In a week Aaron Warner would leave his podunk town for Houston, to join the thousands of politicians, tycoons, and common men with tickets to the opening game at the Eighth Wonder of the World. The Astrodome! Aaron had memorized every detail about the place from the newspaper: eighteen stories tall, the dome a miracle of engineering can-do, and a scoreboard that lit up at each homer with a show of steam-nosed bulls and fireworks and cowboys shooting pistols. Mickey Mantle was playing the home team. LBJ and Lady Bird would be there. And Governor Connally would kick the whole thing off with the first-ever pitch in an air-conditioned stadium, chilled to a pleasant seventy-two degrees.
This trip to the modern Colosseum foreshadowed other journeys ahead, to college and the world that would soon be his oyster. Aaron didn’t leave for UT for a few months, but a wave of psychic goose bumps told him that his old life was ending and a new one was about to begin. All he had to do was give up one Saturday and tag along with his dad on a day’s work.
His principal, Mr. Richards, called him to the office a few days before, during seventh period, and surprised him with the tickets. The jackpot moment played out for Aaron in a kind of slow motion: Richards rising from his desk, tugging the lapels of his blazer until they crossed manfully over his tie, and fanning out the tickets in his hand. “The As-tro-dome,” he said with quiet reverence. “A graduation gift to Midland Robert E. Lee High School’s best running back and favorite senior.” Aaron’s jaw went slack. “Thank you, sir,” Aaron said in the charming voice he reserved for life at school. “I’ll talk to my parents. Thanks so much.”
Aaron stayed on campus until the janitor locked up that evening. On the walk home he pictured his family at the dinner table, around the centerpiece of plastic apples and grapes. His brother, Wally, would be slouched on his elbows, a freshman at Lee still playing with trains in the basement. Next to him all two hundred something pounds of their mom, holding on to the table edge to keep her hands still. And at the head would be Ernest, eyes shut as he said grace in a strained voice like Kermit the Frog. When he got to the house, Aaron took a breath on the porch. He retracted each sunbeam that had glowed from him that day—every boy he glad-handed and girl he teased, every tired teacher he made laugh—and once he had shrunk himself down to a hard, silent coal, he went in.
Nobody spoke as Aaron slid into his seat. Forks shoveled meatloaf and fluorescent mac and cheese. His mom smiled at him and chewed absently, tracing a chubby pinky along the rim of her prized Fiestaware. His dad rattled the ice in his sweet tea. “Stuck in traffic?” he said.
“Principal Richards got tickets to the Astrodome,” Aaron blurted.
“The Astrodome!” His mom’s tiny blue eyes twinkled above her flushed cheeks. “It looked huge on the TV.”
“The Yankees next weekend?” his dad asked. Aaron nodded. “Well, that’s fine,” Ernest murmured, his face opening in a rare smile.
“He invited me to go. As a graduation gift. Mr. Richards has a brother in Sugar Land we can stay with after the game, and come back Saturday morning, if…”
“Richards.” His dad munched a green bean with vague suspicion. “He fight in the war? Europe? Pacific?”
“Um,” Aaron mumbled, “he was maybe thirteen back then?”
Ernest shook his head. “Not the fighting type.”
Aaron felt like saying how Richards lobbied the UT scout to come watch his game against Permian, or how Richards fought for the scholarship he needed to get the hell out of nowheresville, but he held his tongue.
“It sounds like fun, Ernest,” his mom said quietly.
“Gertrude,” he snapped, “I’ll let you know if I need your—Sure!” He turned to Aaron. “I wish we could all drive to Houston for the big game, but some of us have to work six days a—”
“I work,” Aaron said. “I work my tail off at school and practice.”
“Fine.” He set his fork on his plate. “If you want to go to the Astrodome next weekend, show me how hard you work this Saturday. I got two big jobs I could use you on.” He watched Aaron. “Deal?” Aaron nodded. “Well, Gerty.” Ernest sighed irritably. “You happy?”
“Yes.” She patted her mouth with her napkin. “Meatloaf came out real juicy.”
