Dirty Love

by Andre Dubus III

  She makes herself glance back up at him. He’s not looking at her breasts, he’s looking at her working hands. “He and your aunt used to come in here quite a bit. Everybody was shocked when she went.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He holding up all right?”

  “I think so.”

  “He’s lucky to have you there, kid.”

  “I guess.”

  “There’s no guessing about it. He is, believe me.” Danny turns to leave. “Careful driving home, hon.”

  She thanks him and likes him in that moment, but he also leaves her feeling bad. He’s lucky to have you there, kid. Because she can feel the end of that up ahead somewhere. It’s like driving at night and knowing a car’s coming over a rise, even though you haven’t seen its lights yet.

  Two nights before, Hollis told her about his father’s father and how a long time ago he left them all some land and Hollis has always been entitled to his nine acres. Then this morning, Skyping him just as soon as she’d peed and brushed her teeth and hair, he said: “I got that Airstream, Devon. Everything works good on it, too. There’s some big old cottonwoods on the brook, and I’m gonna put her there in the shade and fish for my damn supper.”

  His mother had yelled then, her voice coming through the wall and Devon’s screen two thousand miles north. They were like the sounds you remember from a bad dream.

  “She yelling at her husband?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Why didn’t you buy that trailer a long time ago?”

  “Had to save up my D-checks.”

  She just looked at him.

  “Disability.” He glanced down and away. She almost asked him where he was hurt, but she knew the answer and felt stupid. All that jumpiness. The bad dreams. She’d heard how so many soldiers come back like that. She wanted to help him with it. She did.

  Across the floor, a woman laughs. Devon picks up the last napkin and looks over at her sitting with a man, a coffee cup in front of them both, a dessert in the middle of the table they seem to be sharing. It looks like he’s telling her a story, and they’re wearing matching T-shirts and they look happy.

  She stands and pushes her iEverything into her front pants pocket. She finishes folding the last napkin, rests it on the pile with the others, then picks it up to carry to the bussing station, her heart already kicking up as she pictures herself hanging Francis’s keys on the hook in the kitchen, giving him a peck on the cheek, rushing into her room to sit on her bed and open her laptop and go back to where she wants to be all the time now. With Hollis Waters, his full name a present he gave her just today. Hollis Waters. It sounds like a real place on a real map. Relaxed and warm and nowhere you’d ever want to leave in a hurry.

  FRANCIS IS SITTING at Beth’s computer in the dining room researching restaurants. It’s what Beth would do. Read reviews and take a virtual tour of the place. For his lunch with Evelyn, he wants some place one step above casual but below formal, and he wants it in town, perhaps on the river where there used to be mills but no longer.

  Evelyn’s voice has not aged much. If she hadn’t told Francis she’d failed her eye test and could no longer drive, he would have forgotten he was talking to an old woman.

  “I suppose you’ll have to drive me this time, Francis.”

  “That’s only fair. I’ll pick you up for lunch.”

  She invited him to eat at Brookwood, but he imagined a dining room full of cheerily dressed widows and a few sputtering men his age or even younger, and it was as if he was suddenly holding one foot over a swirling black whirlpool and he politely insisted on taking her out instead.

  The truth is, he has not given this kind of thing enough thought on purpose. Two nights ago on his way to the bathroom at three in the morning, the rain drumming the roof shingles above, his knee had buckled and he’d pitched sideways into his bureau and just missed a fall onto the hardwood floor. Doug Richards, the vice principal for years, fell at seventy-eight and broke his hip and ended up in assisted living and never busted out. Died there two years later staring into his applesauce.

  So many stories like that. Too many. But some things you simply do not think about until you must. Those months of convalescence nearly thirty years ago. Beth, his breezy and energetic nurse. Younger than he was, a moderate drinker and never a smoker. It was natural to glimpse her decades later spoon-feeding him in his last hours, Francis Brandt dying at home in his bed with his wife beside him.

