screen door, down to us where we squatted.
“It’s never just life,” Jamalee said. As she listened to her brother and the woman, her posture became one of low tide, drained and slack. “It’s always a tired-ass lesson from life.”
DOORS HAD BEEN slammed shut in the dream house.
The three of us moped in the kitchen, Jamalee chewing her lips and Jason drying his eyes, trying to breathe slow and wipe the red from his face.
He said, “I knew it. I knew it would be like that .”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not all bad.”
“I’ll never be normal now.”
“Kid, you weren’t ever goin’ to be normal. Not you. Normal belongs to other folks.”
A passing train cast its spell, put us on hold where we stood, took time from our lives and ate it. The spell was long, loud, welcome.
Jason dunked his head in the sink again, washing his face for the eighty-seventh time or close to it. That woman had worked the boy like a rented mule that hated the work and kept trying to run toward open pasture and had to be reined in hard and bossed.
At the end she’d giggled and giggled and called him “Dear child.”
It didn’t occur to her, apparently, to leave him a wad of cash.
“I suppose what we’ll do,” Jamalee said, “is we’ll just the three of us have us a nice sad pity party. We’ll cower here, shiver and shake, and share stories about our weaknesses. All the lame things about us that make us pointless . Which we are, we’re pointless .”
“Now listen,” Jason said. His voice ran high on him. “If you want, Sis, we can be totally honest about you — brutally honest, even—but I’d very much prefer it if we’d keep sugar-coating anything said about me . Is that so much to expect?”
Beyond the screen door I spotted this snake. A milk snake, I’d say. It came into view from near where we’d squatted as trash cans. The snake went by slow and unconcerned, as if it thought it was playing a round of golf or something. I saw it ripple toward a grass knot and suddenly it was gone, totally gone, as if it had never been there, like a truth you didn’t tell.
In a short time it became only me and Jamalee standing there. She had half circles of dirt dusted on her smock where her squatting butt had met the dirt. Dust moons as a designer’s touch. They drew my eyes.
“I’ll need a job,” Tomato Red said. “My brother won’t do at all as a stud.”
“I had my doubts,” I said. I raised my hands to my flattop, then rubbed the fenders. “But he’s got these other talents.”
“So, I’ll get a job, raise the money that way. I can get a job, how about you?”
“They’ll have to hang me first. Then I’ll hunt up some sort of grunt work. Grunt work is my main calling, but I like to be dead when I do it.”
“Aw, shit, Sammy, that future sounds awful.” This was a sorry day for baby Jam, the day the transmission fell plumb out of her plan. It left her skittery and raw and wondering. “It’s not right.”
“Ah,” I said, “we are havin’ one.”
“One what?”
“Pity party. Like you said: my lifelong boo-hoos, your lifelong boo-hoos; we’ll celebrate them, talk them out into the complete wide open.”
Oh, now Jamalee did not care for my comment. She gave me a look that suggested she just might dismiss gravity or some such until I learned my fuckin’ place. I won’t claim she managed to do that, but if I did it’d certainly make a fresh excuse for me. No?
13
Fuss and Feathers
YOU WEREN’T BORN choking on no silver spoon, you know how it goes when you go looking for a job and you need one: You wait in the first indifferent room, ink in the forms, apply in another room with linoleum that’s waxy and squeaks and overhead lights that don’t miss a thing; then there’s the desk and the person behind it who thinks he’s an admiral, or it’s a she and she thinks she’s now in line for the throne to somewhere, and next you’re kissing ass and aw-shucksing toward the
“It’s never just life,” Jamalee said. As she listened to her brother and the woman, her posture became one of low tide, drained and slack. “It’s always a tired-ass lesson from life.”
DOORS HAD BEEN slammed shut in the dream house.
The three of us moped in the kitchen, Jamalee chewing her lips and Jason drying his eyes, trying to breathe slow and wipe the red from his face.
He said, “I knew it. I knew it would be like that .”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not all bad.”
“I’ll never be normal now.”
“Kid, you weren’t ever goin’ to be normal. Not you. Normal belongs to other folks.”
A passing train cast its spell, put us on hold where we stood, took time from our lives and ate it. The spell was long, loud, welcome.
Jason dunked his head in the sink again, washing his face for the eighty-seventh time or close to it. That woman had worked the boy like a rented mule that hated the work and kept trying to run toward open pasture and had to be reined in hard and bossed.
At the end she’d giggled and giggled and called him “Dear child.”
It didn’t occur to her, apparently, to leave him a wad of cash.
“I suppose what we’ll do,” Jamalee said, “is we’ll just the three of us have us a nice sad pity party. We’ll cower here, shiver and shake, and share stories about our weaknesses. All the lame things about us that make us pointless . Which we are, we’re pointless .”
“Now listen,” Jason said. His voice ran high on him. “If you want, Sis, we can be totally honest about you — brutally honest, even—but I’d very much prefer it if we’d keep sugar-coating anything said about me . Is that so much to expect?”
Beyond the screen door I spotted this snake. A milk snake, I’d say. It came into view from near where we’d squatted as trash cans. The snake went by slow and unconcerned, as if it thought it was playing a round of golf or something. I saw it ripple toward a grass knot and suddenly it was gone, totally gone, as if it had never been there, like a truth you didn’t tell.
In a short time it became only me and Jamalee standing there. She had half circles of dirt dusted on her smock where her squatting butt had met the dirt. Dust moons as a designer’s touch. They drew my eyes.
“I’ll need a job,” Tomato Red said. “My brother won’t do at all as a stud.”
“I had my doubts,” I said. I raised my hands to my flattop, then rubbed the fenders. “But he’s got these other talents.”
“So, I’ll get a job, raise the money that way. I can get a job, how about you?”
“They’ll have to hang me first. Then I’ll hunt up some sort of grunt work. Grunt work is my main calling, but I like to be dead when I do it.”
“Aw, shit, Sammy, that future sounds awful.” This was a sorry day for baby Jam, the day the transmission fell plumb out of her plan. It left her skittery and raw and wondering. “It’s not right.”
“Ah,” I said, “we are havin’ one.”
“One what?”
“Pity party. Like you said: my lifelong boo-hoos, your lifelong boo-hoos; we’ll celebrate them, talk them out into the complete wide open.”
Oh, now Jamalee did not care for my comment. She gave me a look that suggested she just might dismiss gravity or some such until I learned my fuckin’ place. I won’t claim she managed to do that, but if I did it’d certainly make a fresh excuse for me. No?
13
Fuss and Feathers
YOU WEREN’T BORN choking on no silver spoon, you know how it goes when you go looking for a job and you need one: You wait in the first indifferent room, ink in the forms, apply in another room with linoleum that’s waxy and squeaks and overhead lights that don’t miss a thing; then there’s the desk and the person behind it who thinks he’s an admiral, or it’s a she and she thinks she’s now in line for the throne to somewhere, and next you’re kissing ass and aw-shucksing toward the
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