Late One Night

11

Shooter Rowe, if push came to shove, would admit that deep down there were times when he wished to be free of Captain, when he wished for a different sort of son.

It was the kind of truth a man comes up against late at night when he’s alone with his thoughts, and he has no choice but to face facts. When he has to say, okay, this is who I am. The fact was, ever since he and Merlene knew something was wrong with Captain, that he wasn’t ever going to be the sort who could stand on his own two feet and take responsibility for his steps through the world, sure or uncertain, Shooter tried to stay clear of him, wasn’t a good father at all. But then Merlene took sick and died, and now here he was, trying his best.

Captain was incapable of understanding when he’d done something to deserve a stern word or a lick with Shooter’s belt. It was so much easier to call Ronnie on his missteps. When he did something stupid, Shooter told him he’d fucked up, and Ronnie said, “Shooter, you’re right. If I’d had you as a daddy, I would’ve turned out to be a better man.”

Shooter wasn’t sure about that — he was no kind of father — but he knew that to Ronnie he must have seemed exactly the man he needed to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Ronnie had never known his own father. Then his mother died when he was a toddler, and he grew up in a series of foster homes, each one of them leaving him with a little more meanness inside, a little more hurt, a little more ache for comfort and love. Finally, when he was fifteen, he lied about his age and got that tattoo on his neck. BAD MOON. Let the world know it; he was burning a short fuse.

So there they were, Ronnie and Shooter, each of them all mixed up, needing each other in ways they couldn’t completely understand, ways that were complicated by the love and envy they both felt, and Shooter didn’t know how he’d say any of this if he had to.

“You just fucked up big time,” Shooter told Ronnie after he walked out on Della.

It was a night when Ronnie had come for the last of his things and Shooter caught him as he was about to toss a pile of clothes into the backseat of the Firebird. It was after dark, a quarter moon in the sky, the air with the chill that said winter was waiting, the chirr of crickets in the fencerows, the smell of wood smoke coming from the trailer.

“I mean it, Ronnie,” Shooter said. “You’re not thinking about how many lives you’re affecting.”

For the first time, Ronnie didn’t take kindly to Shooter’s assessment — his criticism — nor did he admit that there was any truth to it.

“Shooter,” he said. “What do you know about what it is to love someone anyway?”

For a good while, Shooter didn’t say a word. He knew what Ronnie didn’t have the nerve to say. That Merlene had talked to him in a way that another man’s wife shouldn’t, that she and Ronnie had come to some closeness of their hearts.

Shooter said, “You and Merlene—”

Then he stopped, unable to say more, unwilling to admit that he’d found the photograph of Ronnie that she’d saved and the card she’d hidden away. He was afraid of what Ronnie might say about the two of them.

“She was a good woman,” Ronnie finally said. “She deserved better than you.”

Shooter was determined not to show how deeply he was cut. He’d had all those years with Merlene, a woman who — yes, Ronnie was right — didn’t deserve the way he disappointed her too many times. For a while, he’d even blamed her for the way Captain was, told her she hadn’t done something right when she was pregnant, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love her or that he didn’t miss her now every minute of every day. It didn’t mean he wasn’t trying his best with Captain. It didn’t mean he had to tolerate the way Ronnie was treating Della, even though there’d been a time in his life when he might have treated Merlene the same way.

“You’re going to have a hard row,” he finally said to Ronnie.

“Maybe so,” said Ronnie. “But it’ll be my row and not yours. You stick to your problems and I’ll stick to mine.”

“I suppose you think I’ll take care of Della and your kids?”

Ronnie shook his head. “I can’t think of them right now.”

“You can stop.” Shooter grabbed his arm. “You can go back in that trailer and you and Della can work things out.”

Shooter wanted it to be so because he wanted to believe in the power of love. He wanted to believe that there were men who would always stay true, who would swallow whatever discontent they felt, all for the sake of the woman who had given birth to their children and for those children themselves. He wanted Ronnie and Della and their kids to be all right, to be a family, so he could believe there was still a chance for him and Captain.

“It’s too late for that,” Ronnie said, but still he gave a glance back at the trailer, and Shooter felt for just an instant, one little sliver of time, that maybe, just maybe, Ronnie would grab this chance and everything would work out for the best.

It was that instant that Shooter would try to live within as much as possible in the days to come. He’d still be trying to cozy up to it the night of the fire, and beyond that to the night when he’d stand over his burn barrel, trembling, asking God to forgive him for what he’d done, to understand that sometimes things happened you couldn’t dream of and once they were over, all that was left was to go on through your days, pretending you were innocent. He’d long for that brief moment when everything that was about to happen wouldn’t, when people’s lives would still be happy and full of hope, when every mistake would be redeemed.

“Take your hand off me,” Ronnie finally said, but Shooter wrenched his arm up behind Ronnie’s back.

“You’re a stupid man,” Shooter said. “A selfish, stupid man.” Ronnie tried to twist free, but Shooter held on, pushing him into the Firebird, folding him over the hood. He leaned down and put his mouth up close to Ronnie’s ear. “I could yank this arm out of the socket. Quick as you please. Surely you know that.”

Ronnie whispered through clenched teeth, “Do it and I’ll make it so they lock you away.”

That’s when Shooter let him go. Ronnie stood up, rubbing his shoulder. He didn’t say another word, just got into his Firebird and headed up the blacktop to Goldengate, where Brandi was waiting for him.

Shooter turned toward his own house, his hands clenched into fists. Later, he’d wish he’d been paying more attention to what mattered and what didn’t. What was that photograph, that card, in relation to the fact that Merlene was dead? That night, though, he felt his anger flame again as he recalled when Ronnie and Della first moved into the trailer and Merlene stood at the window, watching them unload furniture from Wayne Best’s pickup truck.

“Look at them,” she said. “Just kids.” Her voice shrank to a whisper. “Just starting out.” She let the curtain panels fall back into place and smoothed them with the back of her hand. “They’ve got their whole lives,” she said. He’d never forgotten the sad look on her face when she finally turned to look at him. He’d never forgotten what she said next. “Remember what that was like?”