Velveteen (6 page)

“It wasn’t the rabies that actually killed Ben Nicholas. It was our next door neighbor, Mister Sam.

“He’s lying, Mama!”

“Cassie! You apologize
right now
to Mister Locke for talking like that!”

“I don’t believe it, Mama! I don’t believe it that Ben Nicholas is dead.”

“That rabbit killed another of my laying hens! A rabbit!”

“I am so sorry, Sam. I don’t understand how it got in your yard.”

“Under the fence is how. And it’s not the first time, either, Lyssa. A few weeks ago, I found two of my chicks dead, slaughtered but not eaten. I didn’t say nuthin then, because I didn’t know what happened. Figured it mighta been a possum or raccoon. But now I know. You shoulda put a better latch on that rabbit cage of hers!”

“I locked it, Mama! I promise I did.”

“Hush, Cassie!”

“I’m gonna need stitches, too, Lyssa. Did it have its shots?”

“No!” I screamed, breaking away from Mama and charging straight at him. “Ben Nicholas wouldn’t hurt no one! He didn’t kill any chickens.”

“Cassie!” Mama tried to pull me off of him. “Cassandra Lynn Stempler! You obey me right—”

“Get— Ow! God damn it! She bit me! First her rabbit, now her!”

“
Cassie!
Oh, Christ, Sam, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.”

Mama grabbed me by the arm and jerked me away. “You get yourself inside that house right this instant, girl! You are in so much trouble!” I tried to get away, but she wouldn’t let go of my arm.

“I dunno how much it’s going to cost to get my hand stitched,” Mister Sam shouted at our backs. “And I just got them chickens! They were forty bucks a pop!”

“Where is he?” I cried, struggling weakly against my mama. “I want to see him! I want to see my Ben Nicholas!”

Everyone froze. Finally, Mama whispered, “He’s gone, Cassie.”

All the strength went out of my body. “Please, Mama. I want to see Ben Nicholas.”

I could feel her anger. I could feel her shaking with it, could smell it coming off her, thick and heavy, like scorched meat. She bent down and wrapped her arms around me and surprised me with the softness in her voice. She said it would be better if I didn’t see Ben Nicholas. “He’s gone, honey. I’m sorry. Mister Locke, he . . . .”

She couldn’t finish. She didn’t need to. Now I knew why the rusty pipe was lying on the grass behind Mister Sam. Except I also knew it wasn’t rust on it, it was blood. As Mama held me, I watched Mister Sam pick up a lumpy plastic garbage bag I hadn’t noticed before. He cinched the top, and I suddenly knew what was inside.

With a wail of despair, I broke away from Mama and ran to my room, slamming the door behind me. I cried into my pillow for what seemed like hours. All the while I was wishing my insides would tear out of my body like they felt like they were trying to do, but they stayed put, even when my breath started hitching so bad I was choking.

Sometime later I heard Mama’s voice and realized she was talking with Daddy on the phone, begging him to come home. “Everything’s falling apart,” I heard her say. “Cassie’s rabbit is dead . . . . Mister Locke . . . . No, I know. The roads are a mess. I don’t know what to do, Rame.”

A longer pause, then:

“I don’t care, Rame. Cassie needs her father. She needs us both right now. And I– I think something’s wrong with her. I’m serious this time. Please. We both need you.”

But I could tell by the way her smell changed from yellow to brown, and then flared bright red, that Daddy wasn’t coming home anytime soon. I didn’t have to hear their conversation to know what he’d said to her: “Stop babying Cassie. She’s fine.”

Only this time, I really wasn’t.

I woke sometime later to the sound of Mister Sam’s voice drifting in through my window and realized Mama must have opened it while I’d slept.

The sun was low in the sky and it was shining yellow on my wall.

“I thought it was a raccoon,” he was saying. “That was my first thought when it happened last time.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.
What raccoon? What happened?

And who was he talking to?

Then I remembered.

“I’ve lost half of my new prize layin hens now,” he said. “Spent good money for them! Eggs are supposed to sell for two bucks-a-pop. That’s why I put out the poison, Lyssa. Next thing I know, your rabbit’s under my coop with blood on its face. What else am I supposed to think?”

“No rabbit’s going to go after baby chickens, Sam. You’re not thinking right.”

“That’s what I thought, but I tell you it had blood on its mouth. All I kept thinkin was,
What the hell is going on? Why’s a rabbit killin chickens?
”

“I don’t know what to say,” Mom finally admitted. “The world does seem to have tilted off its axis in the past few days.”

“You can say that again. What a mess over in East Islip, eh?”

