Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [43]
I LET Danny get farther up the road before I pull out. Around Coalinga I see a black pickup across the meridian, headed south. Could be them giving up, or driving back to scan the northbound traffic. I don’t know.
It’s after dark when I see my exit. By now my eyes keep dropping shut and I’ve lost most of the sense of forward motion; the road just seems to be reeling toward me as I stay in one place. I hit the blinkers and turn off.
God, I forgot what Christmas is like in the suburbs. It’s still a couple weeks away, but lights are dribbling down from the eaves, reindeer are on the rooftops, forests of giant candy canes are growing from the lawns. We used to do that thing; drive around all the different neighborhoods looking at the lights. Christmas. I should have got them something. I park a few blocks away, rather than leaving a strange car in front of their house for the neighbors to see. Then I sit behind the wheel, trying to get my shit together. Maybe I should have called.
AS SOON as I knock on the door, the dogs start barking. The same dogs. I can hear her inside, coming into the hall, telling them to shush, and them not listening at all, just barking like crazy. A lock snaps open. They never used to lock the door, but I guess they’ve had reason enough the last few years. The door swings open just enough for her to look out and still keep it blocked with her body so that neither of the dogs can squirt out around her.
She looks at me.
Mom is a tiny woman. She likes to claim she’s five foot two, but the truth is she’s just a shade over five. At least she used to be. It’s been several years and she looks a bit smaller now. And older. Much older. I did that to her. She looks at me, the guy on her porch with the deep tan, short beard, and long hair. She looks at the nose, crunched and bent, the extra twenty pounds of weight, the tattoos dribbling out the tugged-up sleeves of my shirt and down my forearms. There is no beat, no pause or halt, just instant recognition and the sudden escape of air from her mouth.
I push the door open, catch her as her knees give out beneath her. I hold her shaking body up and kick the door closed with the heel of my foot. She gasps for air and I give her a little squeeze and a shake and a huge gob of snot and phlegm flies out of her nose and plasters the front of my shirt and she starts to breathe again. I hold her tight and she shivers and sobs and pounds on my back and shoulders with her tiny fists and curses at me and tells me she loves me while the old dogs run around in circles, barking at me.
PART TWO
DECEMBER 11–14, 2003
Two Regular Season Games Remaining
—Henry.
My name.
—Henry.
Hearing my name from my father’s mouth almost starts me crying again.
—Henry!
—Yeah, Dad.
—What the hell do you think you’re doing?
What I’m doing is standing on the back patio, lighting a cigarette.
—I was just gonna have a smoke.
—When the hell did you start smoking?
—I don’t know. Couple years ago.
I light up.
—Look at that, you have a great meal and now you’re going to ruin it by killing your taste buds and filling your lungs with that poison.
—OK, Dad.
—Look at the pack, it tells you right there.
—Got it, Dad.
I stub the smoke out in an empty flowerpot.
—They just about tell you that you have to be a suicidal idiot to smoke the things and people keep smoking them.
I’ve been here for maybe two hours.
—It’s out.
—And you, you wait over thirty years and now you start?
And already it’s like I never left home at all.
—Dad, it’s out. OK?
—Yeah, sorry. I just. I just don’t want you to get hurt or anything.
He turns his head as tears start to well up in his eyes again. Well, almost like I never left home.
—I don’t want to get hurt, Dad.
Mom opens the back door.
—Come inside, it’s cold out.
THERE WERE steaks in the fridge. Dad grilled them for us, standing by the propane barbeque out on the cold patio, watching me through the windows as I helped Mom set the table.
He had been at the shop, working late just like he always did