Father and Son

by Larry Brown

  After a while they came back up, the black zippered bag slung between two of them, and they started out of the woods with their little pile of bones seeming so small to Bobby, so insubstantial. He walked quickly, leading them. The sky was still dark and he watched for it to come up blue again, but it never did.

  They placed the tiny corpse on the backseat of his car and then single file they drove out to the main road back toward town. Bobby was thinking of the father again across the hood of the car and how the tears had rolled out of him too late. Harold was beside him but they didn’t talk. They drove on, through the gray and cloudy day and past the hawks that had not moved.

  The sky was still and dark when Virgil walked out on his front porch and sat down in the chair. He was out of cigarettes again and he had to roll one, taking the tobacco from his pocket and getting the papers and working at it, glancing up from time to time to look across the road at the sky and what it was doing. When he had it rolled he stuck it between his lips and lit it, leaning back in the chair and rocking a little, the smoke drifting out across the porch and into the yard where it dissipated. He felt uneasy somehow.

  After a while he tossed away the burnt nubbin of it and sat there. There was no traffic on the road and he wished he had his car again. He didn’t want to walk all the way over to the store for some more cigarettes. The road was muddy now, and he was still tired.

  The puppy came around the end of the porch and angled up the steps, and he stopped near Virgil’s knee and wagged his tail.

  “Hey little buddy,” Virgil said, and the dog sat. He twisted his head up on one side and sneezed. Then he stretched out beside the chair and closed his eyes. Virgil rocked, watching him. He had some hope that maybe Glen would come by. After a while he folded his hands together and just sat in the chair, waiting for something to tell him to move.

  The chair creaked slowly on the boards of the porch. He pushed it back and forth with a little motion of his knees. The dog slept on his side. The yard was wet and the puddles were visited by drinking birds. It was hushed and quiet. He rocked slowly, sitting on his porch alone except for a dog and watching his world, wishing he could see his son come driving up the road.

  Mary smelled hay and knew she was in the barn. She could feel the little sharp points of stems lightly sticking the skin of her arms, the backs of her knees, and as she shifted she could hear it rustle beneath her, could feel the dust rise around her in little clouds that settled in her throat and made her want to cough.

  There was a large dull pain over her left eye and her face on that side felt swollen. The thing over her eyes smelled of something like paint thinner, a light odor of petroleum like the faintest whiff of coal oil or lighter fluid. She was afraid to speak. She could tell that she was not alone. Somebody was near, maybe crouched, maybe sitting, listening and watching.

  Her wrists were up in the air and she pulled down to see if she could move her arms. She couldn’t move them much. She was tied and she could feel something like thin ropes wrapped around her wrists, but not tightly, not painfully.

  She was trying to remember what she had been doing. Looking at the little tomato plants, and then she had fallen it seemed. But she couldn’t figure out what that had to do with this. It was confusing, and trying to figure it out made her head hurt, so for a while she just lay quietly and listened.

  There wasn’t any sound. She couldn’t tell which part of the barn she was in. It was cool where she was but she had no indication of light or dark, just the clean smell of the hay and the memory of the day she and Bobby had stacked it in the loft. That was June, last year, a day and a half of work in the pasture and the barn, a Friday and a Saturday, Bobby with his work clothes and a baseball cap. She wore her overalls and tennis shoes and her wide straw hat. The old truck grinding through the stubble and how the wind cooled the sweat on her body when they stopped for a break under the trees by the fence. Ice water in a gallon jug kept in a wrinkled paper sack, and iced tea on the back porch still in their work clothes as dusk moved in, a few minutes of rest before she started fixing their supper. That was right after Emma killed herself and she remembered thinking about Virgil and his pain while she drove the truck, and then later, that night, lying forever alone in her bed and not being able to sleep for thinking about him. She didn’t go to the funeral. Bobby did. He didn’t want to talk about it much when he came back. He just said that Virgil looked bad.

  There was a slight rustle in the hay not far away, as if someone had moved his foot or sat up or turned his body in some small way. But nothing after that.

  “Who’s there?” she said, but there was no answer. Somehow she knew there wouldn’t be an answer in the same way she knew that her face was covered so that she wouldn’t be able to see who was doing this to her.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  It seemed foolish to listen to her own voice in the quietness of the barn. It was almost as if she were talking to herself. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. A little dust had settled in her mouth but she didn’t want to spit. She swallowed it and cleared her throat.

  When she began to imagine what was going to happen to her, it didn’t scare her. Things like this happened, you heard about them, saw them in the paper. She only hoped that whoever it was wouldn’t think it necessary to take her life because there was still too much she had to do. She hated she’d argued with Bobby about Jewel. What did he want but his own family and what did anybody ever want but their own family and love and a safe place to stay. And she’d had almost all of that. She’d had Bobby all this time. She’d watched him grow and become a man and run for office and get elected. She’d watched him act decent all his life and that comforted her even now. If today was the day she had to die, she could at least go knowing that Bobby had turned out okay. She’d worried about him so much. But she didn’t have to worry about him now.

