Desperation Road(32)

“It don’t work like that,” Russell said.

Boyd tapped the badge on his shirt pocket and grinned. “I got special privileges.”

“Then sit down with your special privileges. If you want some coffee it’s in there.”

Boyd sat down in a wooden chair next to the television. “You’re skinny,” he said.

“You’re fat. Your old lady must love the big rub.”

“Big rub? Never heard that one but I’ll ask her about it later on. You get any sleep?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither,” Boyd said. “We got us a situation and a half.”

Russell nodded. Drank from the coffee cup.

Say it, Boyd thought. Say you don’t have nothing to do with it though I know you don’t but say it just so I’ll hear it again.

“Shotgun still loaded?” Boyd asked.

“Yep.”

“Who smacked you around? That face looks pretty new.”

“It ain’t.”

“Just takes longer to heal when you get old, I guess.”

“Hurts longer, too.”

Boyd stood from the chair. He looked around the living room. Down the hallway. A mostly empty house and clothes lying here and there.

“You ride around much longer last night?” he asked.

Russell set the coffee mug on the floor and stretched out across the couch. “Not really.”

“Bet it felt good.”

“Bet what felt good?”

“Riding around. Free air.”

Russell sat up. “Somebody send you over here?”

“Hell no, Russell. Just trying to catch up. I’m still pissed you didn’t let nobody know you were coming home.”

“Larry figured it out.”

“Who?”

“Don’t give me that shit. You know who I’m talking about. The one who hates me. The ones who hate you are always waiting for you. So maybe you’re the son of a bitch,” Russell said and he got up from the couch. “I got to piss. Why don’t we do this later?”

“Fine,” Boyd said. “I got shit to do anyway. Hey, you know I’m glad to see you.”

“I know it. I don’t mean nothing.”

They slapped hands and then Boyd walked outside. He stopped in the yard and looked back over his shoulder and through the open door he saw Russell go into the hallway and disappear behind the bathroom door. Quit being stupid, he told himself. Stupid is a bad way to start the day.


Russell spent the rest of the day on the couch sleeping off the long night before and then late in the afternoon he got up and showered. When he was dried and dressed he stuck another Band-Aid on the small cut on his forehead though it no longer bled. He got in the truck and put the 20-gauge behind the seat and drove to kill some time before going out to eat fish with his dad and Consuela.

He rode up and down Delaware like he used to do when he was a teenager and it didn’t seem any different. Carloads of summertime kids with arms hanging out windows and ponytails flopping in the wind. Music with big bumps throbbing in the late afternoon. At a fast food joint the parking lot was filled with young bodies sitting on tailgates and on hoods. Some sipping drinks from giant plastic cups and some licking ice cream cones. He swung into the movie theater parking lot and only pickups were parked. Athletes wore letter jackets despite the heat and a couple of others wore cowboy hats and had their thumbs stuck in their front pockets. When he passed they stared and tried to place him and then one of them said what the hell you looking at.

When he pulled back onto Delaware a carload of girls in a momma’s Cadillac moved alongside him and he kept their speed. They were singing along with the radio, sweet highpitched voices that were careless and off-key. He looked over and there were three in the front and three in the back. They didn’t notice him at first but in the middle of a long note the driver looked over at him and screamed oh my God. She gave a wild laugh and the other girls stopped and saw him watching and they ducked and their squeals replaced the strained melody. Russell laughed back and the light turned green and the driver, cheeks sharp and eyes squinted, looked at him and called him a pervert and they all laughed harder and she gunned the Cadillac and it leaped like some prehistoric animal into the intersection.

That did it for the joyride.

He drove to his dad’s place where he found his father and Consuela in the kitchen. Mitchell was dipping the fish in a bowl of milk and then into a bowl of flour and she stood next to him chopping cabbage and carrots.

Mitchell looked at his son’s forehead. “What happened?”

Russell reached up and pulled off the Band-Aid and dropped it in the garbage can and said nothing.

A wooden table for four in the middle. A dishrag draped over the edge of the sink. A row of brown coffee mugs hanging from hooks underneath the cabinet. The black and white tiles of the floor. The Coca-Cola bottle magnet stuck on the refrigerator. The framed picture hanging above the doorway of a handsome Jesus with His hands folded on His lap and wearing a white robe and the light of heaven shining behind His head. Only Consuela was different. She was still barefoot.

“Come on a second,” Mitchell said. He washed his hands and wiped them on a towel and moved toward the back door.

“What is it?” Russell asked.

“Just come on. Need a hand.”