Cold in July

33

We talked a while longer and decided on nothing. All the choices sucked. Jim Bob finally gave it up and went upstairs to try and sleep some. I tried to go back to sleep, but lay there looking at the ceiling. I thought about how nuts things were. About how just a little while ago I was a pretty happy guy who was unsure of just a few things, and a little worried about what kind of father I was. And how now I was a very unhappy guy unsure of many things, and even more concerned about what kind of father I was, because nothing in the world looked easy or sure, and everything in the world had to do with being a father. Everything.

I lay there thinking about Russel out there, sleeping now, not knowing what we knew, trying to find some courage in his heart to go and talk to his only son and tell him he loved him.

“Hi, son, I love you.”

“Hi, dad. I make movies. I kill girls and get it on video.”

It was all very sick and very sad, and it made me think my dad had seen something in the world I hadn’t seen, shadows perhaps, those waltzing shadows Russel had talked about, and the shadows were not something he could live with, so he had taken a gun and put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger and sent the shadows away. He didn’t have to face them anymore. All his troubles had gone bye-bye. He didn’t have to worry about his honor. About being a coward. The nature of the universe. The price of beer and peanuts and where this month’s rent or house payment was coming from.

Across all the years of my life I had dreamed of many things. Of toys and then bigger toys and a woman to love and a houseful of kids and a life like Father Knows Best, and maybe to be rich and respected and to have plenty of time on my hands and to like that time. But here I was with just a few hours before morning, and they were horrid hours, and it was as if I had more time than ever these days, and so much of it was there to kill, not to enjoy, and that thought depressed me more. And on the other side of those hours were more hours and I had a fear that after the next few days there would be even longer hours full of those goddamn waltzing shadows.

I told myself I wouldn’t sleep, and to hell with it.

But finally I closed my eyes and it was morning, and I got up and put on my clothes and went into the living room.

Russel was at the table, drinking coffee, and Jim Bob was standing over in the kitchen looking out the window at the pig house or the garden or nothing at all. He heard me come in and turned and looked at me. Neither of us could hold the other’s eyes. I walked over and got a cup and poured some coffee.

Russel turned around and looked at us. “What’s with you fellas? Don’t bull me, something’s up. It’s Freddy, isn’t it? You know something you haven’t told me.”

“I think I fucked up,” Jim Bob said. “I don’t think this Fred Miller is him after all. I’ve just been thinking how to tell you, but I don’t know how. I don’t have any more idea where Freddy is than a goose.”

Russel didn’t quit staring at us. He pursed his lips and sighed, said, “You’re lying to me, Jim Bob.”

“Wish I were,” Jim Bob said. “It’s embarrassing to be wrong, and I hate it for you, but-”

“How do you suddenly know you’re wrong?”

“The Mexican at the house.”

“You could have come up with better than that,” Russel said. “That doesn’t mean a thing. That guy wasn’t Fred Miller. He was a Mexican, like you said. I read a Mexican name off the inside of his wallet.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Tell me,” Russel said. “Even when I said you might have screwed up earlier, I didn’t really think so. It was just something to say. I’ve known you a long time, and even if I haven’t seen you in twenty years, it’s just like it was yesterday. You haven’t changed a bit. You’re still the same egotistical bastard you always were. And you’re too good at what you do. You know it, and I know it. And what about you, Dane? What’s your story?”

I wanted a smooth lie to come out, but nothing did. I just stood there holding my cup of coffee, not quite looking at Russel.

“If he’s dead, tell me. The worse thing that could happen to me is not to know what’s happened to him. You know something, I want to know it.”

“All right,” Jim Bob said. “But there’s worse things than being dead.”

“Just tell me.”

Jim Bob put his coffee cup down and went out of the room and came back with the video. He held it out from him, as if it could bite. He went over to the television and turned it on and put the cassette in the machine.

“What are you doing?” Russel said. “We’re talking about Freddy. I don’t want to see a movie.”

“This will answer your questions,” Jim Bob said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Dane, come on.”

He turned on the machine and started walking toward the front door. I went after him, carrying my coffee cup with me.

“Hey,” Russel said.

“The answer’s on the cassette,” I said.

Jim Bob and I went outside. We stood around on the front lawn looking out at the blacktop, neither of us saying anything.

There was an oak in the yard near the road, and I focused my attention on a blackbird in that. It kept hopping from one limb to another, working itself down. It looked weak and sick. It was missing a lot of feathers. Maybe someone had taken a shot at it.

An old pickup rattled by and the old black man driving it waved at us and we waved back.

I looked back to the oak and my bird, but it had flown, or maybe gotten behind some of the thicker branches.

I looked at my watch but didn’t really notice the time.

I finished off my coffee and let the cup dangle from my finger like an oversized ring.

It was starting to get hot already, and the coffee I had drunk and my nerves weren’t helping matters. My shirt felt sticky beneath my arms.

The front door opened.

Russel came out walking very fast. He went directly toward Jim Bob.

“Ben,” Jim Bob said.

Ben looped the punch. It wasn’t one of his wise ones. It was worse than the kind he’d told me not to throw. It caught the wind and made it whistle. Jim Bob could have ducked it. Hell, he could have walked to town and caught a bus before it came around.

But he didn’t. He closed his eyes the moment before impact and Russel’s fist caught him just above the ear and staggered him. Then Ben’s other first came around and hit Jim Bob on the side of the jaw and Jim Bob fell to his knees.

Russel turned on me, cocked back his hand. I just stood there and let him come. Like Jim Bob, I wanted to take it. Cleanse myself with pain.

But he didn’t hit me. The steam had gone out of him. He dropped his hand and staggered. I caught him and he hung onto me and hugged me and started to cry and call me a sonofabitch. He heaved so hard I thought his chest would crack my sternum. “It was him, wasn’t it?” he said. “It was really Freddy, wasn’t it?”

“It was him,” I said.

“You sonofabitches. Both you sonofabitches.”

Jim Bob came over and put his arms around both of us.

“I’m sorry, Ben,” Jim Bob said. “I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been.”

“Jesus, Jesus,” Russel said. “My son, my son.”

He melted down then, and I got his shoulders and Jim Bob got his feet and we carried him inside and put him on the couch. The television was still on and the tape was still playing, but there wasn’t any picture, just static. I cut off the machine and turned off the television. Jim Bob sat on the couch with Russel and held his hand like a little boy.

I went back outside and saw that I had dropped my coffee cup in the grass. I picked it up and went over to the oak and leaned on it, trying to draw some strength from the big old thing, but it wasn’t working. I felt weaker than ever.

When I looked down, I saw what had become of my blackbird. It lay dead next to the trunk of the oak, its beak open as if the fall had taken it by surprise.