The Rabbit Factory: A Novel (29 page)
Read The Rabbit Factory: A Novel Online
Authors: Larry Brown
E
ric didn’t even hear the Jag pull up to the curb outside but it wasn’t because he was asleep. It was partly probably because the Jag had such a good muffler, but it was also partly because he was concentrating on a movie. He was on his second glass of scotch and he’d opened another pack of cigarettes from his car and Jada Pinkett was asleep under the coffee table. Mister Arthur had slipped in his sleep down deeper into the couch earlier and Eric had gone over quietly and lifted his legs up onto the couch and had taken his house shoes off and then wandered into another room and found a folded comforter that he brought back and spread over him. Carefully he’d removed his glasses and put them on the coffee table. Mister Arthur had turned in his sleep and put his face to the back of the couch. Now he was snoring and the only light was from the enormous television screen, and Eric was watching
Shane,
with wonderful sound quality and digital enhancement that you had to actually see to believe. It was one of his favorites. It had been made before Eric was born and it had everything. It had good guys, it had bad guys, it had a kid, the kid had a dog, it had a hardworking man and his hardworking wife, it had the new little guys trying to carve out pieces of land they could homestead being pitted against the big old guys who were trying to hold on to all of it for themselves. It had gunfights, and drinking, and fistfights, and thunder, and everybody was still pissed off about the Civil War, and a small man in buckskin who’d seen enough of gunslinging and only wanted peace showed up one day, but wound up having to unlimber his fists and duke it out with Ben Johnson because Ben Johnson got to calling him Sody Pop in the saloon, and he eventually had to strap on his gun one more time because hot lead was the only thing some people understood. And the kid, the young Brandon de Wilde, running after him down the dusty road, almost at the end, yelling for him to come back. And it was almost to that part now. Alan Ladd had already outpulled two-gun Walter Jack Palance in Grafton’s saloon, had blown him into a bunch of wooden beer barrels, and he’d gone down shooting through a cloud of smoke. Alan Ladd had twirled his gun, and spun it back into the nicely tooled holster, and the kid had seen everything from the bottom of the bat-wing doors. But upstairs a board had creaked, and the kid had yelled for Shane to look
out!,
and he had spun, and fired, killing
the guy with the gun at the rail upstairs, who shot and crashed down to the floor, but he might have hit Shane. It kind of looked like he
did
hit Shane, because Shane flinched and staggered. And now the kid was going to follow him out to the dusty road, and run along after him once he’d mounted his horse and ridden away, yelling for him to come back, and you knew he was hurt, because one arm looked real limp, and he was kind of leaned over sideways in the saddle in the last few frames, and you knew with a sick feeling in your soul that he was probably going to ride over the mountain and die somewhere up there in the black woods all by himself after he’d been such a good dude, and had helped all the new little guys in the valley, but the movie didn’t show that. That was the cool thing about it. The ending was left up to you. And just as Shane was going outside to untie his horse from the hitching rail and tousle little Joey’s hair, and say a few things to him about growing up strong and straight, Eric heard the door opening and turned his head to see Miss Helen standing there.
Fuck.
Talk about bad timing. Now not only was he going to miss the end of
Shane
after investing almost two hours in it, he was going to have to talk to her, and she looked like she was drunk.
She also had what looked like a half gallon of Edy’s Rocky Road ice cream in her hands. For a moment she didn’t say anything. For a moment she just stared at him. Then she came on in and stumbled a little and shut the door and locked it. Turned the dead bolt, too. He wondered why she did that.
He should have already gone, he knew that, but he hadn’t wanted to just go off and leave Mister Arthur there asleep on the couch all fucked up and alone. And plus he’d wanted to watch
Shane
in a warm place with a full belly and have a few drinks. What was wrong with that?
But was it just that? Or was he sitting here this long also because he wanted to see her again, even if he hadn’t gone over to the Peabody to have drinks with her? Could it be that he was still wondering what might have happened? Mister Arthur was asleep. Mister Arthur wasn’t doing her any good evidently. He hated to think that, but it looked like that’s the way it was.
“Hey,” she said quietly, her hair swinging gently as she turned.
He took a drink of his scotch. Then he looked up.
“Hey.” Just as quietly.
She stood there for a moment looking at Arthur on the couch.
“How long’s he been asleep?”
“Hour or two I guess. I was just watching some TV. I probably better go, I guess.”
Arthur moved on the couch and seemed to settle deeper into it.
“You ain’t going nowhere,” she said.
She walked into the kitchen and he saw her open the top section of the refrigerator and put the ice cream in there and then shut it. She turned the light on over the stove. That gave just a little light to the kitchen, but it was still mostly dark. She got something down from a cabinet. A bottle.
“Why don’t you come in here?” she said. “We can talk and he probably won’t wake up. And no big deal if he does.”
Eric stood up, with his drink. He looked down at it for a few seconds, then back up at her. He didn’t know if he needed to be driving or not. He probably didn’t. These Memphis cops were hell on drunk drivers. They’d take your ass to the Shelby County Jail and he knew he didn’t want to go there. But his car was out front. He could get Jada Pinkett up off of the floor and get their quilt out of the trunk and get him on the back seat with him, and curl up, and cover them both up, and sleep until he was okay to drive somewhere for breakfast. Maybe if it would warm up a little tomorrow he could take Jada Pinkett over to Overton Park for a while and let him walk. He was tired of all this. Being in a big city and not having a place to stay. Not having much money. Being cold at night. He wanted to go home. See if his daddy would let him come back. Maybe he would by now. It had been almost three months. But what if he wouldn’t let Jada Pinkett come back? Or what if he still wanted to shoot him?
“I better go,” he said. “It’s done got pretty late.”
