Holy Water
by John Schulze
I was mama’s boy. Her first born was Ricky, but he'd taken to daddy more than her. And Sissy, she was born second and didn't seem to care for either mom or dad. Whenever my folks went anywhere they always put Ricky and Sissy in charge of me. I didn't care for that too much so I looked for ways to be on my own, or go along for a ride. Sometimes when mom planned a shopping excursion, I’d sneak out to her Buick and crouch down on the back floorboard. Occasionally she’d hear me giggle when she got in the car and make me stay home with my siblings, but other times I’d keep quiet long enough for her to drive a few miles away from the house. And when that happened, she’d begrudgingly let me come along.
The summer after I turned eight, my mom planned to visit her big brother, Joe, down near New Orleans. He owned a shrimp boat and we had the same first name. My dad said he was uneducated and irresponsible. He didn't want to go, so mom was going to drive down from Dallas by herself. As soon as I heard about the trip, I started planning to stow away.
The night before she left dad took her out to dinner. Ricky and Sissy were in charge. I came home from a friend’s house and saw the Buick was gone. I was worried mom had already left and that my plans were ruined.
“Where’s mom?”
“She went to the moon. And she’s never coming back,” they said in unison.
When my bottom lip jutted out, they cackled with hands on their hips and mimicked my dour expression as they feigned sympathy. I ran to my bedroom and slammed the door, flopped on my bed, and buried my face in the pillow.
My duffle bag was already packed with clothes, books, and candy. I had been trying to figure out a way to get it in the trunk of mom's car. I knew there’d be no way to hide it in the backseat, but at that moment it all seemed pointless. I wallowed in my misery and fell asleep.
Sometime later I awoke when my bedroom door opened. I saw mom's silhouette in the doorway, the warm glow from the hallway lights splashed across my face and made me squint. Part of me felt like an ant under an intense light beaming from a magnifying glass. She came in and then stopped. I couldn't see her face, it was hidden in a shadow, but by the tilt of her head I could tell she was furrowing her brow.“Where are you going?”
I knew she had seen the duffle bag on the bed, but I couldn’t answer. I just reached out and hugged her, pressing my face against her midsection. She stroked my hair as my tears soaked her blouse. No words could have soothed me as much as that caress. In her arms I felt safe, as though nothing or no one could harm me. I suppose my father's gruff nature and my siblings' relentless torture had something to do with it, but I also think it was something else. I was just so different that I was sure I'd been switched at birth, and that I was growing up in a home in which I didn't belong. And I was sure that my mom was the only one, aside from me, who recognized this fact. She would look at me with such sympathy in her eyes that she must have known.
* * *
My parents had a long talk that night. I could hear their voices through my bedroom wall, sometimes clearly, but mostly muffled. The conversation had crests and troughs like waves pushing their way across a vast expanse. Their voices would rise with points and fall with concessions. I knew my dad thought I was being a baby. He had been hardened by his time in the Navy and by a mother who never touched him, except when it came to discipline. My mom's voice was even, never pushing her points too hard and never giving in too easily. Her tone wasn't pleading, for that was the surest way to lose an argument with dad, but it had a quiet, plodding, logical sound to it. I couldn't make out her words, and perhaps the words didn't even matter. With dad it was always how things were presented that justified his response.
In the end, he let me go on the trip. This decision confirmed my siblings’ contention that I was a “spoiled mama’s boy.”
We left early on Saturday morning. Ricky and Sissy were still in bed. Mom and I sat in the front seat of the Buick, the vinyl seats were cool against my legs. She looked over at me. “Are you ready?”
I nodded. She smiled and moved some stray hairs out of her face.
Dad walked up to her window. “You got your map?”
She pulled it out from its place under the visor and showed it to him.
“You call me if anything goes wrong,” he said.
“I will.”
He looked over at me and paused for a moment. “Be good for your mother.”
I was always good for her, and he knew it. But he had to give me some marching orders before I left. I put on my most stoic expression, something I perceived to be military-like, and gave him a crisp salute and said, “Yes, sir.”
He paused for a moment, looking sternly into my eyes, unsure if I was mocking him or being genuine. At that moment I don't think he decided one way or the other, and so he said nothing and focused his attention on mom.
He leaned in for a kiss and then straightened up. He patted the roof of the car twice as if to say we were good to go. Mom slowly backed the car out of the garage as Dad stood by with his arms crossed. He wore jogging shorts and his grey Navy t-shirt; the big block letters peeked over his burly forearms. He came to my mom’s window once more and told her to drive safely. We pulled out and I looked back as he stood there. He didn’t wave.
As we pulled out onto the street mom looked over at me and said, “I’m glad you're coming with me.” At the top of her arm, through the short sleeve of her white blouse, I could see what I thought were bruises; there were four fat lines that looked like fingers. I was about to ask her about them when she reached over and turned on the radio. “Sweet Caroline” burst out of the speakers and we began to sing as we drove away. In those brief moments something changed about her.
