Dirty Love

by Andre Dubus III

  Her face took up the whole screen and Devon had tapped buttons so hard and fast the image froze and she slammed her laptop shut and flipped it across the mattress. Her father. Her fucking asshole piece-of-shit mean father. His only message to her. His only thought about her now. His two hands pushing her shoulders and watching her fall, and did he even think about how hard she’d been climbing? And did he show this to Uncle Francis? The thought was like a coat hanger being pulled through her guts, Francis seeing her do that. Did he? Did her father fucking show him that?

  But why else would he leave it on her screen like that? Facing her door like that? It was a message from both of them. A warning. A punishment.

  But not Francis. Please. Not her great-uncle who before anyone else had always, always looked at her with kindness, his eyes full of love and respect. With him, she never felt small, only big, only that, and that’s why she’d called him in the middle of the night last March. Because she knew he would not make her feel worse than she already did. Because she knew he would help her just by being Uncle Francis.

  But she can’t even look at him now. How can she wake up tomorrow and walk out into that kitchen and see him? His stooped shoulders, his glasses hanging around his neck. The real smile he always has ready for her? She can’t. She won’t.

  For a long time she stands in her room and does nothing. The ceiling feels too low, the walls close. She stares at her upside-down laptop on the other side of her mattress. She walks over and opens it and avoids the screen and taps buttons till it goes dark. She closes it. Bobby Connors. If he hadn’t been there, Trina might not have posted what she did, sending it to everyone, including Amanda Salvi who showed her boyfriend, Charlie Brandt.

  Big, sweet Bobby just like everyone else. No, worse.

  Devon had called Bobby from the house phone. He’d had to cover his own phone and tell someone to shut up so he could hear. Yeah, he said, Luke says it’s at his house. We’re just getting out of practice. Want us to come pick you up?

  Us.

  It was late on a Saturday morning, warm for March, but there were still patches of snow on the ground, the sun shining on the bare branches, and it almost made her feel better when Bobby’s Sentra pulled up in front of her house. Saturday was her father’s sleep-it-off morning. Walking by his Lexus in the driveway, Amanda Salvi’s naked picture newly branded into Devon’s brain, she felt like kicking a dent in it. She’d almost thrown her father’s phone across the room, but instead she left it on the kitchen island where she’d picked it up, left the picture of Amanda on it, too. Her mother was out shopping and if she found it when she came home, well then she fucking found it.

  And there they were. Bobby behind the wheel, Luke in the front, Davey Price in the back. She didn’t know him well, but he reached across the backseat and opened the door for her. She climbed into the thump of gangsta rap and the smells of shampoo and Axe and Luke’s wintergreen gum. Bobby drove off before she’d barely pulled the door shut, and all three boys’ hair were wet and Bobby had a Red Sox cap on sideways. She noticed he’d shaved his chin strap. He looked younger but more handsome.

  “How’s it goin’, Dev?” Davey was pouring beer from a can into a Dunkin’ Donuts cup, handing it to her. It wasn’t even noon yet, but Davey had one of his own between his legs and she took it.

  “Bobby, where’s Trina?”

  “Yeah, Bobby,” Luke said from the front. “Where’s your little wifey today?”

  “Fuck you, McDonough.” Bobby sipped from his own Dunkin’s cup. Luke was laughing and Bobby turned up the music, a kid yelling he’s gonna kill anything movin’. Davey’s cup touched hers. She glanced at him and he smiled, his eyebrows raised as if he’d just told a joke and now was the time to laugh. He drank from his beer and so she did, too. It was cold and didn’t taste bad. She was a little hungover from the night before. She remembered her cheek against Luke’s shoulder. His arm had been around her, his hand heavy but sweet on her hip, like maybe he loved her once and didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. He’d had three more girlfriends after her, and she’d had what she’d had. They were ancient news.

  She drank from her beer. She had to squint at the sun shining through the windows. Bobby gunned his Sentra onto the highway and he was bopping his head to a new song now, the rap about the boy who kills his girlfriend for getting pregnant, and Devon wanted him to switch to something different. Davey Price was talking to her. She turned to him and had to raise her voice. “What?”

