“Yes.”
She looked down at the floor.
“I knew that was going to happen,” she said. “Don't you care what people think?”
The anger came quickly and he was surprised at the level of it. He
wasn't going to hurt her if he could help it. Their fights had been few, but when they came they had always been bad. So he tried to head it off.
“Tell you what, Mama. I'm gonna drink this coffee and take a shower and shave and I'll get me some breakfast in town. I got a lot to do today and I don't want to start my day off having an argument with you. So let's just be nice, and I'll sit here and drink my coffee, and I'll be out of here in about twenty minutes. We can talk about it tonight if you want to.”
He lowered his face and took a sip of his coffee. It was rich and hot and sweet. He hoped she'd hush. All she had to do was behave.
“That girl,” she said, and he held up one hand.
“Hold it. Don't say nothing about her.”
“That boy's not yours. He's Glen's and you know it. What are you gonna do, marry her?”
She was looking at him with eyes he hadn't seen before, and she took a few steps toward him.
“If she'll have me I'm going to. This has gone on long enough.”
“What about the way she ran wild with him for years? Do you think people are just going to forget about that? Don't you want to get elected again? Don't you care anything about your career?”
“This ain't the only job in the world. I can raise cows. Or drive nails if I have to.”
“Drive nails? You're the sheriff. Did you work this hard to give it all up?”
She came closer to the table and he forgot about his coffee and set it down.
“Listen, Mama,” he said. “I grew up without a daddy. David ain't going to.”
He saw the tears well up in her eyes and it was too late to take it back. But he would have given almost anything not to have said it. She put one hand up to her face and covered it. She looked old and small and weak.
He started to get up and put his arms around her, but she took the hand away from her face and came closer to the table.
“Why do you think it's up to you to marry her? Why don't you ask yourself why Glen never married her?”
“Because he's sorry, Mama.”
He looked down at the table for a moment. He had to make her see, and he looked back up into her eyes.
“I don't give a damn about what happened before,” he said. “She made some mistakes, yeah. She was young. I was too at one time. It don't mean people can't change and straighten up their lives.”
She leaned over the table to him like some wraith descending upon him and her eyes were filled not with anger but with worry, the faded blue of them searching over his face in something like awe.
“What if you marry her and he starts coming around again? What will you do then?”
“That ain't gonna happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I ain't gonna let it.”
She straightened up and rubbed her hands along her arms. The light was coming through the window and she turned to look at it as she moved away from the table. She went to stand at the sink, still hugging herself. Some birds were singing out there in the wet leaves.
“Wild,” she said. “I know about that. I was always crazy about Virgil. But my father didn't like him. Wouldn't let him come around. So I had to see him in other places. Sometimes I slipped out. There was a place we'd meet when they thought I was asleep.”
“I think I'd just as soon not hear this,” he said. He reached to pick up his coffee but his hand was shaking. He spilled some trying to take a sip. He looked at her and could see the gray strands in her hair. He could imagine what she looked like in her youth and he knew that had to be a
hard thing for her to turn loose of, like everybody had to one day. He could remember her face leaning into him when he was a child and she held his chin in her hand and combed his hair and how young and pretty her face was in that dim memory. He imagined her the way that Virgil had first seen her.
“You never know what the future's going to bring,” she said. “I just don't want to see you hurt. I'm sure she's a nice girl.”
She turned around to him and he sat silent in the chair watching her. She wiped at the wetness on her cheeks with the backs of her fingers.
“Look at me,” she said. “Like I'm the one to try and give you any advice.”
“It's okay, Mama. Everything's going to be all right. You'll see.”
“Have you asked her yet?”
“Not yet. I don't know what she'll say yet. And I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well,” she said in a low voice. “I hope everything will be okay. I just want what's best for you.”
And then her voice broke and she came to him. He got out of the chair and put his arms around her and he hugged her tight. She was so small under his arms. She cried a little more and then she quit. He turned loose of her and watched her face.
“You going to be okay?”
“Of course I will. I'm sorry for acting like that. I just want you to be happy.”
“Just give me a little time. I've got to work things out with Jewel. And probably Glen, too.”
She took a step away and turned halfway to the window, rubbing one hand with the other.
“Glen's what I'm worried about. The whole time he was in school he always looked at me like he hated me. I guess he does.” She glanced back
at him, and to him she looked scared. “Be careful with him. You don't know what he might do.”
“I'll worry about that later,” he said. “I got to get on to work. There's something I've got to do today.”
“What?”
He picked up his hat and put on his gun and took a last sip from the coffee on the table.
“I'll tell you tonight,” he said.
Puppy was sitting on a five-gallon bucket he had turned over and he was taking a starter apart with a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench while having his morning coffee. Engine blocks and hubcaps and the crushed fenders of cars and trucks lay about him. A hoist for hauling up motors hung from a limb on a big tree in the yard. He was trying to get the bendix off and put a new one on and his tennis shoes were wet from the dew.
He dropped the screwdriver in his lap, picked up his coffee, and eyed the road. He had to get his sign out there today so that people would know he was open for business again. In a way he was glad. He liked working for himself and setting his own hours.
He looked toward the trailer and wondered if she was awake yet. Sometimes she didn't get up until nine or ten, depending on when the television woke her. He sipped his coffee and noticed that it was getting a little cold in the cup, so he thought he'd ease back inside and see if she was awake.
He put his tools and the starter on the ground on a rag and got up and walked to the steps, concrete blocks stacked against the sill of the door. He'd been meaning to build a front porch but there was always too much to do. He didn't look at Virgil's car as he went past it. It was just another
reminder of things that needed to be done. He knew his daddy needed his car. Some days he just couldn't seem to get going. But now that he had all this time maybe he could get around to it. His daddy didn't need to walk everywhere with that bad leg. It probably wouldn't take him over half a day to fix it.
