LARRY CALLED WALT AND SAID HE WAS GOING TO BUDDY’S AND Walt said he’d meet him there. Buddy’s sat on a wide curve along Delaware. A boxlike brick building with neon beer signs in the front window and it had once been a pet store and then a record store and then other things but the red brick had been painted a dark purple and the drunks staggered and shoved until the doors shut at 3:00 a.m. Larry walked inside and scanned the place. A bar lined the wall on the left and tables made from old wooden doors filled the front room. Televisions hung on the wall behind the bar and in the corners and the brick walls were decorated with photographs of football players in Ole Miss and Mississippi State and Saints jerseys. Something bluesy played over the speakers and two ceiling fans circulated the cigarette smoke and he didn’t see anyone he knew.
Larry walked past the tables and through a hallway that opened onto a spacious back deck. There was another bar and plank floors and a couple more televisions. Mardi Gras beads hung from the exposed ceiling beams and a cigar store Indian stood at the end of the bar. The deck was screened and white Christmas lights hung around the top edges of the screen, all the way around. Two blondes sat at the bar with lipstick on their drink glasses but the tables were empty. Larry turned around and walked back and sat down at the bar in the front room.
A man with a shaved head and wearing an apron appeared from a door behind the bar and nodded at Larry. Sweat ran down his forehead and he looked irritated. He wiped his head on the back of his arm.
Earl shook his head. “Damn help ain’t nowhere to be found tonight. I never understand that shit. Guy walks in. Wants a job and I give it to him and then he don’t show up for it. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Yep. About August they’ll start dropping like flies on me.”
“What you want?”
“Beer. In a bottle. You seen Walt?”
“He ran in and out of here a minute ago. Said he had to go get smokes.”
Earl gave him a beer then one of the tables called him and he left. Larry drank the beer and looked at the front door as the day began to fade and night less than an hour away. The hour between dog and wolf.
Walt returned and sat down next to his brother and they nodded at each other. The Braves were on the television on the wall at the end of the bar and they watched the game mindlessly and moved only to look when the door opened or when they needed another drink. An hour passed and it was dark now and Earl ran back and forth between the tables and the bar and the kitchen and it was going to be a long night.
“You seen Heather yet?” Walt asked.
“Nope. I guess she waited around last night until somebody finally carted that son of a bitch away. I heard her go in another room when she got to the house. This morning I left out early and—big surprise—she wasn’t there when I got home.”
“What you gonna say?”
“You mean what’s she gonna say. I ain’t saying shit.”
“I bet you won’t have to wait long to find out,” Walt said.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she just walked in.”
She came their way and Walt grabbed his beer and headed for the back deck.
Heather propped her elbows on the bar. A strapless dress and fresh makeup and cleaned and shined. Larry shook his head and figured he should have expected her to be dolled up. It was the only way she worked.
“Buy me a drink?” she asked.
“You got money.”
“I left my purse in the car.”
“Then go get it.”
Earl stopped at the cash register and he waved to Heather.
“You got any white wine back there?”
Larry shook his head and huffed.
“What?” she asked.
“Nobody drinks wine in Buddy’s.”
“Okay. What do you want me to drink?”
“I don’t give a shit what you drink but you goddamn sure ain’t sitting next to me with a wineglass.”
Earl waited and she asked for a beer. “Happy now?” she asked and she nudged him but Larry didn’t smile. And he didn’t talk. She crossed her legs toward him, brushing his calf with her foot. He didn’t take notice.
“Who’s winning?” she asked.
“Winning what?” Larry said.
“That game up there.”
Larry raised his eyes to the television. “The score is on the bottom of the screen.”
“I can’t see that far.”
“Then get the hell up and go look.”
She had promised herself that she’d be more careful. That was three years ago and she had only become more reckless. Telling the blond man they didn’t need to go out of town. Larry’s head is up his ass. It’ll be fun to go down to the Armadillo. But she had underestimated Larry and made him look like a fool and the blond man had paid for it. She needed to calm him down before she didn’t have a place to sleep. Or a checking account. She wrapped a cocktail napkin around her beer and turned the bottle in her hands, her fingernails the same crimson as her lipstick.
“Are you gonna pout all night or talk to me?” she said.