  “You runnin’ track this season?”

  She shook her head. That had ended sophomore year when she’d started smoking Merits because she liked how it killed her appetite and how good it felt when she was drinking. Thinking this made her want one, but she’d left them in her coat from last night. Davey was wearing tight corduroys. She could see how thick his legs were. He and Bobby lifted weights together in the off-season and Davey was bigger and he looked good in shorts beside a pool, but something was wrong with his face. His chin was too short and his eyes were close together. It made him look stupid and unlucky and a little mean. He cracked open a vodka nip, poured half into his cup, then dumped the rest into hers.

  “What the fuck, Davey.”

  “Hey, we’ve been doin’ sprints since six this morning. Downtime, baby.” He smiled and drank, and for a while she just sat there holding her cup, the bare trees whipping by off the side of the highway, Bobby tapping two fingers against the wheel while the singer sang about slashing Cindy’s throat and stuffing her in his trunk, the bass thumping fast as a panicky heart. Devon just wanted to get her phone and go back home and call Sick. She was going to borrow her mother’s car later, and the two of them were going to drive to the mall to see a movie about the future when only children were left alive. Sick loved any story about a time that wasn’t now, even if it was sad. She should have just taken her father’s car to get her iEverything. He wouldn’t be up for another hour, at least, then he’d start his day in the kitchen in his open robe mixing himself a glass of beer and V8. Like just the few sips of beer she’d taken were helping her. Already she didn’t feel so dry and rusty, her thoughts jagged, her tongue dull. Each sip made her feel oiled and a little lighter, and the vodka made it taste better, and anyway she didn’t want to be anywhere near her father’s car, smelling his smell in it, putting her hands on the wheel he put his own stinky fucking fingers on.

  Bobby took the exit ramp too fast. Devon leaned into Davey and spilled a splash onto his knee, his shoulder smelling like wool and Axe and boy.

  “Connors, we’re fuckin’ losin’ our drinks back here, dude. Ease up.” He swatted at the wet spot on his corduroys and smiled at her like he knew she couldn’t help herself. There was a story about him sophomore year. Something about an accident when he was a kid, a friend of his who got really hurt and his parents blamed Davey. Something about a bow and arrow and the other boy’s spleen. Something bad.

  Davey tapped her cup and drank. She sipped from hers. They were passing big houses set back in the trees. In the bare woods there was more snow on the ground, but up near the houses there was brown grass and hedges, no dead leaves or pine needles anywhere. The bass was thumping so fast it was almost one long note, then it was quiet and still and the singer was rapping softly about watching his car sink into the river, his baby and their baby inside. Bobby drained his cup just before he turned into Luke’s driveway. There were tall pine trees on both sides, Luke’s white house rising up ahead like good news. His father’s silver Mercedes was parked in one bay of the open garage, and Devon drank down her vodka beer to hide her cup. She said: “Luke, can I have a piece of gum?”

  “I’m out, Dev.”

  Then they were all leaving Bobby’s car and walking quietly into the open garage past Luke’s father’s car, Luke moving by Bobby to unlock the door into the rec room. It always looked different during the day. Like seeing a movie star with no makeup. The wide-screen TV was off, and so was the fish light over the ping-pong table covered
now with neat piles of folded laundry. Out the sliding glass doors the lawn was brown, and the boathouse looked small and damp and dark.

  Bobby sat in front of the wide-screen with Davey, the controls already in their hands as Call of Duty flared up on the screen, grays and greens and then soldiers running and shooting at each other. Luke handed her a hard lemonade and a nip.

  “I don’t want to party, Luke. Can I just have my phone, please?”

  “It’s upstairs. What’s your rush?” He grabbed the stereo’s remote and then a song was playing from freshman year, that blond country singer who whaled on her cheating boyfriend’s car with a baseball bat. Luke looked a way she’d only seen him once or twice, and that was after they’d gone swimming in his pool. Instead of the sideways flow he kept across his forehead, his hair was combed back wet. It made his face look bigger and like a grown man’s, like his father who was probably upstairs writing checks for bills or something, and Devon didn’t like how Luke was smiling at her, as if they were still together and she was special to him because of what she could do, though she’d never told him he was her first.

