Whiskey

by Bruce Holbert

  * * *

  The next day Claire and Andre married. Andre stood at an altar with Pork and Smoker, half drunk in their tuxedos. Nobody inquired about Pork’s broken lip. Crazy Eddie’s Tavern hosted the reception. For his gift, Eddie offered the wedding party a turkey dinner and ten dollars’ worth of quarters for the jukebox. Andre and Claire clasped hands and punched their favorites. The light made them glow. When the disc dropped and the speakers hissed and a song began, Andre set his open hand in the small of Claire’s back and his other met hers and they danced. Andre’s mouth opened and closed and Smoker could see his breath stir her hair. He realized his brother was singing. She kissed him and he parted his lips and whispered small things neither would remember.

  Dede tugged Smoker’s hand and he followed her to the dance floor. Past the bar sat Pork and Peg at separate tables. Pork had unbuttoned his jacket and his damp shirt stuck to him where he’d sweated through it. Both their faces looked yellow and unhealthy. Peg nodded as if agreeing to some voice only she heard. Pork lifted his glass at Andre. Andre nodded. Dede breathed in, surprised when Smoker pulled her closer.

  9

  EXODUS

  August 1991

  Inside Harold’s cabin, Andre stirred the fireplace embers. Those that hadn’t surrendered to ash pulsed in the damper’s draft. Kindling had been piled in a wooden apple crate at one end of the hearth. Another larger box cobbled together from plywood and lumber scraps held split and quartered rounds. Andre wasn’t particularly cold, but he enjoyed the heated air pressing over him.

  Harold and Smoker drank from their beers.

  “I think I quit bleeding,” Smoker said.

  “Congratulations,” Harold replied.

  Calvin glared up from the tablecloth squares he appeared to be studying. “I fucked your mother,” Calvin told them.

  Smoker laughed. “Guess that puts you in the majority of men acquainted with her.”

  “That include you and your brother?”

  “We are freethinkers but not nearly that liberated.”

  “You’re a couple of ungrateful assholes,” Calvin said. “That woman brung you into this world.”

  “And that’s a favor?”

  “You ever see a woman in labor?” Calvin asked.

  “No,” Smoker said.

  “Seen plenty of cows calving though,” Andre added from the fireplace.

  “Now you’re comparing your mother to cattle.”

  “No,” Smoker said, “he’s comparing birth to birth.”

  “You know how many women’s cause of death is their kids?” Calvin asked.

  “Maybe in Buttfuck, Egypt,” Smoker said.

  “No, in America. This country is fifth worst in making it past five years old. Check your goddamned library. Poland’s ahead of here. So’s Canada. You got better odds getting to kindergarten in the fucking Yukon than in Spokane, Washington. And your mother brought you two into this world anyway.”

  “I see you have read an article somewhere.” Smoker chuckled. “But you’re still nothing but a goddamned convict. You going to tell us how to treat our mother? You may have fucked her, but you didn’t know her.”

  Calvin stared at his toes. “I didn’t fuck her,” he said. “I tried.” He bent and lifted his pant leg. “She shot me right here.”

  “You got off light,” Smoker told him. “You should see what she did to our father.”

  “I saw her Cesarean scar,” Calvin said. “You got off light, too.”

  “Shut up, Calvin,” Harold said. “Sex. Sex, sex, sex. Tearing and scars and blood and … You are a scourge.”

  “People,” Calvin asked, “or me?”

  “You.”

  “I’m just a human.”

  “You’re an animal.”

  “That, too.”

  “You can’t be both,” Harold told him.

  “You’re wrong. I can’t not be. Neither can you, Pop.” Calvin’s voice had turned plaintiff. The man had a stake in what he said.

  “With this!” Harold lifted his Bible and slapped the cover. “I can.”

  “Hold up Moby-Dick or ‘The Three Bears’ and you might argue the same thing.”

  “You’ve never read either,” Harold told him.

