Trace

by Scott Hughes

Hunter and I are washing trash barrels in the creek when we find the arm. We both work part-time after school at Wrightsville’s fiber plant on Osceola Highway, across from the RV assembly factory. Hunter, my older brother, got the job first. Then our parents said to me, “Fish, you should get a job like Hunter.” So I did. We sweep, clean the spooling machines, scrape labels off the floor of the main warehouse. Today our boss tells us to wash out the trash barrels—he doesn’t say how or where. We can’t find a single hose in the plant, and we aren’t about to haul every single barrel into the restroom to use water from the sinks. Hunter says we should use the creek out back. No one can see us, there are some trees for shade, and the water is cool. We drag a dozen barrels through the gravel parking lot in the back and down the grassy slope to the creek at the edge of the trees. Hunter and I remove our shoes and socks, roll up our jeans, and wade into the creek, each of us holding a barrel.

I see a fallen tree branch in the creek as soon as we step into the water, but I don’t really think about it. It’s just a branch. After we wash a few of the barrels, Hunter says, “Holy shit, Fish, look at that.” He points at the branch, and for a second I have no idea what he’s surprised about.

Then I see an arm hung in the branch, floating back and forth in the current, causing the hand to wave. It’s a pale shade of blue, and the skin looks shiny and stretched tight. Just past the elbow, it’s cut clean, as if it was done with a scalpel. There aren’t any hairs on it, and the fingers are long and slightly curled. I can’t tell if it’s male or female.

Hunter and I stare at the arm for a time. I move towards it, and Hunter tells me to stop. “What are you doing?” he says.

“Pulling it onto the shore, then going to get somebody.” I step towards the arm again, but Hunter tells me not to go over there.

“Don’t touch it. You’ll get your prints on it.”

“So.”

“Let’s just finish these barrels and go back.”

“Jesus Christ, Hunter.”

“Listen,” he says. “If we tell somebody, they’ll call the cops. Then the cops will ask us a million questions, and we’ll be wrapped up in all of that shit. I’m about to graduate, man. I don’t want to be involved with something like this around graduation.” Hunter’s a senior—two years older than me.

“But we didn’t do anything,” I say. “We just found it.”

“I know. I just don’t want to get involved. We’re witnesses or something.”

“Fine. You go back inside, and I’ll tell them I found it by myself.”

“No, Fish. You can’t say anything about it. It’s just a fucking arm, man. It’s not like it’s a dead body.”

“I don’t know, Hunter. What if it could help solve a murder?”

“We don’t even know if there is a murder. I say we leave it alone and act like we never saw it. Hell, it’ll probably float away pretty soon.”

I don’t bring up the arm again the rest of the day, but every time I close my eyes the swollen, blue arm appears with its purple fingernails. At supper, I have to excuse myself and go gag over the toilet because Mom makes pork chops and mine is a little underdone. When I come back to the table, Dad says that I should get more exercise like Hunter, then I won’t be so sick all the time. He plays football and wrestles. I went out for basketball this year and got cut the first day of tryouts. Hunter thinks he has all the power since he’s older. He doesn’t know that I steal the porn from underneath his mattress. He thinks it’s Mom, so he doesn’t say anything. And he doesn’t know that I once scrubbed my balls with his toothbrush.

—•—

In my art class, we’re supposed to be doing still-lives of a bowl of apples Mrs. Paulk placed on the table, but I paint watercolors of the creek and the fallen tree branch half a dozen times. I never paint the severed arm. I don’t want people thinking I’m psycho. They’d put me into counseling like that kid last year who threatened to put a bomb in the school. Then my parents would find out about my painting. It’s the one thing I can do that Hunter can’t, but my parents think that art is for people who are on drugs, or gay, or both. Hunter’s good at what matters most in high school—sports and having girlfriends, in that order. I’ve never had a girlfriend, even though Hunter occasionally tries to set me up. He says I need to get laid.