So, early that Saturday morning, Aaron stood before his dresser in white Jockey briefs. His thick blond hair stuck out porcupine-style from his head. He nodded at the mirror, admiring the mercurial blue of his eyes, and yawned and studied the contents of his drawers. He was a careful keeper of his clothes. He thought of the dirty work ahead and, after real deliberation, chose to sacrifice a pair of old jeans and a Rebels sweatshirt for the sake of the Astrodome.
Through the bedroom door Aaron heard his mom’s high yet resonant voice, a bird trapped in a buttery chamber down her throat. In the hallway he could make out words broken up by Wally’s silences. “Doesn’t it take your breath away?” she asked. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“What is?” Aaron strolled into the kitchen. He hated the pauses, waiting for his brother to speak. It made him cold and angry to watch Wally’s mouth twitch as he tried to get the words out. “What’s amazing?”
“This machine.” His mom held up a copy of Life. “‘Astonishing Revolution,’” she read aloud from the cover, her hands trembling at the weight of the magazine. “‘Ultrasonic waves show a baby in womb.’ I wish I could’ve seen you back then,” she said and patted Wally’s arm. He sat beside her, spooning Cap’n Crunch. “I didn’t need to see Aaron,” Gertrude reflected. “I could feel him kicking, trying to get somewhere else. But you were so peaceful I wondered sometimes if you were still there.”
“Mom?” Aaron said casually, sliding bread into the toaster. “I was thinking, since I’m giving a speech at graduation, maybe I’d buy a new shirt to wear. If you guys don’t have the—There’s my pocket money for UT that you’ve been saving.”
“Well,” she sighed. “You’re with your dad all day. Ask him.” His mom played dumb about money, even though she ran the numbers for the business. She took a bookkeeping course after high school, the only one of his parents to do something beyond what Aaron was about to achieve. But he had to ask his dad. A guy who didn’t know the first thing about how the world works or why the Roman Empire fell. He spread peanut butter on his toast with indignant precision and sat down at the table.
“You coming?” Aaron said to Wally. “Say goodbye to the seniors?”
“If-f-f-f’m here.”
“If you’re here?” Aaron laughed and took a big swagger of a bite. “Busy schedule this summer? Busy train schedule in the basement?”
Wally’s face clouded. He shot an ugly look at their mom. “Driving to—”
“Shush,” Gerty scolded, her mouth wrinkling into a frown. Then she gave Aaron a strange bright smile. “Your dad found a speech therapist to help Wally—express himself better. A good doctor, in Dallas, not like the ones here, so they have to drive there every week.”
“You’re coming, right?” Aaron asked her. “To my graduation?”
“I hope so.” She pushed her special chair back from the table. “But with my ailments…” She shrugged, muttering quietly to herself, “Have to see how I feel that morning.”
Aaron studied her as she settled back into the chair Ernest had customized for her. It was green metal with industrial casters on the legs so Gerty could roll where she needed to around the house, rising to cook, get in bed, or make the short, mysterious transit from chair to toilet. Aaron knew better than to talk about her ailments, so he rose and put his plate in the sink.
“Could you fix my bike?” she asked as he left. “The rope’s jumbled up. And, Aaron?” He stopped at the door and turned back to her. “Congratulations,” she said. “If I don’t make it.”
On the front porch Aaron put up the hood of his sweatshirt at the unseasonable chill and knelt beside the bike. He didn’t know where his dad found an oversize kid’s tricycle with a giant seat, but every day at three o’clock Gertrude Warner mounted her red set of wheels and budged cautiously down the driveway to get the mail. And though there was barely an incline, her husband had tied a rope to the handlebars that stretched as far as the mailbox, and no farther, to help pull herself back home when her feet needed a boost.
Aaron untangled the rope and stared at his dad’s truck, a burnt orange ’61 Econoline pickup. He could never decide which was worse: the color or the logo. The day his dad drove it home Aaron said, “Orange.” Ernest launched into some rigmarole about the color reminding clients of how dirty their carpets used to be, “The Before,” but Aaron was pretty sure it was the only one he could afford at the used lot outside of town. Then came the demented logo on the doors—KLEEN KARPETS—in a circle of white letters. Inside the circle was a blue vacuum cleaner with eyeballs on a smiling vacuum head and three pink tongues sticking out the vacuum mouth, ostensibly licking up dirt but really looking more like a trio of scrotums.
