26
That night the rain blew hard against the house, rattled the windows like teeth chattering in a cold face. Only it was warm, sticky warm, even in the house with the central air and a fan blowing at the foot of the bed.
Brett, who I thought was asleep, rolled over and laid her arm across my chest.
“You aren’t sleeping?”
“I know. And neither are you. Surely you don’t want sex again? I think I’m pooped out.”
“We didn’t have sex tonight.”
“I’m still pooped out… You sure we didn’t?”
“I’m sure. Man, is that rain gonna wash us away?”
“We’ll float on the bed. We’ll be okay.”
“Will there be room for all the animals, Noah?”
“We’re the only animals that matter.”
“Hap. Can we do this?”
“You don’t need to do anything. Me and Leonard, Jim Bob and Ferdinand, we can do it.”
“The plan sounds kind of lame to me.”
“He’s actually using part of my idea.”
“Like I said, the plan sounds lame.”
“Jim Bob said it was a better plan than he expected the bunch of us to come up with.”
“Finding an extra pecan in your pecan sundae is better than you expected, but it isn’t exactly a whole pie. Jim Bob’s so smart, why doesn’t he come up with a better plan.”
“You’re knocking the plan?”
“I’m just saying Jim Bob saying it’s a better plan than he expected doesn’t make it the best plan devised.”
“It’s better than me or Leonard running the show.”
“It’s still not a plan that makes me feel confident.”
“Would any plan make you feel confident?”
“Probably not.”
“It’s what we’ve got. Or what we’ve got without you. You don’t need to go at all. You have a job to worry about.”
“You’re not doing anything without me. I got a little money put back. I can probably get off for a couple weeks. How long does it take to hunt down and kill a guy anyway?”
“Christ, don’t say that, Brett. I still wake up with the other on my mind.”
“Me too. I even wake up screaming about it sometimes. But I’d do it again. I’d do what we’re about to do twice. Charlie was a good guy, Hap. He didn’t deserve this.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“You did a thing for me once that I can’t imagine anyone else doing.”
“Leonard did it too.”
“You always say that, and he did, but he did it for you… Okay. I can’t imagine anyone but you two doing it for me, and now here’s my chance to pay you back.”
“I don’t want that. You’re not paying me back. This has got nothing to do with you paying me back. It’s got to do with me paying back that cocksucker in Mexico.”
Brett got up, went to the bathroom, came back, and snuggled in with me again. I said, “Frankly, I hate to admit it, but I been thinking about walkin’.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I haven’t?”
“Oh, you might consider it. It’s in your head. But you know what you’ll do, and so do I.”
“Am I that predictable?”
“Except that part where you bent one of my legs sideways and came at me from that weird angle. I didn’t expect that. But, other than sex, yes, you’re predictable.”
“Hey, we’re together long enough, I’ll be predictable there too. Then you’ll have to get rid of me.”
“I don’t think you’re altogether joking.”
“I haven’t had the best luck with love, my dear.”
“Hap. I don’t care you’re not young, you’re not rich or overly handsome, or even well hung-”
“Hold it now, goddamn it, you’re stepping across the line.”
“I thought that would wake you up. I’m saying I don’t care. I don’t care about any of those things, but I care about you, and I can’t just kiss you bye and send you to Mexico not knowing what’s going to happen. And when it’s over, when we come back here, I want to make this deal permanent. I’m not saying you have to marry me, though that would be nice, but I want us to be together. And that means being together when you go to Mexico. I don’t want to be sitting here waiting on my man to do what a man’s got to do like some cheap-ass Western movie.”
“That’s kind of what it boils down to, though, isn’t it?”
“It boils down to you and me. From now on, I want it you and me. Except when I’m doing some serious business in the bathroom. I don’t mind you come in I’m doing a number one, but a number two, no way. Unless maybe it’s to hand me the toilet paper if I forgot to put it on the roll, but other than that, not a number two. You stay out then.”
“You’re fucking nuts, Brett.”
“I know.”
“Brett, I don’t know I can go through with it. I think about it I clench up inside.”
“Whatever you do. Whatever you decide. I want to be there with you. Except that bathroom part that I’ve already explained. And that goes if you’re doing number two as well. I don’t want to see that.”
“Brett, thy middle name is class.”
“I keep telling you that.”
Next day they fired Brett when she wanted time off. She’d already used all her time off dealing with her worthless daughter.
I was with her at the nurses’ station when the head nurse told her it was all over and that they’d been thinking about firing her for some time because of her mouth.
“My mouth,” Brett said. “My fuckin’ mouth. You old dried-up cunt. You’d be so lucky as to have my cunt for your mouth. Turn it sideways, and it’d go better with your mustache than the mouth you got, you fuckin’ Wicked Witch of the West. I ought-”
I got her by the arm and pulled her out of there. On the way out she yelled back what they could do with their thermometers.
Later that day, Leonard and I went to our boss. It was tough. I knew Bond felt he owed me something, and I didn’t want to put him in a position of feeling he had to let me have more juice than I deserved, but there was nothing else to do.
His office was in town, away from the chicken plant. There were, however, pictures of chickens on the wall, and charts with chickens. There was also a big wooden desk, a black leather chair, and a black and gray striped couch.
Bond actually hadn’t been in the office, but I had called and he had called back and said he’d meet me there. He ended up meeting us out in the parking lot, riding up with us in the elevator.
“I don’t come here much,” he said. “I’m really too rich and too far removed from what’s going on anymore to have opinions. I just like to collect checks and leave the work and the organization to people I’ve handpicked.”
“It’s a nice life if you can get it,” Leonard said.
“Yes it is,” Bond said.
Leonard and I sat on the couch, shuffled our feet for a moment. Finally I came out with it. Told Bond something had come up. That we had to go away for a while. But we’d come back. And we’d like our jobs back, if that was possible, and not to think we were trying to take advantage of him. To my ears, I sounded like a kid making up some bullshit excuse for not doing his homework.
