Dirty Work

by Larry Brown

  “I don’t go to church like I ought to. I usually don’t talk about any of this stuff. I don’t know if they want to operate on me this time or not. It’s risky.

  “I was gonna finish telling you about that funeral. Well, the preacher came in. Man, it was hot in there. Wasn’t any air conditioning, of course. He was a little old bitty guy with this long black robe. Had glasses. Kind of reminded me of Algonquin J. Calhoun. And he went to preaching. Then he got to preaching and singing. Then he went to hollering. And the whole place got to rocking and rolling. People were hopping up hollering Amen! like they just couldn’t sit still. Then they went to testifying. The whole thing just got out of hand. It took about an hour. Everybody in there was sweating. I’d never seen anything like it.

  “They opened the casket after it was all over with. The smell was awful. I think that’s when death really hit me for the first time. We looked at him for a minute. Old Hugh Jean.

  “That joke I was gonna tell you. They were having preaching one Sunday morning in this black church and they had a new piccolo player playing along with the choir. Well, they played two or three songs there and somebody all of a sudden hollered out in this real deep voice, The piccolo player’s a motherfucker. Everybody hushed. The old reverend was up in the pulpit and he looked out over the congregation. He was just shocked. He said, Who was that called my piccolo player a motherfucker? Nobody said a word. Everybody was looking around to see who it was. The old reverend stood up there for a minute. Said, All right. I want the man who’s setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. Nobody said a word. The old reverend was just getting madder all the time. He said, All right. I want the man who’s setting next to the man who’s setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up. And hell, nobody stood up. Nobody said a word. The old reverend stood up there and just got pissed off as hell. Then he hollered, All right! I want the man who’s setting next to the man who’s setting next to the man who’s setting next to the man who called my piccolo player a motherfucker to stand up! Finally there was this one little bitty guy in the back who stood up. And everybody was looking at him. He said, Reveren, I ain’t the man who’s setting next to the man who’s setting next to the man who’s setting next to the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. I ain’t even the man who’s setting next to the man who’s setting next to the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. And I ain’t the man who called your piccolo player a motherfucker. What I want to know is, who called that motherfucker a piccolo player?”

  Well, hell, I’d heard it before. Didn’t want to tell him that. Just laughed like I hadn’t. He was talking to me and I didn’t want to mess up no more. That beer was cold and we was laughing and drinking it and I had somebody setting on my bed talking to me, and you know, it was nice to have some company. It was so easy to just lay there and tell him to keep helping himself, and listen to him, and get a sip once in a while. Diva had been taking care of me, understand, but this was somebody different. Had a different life. Lived in a different place. His own world outside this one.

  Shit, he could talk about movies, man, he knew them actors. He could tell you the whole story of a movie, who was in it, what they said. But I knowed before the night was over I was gonna have to ask him again about The Young Lions. Cause it wasn’t no other way out. Cause nice as it was right then, it wasn’t going to last. Sun was gonna come up again. And I’d be laying here with no place to go. I was tired to my soul, Jesus, hope You understand. And be merciful. Hope You was merciful to Hugh Jean, whoever he was. Might’ve bent over behind that mule on purpose. Might’ve been toting too much pain. A man can get more than he can tote. You know that. Didn’t You ask for the cup to pass on? And I’m sorry for what they done to You. Wish I’d been there to help You. I’d have laid em to waste. Put em to the sword. But Your will be done.

  “You got a clock around this place? Where? This drawer here? Let me see. Twenty after two. You sleepy? Me neither. Don’t they ever come in here and check on you at night? Hell, we’ll just lay down if we see somebody come in. Make out like we’re asleep.

  “Is Diva working now? She gonna come back by and see you before she leaves? Man, she’s good-looking. She ought to be in Playboy or something.

  “Ah shit, you don’t want to hear all my problems. Probably just make you more depressed than you already are. How do I know?

  “Well goddamn. You were talking about killing your self, weren’t you? You ain’t got any way to do it even if you really wanted to.

  “I don’t know what you’d do, man. Hell, Braiden. You sound like Mama.

  “Nah, hell, I don’t think they saw me. I don’t think they were up yet. I don’t guess Mama sleeps much. But her room’s on the back side of the house anyway. I just climbed back in through my window and went to sleep. It was so hot I had to turn the air conditioner on. I can’t sleep in that heat. Gives me nightmares.

  “What surprised me was her coming back to see me. I was going to watch a movie. I got up late that evening and opened a beer. I drank about half of it. Next thing I knew, somebody was knocking on the window and it was dark. I’d had another spell and I didn’t even know it. I didn’t even know it was her at first. Kind of like when I woke up in here. It took me a minute to figure out what was happening. It always does. Usually I wake up on the floor. Or the side of the road. Or a car where somebody’s left me. I’ve been robbed outside bars like that before. Motherfuckers have done that to me too.

