Salt of the Earth

Hurricane Margo’s face must have turned as purple as her Buddha after Dave told her what happened. I could only imagine her reaction when she found out.

“He did what? We’re screwed! Jesus Christ!”

Even though she was an atheist, she often called out for Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer who got treated a lot worse than a non-employee like myself. With the van out of commission for a while, I was exiled to my apartment, so to make the best out of a bad thing, I bought a bag of homegrown marijuana from Miguel Aguilar whose weed rivaled the quality of his tacos. That’s when it really hit me, that I was brainless and naïve, like my parents who lived through the Depression and World War II often reminded me, that the apartment I rented was too small for me. The laundry piled high in one corner of the bedroom was like an Indian ceremonial mound honoring the dead, and it loomed even larger because the ceiling was so low.

I had been contemplating the mound for a time when the doorbell rang. I lowered my head through each threshold to walk to the front door. There at the bottom of the stairwell stood Mr. Simmons, my landlord, dressed in Yankee pinstriped bedclothes and brown slippers. His right hand was outstretched to me at the top of the stairs.

“Salt? You got any salt?” the feeble, old man rattled out.

He did this as soon as Mrs. Simmons took off in a big-finned, white, 1967 Cadillac. She drove off, her hair buffooned and finned like the Cadillac, her face creamy and clear of wrinkles, and her presence as fragrant as honeysuckle and Confederate jasmine, to collect rent money from their other tenants.

I had already paid my rent money. Of course, I still had Johnson calling about my National Defense Student Loan, and the money I owed the Record Club of America because he picked up that account also.

Mr. Simmons was usually hooked up to a cylinder of oxygen kept next to his bed. That day he must’ve unhooked himself and left Sam, a black mynah bird, Mrs. Simmons bought to keep him occupied when she went to do her collections. She had warned me about her husband’s tricks with other tenants.

“He’ll puff up like a full moon in October if you give him any salt. Lord knows, he’ll ask.”

Despite her warning, I felt sorry for him. How much more salt did the old geezer have left in his shaker anyway? I wasn’t about to give him any of Miguel’s weed, but I couldn’t imagine a handful of salt being too harmful. I retraced my steps, lowering my head through each threshold to retrieve the saltshaker in a plastic cylinder with vegetable slices on the side. I grabbed it from the dining room table and returned to the dark shaft. Mr. Simmons stood patiently at the bottom. I descended the stairway and sprinkled it into his pale, blue-veined hand. He smiled then lowered his head and licked his palm with his pale tongue. His tongue retracted into his mouth, and poked against both cheeks. He swallowed several times before he coughed heavily.

“You ain’t gonna tell Mrs. Simmons, are you?” he asked.

“Hell, no,” I said.

He grasped the remaining salt in his hand like it was as valuable as the frankincense and myrrh mentioned in the Bible. He shuffled back into the house furnished with winged couches patterned with flowery prints, dark-stained wood tables and chairs, and beige carpeting thick as sod. The scent of mothballs filled the air. I stared at the high ceilings too, where I didn’t have to duck under the thresholds going from room to room.

Mr. Simmons slid back into his double bed. There were extra pillows propped against the wall to support him.

“More salt?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

I tipped the salt shaker over and sprinkled more salt in his hand. The mynah bird peered through the wire mesh of his cage. He was perched on a trapeze inside the tall enclave. His black eyes sparkled. The salt kept pouring into Mr. Simmons’s palm.

“Oops, that’s a little too much, isn’t it?” I asked.

Mr. Simmons shook his head from side to side, admiring the mound of salt.

“Wilbur’s a good boy,” Mr. Simmons said to the bird.

The way he spoke it was as if the room was empty except for he and the bird.

“Good boy. Good boy,” the bird echoed.

“You can tell him where the treasure is,” Mr. Simmons said.

“Treasure?” I asked.

The bird let out a laugh.

“Good boy. Good boy,” the bird repeated.

Mr. Simmons took a lick of salt and rubbed it around his lips. He was as toothless as the bird.

“My brother and I were bank robbers back in the forties and fifties. Damn good ones too. We emptied vaults and safe deposit boxes all over the South. I drove the getaway car. Frank got caught. I got away and went to work at the A&P. Worked my way up to store manager before I retired.”

He started coughing real bad. I reached for the line of oxygen and secured it in his nose.

“That’s better,” he mumbled. “My brother never told the Feds what he did with the loot. I figured we’d split it when he got out of prison. He died in the can.”

The sound of a door slamming interrupted Mr. Simmons.

“Goddammit, she’s back. I thought she was going to collect rent. She musta went over to the church to practice on the organ. You better hightail it,” Mr. Simmons said.

“What about all that salt?”

The old man slid his hand under the covers. When he brought it back out it was empty.

“What about all the loot?”

“I bought the rental properties and hid the rest of it. Sam knows where it’s at.”

The bird let out another laugh.

“Hurry before Mrs. Simmons sees you,” he insisted.

I got upstairs just in time too. A few minutes later, Mrs. Simmons was practicing on her own organ. Amazing Grace. The long version. It felt like an Iron Butterfly concert, the way the house shook, and they were playing In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.