  He drank down half his hard lemonade, poured the nip in, and handed it to her. “Here, Dev.”

  “Go get my phone, Luke. I have to go.”

  “Why? You got plans?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “What, with that Sick kid? C’mon, Dev, you can do better than that.”

  The country singer was hitting her angry-happy notes and there was machine-gun fire from the couch, and Devon just wanted some fucking quiet. “Go get my phone, Luke.”

  Then she was walking across the brown grass down to the water. The ground felt soft under her, her legs hard and jerky, and she knew she was a little drunk, thinking of Amanda Salvi’s ass and tits and smiling face. Devon had met her at a party once. She was the older sister of one of Rick Battastini’s friends, this loud chick who laughed too much and worked in a law office, and is that how she met Devon’s father? Through their work somehow? And why would she want him? Did he spend money on her? Did he promise her things the way they all do? Though what boy had ever promised anything to Devon Brandt? She noticed the hard lemonade bottle was in her hand, and she drank from it and stared out at Whittier Lake through the trees. Way on the other side were tiny houses she knew were as big as this one because only rich people lived on this lake, men taking what they want and leaving the scraps to the rest.

  “Here, Dev.”

  She turned and Luke put her iEverything in her hand. His eyes were on her lips, her chin, her throat, and he looked weak the way he used to. She felt strong and dirty. He put his arm around her. She leaned her head against his shoulder. She wanted to tell him that her father was cheating on her mother. She could almost feel the words rising up to her tongue, but she’d never talked to Luke about anything serious before and she wasn’t going to start now. Still, it felt good to have his arm around her. It felt good to rest her cheek on his shoulder. She could feel his muscles under his sweatshirt, and it smelled clean.

  “’Member that?” He raised two fingers in the direction of the boathouse. She nodded. She was so young then. Just a kid in the dark in the back of a boat.

  “Nobody does it like you, Dev.”

  “That’s nice.” She meant for that to come out hard, but it came out soft, and she drank from her bottle and he drank from his. She thought of Sick. They’d waited for spring before they did it. He’d told her spring was his favorite season because dead things stopped being dead and so maybe we should do it then, D. It’ll be even better that way.

  Luke was kissing the top of her head. He turned and lifted her chin and kissed her lips. It was slow and sweet and she could taste his beer and hard lemonade, his stubble against her chin. It was like tripping and falling onto a pile of leaves, surprised at how they can hold you. She pulled away. “I need to go home, Luke.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Can you just drive me right now, please?”

  “One last time, okay?”

  “No.” She put her hand on his chest to push him, but she didn’t push him.

  “Please, Dev. We’re graduating soon and then we’re all going to college and it won’t be the same, ever.” That need for her. It was in his voice again and, for the first time, in his words too. Fighting him would take a long time. It would take more care than she had to give it. His tongue in his mouth or that other part of him, both connected to a boy she could care less about really. With Sick she was D., and D. was smart and beautiful and kind, but this was Dev now and soon she would never see this boy again, and it was always over so fast and then she’d be walking away free.

  “You gonna fucking drive me home?”

  “I will, Dev. I promise, I will.” Luke’s voice so weak for her as he led her around the boathouse, his palm damp in her hand, his fingers cool. There were birch trees there she hadn’t seen before, and he leaned against one and unsnapped and unzipped his jeans and now she didn’t want to. She’d have to kneel on the ground that was dirt and pebbles. But Luke’s thing was out, hard and straight and looking wrong in the air like that, and he grabbed her sweater and pulled her close, his eyes so hungry and so excited he looked a little scared, and even then she liked this part. She always had. That moment when she was everything and he was nothing.

  Just once more and she was gone.

  She squatted and drank down her hard lemonade and dropped the empty bottle onto a patch of snow, though she wished she hadn’t done that because she would want something to drink soon.

