text: Nana watched the boy squelch in the mud and sling feed at the ranging hens. As he passed the coop, the boy ran his fingers over the mesh like harp strings, and the caged hens clucked at him. He’d cluck back and run them on the wire, and they’d shriek and tear at the coop in a cloud of feathers. Then he’d holler across the range at Nana: “Nana! Nana! Did you see!” and Nana would nod and crease her face. “Yup, I seen it,” she’d say. She set the barrel-shaped plucker on the folding table beside the scalding vat. Then she fetched the hose coiled by the spigot. “Nana!” the boy hollered again, “Nana! Look: I found a worm!” “Alright, then.” “Look!” he demanded, holding the worm up over his head. The ranging hens danced around him like Pentecostals. “Yup.” She rigged up the hose and gave it a spray to be sure it flowed right. Satisfied, she reached in the plucker and withdrew the bucket and culling cone nested inside. She walked towards the pitch pine -- the cone and bucket swinging like milk pails from her fists -- and nailed them into the tree with quick, deliberate hammer blows. She finished and saw the boy using his whole body to drag that ripped feedbag towards the caged hens. Golden feed trailed behind him, and the hens chased it like it sparks on gunpowder. Nana tossed the hammer in the bucket and pinned her fists to her hips. “Don’t feed them in the coop, now, boy!” “Why not?” he grunted, still dragging the ruptured bag. “They done had theirs, I said.” “But I ain’t fed them yet, Nana.” When he reached the coop, the boy dug out a pile that spilled through his clumsy, gloved fingers. “What’d I say? Don’t feed them in the coop!” “I ain’t!” He let the feed fall to the mud just outside the cage. The free hens clustered and pecked at his feet. He laughed, snatched another fistful from the bag, and threw in the coop like confetti. The caged hens savaged each other to get it, and he squealed. “Goddamn -- what did I say!” Nana peeled the fencing open and marched through the mud where the boy stood beside his crime: sullen, cross-armed, and kicking at the broken feedbag. The hens rioted when Nana got to the boy. Her hickory-thick fingers cut into his arm as she spun him to face her. “Boy, you want me give you something to pout for?” “No.” “No, what?” “No, *mam*.” She was too old to mother Anna Lee’s son. That girl was due to pick him up last Saturday, but Anna Lee wasn’t coming back this time. “I told you them in the cage ain’t getting fed.” “I know.” The boy looked at the feed pooled around his muck boots. “Why you didn’t listen?” “I don’t...I’m sorry, Nana.” It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if Anna Lee came back or not -- that wasn’t the boy’s fault. She knew that. And Jesus wouldn’t hear how sometimes she thought of stuffing that boy in the culling cone. “Alright then,” Nana said, more than deflated. “You clean up this feed, hear? And don’t you feed them in the coop again.” The boy used his cartoon-sized gloves to scoop up the feed -- mud and all -- and let the foul pile fall in with the rest of the bag. “Hey now! That’s filthed! Don’t -- “You said to clean it up!” The boy’s eyes misted. He cried quietly -- just like Anna Lee did: angry. Confused. Angry that he’s confused. *Might be he’s as mixed up as his mama. Could be he’s worse.* “Hey, look -- it’s okay, now.” Nana said. She crouched to meet his watering eyes and cleared away the mud slicked all over his wet cheeks. “Look: you can’t put the muddy feed in with the clean because it’ll get the hens sick, you know? We don’t want them getting sick.” “Ain’t you going to kill them anyway?” Nana stood, hands touching the knobs of her hips again and face upturned to meet the grey-wash sky. She closed her eyes and thought of Jesus. *Don’t you fail this boy again.* Papa’s truck rattled up the drive. The boy shook off his anger and Nana swallowed hers. Papa honked that damn-awful horn as he passed the pond and climbed up the drive to the house. “Go help Papa bring in the groceries.” “Can I go fishing still?” “*After* you help Papa.” “Yes, mam.” The boy tore up the hill. Then Nana picked out two chickens to kill. \*\*\* The boy waited for Papa to clamber out of his truck, but he took a long time. He sat a spell, just glaring at the mower shed at the end of the drive. The boy wondered why is Papa was so angry when he was sad. Papa eased the door open, and the metal hinges croaked. “Hey, boy -- you helping me?” Papa spun his boots out of the truck before plantings them in the gravel drive. He winced, gripped his war leg, and looked everywhere but where the boy was. “What’s wrong, Papa?” “Nothing -- you been helping your Nana with them hens?” Papa slammed the truck door behind him, and the metal croaked again. “I found a worm! Look!” He pulled the worm from his breast pocket. “You did!” Papa said, wearing a mirthless smile. “He’s for fishing?” “Nana says I gotta help you first.” “Nana’s right. Go on.” Papa rounded the cab -- he dragged