Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [51]
By now Nicole was letting things slide. Things didn't bother her as much. Barrett was driving off trucks in Verno which is to say, he would get a job, lose it, get another. He had a short fuse, and could tell his boss to go to hell without a lot of provocation. Once she got so desperate for a little security that she was walking down the street with both kids and a few belongings when Barrett drove up the road heading home. So they got into a big fight. He seriously tried to beat the shit out of her. Instead she got ahold of Sunny's toy chair and marked him up pretty good. He had black and blue marks everywhere. Therefore, she didn't leave. It felt too good to look at him.
In Mississippi, Joe Bob's father was dying of cancer, and he wanted to visit, so Nicole left the kids with Charley and Kathryne, and took off. She had hopes for Joe Bob and herself. He gave her real security, yet he was also an exciting guy.
One night in Mississippi Nicole got the shock of her life. Joe Bob's folks had the biggest butcher shop in town, and they kept a few cows for their own use. On this night, Nicole happened to be out in the barn and through the planks, on the other side of an enclosure, there was a calf sucking on her new man.
Once in a while, Joe Bob had talked funny about photos he'd looked at of a chicken being fucked by a dog, and wanted to know if she'd ever seen such stuff, but Nicole just let it slide. Now, she said to herself, "You're going to be 'a loser forever.' Face it."
To herself, she even had to pretend she didn't see Joe Bob with the calf. All the while, he was talking about taking over his father's butcher shop. They'd be surrounded by animals then. Dead ones. It turned out his father wasn't sick the way Joe Bob had let on in Utah, but ready to retire. They would go to Utah, pick up Sunny and Jeremy, then down to Mississippi again. Nicole felt trapped worse than ever.
Back in Utah, fifteen minutes after they came through the front door of Joe Bob's house, there couldn't have been more trouble. Some of Joe Bob's animals were out of their cages and running wild. The house was late being repaired, paneling was still being nailed up, floors were torn, sinks being put in. Worse. His little trailer was gone from the yard. Joe Bob knew immediately who had stolen it because he ripped the thing off the guy in the first place when he wouldn't pay some money he owed. Now it was gone. Joe Bob was out talking to the cops. Nicole was standing at the door. She had a splitting headache. Sunny and Jeremy were crying.
She heard the cop explaining that possession is nine-tenths the law. Since Joe Bob'd never taken legal possession of the trailer there wasn't much he could do.
When he came back and started explaining it to her, she said, I know, I heard. I don't want to hear. She swore she was faint, didn't want to talk. He began to get rude. She got rude back. Must have said something to set it off. Fifteen minutes after they got home, he picked her up and threw her across the room.
Then he came over, picked her up and threw her again. There were mattresses on the floor, but she bounced off a few walls.
He sat on her, and choked her. He said he wasn't having any more of this. Wasn't having any more of that. Started telling her she was his slave now. He was over 200 pounds and most of it in the back and shoulders. He sat on