Page 73 of Moonshine Lullabies

The next mornin’ain’t none of us get up on the early side. It was more like brunch than breakfast, but that was alright.

I set myself outside in the weak winter sun, and it was chilly and damp, but alright. I didn’t want to blow bone dust all over the inside of the house.

Tate got his fishin’ pole and tackle and took the skiff out a ways into more open water. I called out to him to stay within’ hollerin’ distance, just because this wasn’t a part of the bayou that we was familiar with.

The girls were inside cleaning up after our meal but insisted I get on out here and get going so they could see what it was I did. When they came out, I looked up from behind my goggles and making sure the dust was settled, pulled my mask away to tell ‘em not to get so close as to breathe anything flying.

They backed off some but stayed closed enough they could watch.

They asked a million questions, and it didn’t take long for me to go hoarse from hollerin’ through my mask and over the grinding and the whining of my carving tool.

When it came time to take a break and give my hands a rest and have a drink of some hot tea we all were sittin’ around when Cor said wistfully, “Wouldn’t it be so rad if we could open a shop in or near the Quarter and sell Jessie’s skulls as art and home décor along with Alina’s paints and paintings and other cool witchy and pagan shit?”

Alina and I traded a look, and I said, “I would be down for that.”

“What else would we sell, though and would anyone really want to buy any of my paintings?”

I lifted one shoulder in a shrug and said, “I do a pretty brisk business in my online shop. This one’s already sold as soon as I finish it. I’m lucky it didn’t catch a bullet or get damaged and I can finish it.”

“How did you get into this?” Alina asked. “I mean, it’s absolutely beautiful.”

“That’s kinda the whole point,” I said with another shrug that I ended up turning into rotating my shoulders and twisting my neck to loosen tensed muscles.

“I took one of my daddy’s trophy skulls he was gonna throw away ‘cause the antler broke and asked if I could do something with it. I didn’t really have a plan for it, but I was in art classes at the high school, and we were sculpting in clay an’ I dunno, I just saw a potential there. I kinda had an aptitude with cutting things away and doin’ things and so I gave it a try, scraping at it… then I found my daddy’s old Dremel in his tool box out in the garage and did my first one. Just a tribal design kind of thing. Won a blue ribbon in the school competition for it. It’s still in a glass case there. Made me think I could do more.”

“Most people think death is scary, or ugly, but there’s been so many times I wished for it that I figure there’s a certain beauty in death… I wanted to make something beautiful so I tried.”

“I think we’ve all felt that way sometimes,” Cor said softly.

“Have you ever thought about painting them, or adding color beside the stones?” Alina asked, shifting on her seat a little uncomfortably.

I thought about it. Not just what she said, but about her friend a little over a year, comin’ up on two… I looked down at my current project and asked, “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged and said, “like maybe lightly etch some trees in it and I could try and paint it – like lay paint into the grooves.”

“Would your watercolor work? I mean, wouldn’t it just wash off?”

She opened her mouth just in time for Tate to yell out, “Hey, Mamma!”

I looked over and he held a good-sized Alligator Gar fish up on his line. “I caught dinner!”

“Well, that’s a mighty fine Alligator Gar, son! Good job! Bring it on in an’ clean your catch!”

I turned back to Alina and she said, “Well, we could lacquer a clear coat on it, and see if that’ll protect it. There are a couple different kinds, a glossy or a matte. I mean, I know these skulls are hard to come by – or I imagine they are…”

I barked a laugh and said, “Not for me. My crazy ass’ll stop on the side of the road and bring an opossum, or a raccoon home. Sometimes I get lucky and get a deer head off the side of the road. I keep a machete in my truck for it.”

“Okay, that’s a bit much for me, I’ll admit it,” Corliss said laughing. “Even bein’ from Texas that’s… wow.”

I shrugged with a grin and said, “Most of ‘em I get from where I work part time at the wild game butcher shot. Got a whole mess of rabbit skulls it bein’ the season for huntin’ an’ trappin’ ‘em. I get all kinds of skulls from there. The game wardens, when they confiscate a poached critter, they bring ‘em to us to process for the local food banks and shelters. I get all kinds of deer an’ nutria – whatever else all year ‘round from that.”

“Wow, sounds like a good deal.”

“The hard ones to get are the steer an’ cow skulls. I have to go to farms and places like that. Every once in a while, I get lucky an’ get some goat but I usually have to buy ‘em.”

“You got anything else with you or just this one?” Alina asked. “Because now I really want to try.”

“I got some rabbit skulls with me. I could try an’ do what you’re thinkin’ on one of them.”

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