Mrs. Paulk doesn’t mind that I don’t paint the assignment. She lets me do whatever I want since I’m her best student, besides Pam Varnadore, a sophomore like me. She does these really abstract rows of squiggles with acrylics. Not exactly my taste, but they’re not bad. Mrs. Paulk loves them.

I know Pam because her twin sister, Leah, and my brother have been dating for a few weeks. You can’t really call it dating, though, since all they do is fuck. That’s all Hunter wants her for, anyway. Everyone knows that the Varnadore sisters are totally loose. Hunter told me that Leah had sex with a guy on a table at a party in the middle of a crowded room. People say that a month later Leah and Pam had a threesome with the catcher of the high school baseball team.

Pam comes up behind me and watches over my shoulder as I paint. I glance at her. She smiles, and I go back to painting.

“It’s good,” she says. I tell her thanks. She watches me another minute or so. “I know your brother, don’t I? He dates my sister.”

“Hunter, yeah.” I talk without looking back at her. I’m hoping she’ll get bored with me and walk away. I get nervous talking to girls who’ve had sex.

“You’re not much like him. He doesn’t seem very artistic.”

“He’s not.”

“I’m Pam, by the way.”

“I know.” The way I say it sounds worse than I mean it to. It comes off sounding like “I know you from your reputation.”

She doesn’t respond for a while. I turn around, and she’s gone back to her own work across the room. She lifts her brush to the canvas and paints a brown squiggle. On her face, just below her right eye, is a purple smudge of paint. I watch her a moment or two to see if she will wipe the smudge away, but she doesn’t. I think of walking up to her and wiping the paint off for her. Instead, I go back to my watercolor of the creek.

—•—

That afternoon, Hunter gets stuck scraping labels off the warehouse floor. I have to break down boxes and throw them into the press. On my break, I leave through the back door of the plant, go through the gravel parking lot, and down to the creek. The tree branch is still near the spot where Hunter and I washed the barrels. I get barefoot and roll up my pants as before and wade into the creek. The arm is still there, caught among the many limbs of the tree branch. The arm has moved slightly with the current but is held securely. I want to pull it free and let it drift somewhere else. Let someone else find it. If the arm floats downstream, then somehow I might forget about it. It will glide on the current and out of my memory. Out of my paintings.

I bend over and reach out to grab the arm. My hand freezes above the blue flesh. I realize that I don’t want to touch it. I want to get rid of it, but I don’t want the clammy, puffy skin under my fingers.

I only have ten minutes for a break, so I leave the arm where it is. I walk back to the plant, carrying a shoe in each hand so my feet can dry. I try to think of something else to paint. Something besides that damn creek.

Hunter’s in the restroom. We’re both taking a piss, and he says, “You want to go see it again?”

I stare down at the urinal. I don’t tell him that I just came from the creek. Instead, I say, “I think we should tell someone.”

Hunter moves to the sink and washes his hands. “Why are you so scared about it, Fish? It may not even be there anymore.”

“I’m not scared.” I wash my hands, too. “You were the one saying you didn’t want to tell anyone.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“You’re being a fag about just looking at it. I don’t want to get involved in police shit.”

Hunter and I each rub our hands in the heat from the blow-dryer. He tells me not to worry. “It’s just an arm,” he says. “It’s not like it’s a whole goddamn body. Now that would be something.”

—•—

I’m dreaming about the arm. In my dream, it pulls itself away from the branches, paddles across the creek, and crawls onto the bank. It grabs onto my shoe. I try running, but it’s that slow dream-running that feels like you’re wading through syrup.

Hunter wakes me up. It’s past midnight. “Fish,” he whispers. “Fish, wake up.”

I moan.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” I mumble into my pillow.

“The plant, to see the arm.”

“What the fuck? Hell no.” I try not to raise my voice, but getting woken up pisses me off.

“Get up, Fish.” He punches my shoulder.

