Facing the Music

  But fathers must be cautious.

  Kids are violent these days.

  Especially where pets are concerned.

  JULIE: A MEMORY

  It was muddy where we parked and I had to be careful not to get on soft ground. That’s just a blank space. When I tried to touch her, she slapped my hands away. I heard him slip the safety off. “I don’t want you to if you don’t want to,” she said. Then we went inside. I don’t know why I drove all the way through. She didn’t say. And then Julie came in. I figured that would make her happy. She had some kind of a fit all of a sudden. “Lock the doors,” she said. He had the wrench up in one hand and his fingers were greasy and black and trembling. I didn’t want to tell her. We got inside and we sat down. The blood had scabbed on my face. “Don’t,” she said. I crawled on my hands and knees to the first one just as he picked up the rifle. She wanted popcorn. You see all this stuff on TV now about abortions, and once I saw a doctor holding a fetus in his fingers. She’d left me some sandwich stuff in the refrigerator. I got dressed and turned off all the lights and locked the door. I don’t know how many times he hit me. She didn’t want to. She said that everything was a mistake, that she didn’t love me. He begged hard for his life. And for no reason then, he just slapped her. When I thought of all that, I started feeling good. He looked like he was half asleep. The first boy pulled her panties down around her knees and she whimpered. They say they don’t cook their hamburgers ahead of time, but they do. There was a little road that ran back behind, where all the black people were buried. I’d have to hunt under the seat for my socks. “Don’t open it,” she said. I wiped it with my hand and looked at it. But I wasn’t really sure. Then he grabbed her legs, panting, and spread them apart. We lost track of time. I could have reached out and grabbed it. I recognized the second boy. He slapped her so hard her face leaped around sideways. Everybody has to have love. And it seemed like it ruined everything. But that car was there again. It happened quickly. What Julie and I were doing was no different. It was an adventure story. I think I said please to him that night. You can’t ask things like that. I didn’t even know if we could live together. But I knew she’d be on my side anyway. I worried about it for a long time, that I’d get caught. But I knew we had to try. I didn’t want to turn his soul loose if he wasn’t ready, so I told him to pray. It’s a big step. He had a motor jack set up in front of the grill. One of them said that he didn’t have any matches. Houses were all around. I had to keep my shirt on in front of my mother so she wouldn’t see the scratches on my back. I stopped outside the city limits and got us a beer from the trunk. She wasn’t showing yet. I was trying to get up but I felt like I was drunk. I didn’t figure he was ready. “Open that door,” he said. I got up on my knees. I’d been planning on staying overnight with some friends at the spillway, but it started raining hard about ten o’clock and we didn’t want to sleep in our cars, so we just went home. When we’d first started doing it, we’d always used rubbers. I’d put off telling Mother. And it was driving him nuts. He jammed the rifle against my head. I wanted to go for pizza. Just his feet were sticking out from under the car. She said he was always buying her coffee and eating his lunch with her. I didn’t say too much. We were quiet for a while then. I was wet with mud and it was cold on my legs. None of that mattered. And then she got pregnant. Trying to get her hot. So I just kept my mouth shut. I thought they were going to kill us. I listened. But she didn’t even say anything about it. I thought we were going to talk. “Somebody with car trouble, I guess,” I said. I think my mother wanted to ask me why I wasn’t going with Julie anymore, but she didn’t. We finally got out there, and the woods were dark and wet. She had her hands up in front of her face. I’ve even seen her in bars. It was so clear when it was happening. It didn’t change anything. “I don’t want no part of it,” he said. Once we did it right there on the couch with her mother in the next room. I knew I had done the right thing. The first one handed the rifle to the second one and pushed her dress up. I could never go over there without thinking about all those dead people under the stones. Finally it was over. I didn’t know if it would work. I put my face between her breasts and closed my eyes and just laid there. If we weren’t doing it we were talking about doing it. I finished my beer and then got back in the car. He wanted to know who it was but I didn’t say anything. “Thanks,” she said. I didn’t want