  It was taking a while. Her thighs were burning and her jaw ached, and she didn’t like how he pulled on her head with two hands because it reminded her of Meghan Monroe in the bathroom. No one does it like you, Dev. So she worked harder with her hand to make it end faster and he was pushing into her mouth as if she didn’t need to breathe and she was about to pull back when she heard behind her the sound of pebbles under a boot.

  “Man, look at her.” Price’s voice, a wide smile in it, and she jerked back and opened her eyes to see his iEverything pointed at her, the tiny glass eye of his camera. “Davey!”

  He was laughing, and Bobby was too, and Luke was quiet, but his fingers were in her hair and he pulled her face back to what she’d just let go of. “C’mon, I’m almost done.”

  “No.” She tried to stand but he had her by the hair and with his other hand he was jerking back and forth on himself, and she couldn’t breathe and then he let out a groan as warm spurts fell wetly across her cheek and nose and eye, and Davey was laughing as if he’d just scored points in a game, and Luke let go of her hair and she fell back on her hands. “Fucking assholes!”

  She turned and scooped a handful of dirty snow and wiped it across her face. She couldn’t quite open her left eye, and with the other she saw Bobby up against the boathouse unzipping his jeans and pulling out his hard-on. He stepped toward her with it, and Davey was holding his iEverything close and Devon slapped at it and missed, and then she was up and pushing past Bobby and running across Luke’s yard around his house and down the long driveway. One of them was calling her, calling her name, and it was hard to see out of her eye and she wasn’t running straight. The pine trees on both sides of her were so tall and so old, and she ran faster.

  FRANCIS LIES IN THE DARK listening to the rain. It’s eased up quite bit, just a smattering of it now and then against his window. When Devon came in an hour or so ago, he nearly climbed out of bed and pulled on his robe to greet her, but he couldn’t. He kept seeing her concave cheek, and he just could not.

  Ditch of the Bodos. It’s where he’ll store this image of Devy, too. Close a door on it and lock it. Never open it again. Except Francis knows this does not work, that she’ll arrive in his dream world that way, a dirty movie of his precious niece for which he only has his nephew to thank. But does he? See for yourself, Uncle. Yes, Francis had left her room as quickly as he could have, bad knee and all, but why didn’t he close his eyes? Certainly he knew without knowi
ng what Charlie was up to. Surely, he could have looked away and seen only wall, door, hallway. Why did he look? Why this perpetual pull toward darkness? Why?

  After Charlie was gone, Francis had walked down the hall and pulled Devon’s door closed. Once again he’d been a passive participant in something ugly, and he heard Beth’s voice as clearly as if she were standing behind him. Quit stooping, Francis. You’re tall, don’t be ashamed of it. But he was ashamed. Some part of him always had been. And he will not judge this child. He will not.

  From the other side of his small house he can hear the muffled strains of her voice through her door and his. She’s talking to that boy again. She must be. He was in a war, too. So perhaps he is not a boy after all. Perhaps he is a veteran of the recent wars, for every generation seems to get one, doesn’t it? The old sending the young to far-off countries to kill other young people.

  He will not judge Devy. How can he? This man who would drive away from the high school on a lovely October afternoon, the sun high, the dying tree leaves at the height of their beauty, and soon he’d be sipping vodka from a Styrofoam coffee cup while steering north up the highway for home and all the good work he’d done earlier in the day would be tossed into the fire he was building in his own blood and brain: Burn it, burn it all; burn being a good teacher, burn being a good man, burn being a good citizen and following the rules, and burn them especially—burn the rules, these invisible cages around us, for if he’s learned nothing in all his years he’s learned that, that from our first gasps for air till our last, we simply want to be left alone to do what we want to do when we want to do it, and because this is rarely the case we crave oblivion in any way it presents its dark, sweet self to us. Devy and her closed eyes and concave cheek, how is this any different from Francis pouring one nip then two then three more into his Styrofoam coffee cup, all of which he will stuff into the trash barrel outside the 7-Eleven before floating in for breath mints and bottled water and his smiling return to hearth and home?