Father and Son (11 page)

There was much speculation among the spectators, it was a robbery, it was a crime of passion or a crime of drink, the dogs had been killed first, the dogs had been killed last. They could see the window shot out so most figured it was a shootout.

The sun rose higher and those onlookers with enough sense to stay out of the way moved back into the shade of the loblollies to view the proceedings from the relative cool of that vantage point, where they were comfortable with their cigarettes and the occasional snuck slurp of a saved-over beer retrieved from the melting ice of their coolers.

The deputies moved in and out of the building with bags of equipment and cameras and wheeled gurneys and as they worked their militarily
pressed tan wool shirts sported dark wet circles beneath their armpits and across the center of their backs. The sheriff stayed inside.

When the investigation was complete, when the photographs had all been taken and the shotgun shells gathered and all the evidence dusted for fingerprints, there was a general huddle of licensed officials near the front door and the first body was brought out. It was wrapped in white sheets like a body prepared for burial at sea and they did tilt it slightly bringing it off the porch into the full glare of the sun so that the large patches of blood were very bright and wet with a kind of patina showing as they carried it across the yard to the opened door of one of the waiting hearses. The spectators noted that that one went to the white funeral home. All hands returned to the bar. They stayed inside so long it was openly speculated that the law might be having a cold one themselves.

The second body was brought out much like the first with the exception that all the bloodstains were concentrated on what was left of the head. The black embalmers received this one in their hearse. For a while the deputies stood around. Then they went back in.

The last victim was not brought out on a gurney. He was carried in a cardboard box that had formerly housed twelve fifths of Austin Nichols Wild Turkey, 101 proof. This small and hairy primate was placed on the backseat of the sheriff's car and the driver of that vehicle finally emerged dressed in a white sport coat with a brown fedora, leading an aged black man in handcuffs by the cloth of his sleeve. He was placed in the backseat and the doors closed upon him.

The procession pulled out, lights winking, radios squawking, and it wended its way out of the yard and around the curve and up the road toward the highway, toward the distant whine of the trucks on the bridge that spanned the Potlockney River, the final destination of the little tailless gnome that lay stiff on the floorboard of the sheriff's car, and that could not speak for the innocent either.

It was still hot in the kitchen and Jewel put the dinner dishes in the sink to wash later. She hadn't slept well after Glen left and four o'clock in the morning found her at the stove in her robe, frying chicken. What remained of it was lying on a plate now over a cold burner. She set a few glasses in the soapy water and looked out the window to check again on David. He was in the swing that Virgil had hung for him and his cat was sitting there as usual, watching him. She ran some more hot water over the dishes and filled her glass with iced tea again. Sometimes there was a breeze out on the back porch and she thought she'd go sit there for a while. She needed to talk to Glen and she needed to talk to him soon.

There was a little clump of trees in the backyard near the fence, an old picnic table back there, a mildewed hammock hung from two of the trees. The yard was small and neat with flowers and a vegetable garden, tomatoes, some corn, a few clean rows of purple hull peas. She chopped the grass on weekends in her swimming suit, barefooted, dust coating her red toenails.

She sat down in a rocker that had been her mother's. Some sweat had beaded at her temples and she mopped at it with the back of her hand and eased back into the chair, rocking a little, watching her son.

“You want some Kool-Aid?” she said.

“No ma'am,” he called, and kept swinging.

She thought about all those people watching yesterday, knowing about Glen, knowing about David. She hated that she'd cried.

She had on a pair of short shorts and she raised her feet and propped them on a post, pushing herself back and forth slowly with her toes. A breeze blew gently, cooling her.

“You have to take your nap after while,” she said.

“I know it.” He was like a metronome, never varying his speed, endlessly rising and falling, in and out of the shade.

