The Marble Orchard by Alex Taylor

Author:Alex Taylor
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781632460004
Publisher: Ig Publishing
Published: 2015-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

XV

FRIDAY

They followed the drive, a lane of washed out river rock, the ruts clotted with mud and gashes of ochre glaur, and then crossed a crude bridge where a brook needled away beneath sumac and elder trees. The house sat small beneath maples and pawpaws and a smell of damp and rotted wood lingered in the air. A rusted burnbarrel smoked grayly beside the porch, which was cluttered with several kinds of footwear: tromping boots and loafers of cracked leather, even a few pairs of women’s slippers, all piled against the hickory railings. Squirrel hides dangled from nails driven into the porch’s support posts. Beyond the house was a spread of outbuildings, all succumbing to varying degrees of ruin, and past their mired sprawl was the garden where corn and beans and volunteer cane grew in long green currents.

Pete parked the truck on a bare patch of dirt in the yard, and Ella pulled in beside him. “This is where I get my mail,” he announced. He got out of the truck and walked to the porch. A curtain rod barred the way up the steps. A homemade sign dangling from its rings read, in black shoe polish, GONE INTO TOWN. Pete lifted the sign up and sat it carefully aside. “Come on in here and we’ll see if we can’t find us a cool drink of water,” he said.

When they entered the musky house, Ella planted herself on a calico sofa beside the front door. She took an ashtray blown from green Coke glass off the television, sat it in her lap, and lit a cigarette. Beam remained beside the door. Down the hallway, he could see a woodstove and ricks of oak lined against a wall. Above this were nailhung hacksaws and come-alongs and singletrees. Through another door he spotted a wrinkled calendar for the year 1974 depending from a wire. It was all like some exhibit at a rustic museum

“Find a seat,” Ella said, pointing to a dinette chair beside the television.

“I need to find a sink and wash up first,” said Beam. “Do y’all have a bathroom?”

“First door on your left,” said Ella.

Beam walked down the hallway, which spanned dim and unlighted. Framed and ancient photographs hung on the walls. A ringer washing machine crouched at the far end like a giant albino toad, its white metal streaked with rust. When he found the bathroom door, Beam yanked the pull-chain and the bare bulb drizzled a feeble urine-colored light over him. Cracked blue tiles lined the walls above the pale green tub, and the linoleum floor was peeling up. Brown water stains coated the unpapered sheetrock about the vanity, and the sink sat in a chinking of grout and spackle. A slice of glazed mirror hung above it.

Water that smelled vaguely of sulfur gushed and spat when he turned the tap. Beam took his shirt off and lathered himself with a bar of homemade soap from a dish on the vanity, scrubbing away the stink. He

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