“Here,” his dad barked, walking out of the garage. He threw Aaron an orange baseball cap with the same logo, one of the dozens sitting unworn in a box by the washer/dryer. “Take off that Longhorns cap and try this on for size. Let’s load up.”
“He’s halfway to Odessa!” Ernest cried as they bumped along a desolate patch of Route 80. “Wake up! Almost there!” Aaron cast a sidelong glance at him. He was tan from working in the sun, an even nut color except for where the skin cancer had been. The doctor had done a cheap graft there, and afterward Ernest walked the world with a patch of Silly Putty–looking stuff on his neck the size of a half dollar.
“Bill’s my oldest client,” his dad began. “He closes one day a year and that’s where we come in. It is a race. To. The finish. Every carpet, drape, and armchair in the place: get done with one and it’s on to the next one, and the next one, and the—”
“Yup,” Aaron grunted. He looked out the window at the oil derricks. The field ran to the horizon, an eyesore of drills bobbing in the earth like hungry insects. Here and there were empty shacks. He remembered the fields at night when he was younger, the ghostly sunrise color as the rigs burned off gas they couldn’t hold. All the wasted potential burned up here, Aaron thought, and sank into his hood.
“Funny thing is,” Ernest resumed quietly, “the first day you ever come to work with me, and it’s right before you leave. Weeks, isn’t it? Till you go?”
“July,” Aaron mumbled. “Football orientation.”
“That’s what I said. Eleven weeks. First time we did this. Doesn’t have to be the last.”
Aaron caught the scent of a lecture. In the thousands of meals and hallway passes that made up their relationship, his dad had two modes—saying no and lecturing—and it was too early for either. But, sure enough, Ernest launched into the wonders of the family business again, how Granddad, rest in peace, started it with a wet vac and a vision, and built it up to two vacs so father and son could work side by side, the American way. Aaron tuned out. He’d heard the rumors about monster-jugged cheerleader Carrie Trills, like if a guy got on her prayer list she’d kiss his willy, and he was spiritually beating off to the possibility when he heard his name.
“Aaron!” Ernest repeated. “You listening? Did I tell you or not?”
“What?”
“How I met your mom. Me and Granddad were doing a job, and I took the upstairs, and in the last bedroom there was your mom in an armchair doing her correspondence course. Plump and pretty as a doll. She ignored me till I said, ‘Ma’am, I gotta clean your chair.’ ‘But where will I sit?’ she asked. I was twenty. She was the older woman.” His eyebrows did leaps of naughty joy. “Kleen Karpets isn’t just a family business—it brought me my family. Who knows?” he said ponderously. “Maybe you’ll find you a wife today.”
Aaron squinted to hold down the smirk tugging at his lips, real sure the girl of his dreams wasn’t in Midland and for damn sure he wasn’t cleaning her carpets. Ernest put on the blinker. A dark sign loomed on the highway. BLACK GOLD MOTOR LODGE, it read in light bulbs and flaking metallic yellow letters. A cartoon derrick shot up between the words and sent a gush of oil to the top of the sign, also in a trail of bulbs. The motel was a shabby, low-slung set of rooms covered in faded yellow siding. Black doors caked with dust opened onto the parking lot. Drills the size of elephants surrounded the motel on three sides, pumping a few feet past a dainty black picket fence that ran around the place.
“Lord,” Aaron mumbled, “who stays here?”
“Nobody today,” Ernest snapped. “That’s the point.” He stared at the steering wheel and then turned to Aaron. “Try and keep your mouth shut.” He got out and slammed the door. “Nutter!” he called to a gray-haired man smoking and making his way down the rickety office steps. “How the devil are you?”
Through the windshield Aaron watched them shake and slap at each other. Ernest play-kicked the oxygen tank the man had dragged down the steps behind him.
“And who do we have here?” the man rasped when Aaron got out of the truck.
“My son, Aaron Warner. Shake the man’s hand,” Ernest ordered.
“Bill McNutt,” he said in the scratches of a former voice, “but friends and fools like this one here call me Nutter. You going into business with your dad?”
“I’m going to UT,” Aaron replied. “I’m a freshman this fall.”
“A college man!”