  Francis taps the enter button a little too hard. He watches a promotional video for a restaurant called The Tap, one that specializes in prime cuts and microbrews, and he likes the tall booths and the green glass sconces in the walls and the pressed tin ceiling above, but he feels mildly guilty. Is it because he’s using his wife’s computer to find a place to take Evelyn to lunch? He shakes this silliness away like a hovering mosquito and is writing down the number of the restaurant when there comes a knocking on the door.

  No one ever knocks at that door. Something dark flutters through Francis’s chest, and he pushes himself from the table and stands. He pictures a police officer under the exterior light, Devon hurt, his car turned over in the wet street.

  It’s Charlie. Under the light, his face is beaded with rain, his collar unbuttoned, his tie loosened, and in his eyes is the unfocused focus of a drunk.

  “Sheeome, Uncle?”

  Sheeome. For a millisecond, Francis isn’t sure of what he’s just heard.

  “Come in, Charlie.”

  In the bright kitchen, Francis switches on the burner beneath the water kettle. Charlie stands near the table, his hands at his sides, and even though Francis is taller, he feels slight in his nephew’s beefy, drunken presence. “Tea, Charlie?”

  “Where’s she sleep?”

  “Guest room down the hall.” Francis is about to say more, that it’s good he’s here but he should probably come back when he’s sober, something like that, but Charlie is already halfway down the hall and Francis is following him.

  “Charlie?”

  Charlie opens the door and walks into a room that surprises Francis. Devon has left the bathroom light on and it casts itself across the ironing board and unmade bed, clothes strewn around the floor.

  “Yep,” Charlie says. “Same old, same old.” He sits on the edge of Devon’s bed and pulls her computer onto his lap and opens it.

  “Charlie, we’re going back to the kitchen now.” Francis steps forward. He’s holding out his hand as if to take the fingers of a child. “Come on, Charlie. This is Devon’s room.”

  “Yeah? She paying fucking rent, Uncle?” Charlie’s eyes are on the screen before him, his face lighted by its glow. He taps keys, waits, then taps a few more. “There we are. Isn’t that nice. Take a look, Uncle. See for yourself.”

  Before Francis can turn and leave, Charlie has pivoted the screen on his lap and there is Devon’s lovely face, her eyes closed, her cheek concave as she sucks—the hallway is a dark tunnel Francis cannot get through fast enough, that hot flat light on the pines above those men and boys digging as if their hope itself was digging, then that first shot before that terrible, cracking barrage of denial—Francis hasn’t yelled in years, has he ever yelled? For what comes out of him now feels so underused he fears he has only yelled in his dreams, running from Hunt’s jeep to stop what Francis’s own people had only filmed.

  “You hear me, Charlie?! Get out of my goddamned house!” Francis has to steady himself with one hand on the table. Down the hallway Charlie moves slowly, unevenly, a blocky figure in a Brooks Brothers shirt and dark tie. Then he’s standing in the light of the kitchen and there’s the low whine of the water coming to a boil on the stove.

  “What’s the matter, Uncle? Can’t take it?”

  “Get out, Charlie.”

  “Can’t take your sweet little Devy doing that? Well try being her father.”

  Francis’s eyes ache. The sides of his head pulse.

  “You think you’re better than me, Francis? Do
you? I raised her, you didn’t. You read her a story once a week, that’s all you did. And she’s living with you? Give me a fucking break.”

  The water is shrieking now and Charlie begins to smile, his eyes dark and on something beyond Francis. He turns to switch off the burner, to do at least that, and there Devon stands in the doorway to the living room, her red headphones resting around her neck, her hair sticking to her scalp, her blouse wet enough Francis can see the white strap of her bra. She nods in the direction of her father. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask the same of you, couldn’t I? What are you doing here? Freeloading off an old man? Using people? Is that all you’re ever gonna do with your life, Devon? Be a fucking tramp.”

  “Fuck you.” Devon turns and what happens next happens as dreams happen, Charlie lunging across the kitchen with the speed a drunk should not have, the thrust of Francis’s lower leg, how his foot catches his nephew’s ankle and then Charlie’s arms and chest and belly slap the living room rug and the front door slams and Charlie lets out a groan, Francis’s Buick starting up and pulling away.

