The Southern Cross Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Foreword

  Spring

  Caught Fox

  Chores

  The Journeyman

  The Gulf Sturgeon Project

  Summer

  Junebelle

  Bluebonnet Swamp

  The Final Conner

  The Redfish

  Fall

  Rabbit Man

  The Rapture

  The High Place I Go

  Little Man

  Winter

  Borderlands

  East Texas

  Visual of a Sparrow

  Burke’s Maria

  Acknowledgments

  Bread Loaf and the Bakeless Prizes

  A MARINER ORIGINAL

  MARINER BOOKS

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

  BOSTON NEW YORK

  2009

  Copyright © 2009 by Skip Horack

  Foreword copyright © 2009 by Antonya Nelson

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  www.hmhco.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Horack, Skip.

  The Southern Cross : stories / by Skip Horack.

  p. cm.

  “A Mariner original.”

  ISBN 978-0-547-23278-2

  1. Gulf Coast (U.S.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.072S68 2009

  813.6—dc22 2 0 0 8 05328g

  eISBN 978-0-547-48856-1

  v2.1017

  Many of these stories first appeared in the following publications: Narrative magazine (2008), Epoch (Fall 2008), the Southern Review (Winter 2008), StoryQuarterly(Summer 2007), Southern Gothic (Spring 2007), Louisiana Literature (Winter 2007), New Delta Review (Winter 2006), the Southeast Review (Winter 2006), Sea Oats Review (Fall 2005), and Byline (October 2005).

  For my brother, Matt

  The essence of dramatic tragedy is not

  unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity

  of the remorseless working of things.

  —ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

  Science and the Modern World

  Foreword

  For three reasons, I am very pleased to have played some small part in the fact of this fine book you hold in your hands. First, its author is my kind of writer, one who doesn’t reserve his biggest and best for the larger canvas of the novel. This writer obviously reveres the short story as an art form in its own right. Every one of these stories serves up a unique world peopled by individuals who could, each of them, star in his or her own series. They are all epic-worthy. And yet, Skip Horack appears to have so much talent, talent to burn, that he can let each character occupy a single story, no more. That restraint—that simultaneous sense of abundance and tantalizing withholding—is primarily what made this collection stand out for me.

  Second, the confidence in these stories’ execution deeply impresses me. I appreciate the effect of reading them in concert with one another, how their shared presentation creates a world different from the one a single sustained narration like a novel might make, one that showcases moods and tempers and movements in the way the best music albums do, the way a roomful of a single painter’s paintings allows the viewer fuller access to the act of creation, the breadth of the creator. What I mean to say is that the variety deepens the reader’s intimacy with the writer’s vision. I am awed by that vision, grateful for that gift.

  Finally, I’ll confess to swooning over people who make me laugh. My XM radio is tuned to the uncensored comedy channel; my favorite films include Galaxy Quest and Groundhog Day. I’m not embarrassed by this fact, exactly, but I feel I ought to offer it up as context when discussing the reasons I selected Skip Horack’s The Southern Cross as this year’s Bakeless Prize winner.

  The competition was stiff. I had been assigning number ratings to the manuscripts and had to adjust from a scale of 1 to 5 to a scale of 1 to 10 because the submissions kept impressing me in ways that needed to be more subtly calibrated. The deciding factor came down to a single line in the middle of Horack’s story “The Rapture.” A pole dancer on her way home from work gets a lift from an evangelical male preacher. Upon dropping off the woman, the man asks in his raspy voice, “Sister, is there anything at all that you would like to pray for?”

  And it was Horack’s protagonist’s delivery of this one-two punch line that cinched a KO victory: “I’ll finish you off for fifty bucks. Amen.”

  ANTONYA NELSON

  Spring

  Caught Fox

  I’m rounding the bend at Johnson’s Corner when I see Reverend Lyle has a girl waist deep in the concrete pool behind the church. He pauses the ritual and nods my way as I pass. His little brother Melrose was my split end back in the day, caught half the passes that set me up all-district. That still counts for something, so I lay off the gas to keep the dust down on the gravel road—away from the black women and their Easter hats. Maybe even give that shivering child’s brand-new soul a shot at staying shiny and clean.