  She let her head sag back into the hay and she felt it cushioning her. It was hard to breathe in it for the dust but it was a strain to hold her head up with it hurting the way it was. She had no idea how long she’d been lying tied like this. It might have been a long time. She wondered if he was going to say anything. It had to be a man, didn’t it? But what man? She tried to think of somebody she had harmed but she couldn’t think of anybody. She had no enemies that she knew of. But it seemed unlikely that some stranger had wandered in and found her and watched her and done this to her.

  “Is somebody there?” she said. That soft rustle answered again, and it sounded like it was near her right foot. Her wrists were beginning to hurt a little now from the strain, and she could feel pinpoints of pain in her fingertips. Going to sleep. Circulation getting cut off.

  “Please talk to me,” she said. “I can’t do anything. I’m tied up. You could untie me and I’d keep my face covered up until you could get away. I don’t have any way of knowing who you are. I’d promise not to uncover my eyes. I’ll swear it on the Bible if you’ll go in my house and get it. It’s on the coffee table in the living room.”

  Still there was no answer, but she heard the click of something metallic, and then a tiny sound like a piece of sandpaper rubbing against something, and she heard the outrush of breath and knew that somebody had lit a cigarette. She thought about the hay in the barn and the hay she was lying on and fire for a moment, but that was too bad to think on for long. Somebody was watching her and smoking a cigarette. It seemed almost impossible that somebody could do that, that somebody could be calm enough to sit there watching her tied up and blindfolded and ignore her pleading and just light a cigarette. Relax like that.

  “Won’t you please say something? Are you somebody I know?”

  At first she wasn’t aware that it was pain, and then she felt the heat on her shin and she screamed and snatched her leg back as the cigarette burned into her skin. She whimpered then. It was going to be worse than she’d thought.

  Now there was a louder rustle in the hay, and she drew back as far as she could, not knowing
what to expect. Suddenly there was somebody beside her ear bending close and she could smell hair tonic, cigarette smoke, sweat, and whiskey.

  “Shut your damn whore’s mouth,” a voice said, the lips very close to her ear. The noise, the slow gentle rasp of the whisper, was almost comforting, coming as it did so low and near. But in the voice was a bad memory that had always bothered her, of a dark-haired boy in a classroom who watched her with sullen eyes, insolent and full of contempt, his face filled with hate.

  “My mama told me all about you,” the voice said, just before she heard him pull back. She knew who he was then, and she was very afraid.

  He tied a rag around her mouth so she couldn’t scream anymore. After that he got up and moved away from her, back up to the door of the barn where the light was, looking out to the road to see if anything was coming. He crossed the yard quickly and went up the steps to the back porch and smelled something burning as soon as he opened the door. A skillet full of meat and sauce was smoking on the stove. He stepped over to it, looked around for a pot holder, found one hanging on a hook, and put it around the handle of the skillet. He moved it to a cold eye and cut off the one that was lit. A counter was piled full of tomatoes and okra. He picked up one of the tomatoes and looked at it. It was a pretty nice tomato. He set it down.

  Her kitchen was neat and all the dishes had been washed. Just like his mother. He started opening cabinets and saw pots and pans, glasses and all manner of small appliances. In the cabinet next to the sink he found a bottle of whiskey and pulled it out and looked at it. It was a fifth of Evan Williams and it was nearly full. He thought about moving her car so that it would look like she was gone, but he was afraid he would meet somebody on the road and he didn’t figure he’d be able to find her keys. But as he twisted the cap off the bottle and turned it up, he saw a ring of keys sitting beside the toaster on the counter.

  He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door to see if there were any Cokes in there. A small carton of six bottles rested within. He got one out and found the opener nailed to the wall beside the garbage can and he opened it and took a sip from it. He shook it the way some people do and made it fizz, then drank a little more of it. Then he filled it all the way up with whiskey and drank the whole thing in one long swallow. It heated his belly. He capped the whiskey and walked over and looked at the keys. He was wondering what the chances were of somebody picking just that time to come along, just as he got ready to move the car. He hated to chance anything, but if the car was gone nobody would think of looking around the place for her, and he would have more time. He wanted plenty of time.

  He leaned against the counter, considering it. He picked up the keys and looked at them. One of them was an ignition key for a Buick. Still shiny, not worn down to the brassy metal by fingertips yet. A new car, maybe. He hefted the bottle in his hand.

  “Well shit,” he muttered. Bobby was the only one to worry about coming along. He didn’t know what the chances were but he thought it was worth the risk. It wouldn’t take but a minute to find out.

  He walked up the hall to the front door and looked out. The road was deserted. He pushed open the screen door and stood on the porch listening. He couldn’t hear anything but the wind. He could see the back end of the car sticking out of the car shed, a chrome bumper, a blue trunk. When he moved he moved fast.

