by Jim Kokoris
“Yeah, your mother did too. Figured you would. You pray a lot?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think He exists. If He did, how come bad things keep happening? How come your mom got decapitated? Think she’s floating around up in heaven without her head? Shit.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I was getting tired again and I felt the thorny ball flip over and start growing in my stomach.
“You think praying won you the lottery?”
“No.”
“Hell, if praying worked, I’d do it. I’d do it all the time. I ain’t going to pray to air though. Shit, fuck God.”
Bobby Lee was frightening me. He was acting different now, growing sharp edges, his eyes dark, moving razors. I thought about asking some of the dusty men at the counter for help, but before I could move, he grabbed my hand and said that we were leaving and right away.
We drove for a long time, Bobby Lee singing along to the scratchy radio in a sad voice that sounded like rain at night.
“Bet you didn’t know your daddy was a singer,” he said. “Your mom and I used to sing a lot together. She had a pretty voice, I remember that.” He was quiet for a long time.
The sun was disappearing in the sky, sinking low and flooding our windshield in a soft, orange color that made me think of summer. I watched the Kentucky light slowly fade away, watched it become thinner and thinner and wished that I could follow the light, disappear with it to some hidden, safe place. Then I shut my eyes and started praying even though I wasn’t sure God was listening to me anymore.
“YOU THIRSTY? I could use one. Maybe two,” Bobby Lee said as he pulled into the parking lot of Tyrone’s Lounge. It was dark out, and we had been driving for awhile, off the highway, on one-lane roads. The parking lot was gravel and when Bobby Lee got out of the van, I could hear his dirty boots scrunching and scraping stones when he walked.
“Come on, boy,” he said, opening my door. “You can get a Coke or something. Come on now, I know it’s late, but when I say go, let’s go.”
I followed Bobby Lee toward Tyrone’s, a low building that was sagging to one side. There were only two other cars in the parking lot, and as we approached the door, I could hear faraway music, getting louder.
When we got to the entryway, Bobby Lee paused, his hand on the door. “Anyone ask you, you just tell them you’re my nephew from Lexington,” he said. “Don’t mention Cnicago or nothing. No one’s going to ask though. Not here.”
It was dark and hot inside Tyrone’s, a sticky, steamy hot that reminded me of the St. Pius gym. A few dim lights with green shades hung from the ceiling. Off in the corner, some men played pool, cigarettes loose in their mouths. Mirrors advertising beers hung from the walls. Behind the bar was a large picture of a woman lying on the beach in a bathing suit.
“Like to go swimming with her,” Bobby Lee said.
The bartender didn’t look up when we approached. He kept his eyes on a magazine.
“Need a drink here, boy,” Bobby Lee said. “Need two.”
The bartender glanced up, then returned to his magazine. “Fie don’t look twenty-one,” he said.
“Yeah, well, he’s a little midget,” Bobby Lee said. “Give me a Bud. The boy wants a Coke.” The man handed Bobby Lee our drinks and Bobby Lee paid him with some money that he dug out of the front of his jeans pockets.
We stood by the bar with our drinks. I wasn’t very thirsty, so I just held on to my plastic cup, the cold feeling good against my hot hands. Bobby Lee, though, drained his bottle in three or four swallows, then ordered another one, paying with two more crumpled-up dollar bills. He was halfway through that bottle when he took notice of the pool table located in the far corner. A thin man and a fat man, both wearing baseball caps, were playing, the balls moving silently over the green table. Bobby Lee finished his new beer and watched the game with growing interest.
“Those boys any good?” he asked the bartender.
The bartender didn’t say anything. He just started drying off the inside of some glasses with a white towel. He was a beefy-looking man with a thick gray mustache and long sideburns. When he turned away from us, I saw a small gold earring glitter in one of his ears.
“Boy over there’s all right,” he finally said. “Slap Dog over there can play some.” He pointed toward one of the men.
“Slap Dog?”
“Slap Dog Jack. He’ll take your money.”
“Won’t take mine,” Bobby Lee said. Then he held up his empty beer bottle. “Fill ’er up, premium, one more time there, old boy.”