  The hardwoods give way to farmland just past Laurel Baptist, and the Sawyers’ pasture runs like a wide river alongside the Tunica Road. At the far end of the field, a fox pounces on mice under a blanket of low fog. I’m already late, but I pull the pickup over. It’s nice to watch the fox, a burnt orange ghost dancing across misty green rye.

  Jimmy’s in the yard when I pull up, and, like I said, I’m late. Donna makes a show out of stomping her little ass around on the front porch, checking her watch like we both don’t know it’s broken. The ex can be mean as a snake so I stay in the truck and drink my coffee until she takes her act inside. I’m not looking for a fight on Easter morning.

  It must be killing Donna that I get Jimmy today, one of maybe two Easters he’s got left, absent a miracle. She likes Jimmy where she can keep a close eye on him, and, truth be told, he needs a mama like her. My skinny boy’s retarded, no other way to put it.

  Right now Jimmy’s lying under the shade tree staring at his ant farm, just a gallon Mason jar I filled with black Mississippi dirt. He’s like a mad scientist with those fire ants, and he lugs that heavy jar everywhere. He doesn’t even notice me until I plop down next to him in the sycamore leaves and wish him a happy Easter.

  “Daddy!” he says, the only person in the world ever truly happy to see Lucas Benton. We hug tight and I look over at the war he’s started. Three carpenter ants, big and black, are fighting for their lives.

  “Ant battle?”

  Jimmy just nods, already back in his own world. Fire ants are swarming to the surface, and I watch his finger trace the side of the jar.

  “I’m glad you like your farm,” I say, pretty much to myself.

  The jar was a present for Jimmy’s tenth. I helped him leather-punch his initials into the lid for air holes, then together we searched the hay field behind my house, found the queen we needed laid up big and fat under a rotten fence post. You can’t see her in the jar, but she’s chambered somewhere deep in that honeycomb of tunnel, pulling her strings.

  The carpenter ants are tougher than I’d have guessed, but they can’t win. The fire ants run riot, will have their guests torn apart and butchered before long. When the show’s over, I stand up and slap the broken leaves off the ass of my blue jeans.

  “Wanna go look for a spider in the barn?”

  “I got something better, Daddy.”

  Jimmy motions for me to hold on, then open
s the lid of an old cigar box. The bottom is lined with fresh grass, and a mule killer, big as my thumb, swivels its head and tracks Jimmy with those spooky ghost eyes mantises have.

  I settle back down on the heels of my boots as Jimmy drops this little gladiator into the jar. Fire ants versus a mule killer, now that’s something worth seeing. I unbutton my shirt pocket and remove the can of Copenhagen I got tucked inside. Sure, the mantis is doomed—but in Jimmy’s crazy pickle jar this might just be the closest thing yet to a fair fight.

  Woodville’s three sit-down restaurants are closed for Easter Sunday, so me and Jimmy drive on over to Centreville. All they got there is a chicken shack, but I figure we’ll head to the hospital for our early lunch. I can’t cook a lick, so I take quite a few of my meals at the cafeteria there. It’s cheap, and, compared to what’s served to the patients, the food’s actually pretty damn good.

  It’s a meat-and-three setup, and today I tack greens, mashed potatoes, and fried okra onto the pot roast. Jimmy’s not feeling hungry, or so he says. He’s grumpy because I made him leave his jar in the truck. Still, Miss Effie’s working the register, and she won’t have none of that. She forces him to take a no-charge slice of cream pie. Women dote on my boy, I swear they do. I’d like to think he gets that from me. Donna would tell you different.

  Church has let out and so the hospital’s crowded with get-well visitors. I’m finishing up my lunch when Russell Sawyer ducks into the cafeteria. I stop by his table on the way to dump my tray.

