The Last Worthless Evening by Andre Dubus Page A

breathed into the warm exhaust-tinged air between them.
    â€œWhat’s up, anyways? No more school?” The man spread his arms, his eyes left Mickey’s and moved skyward, then swept the street to Mickey’s right and the buildings on its opposite side, then returned, sharper now, as though Mickey were a blurred television picture becoming clear, distinct. “Did July get here?”
    â€œIt’s April.”
    â€œAh: AWOL . Your old man’ll kick your ass, right?”
    â€œI just got out.”
    â€œJust got out.” The man looked above Mickey again, his blue eyes roving, as though waiting for something to appear in the sky beyond low buildings, in the air above lines of slow cars. For the first time Mickey knew that the man was not tall; he had only seemed to be. His shoulders were broad and sloping, his chest wide and deep so the yellow tank shirt stretched across it, and his biceps swelled when he bent his arms, and sprang tautly when he straightened them; his belly was wide too, and protruded, but his chest was much wider and thicker. Yet he was not as tall as he had appeared stepping from the bar, turning as he strode, and bowing, then standing upright and raising his arms. Mickey’s eyes were level with the soft area just beneath the man’s Adam’s apple, the place that housed so much pain, where Mickey had deeply pushed his finger against Frankie Archembault’s windpipe last month when Frankie’s headlock had blurred his eyes with tears and his face scraped the cold March earth. It was not a fight; Frankie simply got too rough, then released Mickey and rolled away, red-faced and gasping and rubbing his throat. When Mickey stood facing his father he looked directly at the two lower ribs, above the solar plexus. His father stood near-motionless, his limbs still, quiet, like his voice; the strength Mickey felt from him was in his eyes.
    The man had lit a cigarette and was smoking it fast, looking at the cars passing; Mickey watched the side of his face. Below it, on the reddened bicep of his right arm that brought the cigarette to his mouth and down again, was the tattoo, and Mickey stared at it as he might at a dead animal, a road kill of something wild he had never seen alive, a fox or a fisher, with more than curiosity: fascination and a nuance of baseless horror. The Marine Corps globe and anchor were blue, and permanent as the man’s flesh. Beneath the globe was an unfurled rectangular banner that appeared to flap gently in a soft breeze; between its borders, written in script that filled the banner, was Semper Fidelis . Under the banner were block letters: USMC . The man still gazed across the street, and Mickey stepped around him, between him and the bar, to walk up the street and over the bridge; he would stop and look down at the moving water and imagine salmon swimming upriver before he walked the final two miles, most of it uphill and steep, to the tree-shaded street and his home. But the man turned and held his shoulder. The man did not tightly grip him; it was the man’s quick movement that parted Mickey’s lips with fear. They stood facing each other, Mickey’s back to the door of the bar, and the man looked at his eyes then drew on his cigarette and flicked it up the sidewalk. Mickey watched it land beyond the corner of the bar, on the exit driveway of McDonald’s. The hand was rubbing his shoulder.
    â€œYou just got out. Ah. So it’s not July. Three fucking something o’clock in April. I believe I have missed a very important appointment.” He withdrew his left hand from Mickey’s shoulder and turned the wrist between their faces. “No watch, see? Can’t wear a wristwatch. Get me the most expensive fucking wristwatch in the world, I can’t wear it. Agent Orange, man. I’m walking talking drinking fucking fighting Agent Orange. Know what I mean? My cock is lethal. I put on a watch, zap, it