The Butterfly Killer Read online

  greenish goo on the garage floor and spotting my little blue seersucker jumpsuit with

  Yogi Bear on the front. I’d wait patiently as Gram cleaned the muck off me. Then it was time for cookies. Then we’d both lean by the back door that led out into the garage watching as Gramp in his blood splattered butcher’s coat, hosed out the garage. Me and Gram leaning, my thing hard poking out the front of my shorts as Gramp spoke, “Last time this happened the damn car almost skidded into the water heater. That boy needs fixing, Lou Helen. He needs fixing real bad.”

  Gramp poured the ammonia smelling mop water over the weeds in Gram’s garden,

  rinsed and wrung the mop. After then I could go and be like other children. I’d catch more butterflies for me and Gram to tape to posters, so I could take to school for show and tell.

  My name is Elliot St. Cyr Cross. If Gram tells the story, I’m named St. Cyr after the little saint who was killed because he was a Christian. Gramp says my daddy named me after a drunk who played in a New Orleans jazz band. I don’t spell out the saint in my name. Gramp thought that was a bit too much. “All saints are dead. You’ll have to earn your stripes one day the hard way. And that fast driving fool Carrie married, damned sure ain’t no saint.” Carrie was my Mother. Gram called me Sweet Pee—P double E. I pissed the bed often. That was another thing Gramp didn’t like. Said I made the house smell like ammonia, except it was piss. Gram said I would grow out of it. Said my mama was a pisser until she was twelve. I was only six. “Might as well get used to it, Ben.”

  “Only thing I gotta get used to is dying,” Gramp would say to her.

  “Well I figure a butcher ought to be used to the idea of death.”

  “I don’t let myself get used to nothing. Everyday is a new day and a new mystery.

  Everything I gut got a soul. And that soul leaps into something else at the exact moment of death.”

  “I didn’t know hogs had souls.”

  “Everything has a soul. Ever brute God made got a soul.”

  “Do it hurt to die, Gramp?” I asked him

  “Does it hurt,” Gram corrected me.

  “I don’t know, Sweet Pee. We don’t let the hogs complain but for a minute. It hurts to live. That’s where the pain is.”

  “Is that why Mama and Daddy died, ‘cause they were hurt?”

  There was silence. Just the scraping of forks against plates. Gramp took a big gulp of water. I watched the knot in his throat bob up and down as he swallowed. I once tried to swallow a jawbreaker whole so I could have a ball in my neck go up and down. All I did was turn blue and get a good whack in my back from Gram making me spit the thing clear across the floor.

  “Well I wanna die so I don’t hurt,” I said twirling my fork into my spaghetti.

  “What hurts you, Sweet Pee?” Gram asked.

  “I don’t know. I just hurt.”

  “Well you just hush your mouth with all of that hurt talk. Your Gram and Gramps

  loves you.”

  “Did my mama love me?”

  “Why of course she did!”

  Her and Gramp would look at each other and then down at their plates. Sometimes Gramp would grunt and get up from the table—leaving me and Gram to pick at our food.

  We’d glance at him sitting in the yard under the chinaberry tree looking like he was studying the grass. I tried not to say the word “mama” too much around them. It always seemed to bring sadness to the dinner table. Whenever I thought or said the word

  “Mama,” a rope twisted around my heart. As I gnawed through a meatball with my

  snaggle teeth, hurting was not far from me. The thing I wished the most was that the butterfly worms squirted red stuff when I smashed them. Then I could have looked like Gramps with his butcher coat all bloodied.

  A couple of years later, I asked Gramp should I write Santa Claus and ask for a white coat for me on Christmas.

  “What you want a white coat for?” Gramp asked. I sat on the floor looking at him while he watched the news. “All it do is show up every stain in the world.”

  “Well maybe he wants to play Doctor. This is the first time he’s asked for anything for Christmas,” Gram replied. I bet Santa got some nice play-doctor stuff up in his workshop for good little boys.”