  “How you doing?” I dropped school back in ’94 when Donna went pregnant, worked a few months at Russell’s dairy farm before I got on at the creosote yard ten years ago. “Happy Easter,” I say.

  Russell looks up from the styrofoam cup cradled in his massive hands. “Oh, hey, Lucas. What you doing up in here?”

  Jimmy doesn’t know Russell all that well so he’s sort of lagging back behind my right hip. He can be real shy around strangers, depending on his mood—and that can swing like a dog’s tail. “Just getting something to eat.” I pull Jimmy out from behind me like a magician, and he introduces himself like I taught him.

  “Nice to meet you, son” Russell messes Jimmy’s red hair and that makes them both smile. They’ll be friends for life now. That’s all it takes with Jimmy.

  “How about you?” I ask. “Here for the coffee?”

  Russell laughs. “Nah. We stopped by after church to visit Claudia’s daddy.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s doing.” Russell unclips the thick tie he’s wearing and opens the top collar of his dress shirt. Before he died, my old man had a brown suit just like the one Russell’s got on. I wonder whether maybe it’s the same one. Between the secondhand stores and the yard sales, clothes have a way of getting recycled in Wilkinson County.

  “Saw a fox in your front field this morning.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure did,” I say, and that gives me an idea. “Okay if Jimmy and I lay down a trap? We’re looking for something to do.”

  “Just mind where you put it, don’t snap one of my pasture calves.”

  “You bet. Appreciate it.”

  We’re saying our goodbyes when Amanda Sawyer walks through the door. She was close to Jimmy’s age when she used to pester me in the dairy barn, but I reckon she’s just about done with high school now. She’s really turned into something to look at, Amanda. Big brown eyes and shiny brown hair. I figure she’ll be leaving this town soon. She’ll ship out one day and won’t never look back.

  “Thought I might find you hiding in here, Daddy.” Amanda leans over to kiss Russell on the cheek, and I shoot a sly glance down the front of her church dress. “Mama’s hunting you,” she says.

  “You look pretty,” says Jimmy. He takes his classes right next to the high school, and Donna tells me that some of the older girls look out for him.

  “Why, thank you,” says Amanda, laughing. Jimmy’s latched himself on to her leg, but she’s real nice about it. She’s got great legs, cheerleader legs, all muscled up and curvy. When she hugs me hello, my hand brushes across her hip, and the smooth slide of fabric flat kills me. Nylons under a silk dress, that’s a weakness of mine. I got a few.

  Now Russell’s talking. “What year’s that Chevy you drive?” he asks. I step away from his baby girl and know straightaway what he’s getting at. We went over this maybe a hundred times back when he was my boss.

  “An ’85, Mr. Russell”

  “You be careful driving across my fields in that old truck, we haven’t had a good rain in a while.”

  “I’ll stick to the roads, promise.”

  “And close all the gates? I don’t want to be chasing cows on Easter.”

  “I’ll close them all behind me.”

  Amanda laughs. “You coming back to work for us, Lucas?”

  “We’re gonna trap a fox out in your field” Jimmy tells her. It tickles me that he knows that. You can never tell what he’ll pick up.

  “That so?” Amanda walks over to Russell and smoothes out the polyester wrinkles on the back of his coat. “Then can Lucas give me a ride to the house, Daddy? I hate hospitals.”

  “Please let her come with us,” Jimmy begs, then he whispers to Amanda, “I hate hospitals too.” I can tell that makes everybody kind of sad, and that’s the dark side of Jimmy sometimes understanding things better than we give him credit for.

  Russell shrugs. “You mind, Lucas?”

  Amanda answers for me. “Oh, he doesn’t mind,” she says. “He needs someone to remind him to close all those gates”—she tomboy-punches my shoulder—“not start any fires.”

  Jimmy claps his hands and Amanda passes him off to me so we can leave before Russell thinks of something else to worry about. I’m not sore about it though; her daddy’s got a real good thing going on that farm. I’d worry too.

