Desperation Road(54)
Like everybody else.
37
HE TOOK HER TO THE SPOT WHERE HE HAD PARKED AND SLEPT two nights before. They got out of the truck. Both a little drunk now. Behind the seat of the truck he found a rag. He slid the pistol from the sock and wiped it down. Then he wrapped and tied the pistol with the rag and it sat on the hood of the truck in a small knotted bundle. They milled around looking at the sky and listening to the water slap against the bank. Drinking. And when it was time to get rid of it he asked her to let him do it. Because I can throw it out farther than you. They couldn’t see the splash but they heard it. Deep and certain. And she didn’t know why but it was at that moment of the splash that she wanted to tell him about her life. To talk to him and tell him how one day she had left the girl sitting on a bare twin mattress in a back room in a falling down house somewhere on the outskirts of some nameless town. To get cigarettes or chocolate milk or something and how when she came back a man had wandered in from another room and was going for the girl, her small wrists held together with his one hand and with his other hand unbuckling and unzipping and going after this small, helpless thing. This small thing who had a paralyzed look on her face. Maben wanted to tell him how she dropped the brown bag holding whatever it was she thought she had to fucking have and she climbed onto his back, clawing and scratching at his eyes and trying to stab her fingers into his brain, trying to bring blood, and then how he was able to spin her and slam her against the wall and then she was going for him again and he got her by the throat and slammed her again, the air going out of her and the child screaming huddled in the corner and how he had turned again toward the child while she lay breathless. A groaning sound coming from her but no air.
He went again for the child but the rhythm of her breathing came back as if God had put His mouth to hers and then she stripped off her belt and jumped on his back again, the belt tight around his neck and she held on as he swung her around and pulled at her hair and then he was on his knees and then he was out. A red face and a white liquid running down the corners of his mouth and she grabbed the child and they were down the street going who the hell knows where but they weren’t there anymore and they wouldn’t be there when he woke up or if he did. She didn’t know why this was the memory that came with the splash of the pistol into the lake. She didn’t know why this is what she almost told him about or why she wanted to talk about such things. He turned and said I can tell you one damn thing. They’ll kill me before I go back to prison. Kill me. You understand? And I’ll do the same to keep from going. You understand? She said yes and she understood. The dropdead tone in his voice and she understood the look that she imagined on his face that was hidden with the dark and she wanted to tell him about her life but she let it go and instead she closed her eyes and imagined herself floating down with the pistol. Settling on a soft, muddy bottom. The cool at the bottom of the lake holding her in a way that she had never been held before.
38
AT HIS FATHER’S PLACE THEY WENT IN THE BACK DOOR. THEY found the girl asleep on the couch halfcovered by a blanket. Consuela was stretched out on the recliner with her mouth open. The television was on but turned down low. Mitchell had gone to bed. Russell reached down and put one arm under the child’s legs and the other under her neck and he lifted her. Maben softly shook Consuela’s arm to wake her and then she pointed at Russell holding Annalee. Consuela nodded and closed her eyes again. Maben turned off the television with the remote and then she opened the door for Russell. He stepped through with the child, careful not to knock her head, and then Maben walked with him across the yard and to the barn. They went up the stairs and Russell took the child to the bed and laid her head on the pillow and she turned and mumbled something but she never woke. Maben covered her legs with the blanket and then when she turned around to say something to Russell he was already out of the room and heading down the stairs. From the window she watched him walk to his truck. He paused when he was there and looked at the barn and she stepped out of view. When she looked back again he was heading down the driveway.
As he drove toward the house his body told him to lie down and sleep. He turned onto his street and drove in front of the house. No lights on. Blue tarp still there. Nothing moving inside or out. Seemingly. He drove around the block and when he returned all appeared the same so he pulled under the carport and turned off the truck. Then he walked to the front door and he went inside and turned on lights as he moved from room to room. He moved hesitantly. Thought he was alone but couldn’t let himself believe it fully.
Once he had turned on all the lights and checked behind every door and inside every closet he sat down on the sofa. Satisfied. He kicked off his boots and unbuckled his belt. He turned on the television and watched baseball highlights but the sleep came on him and he couldn’t put it off any longer. He took off his socks and he walked into the bedroom and then he took off his shirt. He was unzipping his pants when he stopped. Thought for a second. Then he walked back out of the house and to the truck, where he lifted the seat and he grabbed the shotgun and then he went back inside and locked the door behind him. He left the light on in the kitchen and the living room and he closed his bedroom door. He set the shotgun on the floor, parallel with the edge of the bed. And then he turned off the bedroom light and there was plenty of light on the other side. Plenty enough to see footsteps if they were there.