by Larry Brown
“I just don’t want to kill him,” Glen said. “He never done nothin to me.”
Roy leaned back on the boat seat and put his hands down beside him. He looked at the fish. “I don’t understand what you’re talkin about, Glen.”
There wasn’t much time to explain it. The fish would die if he wasn’t put back in the water soon. “It’s like this. I never killed a deer that I didn’t wish was still alive after I looked at it. This thing’s too pretty to kill. I’d rather have him back in here instead of hung up on some wall.”
Roy nodded, looking down at the thing. “He’s pretty.”
“Let’s turn him loose, then.”
“All right.”
Glen still had the rod in his hand and now he reeled the lure in to the tip and laid it aside. He knelt in the boat and got one hand under the belly of the fish and held its head by the lower jaw and eased it over the side and immersed it in the water. It lay there breathing weakly and he watched its eyes. He released it. It turned slowly on its side, the gills working, then with one enormous spasm of its tail it righted itself and vanished into the deep gloom of the water. He knelt there looking after where it had gone.
“You’re a good man, Glen,” Roy said to him.
“No I ain’t,” he said to the water.
A couple of cold beers were still in the icebox, left over from Sunday night. Virgil hobbled back there after Bobby left and got one and found an opener. He dropped the cap on the table and looked at the whiskey sitting there. The level of it was lower than what he remembered. In the old days if he left it out Emma would water it down while he was drunk. He stood there looking at it for a minute, then set the beer down and picked it up. It was an inch or so lower. He wondered if Glen had been by. He didn’t know who else would come into his house and drink his whiskey. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need it anyway. He just liked it was all.
His ribs were still hurting but the doctor had given him some little red pills for pain. He set the whiskey down and pulled the plastic bottle from his pocket and washed two of them down with a couple of swallows of beer. Then he walked slowly back up to the front room and eased himself down onto the bed, pulled a chair closer and set the beer on it, put his ashtray on it, then started taking off his socks. After he got them off he pulled a couple of pillows together and lay back against the headboard. The window was open and a small breeze was drifting into the room. He hated to be laid up. The damn well. No water in the house. Just a hell of a mess. He didn’t want to call Puppy and worry him with it. He was afraid that W.G. might have fired him over all this. But he hoped he hadn’t. He started to get up and call him, but it seemed too much trouble. And he might be back at work anyway. He could always do it later. Right now he just wanted to rest.
The puppy was whining out on the porch.
“Settle down,” he called to it. He heard it go down the steps and into the yard. It was probably going around back so it could get in through the screen door. He needed to fix that one of these days. He couldn’t do anything without his car, couldn’t get to town to get anything. He hated to worry Puppy about it.
The beer was dripping water onto the chair and he reached up painfully and got it, leaned back, held it against his belly. He guessed he was lucky he hadn’t hurt himself any worse than he had. Little son of a bitch. Saying things like that. But still hurt over his kid. In a way he didn’t blame him for being the way he was. He was never going to get over it. There was no way he could. Not if you got to thinking about how things could have turned out. Virgil could see that even though none of it was his fault, Ed Hall somehow held him responsible. Probably for nothing more than bringing Glen into the world. You couldn’t reason with people when they got to thinking like that.
All that thinking wearied him even more, so he just rested on his bed, listening to the puppy scratch at the back door. And it was only a little while before he walked into the front room and came up next to the bed. Virgil reached a hand out and patted him on the lead.
“I’m laid up, little buddy,” he said. “Got my damn ass whipped.” The puppy sniffed up and down Virgil’s legs, wagging his tail, as if in agreement.
“Don’t you take a shit in this house. I ain’t up to cleaning it up today.”
The puppy walked to the window and looked out. Virgil eased back and sipped his beer. He wished he had the hunting magazine to read. But it would be too much trouble to go out and get it. Best to just lay here and rest. He felt old, and his bones were tired.