“Well, Bill,” Ernest said, chuckling, “we never got our heads stuck in any books and we made it this far, didn’t we? Aaron and I better see about cleaning some carpets.”
They unloaded the vacuums and carried them to the porch. Aaron followed Ernest through a door with a gold 1 on it and hit a wall of stale air. His dad threw back the drapes, releasing a Big Bang of dust. There was hardly space to move between the bed, a wing chair belching stuffing, and a liquor cart with chipped golden goddesses at the corners.
“I’m thirsty,” Aaron said, retreating to the bathroom, tiled in a dizzying shade of mustard. Aaron turned the faucet on and leaned down to drink, but brown water pulsed out. “Jesus!” he muttered. “How are we supposed to clean anything if the—”
“Let it run,” Ernest bawled from the other room.
“Here’s your basics,” his dad began in lecture voice after they filled the vacs with water. “Three-and-three system: three kinds of stains, animal, vegetable, mineral…” On Ernest droned. So much talk about vacuuming reminded Aaron what a master of small things his dad was. Ernest could give driving directions for days, or jabber about gas prices at this or that station. Aaron beamed his brain elsewhere, leaving his body behind to show Ernest he could handle the wet vac and not pull down the drapes when he cleaned them. And the moment his dad stopped for two seconds to take a breath, Aaron blurted out the truth.
“I’m ready,” he said. “To try this on my own.”
Ernest cleared his throat hotly. “All right.” He turned his back and put the vacuum on. “Guess we’ll see,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Aaron dragged a vacuum along the porch to the far end of the motel, its wheels chattering over the hum of the drills. He stopped outside room 13 and squinted down the highway at a cloud of dust. A truck shot by the motel, the first car Aaron had seen since they got there.
Inside he vacuumed and avoided the mirror. He told himself that life now was temporary. But he couldn’t shake the thought of his dad’s smallness earlier, insulting college. It was the kind of thing his teammates and their dads saw—the way Ernest never came to football games, or left right after when he did come, never staying to talk to folks. Or his smallness on Sundays. They were the only family in town that didn’t go to First Baptist and instead, thanks to Gerty’s ailments, were parked on the sofa at home with their Bibles in their laps. A tiny world where Ernest was the preacher. Until high school, that is, when Aaron started going to church alone after home prayers. His dad wouldn’t look at him when he got back those Sunday evenings. Sometimes Ernest wouldn’t say a word to him until Tuesday.
“Ready, huh?” Ernest’s voice startled Aaron from his thoughts. His dad stood in the doorway. “One room to my twelve?” He chuckled and shook his head. “Dump your dirty water and let’s get some grub.” Aaron turned to the bathroom. “No,” Ernest scolded, seizing the vacuum. “We dump off the porch.”
“I got it.” Aaron yanked it back and dragged it outside, tipping it over the front of the porch.
“Not the parking lot!” Ernest cried. “Over the side, side; give it to me.” Ernest grabbed at the tank, but Aaron was too strong as they struggled over it, and his dad slipped and fell into the gush of dirty water. Ernest froze on his hands and knees. His Dickies and shirt were soaked with greenish vacuum juice. Narrow rivers of it crawled along the porch, dropping between the planks. Aaron held his breath. But Ernest just stood up without a word and walked away.
“Sorry,” he whispered and trailed his dad to the motel office.
Aaron loaded the truck while Nutter counted out a wad of bills. He dropped them distractedly into Ernest’s hand. “Well, sir,” Nutter rasped when he finished paying, “we done business a long time. I wouldn’t even mention it except there’s another man who’s paid me three visits already. A carpet man, like you. He got a GI loan to go buy the newest vacuums—”
“Government handout,” Ernest barked. “I didn’t take one of those when I came back.”
“New machines,” Nutter continued, “and a team that can do the motel in half the time it takes—under an hour is what he said.” He adjusted his oxygen tube beneath his nose and cast a furtive glance at Aaron. “He’s a colored man.”
Ernest’s face softened from the anxious mask it had frozen into. He guffawed. “Negro?” he said, chuckling. “That’s good! You got me, old devil!”
Nutter lit a fresh cigarette. “Half the price, too.” He blew out a column of smoke for a little too long. “That’s what he offered.”
