Winter Loon(45)

Gip slapped his newspaper shut and slammed it on the table, rattling coffee mugs, the sugar bowl, launching a mini cloud of snaked ashes. “Jesus Christ. The two of you. More breath has been wasted on that clown than I care to consider. He didn’t show up. He’s not going to show up. End of story. Not another word. Either one of you brings him up again, and I’ll make sure it’s the very last time. You can count on that.”

Ruby turned her back. “Fine by me.”

Lead or souvenir? Either way, I pocketed the matchbook.



“I COULD HELP YOU WITH that letter if you want. You still haven’t mailed anything, right?” We were writing theme papers at Jolene’s dining room table where, unlike my house, the overhead light had all its bulbs. In fact, every light in the house was on, enough that I thought maybe the house was warmer than my grandparents’ from the heat of incandescent bulbs alone.

“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe I’ll wait awhile longer. See if Topeka gets in touch.”

“But Nicky said she’d probably lose your address. You should definitely write.”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to write Topeka, despite my grandparents. I could get past the part that said I’d seen Nicky, that I remembered Topeka from way back when. I could even ask in a letter whether he’d seen my father. But then what? What did I want Topeka to tell me or to say to my father that would make up for the fact that he’d lied about coming back? The letter started to feel like that Ouija board in Jolene’s closet. Careful what you wish for, they say. Don’t ask questions if you don’t want the answers. I worried about what would happen if I did get in touch with Topeka, if my father did come back, what that would mean for me and this girl I couldn’t get enough of.

“Yeah, I think I should wait.”

She picked up her pencil, rubbed the eraser against her scar. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid. I think I should give him space, is all.”

“Do you want to know or not? It’s simple. I don’t get why you wouldn’t write the letter.” She pushed her chair back from the table and stomped over to my side. “Here,” she said, ripping a piece of white paper out of my spiral notebook. “Dear Topeka. It’s me, Wes Ballot. You knew my dad, Moss Ballot. I met you one summer. I’m looking for him. Do you know where he is? If you do, call or write me. Love, Wes. There. Done.” She pushed the paper to me. “Unless you’re afraid.”

I pushed it back to her. “Drop it, okay?”

“You don’t think I understand, but I do. My mom—” Jolene zipped her mouth shut. “I got used to not knowing, then I started not caring. But in between I figured whatever she was hiding must be awful, like Satan awful, for her to keep it from me. Even if I change my mind, I don’t get another chance. The truth died with her. And now here you are pissing away what might be your last chance. All because you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I’ve got time. He has time.”

“Forget it. Suit yourself.” She shook her head, tapped her lip with the eraser before returning her attention to the table and her homework. Beneath the table, she kicked me in the shin. Under her breath, she added, “Chickenshit.”



AND SO I FELL INTO a kind of contentment I hadn’t known before. If I wasn’t at school, I was out with Jolene or at her house, so I spent most of my time away from my grandparents. Even Lester and I regained our friendship. Without Bull around, he was at loose ends, so Jolene and I picked them up. The three of us were often together, Jolene in the passenger seat of Lester’s Impala, me in the back, in the middle, poking my head through, making myself known. If me being with Kathryn Rook gave Gip and Ruby some sort of legitimacy, then it was a comedown for sure that suddenly it was two Indians picking me up in a noisy hot rod, music blaring from Lester’s speakers.

I’m guessing Mona and Troy liked that Lester was with me and Jolene all the time, that it helped them believe we weren’t getting closer than they’d like. We went to football games together, drove the loop, watched Lester run illegal quarter-mile races on a straight stretch out of town. We never went out without a case of beer, funded in part because Lester was old enough to buy for minors, a service he willingly provided for a fee. What Mona and Troy didn’t know was how much time we were alone, when Lester would leave us in his car while he jumped in the back of another one to make a beer run. Not that we could keep our hands off each other when he was around.

With Kathryn, I’d always felt used up and weak with need, hers and mine both. But Jolene was all want, and that wanting was powerful to me. Jolene had no shits to give about what anyone else thought or said. She put her hand into the waistband of my jeans when we talked in the hallway at school, cupped the back of my neck when she kissed me, threw her legs over mine on the couch—never mind that her family was right there watching.



“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU can’t drive stick?”

I’d been driving since I was barely a teenager, mostly at my mother’s urging. She thought it was funny, watching me tiptoe the gas and brake pedals, craning my neck to see over the steering wheel of her banged-up, run-down Rambler. I can picture that boy driving like a man, her loose and mink, drinking beer from a bottle, eating white bread straight from the bag, leaning full against the passenger door. I’d sputter and barrel down lonesome back roads while she fiddled with the radio, turning it up to distraction when someone she liked—Roberta Flack or the Carpenters—came on so she could sing along, her meadowlark voice tuned in and sweet. Carefree memories like that one—tinged with gloss, lit by sunrays—they’re fragile. I don’t tamper with them much. The better I got at driving, the more often she’d call me to walk down to some bar to drive her drunk ass home. Had my father been a different man, I might have learned to work the clutch from him. The most he taught me was to shift the big stick when he said “when.” Even that I hadn’t done for years. I’d gotten my driver’s license mostly to have something to carry around in my wallet. Ruby let me use her car for the test, figured it might save her trips to the store for smokes. What’s in it for me? Like mother, like daughter.