to marry her. The road was wet so I drove carefully. It’s not something you should do without thinking about it. She said he loved to dance. I cranked it and we sat hugging each other until it warmed up. Before she got out of the car, I made her tell me where he lived. She chain-smoked cigarettes and had brown stains on her fingertips. I wondered if maybe she’d had a child born out of wedlock herself. “Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t.” I thought, If you were married to her, you could do this all the time. Mother had offered to buy some for me, but I told her I wanted to take care of things like that by myself. I didn’t want to embarrass her. She was talking about baby showers and baby clothes. I could see the rifle lying there, pointing toward the road. Her mother was strange to me. We started dressing. “Hurry up,” she’d say. “Hurry up and get it in me.” There was something about it on the news. He had his finger on the trigger. His soul was what I thought about, and mine, too. Her mother looked up when I went in, but then she turned away, back to the television. She had mud all over her face and she didn’t want me to look at her. There was another boy standing in the rain, watching me. “I love you,” she said. They had her tied when I came to. I had to go home finally. He didn’t hear me walk up to the car. The porch light was on when we pulled in and neither of us said anything. I figured she’d probably scream. I wiped my forearm across my eyes. He was probably about twenty. Maybe it wasn’t even my baby. “When you going to tell your mother?” she said. I didn’t know what I was going to tell my mother. You could hear that rain drumming on the roof while you were taking your clothes off and then when you were naked together on the backseat, with the doors locked, it was just the best thing you could want. Down behind the fence there were squirrels and deer. They used to live beside her. I didn’t know what to do. Give up my whole life for her and the baby? I walked up on the porch and knocked on the door and heard her mother tell me to come in. I got her in my car and the first thing she did was pull my hand up her dress. She wasn’t rude, but I could see that she just didn’t want to talk. By then I couldn’t do anything. He must have brought the whiskey because she never kept liquor in the house. “You bout two seconds away from gettin a bullet through your head,” he said. But I wasn’t ready to marry her. Then she squatted down, like she was going to pee on the ground. It was where we always went. She said she didn’t want to get married. We held hands. “Ya’ll done lost your fuckin minds,” he said. “I want to,” I said. It was cold outside. I parked my car in the woods and walked back down the road quickly, then went over a barbed-wire fence and down through a pasture. I know he was thinking about that night and what he’d done to us. She had her hand on my dick. I looked at Julie. “Don’t,” she said. That woman always seemed so hurt. I didn’t know what to say. “Hell, she wants it,” he said. We’d rest for ten minutes, kissing, and then we’d start again. I wanted to tell my mother and ask her what I should do. We pulled out finally and headed out of town. This night was a night we were going to talk. I thought I was going to wreck the car. You can’t do without it. I couldn’t see anything. We talked some more. She’d take her nails and scrape me so hard I’d almost tell her to stop. The rifle fell into the mud. “What are you waiting on?” she said. I got to be an expert at getting fully dressed sitting down. I was afraid she’d get up and walk in there and see us on the couch, but it didn’t stop us. The first boy had her by the arms and he was dragging her toward a tree. “Tell her to open the door,” he said. I’d always thought that having kids was something you should give some thought to. There’s nothing blacker than woods at night. You could have her whenever you wanted her. There were a lot of
people on the square when I cut through. She unbuckled my belt and unzipped my pants. We ate in the parking lot. We had to hurry because the movie was about to start. And then we said we didn’t care what it was as long as it was healthy. When I went to bed, I pulled the covers all the way up over my head and saw it all again, every word and every sound and every raindrop. I didn’t want her to have an abortion. I guess it was kind of like when you’re little, and you’ve done something your mother or your father is going to whip you for, but you’re hoping that if you beg hard enough they won’t. I rolled the window down. He ran off into the woods with a crazy little cry. I got up quickly and went to meet her. “You get out of that car,” the boy with the rifle said. He