He turned on the bar stool and faced her. He let his anger slide enough so that he could speak without yelling. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Heather. And you know why. How long you want us to sit here and play stupid?”
Larry had turned away again and she snuck a look at him in between the liquor bottles in the mirror.
“I’m sorry, Larry,” she said.
“Good for you.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. That’s why it’s so pathetic.”
“Why is it pathetic?” Her face had changed now, losing its playfulness and becoming more aggressive.
“Why is it pathetic?” she asked again when he didn’t answer.
“It’s pathetic because you think you can walk in here all perfumed and shit and sit down next to me and I’ll fall for it.”
“I’m not pretending. I screwed up. Okay?”
“No damn shit.”
“And I’m sorry.”
“The only reason you’re sorry is cause you got caught which don’t do much for your bullshit confession.”
“I swear to God, Larry. I’m sorry,” she said and she put her hand on his leg. He pushed it away and asked Earl for another beer. She stopped and let him mill for a minute. Thought that maybe she’d fake cry but she wasn’t there yet.
She wrapped her hand around the inside of his thigh again and half smiled. “I swear I’m sorry. And I’m done, Larry.”
“You know what.”
“I want you to say it.”
“Fine. I’m done messing around.”
“Messing around ain’t what you do. Tell me what you’re done doing. Gimme some detail.” His voice was louder now and several people from the tables took notice. Heather moved uncomfortably on her stool.
“I’m done sleeping around.”
“You ain’t been sleeping, either. I want you to say it. Tell me what you’re done doing or first thing Monday morning I’m going to take the same pictures I shoved down your boyfriend’s pants to my lawyer and then I’m gonna come home and throw your shit out in the yard.”
She took a deep breath. He had her.
“I’m done having sex with other men,” she said.
“What else?”
“I’m done putting my mouth on them. I’m done bending over for anybody but you. I’m done, baby. I swear.”
She folded her hands in her lap and waited and she swore to herself that she’d never be careless again. That she’d make sure she kept it out of town. She wouldn’t let him make her bow down again.
He pressed his lips together. Nodded. And then he told Earl he wanted two bourbons.
“On top of each other?” Earl asked.
“No, jackass. One for me and one for her.”
After Earl set down the drinks Larry slid her a glass.
“Here,” he said.
They drank in the strange silence that lingers around people who have gone through the motions but aren’t sure if anything has been truly reconciled. Heather looked around the bar and ran her finger around the corners of her mouth to smooth her lipstick. There was one more thing to do to help him get over it.
“Let’s run home for a while,” she said.
“Come on, Larry. Let me make it up to you.”
He finished the bourbon and told Earl he wanted another. Then he said you go on home and I’ll be there in a little while.
“Promise?”
“Just go on.”
She stood and kissed him on the cheek and then she walked toward the door. She glanced over her shoulder to see if he was watching her walk but he wasn’t.
Walt waited until Larry was done with his drink and then he took her vacated seat and said I’m guessing you let her slide.
“Don’t goddamn talk to me.”
“She’s a broken record.”
“No shit.”
“She makes you look stupid.”
It was a hard right that Walt never saw coming but Larry was nice enough to give it to the side of his head and not his nose and once the two brothers got up off the floor and Earl pulled them apart they sat right back down to drink again.
For hours they drank and stared at the television and neither moved except to go to the bathroom and finally Larry left Walt with the tab and he drove to the end of Delaware Avenue where it ran into the interstate. He stopped at a gas station and bought a six-pack and then he turned onto the interstate toward Louisiana. A full breadth of stars stretched across the summer sky and he smoked with the windows cracked and the warm wind whipped around him. He set his cruise control knowing that if anyone stopped him he’d go straight to jail. He leaned back in his seat with a beer between his legs. Swerving some. A strip of interstate that projected loneliness. He was two beers down when he reached the state line and the exit for Kentwood was less than a mile after that. He took the exit and turned to the right, away from the lights of the fast food joints and gas stations.