  “Wrong,” Calvin responded. “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Prison’s got a library and books. I read all three and there’s not a lick of difference between them.”

  “You are comparing God’s word to man’s?”

  “Are you going to fuck their little girl?” Calvin asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You heard me, Father.”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Because of the money. What if there was no money? What if these dipshits never stumbled this way? What if they didn’t give a shit, like you figured?”

  Harold didn’t reply.

  “What about the Thompson girl she’s playing dominoes with?”

  “She’s a child,” Harold said.

  “She won’t always be.”

  “Well, then we can revisit this conversation.”

  “Do you want her to bleed first? What if she bleeds, then will you take her?”

  Harold sighed. “We must procreate. Otherwise the sinners will outbreed us.”

  “No,” Calvin said. “We must not. That’s the greatest sin. Who needs more of us?”

  “You would not be born?”

  “That’d suit you, wouldn’t it? Is that how you took mother? Just circle her like a buzzard waiting for blood?” Calvin shook his head. “I did the goddamned math. She was barely fifteen when I was born. Means she couldn’t be past fourteen and a half when you bedded her, and that’s only if the plumbing worked right the first time. You were what, thirty?”

  “She’s dead,” Harold said.

  “How?” Andre asked.

  “Car wreck.”

  Calvin shook his head. “On a straight road. Midday. Right off Sherman Ridge. No brake marks. Car was traveling fast enough to almost clear the guardrail. I was six. She got all the way to twenty-one.” He looked at his father.

  “Look at your career, so far. You would have hardly profited her. Maybe she saw the future.”

  Calvin did not reply.

  “And maybe I can do better with another womb,” Harold added.

  Calvin laughed. “Sorry my mother’s was less than golden.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Harold said.

  “She was a child, blood or not,” Calvin told him.

  “So was Mary. You are not God.”

  Smoker rose and Andre with him.

  “Not with your girl,” Harold told them. “We need the money.” He nodded at Smoker’s bag. “She hasn’t been touched.”

  Calvin laughed. “And they locked me up?”

  Andre tried to ignore them. He added to the fire and watched the fresh wood catch and smoke, then burn. The pitch popped and crackled and tossed sparks onto the hearth that he extinguished with his bootheel.

  LAMENTATIONS

  December 1984–March 1985

  Five days before Christmas, Andre wed Claire. The church, dolled up with holiday trimmings, produced a fine affair and the poinsettias were free. Before the reception, Dede deposited Bird with Vera and the event soon escalated to a bender. Andre packed Claire, drunk past consciousness, fireman-style to Pork’s four-by-four. Pork backed out. Claire’s mouth and cheek were flattened against the window glass along with one unseeing eye.

  Two days later, Smoker resigned from the pole plant, and in solidarity Peg abandoned her dime-store stint, leaving only Andre employed, but, as school had let out for the holidays, he was not required to follow suit. Without jobs, the family gave drink and revelry their undivided attention. Outside the tavern window, locals passed, hastened by wind and temperature, stocking caps screwed onto their heads. The icy streets shone like rubbed silver and the shoppers and ambling children minced steps to avoid calamity. Andre spotted three students from his
homeroom, a boy and two girls. He wondered if they would recognize him bearing a year’s worth of drink in a short week. He felt the man Claire married yielding to the one hobbled by the years before her. He contemplated calling but feared he’d become too undone for her to remember him and hearing his voice, she would recognize it.

  By Christmas Eve, the wedding party had run tab enough Eddie cut them off, but when Andre opened the door to his marriage house, Claire had boxed her things and left. He had not drank since. In fact, he’d done little except teach school and watch TV and avoid Claire in the hallways.

  A month or so after, Peg surprised most everyone by returning to Pork and the ranch, part-time at least. She curried the horses and meandered the property in a bumperless pickup. Pork coaxed her to fish with him evenings. Andre and Smoker straggled along occasionally with a bucket of grocery-store chicken. No one talked much, but Andre knew Peg had wandered onto some road strange to her. She lingered those cool days on the gravel banks and studied the current like it was sketching out pictures, though not the right ones.