  I guess it was the first time I asked my Gram and Gramp for any presents. I had been living with them since I was four years old. My Mother and Father left me at my

  grandparent’s on Christmas Eve so they could clean up our house for Santa Claus. That’s what they told me. I had scratched out a list of stuff I wanted for Christmas. I wrote in boxcar size letters: “FooBAll TRUK, HEMEt, RAC KAR TRAK, PiiG” I put an extra I

  in pig. Used to like doing that with words that had an “I” in them. Made the words look like they were looking at me. I remember my mama asking me, “Now Elliot, what would Santa Claus be doing with a pig up in the North Pole?” I shrugged my shoulders. I think I wanted one because I liked the way they squealed.

  “Well we’re going to see about that. You think you been a good boy for Santa to

  bring you everything on this list?”

  I nodded yes. Mama patted my head and told me to go and get ready for the ride over to Gram’s and Gramp’s.

  Yep, Father, I was a smart cookie for my age. My Gram taught me how to write.

  That night no one came to pick me up, but I wasn’t too worried. I told Gram Daddy was building a pigpen for the pig Santa was bringing, and for us not to worry why Mama and him was taking so long to pick me up. I also told them to go the bed.

  “You don’t say,” I remember Gramp snickered and grunted. He slipped me a piece of his “special” brandy soaked fruitcake when he tucked me in, and I slept sound through the night.

  I got up early Christmas morning. For a moment I thought I was in my own room

  until I saw the picture of Jesus smiling down at me. I stumbled into the living room and saw Gram and Gramp sitting on their couch. They had worried looks. When Gram saw me, she tried to smile.

  “I don’t know where your parents are. They should be here any minute.”

  “Probably went out and got drunk and still asleep,” Gramp grunted.

  “Ben, you know our Carrie doesn’t drink.”

  “But that husband of hers drinks like a fish. Maybe the Jack Daniels on his breath overpowered her.”

  “They don’t answer our calls. Ben, you ought to go over there.”

  While Gramp was getting his coat, there was a knock at the door.

  “Now why is your mama knocking? She has a key.”

  Me and Gram ran to the door. Instead of Mama and Daddy on the other side, there

  were two policemen. One had a clipboard in his hands and the other held a stuffed blue pig under his arms. They spoke to Gram and she screamed and fell to her knees. Gramp came running from the bedroom. He clasped his hands over my ears, but I could hear him shouting at the policeman, “Not my daughter! Not my daughter!”

  An ambulance came screaming to the house. The men doctored on Gram right there

  in the living room. The phone went crazy and people filled up the house like it was a carnival—but a sad carnival as if all the rides made people cry. Gramp’s sister, Aunt Beulah came roaring up in that fifty-five Chevy of hers. She stood in the middle of the floor all five feet of her and directed folks like she was the police. Then she came into the room where I had been shut up. It was my Mama’s old triangle shaped bedroom—the

  same room I gave to my daughter. Aunt Beulah sat down on the twin bed. She looked at it for a moment, smoothed the covers, and then looked me straight in the eye.

  “Elliot, your Mama and Daddy is dead. They got kilt in a car wreck. Your Mama

  loved you with all of her heart. God gave her to the earth and he done took her back.

  Only a fool questions the reasons of God.”

  The only thing I could think of being dead was a dog I had seen crushed with his guts spilling out of him. I closed my eyes so I coul
dn’t see it in my head. But the more I kept my eyes closed, the more I saw that dog. I clenched my mouth shut. Maybe I was angry or maybe to keep myself from screaming. Whatever the reason, I didn’t say a word to nobody for months. They took me to Doctors, but they couldn’t find a thing wrong with me. All they could say was “Give him a little time.” It delayed me going to school. I went, but Gram had to take me right out. I wouldn’t talk to the teachers nor the rest of the children. They made fun of me and called me names and threw stuff at me. I sat like a statue and took it all until they called Gram to come and get me. But now here I am running off at the mouth to you Father like a condemned man. That tickles me. But I guess you don’t have a sense of humor

  They were on their way home from picking up my presents from Mama’s sister, Aunt

  Sarah. A truck rammed into the back of our car and it caught on fire. The only thing that was saved was that stuffed pig that got thrown from one of the broken windows. When Aunt Beulah explained to me what had happened, I threw the pig out into the yard. For days I stared at Gram’s front door waiting for my parents to come and get me. The Wall to floor pile of gifts stayed unopened for months. Me asking for that Doctor’s coat was the first time I had asked anyone for anything at Christmas in two years.

