A Miracle of Catfish (52 page)

He kept sitting there and waiting for the right shot. Two climbed into the tree he was sitting under, but he didn't turn his head to see where they went. Most of them were heading to a big hickory just down the hill and he began to wish he'd sat down closer to it. Or that he'd brought his shotgun. He just hated to shoot it down here since it was so loud. They were pretty tame and he wanted to keep them that way. If you could bring a .22 and kill one or two or three or four and pick them up quietly and then leave quietly, you could come back the next morning and do the same thing. They got wild when you made too much noise and hunted them too hard.

The sun was still twenty minutes away from rising above the woods beyond him when one stuck its head around the side of a white oak in front of him and sat there. He fastened the sights on its head and held his breath and pulled the trigger slowly. The rifle made a faint
spat
no louder than a small stick snapping and the squirrel dropped and fell.
For a moment there was silence. A branch swished and drops of dew fell. He sat there for a few more minutes, until they got to jumping and barking again, and then he got up slowly and walked very quietly over to the base of the white oak and bent over and picked it up. In his black and corded hand he nestled its warm and furry little body. Pink brains drooped in a cluster from one ear. On a fat teat low on its belly a single drop of milk stood beaded like a pearl.

She didn't answer the door on the first knock this time. She didn't rush up the hall wearing a sexy red negligee either. Jimmy's daddy wasn't surprised. Jimmy's daddy had to stand out there and wait. The porch light was off and it was already dark. The days were so much shorter now. Football games on all the time. Pretty soon they'd set the time back and then it would be dark by five o'clock. He had a beer in his hand and he didn't know what the hell he was doing down here again. It wasn't going to help anything. But he just felt like he needed to come see her. He felt like it was the least he could do. And it was so hard to talk to her at the plant. All those people watching. Probably whispering behind their backs.

He'd been working on his '55 earlier in the afternoon, and it was cool enough that he'd worn a long-sleeved flannel shirt. He had on a clean one now. Her car was sitting beside the house, so he guessed she was home. He knocked again. He'd had to put a new belt on his generator and they'd had a hard time finding the proper one at AutoZone, and Rusty had taken off this afternoon, they said, so Jimmy's daddy had walked up and down the aisles and looked at spark plugs and oil filters and floor mats while he was waiting for them to find the belt. And that wasn't a bad thing to have to do. It was good to keep up with all the new products you wished you could afford. He wished he had enough money to buy whatever he wanted, to take one of those yellow plastic baskets at the front door and walk all over the whole store and load it up with Armor All, and GOJO, and STP, and that stuff you used to get bugs and road tar off the bumper, and socket sets, and Turtle Wax, and new windshield wiper blades, and anything else you needed. It didn't look like he was going to be able to afford those Keystone mags from Gateway now. Johnette had been forced to take out another personal loan with her bank to pay for Jimmy's teeth since he was going to need more dental work. And she was talking about maybe taking a part-time job, maybe calling down to Taylor Grocery to see if they needed anybody else to wait
tables on the weekends. He hated for her to have to do that. But it might be for the best. Hell. Health insurance kept going up. Groceries. Everything kept going up except his paycheck.

A car came slowly up the street and Jimmy's daddy hid his beer in front of him in case it was a cop. He was almost broke from having to pay the fine for having beer in a dry county over at New Albany. He'd even been wondering if maybe he needed to sell the '55 and get something else. It always had something going wrong with it and he spent about half his off time working on it. And half his money buying parts for it. They loved seeing him come in up at AutoZone. He'd fixed no telling how many things on it already. It was hard on water pumps for some reason, and the brushes kept wearing out in the generator. And it took a couple of hours to take it off and disassemble it and put new brushes in, and then put it back on, hook the belts back up. It had some kind of electrical problem in it somewhere that caused it to blow fuses pretty often, and sometimes he didn't know what to do to it and could waste a whole afternoon out there in the gravel in front of the trailer messing with it. But he had to have a ride to work every morning. He had to have something he could depend on. He'd noticed that Johnette's little Toyota never gave her a minute's trouble. But he didn't like driving something that came from Japan. It didn't seem American.