sounded drunk. I took a drink of it. I like adventure. It surprised me when she said she did. I think she felt guilty about the night we got rained out on our fishing trip. She slid up on the console next to me and we left. The second one turned around and looked at me with his dick sticking out of his pants. She laid her head back down. I couldn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing. She pushed her dress up and pulled my hand in between her legs. I tried to talk to her for a while, but it was never any use. She got to telling me all about her job, and how this man who worked there was always trying to sweet-talk her on break. I had an old pistol that had belonged to my father. She said leave it alone. I had some beer iced down in my car and I asked her if she wanted one. Or three. “Get out,” the one with the rifle said. She did say that Julie would be ready in a few minutes. I sat in the driveway for a long time just looking at the house. The one I hit got up off the ground. People were watching television within sight of us. I was running late when I got home, but she had my clothes ironed and laid out for me. It couldn’t have been easy for her. I’d thought he was hurting her because of the way she was moaning. I went inside quietly and washed the blood off my face with a wet towel. They had a nice home there, but he was a long way from the house. I romped on it a little and the back end slid. She said if I wanted to take care of her, take her home. Something cold touched the side of my head. “Please, God,” he said. I asked her what she would do about her clothes. When it was dry we’d take a blanket out of the trunk and spread it on the ground. The first thing she did was go over to the boy and spit on him. I knew we’d have a good time. She always made me lock the doors. I couldn’t understand why nobody was coming to help us. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t know what you guys want.” I could tell that she was happy. But one night we ran out or I forgot to buy some, or something. It didn’t have a jack under it anywhere. The dates were so faded, and the names, too, that you couldn’t read them. She didn’t know the third one. Sometimes we’d tear each other’s clothes getting them off. She told me on the way home. I knew the leaves were wet and cold and I knew how they felt on her skin. She raised up and looked at me. The tires were spinning in the mud. But then I thought that maybe she was just lonely. “You want to do it up here?” I said. “Or you want to get in the back?” But we were running late. She was on her knees and I could see him lunging at her face. I asked her if we were finished and she said yes. We’d have to find a place to live. I didn’t want it growing up with just its mother’s name, either. She had enough on her already. She was like me. I could have let him live. There were cars passing on the road and I kept thinking that one would surely pull in. I didn’t even know where Julie’s daddy was. There was a fifth of Wild Turkey on the kitchen table. I used to hunt there. He put his hands up in front of his face and closed his eyes and said, “Jesus, Jesus, oh please Jesus.” The night I came in from fishing, I went to bed quietly and tried to go to sleep, but I could hear them moving in her bed, and once in a while, her moaning. But she got up that night and put on a robe and told me it was all right. I was afraid it would hurt her too much. I could do it, too. I just wanted her to be happy. The only thing we could think about was getting it into her as quickly as possible. I loved that rain. She said, “If I could dance, I’d marry that man.” I was hungry and wanted to fix myself some breakfast. Some were killed in the Civil War. Blood was in my eyes. You could see the ruts deep in the mud where the tires had gone before us. That night was no different. I took her blouse and bra off and she got on top of me. I told her that I wanted to take care of her. He was gone the next morning and we didn’t talk about it. I said I hoped it was a boy. “You just shut your mouth,” he said. I thought about it. His eyes didn’t close. Give me a good old love story anytime. It was one of those space movies. The foot of the fetus was smaller than his thumb. It was just like shooting a dog. I yelled for him as loud as I could. The first boy went around and tried to open the door. I made a decision right there on that backseat, naked, holding her. Julie drew up and leaned against her side of the car. I didn’t say anything. My mother would be a grandmother. “You can’t hide it forever,” I said. But sometimes when you do things, you have to pay for them. She had on a red dress and white shoes. She had already gone somewhere, on a date, I