He woke to soft knocking on the screen door, a timid voice calling his name. The puppy was standing at the door to the hall, looking out inquisitively to the porch. Part of his beer had spilled against him and he set it on the chair.
“Come on in,” he said. He heard her ask if the dog would bite and he got up from the bed and made his way to the hall. Mary was opening the screen door, a basket in her hand. He grinned at her.
“He won’t bite. Nothin but a biscuit. Come on in.”
He sat back down on the edge of the bed. The puppy sniffed around her legs, nosed at her dress. She set the basket on the couch and then sat beside him on the bed. The puppy went to the basket and she got up.
“I’ve got some sandwiches in there,” she said. “Where can I put em?”
“Just let him out,” Virgil said. “Just get him by the collar and take him out.”
She did and then came back.
“Now go back to the kitchen and shut that wood door or he’ll come back in.”
She went down the hall and he heard her close the door. Her steps in the hall coming back to him. Her smile at the door, looking in at him for just a moment before she came in and sat down beside him again. She picked up his hand and held it. He leaned over clumsily and kissed her, the taste of her mouth sweet and warm.
“How bad you hurt?” she whispered against his lips.
“I didn’t hurt that part.”
She got up and shut the hall door and undressed slowly in front of him, smiling the whole time, and then when she was naked she came to him and helped him remove his clothes, carefully, her eyes looking into his and touched with that small warm way she had and the fine wrinkles etched into her face and her body imbued with a soft light, her face shy of makeup and her hands free of any rings, until she lay next to him on the bed with her head on his chest, the good scent of her hair in his nose, until he turned her over and kissed her again and was wrapped in the familiar and fragrant embrace of her and knew that if he died in this moment he would die happy.
After it was over she lay naked next to him talking. He rubbed her shoulder, scratched her back.
“How’d you know about it?” he said.
“Bobby came home for lunch and told me. You didn’t care for me coming over, did you?”
He turned his face and looked at her. Her eyes were so calm, her little smile constant.
“I’m glad to see you. I’m always glad to see you, Mary. What about Bobby?”
“What about him?”
“What would he say if he came by here and saw your car?”
She leaned to kiss him on the cheek and one of her nipples touched his arm and the weight of her breast stuck to his skin by the friction between them. He loved her smell. He reached out and hefted the other breast, lifted it, rolled the nipple under his thumb and watched her close her eyes.
“Bobby’s got his own life,” she said, and moved on top of him again.
It was midafternoon when they finally stopped. She put her clothes back on and dressed him and fluffed up his pillows. She brought him a thick ham sandwich and another beer and set to cleaning up the house. While he ate he could hear her in the kitchen, in the hall. She went around his bed picking up bottles and old newspapers and she swept the floor. Just listening to her tired him out.
“You need to hire you a maid,” she said once, passing down the hall.
“You interested in the job?”
“Maybe part-time,” she said, then winked and went on down
the hall.
After a while he got up and went down the hall to the kitchen. It didn’t look the same. All the pots of dead plants were gone and he could hear her doing something out in the backyard. He pushed open the screen door and went out there. The empty pots were all stacked up in one corner of the porch and she had dumped the potting soil and the dry stalks over the fence at the side. She was just bringing the last one back and she put it on the stack and dusted her hands off. She looked up at him.
“I hope you don’t care,” she said. “A year’s plenty long, Virgil.”
He sat down in the chair and reached for his cigarettes. He lit one and leaned back, crossed his legs.
“I don’t care. Should have done it a long time ago. I still got all her clothes.”
She stepped up on the porch and sat in the other chair, then pulled it a little closer to him.
“I know. I went in there but I didn’t touch anything. You want me to clean them out?”
He thought about it. There didn’t seem to be much point in keeping them. They were a constant reminder and he didn’t even sleep in there anymore. In the past he could feel her in there at night and so he had moved to the other room. But sometimes she came in there too. Not in a while now though. He hoped she wasn’t agonized in some place where she could see him. See them.