BOBBY LEE WON the first game easily, walking around the table in a quick, graceful manner I had never seen before. In his tight T-shirt, he looked young and thin, the pool stick light in his hands. After the game, he snatched up the twenty-dollar bill Slap Dog laid on the table and held it up to the light.
“Sure looks pretty, don’t it, Teddy,” he said, calling over to me. “ ’Specially when you earn it.”
“One more time,” Slap Dog said. He took out a cigarette. “Double it up.”
“You must be a rich man,” Bobby Lee said. “Or generous.”
I sat at a table off in the corner, and watched Bobby Lee rack up the balls again. My head had begun to hurt and the wet heat of the bar gave everything a blurry, slow-motion look and feel. I shook my head and took deep breaths, trying to make the blurriness go away. But I was beyond tired and my hopes for a brief stay at Tyrone’s were fading. I no longer believed we would be back home in Wilton by morning. I no longer believed we were ever going home.
Slap Dog had been entirely quiet during the first game. He moved slowly, leaning down low to the table, one eye closed as he lined up his shots. His arms were long and wiry and he was as thin as Bobby Lee. His friend, the fat man who had been playing before we came, sat on a bar stool near the jukebox, shaking and rocking his head to a song. Every so often he would close his eyes and sing along. Other than the bartender, we were the only ones in the bar.
“Hey, how come they call you Slap Dog Jack?” Bobby Lee said as he chalked his pool cue.
Slap Dog didn’t take his eyes from the table. He had a long drooping mustache that hid his mouth. “Name’s Jack. Not sure why they call me the other part.” He nodded toward the table. “You break.”
I closed my eyes and listened to the balls gently bump into each other, then put my head down on the small table and began to drift away, my mind on home. I wondered what my father was doing, worried how he was handling my disappearance. Aunt Bess, I was sure, was frantic and Uncle Frank, swearing and pacing. I closed my eyes tight and wished my self away.
When I opened my eyes some time later, things had changed. The man at the jukebox was standing close to Slap Dog, whispering something. The bartender had come out from behind the bar and was standing close to the table too, his arms crossed against his chest. The jukebox was silent and the room seemed hotter and smaller.
“Side,” Slap Dog said. I looked up just as a ball streaked across the table, and disappeared down a pocket. Slap Dog stood up straight after the shot and from beneath his mustache I thought I saw a smile.
Bobby Lee stared at Slap Dog for a long time. Then he looked slowly around the room at the other men who stared back.
“You boys think you’re something, don’t you,” he said. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, and threw them on the pool table. Some of the money fell onto the floor.
Then without taking his eyes off Slap Dog he said, “Let’s go, Teddy.”
We waited in the van across the road from Tyrone’s in the deserted parking lot of a muffler shop for close to an hour. When I asked Bobby Lee what we were doing, he said shut up and sipped from a bottle that he kept under the seat.
I fell in and out of sleep, had pictures for dreams. My father reading a book to Tommy. Waiting in line for the doors of St. Pius to open. Miss Grace. Charlie.
Then I dreamt about my tenth birthday party, saw my mo
ther again standing in the doorway of the Laser Zone in her white T-shirt and ponytail, saw her lips moving. This time, though, I could hear her over the noise of the party, this time I could hear her words. “Be careful,” I heard her say. “Be careful.”
A car door slam woke me, then voices yelling. I sat up and looked out the window.
There, across the street, I saw Bobby Lee standing in the parking lot of Tyrone’s under the one street lamp. He was yelling to someone. When I opened the door and got out, I saw Slap Dog and the man at the jukebox walking slowly toward him.
“You boys hustled me and I want my money back,” Bobby Lee yelled. “Give it up, boys.”
I crossed the road and stood near Bobby Lee, who didn’t notice me. From inside Tyrone’s I could hear music once again.
“Come into our place, think you can take our money. You’re a dumb shit,” Slap Dog said.
“He’s trying to kidnap me,” I blurted out. I was breathing hard, my heart pounding. I had not planned to yell this, the words had just exploded from my mouth. “Call the police, please call my father.”