Ernest laughed again, but tighter. “You trying to Jew me down? Negroes coming around the place? Word getting out? With that agitating going on in Alabama now—are you reading the paper? You want that on your hands?”
“Course not.” Nutter sighed. “No. The man’s persistent is all.”
“Persistent.” Ernest’s voice hardened. “We had some Negroes in the Eighth Infantry. Served our country alongside each other in France. But when we were under fire, and a Kraut bullet ripped my throat open—” Ernest touched the Silly Putty spot on his neck. “And I lay there, not knowing dead from alive, was it a Negro who came to my aid? No, sir, it was not.”
“Forget I said a word, soldier.” Nutter reached out a bony arm and solemnly shook Ernest’s hand. “We gotta stick together.”
Ernest didn’t talk on the drive back to Midland. Aaron watched the passing wasteland, floating somewhere between disgust and resignation to the man his father was. The way he lied about getting shot. About seeing any combat, actually, a fact Aaron learned one night when Gerty was ailing too much to cook and Ernest stepped in. “Good chef, isn’t he?” she mused to Aaron afterward. “It’s what he did the whole war, cooking in the mess hall.” A loser, Aaron thought, such a sad old sack he had to lie to compete with a colored man.
“Burgers?” Ernest said. He pulled the truck into a Sonic decked out in shiny chrome.
Aaron didn’t answer. His mind was overtaken by a buxom waitress roller-skating toward the truck. She was a real grown woman, maybe even thirty. She had long dark hair, his favorite, and wore the blessed uniform of curve-hugging red dress, white apron, and striped socks pulled high on her sun-kissed legs. For a minute, Aaron was in love. “Afternoon, gentlemen,” she said, gliding up to Aaron’s window. “I hope you came hungry today.”
“Seeing as I’m buying,” Ernest said, “maybe you can skate over here and take our order.”
“Sure thing.” She winked at Aaron and made a smooth arc to Ernest’s window. He watched as she jotted down the order. Her name tag said CHRISSY! She skated off. The truck sank back into silence.
“It’s how you build a business,” Ernest said after a while. “First rule is you keep the customers you have. Then add new ones. We got a new one after lunch. That’s how you keep the money rolling in.”
“Dad?” Aaron seized the opportunity. “I’m giving a speech at graduation, and I figured I’d get a new shirt. There’s a sale at Fedway—one ninety-nine—so if I could have two dollars out of the money Nutter just gave you, or…”
“Did you ask your mom?”
“She said to ask you.”
“Well.” Ernest exhaled dubiously.
Aaron waited. He grew angry at the bind he’d put himself in: studying and practicing after school instead of working at the Dairy Queen, knowing he was meant for more than scooping ice cream but still penniless today, reduced to asking Ernest for money.
“Gentlemen.” Chrissy skated up with a tray.
“Great!” Ernest said, counting the food at top volume. “Two burgers, one fries, two Coca-Colas. Thank you, ma’am.” He unwrapped a burger and stuffed it in his mouth. “Eat up.” He chewed. “Gotta get on the road.”
Aaron felt a sudden twinge, imagining the days his dad ate lunch in his truck, between carpet jobs in a town he’d never leave. He thought of his shirt again. “Fine. If it’s not from your work money, take it out of my pocket money for UT. I’ll be needing it soon anyways.”
Ernest took a savage bite. When he pulled back, the innards came loose and an avalanche of pickles and meat tumbled down his shirt. “Shit!” he cried. He wiped at the mess and sighed and set his burger on the tray. “The pocket money. Your mom and I needed it to pay for the—”
“You spent it?” Aaron asked in disbelief.
“No. Not—Some of it. Wally’s speech doctor bills ten sessions up front, and he’ll need more than ten, or could,” Ernest rambled, “but if it helps him talk like a normal—and then we’ll put some money back in for you. Real soon.”
It was the one thing his parents had promised for his future. When the UT scout came to his game, lightning fast his dad said they had no money for college. But then came the day Aaron got called to Mr. Richards’s office, and the scout was there to congratulate him, and Aaron could go home and tell his parents he got a scholarship. His mom’s face lit up, but she hid her smile at the sight of Ernest turning blood red. “We got pocket money for you,” his dad said. “You think we had nothing to give you? Well, we do. Pocket money, for the odds and ends.”
