NaNoWriMo: Day 12

Eventually, Buckley and Stella realized that they would have to rejoin the party. The night was wearing on and if they stayed outside any longer they ran the risk of falling asleep in each other’s arms. Anyway, Stella had to go back with her friends to Crescent City for the night.

            However, when they re-entered the house, it was apparent that her friends had no intention of leaving anytime soon. They were all pretty well soused, thanks to Rhodes and his propensity to keep the liquor flowing. Selena was over in a corner nursing a gin and tonic looking quite perturbed, and Stella decided to check on her to see if there was anything she could do for her.

            “Hey Selena, are you alright?”

            “Fine.” she said, taking a sip of her drink.

            “You don’t look fine.”

            “You and Buckley were out there for quite a while.”

            “Yeah, we had a lot of catching up to do.”

            “Tell me, were you and Buckley close, Stella?”

            “We were very close. Why do you ask?”

            “Just making conversation. How close were you?”
            “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, but we were in love.”

            At this, Selena nearly choked on her gin and tonic. While she hadn’t really wanted to pursue Buckley, she still liked to fantasize about it. And now, here was his real life love. It was just too much.
            She tried to regain her composure and purred, “I see. Well, it must be nice for you to see him again. Tell me, what happened between the two of you?”

            “It’s complicated. We just can’t be together.”

            It was while Selena and Stella were having this stilted conversation that the gator once again appeared on the deck outside of the Florida Room. This time Buckley was the first one to spot it and the only thing he could think was “Thank God Stella is not still out there.” He hoped that the thing would not try to gain entry to the house, but of course, hope is a thing with feathers.

            The second person to spot it was Lottie, who had been filming the party off and on with her camera. She took this as a great opportunity to get more footage for her documentary and as such was very excited by the gator’s appearance. Once Lottie saw it, everyone else was alerted to it’s presence which was exactly what Buckley didn’t want happening. With everyone crowded around the windows, there was no way for him to assess the situation calmly and rationally. He still didn’t want to kill the thing if he didn’t have to. Meanwhile, with the party going on, if he did have to kill it, he had no idea where a gun was at the moment.

            “Buckley,” he heard Stella say from beside him. “Is that another one?”

            “Yeah, it showed up a few days ago.”

            “Should we be worried?”

            “I don’t know. But I think you ought to go upstairs just in case. Take your friends with you.”
            “Lottie isn’t going to want to stop filming.”

            “So go to one of the back bedrooms. She can film out the window. Just go.”

            Stella did as she was told, grabbed her friends and headed upstairs. Lottie shot Buckley a wicked look as she passed by him. He called after her “I promise the view will be better from up there!”

            “But the lighting!” she called back as she disappeared up the stairs.

            One Stella was safely up stairs, Buckley turned his attention to the gator. Rhodes and Leland were at the front of the crowd in front of the window watching it when he approached.

            “What’s it been doing?” he asked them.

            “Not a damn thing,” said Leland.

            “It’s like it’s just waiting on something.” Rhodes continued.

            “It’s waiting on me,” Buckley thought. “Where are the guns?” he asked Rhodes.

            “They’re in the hall closet.”

            “Will you please go get them?”

            “Sure will” Rhodes replied.
            But no sooner had Rhodes returned with the shotguns than the gator scrambled away.

            “It knows that we wanted to shoot at it.” Leland said.

            “How do you kill a thing that smart?” asked Rhodes.

            “You outsmart it.” Buckley said.

Now of course they were in a bind. They had a house full of people and a gator on the loose outside that was smarter than they were that most likely had a vendetta. Anyone who left the house was very likely a target. And of course everyone was drunk. Some of the guests thought the idea of a lock in sounded like the party of the decade. Others were done with Herlin Hall for the night and they wanted to go home. One such guest was Butch Payne.

Butch was big. Butch was dumb. Butch just wanted to go home and sleep it off. Buckley tried to stop him. So did Leland and Rhodes. Selena even tried to appeal to his better sense, but Butch wasn’t having any of it.

“I ain’t scared of no damn gator. I’m goin’ home y’hear. Now get outta my way.”
            But Butch’s truck was parked halfway down the drive from the Herlin Hall and the night was dark. Being as drunk as he was, it was easy for Butch to lose his was and soon he found himself tangled up in the cypress roots along the river bank. Being as proud as he was, even tangled up in the cypress roots and cold and wet, he refused to call out for help, thinking in his drunken stupor that he could disentangle himself and somehow find his way both to his truck and eventually to his bed. Whether it was his pride, his drunkenness, or his sheer stupidity no one has ever been able to decide but the fact remains that Butch Payne’s remains were found the next day tangled up in the cypress roots, not ten feet from the edge of Herlin Hall and not once did he call out for help.

