“No way, babe. That’s your money. I can do without the medicine for a while. I’ll just take aspirin instead.”
“You’ve been taking aspirin, and they’re not helping.”
“Aspirin are good for my heart. The commercials say so.”
“Tommy . . .”
“Goddamn it, Michelle, I said no!”
Silence. I hadn’t meant to snap, and I think I was just as shocked as she was. I hated the wounded look in her eyes. Immediately, I felt like an asshole. My temples began to throb, heralding the onset of another headache. My teeth hurt, and I fought back a cough, knowing there would be blood in it. I could taste it at the back of my throat.
T. J. whimpered, his cartoon forgotten, and Michelle looked wounded.
“I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry . . .”
She shrugged.
I got up from the couch, picked T. J. up, and gave him another squeeze.
“Daddy didn’t mean to yell,” I told him. “I just had a really bad day and I’m a little grumpy. That’s all.”
“It’s okay, Daddy,” he said, then hopped down.
“I’m sorry too,” she said, softening. “It’s sweet of you to think of me and Mom’s trip, but you need to take care of yourself, Tommy. You need to think of T. J and me. What would we do if you got really sick?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Instead, I just shook my head. The pain exploded behind my eyes and I fought to keep from showing it. A metallic blood taste welled up in my mouth. I collapsed back onto the couch.
“You’re right,” I croaked. “I’ll pick some up tomorrow. But we’re not using your bingo money and that’s final. I’ll see if I can slide on the inspection. I can put some mud over the sticker so the cops don’t see it.”
“Will that work?”
“It has before. It’ll be okay as long as it doesn’t rain and wash the mud off.”
I got up and walked unsteadily to the kitchen, feeling Michelle’s eyes on me. She knew I didn’t feel good, but she also knew better than to keep harping on the subject. Instead, she put her book down. “T. J., it’s time for bed.”
He turned to face her, and said, “Bullshit.”
There was a brief pause. Then we both laughed, and what little tension remained in the room dissipated.
“What did you just say?”
“I don’t want to go to bed,” T. J. pouted. “I want to watch SpongeBob.”
“You’ve seen this one a million times,” Michelle said firmly. “It’s time for bed. And don’t use that word anymore.”
“What word?”
“The bad word you just said a second ago.”
“What bad word?” He was grinning now. “You and Daddy said it.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so, that’s why.”
“But why?”
Michelle rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Never mind.”
She scooped him up from the floor and carried him to me.
“Tell your father good night.”
He held his arms out. “Good night, Daddy.”
I took him from her and hugged him tight against me. He kissed my cheek and wrinkled his nose.
“My whiskers bothering you?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “but your face is wet, Daddy.”
I realized then that I’d been crying. I hadn’t known.
“Daddy’s been sweating. I worked hard today. You go on to bed now.”
I kissed him and he kissed me back again, carefully avoiding the wet patches this time. Then we did our familiar, nightly ritual.
“We boys?” I asked with a grin.
“Yeah boyyyyy, we boys!”
“Night homeboy.”
He giggled. “Night homey.”
I smiled, and gave him another kiss.
“Nighty-night. Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too, little man. Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Michelle carried him down the hallway, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator door and paused, letting the draft of cold air wash over me. I pulled out a can of beer and shut the door. The pop of the tab sounded like a gunshot in the silence. My ears rang, and in my head, I heard Michelle asking me again what would happen to her and T. J. if I got really sick. The throbbing in my temples got worse. I put the cold can against my head; letting it numb me until I felt better, then drained it. Cheap beer had never tasted so good. I grabbed the aspirin bottle from atop the fridge, shook four out into my palm, and washed them down with another can of beer. Down the hall, Michelle was reading T. J. a bedtime story—The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. That had always been my favorite when I was a kid, and now it was T. J.’s favorite too. The only difference was that he had a mother who actually read it to him. I’d had to read mine for myself, under the blankets with a flashlight. Michelle was a good mother, and a good wife too. I loved her so damn much, and when I saw how T. J. adored her, it made me love her even more. I never cheated on her, not even once. I know that doesn’t sound like such a big thing. You’re not supposed to cheat on your wife. But trust me; in this town, everybody, and I mean everybody, is banging somebody else. Despite the odds, I never stepped out on her, and I know she didn’t fuck around on me either. I knew that I was going to marry her the first time I saw her, halfway between homeroom and Mr. Shue’s eleventh-grade English class. She had long, blond hair, blue eyes, a body that was the bomb— and a smile that seemed to glow. Sounds corny, but fuck— I’m no poet. I only know that there really is love at first sight, because I felt it then. I was living proof. Or dying proof, I guess.
Of course, she’d hated me at first. She thought I was an immature jackass, and to her credit, she was right. But I persisted. It took me two months just to get her to agree to go out on a date with me. We went to the movies, then to the diner. Afterward we drove up to The Hill in my Toyota (the same car that was repossessed a few years ago when we fell behind on the payments). That was the first time I ever made love. I’m not talking about fucking. I’d had sex with plenty of girls by then. No, this was something different. Neither of us were virgins (in this town, if you don’t lose your virginity by the time you’re fourteen, you might as well become a priest or a nun) but we were both nervous. I wanted it to be good for her— I mean really good. She didn’t orgasm, I think because we were both so self-conscious. I figured that I’d blown it, but she said she didn’t care, and sure enough, we went out again the next night. And the night after that. And the night after that. And we never stopped.
Unlike most of our classmates, we didn’t get married right out of high school. By the time we’d graduated, I had decided that I wanted to go into the military, college not being an option. For me, going to college would have been like somebody saying, “Hey Tommy, would you like a trip to Mars?” So the military was really the only way to go. Figured I could do four years and get money for college that way. I drove to York and talked to the recruiters, and ended up deciding on the Marines, but two piss tests that showed positive for marijuana later, I was back on the street looking for a job.
When I was young, I’d always sworn that I would never be like my father, that I wouldn’t be a slave to that dirty foundry all of my life. Even if my old man hadn’t been a total fuck-up, the foundry would still have screwed up our lives. Growing up, John’s dad had been really cool, and the foundry still affected their family. His dad had worked seven days a week shift work, and was never home, not even on Christmas Day. He busted his ass for his family, a family that he never got to spend time with, and died of a heart attack three years ago, seven years away from retirement.
I wasn’t going to go out like that. I promised myself that I wouldn’t. I’d move, go to York or Harrisburg or
