Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Cecil on the porch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette that he raised. Larry waved back and kept going, skidding to a stop before the mailboxes, theirs and the Walkers’. Without dismounting he opened the little door and pulled out the letters and circulars; he got Cecil’s, too, glancing at it. Where Larry sometimes had mail, comic books or magazines, things he’d ordered, Cindy Walker never did. The Walkers usually only got junk.
    Cecil was gone when he rode back by and he left their circulars on the porch. At home he laid his father’s mail on the kitchen table and took his seat. In a moment the back door closed and his mother came in the kitchen with several eggs in her apron.
    “You scared me,” she said.
    “Sorry.”
    She began to lay the eggs on the counter and noticed the mail. “Did your funny books come?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Maybe Monday.”
    Because it was warm, she was barefoot. She lit a match and touched it to the burner and a flame bloomed to life, smell of natural gas, piped from the big metal tank in the backyard, filled once a month by a truck.
    “How was your breathing last night?” she asked, rinsing the eggs.
    “Fine. Good.”
    “Good.” She was opening drawers, lighting another burner. “You want fried?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Something banged in the back of the house and they exchanged a look. Then the television clicked on and the newscaster’s voice grew louder as Carl raised the volume, part of his morning ritual, watching the news and reading the mail while he ate.
    A moment later he came into the kitchen tucking his green short-sleeved uniform shirt into his blue jeans, another sign of Saturday—the rest of the week he wore matching green pants. He often grumbled about having to work on Saturday, but Larry knew he preferred it to being here. And on any other Saturday Larry would have been anxious to go with him.
    But not today.
    “Good morning, Daddy,” he said, once a commercial came on, the television visible only from Carl’s end of the table.
    His father was spreading the mail in front of him. “Morning.”
    His mother appeared at Carl’s elbow with a ceramic coffeepot and poured his cup full.
    “Thank you.” He reached for the sugar and poured a huge amount in.
    She lingered at his elbow. “Honey?”
    He sipped and noticed them both looking at him, the usual Saturday ritual, the two of them teaming up on him, asking without words if Larry would be able to go to the shop today.
    Today, though, Larry was relieved when his father looked back at the letter in his hand and said, “Got a busy one, Ina. Two transmissions and a carburetor. He won’t do nothing but get in the way.”
    Behind them, the frying pan on the stove began to sizzle.
    “Okay, Daddy,” Larry said.
    “Maybe next week,” said his mother. One thing Carl had made clear long ago, to both of them, was that no meant hell no from the get-go.
    In a moment his mother set Larry’s eggs before him and he salted them and ate them quickly and his bacon, too. When he finished he felt his father’s eyes on his plate and said, “Can I be excused?”
    “What you tell your momma?”
    “Enjoyed it.”
    “Go on.”
    He went down the hall toward his room but heard his father call, “Hey, boy?”
    He hurried back. “Yes, sir?”
    “You stay outside today. Cut the grass.”
    Which meant Don’t read all day.
    “Yes, sir.”
    He went down the hall and picked up the paper sack of trash, heavy with last night’s beer bottles, and carried it outside and put it in the back of his father’s truck, where Carl would throw it in his trash can at the shop.
    HE WAS LUGGING the push mower out of the barn when Carl drove past in the red Ford and slowed to a stop, lowering his window.
    “Don’t run over no sticks with that mower,” he called. “I just sharpened the blade.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He waved as his father drove away, then turned to face their three-acre yard, the house centered in it and the barn back by