Both Slap Dog and the other man stared at me, confused and startled. But before they could react, Bobby Lee was on them, kicking and punching and yelling. Slap Dog went down first, holding his stomach, then his head, which Bobby Lee kicked, his boots making thick, dull sounds.
“I ain’t no dog you can slap,” Bobby Lee yelled. He whirled around. “Where you going, boy?”
The fat man was trying to run back to the bar, but Bobby Lee caught him and knocked him down with a hit to the back of the head. The man fell in a heap and while he was still on the ground, Bobby Lee hit and kicked him until he stopped moving.
“Stupid fat fuck,” he yelled. “Think I’m some dumb-ass redneck. Take my fucking money. Set me up. Came in for a game and a beer and you rip me off. Teach you fucks a lesson. You goddamn motherfuckers.”
The quickness and completeness of Bobby Lee’s attack shocked me. That he could beat two men so savagely by himself was something I could not understand. Yet rather than fear, I felt a rising fury.
“You goddamn motherfuckers!” Bobby Lee yelled.
Slap Dog rose unsteadily to his feet, holding his head. He staggered back a bit then fell down, his face looking up toward the night. I could hear him gasping for breath as he lay there. Bobby Lee walked slowly back to him and stood over him, his fist clenched high in the air.
“Stop hitting him!” I yelled. “Stop hitting him!” I rushed toward Bobby Lee, swinging my fists. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
At first Bobby Lee backed away from me, then he reached out and snatched my hands and held them. It was then that I saw that he was holding a thin black metal bar. “Get in the car,” he yelled. “Get in the damn car.”
“I want to go home! I want to go home. Take me home. I hate you,” I yelled. I tried to kick him but he backed away. “I hate you. I hate you.”
“Shut up! I said shut the fuck up!”
With a twist, I broke free and ran. When I got to the end of the parking lot, I turned to face him, picked up some stones and threw them at him. He danced and dodged the stones as he made his way toward me. When he was just a few feet away, I hit him square in the face with a good size rock.
He grabbed his nose and screamed.
“You goddamn little bastard!”
He reached for me and caught my hands again, squeezed them until they hurt. He was taking short wild breaths, his face soaked with sweat and blood. Then he raised an arm to hit me. When I looked up, I saw the black metal bar directly over my head. I tried to kick him again, then closed my eyes and waited for the bar to fall.
“You’re just like your fucking mother!” he yelled.
I opened my eyes. He was still standing there, the metal bar raised.
Then I heard someone yell. It was the beefy bartender. He was standing by the open door of Tyrone’s.
“What the hell happened here?” he yelled. “What the hell is going on?”
“Get in the van,” Bobby Lee said. He put the bar down and began pushing me. “Get in the damn van now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT WAS GETTING dark out. The sky was doing somersaults, turning from blue to gray to black and I could see a handful of stars in the sky, blinking silently, watching us. We were in the cemetery where my mother was buried and it was cold.
“Where, that way?” Bobby Lee asked. He was holding the bag of tulip bulbs Carl the Bear had given him and walking unsteadily.
“Over there,” I said pointing.
After the fight at Tyrone’s I had fallen asleep in the van, everything poured out of me. When I woke, I recognized the Chicago skyline and my hopes surged. But rather than drive to Wilton, Bobby Lee got off the expressway and told me we were going to see my mother’s grave before we drove out to Utah to start our new life.
“There,” I said. “It’s right there.”
Bobby Lee stumbled over a branch and said, “Shit.” I waited behind him as he stood slowly up and wiped mud off his pants. “Goddamnit,” he said. “These are the only pants I got. I was hoping Carl could lend me some clothes but he’s so damn fat now, I didn’t even bother to ask. Is that it?”
“Yes,” I said. I was standing a few feet away, over by a larger tombstone with a cross on top.
Bobby Lee stared at my mother’s tombstone but didn’t say anything. He just laid the bag of tulip bulbs down on the ground and put his hands in his pockets. I stood behind him and tried to look at the tombstone too, but I was starting to float again, so I looked down, concentrating on the ground.
