He came out of the kitchen with a couple of beers, which puzzled me at first. But he opened one first and drained it and crumpled it in his hand. Then, he opened the other, and placed it on the coffee table he’d made for Momma one Christmas.
You know about stress, I think. We all do since, well, you know about it. I’ve been under a lot of it, son. A shit load. An avalanche of brown runny shit stained stress. It overwhelmed me. But I carried on.
He took a sip from the can.
Now, I’m not an excuse maker. I’ve done a lot of things I couldn’t back up in the court system over the span of my life, but I’d do almost all of it again. Including today. I’d do today most especially the whole goddamned same way ever time you asked me to. Ever time anyone did. Same way.
Momma called today.
I bet she did. News travels fast don’t it. Beats all to hell. What’d she say? Naw, don’t answer that. Let me finish.
She didn’t say nothing.
I told you to let me finish.
I sunk deeper still into the polyester stripes on the sofa.
No, don’t get cold with me. I’m laying this open for you to see something of me. I can’t talk straight like this with anybody but you, don’t you see that? Whole time you been carrying on with Ellard, and then Gus, I been right here waiting for you, son. Hoping maybe some sprout of good had been seeded by this little calamity of ours.
I sat up, I crossed my legs. My skin itched. What had he done? This circle monologue of his meant something, only I never followed him on these stretches of his, because his words struck out from him with little light for others to make sense of there intent. He spoke in wagon wheels, with those high arches covered in tanned hides or canvas, so you could not divine intention.
Look, I done my share. I done it good today, and whatever happens, I ain’t letting Gus or nobody come take you two boys from me.
I was tearing at my very seams.
Did you shoot one of the commune people? Did you?
He put down the can before he sucked it dry this time, and a shocked look came over him.
Did I shoot what? No. No, shit no, that’s what you think of me?
He stood up.
I’m not a killer, Clement, I’m your father.
Then what’d you do?
I knocked Bobby Judd into next Tuesday. His face opened up then, the first time Daddy showed up since he’d been home. But he vanquished it almost immediately.
And I paid the price, and you all will not take my actions as your own, you hear me?
I turned the TV on. He came over and snatched the clicker, and shut the thing off.
You hear me? That’s never the answer.
Aw, you’re just like Momma. You don’t mean it.
He got up, and he reached his hand out for me, like he was ready to snatch me up and pummel me. I leaned out of reach, and ran to the screen door, but stopped there.
He didn’t follow. Sat on the sofa, and stretched out his legs before him.
It’s not like he didn’t have it coming.
He knew if he kept talking I’d come back.
The guy tries to tell me how to raise you kids, how to keep my marriage in tact, like he knows something on the matter. I lost my temper. Next thing I know, I have him in a headlock out front of Deuce’s, and I slammed his head up and down in the road. A sight, not much blood, but dust, and wind, and then, strangest thing, little brown tumbleweeds, like out of a cartoon. But they weren’t tumbleweeds, they were tufts of Bobby’s hair I pulled out, or tore out of him as he struggled to free himself. Then the cops came and I slugged him good, sent his lights flickering a moment, and I got up and held out my wrists and told that runty one to cuff me, that I wasn’t drunk, and he better get his boss on the horn, to meet me at the jail.
When we got there, Gus stood out front, but he ran up to keep Bobby Judd company, to settle the man down, and that’s a task. Judd was bouncing all over the place, like I spiked him with some of that ol Cocaine, bouncing this way bouncing that, sprung loose on them little chicken legs of his, pointing at me, and then to his head, screaming about how he’d go bald on account of my reckless ways. And that did it, I stopped moving forward and I leaned way over the side of that deputy and I spit over Gus’ shoulder and it landed right in Bobby’s open mouth.
Everything stopped. The deputy turned in time to see it, Bobby Judd shut his mouth only to realize what happened, and Gus turned at me with this look I hadn’t seen since we got back from ‘Nam. Googly eyed. One time, patrolling, the lieutenant up ahead, gus then me, then the other folks snaking through that forthy jungle, trying to keep so quiet, and the lieutenant went straight down into a trap, a pit of stakes. They’d covered over it with a canopy of leaves and sticks, and he never knew it. Straight down, dead before the spikes finished poking through him. Gus’ eyes just like that day.
His hands trembled, but his voice stayed true.
I started to laugh, and Gus did too, and old Bobby, well I gotta give him this, he knows defeat when he sees it. He turned back around, and walked off, like his whole body lost all that energy and he was tugging at millstones. Shit, Clem, you know you got a dance contest next month?
I forgot. We all forgot.