guess. Almost all of her friends were married and she wasn’t used to dating and she probably worried over what I thought about it. I went into her room and I woke her up. I thought about it. I don’t know how long we did it that night. It seemed like that broke the ice. There was blood dripping off my face. It made everything seem so nice. “What do you think?” she said. You can’t place your order and pull on around and have it ready within thirty seconds without having it cooked ahead of time. She was two months pregnant. So I went out there and got her one. His hands relaxed and one of his feet kicked. They have to. But it was only a matter of time. “We don’t want any trouble,” I said. On that backseat with her I felt I had all the happiness I’d ever need. They had her tied on the ground with her arms around a tree. In Memphis. All this is fuzzy. I had to keep wiping the blood out of my eyes. Mother stays gone all the time. I couldn’t tell her. It had already been in all the papers about the boy they found. Maybe even me. He stomped on my head. The third boy was still standing in the road. I remember he just rolled over and pulled the covers up over him. We’d taken all kinds of crazy chances. She said what was done was done. His face was down in the mud. I’m for life. There weren’t any napkins and they didn’t give us enough ketchup. “You told her?” I said. She said think about it. She hadn’t come right out and said it. Nobody wants to. I eased it up into park and got out with my hands up. It had taken her a long time to get over Daddy leaving her, but she was beginning to make the most of it. It was sharp. They must have known I was there. “You kids have a good time,” her mother said. I asked her if she wanted to go to the police or the hospital or what. I don’t know how we got over in the woods. Julie wasn’t anywhere around. She told it like she was in a trance. There were junked cars all over the pasture. “Just tell me what you want me to do,” I said. “If you want this car you can have it.” We’d get so hot we just wouldn’t think clearly. He’d laid the rifle down. I just unlocked the door and went on into the kitchen. I knew he’d hurt her. “Please,” I said, “don’t hurt her.” He was trying to pull the motor out of a ’68 Camaro down in the pasture. I think my mind has tried to cover it up some way. “Please,” he said. “Please please please.” It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t think anything about it. “What’s wrong?” she said. They had homemade tombstones, carved out of sandrock. I didn’t want to hurt her. The first one was doing something to her. The glass was fogged over with our breathing. My car was over there. I didn’t want to get up. I couldn’t see her getting an abortion. It was pretty good. The first one was puking against a tree. It’s a hell of a thing, to see your mother doing that. “Would you just hold me for a little while?” I said. The gun went off. “What?” I said. The one who kicked me put a knife against my throat and I didn’t do anything else. “Then we’ll tell yours,” she said. But I probably wasn’t the only kid who’d ever seen something like that. I just had gotten my car paid for, but it needed new tires. It squealed once in the road and was gone. He didn’t want to die. I got out to take a leak and the ground was soft. Wh
en I grabbed for it, the other one kicked me. The vinyl top was rotted. He screamed when he came. And I wondered what she’d say. They must have heard my car pull up. She wouldn’t even look up from the TV when I said something. “Are you sure?” she said. I cared about her. “I’m sure,” I said. He rolled out from under it with a wrench in his hand and a pissed-off look on his face, and he knew me then. It was a green ’72 Camaro with a black top. He slammed me against the fender. He dropped the wrench. “Don’t ask me any questions,” I said. “Just hold me.” I didn’t know if I loved her. “You having trouble?” I said. I thought my nose was running. She was watching “Knot’s Landing” and I watched it with her for a while. Randy Hillhouse lived not an eighth of a mile away. I missed Daddy, sure. “Remember me?” I said. I wound up getting about half fucked-up in the kitchen before I got my sausage and eggs fried. “We won’t be out late,” she said. It was the muzzle of a .22 rifle. I knew she wanted me to marry her. “I wonder what that’s doing there,” she said. I thought I’d seen the boy somewhere before. Julie was quiet. I went down like I’d been shot. “Oh, man, no,” he said. It was raining, not hard, just enough to where you had to keep the wipers going to see. The movie wasn’t that great. I could have let it go, I guess. We never did it less than twice. I’ve seen hogs do like that. I stuck it in his face. After it was