Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips Page B

leaving and roaring, pushing them back and back. The boxcars go faster and begin to flash, moving their heavy shapes. The closed doors glint and the open ones are moving holes, dark in the rattling noise. Lark runs closer, harder, and the roar begins to make the shape, long and deep like the roll of the river, shaking round and wide. The picture inside him opens in gray shades, closer and sharper until each still line and curve has its own pale sound and the lines and shapes can turn and move. He lets go of the blue to tell and say and the train takes and takes it, whistling loud, bleating and disappearing into the trees. The train shrieks and the narrow bitter smoke is a scar that whispers and falls, pouring away across the railroad bridge, over the river and on.
    Lark stops running and sits on the ground. She leans against the wagon and her breath moves the wooden slats. He listens until she’s quiet. The hot rails hum and each cinder thrown into the wagon is a small rock spark. The little rocks are warm.
    Termite, Lark says. I’ll fix the radio. Don’t worry.
    Here’s your ribbon, Lark says.
    She wraps the blue around his wrist. He moves it to his face, just above his eyes, but he doesn’t look.
    Mow the grass, Lark says. Big storm they talk about.
    He waits. Soon she’ll go.
    She says, don’t think you’re going to sit out here in the rain with lightning flashing all around you.
    He holds still, listening. Far down the alley where the gravel meets the street, he hears the orange cat paw forward on its ragged paws. Away down the alley across from Tuccis’ house the ragged orange cat is stepping careful, dragging its belly along the stones under the lilacs. The cat waits then for Lark to go. The cat waits low and long where no one sees and the growl in its belly thrums deeper. The cat knows Lark will throw a stick or a handful of gravel that lands like stinging rain.
    Termite, Lark says.
    She puts her face close to his, her eyes against his eyes. Lark’s brown eyes are stirred like the river when the river is milky with rain. She knows he can see if she’s very close but he doesn’t look now, he doesn’t try, he doesn’t want her to stay.
    She says, you ring the bell if you want anything.
    He wants to hear the train. Far off the train’s bell sound is long and wide and dark as the shade under the railroad bridge. The bridge goes over the river and the trains pour over top. He wants to feel the roar. Lark and the Tuccis take him through the rail yard on the way to the river, between the Polish boys and the ditch. The boys have got a snarling something in the ditch with their sticks and Lark says they’re worse than the dogs, cornering one thing or another, beating and hitting until a dog sounds like a cat and a farmer’s wife with a carving knife. Joey and Solly fight the boys and Zeke stays in the wagon. Lark is never scared. Joey and Solly roll in the dirt punching and grunting with the Polish boys from Lumber Street and Zeke throws stones behind.
    Zeke, hold Termite tight. Here’s a faster ride.
    And they’re riding faster into the cool where the arched tunnel walls are furry. The leaves move up and down the rock and the ivy is shadows on the curve above. No sky it’s a stone sky Termite that’s why it’s gray. Beside them the river is the only sound until Joey and Solly burst out yelling from the bushes.
    So you’ve got a bloody lip no call to yell like a banshee. Look Termite, a scrape like a star on his chest. Solly, wash off in the water and cover that up with your shirt. If Noreen sees it she’ll know you’ve been fighting. You cold, Termite? Look, we’ll make a fire on the dirt where no weeds can catch. Zeke, no more telling about fires or fights and you can have marshmallows. We only need some sticks for Joey to sharpen, he loves his knife so much.
    Termite, look how the fire leaps up, see how warm?
    Doesn’t matter if it rains the river is full of rain. We could ride the river all the way