Joe (32 page)

There was a knock on the door the next morning and it took him a moment to realize and remember what he had seen, the milky blue opaque eyes dead and lifeless and unblinking and the woman undeniably dead, too, so still, so quiet.

He lay in the bed with the sheets twisted over him and stared at the ceiling until the knock came again. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly seven. Probably the boy.

His pants were lying on the floor and he got up and yelled that he was coming, then stepped into them and found his cigarettes and lit one and went up the hall to the kitchen and crossed to the door with just a little irritation toward the boy for waking him up so early. He unlocked it and swung it open and there stood Charlotte in her uniform, the dog fawning over her like a puppy.

“Well,” he said. “Surprise, surprise.”

She looked up at him and smiled that little smile. Then she stopped smiling.

“I ain’t coming in if there’s a woman here,” she said. He stepped back from the door.

“Come on in. Ain’t nobody here but me and the dog.”

She came in and he closed the door behind her, wishing he’d combed his hair, and wanting the house to be a little cleaner. He saw her looking at the mess, clothes piled up, dirty socks on the floor. His muddy boots sitting in the kitchen, empty cans on the table.

“I didn’t know if he’d remember me,” she said.

“Shit. Him? Get you a chair and sit down. Let me go comb my hair. Why don’t you make us some coffee? It’s up there in the cabinet. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay. I can’t stay but a little bit.”

He went back to his bedroom and put on some clean blue jeans and a white shirt that he buttoned halfway up. He combed his hair and brushed his lower teeth and his denture, her asking him things, saying yeah or naw until he finished. When he went back into the living room she was sitting on the couch and she had folded some of the clothes.

“Don’t worry about that stuff,” he said. “I’ll get it later. You put the water on?”

“Yeah.”

He busied himself picking up cans on the table, pouring what was left in some of them down the drain, putting the cans in the overflowing garbage can inside the broom closet. He looked at her and she looked awfully good to him. She’d fixed her hair differently, and she’d gained a little weight.

“You look good, baby,” he said.

“You don’t.”

“Well hell, I just woke up. What’s the occasion?” She looked
down at her fingers and moved a little ring with a red stone in it. She looked back up and she looked uncomfortable.

“I just wondered were you going to see the baby. He’s been home for a couple of weeks now. Theresa would like for you to come see him.” She waited a moment. “And I’d like for you to come see him. If you want to. I think he looks like you.”

Years ago she would have broken and started crying. But that vulnerability in her eyes was gone now, all that cheerful hope. She was forty-seven now.

“I forgot your birthday,” he said, and got down two cups from the cabinet, set out the sugar, got milk from the icebox.

“I don’t want no coffee, Joe. I’ve got to get on to work anyway.”

He got the coffee pot and poured two cups of water and then looked over his shoulder at her.

“Hell, you don’t have to go to work till nine, do you? You got time to drink a cup of coffee I know.”

He fixed it for her and carried it to her and retreated back to the kitchen table so that there was at least a barrier of distance between them. He didn’t know what kind of thoughts she had about him now.

“Thanks,” she said. She pulled out her cigarettes and he got up and got her an ashtray.

“I thought you quit,” he said.

“I’ve cut way down. I don’t know if I could quit completely. Working up there helps. We can’t smoke inside the building any more. I don’t smoke but five or six a day. I feel a lot better.”

“You gained a little weight.”

“A little.”

“It looks good on you.”

She didn’t answer. For a while they sat in uneasy silence.

“I shouldn’t have come over,” she said. “I didn’t call first. I didn’t see no other vehicle outside. When did you get that new truck?”

“Yesterday.”

“I like it.”

“I do, too.”

She smoked nervously, like someone who didn’t know how to. After the first sip she didn’t touch her coffee again, just set it back on the small table out of the way.

“He’s got black hair.”

“Oh. The baby.”

“Who’d you think I was talking about?”

“I didn’t know.”

“Are you going to go see him? He’s your grandson. It looks like you’d want to. He’s cute as he can be.”

He picked up his cigarette from the ashtray and sipped his coffee.

“Last time I saw Theresa she wasn’t too happy with me.”

“That don’t mean she don’t want you to see your grandson, for God’s sake.”

“I’d rather see the little fucker that got her pregnant. I’d still like to have a talk with him.”

“And do what? Randy’s done had a talk with him. That was bad enough. My God. It’s a wonder I wasn’t pregnant when we got married. You ain’t forgot what it’s like to be young that quick, have you?”

He didn’t answer any of that. He sipped his coffee and looked out into the back yard, smoking his cigarette.

“All she wants is for you to go over sometime and see him.”

“Well. I didn’t know if she wanted me to or not. I didn’t want to be in the way or nothing. Is she doing all right?”

“She’s doing fine. She’s going back to school to get her GED and then she’s going to start out at Ole Miss part-time and work part-time.”

“Who’s gonna keep the baby?”

“Mama and Miss Inez. I’ll keep him at night if she needs me to. I don’t never go anywhere.”

“You want some more coffee?”

“No.”

“Well.” He got up and fixed another one for himself, scratching his arm where the lead itched sometimes. He’d thought about seeing if he could have it taken out. He wondered if she’d heard about that.

“Are y’all working now?” she said.

“Naw. We through.”

