Joe

by Larry Brown

  “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 c
rossed 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?”

  “Yeah. It’s always been like that.”

  Joe sat there for a moment longer and then he looked at the boy.

  “I talked to your daddy a little while the other night. He said one of your sisters run off. Is that right?”

  Gary was wiping the brush on a nearby pine tree. He nodded and stuck his cigarette in his mouth.

  “Yeah. Fay took off. Shit, she’s been gone for a good while.”

  “Where’d she go to, reckon?”

  “No telling.”

  “Y’all didn’t go look for her?”

  “Naw.”

  “Why not?”

  He gave Joe a little smile, lifted his shoulders in a small gesture of fatalism.

  “I don’t know.”

  He sat looking at the boy, watched him while he poured a little gas from a jug into a jar and put the brush in it and swished it around.

  “She got mad at Daddy,” he said. “She didn’t like this place. Thought we’s gonna get in trouble staying here. You the first one that’s come around.”

  “What y’all gonna do if the owner comes around and runs you off?”

  “Move, I guess. I’m ready to go if you are.”

  Joe waited just another moment.

  “You ain’t missing none of your money, are you?”

  “Not a bit. I’m ready to go if you are.”

  The old truck was parked beside a new van, and Joe looked through the tinted windows, admiring the blue upholstery and the woodgrained paneling inside it.

  “Boy, you could do you some crackin in this thing,” he said. Gary was standing beside him with his hands cupped around his face, looking with him.

  “Hell fire. I could live in this thing,” he said. “Reckon how much it costs?”

  Joe stood back and looked around.

  “Shit. Probably about twenty thousand. You ready to go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me walk over here and crank it up and see how much gas it’s got in it,” Joe said, and he pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the door and got in. The motor turned over slowly and caught, then died. He sat there pumping the gas pedal.

  “Always give it a little gas before you try to crank it,” he said. The motor spun again and caught and he revved it up, little spurts of blue smoke coming from the tailpipe. The boy looked up and down the road in front of the auto dealership. Traffic was fairly heavy. He imagined the pedals under his feet and the wheel and the gearshift in his hands. Late afternoons of joyous tranquility on country roads with the radio playing, the girl beside him languishing on the seat, smoking a cigarette, her legs crossed, laughing with him. No more walking up and down the road.

  Joe pulled on the handbrake and got out. The truck sat there shuddering and vibrating, idling with a rough stutter.

  “You got plenty of gas to get home,” he said. “You might want to stop at John’s and put some more in it if you’re going to ride around some, though.”

  The boy reached in his pocket and pulled out his money and held it out in a folded wad.

  “Here,” he said.

  Joe looked at it. “What’s that?”

  “I got the money,” he said. “Count out what’s yours.”

  “Hell, I ain’t worried about that. Just stick it back in your pocket. I got to find the title when I get home and sign it over to you anyway. You’ll have to get you some insurance. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Insurance?”

  “Yeah. It’s a law in Mississippi. Can’t drive without insurance. It’s got insurance on it now. It’s still in my name. After I sign it over to you it’s yours. I’ll show you what all you need to do sometime. Just come out to the house one day before long and we’ll find the title and get it fixed up. I’m gonna go on. You gonna be all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “You want me to follow you?”

  “Naw. I’ll be fine.”

  “All right, then. I’ll see you later.”

  He walked over to his new truck and got in and cranked it up and pulled out. Gary put his money in his pocket and went to his truck. The door was open and he got in and sat down, looking at everything. He knew that certain pedals had to be pushed. He’d watched Joe drive it over and over. He closed the door. It sat there idling. He stomped the clutch and threw it violently into reverse and let out on the clutch and it died. He pulled it back down into neutral. It cranked easily now that it was warmed up, but he choked it off three times before he noticed the lever sticking out beside his left knee. He unlocked it and pushed it in and managed to back the truck up three inches before he choked it off that time.

  By the time he managed to back it out of the parking space, two salesmen from inside had come out, maybe to make sure he didn’t run over a new car on the lot. He could see them watching him and it made him nervous. He tested the brakes, jerking to a stop, then pulled it down into low and leaned far over the steering wheel and drove down the hill toward the road. He slammed it to a halt and let out on the clutch and it died again. He sat there cranking on it with one hand tight on the wheel. He looked both ways. Cars were coming both ways. He’d meant to watch Joe to see which way he went, but in all the excitement he’d forgotten to. He thought he might have gone left, so he turned his wheel to the left, too. Cars were still whizzing by. He waited patiently for five minutes, until the road was completely clear, revved the engine up to a controlled screaming whine, and dumped the clutch. The truck shot out into the road and he cut the wheel so that the body slanted over on its springs and he missed second and then dropped it down into third, but it had plenty of torque by then and he went flying toward the first traffic light. Nobody had told him anything about that and he went through it on red. A new Firebird coming across squalled its tires and nosedived with smoke flying into a Volkswagen that had already been wrecked once. The boy weaved to the right and went around them, craning his neck to see. The drivers were looking at him and yelling inside their cars. He went on down the road. He made it through two yellows and one green, but at the next intersection cars were turning onto the street and he had to come to a complete stop. He wondered why the Firebird had come out of a side road like that and just plowed into another car. He felt a little better now, felt that he was starting to get the hang of it. He managed to glide to a fairly smooth halt and get it back down into low. As he sat there waiting and looking around, a police car with siren screaming and blue lights flashing came out of the pack of cars ahead and passed by him at fifty or so, gaining speed. The light turned green and he went on.

  He turned the radio on low. The music was comforting, something low and sweet by a woman with a voice full of anguish. He had lots of plans, new clothes and a wash job for the truck, regular trips to the grocery store with his mother and sister in tow. No more walking to John Coleman’s. Just drive up there and have a cold drink when he felt like it. Ice cream for little sister before it could melt.

  He went halfway through town without incident and then, seeing a beer sign he recognized outside a store, he turned right suddenly without signaling. Somebody behind him blew a horn. He blew his in answer and drove on up to the store, parked and left it in neutral. He pulled out the handbrake, leaving the motor running.

  Inside the store there was air-conditioned coolness. Five or six older black men were sitting around a table playing cards in the relativ
e dimness of the rear of the building.

  “Hey,” he said to everybody. Another old man was almost asleep behind the counter, propped in a high chair with his jaw in his hand. The coolers were on the far wall and the boy walked over and stood looking through the glass. All kinds of brands, all of it cold. He picked a brand that had a colorful label and opened the door and reached in and got a six-pack. He walked back up to the counter with it and set it down.