his war leg like luggage -- lowered the tail gate, and it croaked too. “Hold out your arms like this,” Papa said. He curled his thread-thin arms like hooks and gritted his teeth. “That’s it! Like you on wrestling -- *there* you go -- no, put down the worm first. Alright, now. No -- he ain’t going nowhere -- set him there. Alright: show me your wrestling -- *there* you go!” Papa arched over the tailgate and grabbed a bundle of plastic bags. He’d gather up the ringlet handles and snake them over the boys arms so they fell neatly into the crook of his elbow. After each bag, he’d say: “you got it?” and the boy would say yes. “Alright, that’s all of them. Let me take that one with the jars.” “I got it.” “Come on now -- it’s heavy.” “I got it, Papa.” “Fine then. Go on.” Papa looped the heaviest of the bags around his arms until he looked like his ghillie suit. He cradled the twin packs of bottle-necked beer under each arm and shuffled behind the boy. Nana’s smallest muck boots were too big for him, so the boy duck-walked as best he could. He toddled towards the half-finished porch, swinging the bags in alternating arcs that propelled him forward. “Papa, I dropped the bread!” “It’s alright. I’ll get it.” “Did you get my worm?” “He’s fine -- we get him in a minute.” “Don’t squish him!” “I ain’t -- you worry about them groceries.” The boy ambled up the half-finished porch, dodging loose planks and paint cans. “Watch that paint, now.” The hens screamed down the hill. “Nana’s killing chickens!” the boy said. He let his bags crash to the porch and darted for the coops, knocking into Papa. His leg seized and Papa tumbled back into a tangle of broken glass and plastic knots. Blood clouded the growing pool of beer beneath him. “God-fucking-damnit, boy!” He sat up in a bolt, snatched a broken bottle and hurled it at the tarp-covered porch swing. It shattered, showering the porch with a thousand invisible knives. The swing rocked back and forth as if some haint sat watching Papa bleed all over the unvarnished wood. “Watch where you going, boy!” Papa worked his way to his feet, gripping the parts he always complained about. Red rivulets drained down his fingers and splashed on the porch: *pat-pa-patpat.* Nana met them both at the porch, breathless and painted herself with arterial spray. “You alright?” “I’m fucking bleeding everywhere.” Papa looked over his arm and picked out a shard of glass. “Don’t turn the air blue around the boy. Now, what happened?” “He knocked me over -- I fucking told you don’t carry all that too!” His words cut their way through his mouth, and he froze. “He’s six! The hell’s in your head?” The boy cried his quiet tears. “I’m bleeding all over the damn place.” Papa turned for the door. He lifted his bloody hand over his heart and used his other to open the screen door. The spring croaked too. “Nana, I didn’t mean to --“ “Don’t touch nothing, alright? Let me get the broom.” “Is Papa hurt?” “He’s fine. Don’t move, alright?” The boy watched the empty porch swing sway, shedding beer and glass like rain off a wing. \*\*\* The boy sat at the two-seat kitchen table while Nana fried chicken in the iron skillet. It cracked in the bubbling oil, and the boy’s belly grumbled. “Few more minutes,” Nana said, turning over the wing with a fork. She clanged the fork on the skillet, wrang her hands in the cook towel, and tossed it over her shoulder like a stola. The boy glowered at the empty chair across from him, and Nana wondered what a child thinks about these days. *You think he knows his mother’s gone, Jesus? Don’t let him hate her. It ain’t his fault.* She pulled the milk from the fridge, poured a glass for him and herself, and set out a wedge of carrot cake at the center of the rounded table. She took a forkful for herself and turned the fork over to the boy. He looked at her, doubtful. “Go on then.” They alternated forkfuls of the cake together while the oil popped on the stove. Nana killed the heat and plated the fried chicken wings with celery from the garden. The boy snagged one more forkful of cake before she replaced the plate with the wings. The boy gulped down a belt of the milk and smacked his lips and breathed out obnoxiously. *Ahhh.* “Unh-unh -- table manners please.” Nana took the empty chair across from the boy and wondered if the boy ever met his daddy. “Nana? Am I bad?” “What? What do you mean?” “Am I bad...like a bad person?” Nana felt shame flood her face. “Did your Papa say that to you?” “No.” “Who told you you was bad?” Nana reached across the table and covered the boy’s hand with hers. “I just don’t want to be.” “Well, you ain’t. You hear?” “But I done bad things.” “Hell -- me too.” Nana snorted. “Lord knows. You think I’m bad?” “No.” “Well, me neither. Eat now.” The boy ripped at a chicken wing with his browning teeth. He counted each bite with his fingers, each one rocketing out of his tiny fist after his jaw pistoned up and down. “Is Anna Lee bad?” Nana chewed the corner of her lip. It felt wrong: the boy calling her who she was instead of what she’s supposed to be. *But Anna Lee wasn’t supposed to be a mother, Lord knows. Boys without mothers don’t belong nowhere.