Chapter 17
Jonah sat stiffly on the truck’s seat between them staring at Zach’s hand on the gear shift as he guided that lever on its climb through four gears while accelerating out of the gravel road onto the main road to the school. “When you get your car fixed, Me-bec?” he asked, his eyes still fixed on Zach’s hand on the lever though that hand was finished shifting, for the moment.
“Zach’ll go by the tire place this morning. Should be fixed in time to pick you up this afternoon.”
“Why they two tires back there?”
Becca glanced at Zach above the boy’s head.
Zach said, “Spare was flat. Figured we’d get them both fixed.”
Jonah thought a minute, then said, “When Momma have a car, she drive on the spare till it give out, then just leave the car by the side of the road and we walk away. Never see that car again. Never have a car again.”
“She needed Zach to help out,” Becca said, touching the boy’s shoulder with her near hand.
“Soldier,” Jonah said.
Becca nodded. “Always there when you need him,” she said, winking at Zach above the boy.
“Needed Soldier,” Jonah said quietly, staring at Soldier’s hand on the shift knob in front of him.
That afternoon Zach rapped loudly at Snake’s front door. Though somewhat distracted, Zach couldn’t help but feel pride at that door’s sharp-edged symmetry and full engagement of the new vinyl weather-stripping at the sides and top, and the lack of a gap at the sill. The house might fall down around it, but that refurbished door with its new hardware and hinges and weather stripping would stand solid and sure. That absurd image of this door straight and true amidst a pile of rubble brought an ironic grin to Zach’s face.
“Thought you finished,” Snake hissed from his slot behind the shade.
“I am.”
“County happy?”
“Inspections accepted my report of compliance. You’re good for another six months. After that, you’re on your own.”
“Snake always on his own.”
“Of that I’m sure.”
“What you want?”
“I want you to keep Latonya away from Becca.”
“She ain’t my bitch, fool. What you talking to me for?”
“Because I can’t talk to her. Don’t know where she is.”
“Think I do? Ain’t seen her sorry ass since I cut her off two days gone.”
“And you don’t know where she is?”
“You think I her Momma? She go where she please. I told her don’t come round here less she got some green. Ain’t nothing but trouble no how.”
“So we’ve discovered.”
“You choice, fool. What you think going to happen, messing where you don’t belong?”
Zach nodded. “I’m asking for your help. I’m asking you to tell her to back off before someone gets hurt.”
“Not my problem. Snake got enough mess without jumping in another’s.”
“A favor, then,” Zach said.
“Favors get people hurt.”
Zach stared directly at where the eyes were behind that dark slot. “If anything happens to Becca, I’ll be back with something other than favors.”
A derisive laugh came out of the slot. “And I thought we was friends.”
“We could be.”
“Then stick with repairs, friend. The other don’t fit, get you killed.”
“That a threat?”
“A warning, fool. Not me you got to worry about.” The shade fell back to its natural place.
In the middle of the night Becca rose above him in an exchange well-practiced yet utterly new. All her weight drilling down from the shadows above balanced on his hips, twin foci of support—almost too much to bear, too much to fathom. The rest of her light as air, this strange exotic other-worldly air that not only brought breath and life but engulfed and upraised and exalted, paused him, poised him in a momentary eternal stasis that knew no hunger or harm or fear or aloneness, a glimpse frozen in time, God’s snapshot, of perfect love and congruity.
This pause then tumbling forward to the old frantic release, the clawing screaming in the ear panting grinding of teeth cramping of toe foot calf unburdening that was this night somehow different for that which had appeared before, that which would descend after.
She remained seated astride him, both finished, her weight slowly spreading outward from his hips, across his pelvis, his thighs, his belly, his waist. Her weight spreading upward and downward though she stayed froze upright above him, her weight spreading outward like gentle waves to knees shins ankles toes, to ribs nipples neck chin lips nose eyes crest of head. She swallowed him in her ocean. He gladly drowned.
Zach sat up with Becca still atop him, brought his face even with hers, laid his damp left cheek against her same skin, slid his arms around her waist as she draped hers over his shoulders. And from that ending that was also a starting, he with both hands did a slow search of every inch her body, from her toes curled tight beside his knees and upward over her precious palpable presence to where his fingers gently separated hair from hair where the follicles entered her scalp at the part, his thumbs hooked lightly on her ears. And she endured his praise, freely surrendered this time to adoration.
Birthday Dinner Page 26
