Afterward, the family went to the Denny's on Cache Road near the Holiday Inn and had a nice big breakfast, though Bud, who hated to wait in lines, grew restless while waiting to be seated and began to get somewhat angry. But there was no point to that. Then he remembered that once he'd had lunch with Holly in this place, but it hadn't gone well because he was so frightened of being seen by somebody.
He tried to put all that out of his mind.
Bud had what they called their Grand Slam, three scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, and a pancake.
“Bud, I swear, you leave some food for the people still in that line,” Jen said, in her abstract way.
“I don't know why, but I am damned hungry.”
“You haven't been eating since it happened.”
“Lamar Pye took my appetite, that's for sure. But I do believe he gave it back to me today.” He shoveled down a forkful of home fries. They were a significant weakness of his.
“Dad,” Jeff said, 'I wanted to head out to the batting cages on sixty-one. I don't want to lose what it is I got. Can you drive me out?”
“Sure,” Bud said, trying to keep a little stab of disappointment off his face, his plan with Holly just washed up.
“When do you want to go?”
“Oh, anytime. Figure we'd get home and change and then go.”
“Sounds good,” he said, feeling like a heel for what he was about to do.
“Oh, say, I'll tell you. I was going to log in some range time today.
I think I may invest in one of those nine-millimeters. I don't never want to try and speed load under fire again. Sixteen shots'll beat six any day of the week. The Lawton boys carry these Clocks and I thought I might head over to their range and see if I could talk one of them into letting me run a box of ammo through to see how I like it. Though Jed Wheelright had a Beretta I liked a lot. So, whyn't you relax a bit after you get home, let the food settle, and I'll go on. Be back in an hour or so.
Then we'll go hit.”
“Bud, you know you get to talking guns with those boys at that range you won't be home till well after nightfall.”
It irked him that she knew him so well.
“No, I swear it. Just fifty rounds in the Q target, just to see if I can hit a goddamned thing with a nine, much less a Glock, and then I'm home.”
“Believe that when I see it,” Jen said.
“Sure, Dad. I have some reading to do anyhow.”
When they got home. Bud changed into jeans and a loose-fitting golf shirt that wouldn't rub against the bandages that still crisscrossed his wounds, and took his midday's ration of Percodans.
“I'm going now,” he called, but there was only sullen silence from Jen.
But of course Bud didn't drive to the range. Instead he drove to Holly's trailer in Sherwood Village, parked around back, and feeling self-conscious as hell, slid up to the door.
As he knocked on it, he took a glance at his watch.
Now that's a terrible sign, he thought. Every time you start by looking at your watch, it ain't going to be a good thing at all.
But she opened the door in a short white robe, and her perfect, thin, long legs got him to forgetting about the time and for an hour or so, they were the only two people in the world.
“God, Bud, you sure you ain't eighteen?”
“You make me believe I could be, that's for sure.”
“I'da hated to know you when you were eighteen.
You'da killed me, I guarantee it.”
“You were one, then. And I don't think I knew the difference between my pecker and my carburetor. Didn't until you began showing me three months ago.”
He lay back, trying to suck all the pleasure out of the moment. The room was sunny and bright, her spare bedroom, because Bud still felt queer about making love to Holly in a room where she and Ted had been, though that spot was but ten feet away from where he now lay, through a thin tin wall.
“Goddamn, I feel good,” he said.
“Nobody ever made me feel as good as you do.”
“You ain't so bad in the how-good-it-feels department yourself, Mr. Pewtie,” she said.
“But Bud—” He lay there a bit, watching the shadows play on the ceiling.
“Bud, I want to know just one thing. Are you at least working on it?
By that I mean, thinking about it. There's work to be done. We got to find a place. You ought to talk to Jen and the boys. You ought to talk to a lawyer. There's much to be done. It can't just happen, up and sudden.”
Bud faced the ceiling. Everything she said was true.
“Holly, this ain't the time.”
“But it's never the time.”
“I told Jeff I'd drive him out sixty-one to the hitting cages.”
Now she sighed.
“Okay, Bud, go to the hitting cages with Jeff. But you have to do something. Soon. It ain't fair to nobody.”
It wasn't so bad after that was said. He dressed, she joked with him and wouldn't sulk or act victimized, and she gave him a good fare-thee-well, so he could go off and be with his son without the cloud of a bad secret scene hanging over him.
About a mile from home, he pulled into a strip mall parking lot and opened the lockbox in the rear of the pickup. He took out his shooting bag, where he kept his muffs and shooting glasses and assorted tools, and picked up a small brown bottle of Shooter's Choice bore solvent.
He squirted it on his hands and worked it in, like a hand cream, because the odor was so totally associated with firearms in his house.
The act itself disgusted him. It was so common and low.
You have become cheap, he told himself.
Then he locked it back up and drove home. He checked his watch. He was only half an hour late. He prayed that Jeff hadn't lost interest or gone off with friends.
“I'm home,” he yelled, coming in the door.
“Sorry I'm late. Jeff, let's go.”
“Okay, pad,” Jeff called.
“Russ, we're going to hit at the cages. You want to come?”
“Nah, thanks, Dad. It's okay.”
Jeff came bounding down the steps in cutoffs, a collarless jersey shirt, and his Nikes. He looked ropey as a cowboy, a string bean of a boy, all sinew and muscle and ranginess.
“Okay, let's go.”
“Y'all be home by dinner,” Jen called from the kitchen.
Now again Bud was happy. Nobody was in any pain anywhere. Once again he'd gotten away with it. Nobody suspected a thing, and even Holly seemed content. The edge he might fall off of wasn't so close, at least for a little while.
He and Jeff drove out Route 61 to Mick's Driving Range and Batting Cages, a down-home entertainment center that had seen better days but for which each had conceived a deep affection.
“How was the Glock, Dad?” Jeff suddenly asked.
“What?” Oh. The Glock. The Clock. Now he had to lie to his son, flat out, something he hated to do.
“It shoots well. Just like a revolver, you pull the trigger and off she goes, no cocking or anything. They got the safety in the trigger, little latch you pull automatically when you pull down. But I don't know. Didn't have much feel to it. Not like my Smith.”
“Could you trade grips?”
“No, the whole damn frame is one piece of plastic. Technically speaking, it doesn't have grips. They do have this little rubber sleeve you can pull over it, I hear, give it a palm swell and finger grooves. But I think I like the
