sold it and gone into a nursing home. Harriet did not like walking past the vacant shop, though she always put her hand to her forehead and stopped to peer through the dusty plate-glass window whenever she did. Somebody had torn the curtains off their rings, and the display cases were empty. The floor was littered with sheets of newspaper, and spooky little child-sized mannequins—tanned, naked, with molded pageboy haircuts—stood staring this way and that in the vacant dim.

Jesus was the stone, hewn out the mountain

Jesus was the stone, hewn out the mountain

Jesus was the stone, hewn out the mountain

Tearing down the kingdom of this world

.

Foursies. Fivesies. She was the jacks champion of America. She was the jacks champion of the world. With an enthusiasm only slightly forced, she shouted out scores, cheered for herself, rocked back on her heels in amazement at her own performance. For a while, her agitation even felt like fun. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t quite forget that nobody cared if she was having fun or not.

————

Danny Ratliff woke from his nap with a bad start. He’d got by on very little sleep in recent weeks, since his oldest brother, Farish, had set up a methamphetamine laboratory in the taxidermy shed behind their grandmother’s trailer. Farish was no chemist, but the amphetamine was good enough and the scheme itself was pure profit. Between the drugs, his disability checks, and the deer heads he stuffed for local hunters, Farish earned five times what he’d made in the old days: burgling houses, stealing batteries out of cars. He wouldn’t go anywhere near that business now. Ever since he’d got out of the mental hospital, Farish refused to use his considerable talents in any but an advisory capacity. Though he himself had taught his brothers everything they knew, he no longer joined them in their errands; he refused to listen to details of specific jobs, refused even to ride along in the car. Though he was vastly more gifted than his brothers in lock-picking, hot-wiring, tactical reconnaissance, getaway, and nearly every aspect of the trade, this new hands-off policy was wiser for all in the end; for Farish was a master, and he was of more use at home than behind bars.

The genius of the methamphetamine lab was that the taxidermy business (which Farish had run, quite legitimately, on and off for twenty years) gave him access to chemicals otherwise tricky to obtain; moreover, the stink from the taxidermy operation went a long, long way towards masking the distinctive cat-piss smell of the meth manufacture. The Ratliffs lived in the woods, a good distance from the road, but even so the smell was a dead tip-off; and many a laboratory (said Farish) had been brought down by nosy neighbors or winds that blew the wrong direction, right into the window of a passing police car.