Desperation Road(14)

“It got quiet out here,” Mitchell said when she was out of earshot. “I don’t know what else to say about it. Your momma gone and all.”

“I know. You don’t have to explain anything.”

“Some nights I’d sit out back and sounded like it might sound if the world came to end and there was nobody else walking around.”

Mitchell reached down and picked up the fishing rod and sent the hook across the pond. “I didn’t figure I’d have to explain it much to you. I tried to quit feeling bad about it. I don’t know if your momma understands.”

“Mom’s been gone awhile. I think she’d get it.”

“I hope so.”

“She would.”

“Cause Consuela sleeps in the house sometimes.”

“It’s okay. You damn dog.”

A fish took the hook and the sinker bobbed and Mitchell let the fish run a little and then he reeled it in. This one was plenty big and he stood up to bring it on in and he unhooked it and Russell made room in the cooler. They sat back down and Mitchell handed his son the rod and told him to have a turn but Russell said no thanks. Mitchell set the rod on the ground.

Russell leaned back in his chair and said, “I appreciate the truck.”

“I figured you could use her. Needs a tune-up, though,” Mitchell said and he opened the whiskey and took a sip and then he chased it with the cold Coke. He handed the bottle to his son.

“And the house,” Russell said and he took the bottle. “You sure you don’t need somebody living there who pays for it?”

“That little house has been bought and paid for twice. I don’t need it.”

“Well. All right.”

Mitchell looked at him sideways. “You growing a beard?”

“Yes sir.”

Mitchell felt at his own smooth face. The sun hung above the trees and he squinted as he looked across the water.

“Looks like it’s still some big ones in here,” Russell said.

“Pretty big. Thought we’d get us a few and fry them up tomorrow evening. If that’s all right with you.”

“Sounds good.”

“What happened to your eye?” Mitchell asked and he pointed at Russell’s head.

Russell touched his fingertips to the redness and twisted his mouth. “A going-away present from one of the boys.”

“Hope that’s all you got.”

“It was. It’s okay. Got worse than that a hundred times working on one of your houses.”

“Yeah. You didn’t believe much in staying on ladders.”

Russell drank the Coke and then the whiskey and the Coke again and handed the bottle back to his father. But he felt better once it was down so he waved his hand and his father gave the bottle back to him. He drank again and then passed the bottle over and his dad put the top on and dropped it back into the cooler.

“It was them boys, wasn’t it?” Mitchell said.

“Them boys what?”

“That smack on your eye. It was them boys.”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t guess they believe in waiting around.”

“Guess they figure they been waiting long enough. How’d you know?”

“There’s a bunch of new buildings around here but that don’t mean it ain’t the same place. People talk like always. I was sitting at the café downtown and heard one of them old friends of their daddy running his mouth about coming to see you.”

“Their daddy there, too?”

“Naw. He’s been dead a pretty good while. Since before your mother.”

Russell took a piece of ice out of the cooler. He rubbed it across the swelling eye and then tossed it into the pond. A mouth opened and closed around it and sank below.

“Were they at the house?” Mitchell asked.

“Better than that. In the parking lot when the bus rolled in.”

“I thought that eye looked like today’s business. Anything else?”

“Nah.”

“What else you reckon they gonna do?” Mitchell asked.

“I’m not sure.”

Mitchell sat his can on the ground and he picked up the rod and reel and he took a cricket from the bucket. “Come on out here and stay,” he said as he stuck the hook through the cricket. “Long road. It’s easier to see somebody coming.”

“I’m not bringing this out here to you. It’ll be okay.”

Mitchell tossed the rod lightly this time, dropping the hook in the shallow water of the pond. The men watched the line until it ran and then Mitchell brought in a five-pounder.

“That’s another good one,” Russell said.

“Won’t take long like this,” Mitchell said. Russell opened the cooler and took out the whiskey bottle and two more Cokes. Mitchell took the hook from its mouth and laid it next to the other fish on top of the ice. The fish waved its body in its last attempts to be and then it fell still and Russell put the top back on the cooler.

The men returned to their chairs and they sat for a while. The sun falling. They kept the line in the water, holding on to a couple more fish, drinking from the bottle in small sips, talking in small bits about nothing. They got up and walked to the house where Mitchell sat on the back porch with a bucket and gutted the fish while Russell milled around in the shed and looked for the things he’d need to paint a house. Figured that was as good a task as any. It was all there. The ladders. Drop cloths. Brushes and scrapers. In the same spots he remembered them being in. He came out of the shed and over to the porch. Mitchell shook his head with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Focused on the fish and his hands bloodied to the wrists.