Joe (28 page)

The old man was shaking where he lay next to the house, nearly fetal with his clenched hands pillowing his head. The blacks inside had run him out again and now he didn’t know what hour it was or day it had been or even where he lay. He would doze a little as sleep tried to close in on him, but always the fear he had of them kept his eyes opening and blinking him not to go to sleep, not here, where he feared they might cut his throat and lift the few bills he had and put him in the river for the turtles to feast on.

The underside of the house close to where he rested was strewn with broken beer bottles, odd lengths of pipe, here and there money fallen through cracks in the floor. A few feet away lay a dead cat, its bones showing through the rotten hide like yellow tusks. The old man heard feet walking on the wood above. A questioning voice raised a question. An answering voice answered it. An exclamation. Once in a while an angry word. And once in a while the electric strokes of a guitarist choking down a neck with fingers greased by skill, and there were no voices then.

He determined he would make it back inside and see what was
happening. If maybe there was anything to eat. He could see a dark cow in the dark pasture looking at him under the house and swinging her tail. He rolled himself over onto his belly and crawled out from under his hiding place. He had to beat the dirt off his clothes. It bounced out in large brown puffs. He thought there was a piece of a drink left somewhere.

He stumbled around in the back yard, which was littered with spare tires, grass grown up through the lug-bolt holes, with rotted wooden barrels sawn in half that had once held flowers. The back porch was of rough sawmill lumber and it leaned to the left. Screened in with rusty wire, patched with cotton thread. He lurched toward it feebly in the night. The cow raised her head and shook her horns, a gesture not lost on him. He’d already noted that the dogs didn’t like him worth a damn.

There was his glass, left where he’d put it on the bottom step. He knelt and drank from it.

The lights were on low and now there were no unfriendly growls to make a man nervous. They had a movie going on the TV and VCR but the sound was low, too. It was warm and cozy and the girls were showing plenty of leg. Joe had the one named Debi in the corner, talking to her. Gary was alone in another chair in the corner, eyes shifting, drinking a tenth beer. It was four a.m.

Joe leaned over and poured another little shot of whiskey into her glass. “How late y’all stay open?” he said, then leaned over and kissed her again. She was a little chubby but marvelously assembled, no dog you couldn’t take home to Mama. Her hair was blond on one side and brown on the other, just the reverse between her legs.

“Never past daylight. When me and you going back?”

“Hell, I can’t do you no good.”

“Since when?”

“Hell, I’m about too old to fuck. I wouldn’t never get my money’s worth.”

“I’ll give you your money’s worth, baby.”

She leaned around him and looked across the room. “How’s your friend doing?”

“I think he’s sobered up now. Goddamn, we been a long way today. He helped me find my dog.”

She looked at him with a half smile.

“I’m surprised you even over here. You seen Duncan?”

“Naw, I ain’t seen him. Why, he lookin for me?”

“I don’t figure he is,” she said.

He looked at the boy and saw him pretending to watch the movie, but saw each time he lifted the bottle to his lips the quick darting movement of his eyes toward the girls giggling and whispering on the couch. Three of them in their underwear, two fat, one skinny. Joe leaned toward the one he had his arm around.

“How’d you like to do me a favor?”

She smiled and gave him a kiss. “Sure.”

He pointed with his drink.

“Break that boy in there.”

She looked at the boy and then looked back at Joe. There was an amused little grin on her lips.

“Him?”

“Hell, he ain’t never had none.”

“How you know?”

Joe shook the ice in his glass and drank off the half inch of liquid that was there and sat up. He ran his fingers through his hair.

“Shit. I need to get my ass up and go on home. What time is it?”

“Little after four.”

“A little after four.”

“Yeah.”

He set his glass on a table and leaned back on the couch. “Y’all got time to make it before daylight. Hell, it won’t take him but a minute.”

“How you know how long it’ll take him?”

“Cause. I remember when I was fifteen. Go on and take him back.”

She looked at the boy and shook her head doubtfully.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He looks mighty young. You sure he’s fifteen?”

He reached in his pocket for a wad of money and peeled off a fifty and handed it to her. “Here,” he said. “I need to get him home before daylight.”

She looked at the money for a second, looked at the boy, then put the money in a little purse that was hanging on her wrist.

“Well, hell,” she said. “What’s his name again?”

“Gary.”

She seemed to resign herself to it. “Gary. All right.”

She got up and smoothed her chemise and her stockings and put her cigarette out. Joe saw the boy watching her. His face kept lifting as she got closer until finally she was standing over him and he was looking up at her. She put one hand on her hip and said something to him. He nodded and said something back. She sat on the arm of his chair and crossed her legs. Joe smiled to see that the boy couldn’t take his eyes off her. She talked to him for a while and the boy kept nodding. She reached out and took his hand and pulled him up out of the chair. She started leading him out of the room, and he looked back at the bossman, his face terror-stricken,
mute yet pleading, maybe for some words of instruction, explanation, until she pulled him out of sight.

He went down the hall with her tugging on his hand and followed her into a room with a parachute tacked to the ceiling. There was a lamp in the room and a bed and a chair and a bowl of water on the floor. The covers on the bed were rumpled, the pillows lumped together. She pushed him down on the bed and he sat there looking at her with wild eyes.