He knocked again and he heard something, he couldn't tell what it was. He guessed he needed to get on home after he talked to Lacey for a while. He wanted to see how she was doing. And find out what she was going to do. He'd been thinking about it every day, at work and when he was riding around, and he couldn't see any way around her getting an abortion. It was the only thing that made any sense. It was the only thing that would undo what had been done. Get rid of it. People did it all the time. It wasn't like it was anything new.

Through the curtain he saw her coming down the hall. He lifted his beer and took another sip. He didn't really know what to say to her. He guessed he'd wait and see how it went. He hoped it would go okay, but he was afraid it wouldn't. He was afraid she'd start crying again.

He saw her wipe at her eyes before she opened the door. She swung it back and pushed open the screen door and stood there in a short kimono he'd seen her wear before. It was made from black silk and it had
red dragons on it and he liked the feel of it. There was no doubt that she'd already been crying. Her eyes were red. He stood there waiting.

“Hey,” she said. Sniffled.

“Hey,” Jimmy's daddy said. “How you doing?”

“I'm doing all right,” she said real softly. And: “Come on in.”

“You want a beer?” he said.

“They's still some here,” she said. He caught the screen door with his hand and went on in, and she stood there and waited and then shut the other door behind him. He thought maybe she'd kiss him, but she didn't. She just turned and started back down the hall. Her house was old and huge and she'd told him once that it was almost paid for. He followed her back to the kitchen, watching her sturdy legs. She opened the refrigerator door and turned to him.

“You need anything?” she said.

“I'm good,” he said. He lifted his beer. He started to walk over there and kiss her, but he didn't know if she wanted that or not. It was hard to tell what kind of mood she was in. She reached in for a bottle of orange juice and set it on the table.

“Just let me get me some juice,” she said. “Then we can go in my bedroom and talk. You sure you don't want me to fix you something? I got some good bourbon.”

“Aw yeah?” Jimmy's daddy said. “You got any Coke?”

“I got plenty of Coke,” she said. And then she walked to him with her lower lip quivering and she put her arms around him. He had to set his beer on the table so that he could put his arms around her. He could feel her breasts shaking against him and it caused him to start getting hard. This, too, had been in the back of his mind all the time. For days. At work. Riding the roads. Lying in his bed at night next to Johnette. Twisting on a greasy bolt with his head up under a Towmotor and thinking about John Wayne Payne. […]

“I didn't think you'd come,” she said, and Jimmy's daddy stood there holding her and rubbing her back. She turned her mouth up and kissed him and slipped his cap off. He heard it hit the floor. And then his hands went to her breasts and she started breathing harder and touching him. […] And in just a few minutes they were back in her bedroom with their clothes off fucking their brains out and she was telling him to come,
that it wouldn't hurt anything now, that she wanted to feel him come inside her, that she needed it. Needed
him
. And at that moment, he needed her, too. Or at least he needed whatever she wanted to give him. Maybe for the last time. Much later she put her kimono back on and he put his pants and T-shirt back on and she mixed him a drink in the kitchen. It was a little after ten. Probably time for him to get on. Where was he going to say he'd been this time? It got old, having to think up lies. It was almost more trouble than it was worth. It didn't seem that way before. But it always did after.

From a chair at the kitchen table he watched her tip the bourbon over the ice cubes in the glass. She had those old-timey ice trays made from aluminum, with a handle built in to break the ice loose. She reached for a Coke from the refrigerator, which looked like a pretty new one. She had lots of nice things in her house. She had nice furniture and a nice stereo, and her freezer and refrigerator were always full of good things to eat. She'd made him some spaghetti once, the best he'd ever had. With buttered garlic bread. He'd wanted to ask her if she knew how to make chili but had held off. He'd told her once about his mama and his daddy cooking chitterlings in the kitchen and she said she'd always liked hers fried.

