nido 

Worrystone

by Judi Goff

"Did ya see that?"

"What?"

"That sparkly thing down there." Bubba pointed a crooked finger in the general direction of the Hillsborough River.

Sure enough, something glinted in the afternoon sun down close to the riverbank. Clifford squinted his eyes and tried to make it out but it was too far away to tell what it was.

"Yep, looks like a sparkly thing all right." He continued to walk along the ridge above the river and away from the sparkly thing that glittered enticingly in the sunlight. Enticingly, at least to Bubba.

"Hey, wait up! Don't ya want to take a look-see b'fore we go? Could be somethin' valuable, gold or somethin' like that. Ain't ya even a teensy bit curious?" Bubba peered at Clifford through smudgy-lensed glasses.

"Aw, Bubba, it's always somethin' with you, ain't it? Gold? Yep, most likely fool's gold." But he could tell by Bubba's stance that he wasn't moving until they investigated the mystery so he headed down the slight incline to the riverbank.

Bubba followed, chirping like a magpie all the way down. "What if it's a watch? One of them fancy Rolex jobbies . . . or a diamond ring somebody done went and lost."

"It's a rock."

"What?" Bubba hurried to catch up.

"I said, it's a rock, Bubba! It ain't nothin' but a shiny river rock, ya goofus!" Clifford stooped to pick up the glittery stone. He held it in his palm. It was warm after lying round in the sun all day . . . it felt kinda nice.

"Oh crap, ain't that the luck? Here, let me see it." Bubba reached out and plucked it from Clifford's hand. "Well, hell if it ain't just a rock! Worthless bit of crapola from the stinkin' Hillsborough river!" He tossed it back into the mud.

Clifford bent to retrieve it, rinsed it off and stuck it in his pocket. It was kinda pretty, so shiny and all. Maybe he'd give it to Betty . . . maybe not.

They spent the rest of that Saturday fishing from the riverbank like most every Saturday. Of course, fishing from the Hillsborough River was just for sport. Not many people would eat what came out of the Hillsborough River. There were those who did, but not either one of them. They were country boys and country boys knew better. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, they packed up their poles, dumped the last of the ice from the Igloo and popped tops on the last of the brews.

"Guess it's about time to head home. Betty's probably got supper on and she'll be plenty ticked if I'm late again."

"You're probably right. She can get scary when she gets her dander up!" Clifford had to laugh just lookin' at Bubba with his eyes all wide and buggy. "You're the lucky one. You ain't got no wife to put an edge on your day. Then again, you ain't got no one to cook up no good eatin' for ya neither!"

Bubba just shrugged. "I don't reckon a plate of beenie-weenies is worth no woman pullin' my chain and bustin' my balls neither!"

He had a point there. The two parted company and headed off in opposite directions, Bubba to his rented duplex on Highland and Clifford down Sligh across the bridge to his house on River Boulevard.

The house had come to Clifford when his folks had passed a few years back, free and clear. Lucky thing too. His job as custodian at Cleveland Elementary didn't pay much and he would be damned if any wife of his would work as long as he drew a paycheck no matter how small.

He believed a woman's place was at home raising kids and keeping house, not to mention spreading her legs for him once in awhile when the horneys got him by the nuts. Mostly, Betty did all of those things just fine and whenever she got a little too uppity and smart-mouthed, as most women did now and again, he just reached up and took her down a peg or two. Nothing physical, just a few well chosen threats he never had any intention of following through on.

Clifford Jenks had a near perfect existence as far as he could tell. Comfortable house, reasonably agreeable wife, and two relatively mannerly children. One boy, one girl and then he got himself to ol' Doc Mims for some permanent birth control. Blue balls for a few days and then all play, no pay. Life was good to Clifford Jenks.

The baying of the Jenks' beagle, Bess, greeted him as he walked into the sparsely-grassed front yard. Damned chinch-bugs had been busy again that summer. He was tempted to just pour a slab of concrete over the whole mess and be done with it. He ruffled Bess' ears and dodged the wet length of her over-exuberant tongue.

Betty stood in the doorway, hands on hips. "Well, it's about time you found your way home. If I didn't know better, I'd surely wonder what you and that good for nothin' Bubba have been up to ... fact is, if he was a tad smarter and a whole lot better lookin', I would wonder!"

Clifford grabbed her around the waist and moved his hands down to cup the fine, round swell of her ass. She swatted at his hands, giggling and squirming in his embrace. "Hold still woman, let me feel that sweet meat of yours!"