At this point the police became increasingly interested in what was going on at Cypress Estates and were threatening to launch a full scale investigation – thinking that Rhodes was somehow using the gator as a scapegoat for some kind of murder spree. His name was being dragged through the mud in town and Buckley had begun to feel that he had no choice but to take the job Rhodes had offered him. The gator problem had indeed gotten to be out of control and he might be the only person who could solve it.

            But how could he solve it? As things stood, one man had already been killed on Buckley’s watch. To be fair, that man had not listened to Buckley’s warnings. Still, it didn’t look good and it was bad for business. Furthermore, there was Stella to think about. She was going to be on site for a week with that gator on the prowl and try as he might he couldn’t convince her to stay away.

            Not that he minded seeing her. He had wanted to see her all these years – all this time. But he worried for her safety. And it was so hard because she insisted that they couldn’t be together. He cursed and railed against his half breed ancestry. What wouldn’t he give to be as white as she was. He knew she didn’t care, but her family cared too much and they wouldn’t make it easy on her or on any children they might have.

            Any other children.

            He was still reeling from the news that she had made him a father without telling him. He knew that her family had been behind the deception. Oh, how he hated them. How could people so mean spirited have created someone with such a beautiful and loving heart? They were darkness and she was light. And yet they claimed to live their lives in the name of their Christ. Buckley felt that their Christ would be mightily disappointed by these people who claimed to be his children.

            Buckley had resigned himself to a life of stoic abstinence since his Stella would not have him. He would work, but he could only see himself loving her. He realized how melodramatic this sounded and he hated that, but in all the time since she had broken up with him he had yet to encounter another woman who interested him half as much as she did. He felt it was better to pour his energy into work and trying to be her friend. If he couldn’t have her as a lover he could at least have her in his life in some small way, although it was going to be hell watching her be with someone else when that time came and he knew that eventually that time would come.

             

           

            Rhodes Shield’s life and business was very quickly falling apart as a result of this rampaging gator business and he decided that it would be best to heed his mother and get his ass to church. He had already gone with her on Sunday morning, but his heart wasn’t in it. Come Wednesday night, he was a changed man. He decided to drag Buckley and Leland along as well. He decided that they all needed to get right with God.
            Buckley, being something of an agnostic resented this assertion, but went along with it because it’s what the boss wanted and he realized that the church was the same one he had seem the day he was out looking for a house or a business for his mama. Maybe he would find something there that he was looking for.

            St. Mark’s was an older church which he later learned had been around since the 1850s. The Shields had been going there since around then, the sisters of mercy being an Anglican order. The congregation had been there for nearly that long, as had the building. When Rhodes, Buckley, and Leland walked into the sanctuary on Wednesday evening they were immediately aware that they were the youngest congregants there by several decades.

            They sat with Miss Emery in the very middle of the sanctuary and tried to follow along with the liturgy, but it wasn’t long before Leland and Buckley were completely lost. Leland had been raised a Baptist and Buckley had never had much use for church. In Buckley’s case he was interested and willing to learn though. Stella’s family was Episcopal. Maybe if he sincerely converted he would have a chance. Sadly, he was rather certain that there wasn’t a chance that he was going to every believe what everyone else around him at that moment so did so fervently. But he could still give it an honest try.

            When the time came for communion, he went up to the alter with everyone else and took the wafer and dipped it into the cup of wine. He bowed his head. He clasped his hands. He did what everyone else did, but he wasn’t really sure what this praying was all about. Wasn’t it just talking to yourself? Sure, you were supposed to be talking to God, but how did you know if he was really listening? They say he’s always listening, but what if he isn’t? Then you’re just an idiot who’s talking to yourself. He preferred to just not do it. He would rather not be an idiot, thank you very much.

            When the service was over, the priest caught his arm.
            “Why hello there son. Good to see you back again.”

            “Hello father.”

            “Are you going to come to confession?”

            “I’m not an Episcopal.”

            “That’s alright. If you needed to talk to someone.”

            Buckley thought about it. He did need to talk to someone about the Gators and there was no one he could trust around other than Stella and he couldn’t be worrying her about those problems.

            “Sure. I’ll come. What time?”

            “Why don’t you come back here tomorrow around lunch time?”

            “Should I bring anything?”

            “Just bring yourself.”

            Buckley arrived at the church the next day a little before noon. He’d spent the most of the morning trying to devise a plan that would lure the gator out of its lair without endangering himself or anyone else but so far he hadn’t hit upon anything that made any sense. He had come to the conclusion that Rhodes had built Herlin Hall too close to the river and this had angered the gators that lived there – specifically the lights and the noise that came from the house at night. If Rhodes were to lead a quieter, more docile existence he and the gators could live in harmony, but Buckley knew that Rhodes would never agree to that. The whole point of Herlin Hall was to be loud, bright, shiny, and over the top – all the things that the gators despised. It was no wonder that they were enraged and out for blood.

