Cute guy, this Dave.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Check’m,” Arnold said.
I turned the audio knob on Dave’s TV down and fired up the VCR and put one of the cassettes in. We fast forwarded it. It was good quality. Dave had known what he was doing. There was a guy in a nice suit walking up the bank steps and there was a fat man walking down the steps. I killed it there.
Bill gave me the other one.
I put it in and raced it forward until we came to Bill with his pants down, tied to the railroad track.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
I put the video cassettes in my coat pocket turned off the VCR, the TV and the light. Arnold popped the lighter on. We followed him to the front door. Arnold cracked it open.
“Clear,” he said.
We went out and moved rapidly along the outside ramp in the same direction the night watchman had taken.
We went down the stairs, listening and watching. We crossed the apartment complex yard and made the sidewalk and turned back in the direction we had come without getting yelled at.
When we were in the pickup, I let out a sigh of relief. I started up and hit the road.
“Piece of cake,” Arnold said.
“Yeah,” Bill said, pulling off the mouse gloves. “That was kind of fun… Did you see the tits and legs on that babe?”
“You’re some piece of work, Bill,” I said. “Think back, it was your narrow-minded, lead with your dick attitude got you into this mess in the first place.”
“Shit,” Bill said. “You’re right. That pussy, man it’s some deadly stuff.”
“No,” Arnold said. “What’s deadly is how fucking stupid you are.”
“Yeah, well, anyway,” Bill said, “her and the guy, you got to say one thing for them. They were championship pissers, don’t you think?”
15
Morning was arriving by the time I reached my subdivision. The moon was still visible, fading out like a honey-colored throat lozenge sucked too thin. Cauliflower clouds swelled out of the arriving blue as if ripening, rolled across the heavens at a medium boil, made soft shadows that tumbled along the slate-colored highway and subdivision blacktop and concrete drive that led up to our house.
I parked in the garage and didn’t go inside right away. I stuffed the videotapes under the car seat, went out the side garage door and stood for a moment and watched the morning bloom. I wanted to commune with nature a spell before Beverly ripped my head off, split my gut and stuffed me with hot stones and sewed me back together.
Eventually I got up my nerve and went in the house through the back door.
Wylie, his porcupine in his mouth, nearly knocked me down. I kneed him in the chest and he went away, disappointed as usual. I stopped in the kitchen, afraid to turn the corner, lest I meet Beverly face to face.
Sammy was already up for school, and he appeared on the scene shortly after Wylie left. When he saw me, he said, “You’re in some deep shit.”
“Hey!” I said. “Don’t talk like that.”
“That’s what Mama said.”
“Well, she shouldn’t have said that. She’s just mad. She gets mad she doesn’t know what she’s saying. You’re not mad, you know what you’re saying.”
“Okay, Daddy. I’m just telling.”
“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“What happened to your face?” Sammy asked.
“I banged myself up a little,” I said. “An accident. I’ll explain later.”
Beverly came around the corner and looked at me. The sparks that jumped behind her eyes made me think of the Bride of Frankenstein.
“Hi, hon,” I said.
“Don’t hon me, mister.”
That mister stuff was always a bad sign.
“What happened to your face?”
“An accident,” I said.
“You’re close to having another one, mister.”
“Something came up,” I said. “I can explain it. Kind of an emergency.”
“Your mother called after you left, so I knew you should have been back. When you didn’t show, I got worried some. Not a lot, but some. I don’t like to worry. And then you came in late and didn’t leave a note. I know you were here. I woke up about three looking for you, came down and saw you’d left the pay, Daddeanut butter out. You didn’t screw the lid back on the jar or put the fork in the dishwasher.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The peanut butter dried out a little, and you laid the fork on the table, and now there’s peanut butter all over the table cloth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And you didn’t call.”
Sammy was watching all this with great interest. He moved his head first to his Mom, then to me. Wylie had also reappeared. He too was watching, the porcupine between his teeth. I knew that I was, at this very moment, contributing to the education of boy and dog on how to handle domestic affairs.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Oh, boy. I’ll say, you’re sorry, all right. Take Sammy to school. When you get back you’re gonna get it, mister.”
Sammy got his backpack and we went out and got in my truck. “Mama hates that part about the peanut butter,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I leave it out all the time.”
“I know,” I said.
“It’s all right, Daddy. She’ll get over it.”
“I hope so.” I opened the garage door with the remote and cranked up the truck and eased out.
· · ·
When I got home Bev was gone. She had driven JoAnn to school. I made sure the coffee was going, then waited on Bev by playing toss the porcupine with Wylie. It made his day. He was so excited I thought he was going to shit himself. He didn’t want to quit playing when I heard Bev drive up, but I went and washed my hands at the kitchen sink and ignored his pushing against my leg.
I dried my hands and poured a couple of cups of coffee and waited for Bev to come in.
When she did, I said, “We got to talk.”
“I’ll say,” she said.
Wylie recognized the signals. He and his little yellow porcupine went away.
“What happened to your eye and lip?”
Bev got her cereal and a bowl and poured her milk and ate, not getting in a hurry about it. When she finished we took our coffee outside on the deck.
It was warming up. The day was bright. There were birds happily singing everywhere. I guess none of them had nephews who were in trouble.
We sat in the deck chairs, and while we sipped coffee, I talked. I told her everything Bill had told me, and I told her what Bill and Arnold and me had done last night, about the mistake in the rooms, everything. I didn’t