"Clifford Jenks, you smell like a two-day-old catfish! Now leave me be!"

"But honey, it's Saturday, time for a little lovin'," he teased. And about then, Clifford Jr. came racing through the back door, screen slamming nearly off the hinges, three-year-old Janina right behind him.

"Daddy! Bess is havin' her puppies!" chirped six-year-old Junior.

"Daddy, they was comin' out her peepee and there's bleed and they's all wet and icky!" Janina chimed in.

Clifford knelt down and gathered his tow-headed offspring into his arms. "Okay, now slow down and tell me, one at a time."

"It's blood, Janina, not `bleed' and they was comin' out her ‘gina not her peepee!" The boy rolled his eyes in frustration. "Daddy, girls don't know nothin'."

Clifford stood up. "Come on, let's go see them little poopie-doops."

"Don't keep them out too long, Cliff. Supper's nearly done." Betty turned her attention back to the stove as her family hurried out the door.

Later, after the kids had settled down and Clifford and Betty were left to their own devices, they sat in companionable silence, side by side on the living-room sofa.

Betty yawned and stretched and announced her intention to get her tired butt to bed. "Comin' Cliff?"

From the look on her face, he could tell it wasn't an invitation to dance the horizontal polka. "Naw, Hon, you go on. I'm gonna watch the news then I'll be right in."

Betty tried to disguise the relief that flooded her face with another yawn. Clifford didn't mind, he was tuckered out too. Time enough to bump uglies tomorrow night.

He sat on the couch, his face illuminated by the glow of the picture tube. Something dug into the spare flesh of his thigh. He thrust his hand into his hip pocket and retrieved the rock they had found that afternoon.

The flickering light from the TV danced over the smooth surface of the stone. He held it up, closer to his face, and thought again how dad-blamed stupid ol' Bubba really was. How could he ever think he would be lucky enough to find anything worth having stuck in the mud of the Hillsborough River? Of course, Bubba truly believed he was going to win the lottery someday, too.

Clifford shook his head and settled back to finish watching the young, blonde newscaster as she stumbled over her words like a preschooler. Surely it wasn't meant to be, but sometimes the news could be awful funny. He smiled and slowly rubbed the silky surface of the river rock with the pad of his thumb.

Clifford awoke. White noise filled the room and static pulsed on the TV screen. He blinked once, slowly, then he blinked again. He stared at the screen, his gaze dull and fixed like a deer with a neat, round bullet hole between his eyes.

In his hand the rock glowed subtly, pulsing like the static on the TV. He began to run his thumb back and forth, around and around over the smooth surface and as he rubbed, a sly smile crept over his face, like a fat cat contemplating a caged canary with dinner on his mind.

He sat that way for a very long time, staring and rubbing and smiling that smile and the rock glowed and it pulsed and it began to grow ever warmer in his palm, the warmth spreading slowly, so slowly from his palm to his wrist, from his wrist to his arm, from his arm to his shoulder ... and when the warmth traveled from his neck to his brain, well, that smile turned from sly to downright evil.

Sunday dawned bright and hot and after church Bubba showed up as surely as diarrhea follows a Mexican dinner. "Hey Cliff. Ready t' head for the river?" He stood there, pole in one hand, bait can in the other, big grin splitting his face from ear to ear.

Clifford sat there silent as stone on the back stoop. He didn't look up. When he spoke, the words hung heavy on the sultry summer air. "I ain't goin'." Now Clifford was a man of few words but those were mighty few, even for him.

Bubba stood looking at his friend, smile sliding right off his face. "What? You ain't goin'? Why not?" Bubba's Saturdays and Sundays were always spent on the banks of the Hillsborough River with Clifford. Fishin' and drinkin', and drinkin' and fishin.' Heck, Bubba couldn't recall a Saturday or Sunday that wasn't spent in that fashion.

Clifford just sat there and Bubba stood, waiting for an answer that, when it came, explained nothing at all. "I just ain't."

Bubba finally gave up, shrugged his shoulders and walked away, wondering what in tarnation he was gonna do for the rest of the day.

Clifford looked up as Bubba walked away then he glanced down at his hands. He opened the right one and the sun glinted, hard and jarring, from the smooth surface of the rock. He folded his thumb over the rock and slowly began to rub its warm, silky surface, and as he did a wicked grin spread over his face, a grin that did not reach his eyes.

