Another Kind Of Hurricane Part 11

"Good luck?" asked Jake.

"For finding Tiger."

Oh man! Give it up, Nopie. Didnt he know he wasnt going to find him?

There was another, smaller pause, and then Jake said quietly, "Good luck, then, Nopie."

And then Jake slammed the door shut and started up the truck.

He turned onto the highway and opened the window. A thin sliver of wind found its way through the crack and blew across Henrys face, and he felt freer and freer as they moved farther and farther away from the mountain.

marble journey part IV

TAVIUS TATE.

In the end, Tavius and Pierre had gone for coffee and a walk. And then for pie and another walk, and finally they ended up back at the Salvation Army, where they sat on the front steps and talked for the rest of the night.

Tavius put his fingers on the sides of his head and wiggled them like anntenae reaching for the early-morning light. The sun warmed his face and matched the cozy feeling that grew the more he talked with Pierre. He grinned and snapped his fingers, still up high in the air. He was excited.

Truth be told, Tavius was excited to be staying at Skeets house too. Of course he wasnt happy that Hurricane Katrina had descended upon them all, knocking them upside their heads and back down their backsides. But, as he slung the bag of clothes over his shoulder, whistling as he walked the eleven blocks back to Skeets house, he had to admit that he liked living with his brothers again.

He saw them plenty. It wasnt about not seeing them. He and Skeet went to Enzos once a week after work for a cold gla.s.s of something sweet, to shoot the breeze and sing a few songs up on the roof. He looked forward to that.

But this was better. Lots more chances for laughing. There was nothing better in the whole wide world than a joke catching the funny bone by surprise. Enzo and Skeet were full of the kind that sent Tavius into snorting, wheezing, knee-slapping fits of laughter.

He loved living with Enzos sharp-as-a-tack kid, Osprey. That was the truest truth to tell. And Ms. Cyn, who reminded him of his mama, he loved her too. And truth be told one more ever-loving time-he was growing fond of Ben and Zavion too.

Just the night before, the seven of them had sat in the kitchen after supper, drinking sweet tea and eating the last bits of Zavions bread until they all thought they would burst. Then Osprey turned off the lights and said- Lady and Gentlemen, I will now perform a song for your enjoyment- Seriously, where did the kid get this stuff?

But first, a public service announcement for the lady: rest a.s.sured, there are no creepy snakes in this kitchen- Which began the laughter, and then Osprey proceeded to sing her rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In," only she sang sanes instead of saints, which made a whole lot more sense and which set off a whole other round of laughter. Even Zavion smiled the littlest bit, which warmed up Taviuss heart in a way he couldnt explain.

Now he knew he couldnt wait to catch Zavion coming out of the bathroom, or in the front door, or working in the kitchen, unawares, and make some joke about the word sane and have the chance to see that small smile again.

Shared jokes like that were the two-by-fours that kept a house standing tall. They were logs on the fire and a good smell curling out of the oven. They were what Tavius remembered from being a kid with two older brothers and a mother whose laugh he could hear down the block as he walked home from school. They were what had been missing from his house in New Orleans.

They were what held Skeets house together now.

Even after Katrina knocked them upside their heads.

And on the top of it all, he had gotten to meet Pierre.

Tavius whistled louder.

He couldnt wait to give Zavion the new clothes.

chapter 23.

ZAVION.

Something hard was in the pocket of Zavions new blue jeans.

He stuck his hand inside.

A marble.

A big marble.

Blue like the sky when theres no rain. Green too, like a mountain. And some red and orange. Like fire? Flashes of light?

Zavion had other questions. One, really.

Whose marble was it?

Then another question followed.

Where did it come from?

And the question that bit hard on the heels of the others.

Did Zavion have to give it back?

Zavion was used to finding the answers outside of himself like on his Spanish pop quiz, where one side of the paper had numbered Spanish words and the other side had lettered English words.

1. El perro goes with E. Dog 2. El gato goes with L. Cat 3. El pjaro goes with O. Bird But he didnt have answers to his questions now.

The marble felt smooth against the inside of Zavions fingers. It felt good to wrap his hand around something whole. It made him feel big. Like he could sweep his other hand across the sky and gather the hurricane up tight, gather all that wind and rain, close his fist hard around it, and blow the dust away.

The desire for this hurricane-crus.h.i.+ng ability surprised Zavion. It pounded over the memories that had taken permanent residence inside him. Snakes. Oily water. A dead body.