She sat there in the breeze, listening for traffic on the road. Once in a while a car would come by and then wind out of hearing. After he played in the yard with the cat following him she told him that if he'd go on and take his nap she'd fill the little plastic pool for him and he could play in it when he got up. He was an obedient child and he went without arguing, inside the house through the screen door. She heard him pull a chair up to the sink and fill a glass with water and she could see him in her mind, standing there on the chair, drinking it, silent, his hair plastered down on the back of his neck. Ten minutes later she checked on him and he was curled up on the bed, the fuzzy tiger beside him, the breeze blowing the curtains out. She went back to the porch.

She kept on rocking, looking at her watch every few minutes. After a while she went into her bedroom and pulled her clothes off slowly and put on the swimming suit.

The hoe was hanging from a tree limb and she got it down and went into the garden, chopping at the grass that was coming up around the corn, turning the dry dirt over and wishing it would rain. She hoed for thirty minutes and then went inside and pulled the suit off and knelt naked by the tub, drawing it full of warm water and then stretching out
with her toes sticking out over the front of the tub and her head propped on the rim, her hair hanging down outside it. Thinking about last night. She didn't get to say any of the things she'd meant to. It all happened so fast and then he was gone. He'd barely looked at David. He didn't even say when he'd be back or if he would be. She didn't know what to do now. It looked like nothing had changed except that he was home again. Things couldn't keep going the way they were. She drew a deep breath and sighed. She stared at the tile on the wall. A car slowed on the road, pulled in, stopped. She got up and grabbed a towel as she looked out the window but it wasn't Glen. It was Bobby.

She shut the bathroom door and dried herself rapidly, stepping into her panties and shorts and fastening the top half of the swimming suit around her. When she heard his boots on the porch she reached for the doorknob and slipped on the wet floor, just barely catching herself on the knob and the edge of the sink.

“Shit,” she said. She'd jammed her toe into the bottom of the door. He was knocking. She hobbled out through the living room, limping past the toys that were scattered on the rug. He was standing back a little from the door and he'd taken his hat off. He still had his uniform on.

With one finger to her lips she pushed open the screen door and let him in.

“David's asleep. Let's go out on the back porch.”

“What'd you do to your foot?” he said, following her, his heavy frame making a loose board creak.

“I slipped down in the bathroom. I was in the tub when you pulled up.”

She saw him glance at the chicken on the stove as he was coming through.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“Naw, but don't worry about me. I'll go over to the house after while.”

She pushed him out the door and told him to sit down and she'd fix him a plate.

“Don't fix me nothin to eat. I just stopped by.”

“Go on and sit down. You want tea or milk?”

“Milk.”

She got a plate from the safe and put three pieces of chicken on it. There was potato salad in the Frigidaire and she scooped a round clump of it and put it next to the chicken. Plump red tomatoes were on the windowsill and she peeled one over the garbage can with her little paring knife. Three thick red slices slid onto the plate from her dripping fingers. She poured a big glass of milk and salted the tomatoes lightly, then got him a fork and a cloth napkin and pushed the door open with her hip. He was sitting in the rocker next to hers, smoking a cigarette and watching her with his calm brown eyes. He stubbed the fire from his cigarette on the post and dropped the dead butt in his shirt pocket.

“We ate all the rolls,” she said. “I can get you a piece of loaf bread.” She bent over and set the plate in his lap and saw him trying not to look at her breasts and that made her smile a little smile.

“This is fine,” he said, reddening a bit. “You didn't have to go to all this trouble.”

She handed him the milk and slid the other rocker back a bit and went inside for her cigarettes. When she came out he was chewing a mouthful of chicken and cutting the tomatoes with his fork.

She sat down with her knees together, holding her elbows with opposite hands and leaning forward to watch him eat.

“You go to church?” he said.

“Yeah. I saw your mama. She said you never did come home last night. You have some trouble?”

He nodded with a full mouth, looking out across the yard while he
chewed. He reached for the milk and took a big drink and mopped at his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Yeah. I wish I'd been in church stead of where I was.” He held the plate balanced on his knees and forked up some of the potato salad.

