The Water Hole

There is a water hole down by the woods. S’where the Devil lurks, Ma used to say. He’ll catch you there, little Billy, so don’t go a-playing in the water hole.

Well, I can very well do what I want and a-go where I please. At least, now I can. And so last Tuesday I went down to the woods to visit the water hole. Creeper’s Hollow, the towns-people called it. And so it was. There were ivy-creepers laying like limp arms all down the sides of the place, shriveled and whitened against the dirt, and the water was as murky as any pool could be.

I’d never been down to the water-hole before. It was out of spite, I think, that I went. I was angry ‘bout something, but I can’t remember exactly what it was. Could’ve been Poker (Poker’s the pokery old lady who watches me with a heck of a keen eye when Pa’s away in the shop. Her real name’s Miss Snitchz, I think (sounds like a sneeze), but Poker’s good enough for me). Yes, I remember something—her pokin’ at me with the cane, ‘cause I was refusing to come inside. But for God’s Holy Sakes, the sun hadn’t moved an hour in the sky, and the air was sweet and perfect that day—I was jus’ doin’ what kids do, playin’ outside, kickin’ a ball, kickin’ around. She’s real pokery, that woman, always watchin’ me from the window. Like I’m a little demon or somethin’. A little devil.

When I went a-down to the water hole, I was thinkin’ about little Will. He lives next door to my house, with Miss Spinner, who adopted him two years ago (everyone says she’s lonely an’ a hag, but I know she’s not ‘cause you can see her in the window and she’s really very nice-lookin’, except for her smile, like a shark). Little Will’s only ten, but he’s the sob-story o’ the town. War in his country, they say, there was war going on there, and going on bad. So his Ma and Pa sent him ahead of ‘em, to America (God bless), an’ he waited for ‘em, an’ waited, but they never did come over an’ he never did see ‘em again. A quiet one, little Will is. I dunno if that’s even his name; it’s just what I call him. Anyways, me an’ Will were playin’ out in the yard when Poker got all pokery an’ came out with the cane in a rage, an’ pulled me into the house, an’ that was the end of that.

When I was climbing over the rocks into that hollow, I was still angry, an’ I was mad at Pa by then. For hiring Poker, probably. My backside was bruised, ‘cause Poker had got me real good with the cane—feeling unusually pokery, I guess. Anyway, Pa runs a car shop in town now; thing is, lotsa people don’t even have cars round here, an’ even the ones that do don’t go to Pa’s shop. They go to Big Joe’s down the street. Big Joe was Ma’s brother; he isn’t big, and his name’s not Joe (it’s John), which doesn’t make a lick of sense, but I don’t think about it too much. Dad’s a lot bigger than he is, an’ he’s better with the cars, but Tiny John (I call Big Joe that ‘cause it makes a good lick more sense), he’s a slick fellow, a greasy one, an’ any greasy fellow can out-slip a big, soft fellow in a minute. We don’t see him much, Tiny John. Never been good family friends, or friends of any kind. Not even when Ma was around.

By the time I’d got done being angry with Dad, I was standin’ in the shadow of the hollow, which was, I got to tell you, a very eerie place to be. I didn’t like it, not a bit, but I stood there anyways. I was mad at Doctor Dean by then. Doc D’s the only official doc who ever visits town, ‘cause we don’t have no doctors round here. Only a nursing practice (called a “hospital,” but there aren’t no real docs in it). When Ma was down, he was the one who came in to see her, on his Middle-o-July visit, probably. I dunno why he still comes round; there’s no family round here, no friends ‘cept us an’ the Peters down the road, an’ when someone gets sick where we live, we’ve already got a non-doc system for it. We jus’ give ‘em tea with a lot of lemon in it an’ hope it gets better. If it doesn’t, we pray, an’ if that doesn’t work we buy a tombstone. But it’s a fact of life round here, an’ no one bats an eye. Anyway, I was mad at Doc ‘cause he’d given Ma medicine when she was sick, I remembered, medicine to Ma, he had, an’ I think maybe she’d be walkin’ round the house and telling me not to go a-down to the water hole still if he hadn’t. Maybe if he hadn’t tried to help, she would’a gotten better and everything’d be all right. His fault, I was thinking, it was his fault. His fault, or somebody’s. Somebody’s fault. The Devil’s fault, maybe. 