“I don’t know. What would you do with them?”
“Take it to town. Give it to the Salvation Army. I know there’s somebody who could get some use out of all those dresses. They’re good as any you buy in a store.”
“She used to make me shirts,” Virgil said. “She made Glen a huntin coat one time. It was the damnedest thing I ever seen. Bought some brown canvas and some corduroy. Lined it with a wool blanket she cut up. It even had a padded shoulder for a shotgun. You couldn’t tell it from one that came from Sears and Roebuck.”
She lowered her eyes and rocked for a bit, then looked out across the yard where the chickens were scratching in the dust.
“She never got over hating me, did she?”
“Naw. She never did. She thought I was still seeing you right up to the day she killed herself. I never could convince her any different. And after a while I guess I just got tired of trying.”
“Let me know what you want to do about all these clothes,” she said. “I’ll come back and haul them off if you want me to.”
“Okay.”
“What do you need? I don’t want you to have to be up and down fixing something to eat all the time.”
“I got some stuff to eat.”
She laughed at that.
“Oh yeah. I saw what you’ve got to eat. Chili and beef stew. You can’t live on that.”
“I’ve lived on a lot worse. Raw fish and coconuts. Try that sometime and a bowl of beef stew looks pretty good. Main thing I need is to get some water in the house.”
“What would it take to fix it?”
“Just some water now. The part’s up there in the front room. Puppy was going to help me. We’d already loaded up the water when all this happened.”
“How much water would it take?”
“Bout five gallons.”
She got up. “Well come on then.”
“Where we going?”
“Get you some water. You can’t even flush your toilet. Me and you can fix it.”
They did. She got him in the car and drove him to her house and loaded a barrel into the back end of Bobby’s old pickup and filled it with water. Back at his house she handed him wrenches and they got the part on and then with a five-gallon bucket they poured water down the long shaft that went into the well and when he flipped the switch manually they could hear it surging and bubbling. It ran for two or three minutes and then shut itself off. When they walked into the house all the taps had water. She made him sit down and she started washing all his dishes as soon as there was some warm water. He watched her for a while and then he got up and told her he was going back to the front room to lie down.
He was tired again and he stretched out on his bed. Music started up in the kitchen when she turned the radio on. He put his head back on his pillow and listened to it. The boys had always played it when they were growing up, and he hadn’t realized that he’d missed it until now. Mary was singing and he smiled. His eyelids were heavy and he thought he’d close them for just a minute, just until she got through washing the dishes. It was nice of her to do that. And she was right about the clothes. No need to hang on to all that stuff. Not when somebody else might be able to get some use out of it. He needed to get those cars hauled off, too. Puppy probably knew somebody with a wrecker. He’d ask him soon. He hoped Puppy was all right. Little son of a bitch. He was fast as lightning though.
When he woke up it was almost dark and she was gone. He checked the house. She’d put all the sandwiches into the icebox and the dishes were stacked beside the sink and there was a note with two words: Call me.
He walked out on the porch and sat down in his chair. The puppy heard him when he came out and climbed up on the porch to stay with him while the sun dropped down through the trees on the other side of the road. The last of the birds winged their way through the darkening air and then everything was still. He rocked slowly, watching. The puppy put his head down on his paws and slept. A deep solid peace settled into Virgil’s bones. His ribs were still hurting a little but it was just a minor thing, a thing a man could easily bear. Night came and he didn’t move.
The sun was hanging at the tops of the cypresses that stood by the lake and the fish were hitting everywhere, but by now they had caught so many they were tired of catching them. They rowed back to the levee and untied a stringer of eight fat bass and put them in the back of Roy’s pickup. Glen got the rods and reels and lifted the last two beers from the cooler and they drove back across the levee with the western sky reddening in the retreat of the sun and watched the last of the light shatter up through the pale clouds.