“I don’t want to see that thing again. Leave me alone. We can’t go to the plant, anyway. People are there, working.” Wrightsville’s fiber plant runs twenty-four hours a day, and almost 365 days a year.

“Not tonight,” Hunter says. “They shut it down until eight a.m. Something about a yarn shortage. One of the managers told me.”

I moan again.

“Get up, Fish,” he says. “I want to show Leah. She’s waiting out in the truck.”

I sit up and cough. “I thought you didn’t want to tell anybody.”

“She’s cool. She won’t say nothing.”

I lie back down and turn away from him. I mumble to him to go away and let me sleep.

“Come on, Fish,” he says. “It’s probably not even there anymore. I just wanted to get Leah scared a little. Girls are hornier when they’re scared. It’s like taking them to a horror flick.” He nudges my back. “Her sister’s out there, too. She really wants to see you.” I know that’s a lie as soon as he says it. Hunter and Leah probably talked Pam into making out with me. They probably have money riding on it. “Come on,” he says. “It’s the Varnadore twins, man.”

—•—

Pam and Leah are sitting in the green pickup. They both have reddish-brown hair cropped at their jawlines. Leah has a rounder face. They’re wearing sleeveless t-shirts pulled tight across their breasts, revealing their firm stomachs. Leah has about a dozen piercings in her ears, but Pam only has a couple. Hunter climbs into the driver’s side, next to Leah. I get in next to Pam and say hello to the twins.

Hunter doesn’t know that I already know them, so he introduces me. He tells them that my name is Fish. I say that my name is Fisher, but he tells them that everyone calls me Fish. Hunter starts the truck and backs out of the driveway.

Leah says, “So your parents named you Hunter and Fisher? That’s funny.”

“You wouldn’t think it was funny if it was you,” Hunter says.

“It’s not so bad,” I say.

“Our mom named us after two women in some movie she loved,” Pam says. “I can’t remember what it was, though.”

“I always hated my name,” Leah says. “It sounds too plain.” She says her name a few times, drawing out the syllables. “Leeee-aaaah. Leeee-aaaah.”

“You’ve had too much to drink already,” Hunter says. He hands me a beer from a small cooler on the floorboard. “Here you go, Fish. She’s already got a head start on you.”

I pop the tab and the beer fizzes, so I slurp it quickly. Some of the foam dribbles onto my chin. Pam reaches over and wipes my mouth. It’s a gesture I’ve seen girls do to Hunter before. It’s something a girlfriend does.

—•—

Hunter veers the pickup into the visitor parking lot in front of the fiber plant. He slams on the brakes, making our heads lurch forward. The chain-link gate is locked, blocking the path to the gravel parking lot in the back. We get out and sit on the tailgate. We finish the few beers, and Leah passes out cigarettes.

“So, Hunter,” Leah says, her eyes almost closed, “you’re about to graduate. What are you going to do next year? You haven’t said shit to me about it the whole time we’ve been together.” Hunter has a blank expression on his face. Leah waves her hand in front of his eyes. “Hello, anyone home?”

“Shut up. I just haven’t thought about it much. I just want to graduate, you know?”

Pam jumps in. “But what about after that? You’ve got to have something in mind.”

“I don’t know. Maybe work here fulltime for a while. Save up some money.”

“For what?” Leah says.

Hunter shrugs.

“You mean you don’t want to leave this shit-ass town?” Pam says. “That’s the first thing I’m doing after I graduate—move to Jacksonville, or Atlanta maybe.”

“You will not,” Leah says. “You’ll stay around here. Same as me. Same as him.”

“What’s wrong with Wrightsville, anyway?” Hunter says, staring straight at Pam. “I’ve lived here my whole life. My parents have lived here their whole lives. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“There’s nothing right with it, either,” Pam says. I laugh, and Hunter cuts eyes at me.

“They should change the name to Wrongsville,” Leah says. She slaps her thigh and laughs until she hiccups.