It was late afternoon by the time we got to New Orleans. We drove over a huge bridge that crossed the Mississippi and landed us in St. Bernard parish. Uncle Joe lived on Bayou Dupre, a little community just off a canal that connects the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. We traveled down a dirt road atop an earthen levee to where Uncle Joe docked his boat. Rather than gravel, the parking lot was covered with small white shells that had been dredged from the bottom of a lake. They crunched under the wheels as we turned into the entrance of the tiny harbor. Some boats had already returned and rocked gently in their slips. Lines beat in oddly rhythmic patterns against the steel booms that held trolling nets hoisted high above the decks. Salty air blew in from the gulf. Seagulls swayed from side to side in the air as though they were tethered with a kite string. One by one they’d dive toward the lapping waves. Their beaks open as they dove toward the water. And then magically, their wings would spread open and the breeze would carry them back up with the others.
Along the shoreline, away from the slips were big boxy crafts that didn’t look like boats at all, except they floated on the water. My mom said they were houseboats. People lived in them. I thought how nice it would be to have a home you could move anytime you wanted. A home whose foundation was the water seemed more honest to me. In the wind it would rise and fall on the waves, and in the calm it would be placid.
A large pelican sat atop his perch, an old creosote pole capped with hammered tin. The pole was the anchor for the dock, and the bird stood guard like an old troll waiting for the fisherman to come back to shore. We sat in the car for a few minutes after we arrived. I felt a strange stillness. After having spent all day in the car, the absence of the sound of the engine and the lack of road noise made it seem like something was missing. It was peaceful, but I felt something else with it. Kind of like how keeping secrets can make you feel special and lonely at the same time.
I looked over at Mom and she was just staring off into the distance. I tried to see what she was looking at, but all I saw was the horizon. A gentle breeze pushed through our open windows and rustled her hair. At that moment she looked so young. The lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth seemed to have vanished. Even the bruises on her arm looked like they had faded.
"Can I get out?"
She nodded and I jumped out of the car and ran to the wooden dock. My Keds pounded on the sun-bleached slats that separated me from the green water below. The old pelican just stared at me with his large grey eyes as I ran by. I looked out beyond the inlet of the bayou and saw a troller putting in for home. Tufts of dark diesel exhaust rose from a small pipe above the steering cabin. The boat rode low in the water under the weight of its catch. I couldn’t stand the smell of seafood, at least when it was raw, but I loved the boats that ventured out to find it. The curve of the bow and the way the leading edge of the keel cut through the water moved something inside of me and made my chest ache. I wished we lived in a city near water, big water. Lakes you could see the other side of weren’t big enough. Seeing water stretch to the horizon gave me a sense of freedom that I couldn't then, nor now, really explain.
“Be careful,” my mother warned from the car.
I heard, but I didn’t listen. I jogged to the end of the dock, feeling the floats underneath buckle slightly each time my foot landed. The wood creaked and the water lapped with every footfall. It made me feel unsteady, but at the same time it was fun. I got to the end of the dock and scanned the horizon for Uncle Joe's boat. The sun was setting and the line that separated sky and sea was becoming faint. I saw nothing. My eyes squinted against the setting sun as I looked back to the road and saw my mother, still sitting in the car with the windows open. She was reading a magazine, the way she always did while waiting. Her reddish brown hair drifted across her face and she smoothed it away with her left hand, never taking her eyes away from the page. She looked happy. Maybe it was because down here she was a little sister, not a wife and mother of three. I looked back out across the water, wondering when Uncle Joe would arrive.
I ran to the end of the dock where there was a boat moored next to another creosote post. On the boat was a shrimper who was mending his nets. I waved and he nodded, his hands busy with his task. When I reached the post the seagulls who coveted the perch took to the safety of the sky, and peered at me with their small black eyes. I wrapped my arm around the post, careful to avoid the lumpy white blobs the birds had left behind. I lowered one foot down to the algae-colored water, trying to set my foot down on it. But the swells moved too fast and my foot was under and then above the water quicker that I could adjust. I wondered how Jesus could walk on water if it wouldn’t stay still.
On that thought my fingers were suddenly pried away from the post. I was suspended over the water, hovering over the green waves at an impossible angle. I knew I was going in. The seagulls cawed like crows. A splash. And then there was only the muted, close sounds of my insides.
My body sank under the water where there was no breeze, no clanking of lines on steel booms, and no squawking seagulls. The quiet seemed holy, reverent. Bright green water faded to a darker, deeper green. I couldn’t tell which way was up. My chest started to tighten and my eyes burned from the warm water. I was scared, but the warmth of the water was like being wrapped in a blanket. My breath leaked out. I saw the bubbles ripple across my chest and then under my armpits. I twisted in the water, trying to watch where they went so I could follow. My chest began to rise and fall. My body hungered for air. In a panic I kicked my legs and went deeper into the dark water. Coolness engulfed my face and chest.
I felt strong and sure fingers wrap around my ankle and then a strong jerk upward. At least I thought it was up. I tried to scream but had no breath. The last thing I remember before I blacked out was an image of my Ricky sitting on my chest.