But they didn’t have the one thing after all.
“Real soon,” Aaron said, turning a dead stare on Ernest. “Where’s the next job?”
On the seat between them Aaron left his burger uneaten. They drove to the east side of town, where the rich oil kids lived. Soon they were passing gigantic houses and green lawns that cost a fortune to water. Aaron shrank down in his seat. He couldn’t risk being seen in the Orangemobile. At school he did a comedy routine about Ernest and his truck, which had expanded since freshman year to include Gerty’s tricycle, Wally’s trains, the whole scene at the Warner house. It left his classmates in stitches. But as he rode shotgun down the fancy street with Ernest, Aaron knew in his gut that what was funny to tell wasn’t funny to see.
“Sit up straight,” Ernest snapped. “Slouching like an old man. Now, keep your mouth shut, and clean.” His dad parked in front of the most incredible house Aaron had ever seen. It had pillars like the White House, glass going up two stories, and a curving staircase you could see from outside. Its splendor made Aaron stumble as he rolled his vacuum to the porch. Ernest wiped his finger on the leg of his Dickies before pressing the bell.
A blond woman about his mom’s age opened the door. She was thin. Her bra made her jugs torpedo-shaped under her white silk blouse. “Y’all must be from Kleen Karpets,” she said, her eyes lingering imperiously on Aaron. She turned to Ernest and winced. “And what a dirty business that must be. It’s cold out. Come on in.”
It was like stepping into heaven. At church the pastor said human eyes couldn’t take in its beauty, and he was right. From the moment he entered, Aaron was blinded by wealth. A grand piano, crystal chandeliers, white carpet everywhere like angel clouds. He squinted and stole looks around while Ernest prattled away about the job.
“But before you start—” the woman said tensely when Ernest reached for his vacuum. Aaron could feel her gaze on him again. He met her eyes and saw the same look, the sex hunger, as when she came to the door. He imagined reaching from behind and grabbing her jugs, her bra popping open in front like a barn door. She frowned and turned to Ernest. “Well,” she said in sudden exasperation, “I don’t want the carpets dirtier on account of y’all.” She waved her hand at the soiled mess covering Ernest from shirt to shoe. “Hang on.”
She disappeared down a hallway and returned with armfuls of pink fabric. “My aunt was a full-figured woman, so I think these’ll fit.” She handed them women’s bathrobes trimmed in lace and pompoms. “I was about to donate these to the Salvation Army.”
“What?” Aaron sputtered. “No.” He turned to Ernest. “You can’t let her—”
“Never mind,” the woman said. “I try to assist men who show up unprepared, in a dirty uniform, but I think it’s best not to waste any more of your time.”
“No, ma’am.” Ernest grabbed the bathrobes. “I was just telling my son Aaron here the first rule of business: the customer’s always right.”
“Dad?” Aaron said, instantly ashamed of the pleading tone in his voice.
“I had some accidents earlier,” Ernest continued. “Doesn’t matter. This job is what you need.” He handed a bathrobe to Aaron. “Take it,” he said coldly. “Ma’am, I do downstairs, my son takes upstairs, and we’ll get the carpets looking good as new.”
“Tie those robes tight, gentlemen,” she instructed. “And shoes off. Thanks so much.”
Aaron grabbed his vacuum and flew upstairs. It was mercifully empty, no one around to see him in the pink lady bathrobe. He dreamed up ways to destroy the woman but couldn’t think of one that had him coming out ahead, so he shampooed her carpets in angry lines, as neat as his penmanship.
He felt the vibration of Ernest’s vacuum go off first. Aaron couldn’t look at the woman, so he busied himself on the landing at the top of the stairs, winding his vacuum cord, while his dad settled up with her in the foyer.
“Mr. Warner.” She handed Ernest a check. “No tip, of course, with your son speaking out of turn like that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ernest muttered. “Of course not.”
“Did you say you do drapes, too?” she asked.
“We do.”
“I think we understand each other. I’ll have to call you about those drapes.”
“Anytime would be a pleasure, ma’am. Aaron?” he called upstairs. “Let’s go.”