  There’s a twinge in Francis’s right knee. He has to lean against the stove.

  “You all right, Charlie?”

  His nephew rolls onto his side. He’s breathing heavily and his shirt is opened. His belly rises and falls, and the hair around his navel is George’s hair, George’s navel.

  “I should kick your ass, Francis.”

  “Looks to me like you keep kicking your own ass.”

  Charlie props himself up with one arm. His tie hangs along his shoulder, and his eyes are on the rug under the lamp table. He shakes his head. “Nobody’s kicking my ass.”

  He sounds defeated. Francis allows what he just said to hang in the air. He switches the fire back on under the kettle. “I’m making you some tea.”

  “I don’t want any fucking tea.”

  “I’m not asking you, Charlie. And if you try to drive away from here I’m calling the cops.”

  Charlie looks up at him from the floor. His cheeks are flushed, his hair dyed and thinning, but Francis sees the boy he used to be, the one who always seemed to be pushing at invisible walls around him, searching for the one that might actually stop him.

  “I fucked up, Uncle. I really fucked up.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  Francis steps over and holds out his hand. Charlie stares at it, measuring whether or not he’s being insulted. Then he reaches for it, and Francis braces his knees, ignores the burn in his right, and pulls.

  IT’S AFTER TWO when Devon steers back into Francis’s driveway. She drove by it once to make sure her father’s car was gone, and when she saw it was she could also see the light still on in the kitchen. So was the one over the door, and she pictured her Uncle Francis sitting up waiting for her. She felt bad about that. But it was her father’s fault, not hers.

  She’d known that was his Lexus as soon as her lights lit it up in the rain, and maybe she’d been too much under the influence of Hollis Waters because she’d felt strong and like someone you might actually respect and so for a few minutes she actually thought her father had come to see how she was doing. That maybe he even missed her.

  But how stupid could she be? Did she forget it was a Friday night? Did she forget that was her father’s excuse to drink till he could hardly lift his hand to his face anymore?

  Tramp.

  That’s just never going to go away, is it? Those first ten or twenty miles up the highway it had hurt all over again, his judgment of her, his hatred. All the good she’d been trying to do and build—work, save money, quit smoking, keep her room and clothes clean, spend time with Francis and work on her GED, and now Hollis (something beautiful that has come from her only bad habit, her nightly roulette around the world)—it was all swept down a street drain.

  But then she jerked on her Dr. Dre’s and found something live, one boy white, the other black, and they were shout-singing about being renegades, and Devon hadn’t driven on the highway for months and it felt good to be moving fast into her own light up the wet asphalt, the windshield wipers slapping away the rain, and she wanted to slap her father’s fucking face because the only thing that was really gone was him, and what was she losing anyway? The clacking of his golf cleats across the kitchen floor? Those tiny purple veins that had started to show on his cheeks? His quiet cruelty to her mother? How his eyes passed over her hair and round face and big body like she was an exit off a road he wished he’d never taken? Was Devon going to miss the way he’d started to look at his own daughter as she stood at the kitchen island eating a yogurt? Like something good had shown up in his house that was only supposed to be in other houses, like Amanda Salvi’s condo behind the gym off the highway? Was Devon going to miss seeing her father on Salvi’s Fuckbook page? Drunk and shirtless under the sun, his arm around her? His stubby fingers inches away from her left breast? Would Devon miss his stack of Penthouse magazines on the toilet her mother must feel against her back every time she peed? And would Devon miss her father’s spit flying out of his mouth as he condemned her for being everything he was always sniffing after? Just not his own flesh and blood? His own living little girl?

  North of Portsmouth, Devon exited the highway and pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through. In her head, a deep-voiced boy was lying on his prison cot counting his money from memory, thinking about the ride he would own when he got out. And I know you’ll be waitin’ fuh me. I know you will.

  The rain had lightened up. Devon pulled off her headphones and leaned out her open window to shout her order into the intercom. Above it was a lighted panel of color photos of bagels with eggs and cheese, and she ordered one and a black coffee with three sugars. The girl at the window was pale and skinny, maybe a year younger than Devon, but as Devon handed her a ten she felt so much older than this girl.

