The time Bill told me he was pretty sure I wouldn�t live through the night, we were lying on a pallet staring at the darkness that engulfed Mamaw and Papaw�s house in the piney woods of Northeast Texas.
Bill was eight and kind of small for his age, but he knew things, all sorts of things. He even knew where babies came from and tried to tell me on several occasions, but I was too young to care about such grown-up sounding stuff; besides if he had it straight, it was pretty disgusting, and I was too busy being five to listen to it.
I must admit to mixed emotions about being five. Being the baby of the family, I usually got my way. However, being the baby who enjoyed the deference due to age, and who rubbed it in every chance he got, subjected me to a multitude of terrorist acts. On this particular occasion, Brother Bill was miffed because I had told on him for calling me a �mule t***.� What I hadn�t confessed to was laughing at him when a red wasp had climbed up his pant leg and stung him on a very private part. It had just seemed funny to me at the time.
Bill didn�t beat on me much; he just played head games, and I guess he figured that telling me I�d most likely die before morning was his best effort to make me suffer sufficiently. Besides, his prediction didn�t sound that farfetched. I was pretty sure the darkness was filled with creatures that could easily rip the screen off the window, grab a hapless five-year-old, and eat him raw before anyone would hear his screams. In fact, Bill said that Mama and Daddy had had two other kids before we came along and that both had been eaten while they slept on a pallet in the very room where we lay listening to the dark and watching the night shapes and moon shadows encircle the house.
Despite my determination not to close my eyes before daylight, I must have nodded and dozed momentarily. Suddenly, hearing a shuffling noise and what sounded like a muffled scream, I roused but was afraid to open my eyes. I felt the pallet next to me. Bill was gone. Whatever had grabbed him would surely come for me next.
I tried to scream but there was no sound. Opening one eye, I could faintly make out a shape at the window, but I couldn�t tell if it was outside or in the room with me. Suddenly, the silence was broken as Bill screamed, �Hot D*** and Holy S***, we�re dead boys, both of us!�
At that moment I was off the floor in a single movement and across the dogtrot to the room where Mama and Daddy were sleeping.
�Somethin� is killin� Bill!� I screamed.
Jerking on his clothes, Daddy raced across the hall. We could hear in the darkness a wheezing noise that sounded like somebody trying to catch his breath. Oh, Lord, I thought, whatever got Bill and almost me has strangled him for sure.
As Daddy struck a match to light the coal-oil lamp, the wheezing turned to hysterical laughter. The glow of the lamp crept across the room. Bill was sitting in the corner no longer able to contain his glee.
�That�ll teach you, you little chicken s***, not to laugh at me again,� he blurted out without even thinking what Daddy might do to him for using such language.
When I looked up at Daddy, it sure looked like he was smiling, though it quickly turned to a frown when he realized I was watching.
�Whup me if you have to,� said Bill. �This time it�ll be worth it.�
Daddy just sighed the longest sigh I ever heard and said, "I think we've seen enough violence for one night, and I could certainly use a cup of coffee. You boys wanna join me?"
That was my first cup of coffee. I sat there with Daddy and Bill at Mamaw's old kitchen table in the predawn light and sipped that steaming black mix. I studied their faces carefully and finally spoke. "Sorry, Bill. Sorry, Daddy." "No real harm done," said Daddy. "It was about time to get up anyway." Bill just grinned and gave me a soft kick under the table.
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