They were a block away from home when the truck stalled. Ernest must have turned the ignition ten times before he mumbled, “Give it a sec.” The sunset dwindled in the rearview. The air had turned frigid, and what little heat the truck puffed out was gone. He tried again.
“You need a new truck,” Aaron said, putting up his hood.
“I need a lot of things, son.”
“Good luck, letting a woman talk to you that way.”
Ernest took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You know how much a tip is on that job? Ten percent. One of Wally’s speech lessons. And the truck, and your mom’s medicines.” He laughed strangely and shook his head. “I been taking care of you since I was your age. Half my life. Best day of my life the day you were born, right up there with meeting your mom.” His voice dropped low. “You’re ashamed of your family. Worship without us, like God don’t know who your people are. You think I couldn’t build this business if I had a partner? You know how much it cost when Granddad got sick?” He turned to Aaron, and for the first time his son could make out the fear in his eyes. “You think there’s nothing else I wanted to do? I brought you to work one day. The rest of the time you study and play football. I left you alone.”
Ernest hit the ignition right. They drove the last block home. He parked and went in the front door, lingering a moment on the threshold. “Take the hose,” he called to Aaron, “and rinse the vacs and attachments.”
“It’s freezing,” Aaron protested.
“I know how much the Astrodome means to you.” Ernest shrugged and shut the door.
Aaron dragged the hose around and cleaned the equipment while defaming his dad in his head. Twice Ernest came out and twice pronounced the vacuums dirty. Gertrude watched from her chair at the window, pressing her hand to the glass anxiously at each inspection. Aaron’s hands were red after a third scouring, and by then the house was dark. He went inside, his head throbbing in the warm air. He sneezed once, and again. He saw a covered plate on the stove, but he was so tired he trudged to his room and dropped into bed in his wet jeans and sweatshirt.
He fell asleep and had wild dreams. He was drowning in a steamy jungle, and beyond it was a mountain but the mountain was his mom’s silhouette, he knew, from the squeak of her chair rolling into his room. He felt a hand on his head and heard the high nervous murmur of her voice. He was freezing. It seemed like day but it was dark again and he was back in the jungle, and he looked up past the treetops at a sky full of stars—a constellation in the shape of a baby, the line of its cord trailing out from its belly and ending in darkness, untethered.
Aaron woke up in a sickly white light. He didn’t know where he was or how long he had slept, only that he’d lived whole lifetimes that disintegrated in the waking air. His head was heavy, but with effort he lifted it and saw machines around the bed. In a corner Ernest rocked on the edge of a chair. He made a noise and ran from the room. Someone else entered. Aaron turned and saw a man he knew, in a suit. “The Astrodome,” Aaron croaked.
Principal Richards smiled. “They played already. You’ve been here a week. The good news is you’re graduating and things with UT are fine.”
“Where am I?”
“The hospital. Pneumonia. It came on fast. Maybe something you were breathing with your dad. There was—uncertainty at home, about your symptoms. But the doctor says you’ll be OK. Your dad’s getting him.”
“How was the game?” Aaron whispered.
“Astros won in extra innings. Turk Farrell was on fire. I saw it on TV. Didn’t feel like traveling with you in here.” Richards held up one of the tickets that had seemed flecked with gold a few weeks back. “Keep it,” he said. “Like you were there.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank your dad. He’s here every morning and evening when I swing by. He’s getting the doctor, did I say?” Richards smiled tightly. He leaned in over the bed. “It’s hard knowing what to say to your kids sometimes, Aaron. Maybe you’ll have a son of your own someday and understand. You’re a real joker at school, but I bet you care a lot about your dad, so try to—”
A doctor in a white coat knocked and entered, reading a clipboard. His dad peered out from behind the doctor, and the whole ordeal came washing over Aaron again: Ernest on his hands and knees on the motel porch, his dad passing him the bathrobe. Aaron felt the weakness in his bones and wondered vaguely if this moment would be his life, if for the rest of his life he would be the guy who almost got to the Astrodome.
He nodded deferentially at Richards. But deep inside him, in his blood coursing hot with penicillin, Aaron knew it wasn’t in him to forgive Ernest, or to forget.