  “I guess Max and Mama were gone. He takes her down to this catfish place down the road sometimes. I got up and went to the window and said who was it and it was her. I’m always confused when I wake up. It takes me a few seconds to adjust. And I just had on my underwear anyway. I had to put some pants on. She said she’d come to see me. So I went over and pushed open the screen. I felt like a dilbert, of course. It’s a real low window. It’s easy to get in and out of. She had a big sackful of beer with her. I set that on the floor and then helped her on in.

  “You’d have to see my room to understand this. It’s just a damn big mess. I’ve got books all over the place and movie posters. I’ve got a bunch I sent off for from back in the sixties. A bunch of psychedelic posters and stuff. She just stood there and looked at everything for a minute. We had a combat photographer with us for about a month. He was working for Life. He made a bunch of pictures of us and I’ve got some of them on the wall. They’re all of the way I looked before. Before I got hit. One of them I’m crossing this river with the M60 over my head, keeping it dry. And he was with us the day I got shot the first time. I’ve got blood all over me, and the guys loading me in the chopper have got blood all over them. Everybody’s screaming. The gunners are laying about a thousand rounds a minute out the doors. It’s a hell of a photograph. Anyway she stood in front of it for a long time and looked at it. Then she finally asked who that was they were putting on that helicopter. I said that was me. I said that was what I used to look like.

  “She touched the picture, touched my face on it. I asked her how she knew which room was mine and she said she’d watched me that morning when I went in. I told her to sit down and we got us a beer out. She laid down on the bed over there. She said she’d been kind of afraid to come up to the house. Said she didn’t know if we had any dogs or not. I told her that we hadn’t had a dog in a long time, that we couldn’t keep one there, that they kept getting run over, so close to the highway and all. She said well she was glad of that because she hated dogs. Said she got bit real bad by one when she was little. And I still didn’t know. This was before we really got to talking.

  “I asked her something else about it and she said yeah, a dog got ahold of her when she was five and almost killed her. Said she had scars all over her, all under her clothes. I told her I couldn’t see any. She didn’t say anything for a little bit. Then finally she said she couldn’t wear shorts. Couldn’t wear a swimming suit. Said she didn’t want anybody to see
her legs.

  “I told her I was sorry. Hell, I didn’t know what to say.

  “She said that was okay, that she was just glad he didn’t kill her. That he almost did.

  “She got up and went over to the bookshelves and started looking at my books. I’ve got a bunch of them. She asked me if I’d read all of them. I told her yeah. She said she wished she liked to read. And I couldn’t understand that. I told her that I thought the more you read, the more you wanted to read. She missed so much school when she was little, she never did learn to read very well. She was in the hospital a lot. You know, having operations. Plastic surgery and all. She said she missed so much, she never could catch up, so she just quit.

  “I hated it. What are you supposed to say? She turned around and told me she knew what I felt like. Said her mama couldn’t stand to even look at her after that dog got ahold of her.

  “I told her it took my mama and them a long time to get used to me. That I didn’t really know if they ever had or not. She wanted to know if I ever felt sorry for myself. She said she used to, but she didn’t anymore. Said it was a waste. And then she asked me again. I mean she really wanted to know.

  “Hell, I thought about it. I told her that I’d accepted it the first time I looked in a mirror in the Philippines. Which I think I did. I knew I’d never look right again. I knew the face I’d been born with was gone. And nothing was going to bring it back. Oh hell, I’ve felt sorry for myself plenty of times. But I’ve always known nothing was going to bring it back.

  “Hell, look at you. I’d bet a million dollars you don’t feel sorry for yourself. And I’d bet another million that one time you used to. Am I right?

  “Get you another drink, bro.

  “I don’t reckon she got in any trouble about the store being closed. She went back and made some coffee and then Earl came in about seven and let her off. He didn’t know it had been closed.

  “We talked for a while. And then out of the blue she just asked me to kiss her. No shit. I told her I hadn’t kissed anybody in a long time. She said that didn’t matter, and what I looked like didn’t matter, and that she’d show me what she meant sometime.

  “She was so … innocent, seemed like. I laid down beside her on the bed. And I was afraid she was too young. She touched my face, all these messed-up places. She wasn’t scared. It was like she understood. She kissed me. And I’ll be damned if Max and Mama didn’t drive up right that minute and come in the house.

  “I was nervous as hell anyway. I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t want them to hear us. Hell, I can have a movie playing sometimes and hear one of them come down the hall. They don’t think I can hear them since a movie’s on, see. But I can. And they’ll stop right beside the door and listen. Wondering what I’m doing. I just didn’t want to have her in the house while they were there. I didn’t want them to hear us talking or anything. I mean we weren’t doing anything. But I didn’t have anyplace else to take her. I mean we were doing a little stuff, but not, you know. Well, I guess we were kind of headed in that direction. And shit, man, I didn’t even know for sure how old she was. I felt kind of like a pervert. It wasn’t dirty or anything. It’s hard to explain. I wish I could say what I mean. She moved something in me. I don’t give the time to most people. Most people just look at me and see one thing. I mean I know I’ve gotten hardened and all, but it’s like it’s a defense mechanism. When you go somewhere … where do you go? Africa? Africa. Well. You’ve had to do that to keep from going crazy, right? Hell, I know where you’re coming from. You can’t lay here and look at these four walls. I bet they keep that television on all day long, don’t they? God, I hate television. PBS is all I watch, man. No shit.