“Come on here, boy, let’s pay our respects as a family. The two men in her life.” He grabbed my hand and made me walk closer to the grave.
“Hey Amy,” he said. He took out his bottle and swigged. “Oh, man,” he said. “This is weirder than I thought.”
He sat down on the ground, crossing his legs Indian-style, like Tommy did when he watched TV. “You loved your mother?” he asked. “Did you love your mother? I know she loved you. Hell, she loved you more than she loved me. But that’s okay, that’s all right. Mother’s supposed to love her children. Hey, now, what are you doing, quit that and sit down next to me.”
I kept standing and wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. The wind made my wet face sting, my lips salty. I wasn’t sure when I had started crying.
“Yeah, well, it’s okay to cry over your mother I guess. That’s okay,” he said. He took another drink. “I’d offer you some of this medication but I need all I can get right now. Sit down now. We’ll be going soon so say your good-byes.”
I sat down next to him on the cold ground and looked at the tombstone. Since the fight, he had been calm and quiet. I thought that he might try to hit me once we had left the parking lot of Tyrone’s, but it was as if a storm had passed and we drove for hours in silence, the radio low. Twice he offered me snacks from Carl’s bag.
“Amy Elizabeth Pappas,” he said. “Loving mother and wife.” I looked at the tombstone until I couldn’t see it anymore through my tears.
“You know things turned out different,” Bobby Lee said. “Different than I thought. I didn’t want them to turn out this way. I wanted to stay married to your mother, be a father and have more kids. But things took their own course. The comets collided somewhere and everything changed I guess.” I looked over at Bobby Lee when he mentioned the comets.
“Amy made up this fairy tale about comets colliding and when they did people’s lives changed. Hell, they’ve been colliding a lot I guess. Things keep changing. You can’t figure on anything.”
I dug my hands deep into my pockets and put my face down into my coat to hide against the wind. Overhead, I heard an airplane flying, a low distant sound that moved away and left us. Even though I feared we were going to Utah, I wanted to get back in the van where it was warm. I stopped crying and started sniffling.
“She and I were together for a long time, since grade school. I miss her
a lot. We had some fun together. Made each other laugh. We were just kids. Man, we were just kids.”
Bobby Lee slowly began to dig a shallow hole in the ground with his hands, scooping dirt out.
“Ground is almost frozen. It’s hard,” he said.
After he dug for a while, he opened the brown bag and dropped some bulbs into the earth, then covered them back up quickly. While he was doing this, I thought about trying to run back to the parking lot and look for help, but I was floating now, rising above the ground and I knew that Bobby Lee would catch me no matter what I tried.
“You got Amy’s big eyes. She had big eyes. Pretty eyes. I used to try and draw them in school, but I wasn’t no artist. I made them too big, she used to say. Hell, she was the artist. Yes, she was.” Then Bobby Lee said some thing that I didn’t expect him to say. “I loved her,” he said. “Shouldn’t have turned out this way. That old man took her away from me.” Fie put his head down between his legs and I thought I heard him crying. “Well,” he said after some time. “You and me are quite a pair, ain’t we? Quite a pair. Crying like this.” He wiped his eyes with his hand and sniffled too. “So, you believe in God. Then what do you think He thinks of me? Doing what I did? He probably doesn’t like me much, wouldn’t dislodge nothing from my esophagus.” He started to take another drink then stopped and put the bottle back down. “Well, you just, you just tell God, that I ain’t as bad as everyone said, all the newspapers and everything. I loved your mother. I ain’t evil or nothing. Didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
I crouched lower in my coat. The wind blew and bare branches scratched the air. Bobby Lee wiped his eyes again.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you back there in the parking lot,” he said. “Hell, at least I don’t think I was. I lose my temper sometimes, lose control. Don’t know what I’m going to do. Hell, you got a spark in you too,” he said. He gingerly touched his nose which was slightly swollen, “Should forget about the drawing and think about baseball, boy. You got aim.”
I had nothing to say to any of this. I just crouched lower and felt the wind blow through me. “Oh, hell,” he finally said, standing up. “Let’s go. All this is just crazy.”