  “And that’s the way it is,” Gramp said back to Walter Cronkite as the news went off.

  He looked at me and Gram, shook his head, and went to bed.

  Christmas came. I ignored the yellow trucks and red cars and the football. I went straight for the black plastic thing that looked like Gramps black lunch box. It was a doctor’s kit filled with a plastic stethoscope, a mirror, a tiny hammer, some candy pills, tape, and a microscope. But the thing I liked the best was the coat Gram had made. The kit didn’t come with a Doctor’s smock, so Gram made one from an old white choir robe.

  She even stitched my name on the little pocket. Dr. Elliot Cross. MD. I asked her what the MD meant.

  “Why Medical Doctor, Sweet Pee.” she chimed.

  “Mad Demon,” Gramps snorted.

  I didn’t know which “MD” I liked better. But Gramps’ definition rang a bell with me.

  I could see myself as a mad scientist.

  Chapter 2

  How are you today, Padre? You got something green stuck in your teeth. How the

  hell would I know what it is? I ain’t been out to lunch with you. It could be parsley. Or it could be jealousy. They say that’s green. Maybe you are jealous of me. I’ll get to see Jesus way before you do. I know one thing, jealousy sometimes comes in a green bottle.

  That bottle of Absorbine Jr.** was like a genie bottle to Gram. Every time she opened it, it soothed her soul and pissed off Gramp.

  “Seems like ever since we got that boy that Doctor kit, you been right sickly. Got that boy pawing all over you, rubbing your legs and arms.”

  “Well it turns out he’s a bright little Doctor. He makes my tired legs feel so much better when he rubs Absorbine Junior all over them.”

  “I could rub your legs.”

  “Ben, you need your rest.”

  “Yep, I gets a lot of rest since that Doctor Kit come in the house. Be glad when he goes to school and got homework to do. Then maybe he be too tired to rub your legs.”

  “Hush your mouth, Ben. Why he put little red marks all over his coat to imitate the blood on your smock. You act like he don’t love you too.”

  Gram was kind of right. I put them little red marks all over my coat because I wanted blood on my coat like a butcher. Caterpillars don’t squirt blood. Just greenish goo.

  I loved butterflies most times. But if God took away my mama and daddy before they could come and get me, why should he see the beautiful butterflies he worked so hard to create? That’s what popped into my head one day after gram gave me my first lesson in butterfly biology—I call it. She had seen me step on a caterpillar by accident.

  “Look what you’ve done Sweet Pee. You’ve stepped on one of God’s little

  butterflies.”

  “It’s a yucky worm.”

  “It was going to be a butterfly. God was looking forward to seeing its beautiful red and yellow wings—just like that one flitting yonder.”

  I looked up at the butterfly. I frowned and wrinkled my nose as it flitted near a patch of Goldenrods.

  “I hate butterflies,” I shouted. I stomped my feet and ground the caterpillar deeper into the dirt.

  “Why, Sweet Pee, stop that this instant. Stop I say!” Gram shook my shoulders.

  “That’s one of God’s creatures just like we are.”

  But I held my foot down hard until tears ran down my face. None of Gram’s shoulder shaking loosened my foot one bit. Aunt Beulah had said it was God who took my Mama and Daddy. I was going to get God back.

  Later that night, I told Gram how sorry I was for killing the butterfly. I said that in part to get the slice of apple pie that got denied me at suppertime and part of me really was sorry I killed the thing.

  “The beauty and mystery of God is his forgiveness of us, Sweet Pee,” Gram said as I rubbed Absorbine Junior on her legs. After Gramp’s “huffing and puffing” as Gram called it, about me rubbing her legs, she only asked me to when Gramps was gone or

  asleep. I loved pressing that soft tip into her body, watching it turn white where I pressed it and then red again. Sometimes I wanted a spot to stay red or to grow into a bigger spot, but as soon as I moved the spongy tip, it’s turn back white again. She was sick in her chest a lot when Gramp wasn’t around. She’d send me around to Madding Dugan Drugs for a big bottle of Absorbine Junior. I‘d come back with it and she’d tell me to take off my pants and put on my Doctors coat so I wouldn’t get the smell all in my clothes. She’d take off her blouse and her brassiere and I’d press that bottle hard all around her back and chest. My little thing down there poked out through my underwear as I rubbed that bottle over her tits. Sometimes, she’d look down and say, “I declare Sweet Pee, I think I see Santa Claus.” I’d feel ashamed and hold my head down. She’d laugh and send me out of the room and tell me to stay until she called me back in. I’d stand by the door and listen.