  “But what I was telling you. I see people, man, and I know they see me. But they don’t see in me. They see this fucked-up face, and that’s it. I mean I don’t stay in the house twenty-four hours a day. And I don’t shun my family completely. I spend some time with them. But if I get ready to be by myself, that’s what I do. And if I get ready to go somewhere, I go. I guess I just like being out at night because I don’t have to deal with many people. The ones I deal with see me over and over. They’re used to me. Like Earl. They don’t think anything about me. And that was what was so hard to understand about her. Anyway. I didn’t want us to stay there after they came in. So I said Hell, let’s take the beer and go riding around somewhere. I told her I’d put some gas in her car. I didn’t want to have to explain everything about me and my mother and my brother there. Or my daddy. I just wanted to be off with her. Nobody else. Just us two. So she said fine. I told her I had a quilt. We just got my cooler and put the beer in it and got the quilt and eased out the window.

  “Damn, man, watch it, here comes a nurse. Let me hop my ass back in bed a minute.”

  I didn’t make no noise. I wanted him to talk to her. Wanted to hear what was said. She knowed I was awake. She could tell.

  It was late. Don’t know what time. You can tell by the traffic. Slows down late at night. Hear them sirens way off, fire trucks, police cars. Ambulances. People in trouble all over the city. Other people trying to help them. Everything outside is yellow at night, just a yellow glow. Them lights they turn on, I guess. Helicopter got to see how to land. Heard one of them come in, just chopping that air. Brought back some bad memories.

  May be some in here that sleep, but this place don’t never. Always somebody hurt. Always somebody need taking care of. But it was mostly quiet. You could hear that, too. And them talking.

  Hell, it was her. I could hear her nylons swishing before I could even see her. Thighs rubbing together. Small sounds of erotica for somebody who does without.

  I guess Braiden had crashed. Bored him to sleep, I guess. I spoke to him but he didn’t answer. I said something else to him and she told me not to make so much noise.

  She said, “You ain’t drunk, are you?”

  I said naw. Had a few beers was all. Little smoke.

  “Well he’s asleep,” she said. “Don’t mess with him.”

  I asked her if she wanted a beer.

  “How’s your head feeling?” she said.

  I told her I thought it was all right for the moment, but I didn’t know how long it would last. I told her I thought I might swoon just any time.

  “I’ll revive you.”

  She sort of had her hand laying there on my leg. What the hell, I wasn’t feeling any pain. Not a whole lot. I mean I was feeling some pain, but damn, we all feeling some pain.

  I asked her what her doctors wanted to do about my head.

  “They don’t know,” she said. “They ain’t decided nothing. They may not do nothing to you. Just let you go on back home.”

  All this time she was tucking in my sheet and shit. I laid there and thought about it. That was all I wanted, to go home.

  “If you’d take your medicine like you supposed to and cut down on your drinking you’d be all right,” she said.

  I told her I knew all that shit. Then she dropped her bomb on me.

  “Your mama called,” she said. She wasn’t looking at me when she said it, but she took a deep breath. “You were out two days after they brought you here. Your family’s been here. Your brother and your mama. Me and Max set out in the hall drinking coffee and talking about you. He said you been having these spells for a long time. Said back when they wanted to operate on you, you wouldn’t let em. Is that right?”

  I asked her how come she didn’t tell me that my family had already been to see about me when she first talked to me.

  “You wasn’t in no shape to tell then. Besides. They was already gone when you woke up the first time.”

  I got my beer out from under the covers and finished it. Right away she got me another one. Right after telling me how bad they were for me. But it was cold, and I wanted it, so I didn’t say anything. Neither of us did for a little while. I lit another cigarette, and kept my voice calm, and asked her if she knew anything about somebody named Beth. Tha
t was when she sat down on the bed.

  She turned her head away. Said she didn’t know anything. Didn’t know what had happened. All she knew was a helicopter came down and she unloaded it. That I’d had a bad seizure and they were trying to help me if I’d let them.

  She had her legs up on the bed next to me. Fine, heavy, thick. Real legs.

  “All I know’s what they told me when you come in,” she said.

  I told her I wasn’t trying to sound nasty or anything. But I’d just found out I’d been out for two days and nobody was telling me anything. I said Christ!

  “She’s gonna call back in the morning,” she said.

  That made me feel a little better. I looked over there at old Braiden. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or just making like a marsupial. She got up and started fluffing my pillow. Rubbed one of her big old titties right across my nose one time. Inadvertently, of course. I told her how good she smelled.

  “What y’all been talking about?” she said.

  “Just different stuff.”

  “Different stuff like what?”

  “We’ve been talking about the movies,” I said. “You going to wake him up? I don’t believe he’s asleep. You’re not asleep, are you, Braiden?”