Read Online Fishing the Sloe-Black River by Colum McCann - Free Book Online Page B

time what happened afterward and why Stephen gave himself up. They’re sitting on the bench a couple of days a week, and he keeps coming at it all sorts of different ways. Eventually he just says it straight out.
    â€œSo, dude,”—that’s what’s cracking me up, this guy Ferlinghetti says “dude” and “dissing” and “cool” and “wild” and all—“why did you give yourself up to the cops?”
    And Stephen, he don’t say nothing. He just keeps on saying “because” over and over.
    Stephen has already told him about how he ran into the forest after he shot and killed old man Harris. How the cops came and flooded the place. How he hid himself behind a tree and was just waiting for a chance to go back and ask the redhead if she wants to go to Florida. That’s all he wants, to go down to the beaches with all the skinny women. How he wasn’t scared of the cops, not a bit. He was sure they were going to get away. He was even going to leave a note for his mom. Gone to Florida, see you soon. The cops and the ambulance and the fire people are there all over the place.
    At one point he gets so goddamn daring that he sneaks up to the back of the trailer and peeks in the window where the cops are taking photographs. Ferlinghetti don’t believe that, I can tell, but Stephen doesn’t care. He just says, what’s the point in lying? I killed the man, everybody knows that.
    So, he goes back into the forest. The sun is going down. He stays there a couple of hours, then just walks up to the police, who are all having coffee on the front steps of the trailer, and gives himself up.
    Ferlinghetti asks again, says it’s very important to him, starts giving this crap about how Stephen needs someone to respect him, that sort of thing, but Stephen still says “because.” I’m just sitting there, in the flower bed, listening to all this. Once or twice Stephen turns around and looks at me. I just look down, pretending I’m not interested.
    Later that afternoon we’re out there digging and raking a flower bed, me and Stephen. There’s some other workers there too, but they’re feeling lazy, taking a load off their feet. I’m just digging away, and Stephen, he’s sort of puttering with the rake. He’s got those long skinny arms. For some reason he’s wearing his eyeglasses, which he don’t normally do. He’s got some of that brown powder stuff on his face that the kids use to cover up their zits. He looks awful sad. It takes him a long old time to pull that rake along the ground even just a little bit.
    Kevin’s way over on the other side of the fence, near the staff houses, weed-eating. So I’m asking Stephen what he thinks of the Cowboys and the Oilers and all, except I get to thinking that I must sound like Ferlinghetti, asking all these questions, so I stop. I don’t want to sound like no shrink. I’m just turning some soil, whistling away, thinking about how that night me and Kevin are due to start work on the field. I think maybe I’ll go home and get myself a big old plate of steak, maybe some of that Gatorade that keeps you going. I’m looking at the sky and thinking it may stay clear, when Stephen turns to me. He looks straight at me.
    â€œI was scared of the dark,” he says.
    First thing I’m thinking he’s saying something about a darkie, which is weird since I think you only hear that word in old movies. But then I catch on. He’s still looking at me, but I have no idea why he’s telling me this. I ain’t never asked him, but maybe he saw me listening to him and Ferlinghetti, so he figures I want to know. But he’s just staring away into space. His mouth is quivering. His eyes are all red around the edges. This don’t look like a boy who put a gun in a man’s mouth and spilled his brains out on the floor, who stole them trucks, slept