She'd made the drink in a tall water glass and now she brought it to him and set it down beside him. She pushed an ashtray close to him.

“Thanks,” he said, and took a sip from the drink. It was good, too. Just right.

“You want to set in here or go up to the living room?” she said.

“It don't matter to me,” Jimmy's daddy said. He pulled his cigarettes out and lit one. She'd already told him that she hadn't had a drink or a smoke since she'd found out she was pregnant. He didn't know how she could do that, just turn it off. Hell. Didn't she
want
a beer and a smoke? How could she just quit both of them that easy?

He sat there and sipped his drink. He didn't want to go home. He knew what that would be like. But he couldn't just sit here all night long and drink whisky. He had to get himself back to the trailer. Tomorrow was Sunday. One more day and then back to work.

She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. She had tied her hair back with a blue ribbon and she looked like she was over her crying spell.

“You hungry?” she said. “You want me to fix you something to eat?”

“I ain't hungry,” he said. “I just come down to see how you were. You know. How you're feeling.”

“I'm feeling pretty good,” she said. “I went to the doctor and got my due date.”

Jimmy's daddy sipped the drink. Maybe he'd have time for one or two more. It was comfortable here in the kitchen, just him and her. She had flowers in vases. She had a clean and shiny floor. She didn't have dirty clothes lying around all over the place.

She reached out and touched his hand for a moment. Then she pulled it back like maybe she'd done the wrong thing.

“Oh yeah?” Jimmy's daddy said. “When is it?”

“April thirtieth,” she said. She smiled briefly. Then she didn't say anything else. She just looked down at the table.

Now what in the hell was he supposed to say? He had only one question, and she already knew what it was probably.

“What we gonna do?” he said.

He could tell right away that maybe that wasn't the right question. She got up and went to the refrigerator and took out a glass jar of sliced peaches and twisted off the top. She got a spoon and sat back down at the table.

“What you want me to do?” she said. She dipped up one of the peaches and ate it. Then she got up and went to a cookie jar and grabbed a handful of Oreos and a paper towel and came back with them.

“I don't know,” Jimmy's daddy said. He took another drink. He tipped the ashes off his cigarette. “I guess I was kind of wondering what you was gonna do with it.”

“It?” she said.

“I mean the baby,” he said. “I mean …”

“Are you asking me if I'm gonna have it?” She had a look on her face that he hadn't seen before. It wasn't hostile yet, but she looked like she was bracing up for something. He took another drag on his cigarette.

“Well … yeah, I guess so.”

“Did you have some other idea?” she said.

“Holy shit,” he said. “I'm just asking what you're gonna do.”

“I'm not gonna get rid of it if that's what you're asking. Is that what you're asking?” She was still eating the peaches and the Oreos. But she
looked like she was getting mad. Her face was getting a little red, and she was crunching the Oreos kind of fast. Jimmy's daddy sipped his drink.

“I guess so,” he said.

She ate one more of the peaches and then got up and put the lid back on the jar and stuck it back in the refrigerator. Then she turned around to him without closing the refrigerator door.

“I wish I could have a beer,” she said. “You ain't got no idea how bad I'd like to have a beer. And a fucking cigarette too.”

“Well. Shit. Have one,” he said.

“I can't,” she said. “I can't have one cause of the baby. I can't have one for the same reason I can't go have no abortion in Memphis or some goddamnwhere, cause I don't believe in it, okay?”

“Okay,” Jimmy's daddy said quickly. Shit, she was touchy.

“Just get rid of your problem, right?” she said. “I guess that's how some folks handles it. Just kill it.”

“I didn't say that,” Jimmy's daddy said. But he almost had.

“I wasn't raised that way,” she said.

“Okay,” Jimmy's daddy said.

“Is that what you want me to do?” she said. Her voice had choked up and her face was getting red again.

“Do what?” Jimmy's daddy said.

“Get rid of it. Have a abortion.”

“Hell naw, I ain't said that,” Jimmy's daddy said.