  Hollis. He was twenty-seven. Twenty-seven and an ex-soldier and in love with her.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been around the world, Devon. I know.”

  The words came out of her almost on their own. “Me too.”

  “You just saying that?”

  “I never just say anything.”

  He’d nodded and reached his hand out till it darkened the screen. “I need to touch your face.”

  Her skin tingled hot and she wanted to say the same thing back.

  Hollis said: “Is that all right?”

  She’d nodded. A knocking came, Uncle Francis’s voice through the door. “It’s raining hard, Devy. Need a ride to work?”

  The skinny girl in the window handed Devon her coffee and then her bagel in a warm bag, and Devon parked Francis’s car and ate quickly, her headphones still around her ears. Hollis told her it’d be a week or more before he got electricity out to his trailer, but it was too far out in the country for the Internet. He’d have to drive into town and park outside the library that had WiFi, sit in his truck and Skype her that way.

  And they could talk on the phone.

  “But I need to see you, Devon.”

  “Me too.”

  “No, I mean see you.”

  “Me too, Hollis.” She loved using his name while she was looking at him. It was like sealing an important envelope and dropping it into a mailbox. But it was late and she hadn’t even ironed her work clothes yet, and when she told him she had to go he looked a little surprised and hurt. Later, folding linen napkins at the restaurant, Devon wished she hadn’t talked about work right after he told her he needed to see her. She did want to see him, too. She did.

  Francis’s front door is unlocked. Devon lets herself in, then turns the deadbolt and thinks of her father as she does it, sees his drunk, mean smile before he laid into her. Francis’s living room feels so small to her, his kitchen too. On the table under the light are two empty mugs, a plate of crumpled teabags beside two spoons. At first it’s like seeing something impossible, a tiger in your bathtub, a fish swimming in your bed. Francis’s b
edroom door is open an inch, and there’s the urge to step in there and wake him up and ask him if he really sat down and drank tea with Charlie fucking Brandt? But it’s clear he did, and now her belly lifts and twists because please tell me my father did not tell Uncle Francis anything about me. Please tell me they talked about any fucking thing else.

  Her heart beats the taste of old coffee up into her mouth, and she hits the switch of the overhead light. The dark hallway feels short and narrow. A dull glow comes from under her closed door. Uncle Francis? Is he in her room? She pushes the door open and steps inside, but her room looks as she left it, her bed unmade, her shorts and T-shirt she tossed on the floor under the ironing board because she had to dress fast for work. She doesn’t remember leaving the bathroom light on. It would be so wrong if her uncle was in there, but he’s not. The shower curtain is open, and her mascara, eyeliner, and blush lie on the lid of the toilet tank, her toothbrush and toothpaste behind the faucet on the sink. She lets out a long, shaky breath and wants to Skype Hollis right now, see if he’s up like he usually is, and she’s stepping toward the door to close it when she sees her laptop. It’s not closed on her pillow where she left it. It’s on the edge of the bed and it’s open, its screen dark and facing her, facing her and the room and her open door like a big text that’s just come in and must be opened; it must be opened right now.

  It was summer and Devon was eight or nine. They were all at the beach, her mother and father, her Uncle Tony and Aunt Veronica and their three kids, Devon’s cousins. The grownups were sitting or lying on a blanket on the sand, talking and laughing, and Devon’s mother looked pretty in a maroon bathing suit with a skirt over her hips. Her father and Uncle Tony were drinking from cans of beer. There was a dune behind them and Devon was running up it in the hot sand, her feet burning, the sun in her eyes, and she couldn’t see the top but there was tall grass there where she and her cousins were going to hide, and just as she got to the ridge, there came Steve’s mean voice, “Not you, Devon.” Then his hands pushing against her bare shoulders and she was falling backwards, rolling down that hot dune where she almost hit her head on a piece of wood. There was Steve’s laughter in the air, grown-up voices talking as if nothing had just happened to her, the waves smashing and sucking back. She would have to start all over again. But why? So Steve could do it to her again and again?