* She’d stopped counting the lies she believed for Anna Lee’s sake long ago. Might could be the boy lost faith long before she did. “God don’t make bad people,” Nana said. “Anna Lee’s done bad things too.” “Yeah. She has.” “But she ain’t bad?” “No. I suppose she ain’t.” Nana stood up and drained the grease into an old coffee can over the deep sink. She watched Papa through the window sawing on a plank in the yard, bandaged up like a leper. *It ain’t the boy’s fault what she done.* *Jesus won’t hear it from you or me.* “You want to help your Papa after lunch?” The boy counted each chew on his hands before saying no. “Alright.” “You said I could fishing if I helped him.” “You right -- I did. Go on then -- no, finish first, then go.” He scraped the bones into the trash on top of a swamp of broken glass. \*\*\* The boy dangled his feet over the pier with his rod laid across his lap like a ceremonial sword. The black water slurped at his heels as he kicked them back and forth. He could hear Nana and Papa arguing up at the house while he cut a worm in two. It was calm before the blade, but the two halves wriggled beside each other like angry forks of lightning. He plucked up the more active half and skewered it on the hook. The reel hissed as he cast the line into the pond. *Plunk.* The day-glow bobber floated in a labyrinth of multiplying ripples. He wondered if the worm’s other half knew it was drowning. While he waited, he hacked up the worm with long, slow strides of Papa’s pocket knife. He spared it the hook but killed it half a dozen times before the bass bit its other half. The bobber sunk, and the boy yanked hard. The line cut across the placid surface of the water, ripping it apart as though the boy was pulling thread from a shirt. He reeled and tugged and grit his teeth before he wrenched the fish from the black pond. He landed it on the pier and Papa called down from the hill. “Look at that!” The boy didn’t answer. He fought to bring the fish all the way in -- it don’t count until it’s *all* the way in, Papa would say. He dragged it on the splintered pier and marveled at its suffocation. The spiked jaw hinged open and shut and the body spasmed violently, but the black marble eye just watched the boy watching. Papa snatched up the fish with his mummified fingers. He gave it a look over -- left, right -- peeled out the hook and tossed it back. *Plunk.* “Too small still.” “Oh,” the boy said. He turned back to his massacred worm and impaled another portion on the hook. “Could I sit for a spell?” Papa asked. The boy nodded and lanced another cast in the center of the pond. Papa pulled a cigarette from his pocket and fought the lighter for a while before he got it lit. “Listen: I could of done you better than I did earlier. I turned the air blue and probably scared you something awful. I’m sorry for that.” “What’s ‘turn the air blue’?” “Means you say words you shouldn’t.” He dragged on his smoke, and the two watched the bobber in silence. “I’m sorry for what I said to you,” Papa said, wreathed in smoke. “It’s okay.” “No it ain’t. You get to be mad if you are. Sometimes folks make you so made you want to...point is: if you still mad at me, it’s okay. I’ll give you your time.” “I’m not mad, Papa.” “Alright, then.” The boy decided he didn’t like the cast and set another beside the waterlogged birch trunk where he snagged it yesterday. “Anna Lee told me she drowned in this pond.” “That’s true.” “How’d she drown?” “She was out here -- about your age -- and she couldn’t swim yet. I told her the same thing my mother said: haints get trapped up in this pond and they snag you.” “What’s a haint?” “It’s a kind of ghost that haunts the land. That’s how come we paint porches blue -- haint blue. Scares them away.” The boy turned his reel, and it chirped like a katydid. “I don’t think it works,” he said. “Well I ain’t finished it yet. Might be you see a haint or two until I do.” Papa smiled a half thing about the shape of a fishhook. The boy lifted his rod and let the sinker set in the mud. “Anyway,” Papa breathed, “It didn’t work: she come out here one day looking for that haint, swimming until she couldn’t swim no more. Must of caught a snag somewhere...” Papa was so sad when he was angry. He cleared his through and continued. “She was blue and lifeless as a stone when I found her. I dragged her out and...she throwed up half the pond when Jesus gave her back.” Papa stood and pointed at the bobber and said a fish was fixing to bite and to tease him into it. He turned back to his half-finished porch and the boy turned the reel slow. The boy set the hook and hauled the fish onto the dock. He plunged the pocket knife into its vacant face then went to his belly and hung his head over pier, wondering if the haints saw what he did.