He drove a few miles until there was nothing but fences and the occasional mailbox and in this part of the country the night seemed to open its mouth and swallow the land and whatever moved across it. He came to a crossroads and turned left and the road thinned and led from the open pastures into the trees and it was darker then. He slowed down and watched for the turn. Around the second bend he turned up a driveway that was marked by a mailbox covered in a flowery vine and he turned off his headlights as he moved toward the house. He stopped the truck twenty yards away and he looked out the open window at the house. The red brick that she had wanted and the white columns that she had wanted and the two chimneys that he had wanted. There wasn’t an inch of the house that he hadn’t put his hands on while it was going up. The light was on over the front door and there were no other lights on in the house. He set his beer aside and got out of the truck and when he closed the door, a light came on in the window of her bedroom and her shadow appeared behind the curtain and she peeked out to see who it was.
He walked toward the front door and stopped. Don’t scare her.
She opened the door and stepped out under the light, a kneehigh robe wrapped around her and her hair longer than the last time he had seen her. Down past her shoulders and a shade lighter. He put his hands in his pockets and tried to appear as harmless as possible.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said.
“I know,” he said and he took a slow step toward her.
“I mean it, Larry. You need to go on.”
“I just thought I’d see how you were doing.”
“It’s late.”
“He here?”
She looked around him and out into the dark as if something or someone else might be out there.
“Course he’s here. He’s sleeping. Like I was,” she said.
Off in the woods surrounding the house something howled as if it were hurt. His head turned and followed the sound.
“What do you want, Larry?” she said.
“You think I could just go in there and talk to him a minute?”
“No, Larry. God no.”
“Only a minute, Dana. I swear.”
“You been drinking?”
“Some.”
“You need to go on.”
He knew that every cop and court in Kentwood agreed with her and he knew that he had earned it. Even standing there drunk he knew it. He couldn’t see his boy and he wasn’t supposed to be within so many feet of her and he didn’t argue that it was his own doing. It had been a long time since that had been decided and he hadn’t forgotten. But he had driven down ignoring it and hoped she might do the same but he saw that she was as strong as ever.
“I heard you getting married,” he said.
She nodded.
“Think you really want to again?”
“You did.”
“That’s why I’m asking. Just cause it’s somebody new don’t mean it’s any good.”
“I’m gonna try anyway.”
“Can’t be no worse, huh?” he said.
“If that’s what you want to say.”
He swayed and had to catch himself from falling.
“I’m going inside and you need to go. Right now. Don’t take this no further.”
“Is he playing Little League this summer?”
“He’s too old for Little League now.”
“Already? Shit.”
Larry whispered something to himself. Made an X in the dirt with the heel of his boot.
“Can I go in and look? I won’t say nothing. Just go look at him for a second.”
“Hell no.”
“Is he getting tall?”
“You wouldn’t be able to tell it if he was. He lays down when he sleeps.”
“Goddamn it, Dana. I know that. Is he getting tall or not?”
She folded her arms tightly. “Yes. He’s tall. Now go home. I’m not saying it again. Go on home,” she said. She looked at him like she used to look at him when she wanted him to be better and then she went in the door. Locks clicked and the light went off over the door and then the light went off in her bedroom and he could feel her watching him. Waiting for him to go. That thing howled again. Sounded like it might be for the last time. He walked to his truck and backed out of the driveway and waited to turn on his headlights until he was out on the road.
He was often filled with a serenity as he drove alone on backcountry roads in the late recesses of the night, the empty roads and the feeling of being separated from the things that lived where the streetlights lived. But that serenity was just as often shattered and scattered into the darkest corners of the countryside as he was overpowered by the thoughts of the things that he hated—the wife that had been and the boy he couldn’t see and the wife he had now and the men who tasted her and the dead who were gone and the living who would return. And then he would rage against the most striking object of his hate and he would look into the rearview mirror and see that object staring back at him and it was easy to hate the other things but it was always the most crippling to hate himself and it was in the most vile and the drunkest moments of self-inspection that he knew that one day he was going to kill Russell Gaines for killing Jason. And as time went on, the morning light had done less and less to rid him of this revelation.
He drove back into Mississippi, drifting from lane to lane without realizing it but making it home. He went into the house and stumbled and fell in the hallway and then he got up and he found the bedroom door locked. Open this goddamn door. He knocked loudly once and then she opened the door. He grabbed her in the dark and pulled at whatever she had on and then he fell on top of her on the bed and he tried as hard as he could to disgust her.