“Was it bad?”

“Bad enough. Sure is some good chicken.”

She leaned back in her chair and lit one of her cigarettes. She pulled her feet up underneath her.

“Don't you get tired of it?”

He leaned back too. He was still sweating. The radio said something in the car out front, some man talking in static.

“Is that for you?”

“Naw. I checked out for a while.” He paused. “Of course I get tired of it.”

“That sure was bad about that little boy that drowned.”

“It's been a bad weekend all around,” he said.

The bones were piling up on his plate and she stepped inside for the milk carton and came back out with it to pour him another glass. He nodded his thanks and kept on eating. She went back in and put the milk up. He'd just about cleaned his plate when she came back out and she stood waiting for him to finish. When he did she took the plate and the napkin and carried them inside.

He'd stretched his legs out and was smoking another cigarette when she sat down beside him again. She hugged her knees and watched him.

“I didn't know whether to come by,” he said. “I saw him yesterday.” He wouldn't look at her much. She raised her head and put her chin on her knee and watched the breeze in the trees.

“I guess he's been over,” he said finally.

“You knew he would be.”

She looked at him and saw what that had done to him. She almost got
up and went to him, but the look on his face stopped her. He drew on his cigarette and picked up his hat. “Well? What did he say?”

“Not much.”

“Did you think he would?”

“All I know is I told him I'd wait for him three years ago. And I waited.”

He seemed to be gathering himself for something. His whole body was braced in the chair and somehow she could see him pulling up strength from deep inside himself in the way he looked at her, like a dog that had been whipped but still refused to yield. His eyes were shining and he spoke softly.

“I can give you and David a good life. I didn't drive by here last night. I wanted to. I figured I owed you one chance to get things settled with him. But I can't … I won't live like this.”

He put his hat on and then he stood up. She still had her chin on her knees when he bent over to kiss her cheek. She turned her lips to him too late and he didn't wait. He went down the steps and stopped for just a moment there in the yard between the little pecan trees they'd planted that spring. A car went down the road slowly out front. She listened but he didn't.

“I enjoyed my dinner. You can call me when you make up your mind.”

Then he went across the yard and around the corner of the house. There was a tiny noise behind her and she looked around still sitting in the chair. David was standing inside the kitchen watching her through the screen door. He wanted to know if that was his daddy and she told him it wasn't.

There was a scanner hung beneath the radio in his cruiser and he was getting some traffic from the highway patrol and some more from another county, he thought maybe Stone. He hadn't been listening that close and he couldn't tell what they had going on. He didn't really care either. There was plenty for him to worry about in his own county and it seemed like it got worse all the time. Always somebody fucking up. He knew he needed a vacation but he didn't know when he'd ever get the time to take one.

It was still hot and he had all the windows down and his hat was on the seat again. It would have been nice to stay over at Jewel's for a while. Sit there and talk. He guessed he should have just kept his mouth shut. But he couldn't stand not knowing.

There was probably a crowd of people up at Dorris Baker's house but he thought he ought to swing by there, just let them know he was thinking about them. There were some bad days ahead. He picked up the radio mike and told Harold where he was going. Harold said that was a ten-four and the radio was silent again. The scanner kept chattering. There was a bad wreck on 30 East about four miles out of New Albany. They were calling for an ambulance and a wrecker. He turned the volume down on the scanner and lit another cigarette.

It wasn't like they could just run him off. Keep some more things from happening. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that Ed Hall was going to try something sometime. Maybe he needed to go and have a little talk with him, too. Some people you couldn't tell about. Ed went to church and coached Little League and all that good shit, but that didn't mean he might not load up his 30-30 one day and go find Glen and stick the muzzle in his ear. It wouldn't bring his little boy back but it would probably make him feel a hell of a lot better, at least until they sent him to the same place Glen had just come out of.