  * * *

  March, Andre stood in the dark living room of Peg’s trailer until Smoker’s headlight beams sprayed him with light. He and Smoker were scheduled to deliver Peg and the last of her things to the ranch. The truck door slammed and Smoker’s breath fog lifted in the night air outside. He pulled at the trailer door without knocking and felt for the switch.

  “Don’t,” Andre said.

  “Why?”

  “She’s dead.”

  Odds and ends cluttered the floor: her shot-glass collection, ancient encyclopedias, worn winter coats that leaked ticking, a few photographs and cards. She was near dead when Andre found her. She left no note. Explanations, like endearments, were riders she had thrown long ago.

  Smoker paused in the window’s light and lit a cigarette. “She never mentioned being ill.”

  “Wasn’t.”

  “How then?”

  “That old .22.”

  “Jesus. In the head?”

  “Chest.”

  “Didn’t want to go ugly, I imagine,” Smoker said. “I hope she was drunk.”

  “Bottle’s on the end table.”

  Smoker fumbled through the dark, then lifted the whiskey and drank. “Damn, this is her holiday jug.”

  The whiskey swirled against the bottle glass. Andre had just come to where he could enjoy sobriety. Smoker lit another cigarette. Peg lay on the sofa behind him. Her face appeared and vanished in the match flash.

  “You call the old man?” Smoker asked.

  “Phone’s disconnected. Haven’t even told the police.”

  Smoker drank again then rolled the whiskey across the floor to Andre. “You see this coming?”

  Andre lifted the bottle by the neck and enjoyed the liquid weight. He uncapped it and smelled. Andre was the one their mother was most inclined to. Smoker figured it was because Andre was oldest, but Andre understood it differently. Smoker was sharp-featured and rakish; women tripped over one another to be his fool. He had a knack for appearing to have feelings and the prospect of excavating his heart kept them on. His mother, though, was drawn to ugly men. She embraced their mean spirits and bent teeth as if penance. Andre was her spiritual burden. He closed his eyes and drank the whiskey and the feeling of liquor was on him again, more certain than anything in his life. He asked Smoker for a cigarette. Smoker tapped the pack on his knuckle until one slid loose. The smoke lightened Andre’s head. “You gonna call the cops or me?” Andre asked.

  “Not calling any cops.”

  “We need a death certificate for the funeral.”

  “Funerals cost money and it’ll take into next week. Besides, who’d show?”

  “You and me.”

  “You and me don’t need nothing but a shovel.”

  “It won’t be legal,” Andre said.

  “That’ll suit her fine.”

  Andre argued, but Smoker heard none of it, and when he switched the light and worked to cover Peg in an old Indian blanket, Andre hiked her legs and rolled her to be wrapped. Pooled blood blackened her sweatshirt. Andre brought a towel from the bathroom and mopped what was left, then helped Smoker fold the blanket.

  She was awkward as a bar drunk to tote. They swung her over the porch railing and Smoker’s truck’s tailgate. Andre arranged a logging chain and a spare tire to make room and snubbed her with duct tape to secure the blanket.

  Smoker backed from the driveway while Andre checked how his mother bore the ride. Her graying hair twisted into her mouth. She’d ceased fighting it the past month, which left her appearing a senior citizen while behaving like a fourteen-year-old on a dare. To newcomers she appeared simply tapped out. Only the regulars understood how much she’d squandered and how gloriously she’d done it.

  * * *

  Pork answered the ranch-house door with a rifle leveled at their waists.

  “It’s late to be calling.” He set the rifle inside.

  “Got some bad news,” Smoker said.

  “Spill it.”

  “Mother’s killed herself.”

  “Christ, I knew she didn’t want me no more than before.” He pulled his glasses from his face and rubbed the welts they left on each side of his nose. “Come on inside.”

  “She’s in the truck,” Smoker said. “We need a shovel and a good place.”

  “That truck?” Pork pointed.