“You ain’t never done this before, have you?” she said.

“Done what?”

She bent over him and he looked into the deep cleavage she had.

“This.” Her mouth came down on his and then quickly pulled away. “Damn.”

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Your breath is awful. Do you not ever brush your teeth?”

“Naw.”

“Well, you need to.”

He just looked at her. She opened a door at the back of the room and light spilled out over him. He rose up a little. He could see a mirror and a sink, and towels hanging from rings on the wall. She stepped into the room and started running the water, looking through drawers.

“Come in here,” she said.

He got up and set his beer down and staggered into the bathroom. She held up a blue implement that was foreign to him, made of plastic and with white bristles. From a tube she squeezed a white paste onto it.

“Here,” she said, and held it out to him. “Do me a favor and brush your teeth. I got some mouthwash, too. I ain’t gonna fuck you if I can’t even kiss you.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“You supposed to brush your teeth with it.”

“Well, how you do it?”

She glared at him. “Shit, do you not know nothin? Here.”

She showed him. He stood beside the sink with her, marveling at the foam that built over her lips. She turned the tap on and bent her head under the faucet and finally spat clear water into the sink and turned it off.

“Now here. I ain’t got no germs, I don’t reckon. I thought everybody knew how to brush their teeth. Where you been all your life?”

“Just around,” he said.

“I’ll be in here when you get through. Hurry it up.”

She left him in the bathroom and shut the door behind her. He stood looking at himself in the mirror, holding the toothbrush in front of his mouth, puzzling over it. He put it in his mouth and touched his teeth with it. He turned the water on as she had done.

“Hurry up,” she called, a muffled voice from beyond the door.

It felt strange and hard in his mouth. But he started brushing and it made his teeth feel good. So good that he kept on and on until she snatched the door open and stood there naked behind him. He turned with foam on his mouth, the handle of the toothbrush hanging slack.

“Well goddamn, are you coming on or what?” she said.

“I’m just brushin my teeth.”

“Well, you done brushed em long enough. Come on and get it if you going to get it.” She flounced her fine ass away and got on the bed, waiting for him.

He rinsed his mouth and turned off the water and put the toothbrush down. Looked at himself in the mirror and turned the water back on. He was still a little drunk and he wetted most of his face, rinsing his mouth out some more. When he had finished he shut off the water and looked at himself in the mirror again. In the mirror she lay behind him small on the bed, the dim lights showing her legs and stomach. Her red fingernails lay alongside her thigh. He cut off the light in the bathroom and went to her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I got em brushed.”

“Well good. Now come on. Kiss me.”

“Like that?”

“Naw. Open your mouth a little. Shit. Don’t push so hard.”

“I like that.”

“Lay down with me. Just relax. You’re nervous. Why don’t you take your clothes off?”

“What for?”

She raised her head three inches off the pillow and stared at him. “What the hell you think I got mine off for?”

“Well, I didn’t know.”

She got up and threw the chemise over herself and found her cigarettes and lighter and lit one. Her face leaning to him in the lamplight was so young, so childlike and so smooth and so unwrinkled. She had a few freckles.

He reached over and got his beer and drank from it. He knew he was supposed to do something but he didn’t know what it was. And what he was looking at between her legs was to him a strange and hairy puzzle.

She walked around the room for a while, smoking her cigarette, her arms folded.

“Take your clothes off,” she said.

“We got to go in a little bit,” he said.

“Shit.” She went to the door and stuck her head out. “Joe!”

Gary lay on the bed and looked at her. She talked for a while with her head stuck out in the hall and then Joe leaned his head in.

“Boy, you all right?”

He waved his beer.

“I’m doin fine.”

“Well, you better hurry up, now. We got to get you on home before long.”

He heard her say something about giving him his fifty dollars back. There was some more arguing. After a while she shut the door and came back and sat down on the bed beside him.

“Listen,” she said. “Do you want to do it or not?”

“Do what?” he said.

“Hell, boy, fuck. What do you think?”

He didn’t know what to think. He had heard the word, from his daddy and Joe and the hands. Things were beginning to dawn on him.

“Shit,” she said, and crawled down off the bed. “Take your pants off.”

At first he thought she was going to hurt him and fought against her. He didn’t want any teeth down there. But he understood soon and, like Joe said, he didn’t last long.

When the light was turned on and Joe stuck his head back in, he was still lying back across the bed with his pants around his ankles. Debi was gone, had sought herself a darker nook.

“Boy, you all right?”

“Yessir, believe I am.”

The boy walked up in the dust of the road and saw his mother standing in the yard, looking at him. The sun was high and she had a stick in her hand. He put his hands in his pockets and felt of the money there. He turned around and headed back the other way.

“You come here,” she called after him.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“You come back here.”

“In a minute.”

“Now.”

He didn’t answer but walked around the curve of the trail out of sight of the house. Bees were buzzing in the patches of clover between some of the trees, and he looked back to see if anybody was following him. He looked to his pocket and brought the money out all wadded in his hand and started counting it as he walked. Money to him was something that was hard to make and hard to hold onto once it was made. But he enjoyed making it and he enjoyed saving it, and he began to look around for a good place to hide some more of it now that the work was over. The truck money
was already hidden, but he never walked near it, would only walk there once more.