I sat down by the water. I don’t think there’s ever been a lick o’ life in that pool. Cursed. It’s a cursed water hole. Dead, too. Dead, like those cloudy eyes of hers when she coughed out, and didn’t breathe back in. Cold. The funeral was quiet, you know; no one shed a tear, but I think it’s ‘cause we were all in a heck of a shock. After it was done, I ran to the outside of the water hole, Creeper’s Hollow, an'  I threw my sneakers over the rocks into the pool. And then I cried. A nice lady, she was, my mother. Friends with Miss Spinner, which is also how I know Miss Spinner’s not a hag (But a-lonely? Maybe). Ma was never pokery. Not that I remember. But maybe I didn’t need pokery-ing back then. I think I deserve it now.

I sneered at the water, an’ I couldn’t see my own face reflectin’ back ‘cause it was all so murky, dirty, you know? I was mad at myself, then, I know. Still do get mad sometimes. I was thinkin’ about little Will from next-door, the orphan-kid, the Town-Sob-Story, the only other kid in town who ain’t got a Ma. Now, I gotta tell you something. It ain’t a secret, not really, ‘cause Poker knows. It’s not a good thing. But let me tell you this, first: Will doesn’t have his Ma, his real Ma, his Ma who got stuck in the War Going on Bad. But, you see, he does have a Ma, of another sort; ‘cause he’s got Miss Spinner, who I know’s not a hag. She was Ma’s sister, practically, drinkin’ tea together on Sunday afternoons after church. So, you see, it’s not un-reas-nable that when I think ‘bout him, little Will, an’ Miss Spinner, an’ about how she probably puts him to bed at night with a kiss, my eyes go all purple green. Jealous. I’m jealous.

Now, here it is: I was sittin’ there at the edge of that black pool, an’ I was thinkin’ about that morning. I’d been kickin’ the ball around outside, like I told you, kickin’, kickin’ around—only, not like I told you. ‘Cause, I wasn’t kickin’ a ball around in the back-yard; I was kickin’ around little Will. He’d asked to come over and play, that poor wretched imp, an’ I’d pushed him to the ground an’ kicked him around till he was cryin’ like a baby, an’ calling for his Ma, so I kicked him s’more, until Poker came a-ragin’ outta the house an’ grabbed me by the arm an’ pulled me off him. An’ that’s why she got me real good after that with the cane, all pokery; ‘cause if she hadn’t got all pokery I woulda kept kickin’ at little Will till he stopped movin’, and the Devil in the waterhole woulda come to take me away to the place where I belong. I was angry, too, ‘cause I saw they got a new car in their driveway, the Spinners do, an’ it’s painted by Tiny John, an’ I know ‘cause I saw him do it, that donkey’s ass. Miss Spinner woulda gone to get Pa to do it, but after the funeral she hasn’t come outta her house during the day or talked to us at all, an’ that’s all fine with me, I don’ wanna talk to her anymore, ‘cause when I do I can hear her and Ma laughin’ while they drink tea on Sunday afternoon. So there, you see? I deserved the pokery, the backside-burns, ‘cause I’ve been giving pokery to a ten-year-old kid whose both parents are sleepin’ next to tombstones, and who didn’t ever do anything wrong. I’ve been givin’ him pokery ‘cause he’s just like me, but he isn’t. He’s got what I don’t, an’ when I see his face it makes me think about Ma when I used to sit on her lap an’ she’d tell me: Don’t go a-playing in the waterhole, little Billy, that’s where the Devil lurks. 

An’ that’s why I’m a-sittin’ here now at the edge of the water. Creeper’s Hollow, see? The Creepers creep. The Hollow hollows. And there's my face in the pool, clenched teeth, ash skin. I think I can see an old sneaker in the sand for a second, but no, it's a dead, scaled fish. You know, there’s somethin’ familiar about the shadows here. Somethin’ familiar about the water. An’ somewhere there over the familiar water is Ma’s grave, white an’ pretty, and somewhere under is her unfamiliar body, lovely an’ rotting, not a lick of life left. Cursed. Dead.

This is where the Devil lurks. 

And look who’s lurkin’ here.

by HALEY CREIGHTON