Cruddy - Lynda Barry [53]
I took a glug because I wanted a glug. I was liking the glugs more and more. The swirl they gave me, the curlique slide into nothingness.
He showed me the different features of the rifle he used on Marie Cardall. How to break it down. How to put it back together. Gave a long Navy explanation of the relation of firing pin to the bore axis. Showed me how to load it. Showed me how troubled men used it to blow the top of their heads off, putting the barrel in the mouth, taking aim.
He took more glugs and I took some glugs. It was a strange kind of booze, that Corpse Reviver. It didn’t taste bad. It didn’t burn. Not in the first ten seconds. And then it just exploded and made you exhale sentimental ignitable fumes. I got wobbly, very wobbly. He got wobbly. He said we ought to drink one to Uncle Lemuel and to any other son of a bitch stupid enough to get in our way. He asked me was it me that pitched that rock at his head when he was sitting on the toilet. I told him yes it was. He told me it hurt like hell but he was glad I told the truth and if I ever pulled a stunt like that again he would mash me like a fly. And he smiled and I smiled back.
The clouds blew away and the sky above us was clear and inky blue. Very clear with sparking starlight and moonlight falling so strangely. We were sitting outside with the rifle. First he was holding it then I was holding it then he had it again.
“Know what we’re waiting for, Clyde?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “We’re waiting for an explanation.”
I thought it was strange, him saying that and looking up at the moon. And I was thinking of Ardus Cardall coming home after he buried that Leonards boy under two tons of concrete and telling it to Marie, mentioning how he was hoping the whole thing would just somehow blow over. And right then I felt like I understood Ardus Cardall’s logic. Let the past stay in the past. A person makes mistakes. A person has to move on.
After all the things that happened, described and undescribed, if I told you I still loved the father would you understand it? How there was a wire of love running inside of me that I just could not find to pull? It was the side effect of being someone’s child, anyone’s child, whoever God tossed you to.
I was thinking maybe it could work. Maybe we would set up a new life someplace in the yonder and the past would somehow tumble into the hole of forgetfulness. My tingling lips spoke these hopes out loud to the father as the dark conifers rubber-swayed around me. I told him I would never do to him what Marie Cardall did to Ardus. I’d never go to the authorities.
The father laughed a little. He said, “Hell, Clyde, I hate to break it to you, but I’d never give you the chance.”
And there in the forest we sat, him with the rifle, sitting very still, waiting for a certain sound, a certain movement in the brush, an explanation.
Any hunter could tell you there were too many smells coming from our way. The father smelled horrible. I’m sure I did too. The trailer alone could clear the area. It wasn’t a bad thing to take a glug. It could burn. It could blister. But it kept the thoughts apart, it kept the sweet dizzy tunnel rocking. Any hunter could tell you no deer were coming anywhere near us. Unless that hunter was Navy. Unless that hunter was a Navy man from Milsboro.
An orange flash. BLAM!!! The father’s body jerked back hard. It’s called recoil. He jumped up and stumbled toward the thrashing with a handful of shells. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! I told God I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I was Navy.
The father shouted, “Flip the lights, Clyde. High beams!”
He dragged the creature into the illuminated spill. Blown apart bad. Shot to near disintegration in some places. Dazzle camouflage.
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