The marble made him feel like he could jump back into New Orleans, jump with his knees bent and his thigh muscles gripping-like he was doing the standing long jump-and land with both feet hard, right into the middle of his street, right next to where his house used to be, with a huge splash that would send the three-feet-deep water into the sky, miles high and miles wide.

Zavion held the marble up to his eye. He could just make out Papa in the dining room, hunched over another tiny canvas. A blue, green, red, and orange Papa. Like a painting of Papa. A painting of Papa painting.

That struck Zavion as funny and so he laughed. Which felt strange. He hadnt laughed in a long time. And something about laughing made him feel...hopeful.

The door blew open and Osprey ran in. "Zavion!" She flung her cold hands around Zavions neck. "What do you have in your hand?" she said.

She didnt miss anything.

"What do you have in yours?" said Zavion. A leash dangled behind her with a washcloth tied to one end.

"This"-Osprey pulled the leash close to her side-"is Fluffer." She reached down and patted the washcloth.

"Wheres Flower?"

"She ran away. Now, show me whats in your hand!"

"Nothings there," said Zavion, slipping the marble back into his pocket.

"Do you have a secret?" said Osprey.

"Well, I wouldnt tell you if I did, right?"

"Would you tell Fluffer?"

"Not even Fluffer."

Osprey stood on her tiptoes and grabbed Zavion around the neck. She leaned in close to his ear. "Do you have a magic?" she whispered.

A magic. Zavion liked that.

It sounded like his wis.h.i.+ng rocks with their white stripes lined up on his windowsill.

Yes!

The marble was just like his wis.h.i.+ng rocks.

He squeezed it in his hand and smiled. He could feel the bright blue, green, red, and orange radiating their colors against his palm. Like the moon on the river. Or the sunset over a marsh.

Like a magic.

"Yes," said Zavion, still smiling. "I have a magic."

And if the marble was a magic, then wasnt the person who put it in the pocket of the jeans a magician? And didnt magicians make things appear just where they wanted them to?

That meant the marble was supposed to come to him.

Didnt it?

chapter 24.

HENRY.

Jake adjusted the rearview mirror. The carabiner clipped around the mirror swung and the silver baseball flashed bright in the sun.

"I knew you werent sleeping at your house. I knew you were up on the mountain that night," said Jake. "I used to sleep up there too."

"You did?"

Jake adjusted the mirror again. He hit the baseball with the back of his hand, and it swung so hard it flipped over the carabiner, shortening its chain. "Yup. I snuck out of the house on a few clear nights when I was about your age."

"You did." This time it wasnt a question.

"Yup. Nothing like the top of Mansfield at night. Feels like driving to the end of a dead-end road. Youre there. Thats it. End of story."

Henry wanted to reach up and stop the baseball from flickering. It made him dizzy. He didnt know what Jake was talking about and he did know, all at the same time, and that made him dizzy too.

"Nothing else there when youre up so high and its so dark. Just the wind and the moon and the stars. Yup, it sure feels like the end of the road." Jake ran his hand through his hair and put it back on the steering wheel. "Or the beginning, I guess."

Henry stared ahead at the highway. It was straight and flat and stretched on forever, it seemed.

Jake took a deep breath and said very quickly, "Is there anything else you can tell me? About Waynes accident?"

Henry rolled down the window a little more. The guardrail whizzed by in a gray blur. He opened his mouth and let the wind fill it, and fill his nose and eyes and ears too. It tasted salty and bitter.

What could he tell Jake?

- Lying on his belly, at the edge of the cliff, Henry felt and saw little things first. Soft moss under his bare arms. A sapling growing out of a crack in the rock, its roots firmly dug into that small s.p.a.ce of dirt. Henry hadnt noticed either of these things when he was flying down the mountain determined to win the race. But he noticed them now, he noticed them first, his mind racing with the fear of what had happened to Wayne. Maybe Wayne had slipped on the moss. Maybe he had grabbed for the tree. Henry imagined Waynes fall, off the rock, down onto the sloping ledge fifteen feet below, straight into the creva.s.se- For the second time that morning, Brae sat on his haunches and threw his head up high and keened to the sky. The sound echoed off the rocks. This time it sounded like Brae was calling-not to the sun and not to the moon-but in the other direction, into the very center of the mountain, into the very center of the earth. The sound of his voice spiraled around the rocks, traveled in a circle down, down, down until it penetrated the earth below Henrys horizontal body- Waaaaaaaaaaaaaayne!!!

Henry wanted to keen his name too, send his voice down, down, down to where he knew Wayne lay- - No.

No no no no no no no.