  Smoker nodded. “You going to lend us a hand?”

  The driveway light illuminated Pork’s face.

  “I’ll lend you some advice,” he said. “Take her home. Let them that know how to handle it.”

  “Nobody should care where she’s buried,” Smoker replied.

  Pork spat. “I don’t want her here. You hear that? I don’t want to be wondering what pile of rocks she’s under, what goddamned tree is growing over her.”

  “She’s dead,” Smoker said. “We’re finished being mad.”

  “I ain’t done.” Pork huffed. “You should be as mad as me,” he shouted. “I won’t spend one second grieving her. You understand me?” He jerked the rifle from behind the door and waved the gun above them and fired.

  Smoker and Andre bolted for the truck. Andre crawled into the driver’s side and twisted the key. When he and Smoker looked back, Pork peered through the scope at the sky left uncovered by his shattered gutter. He squeezed off another round. The shot cracked and the report shuddered down the river. The old man studied the night, waiting for a vanishing star or planet, or maybe a bead of blue day to drip from the night.

  “He didn’t hit nothing?” Smoker asked.

  Andre shrugged. “Maybe that’s what he aimed for.”

  They navigated the dirt roads an hour farther upriver, Andre at the wheel while Smoker directed him and unhooked barbed-wire gates that marked each ranch’s boundaries. Cattle lowed and wandered toward the lights hoping for a feed truck. The country opened and turned rocky as they neared the river bottom. In a washboarded stretch, Andre listened to Peg bang the truck bed.

  Andre halted the truck on a hill knob. Smoker lit a cigarette from his second pack. The headlights painted the high yellow ditch weeds. Below was a corral and a tiny house like those thrown up for hands working the winter pastures. Barking came from it. Andre cut the engine and the dog quieted. The moon shone on the river’s black curve. Andre heard the water pass despite his closed window. He shivered and slapped his hands together to warm himself. When it was clear they weren’t going to start the truck and the heater, he wrestled some gloves from the jockey box.

  “See that window upstairs?” Smoker’s hand tapped the dash then wiped the windshield clouded with breath fog. “The light there is a miniature of them Disney dogs. Dalmatians. She’s got a Disney-dog bedspread, too. Did you hear barking when we came up? That’s the real thing, the dog-movie dog.”

  Andre cocked one eyebrow. “Bird?”

  “And Dede. I rented it a month ago. I visit weekends. Otherwise, if I got a present or a load of
groceries, I drop it in the car while Dede’s working and Bird is at school.”

  Smoker stared into the flat below.

  “You know why I got to bury her tonight?” Smoker asked. “I’m poison in large doses. I need new rules.” He sighed. “It ain’t ill will. I never wanted Peg dead. How can you not love your mother? It’s against some law, isn’t it?” Smoker’s mouth pocketed with a wrinkle. It was the first age Andre recognized in him.

  “Probably,” Andre said, “but I doubt they looked enough ahead to see Peg.”

  Smoker pulled his cigarette ash bright until it lit his face. Smoke filled the cab then broke up. In the pickup bed, their mother wasn’t much more than the blanket and wind-tossed hair. Alive no one could get her that small.

  Smoker passed what was left of the whiskey.

  When Andre reached the age of interest, he made a study of his mother’s suitors. Late one night his eighth-grade year, he woke to a friend of his father’s rocking against his mother, who was on all fours in the television light. The man flailed like a hooked fish; his work boots trapped his jeans at his ankles. His mother’s bra had been jerked to her shoulders, and her breasts swung in the TV’s flickering. When she finally peered away and blinked Andre into focus, her brow furrowed as if considering an important thought, and he waited for her to speak it, but she only shooed him with a hand before the man could see.

  After the man departed and she lay sleeping, Andre entered her room. Her nipples poked her nightgown and made a static sound. His erection ached him. She woke and saw and he waited. She said nothing, just rolled over, leaving him the bones of her back, no heart, no lungs breathing, just hard shapes.