I rose up out of bed and floated over to the window. That’s the only way I can describe it, like I was floating, even though I felt like I weighed a million pounds and it was taking every ounce of my strength just to move myself one inch across the floor. I was so tired, tired and hot and feeling like something was inside of me trying to eat its way out. I felt like a giant red-hot star moving very slowly across the sky.

“But poison, Sam?” Mama replied, low and quiet, like she was afraid someone might hear.

Me, she’s afraid I’ll hear.

“What if Cassie had gotten into it?”

“No chance in hell that girl could have come in contact with it.”

“But I think her rabbit did, Sam. In fact, I’m pretty sure it did. Cassie said the other day that his breath smelled funny and he wasn’t acting right. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, and . . . . Christ, I should’ve listened to her better.”

I could hear her voice rising, the way it does right before she and Daddy start fighting.

“Naw, it wasn’t that. That rabbit’d be dead if he had gotten into—”

“Well, he
is
dead, Sam! You killed it and my daughter’s bawling her eyes out now!”

“Whoa, hey, that ain’t my fault! I was just defendin myself. If your rabbit hadn’t dug under my fence and attacked me, he’d still be alive. That thing was actin crazy when I tried gettin it out from underneath the coop, kickin and squealin!”

“You were pulling it by its legs!”

“Well, it was going after my chicks!”

“It’s a rabbit! They don’t eat chickens! They—”

suck the blood out of people

“—eat vegetables!”

“Ain’t supposed to bite people, neither.”

“You were hurting it!”

“All due respect, none of this would’ve happened if it’d been better watched. Besides, I had every right—”

“To bash its brains in?” Mama shouted. Her next words were quiet, but just as angry. “You had no right to kill it, Sam! Not like . . . . Not like that! What were you thinking? Are you sick or something? It was Cassie’s pet!”

“And you ain’t hearin me, Lyssa. It
attacked
me!”

“Oh, I hear just fine, thank you. It didn’t fucking attack you, you sick murdering prick. Don’t give me that bullshit!”

bad word, mama

“Hey, you can’t talk— Are you callin me a liar? Did you look at these bites? And your daughter, too! She needs to be muzzled!”

“Oh, that’s it! Fuck off!”

mama!

“You know, I wasn’t going to say nuthin before, because I ain’t judgmental, but all them rumors swirlin around about what you people do up there on Laroda? Those people out front here? Maybe what everyone’s sayin is right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I heard about that guy who works with you up there flippin out and attackin the cops. You think that’s a coincidence? And now I can’t even go out my front door without them tryin to—”

“That has nothing to do with me or my family!”

“Nonetheless—”

“No! You’re the crazy one! You’re a monster! Rabbit murderer! You stay away from my family. I don’t want you looking at me, you sick bastard! Or my daughter. Do you hear me? Don’t you look at her. Don’t speak to her. If you so much as set one foot in this yard or say one word, so help me, I’ll—”

“What?”

“Call the police!”

“Go right ahead. I ain’t done nothin illegal!”

“And give me back her rabbit. Give it to me!”

“It needs to be tested. You said it ain’t never got its shots, so—”

“It doesn’t have rabies, asshole.”

“You don’t know—”

“I’ll test it, okay? Just give it back to me.
Now
!”

Mama cried when she buried Ben Nicholas in the garden that night. I remember seeing the tears on her face in the moonlight. She cried just like she cried for my little brother Remy, and it made me so terribly sad that I couldn’t watch no more.

I remember getting up and going outside much later. The moon was full and the grass was wet with dew and glistening like diamonds. I remember crying over the mound and digging my fingers in the soft dirt, but I don’t remember anything after that until the next morning, not bringing him inside, not tucking him into bed with me.

When Mama came to wake me up, the sour smell of her sickness suddenly grew big and large and dark when she pulled back the blanket and saw him. Then she screamed.

Daddy came and took him away without saying a word, and I couldn’t even argue with him because I feared the anger rolling off of Mama in huge black waves would come crashing down on me until I couldn’t breathe no more.

She made me go and wash out my mouth and brush my teeth until my gums bled. Ben Nicholas should’ve been filthy, coming straight out of the dirt like that, but I don’t remember cleaning him either.

In the days right after Mama came home from the hospital, I thought I knew why she’d been so sad and crying for Remy all the time, but now I know I didn’t really understand it at all. Because now that Ben Nicholas is gone, now I really know the sadness she felt, how big it is and how it both fills you and empties you out. After he died, all I wanted to do was die, but all I could do was cry because it was taking too long to happen.