            At the church the priest was waiting for Buckley on the steps when he pulled up in his truck.
            “Good afternoon, son,” said the priest through the window of the truck.

            “Afternoon, father” Buckley replied.

            “Are you hungry? I’ve got some sandwiches and chips over in the fellowship hall?”

            “Buckley was taken aback, but he was also hungry.

            “Um, sure.”

            “Okay, come on,” the priest said motioning for Buckley to follow him. “So, I know that I’ve seen you a couple of times now, but I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m father Donoan. And you are?”

            “Buckley Wolf.”

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you Buckley. What brings you to town?”

            “Is this normally how confession goes?”

            “I told you, it’s just talking.”

            “Okay. Um, I’m here taking care of Mr. Shield’s gator problem.”

            “Ah yes. I’ve heard about that. Terrible stuff.”

            “It is. I don’t know how I’m going to handle it, if you want to know the truth.”

            Father Donovan sat down and placed a paper plate with a sandwich and some chips in front of Buckley. “What do you mean?”

            “Well, Mr. Shield’s house is the whole problem. It’s provoked the gators I think. And he’s not really helping with his parties. And then these gators are really smart. It’s a real mess.”

            “Sounds like it. What do you think you’re going to do?”

            “I was hoping to set out some traps, but the thing is smarter than that.”

            “When was the last time you saw it.”

            “It’s been a few days now. It showed up at this party Mr. Shield threw. It was on the deck. If it had been a few minutes earlier when Stella and I had been out there who knows –“

            “Who’s Stella?”

            “She’s a friend.”

            “Sounds like you care about her an awful lot.”

            “Father, she might be one of the only people I care about at this point.”

            “That’s quite a statement to make about a friend. Why don’t you tell me about her.”

            “Why do you want to know about Stella?”

            “Because looking at your face when you say her name, you want to talk about her.”

            It was true.

            “I don’t know what to say. I’ve spent so much time not talking about her and not thinking about her, then I get here to take care of these gators and all of a sudden here she is looking exactly like she did four years ago and she’s exactly the same and nothing’s changed and yet she says we can’t be together because her family is racist and she can’t be with a half breed Indian and I have a kid with her I didn’t even know I had and they made her give it up and she never told me and god I love her ever after all that and when I’m with her I feel like I’m home and I’m trying so hard to just be content with being friends and I’m trying so hard to give a damn about getting rid of these gators but all I really want is to lay in her arms and forget about everything else – gators, her family, my mother – I just want her and me and nothing else and I can’t have that because it’s not realistic but it’s all I can think about and I’m pretty sure this is why I can’t do anything about the gators what the hell do I do?

            By the end of his rant, Buckley had tears in his eyes and it was clear to Father Donovan just how in love with Stella Buckley was. He was beside himself.

            “Buckley,” Father Donovan began “first of all, I need you to take a deep breath. That was quite a lot you had to say there. Secondly, I see that you’re in love with this girl. Do you know if she feels the same way about you?”

            “She does.”

            “So what’s the problem?”

            “She says we can’t be together.”

            “I need to talk to this girl” Father Donovan scoffed. “Clearly she has her priorities mixed up. Now, did I hear you say that you had a child with her that you only recently found out about?”

            “Yes.”

            “What’s the story there?”

            “Her parents made her give it up without telling me about it. I never even knew she was pregnant.”

            “I’m guessing this is part of why you can’t be together, the parents?”

            “Yes.”

            “But you seem like such a nice young man.”

            “I try to be.”

            “So, have you got any plans about the Stella situation at this time?”
            “Right now my plan is to try to just be her friend. And to remain celebate.”

            “Why?”

            “I haven’t met anyone else in four years that interested me. Why bother now?”

            “That’s a terribly nihilistic outlook. You’re young. You should date.”

            “Find me a woman worth dating and I will.”

            “What’s so great about this Stella?”

            “She sees me.”

            Father Donovan sat for a moment and thought about what Buckley said. “She sees me.” What a simple sentiment and yet so powerful. Don’t we all want to be seen and known and loved?

            “So, Buckley, is there anything you think that I could do for you as a man of the cloth? Anything that would aid you in your Stella problem or in your gator problem?”

            “Yes, actually. There is one thing that I would like to learn, if you can teach me.”

            “What’s that?”

            “I want you to teach me to pray.”

            “To pray?”
            “Yes. I don’t know how.”