this lovely girl. He knew this was wrong, even as he thought it, but he felt it solidly.
Give me a hand, he said to the girl. Let’s clean up a little.
You don’t have to, Betsy said. Please don’t.
She really didn’t want him to, it embarrassed her someplace deep, and she owed him enough. For a moment he thought that he wouldn’t do it but then he saw Ann’s face, unreadable, gone inside, and knew that he had to. Somebody needed to take care of them.
Come on, he said to Adam. Give us a hand.
* * *
But the boy would not stir from his mother’s skirts. RL gave up on him, went to the sink and began to run hot water. He had not done this in some time. He did his own dishes with a machine, but here there was no machine. Ann, mute, went around the room collecting dirties, setting them on the stained and lifting parquet counter next to the sink. Parquet was a terrible choice for a countertop. RL could have told them that much. It would never last.
*
Drunk, June was coming home after Red’s, Charlie’s, the Flame, the Turf, the I Don’t Know, Luke’s, the Stockman’s and the Silver Dollar closed and the Oxford quit serving liquor and went over entirely to poker, brains and eggs.
Or half drunk. June thought she had drunk herself sober, which the adult version of herself does not believe is possible but the June of that night (twenty with decent fake ID) had seen with her own eyes. The dark morning was cold enough to sober her up, anyway, somewhere around zero, with a smart stinging wind coming out of the canyon, a wind that would turn half her face numb when it picked up.
That night—it could have been any Friday, still in college, drunk and pretty, looking for something but looking in the bars where there was nothing but more of the same—if it hadn’t beenthat one night she wouldn’t even remember who she was with, an array of the same faces. June ran with the clogs-and-wool-sweaters set, but on Friday night she put on her red boots, the ones with the white stars and stitching. Smart girl acting dumb, maybe. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Who was that girl?
That night she was not going home with anybody but she was walking toward the Rattlesnake with Coy, Tiffany and Blackmore, three English majors and a Nez Percé Indian (Blackmore) who she never saw again in her life. That little duplex, so clean and so alone. Picture of her family and of sunflowers by van Gogh and a teapot and a cat. It was different then, alone but all right with it. Was she?
Crossing Pattee by the post office, a Mustang comes out of nowhere fast. The four of them are halfway across the street, talking about Van Morrison, and the red car brushes by so close that it shuts them all up, scares them, maybe six inches away from Coy, who turns on his heels as the Mustang passes and raises his fist and finger and yells,
Fuck you!
The red Mustang stops in a sideways plunge of tire squeal and tire smoke. The smell of rubber in the cold breeze. They stand there dumb as cows.
Then the Mustang does a standing-start made-for-TV 180 and then it’s coming straight at them and she’s up on the curb somehow and Blackmore and Tiff, but Coy is, like,
stuck
out there in the crosswalk with the Mustang coming faster than any of them can think, and then lightly he’s somehow up on the hood of the thing and the motor keeps winding up, faster as it passes with Coy up on the hood shouting,
Motherfucker, motherfucker stop
.
* * *
Which he does stop cold, a hundred feet down the street, and Coy launches off the hood and onto the dirt and dirty ice of the street, rolling over and over limp. Oh God, oh God, oh God, goes Tiffany, and Blackmore starts to curse and run down the block to where the Mustang sits still. He could fire it up and run Coy over where he sits. June stands there stuck to the sidewalk, not even cold. Down the block behind her, a girl is laughing loud. From somewhere comes the sound of breaking glass.
Then the Mustang is gone and Blackmore
Give me a hand, he said to the girl. Let’s clean up a little.
You don’t have to, Betsy said. Please don’t.
She really didn’t want him to, it embarrassed her someplace deep, and she owed him enough. For a moment he thought that he wouldn’t do it but then he saw Ann’s face, unreadable, gone inside, and knew that he had to. Somebody needed to take care of them.
Come on, he said to Adam. Give us a hand.
* * *
But the boy would not stir from his mother’s skirts. RL gave up on him, went to the sink and began to run hot water. He had not done this in some time. He did his own dishes with a machine, but here there was no machine. Ann, mute, went around the room collecting dirties, setting them on the stained and lifting parquet counter next to the sink. Parquet was a terrible choice for a countertop. RL could have told them that much. It would never last.
*
Drunk, June was coming home after Red’s, Charlie’s, the Flame, the Turf, the I Don’t Know, Luke’s, the Stockman’s and the Silver Dollar closed and the Oxford quit serving liquor and went over entirely to poker, brains and eggs.
Or half drunk. June thought she had drunk herself sober, which the adult version of herself does not believe is possible but the June of that night (twenty with decent fake ID) had seen with her own eyes. The dark morning was cold enough to sober her up, anyway, somewhere around zero, with a smart stinging wind coming out of the canyon, a wind that would turn half her face numb when it picked up.
That night—it could have been any Friday, still in college, drunk and pretty, looking for something but looking in the bars where there was nothing but more of the same—if it hadn’t beenthat one night she wouldn’t even remember who she was with, an array of the same faces. June ran with the clogs-and-wool-sweaters set, but on Friday night she put on her red boots, the ones with the white stars and stitching. Smart girl acting dumb, maybe. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Who was that girl?
That night she was not going home with anybody but she was walking toward the Rattlesnake with Coy, Tiffany and Blackmore, three English majors and a Nez Percé Indian (Blackmore) who she never saw again in her life. That little duplex, so clean and so alone. Picture of her family and of sunflowers by van Gogh and a teapot and a cat. It was different then, alone but all right with it. Was she?
Crossing Pattee by the post office, a Mustang comes out of nowhere fast. The four of them are halfway across the street, talking about Van Morrison, and the red car brushes by so close that it shuts them all up, scares them, maybe six inches away from Coy, who turns on his heels as the Mustang passes and raises his fist and finger and yells,
Fuck you!
The red Mustang stops in a sideways plunge of tire squeal and tire smoke. The smell of rubber in the cold breeze. They stand there dumb as cows.
Then the Mustang does a standing-start made-for-TV 180 and then it’s coming straight at them and she’s up on the curb somehow and Blackmore and Tiff, but Coy is, like,
stuck
out there in the crosswalk with the Mustang coming faster than any of them can think, and then lightly he’s somehow up on the hood of the thing and the motor keeps winding up, faster as it passes with Coy up on the hood shouting,
Motherfucker, motherfucker stop
.
* * *
Which he does stop cold, a hundred feet down the street, and Coy launches off the hood and onto the dirt and dirty ice of the street, rolling over and over limp. Oh God, oh God, oh God, goes Tiffany, and Blackmore starts to curse and run down the block to where the Mustang sits still. He could fire it up and run Coy over where he sits. June stands there stuck to the sidewalk, not even cold. Down the block behind her, a girl is laughing loud. From somewhere comes the sound of breaking glass.
Then the Mustang is gone and Blackmore
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