Desperation Road(41)

“No damn shit.”

“And I’m sorry.”

“The only reason you’re sorry is cause you got caught which don’t do much for your bullshit confession.”

“I swear to God, Larry. I’m sorry,” she said and she put her hand on his leg. He pushed it away and asked Earl for another beer. She stopped and let him mill for a minute. Thought that maybe she’d fake cry but she wasn’t there yet.

She wrapped her hand around the inside of his thigh again and half smiled. “I swear I’m sorry. And I’m done, Larry.”

“Done with what?”

“You know what.”

“I want you to say it.”

“Fine. I’m done messing around.”

“Messing around ain’t what you do. Tell me what you’re done doing. Gimme some detail.” His voice was louder now and several people from the tables took notice. Heather moved uncomfortably on her stool.

“I’m done sleeping around.”

“You ain’t been sleeping, either. I want you to say it. Tell me what you’re done doing or first thing Monday morning I’m going to take the same pictures I shoved down your boyfriend’s pants to my lawyer and then I’m gonna come home and throw your shit out in the yard.”

She took a deep breath. He had her.

“I’m done having sex with other men,” she said.

“What else?”

“I’m done putting my mouth on them. I’m done bending over for anybody but you. I’m done, baby. I swear.”

She folded her hands in her lap and waited and she swore to herself that she’d never be careless again. That she’d make sure she kept it out of town. She wouldn’t let him make her bow down again.

He pressed his lips together. Nodded. And then he told Earl he wanted two bourbons.

“On top of each other?” Earl asked.

“No, jackass. One for me and one for her.”

After Earl set down the drinks Larry slid her a glass.

“Here,” he said.

They drank in the strange silence that lingers around people who have gone through the motions but aren’t sure if anything has been truly reconciled. Heather looked around the bar and ran her finger around the corners of her mouth to smooth her lipstick. There was one more thing to do to help him get over it.

“Let’s run home for a while,” she said.

“I’m drinking,” he said.

“Come on, Larry. Let me make it up to you.”

He finished the bourbon and told Earl he wanted another. Then he said you go on home and I’ll be there in a little while.

“Promise?”

“Just go on.”

She stood and kissed him on the cheek and then she walked toward the door. She glanced over her shoulder to see if he was watching her walk but he wasn’t.


Walt waited until Larry was done with his drink and then he took her vacated seat and said I’m guessing you let her slide.

“Don’t goddamn talk to me.”

“She’s a broken record.”

“No shit.”

“She makes you look stupid.”

It was a hard right that Walt never saw coming but Larry was nice enough to give it to the side of his head and not his nose and once the two brothers got up off the floor and Earl pulled them apart they sat right back down to drink again.

For hours they drank and stared at the television and neither moved except to go to the bathroom and finally Larry left Walt with the tab and he drove to the end of Delaware Avenue where it ran into the interstate. He stopped at a gas station and bought a six-pack and then he turned onto the interstate toward Louisiana. A full breadth of stars stretched across the summer sky and he smoked with the windows cracked and the warm wind whipped around him. He set his cruise control knowing that if anyone stopped him he’d go straight to jail. He leaned back in his seat with a beer between his legs. Swerving some. A strip of interstate that projected loneliness. He was two beers down when he reached the state line and the exit for Kentwood was less than a mile after that. He took the exit and turned to the right, away from the lights of the fast food joints and gas stations.

He drove a few miles until there was nothing but fences and the occasional mailbox and in this part of the country the night seemed to open its mouth and swallow the land and whatever moved across it. He came to a crossroads and turned left and the road thinned and led from the open pastures into the trees and it was darker then. He slowed down and watched for the turn. Around the second bend he turned up a driveway that was marked by a mailbox covered in a flowery vine and he turned off his headlights as he moved toward the house. He stopped the truck twenty yards away and he looked out the open window at the house. The red brick that she had wanted and the white columns that she had wanted and the two chimneys that he had wanted. There wasn’t an inch of the house that he hadn’t put his hands on while it was going up. The light was on over the front door and there were no other lights on in the house. He set his beer aside and got out of the truck and when he closed the door, a light came on in the window of her bedroom and her shadow appeared behind the curtain and she peeked out to see who it was.

He walked toward the front door and stopped. Don’t scare her.

She opened the door and stepped out under the light, a kneehigh robe wrapped around her and her hair longer than the last time he had seen her. Down past her shoulders and a shade lighter. He put his hands in his pockets and tried to appear as harmless as possible.