“How’d you do?”

“We did good. For all the bad weather we had.”

“I guess you paid cash for the truck.”

“Yep. That’s usually the easiest.” He stood at the sink with a fresh cigarette between his fingers, looking at the floor. “We’ve got plenty to do this winter. I got enough left to tide me over for once.”

“If you don’t lose it.”

“I don’t bet nothing but what I can afford to lose.”

“You used to not worry about it.”

“I’m more careful now. I don’t bet the grocery money no more.”

“That’s nice to know after all them baloney sandwiches we used to eat.”

“I had to eat em, too.”

“Yeah. And the kids did, too.”

The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment and he saw that she regretted them. After having to monitor him for so long it was a hard habit for her to break, he guessed. She looked at the door.

“I didn’t come over here for this,” she said.

“What did you come over here for, then?”

She got up from the couch and picked up her purse.

It had a long strap and she put it over her shoulder.

“I just wanted to tell you to come see that baby. Theresa ain’t mad at you. She’s just hurt because you ain’t been over. We don’t ask much no more.”

“That’s all you come over for?”

She turned her eyes to his face and said: “Not quite.”

“You need some money?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

She waited a long moment and then she walked to him, taking the coffee from his hand, undoing the top button of her blouse. He put his hand in there and touched her.

“You sure we ought to be doing this? We ain’t married, you know.”

He was smiling but she wasn’t.

“I need it,” she said.

“Okay.”

He took her hand and led her down the hall.

The boy woke in the hot sunshiny hush of the old house and opened his eyes and looked upon his chest to see money piled there, looking as if it had just come out of a washing machine, all crinkled and twisted and perverted and jumbled into a wondrous pile of twenties and fifties and ones and fives.

He looked at it, with the happiness slowly growing on his face, and his hands moved up from his sides and captured it, lifting it above him, releasing it little by little, the crushed bills dropping and fluttering, caressing his face, brushing his eyelids, rustling softly in the air, like leaves in the fall that slip and twist and turn, dancing to the earth, dying in the light.

He was squatting on his haunches in the side yard painting a metal chair when the bossman came around a curve in the road, whistling, and put up his hand and waved. He’d been sitting there painting and thinking about the girl and thinking about going back to see her after he got the truck. He was the only one at home and he didn’t know where the rest of them were. All their missions were of
a certain furtive nature, like those of dope smugglers or bank robbers.

“Hey,” he said loudly, and dipped his brush. He’d found the chairs at the dump and they were perfectly good, just rusted a little, and John Coleman had given him a small can of black paint and a tiny brush when he’d told him of his needs.

Joe walked up in the yard, stepping around the briers, looking in the grass for snakes. He was dressed as if he were ready for a dance or something, clean blue jeans and pale Tony Lama boots and a red striped shirt.

“So this is it, huh?” he said, and the boy grinned and kept painting.

“This is it. I’m painting me some chairs.”

“I see that. Got em looking pretty good, too.”

His friend squatted next to him and pulled out his smokes, looking all around.

“Damn, I ain’t been up here in years. They ain’t no telling how old that house is. Was that old tricycle still in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it still in there?”

“Naw. Daddy sold it to somebody for a antique.”

Joe smiled and sat down and leaned back, then stretched out on the grass and lit his cigarette.

“I got me some cigarettes inside,” the boy said. He put the paintbrush on the lid of the can and got up. “Let me go in here and get em and I’ll smoke one with you. You want a Dr. Pepper? But we ain’t got no ice. We run out last night.”

Joe held up a hand. “I’ll pass. Here, smoke one of mine.”

He was already headed in, going up the steps. After he got inside he poked his head out a paneless window and grinned again and said, “It ain’t no need in me smoking yours when I got some in here. I just keep em hid so Daddy won’t smoke em all up.” He drew his head back in.

From where he lay Joe could see under the house and could see the sandstone foundation, the logs resting on strategic rocks maybe chipped flat by some pioneer with high boots and a muslin shirt. The logs had long cracks and they were huge and they bore on their sides many axe marks where the round sides had been hewed away. He couldn’t imagine the weight of them, of how men had lifted them and put them into place, master builders turned to dust by now.

The boy came back out and sat down beside him and carefully pulled a cigarette from his pack and lit it with a gopher match, shaking the match out and taking a drag with his eyes closed. He smiled again.

“What you in such a good mood about today?” Joe said.

“I don’t know. I just am. When we gonna go see them old girls again?”

“What old girls?”

“The ones we saw other night.”

“Oh. Them? Boy, you better leave that old gal alone. She’s liable to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?”

“Hell yeah. She might squeeze you in two with them legs she’s got. What are you doing today, anything?”

“Naw, I ain’t doing nothing. You need me to help you?” The bossman sat up and crossed his legs.

“I thought we might go get that old pickup if you wanted to. I need to get it off their lot. I thought I’d drive you up there and you could drive it back home. You can drive it, can’t you?”

“Sure,” he said. He got up immediately and put the lid on the paint can. “Let’s get out of here before they come back.”

“Who? Your daddy and them?”

“Yeah.”

“Where they at?”

“I don’t know. I guess they left sometime last night. They was all gone when I got up this morning.”

“What? They just take off and don’t tell you where they going?”