The Tilted World by Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly Page A

mandolin—no, not a ring, the bottle neck of the Dr. Pepper, which he’d been using as a slide. But who wears a broken bottle with a baby in his lap? The man leaned forward to lift a cigar from the porch rail, gave it three quick bellows to bring it back to life. He turned it to verify that its end was aglow. Satisfied, he took a longer puff and replaced it on the rail. Then he blew out the smoke in a slow stream, his dark brown eyes looking up at Dixie Clay.
    “Well?” He lifted the bundle from between his knees and turned it to face her in the lingering smoke. “You want this baby?”
    She studied it as it dangled. Hard to tell girl or boy. It was still fussing, kicking its legs a bit. It was dirty. Where its diaper cloth sagged, its belly was whiter than the rest of its torso. The man’s huge hands were dirty, too, fingernails rimmed brown, covering the baby’s rib cage. The baby kicked harder, and the diaper slid an inch down its hips. The man turned the baby around and set it back in the crook of his knee and began to tug the cloth higher. “I had him in some clean duds,” he said, “but there was an accident.” To the baby he added, under his breath, “Now don’t you go wetting on me again.”
    Dixie Clay studied the man now, slab shouldered and rough looking, muddy dungarees plastered halfway up his legs, red Henley shirt open at the collar, in need of a shave. And a haircut. Brown shag poked from his misshapen leather hat. He looked up then and caught her looking, and she lifted the gun, which had sagged a few inches.
    “Listen,” he sighed, “you don’t want this baby, fine. Fine. I’ll find someplace better. But I gotta find it quick. The woman at the store said start with you.”
    “Woman at the store? What woman at the store?”
    “Big woman. Maybe fifty. Gray hair. Lots of rings.”
    “Amity.”
    “Whoever. She said you’re in the market for a baby.”
    Dixie Clay looked and looked but didn’t say a word.
    The baby gave another protest, not quite a cry, but not quite not a cry.
    “Aw, hell,” the man said, and lifted the baby from beneath with one hand, reaching for his cigar with the other. “Gotta be an orphanage in Leland, or Indianola.” He stood.
    “Give it,” she said, quick.
    “It ain’t an it,” he said, drawing up to his full height. “He’s a boy.” He addressed the baby now: “Ain’t you, Junior?”
    “Give it.” She held out one hand. “Give it here.”
    He tilted his head at her again. “You want him, you put your gun down and come get him.”
    She did. She leaned the gun on the rail and crossed the gallery to where he was dangling the baby toward her. She slid a hand behind his back and another beneath his diaper and lifted him out of the man’s arms. The cloth felt damp and must have been chilly. But the baby felt solid, good and solid. She guessed him about six months. He didn’t have that newborn tremory head. He looked like he might sit up okay, secured by her afghan, say. She brought him to her chest and patted his back a few times and he slowed his fussing. Then she wanted to see his face so she lowered his head to the crook of her elbow. He had a swirl of downy dark hair. His eyes were closed beneath the faintest ridge of eyebrows. His face was dusty except where tears had cleared a path. He opened his eyes and suddenly she was being pulled into them, blue-gray eddies that held her fast. She closed her own eyes to break the spell.
    Her voice was breathy when it came. “What’s his name?”
    “Don’t know. Don’t know he got a name. I guess it’s up to you to choose him one.”
    She looked up then and saw he was standing close, looking down at her and the baby. She stepped back, toward the gun, and folded the baby into her chest. “How do I know you’re not gonna come back for him?”
    “Because you’ll shoot me dead if I try?”
    She allowed herself a little smile. “Yeah,” she said. “Because I’ll shoot you dead if you try.”
    It