  Dr. Cobb is a nice enough man, even looks a little like Santa Claus. But I’m not thrilled when he catches me in the parking lot out front of the ER. That’s the tricky thing about eating at the hospital—getting away before a fucking doctor ruins my meal.

  Amanda and Jimmy are already in the truck, and Dr. Cobb asks me how he’s doing. The miss-a-beat spaces he puts between his words make it sound like he’s speaking to a child, but that’s just a doctor’s way of asking if we’ve found anybody in the world willing to give a retarded boy a new heart. I grab a Budweiser out the ice chest in back of the truck and stare at him. That’s my way of saying, We ain’t, but thanks for fucking asking on my day off.

  We don’t get half a mile from the hospital before Amanda talks me into pulling over and giving her one of my beers, making a point of telling me that she’s eighteen. Jimmy’s always got to have the window so Amanda’s squeezed in next to me, sipping, her dress gathered around her knees so I can work the stick. She lets me rest the side of my hand on her thigh when I’m between gears, and you know I’m not complaining.

  The highway back into Woodville is plugged while everyone waits for a tanker to reverse into the Shell station. Cheerleaders are washing cars in the gas station’s parking lot, and I watch a black girl shoe-polish class of ’05 rocks da house on the back windshield of a glistening Nissan Sentra.

  “What’s all that about?” I ask.

  Amanda wipes her mouth. “We’re raising money, figure people might be looking to give on Easter.”

  I shrug. I don’t feel much like giving, Easter or ever.

  Amanda whispers something in Jimmy’s ear, and he ducks below the window at the same time as she reaches over and taps my horn. The cheerleaders look up from their charity and they don’t see Jimmy giggling down by the floorboards with his ant farm. All they see is Amanda Sawyer sidled up next to Lucas Benton like she’s a barrel racer on prom night. Amanda sends them a little wiggle wave with her bottle of Bud, and they step on their jaws as the traffic eases and we pull away.

  Jimmy and Amanda play their game the whole way through town, and they can tell it’s making me blush. De
puty Biggs, the one we call Needlenose, he damn near breaks his neck when he passes us in his cruiser. We see Donna’s sister pulling into Treppendahl’s, and I can’t help but laugh. Truth be told, I’m really liking the idea of riding through Woodville with Jimmy out the picture, just Amanda by my side.

  That’s a hell of a thing for a daddy to be thinking. I curse myself as we pull off the blacktop and begin bucking across the washboard ruts that announce the beginning of the Tunica Road.

  The twelve-pack’s gone by the time I roll up on the Sawyers’ big white farmhouse. We stretched the drive out as long as we could—stopped by my shed to gather trapping gear and took all the back roads—but the cheerleaders are expecting Amanda for the second shift. She needs to go on and change, head over to the car wash.

  Amanda says she still has a few minutes and so she invites us inside for a cold drink. Jimmy lives off sweets, and he’s out the truck before I can shut the engine down. I’m right behind him.

  We get Jimmy situated with a bottle of cream soda and a pack of those Nabisco cookies that look like huge peanuts. Amanda heads upstairs to her room, leaves us sitting at the kitchen table. Jimmy’s jar is resting between us on the Lucite, and we watch the fire ants work over the dried-out husk of the mule killer. My boy munches Nutter Butters while we wait to say our goodbyes.

  Amanda told me I could have one of her daddy’s High Lifes so I polish off a bottle, then ask Jimmy to sit tight while I hit the bathroom at the end of the hallway. A grandfather clock strikes two as I come out the john fumbling with my belt, and I bump right into Amanda standing there in her bikini.

  She’s wearing red gym shorts on the bottom, has the waistband doubled over so they ride low. I step aside to let her pass but she puts her hands on my hips and sort of leans into me, makes me promise to stop by later and let her wash that dusty truck of mine.

  “Of course,” I say, “but only because it’s for a good cause and all” And then Amanda Sawyer’s standing on tiptoes in her flip-flops with her beer-cold tongue in my mouth. The midnight blue top of her swimsuit is pressed flat against my chest, and I feel a soft crush as it rubs back against her.