  I’d hear her cry and moan as if she was sick. Sometimes she called on the Lord. Then it would be all quiet for a minute and she’d call me back in the room. She’d have her top back on and the Absorbine Junior would be sitting on the nightstand like a soldier. She’d give me back my pants and tell me not to say nothing to Gramp about me doctoring her chest.

  “Ben hates Doctors. He would burn up your Doctor’s coat if you told him you

  doctored on my chest.” I promised I’d keep quite as I ate a big slice of her apple pie.

  So Father, tell me something about you, when you were a little boy. Was your Daddy a priest too? Whoa. Look at the look on your face. If there’s one memory you’ll hold of me close to your heart, it’s gonna be that Elliot Cross is a world class joker. Yes he is.

  You liked blueberry pie? I’ll bet you liked blueberry pie. I can see your face full of pie leaving purple rings all over my ass. That’s what I can see. I see you turning a cock purple with that mouth full of blueberry pie. Ha! Come back here. Tell me a real story like maybe how your old man slapped you around or made you suck his cock. I wanna hear a goddamn he man’s story about the brutes in your fucking life. Tell Elliot Cross here about the shit that made you cry. You didn’t become a Priest because you liked blueberry pie. You became a priest to get away from the brutes who loved you. You can run Father, but Elliot Cross and my God are gonna be right on your tail. Blueberry pie.

  Bullshit.

  Chapter 3

  My First Blood

  I was seven and Gramp had snatched up the Doctor Coat and burned it, just like

  Gram said he would. But it weren’t because I volunteered and told Gramp about me doctoring on Gram’s chest. All I did was ask a question. He had taken me to the doctor to get some shots for school. Gram decided to stay home and doctor on herself. The doctor put his cold stethoscope
on my chest, had me to blow hard in and out. He tapped my knee with a little hammer, shined a light in my ears, eyes, and nose, and said I was healthy enough to get a shot of medicine.

  “But if I’m already healthy, why do I need the shot?”

  “Don’t ask so many questions Sweet Pee. Just pull your drawers down,” Gramp said.

  I got stung by a wasp once. That had hurt like the time I stabbed myself with one of Gram’s safety pins. Anything that’s little and got a sharp end doesn’t get much love from me. Father y’all might have to hold me down when they get ready to poke all them needles in me. Ain’t like I’d be fighting to be fighting. Just don’t like needles. Anyway I started to bawl when the doctor approached me with that tiny needle. I Got behind Gramp like I was three instead of seven. Gramp pulled me from behind me and shook me a little until I kind of calmed down. But the first thing I said when I could catch my voice was,

  “Is the Doctor going to take his pants off too?”

  The doctor’s owl eyes looked at me and then at Gramps. He chuckled and said,

  “Nope you the stickee and I’m the sticker.” Gramp’s face was red as Gram’s chest after one of my rubbings. But he didn’t say nothing. On our way home from the Doctor’s he stopped by one of my favorite places in all the world at that time—Jack In The Box. And he let me talk into the clown’s mouth to place my order. He said for me to order anything I wanted.

  “A million hamburgers,” I screamed.

  “Anything within reason, Sweet Pee.”

  He drove us out to watch the new hospital going up near Hermann Park. He parked

  the car on a hill and we ate and watched as big machines bit into the earth and spit the dirt into dump trucks. The trucks went back and forth, in and out that hole like huge crawling insects. I asked him why the hole was so big. We had finished our meal and gotten out the car to walk around the site as close we could.

  “They’re going to pour concrete in that hole. And when it gets hard, the hospital is going to sit right on top of it. It’s the foundation.”