Heading Out to Wonderful Read Free

paid him one thousand dollars in cash.
    “Planning to build?” Russell asked.
    “I don’t think so,” said Charlie. “It’s just peaceful. I just want a quiet place.”
    “Well, it’s pretty peaceful out there,” said Russell. “I got to tell you,” he said, eyeing the stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, “that land ain’t good for much except peace and quiet.”
    “That’s all I want.”
    “Flood plain.”
    “I’m not building out there.”
    They shook hands and Charlie said he’d arrange to have the survey done and the deed recorded. Then Russell went back to his breakfast and Charlie got into his truck, the leather seats already warm from the morning sun, and just drove and sat by the river, his land and river now, until it was late morning. He took off his shirt to let the sun warm his skin.
    He felt complete peace, watching the water flowing by, knowing that wherever he put his foot, the land under his shoe belonged to him. When the water rose, if the water rose, and sooner or later it would, it would flood his land.
    At the beginning of his second week in town, he got out his knives and sharpened them again, then drove into town and parked outside Will Haislett’s butcher shop. Stores were already shutting for lunch, shopkeepers going home to their dinner.
    He got out, locking the truck, and walked over to the entrance and pulled open the door handle that said GWALTNEY’S HAM, and stepped inside. The bell over the door jangled. There was a small boy standing in the middle of the store, shorts, T-shirt, bare feet on the sawdust floor. Charlie Beale didn’t see anybody else, just the child, his blond hair cut close to the skull, almost glowing in a shaft of light from the street, the glare from a passing car’s windshield, motes floating in the brilliant air around his still and golden head.
    They stood silently, a grown man and a small boy. Everything stopped for a second except the buzzing of the flies, the tiny bits of dust floating in the air, the man suddenly awkward, drawing lines with his foot in the sawdust on the floor, the child freezing him with an intent stare, as though he were seeing through Charlie and into some other landscape, as though Charlie weren’t there. A tiny slice of time in a small town a long time ago.
    “I’m Charlie Beale.”
    “Beebo” was all the child answered, shaking his head, looking past Charlie, into that other landscape, dead serious.
    “I know who you are,” said a voice from the back of the shop, as the heavy door to the meat locker swung open. “Everybody knows who you are. Nobody knows what you want, but ain’t a soul in this whole town don’t know your name is Charlie Beale. Not since the day you bought Russell’s land. We know your name, we know what you paid for it. Question is, what do you intend to do with it? Why are you here? That’s the question, Mister Beale.”
    “I’m a butcher, Mr. Haislett. A good one. I’m looking to work. That’s all I want. Just a job.”
    “You see a big crowd here? You see a lot of people just standing around waiting to be served with nobody to wait on them? Cause if that’s what you see, you got a world better eyes than I do.”
    “A good butcher. I have experience all over the place. There isn’t anything I don’t know.”
    The boy never took his eyes off Charlie, just shuffled over to the white-haired man and held on to his pants leg.
    “Hell’s bells, son. I’m a good butcher and I run a nice clean shop, and people come and they go and nobody complains and I’ve been doing it for more than thirty years, ever since I was just out of the army, learned everything from my father who learned it from his father.”
    The little boy laughed. “Beebo,” he said, delighted. “Beebo. Beebo.” His father looked down, rubbed his head.
    “This here, Mr. Beale, this here is Sam Haislett. He is my son and he is five years old and he is the light of my life. Shake hands with Mr. Beale, boy.”
    “Beebo!”