The sun slipped lower in the western sky and still Clifford Jenks sat. In fact, he had not moved from the stoop all afternoon, had sat there rubbing and caressing the river rock and staring into space. If anyone had asked he could not have said why. It just felt good and it made him feel different than he had ever felt before. It made him feel powerful and he could not have told why that was so. But he surely liked that feeling.

He continued to sit for a while longer as the shadows began to lengthen and stretch across the lawn like skeletal fingers. A soft sound drifted on the summer breeze. The sniffling, snuffling sound of the puppies. And the grin on his face twisted cruelly.

Inside the shed it was dark, the air degrees cooler than the air outside. Clifford stood quietly, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. When he could make out the soft, squirming bodies of the pups, he squatted down beside them. The pups were alone. Whimpering and snuffling and alone.

He reached out to scratch a small ear, then stroked the top of the puppy's head gently. He slid a hand under the plump belly and lifted the tiny body from the rest of the litter. The puppy wriggled and squealed and Clifford tightened his grip. He heard a low growl and he turned to see Bess standing in the open doorway.

The smile faded from Clifford's face and he lay the pup back down, then turned his attention to the snarling menace in the doorway. "Hey Bess ... good ol' Bess. It's just me, Hon, just takin' a look at your sweet young'uns ... not hurtin' a thing here ol' girl." His voice was low, soothing but Bess stood her ground.

He stood up slowly and began to inch his way toward Bess, all the while keeping up his comforting litany. Stiff hair stood up on the dog's back. Clifford reached a hand to grasp the side of the door and at the last possible moment, the moment before Bess lunged for him, he slammed the door in her face.

He turned back to the soft tangle of warm dog-flesh and knelt beside them again. He grabbed the first squirming body he could reach and he squeezed and he squeezed and the puppy's frantic yelps reached a crescendo and then there was silence ... until he reached for the next in line.

When the last pup lay silent and still, Clifford reached behind him and when he left the shed, he hid the shovel behind his back. "Here Bess ... come on, girl, come on to Daddy."

Betty was the first to discover the carnage. "Oh Clifford! What could have done this terrible thing?" Betty wailed, pleading for an answer that could explain the unexplainable. But Clifford just sat in his chair and shrugged and then he went outside, took a shovel and began to dig a shallow pit and as he dug the smile never left his face.

From that night on, Clifford left the river rock on the nightstand beside him so he could reach out in the middle of the interminable night and stroke its surface. It felt good. It felt right.

After the catastrophe everything changed, everything was different, as if the heart and the soul had gone out of their lives. On the surface, things ran on about as usual but where Clifford had once been full of life and the dickens, he was sullen, distant, and unreadable.

He went to work, ate his meals with Betty and the kids, but it was as if Clifford had gone away, leaving an empty shell behind. Betty tried to put if off to the tragedy, tried to convince herself that that was it but she knew in her heart it was more than that, much more, and she was afraid.

Bubba tried his best to draw Clifford out but Clifford just shrugged him off with a look that ran chills up and down his spine. Bubba reckoned he was about used to doing things on his own anyhow, but he surely missed the times he had with Clifford.

Every night, Clifford sat in his chair before the TV and he stroked the river rock and it felt good. He never knew why but he knew that the rock somehow responded to him, that it sparkled and glowed more and more every time he touched it and it grew warmer and he just knew that it was a good thing. A very good thing.

Moonlight streamed through the windows, flooding the room with stark light. Clifford stood by the open closet door. He reached in and grasped the shotgun with one hand and scooped up a box of shells with the other.

He sat down in his chair and loaded the shotgun ... the shells slid smoothly into the chamber, one ... two ... three. He stood up with a smile on his face and climbed the stairs.

He hesitated in the shadows in the doorway of Junior's room for a moment, then he went in. Moonlight caressed the face of his sleeping son. He walked to the bed, put the barrel to the boy's head and squeezed the trigger. His smile twisted.

He didn't pause at Janina's door, he went straight in. She was sleeping. He went to her bed and squeezed the trigger again. And when, seconds later, Betty appeared in the doorway screaming like a banshee, he blew a hole in her middle the size and approximate shape of the state of Kansas.

Back down in the living-room, Clifford went to his chair and sat down before the flickering screen of the TV. He reached down into the box of shells and reloaded. He sat back and reached into his pocket ... his fingers grazed the familiar contours of the river rock and it pulsed and warmed to his touch. He placed it gently on the table beside him.

He felt so good now and he knew, in a minute, he would feel even better. He placed the barrel of the shotgun into his open mouth ... and he smiled.