“It’s been a nice day, Glen. I’m proud you came out to see me.”
Glen looked out across the water and trailed the hand that held his cigarette out the open window.
“You got a pretty place out here,” he said.
“Yep. I don’t know what I’d do if he decided to run me off. I’ve gotten so used to it. Listen here, why don’t you stick around and help me dress these fish? I got some peanut oil and a bunch of french fries. We’ll fillet these bass and cook us up a feast after while.”
Glen took a long drink of the beer and eyed the bottle. The truck bumped gently over the grass on the levee.
“I’d love to. I guess I better get on, though. I got some stuff to do.”
Roy smiled as he drove. Of all the people Glen had known in his life, he’d never had a cross word with this one. Had never heard him speak badly of another person. He had offered words of quiet comfort about Theron in that bad time. And he knew he wouldn’t judge him about Jewel.
“Now what you got to do that’s more important than a good fish fry? We can have em in the pot in thirty minutes. I got some more beer in the frigerator.”
“I better get on. I’m kinda thinking about going to see somebody.”
Roy just nodded. He drove to the end of the levee and pulled up and parked next to the porch. They got out and looked at the fish in the back end. Glen hooked his arms over the side of the truck and nodded to them.
“That’s a nice mess of fish.”
“It’s a lot more than I can eat. I wish you’d just stay on with me. But I know you probably got stuff to do. I don’t blame you. You seen Jewel?”
Glen frowned a little. Took a swallow of his beer.
“Yeah. I’ve seen her.” He looked up at Roy. “I don’t know what to do about her,” he said. “Daddy thinks I ought to marry her. But I done tried that one time Roy and it didn’t work. Besides. I think she’s been messing around with Bobby Blanchard.”
Roy looked uneasy then. He shook his head slowly and stared at the fish.
“I don’t know nothing
about that, Glen. But a lot of stuff can go on in three years. Things can change. People can, too. Look at me. I baptized you when you were ten years old. I was pretty young then myself. I never figured I’d ever do anything else but preach. Marry somebody and settle down, have a family, get a church of my own. But it didn’t work out that way. I ain’t give a sermon now in five years.”
“Why’d you quit?”
“Lots of reasons. I did wrong with a woman I wasn’t married to.” He showed Glen his beer bottle. “Got to liking this stuff a little too much. Didn’t figure I had any more business being up in a pulpit trying to tell other folks how to live. So I quit.”
“Well. At least you’re honest about it.”
“Everybody sins, Glen. They ain’t a one of us that don’t.”
“I guess that’s right. But I thought she was gonna wait on me. She said she would. First day I saw her she said things had changed. Then I drove by her house and seen him over there.”
“Have you talked to her since then?”
“Naw.”
“Maybe there’s a reason he was over there. Maybe she had some trouble.”
Glen didn’t say anything. He’d been trying to forget about Sunday night. He couldn’t remember most of it anyway. Except that he’d gone in and found the boy in the bed with her. He remembered that.
“Maybe you ought to just go talk to her, Glen. I ain’t trying to tell you what to do. Your daddy means well I know. He ain’t never forgive himself for what happened to your brother. He never will.”
“He blames me.”
“He don’t blame you, Glen. It was a long time ago.”
Roy turned around and put his hand up on the tailgate and fixed Glen with a look that was all kindness. “I know you’ve had a hard time. But try to put all this bad stuff behind you. I don’t want to see you get in no more trouble. If you ever need somebody to talk to I’m always here. I can loan you some money if you need it, too. You can even stay out here if you want to.”
Glen set his beer in the bed of the truck and slipped his shirt on and started buttoning it. He unbuckled his pants and tucked it in and then fastened the belt back together and ran one hand through his hair and picked up the beer. He took another swallow and turned his head to look one last time at the lake. If he could stay out here everything might be okay. If he could stay away from people. If he could live his life in a way that other lives couldn’t mess up. He turned back to face Roy.