  He ran to the end of the porch and jumped off and landed running, crossed the yard at a lope and turned the corner of the shed and went down the side and yanked open the driver’s door. He threw the bottle onto the seat and slammed the door while he was cranking the car. When it fired to life he shoved it into reverse and stepped down hard on the gas. It spun gravel at first and he could hear the rocks clattering against the walls of the wooden shed and then back into the sides of the car and he let off the gas and it lurched backward. As soon as it cleared the shed he spun the wheel hard to the right and turned it around, hit the brakes, shoved it into drive, and swung out of the yard with mud and gravel flying. He pushed the pedal to the floor and raced toward the side road a half mile beyond the house, and he didn’t meet anybody. And after he was on that road he knew he probably wouldn’t.

  He drove slower then, sipping on the whiskey, looking for a place to hide one more car.

  Things were quiet at the jail now. The coroner had taken care of the body and Harold had gone off to patrol some more. Bobby sat in the dayroom and waited for the coffee to brew and watched part of a game show with the sound off. There wasn’t anything pressing to do now and he just wanted to rest for a while. He thought about calling Mary to see if she was back. He didn’t like it when they argued and he wanted to see if she was all right. But he thought he’d just drive out there after a while.

  When the coffee was ready he got up and poured a cup and took it back to his office and sat down, more to keep from answering all of Mable’s questions than anything else. At least it was over now. He’d done what he had to do. But he should have done it yesterday. Shouldn’t have let that baby lay out there another whole day. He told himself that it had just been because of what Virgil and Puppy got into, but that wasn’t it. He hadn’t wanted to go out there, hadn’t wanted to see what the children told him was out there. But now he had done it and now it was over.

  He looked up at the open door to his office. If it were closed, Mable wouldn’t come back there and bother him unless it was something she thought was important. He got up and closed it, then sat back down.

  There was always plenty of noise and meanness out in the world and it was nice to be able to get away from it for short periods of time. Like now. He put his feet up and reached in his pocket for his cigarettes.

  He felt bad for the two kids who were left. They’d be shunted off to somebody else forever now probably. He didn’t figure the mother was much better than the father. She hadn’t told on him. Maybe they’d done it together. Maybe he’d just scared her into staying quiet. Maybe he was in the process of killing her when he drove up on them the other day. And those kids there watching it. He hoped for a better life for them.

  He eased back in his chair and lit his cigarette. Smoke drifted over his desk. His boots were muddy again and he was getting some of it on his desk. But it was his desk and he could get mud on it if he wanted to.

  All he had to do was sit here, finish his coffee and his cigarette, and then he could get up and go home and take a shower, see what Mary was fixing for supper. Maybe there wouldn’t be any more trouble for a while. Maybe Glen would stay out of the way and leave Jewel alone. And if he wouldn’t he could always take his badge off for that five minutes. Five minutes. You could hurt somebody real bad in five minutes. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. All he wanted was for Glen to leave Jewel alone. He’d had his chance. It was all over now and he didn’t want to have to worry about him anymore.

  He kept sitting there, sipping on his coffee. After a while he finished it and got up and found his hat and put it on. He opened the door, turned the light off, and pulled the door closed behind him. Mable was still working on some papers up front. He told her where he was going and then he left.

  It was still cloudy outside and he wondered if the rain was over. He got into his car and pulled out into the street.

  The town was still wet and there were few people about, no idlers on the benches under the oaks of the courthouse. He drove by it slowly, looking up at the high windows set into the white masonry and saw someone peering down at him, a judge, a lawyer, a juryman, maybe a shoplifter. The man lifted a hand and Bobby nodded to him across the height and distance.

  He stopped at the red light and put his blinker on. Cars and trucks passed through the intersection and he waited for the light to turn green. Tapping his hand idly on the steering wheel, watching a woman next to him in a car speaking to her child. The light changed and he went through it and turned down the hill, picking up speed and moving over into the right lane past gas stations and grocery stores and a bank and a tire shop. He had to wait
for another light at the bottom of the hill and then he pushed down hard on the gas and drove to the other side of town and left the city limits. He dreaded telling Mary.

  He slowed once for some puppies playing near the highway, weaving wide of them and going by carefully. Children were in yards and old people sat in chairs on their porches. Some of them waved. He waved to some of them.

  Once he got deeper into the county he could see water lying everywhere, pooled in the ditches and flowing through the creeks, rain-drenched yards with their sodden trees standing guard beside the road. He felt dirty and he couldn’t remember when he’d ever been so tired. It seemed to have seeped into his bones and it felt as if it were pushing him down into the seat with its weight. His eyes drooped a few times and he weaved a little and snapped out of it. For a little while. Staying awake with Jewel almost all night. He couldn’t get the way she’d looked and the way she’d felt out of his mind and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away tonight either but he had to have some sleep. An ache had settled into his backbone and his shoulder blades. He guessed he needed some more coffee.