Chapter 3: little pieces of the nothin' that fall
It's another day before Daryl goes back to the farm.
The rain continues all through the rest of Sunday and throughout Monday, not in a steady, hard pound but in varying amounts at varying intensities, and Daryl - to pass the time - finds himself trying to come up with as many different words to describe it all as he can. He mentally converts the few nouns into verbs for easier use.
Spitting. Dripping. Trickling. Misting, at its lightest. Soaking. Pounding, of course, and hammering, but there's also sheeting, which works well when the rain is heaviest and a sudden gust of wind pushes a line of it down the street like an enormous wet curtain. Drumming. Hissing. Lots of good sound words. It rattles on windowpanes. Taps on umbrellas. Spatters. Splashes. Splooshes, even. Onomatopoeias.
Daryl doesn't know what an onomatopoeia is, but if someone explained it to him he would appreciate the concept.
All Monday, Merle doesn't leave the apartment, but given that the weather is shitty as hell Daryl can chalk it up to that and not get too annoyed about having absolutely no space or privacy to himself. Merle doesn't even want to go drinking, claims that he hated the place, but Daryl suspects Merle was invited to not come back. Which, okay, there's the other place - which admittedly looks a little too nice for them - and there have to be other places outside town that would work. But Merle doesn't want to go looking for them - preferring to slowly go through can after can of PBR on the terrible couch - and that's fine with Daryl. He hates driving in the rain, especially in a wreck like that pickup.
Merle had a bike, once. Once upon a time in a faraway land. There lived two brothers.
Sitting around doing nothing and watching Merle get high is a known quantity, and it seems like it's just about as good as anything else.
So the rain continues into Tuesday, and on Tuesday morning, just as it's beginning to let up and the sky isn't looking quite so low and dark, Daryl fills the back of the pickup with bags of pig feed and takes the long road out of town toward the Greene farm. Window rolled down, radio on and tuned to a scratchy, distant station playing only 90's alt rock - because for some bizarre fucking reason the tuner is stuck on it and refuses to be moved - and he's got a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and he doesn't even really care about the rain anymore, and he doesn't hate driving in it right now.
It's good just to be out of there. Even with the Gin Blossoms' lead statically singing that he's found out about him.
It's not far but it feels far - not in an entirely bad way - and he's damp by the time he pulls up the long dirt-and-gravel drive. Hershel comes out of the barn to greet him, followed by the boy Daryl had guessed was Beth's brother, and Daryl flicks the butt of the cigarette into the dirt and gets out to help them unload. The dirt is far more mud at this point than anything else, slushy puddles of standing water everywhere, and he knows he's going to be spattered almost up to his knees, but he doesn't care about that either. It's nice to not care, and for once in a way that feels more like freedom than plain apathy.
And it's a nice farm. He's really noticing that for the first time. Something almost postcard about it. Farmhouse in good repair but showing just the right amount of age, equally old barn and silo, large yard with thick-trunked old trees, distant outbuildings, wide fields. He guesses it's a lot to work for just a family with two kids - three, remembering the big sister in college - but probably Greene takes on hands for the busiest parts of the year.
He thinks in a very idle way about autumn rapidly oncoming. But of course he'll be gone by then.
They finish unloading quickly, carrying the stuff into a shed adjacent to the barn, and the boy - Shawn - heads up to the loft to pitch hay down to the horses. Greene comes up to him and holds out a few bills with a nod and something that isn't quite a smile, and then the whole business is concluded and Daryl realizes that he's going to have to go back to town and get back to far less enjoyable things.
Well. Maybe he can take his time driving back there. Take a detour. A longer way. The main road is straight and direct but there are side roads too.
He's walking back to the truck, drenched now and still not caring - though his clothes will start getting uncomfortable before long - when she comes out onto the porch, dressed in a loose blue top and ratty jeans and old cowboy boots, her hair pulled back. Like before, only messier. He stops with his hand on the open door and looks at her, and she gives him a little wave - like that night. Her in the moonlight, dodging puddles, still wet and smiling and pretty.
So he gives her a nod.
She seems as heedless of the wet as he was when she comes down the porch steps and out into the rain - because at this point maybe people just don't care so much about wetness as pervasive as this has become. Greene is heading back toward the house and she catches his arm, bends her head up close to his and says something. Even at a distance Daryl catches sight of the dubious expression that crosses his face, the way his gaze flicks up to the truck, to Daryl, but finally he nods, a little tight-lipped, and it occurs to Daryl that although she had been worried about Daddy killing her, this is a Daddy's Girl, and she probably knows how - even in a very gentle way - to get a lot of what she wants out of him.
She didn't strike him as manipulative. Not at all. Though admittedly he hadn't talked to her very long. But she also struck him as someone likely to stand her ground with certain things, and also as someone who can be convincing when she wants to be.