“Come on in and sit down,” she said. “I’m fixing myself a drink.”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if sitting around here drinking with her was the thing to do right now. He didn’t want to stick around because he was afraid something might happen. And Mister Arthur was right there.
“Let me fix you another one,” she said.
Eric looked back at Mister Arthur, and glanced at Brandon de Wilde trotting down the road behind Shane, and moved on into the kitchen. Miss Helen was standing there pouring whiskey over ice in a glass. Her lipstick looked smeared and he wondered if she had been kissing somebody. He figured she probably had. Maybe even something else. Maybe it had been somebody she’d met in the Peabody. Or maybe she had some regular guy there she saw. Met there maybe.
He moved up behind her and stopped.
“You all right?” he said quietly.
She turned around to him. She looked tired and she looked pissed off.
“Why didn’t you come?” she said, just as quietly.
He felt helpless to give her an answer. It was too complicated to try and explain it here in the kitchen while he was listening to Mister Arthur snore on the couch. But if he was snoring, he wouldn’t hear.
“Different reasons,” he finally said. “I’m scared of you, I guess.”
She shook her head and walked over to the refrigerator and got a Coke out and opened it, then poured some in on top of the whiskey. Then she picked it up and sipped it and turned back around to him.
“Why are you scared of me, Eric?”
“I don’t know.” He picked up his glass and headed for the refrigerator, and opened the top and reached in for some more ice cubes. He shut the door and picked up the scotch bottle and poured some more in. He lifted the glass and took a drink. She was standing there watching him. He walked back over to her. He stood there in front of her and took another sip.
“You’re about the same age as my mama, for one thing,” he said. And after that he didn’t know what else to say. So he sat back down and just sat there, drinking with her in silence. The silence went on for a while. She put that drink down her throat quickly and then mixed another one. He could tell she had something on her mind. She just stood there drinking and thinking. He really wanted to go now.
“Fuck,” she said, and she started crying. And it seemed just a natural thing when he got up for her to come into his arms. He was still holding his drink but he set it on the table when he saw what was happening, just in time to get both his arms around her. He turned his head and looked back at Mister Arthur. What if he woke up and saw this? But there wasn’t anything he could do. He could feel her face up against his and he could feel the wetness she was smearing on him. She wasn’t crying loudly. It was mostly shaking. He could feel her breasts shaking against him and he didn’t mean to do it but he started getting hard. And before he knew what was happening she had her mouth on his and she was kissing him. She pushed him backward. He felt her at his zipper even while she was pushing him back and in just a few seconds she had pushed him into the den and around the corner where she stopped and reached into his shorts. She leaned her mouth against his throat and he could feel her hot breath against his skin. She pushed him against the wall and started going to her knees and the kid was hollering
Shane! Shane! Come back!,
and when she opened her mouth and put it on him, Eric almost fainted and also because he heard Mister Arthur stirring on the couch and pulled back and fastened his pants together before he could get up and come in there.
“You go first,” she said, and he was terrified. When he stepped around the corner, Mister Arthur was turning over on the couch but he wasn’t getting up. He was just moving around. Now he was still again.
Eric stood there with his heart in his throat and his breathing was only now starting to slow down. What if he’d walked into the den and turned on the light? It felt like the world was sucking a hole in him.
He went back over to the table and made sure his clothes were in order. He looked back at her. She was standing inside the door frame, resting her hand on it. He didn’t know what to do. He needed to get out of here was what he needed to do. Before she had another chance to get him in trouble. Hell, Mister Arthur might have a heart attack if he saw her doing that shit.
“Eric,” she said. He looked up. She was motioning him toward her with her hand, wanting him to come back in there. He knew he didn’t need to stay here. He knew he didn’t need to be in the middle of their problems, which he saw now were pretty bad if she was trying to suck him off with her husband on the couch about twenty feet away.
He walked back over to her and whispered: “I’m scared to.”
Her answer was to put her arm around the back of his neck and pull him close again. She turned him so that she could be facing Mister Arthur on the couch and watch him while she was kissing Eric and he saw what she was doing. And he pulled back again.
“I cain’t do it,” he whispered. “It ain’t right.”
She leaned to his ear and whispered: “Don’t you want me to? Doesn’t that feel good?”
“It feels great,” he whispered. “But it ain’t right.”
And by then Jada Pinkett had already woken up. Eric felt him nuzzling at his hand and he looked down and rubbed his head. Miss Helen saw him, too.
“Shit,” she said, and didn’t bother to whisper. “Hell, fuck it, forget it,” she muttered, and walked past him and back into the kitchen. He just stood there looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say.
“What are you sorry for, Eric?” she said, raising her voice, and she picked up her drink. “Life’s too short to go around being sorry. You’d better get what you want while you’re young. ’Cause you’re only young once.”
She looked up at him and he could see more tears coming down her face. Now he was really sorry he’d stayed. But only because of her. He started to pull out a chair from the table and sit back down, because he was afraid Jada Pinkett was getting on her nerves by walking all around in the kitchen, and he was going to hold on to him or try to get him to lie back down, but she just finished her drink and turned and walked past the couch, and Mister Arthur turned over and sat up.
“Helen?” he said. His hair was twisted up on the side of his head and he reached for his glasses, on the coffee table. She didn’t stop, just kept going, out of sight. She turned on a light that lit up the hall and Eric knew there was a bathroom down that hall because he’d used it last night. Mister Arthur sat up and looked at the television, and then he looked at Eric. He looked kind of bewildered.
“Hey, Mister Arthur,” Eric said. He waved, too.
“Hey, uh…Eric,” Mister Arthur said, and he found his house shoes and slipped them on his feet at the same time the bathroom door slammed very hard. “Is that Helen?” he said.
“Yessir. She just come in.”
“What time is it?”
Eric looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall.