When I opened my eyes I was on my side, warm water spewing from my mouth as my stomach convulsed. I tried to cough. More water came out. No air. I tried to inhale. Stabbing pains in my chest made me wince. A wet cough flushed the rest of the water from my lungs.
I lay on my back on the dock. My mother’s long, hair was dark and dripped water on my face. Her eyes were wide and white. I coughed again and she rolled me onto my side as I expelled another gallon of green water. I heard the seagulls squawking. It sounded like laughter, and I closed my eyes.
She shook me. “Joey. Are you okay?” Her voiced wavered.
“The birds,” I said. “They’re laughing at me.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me, burying my face in a mass of wet hair. I smelled the stagnant water of the bayou in her hair and my stomach lurched. I didn’t want her to let go of me, but I pushed her away, and rolled on my side again.
"He'll be alright," I heard a man's voice say. "Just a little waterlogged."
Behind my kneeling mother I saw a short stout man, his black hair was wet and pressed tight on his head like a stocking cap. His wide belly pushed out against his wet white t-shirt.
"I don't know how to thank you," she said without taking her eyes off of me.
"Tain't nothin', ma'am," the old shrimper said.
She picked me up and carried me. With each step she took I felt like I was falling as the dock dipped beneath her feet, each step making my stomach convulse. I leaned my head into her shoulder and felt comfort and nausea at the same time. It was as though the warmth of the day had slipped away and she was shivering.
“I was trying to figure out how Jesus walked on water.”
Mom looked at me and tried to smile. The lines around her eyes and across her forehead that had vanished when we drove away from home had returned. She put me in the front seat of the Buick and got an old blanket out of the trunk. The coarse cloth made my skin itchy. My Keds were wet and I felt little puddles underneath my toes.
Mom frantically dug in her purse.
“Goddamnit!” she said.
“Sorry,” I said.
She shook he head. “I can’t find my keys.”
I looked out past the dock, hoping to see Uncle Joe's boat.
“Jesus Christ! Where the hell are they?”
I looked over at the ignition and pointed. My mom didn’t see me right away, but I held my arm outstretched, pointing until she did. She stopped her foraging and saw the keys dangling from their place on the steering column. She began to laugh. And then—I couldn’t tell exactly when—but she began to cry. She banged her palms on the steering wheel, hitting the horn. They were like exclamation marks for each time she hit the wheel. The seagulls stared on with their blank eyes, the old pelican stirred uneasily on his perch, and the shrimper who had pulled me out of the water glanced back at us over his shoulder. She stopped beating the horn and set her head against the top of the steering wheel and sobbed. I reached out to her, trying to let her know that it was okay. I touched the bruises on her shoulder and she pushed my hand away.
We didn’t wait for Uncle Joe. Instead, we drove to a small motel where we got out of our wet clothes and cleaned up and then she took me to a roadside diner. We sat in a booth that had a its own little juke box. "Sweet Caroline" was one of the selections, but we didn't play it. Mom let me get a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake. She didn’t care that I couldn’t finish everything. Dad would’ve had a fit if he saw the food I wasted. Mom didn’t eat anything, just drank coffee. I saw her hands shaking, even though she tried to hide it. I knew she blamed herself for what happened, but I didn't.
Mom called Uncle Joe that night and said we couldn’t stay because she wasn’t feeling well, some sort of stomach bug she said. It was the first time I remember hearing her lie. It wasn't the last time either. Mom told me not to tell dad what happened. She said he thought the trip was a bad idea in the first place and something like this would just prove him right. Keeping another secret wouldn't be that hard, I thought.
* * *
We never made it back down to Bayou Dupre again. Uncle Joe died a couple years later and Aunt Helen sold his boat to his first mate. But sometimes I dream about the swell of the waves, the breeze, the salty smell of the sea, and the idea of having a home on the water. And when I awake from this dream I feel hollow, like I’m missing something. The day I tried to walk on water was the end of something between me and my mom. I don't remember stowing away in the Buick after our trip, although I may have. But that compulsion seemed to just slip away. And part of me wonders if she looked for me in the car before she left to run errands, and what she might have felt at not finding me there. Grateful? Sad? The change wasn't sudden like when I fell into the water, it simply ebbed like the tide. The high water mark was when I was a mama's boy, following her around like a bad rumor. And then before I knew it, things had changed. It was like a low tide that exposes things normally hidden under a churning surf. And once you've seen those things, you can never go back to not knowing that they're there.
Maintained or neglected, familiar or foreign, well-worn or wild, roadways inform our decisions and identities. Their geographies direct the movement
of our lives and sketch the cartography of our stories. In this spirit, 322 Review publishes provocative emerging and established artists whose fiction,
creative nonfiction, poetry, and mixed media artwork wander the paths of human experience. A nonprofit literary journal conceived
and operated by former Rowan University graduate students, 322 Review is based in Southern New Jersey.
© 322Review.org