Hunter stomps on his cigarette and studies the locked gate. He stares across the street at the RV assembly factory where a few lights are on. “You girls ready to go see it?” he says. “We better go before anyone spots us.”

“I’ve never seen a severed arm before,” Leah says, hopping from the tailgate, nearly falling on her face. “I’ve never seen a severed anything.”

“I think it’s gross,” Pam says.

“You guys coming?” Hunter says to Pam and me. I look at Pam, and she scrunches up her face and shakes her head.

“Not right now,” I say. “Maybe in a minute.”

“Suit yourselves. You kids behave yourselves.” He winks at me. I’ve never seen him wink before. Hunter pulls the two doors of the locked gate apart, and Leah squeezes through under the chain. Hunter climbs over, and they disappear into the darkness towards the gravel parking lot and the creek.

“You didn’t want to see the arm?” I say.

Pam shakes her head again. “That kind of thing doesn’t appeal to me.”

I lean over to kiss her, and she pulls away. She says that she’s sorry.

“For what?” I say.

“I don’t know. I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea.”

“About what?”

She kicks her legs back and forth and watches them as she speaks. “I know what my sister does. I don’t care. She can do what she wants.” I know what Pam means, so I don’t ask. She says, “People think I’m the same way because we’re twins, like we’re the same person or something.” She takes out two cigarettes, lights them both, and hands one to me. “So, Fish, what are you doing after you graduate?” She wants to change the subject.

“I’ve thought about college,” I say. “Maybe this art school in Savannah Mrs. Paulk told me about.”
“Really? I like your paintings. I think you’re good
enough.”

“Thanks. I like yours, too.”

“You’re sweet. It’s obvious you have talent. I just spread paint onto a canvas however I feel like it.”

“Mrs. Paulk likes your work.”

“She likes yours better. I can tell by the way she looks at you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s this look she gets in her eyes. Girls can tell. Here, I’ll show you.” Pam turns to face me and looks me right in the eyes. Hers are the same emerald green as the pickup. “You see?” she says. I can’t tell that she’s looking at me in any special way, but I nod anyway. “You’ve got the bluest eyes, Fish. They’re like little faraway moons. They make you look like you don’t belong here.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I wanted to tell you this in class one day. I watched you do one of your paintings, and you had a smudge of purple paint below your eye. It made me think of touching your face, how I wanted to touch your face. It made me wonder how your skin felt.”

Pam bites her lower lip. “You can if you want.”

I lift a finger and faintly trace from the corner of her eye, down her cheek, and along her jawline to her chin. I know that her skin is soft, but I can only feel a tingling in that finger, like in winter when doorknobs send blue sparks into my palm. I lean over to kiss her again, and this time she kisses me back. It’s my first. Her mouth and lips are warm and wet. Her tongue brushes against my front teeth, then slips against my tongue. I try to mimic what she does with her mouth. Then I remember my hands: I slip my fingers around to the back of her neck, and goose bumps immediately rise there.

The kiss lasts almost a minute, and it’s over too soon. Pam pulls back. She kisses my bottom lip, then the top one, and goes back to smoking her cigarette.

For a couple of minutes we smoke in silence. Then I say, “What about you? What are you doing after high school? You want to move to Atlanta?”

“Maybe, but I’d rather go to Jacksonville.” Pam goes back to swinging her legs. She flicks her cigarette, the ashes floating away.

“What’s in Jacksonville?”

“Music, art, the city. My step-brother lives there, and he says it’s a great place. It’s not like anywhere else. But I probably won’t go. I hate this town, but I’ll end up working with my mom at the salon.”

“What about art school? You could do that.”

She waves it off. “Leah was right. We’ll all end up staying here.”

“Not me,” I say, “not if I can help it. I want to get away. Get away from Hunter. Have my own life without being under his shadow. People always tell me how much I’m not like him, how I should try to be like him. It’s like with you and Leah, only a little different. People think you’re the same as her because you’re twins.”