There was a screen door but the screen was gone from the frame. It rattled when he pulled it open, banged against his knee shutting as he went in. The living room floor was littered with clothes and empty potato chip bags. He set the coffee cup on the counter and went down the hall toward the bedrooms. It was already hot in the trailer. He stopped at the door to the boys' room and looked in. Walt and Johnny were piled up in the bed in a tangle of arms and legs, sleeping soundly. He eased the door shut and went to the next room. Henrietta was under the covers, just her head sticking out. He pulled her door closed, too. He smiled a little and tiptoed back to his own bedroom, shut that door as well, turned the knob, and locked it.
Trudy was a solid lump of sleeping womanhood, her mouth slightly open. She was snoring lightly and the trick was not to wake her suddenly. He took off his cap and laid it on top of the dresser, removed his shirt, slipped off his tennis shoes, and took off his pants. He was not wearing any underwear since he had risen early with this deed in mind and he lowered himself down on the bed next to her and began to slide himself under the covers. She was right in the middle of the bed and he got up next to her. Mornings were about the only chance he got, and sometimes he got lucky. But she was sleeping heavily and didn't respond to his quiet and subtle insinuations. He laid his head back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling. Then he turned over on his side and watched her. One hand crept out and touched the rounded haunch of her tremendous ass. She had on her panties. Her nightgown had bunched up around her waist. He lifted the covers and peered at her breasts. White watermelons.
He felt himself stiffening. He reached down and got it, slid closer to her, rubbed it along her leg. She didn't notice. She didn't do anything until he put his tongue in her ear. Then she reared up wildly, turned over, flopped down with her back to him. Her snoring filled the quiet little room. He knew those kids were going to wake up any minute and start hollering for their breakfast. He hadn't thought to set out the cereal and the bowls and the spoons when he came through.
He listened, but there was no sound from the hall. He wormed his way deeper under the covers, as close to her as he could get. His hand went slowly over her ribs and tried to find one of her nipples beneath the weight of her arm. All that skin made it hard to find. His fingers roamed over the expanse of flesh, soft, warm, slightly damp. His straining member poking straight into the crack of her ass. He began to try and work her panties down and her voice came out disembodied, quietly vicious through her clenched teeth: “What the goddamn hell you think you're doin?”
He stopped. It was important to give the right answer.
“You just look so good I can't help it,” he said. “Why don't you roll over?”
“Why don't you get to work you lazy son of a bitch?”
And she pulled the covers up over her head.
“Hell, I done got started. Just thought I'd come in here and take a little break. The kids are all asleep. I done checked. They won't hear us.”
She didn't answer. Was she agreeing to it or thinking it over? He thought she might have gone back to sleep. He reached out for her again.
“Quit it,” she said.
He stopped where he was. He hated to give up this soon. But if he pissed her off she might stay that way for three or four days.
“You sure?” he said. She didn't answer. In a little while she started snoring again. He rolled over onto his back and studied the ceiling again.
He gave out a long plaintive sigh, a gasp of air filled with anguish for what could have been. He closed his eyes to try and remember how it used to be. And after a while he got up and put his clothes back on.
He was up under the truck putting the bolts back into the starter when he heard somebody pull up. A door slammed and he turned his head and saw two feet coming toward him.
“Be out in a minute,” he said. There was a noise beside him and he looked over to see Glen down on one knee with his head sideways watching him.
“What in the hell are you doing up this early?” Puppy said, and kept turning the ratchet handle.
“Shit. I ain't been to bed.”
“Where'd you get all that mud on you?”
“It's a long story. You got any coffee made?”
“Yeah. It's in there in the kitchen. Go on in and help yourself. I got to finish this and get these wires on. They's some cups in the cabinet.”
“Thanks.”
Glen got up from the dirt and Puppy heard him open the screen door, go inside. The door flopped shut behind him. Puppy got the bolts tightened, then put the wires over the posts and picked up a small nut and a washer from where he'd laid them on top of the idler arm and threaded them on. He got them hand-tight, then slipped the little wrench from his shirt pocket and tightened them down. He wormed his way out from under the truck and stood up, opened the door, sat down behind the wheel, and reached for the keys. But then he remembered that the battery cables were still off and he got back out and leaned under the open hood and put them back on, tightened them. Then he got back behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine coughed over and cranked, and he sat there revving it. He saw Glen come back out holding a cup of
steaming coffee and blowing on it. He shut off the truck and got out, slammed the hood, and picked up his wrenches from the ground.
“Let's go set in the shop,” he said, and went over and pulled the doors open. There were a couple of wrecked chairs in there on the greasy sand and he lowered himself into one and lit a cigarette. He watched his brother come in, look around, take the other chair. The shop was half filled with parts and junk, old bed frames, a broken television, half of an old Ford pickup. Glen crossed his legs and sipped on the coffee. He had mud in his hair, mud on his shirt and pants. Puppy eyed him critically.
“What'd you do, get in another fight?”
“Naw. Got drunk was all. Some old girl picked me up down at Wallace's. I don't remember much of it.”
“You got a job yet?”
“Not yet.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I don't know. I got to do something. How come you ain't at work?”
Puppy looked out across the road. “I don't work there no more.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday. I don't guess you've been to see Daddy, huh?”
“Not in a couple of days.”
“What you been doing?”
“Hell. Nothin. Went fishin yesterday.”
“Fishin?”
“Yeah.”
“When you gonna get out and look for a job?”