So she's coming toward the truck, pushing wet hair out of her face, giving him a little smile. "You goin' back into town?"
He shrugs, and she cocks her head, her smile slightly more amused. "That a yes?"
He grunts. He doesn't feel bad about the direction in which things are going, but this is also unexpected, and he doesn't feel especially talkative. "Yeah."
"Can I come with you?"
He arches a brow. "Why?"
"'Cause I wanna go into town? Can't take the truck, Shawn's gonna need it."
Daryl looks up and past her. Greene is standing on the porch, leaning on the railing and watching the two of them. Watching him. Not with any particular suspicion, but watching him, and Daryl supposes that's appropriate, because here's a man clearly well into his thirties - closer to the end of them if he's honest - being asked to give his teenage daughter a lift.
He'd probably be watching pretty closely too, if it was him.
So he looks back at Beth and shrugs again. No reason not to, he guesses. It's not that far. "Alright." He nods to the passenger's side. "Get in."
She does, settles herself, and as he turns the truck around and starts back down the drive she reaches behind the seat and finds the rag she used before, pats at her hair.
Daryl glances at her as she does. She's wearing little flower earrings. Gold heart on a chain around her neck. A small collection of beaded bangles on her left wrist. He's not sure why he notices these things, but he does, and he files them away.
Little bit of quiet. The radio is now playing the Goo Goo Dolls. Put your arms around me, what you feel is what you are and what you are is beautiful.
"What's in town?"
"Nothin'. Just wanted to get outta there for a while."
Something hits him. She's got to be in high school still. "Why ain't you in school?"
She gives him an are you kidding me look. "'Cause it didn't start yet. Won't for another couple weeks."
He huffs a laugh. Wonders if he should make conversation, which he sucks at. He wonders why he feels the need to do so at all. "What year you goin' into?"
He wonders why he feels the need to ask that.
"Senior." She sighs, sighs like there might be something behind that answer. Something not exactly positive. This is mostly incomprehensible to him; this isn't part of his experience. He doesn't know what might be behind a sigh like that, for a girl going into her senior year of high school.
He never made it that far. Never made it past freshman. Barely got even that much.
"You don't sound so excited."
She shoots him another look. "You ever get excited about school?"
"Nah." Not going into more than that. He's not prepared for that conversation. Not prepared for that particular can of half-rotten worms. He thinks back to the other night, thinks about how he didn't want to talk about Merle, how he didn't want to tell her about any of that and his reasons for it, and he wonders what exactly is happening here.
She leans back in the seat, looking out the window. He lights up another cigarette, rolls the window down, and this time the look she gives him is faintly exasperated. "Can you not?"
"You wanna jump out?" He gives her a tiny crooked smile. "I can slow down to, like, ten miles an hour. You roll when you hit, you probably be okay."
She laughs, a soft, vaguely sardonic little sound, and rolls down her own window, letting rain mist onto her face, making her skin glisten just a bit. The rain has let up for the moment but he knows it won't last. "Whatever."
The Goo Goo Dolls have been replaced by Pearl Jam. Now and then Daryl wonders what a station like this is doing out here in rural Georgia and then he decides he's not in the business of questioning things. That's probably not a good road to go down. The world doesn't make sense. It never has.
The rest of the drive is pretty much in silence. He pulls onto Main Street, and by then the rain is heavier, and cars - the few out there right now - are moving slow but still crashing through puddles and now and then making people on the sidewalk jump back and glare.
"Where you want me to drop you?"
"Up here." The coffee shop, he sees. The non-chain one. He slows, starts to pull to the curb, and just then she touches his arm. He almost jumps, just like last time. He's never been entirely comfortable with being touched, and especially not now. Not her. He sort of wishes she wouldn't.
"Come in with me."
He looks at her like he's sure he didn't hear her right. "Huh?"
"C'mon." She rolls a shoulder, smiles a little. "You drove me, let me buy you a coffee or somethin'. You gotta be back there now?"
He doesn't. Or he thinks he can get away with it. Get away with it. That's a very odd way to think about this. He looks at the coffee shop - the less than skilled stenciling, the chalked sign out front promising free bagels with any drink order from eight to eleven. Not many people inside. Dry. But he's a mess. He's muddy, hair hanging in his face, and his clothes are not in good shape.
But she's kind of a mess too, and she doesn't seem to care about either of them.
Hey, free coffee.
"Alright." He cuts off the engine and starts to open the door, then stops and looks back at her, that crooked smile involuntary and persistent. "You're kinda fuckin' weird, girl."
"I know." Her own smile is positively sunny as she opens her own door and hops out onto the pavement. For a few seconds he watches her move with that same slightly gawky grace he remembers from that night.
Then he follows her inside.