“I know what you mean.”

“You need to get away, too,” I say. “Have your own life.”

“My own life,” she echoes, and it sounds almost like a question.

Hunter and Leah bang against the chain-link gate, and Pam and I jump. “Fish,” he says, “you’ve got to come see this! I poked that arm with a stick, and its fingers moved, I swear to God!” Leah laughs and plops down onto the ground. Her head slumps down so that her chin rests on her chest. She and Hunter are both barefoot, the lower halves of their legs exposed and wet.

I turn to Pam. “You want to go?”

“Not really, but I get the feeling he won’t let up until we do.”

We hop down from the truck, and Hunter holds the gate open for Pam and me to slide through. He tries to help Leah to her feet, but she keeps slumping back down and giggling. He gives up and says that he’ll leave her there until we come back. “Fine,” she says, waving at us.

Pam and I follow Hunter through the empty parking lot and down the grassy slope. There is enough moonlight to see okay, but Hunter has a flashlight anyway. He shines it on the branch and lowers the beam to the severed arm. “Still there,” he says. “Want a closer look?”

Pam crosses her arms under her breasts. “No thanks. This is close enough for me.”

“Fish?”

I don’t really care to, but I take off my shoes and socks anyway. As I roll my pants, Hunter sloshes through the water towards the branch. I follow him in, and the water is colder than it was during the day. Pam tells us to be careful.

Hunter breaks off a stick from the tree limb. When I’m next to him, he says, “Check this out,” and pokes the stick into the bloated palm. The hand bobs in the water with each jab, but the fingers do not move. Not even a twitch. “It was doing it before,” he says. “I swear. Ask Leah. The goddamn fingers moved, man.”

I tell him I believe him.

From the bank, Pam says, “Guys! Fish, Hunter!”

We straighten up and turn around. A figure is moving toward us through the parking lot. From the strides, I know it’s not Leah. This person is walking too straight. Too sober. The figure turns a bright flashlight on us, the kind police carry. A man’s voice says, “Hold it right there, young lady. And you two come out of the creek right now.”

I start towards the bank, and then I hear splashing behind me. The officer yells, “Stop!” I turn, and Hunter is scrambling up the opposite bank. He ignores the cop and runs into the darkness of the trees. The officer doesn’t go after him. He stands at the edge of the creek and swears. I walk onto the bank, the sound of twigs snapping beneath Hunter’s feet becoming faint.

I can’t make out the cop’s face. He keeps shining his light on Pam and me. He says, “Now why did he go and do that?” His voice sounds Southern and patient, like my dad’s. “They called from across the street. Y’all aren’t supposed to be snooping around here.”

“I work here,” I say. It’s a stupid thing to say.
“Even so,” the officer says, “you can’t be here when it’s locked up like this. You kids been drinking tonight?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “Not much.”

“Any is too much at your age. That girl back there’s in bad shape.”

“That’s her sister,” I say, motioning to Pam.

“That’s what she said.” The officer shines the light on Pam. “Y’all must be twins. She said your name’s Pam.” She nods. The light swings back onto me. “And you’re either Hunter or Fish.”

“My name’s Fisher,” I say, “not Fish.”
“Well, Fisher, I take it that was Hunter who took off through those woods.”

“Yes, sir.”
“Bit of a coward, ain’t he?”

“Yes, sir.” It feels good to say that.

“What were you kids doing out here, anyway?”

I point towards the fallen branch. “I found a severed arm in this creek. I wanted to show it to them.”

“An arm?”

I nod.

“Just an arm?” he says. “Nothing else? No body?”

“No, sir.”

“You should’ve reported this right away.”

In the distance, a twig cracks. I imagine Hunter running for his life, scared of what he thinks is behind him and what he can’t see ahead of him. The officer walks past me to get a better look. He scans his flashlight across the surface of the creek to where the arm is hung up in the branch. In the current, it seems to be waving. Hello or goodbye, I can’t tell which.