Jolly by John Weston Page B

pajamas were exchanged, reluctantly, for long woolen underwear every winter morning. Once the house was finished, anybody could throw the wire fence around it. Get someone to help hoist the water tank back on its timbers and realign the chicken pen—strongly this time so the coyotes will have to work to get in—and you’ll be practically finished.
    But where would you get a father? You can’t play house without a mother and a father, even if he did only show up now and then. And what about Jamie? Nell Ann would come back and bring her own two children, but Jamie never would or if he did come back he’d never stay.
    Jolly stood from the boulder, and his eyes swept over the land. He kicked a rock with his shoe and watched it tumble haltingly down the slope, sparking against other rocks, spurting tiny dust storms at each bounce until it rolled a few feet out onto the flat ground and stopped. He turned back the way he had come.
    The heavenly tree bobbed in the night air as it had for twenty years.
     
    As Jolly approached the limousine squatting like some carnivorous beast under the oak trees, Luke stepped from the car and walked to meet him at the road.
    “Hi, Luke. How’s the ball game? As if I couldn’t see that grin even in the dark.”
    “Touchdown,” Luke burbled. “Jesus God, Joll.” His breathing was shallow and quick. The words came out on top of his breaths.
    “That good, Luke?”
    “You got a cigarette?”
    Jolly extended the pack. “Piling sin upon sin, my brother. God, you’re shaking like a leaf.” Jolly held Luke’s wrist to steady the match so he could light his own cigarette. “Well? You going to tell me the details or aren’t you?”
    “Yeh, Joll, I will. Only there’s a problem.” Luke laughed nervously.
    “What’s the matter with you?”
    “Goddamit Jolly, I told you we oughta bought some rubbers.” Luke bit the word fiercely with his teeth.
    Jolly smiled. “Don’t tell me. I thought the old Santa Fe always pulled out on time.”
    “So did I. But it didn’t this trip.” Luke puffed morosely on his cigarette. It had gone out, and he flung it angrily into the dirt at his feet. “ Goddammit, Jolly, I gotta do something!”
    “Well, what do you expect me to do? At least you got something for your troubles, which is a whole hell of a lot more than I did.”
    “You’re the one made the grades in biology. What’re you supposed to do in a case like this?”
    Jolly snorted. “All we learned about having babies in that class was how the sperm wiggles along until it meets an egg in the uterus or somewhere, and how baby cats look inside their mother three weeks after the tom’s been by.”
    “You’re a buddy.”
    “Doesn’t she have one of those contraptions with the hot water bottle and the tube?”
    “A douche bag? No. I asked her about that. She says only married women use them.”
    “In that case, I’ll give her one for a wedding present—about next month,” Jolly laughed.
    “All right, smart-ass. She’s pretty worried, too. She don’t know what to do, either.”
    “With her experience, looks like she’d furnish rubbers, for chrissake. I suppose she told you she was a virgin or something.”
    “Come on, Joll, knock it off. I’d help you think of something if you were in this boat.” Luke held Jolly by both arms and gave a shake as if better to transmit his urgency. Suddenly he stopped, his hands gripping Jolly’s upper arms. His eyes grew wide and he grinned, his face level with Jolly’s.
    “Embalming fluid!” he exclaimed.
    “What? Are you some kind of a nut?”
    “That’s it! Embalming fluid! That’ll kill anything,” Luke cried happily.
    “Including Babe Wooten?” Jolly asked.
    “No, it won’t hurt her none. I don’t think it will, anyhow.” A small frown passed over his brow.
    “What’s she gonna do, drink it?”
    “No, moron. We’ll hook her up to the embalming machine and give her the red tube in the you-know-where!”
    “Oh, Jesus, Luke.