over, we held each other for a long time. Later on I remembered it like a nightmare. It seems like I cried. Every night. I wanted a cigarette and couldn’t smoke in there. She won’t even talk to me now, doesn’t act like she remembers who I am. “You told her?” I said. I didn’t love her. Pow! I think now that I must have been trying to choke him. We’d talked about telling her. But I loved my mother. The first one and the second one were brothers. About the same age as me. I turned and looked at it. “It’s okay to cry sometimes,” she said. The car was parked at the end of the turnaround. I could see this kid in my mind, running around on a softball field. “You want to tell her?” I said. When I pulled the door shut, I thought about it and unlocked it and stepped inside the living room and turned on the lamp. It’s more like a dream now that never really happened. She was screaming for me to help her. She hadn’t held me like that in a long time. I waited a week. Her mouth tasted like chewing gum. I think I cried some. It got hard again. I’d already put it up in reverse when the first one knocked on the window. We kissed. I was late when I got over there. I must have passed out. She kissed me, and then she looked at her mother. “For God’s sake,” I said. I only put one shell in it. I always felt like her mother knew what we were doing. We’d have clothes lying everywhere. I remember one time I walked in on them when they were in bed. I made sure it was him. “You can talk to me anytime you want to,” she said. I can’t forget how he looked lying there. She said take her home. There was a strange car in the driveway when I pulled up. It was about fifteen miles from town. I stopped and watched for a long time before I went up. They were waiting for us. I thought I was going to vomit, but I didn’t. I smashed his head into the fender and caught his hair in both my hands and kneed him in the nose. I’d never done anything to him. We heard their car leave. I kissed her and opened her blouse. I shot him and he fell. “You can get me so damn hot,” she said. Then I got myself some Coke out of the icebox and mixed a drink. One was all I needed. She told me how this man had three kids and a wife who didn’t like to dance. I didn’t move. I could just touch her between her legs and she’d be ready to come. I guess we were both surprised. We were both quiet. “Let’s get up and go home, and we’ll tell your mother first,” I said. I didn’t know whether to just go on in or knock on the door. The one on Julie’s side said something to the one with the rifle. His pants were down around his knees and she sounded like she was choking. “No,” he said, “I don’t know you.” It seemed that she was what I had been wanting my whole life. I turned around and grabbed his head. They didn’t look like people who would raise a son like that. “We’ve got a flat,” he said, but the car looked level. The second one went over to her. I didn’t know what they were doing. “Yes, you do,” I said. Another, third boy stood in the rain with his hands in his pockets. I was lying on the ground in front of the car. Her body was the temple where I worshipped. They hit me in the head with the gun and then I couldn’t see what they were doing with her. I blame that on him. He might have been their cousin. I’d seen his parents before. I eased through town. “Let’s get married,” I said. The rain was falling in front of the headlights. I had to pull over and stop. It was the best thing I’d ever done. I didn’t have an inspection sticker and I was trying to stay away from the law. She’d never mentioned him. But they do. He’d been to the funeral of his brother. I didn’t know what to do. “I’ll do anything if you don’t,” she said. I thought she was full of bullshit. Sideways. I didn’t like them anyway. I pulled the trigger. I saw then what they’d done. We pulled up into the graveyard and the tires slid in the mud. “He’s got a gun,” she said. I don’t remember driving there. They were both naked and he was between her legs. He was dead, just like that. But the fetus was alive. We hadn’t talked about telling anybody. I watched it, but I couldn’t concentrate on it for thinking about what we were going to do later. She was still getting ready. He had it out and was holding it in his hand. There were a lot of things I could have said to him, I guess. She said she hoped it was a girl. I know I was scared. I cranked the car and let it warm up. The third one looked like he was puking in the ditch. It made a little red hole between his eyes. She had an abortion. What’s bad is that he may be burning for an eternity because of me. She couldn’t stop kissing me. I could remember, faintly, seeing them doing it when I was little. When I grabbed the barrel, he turned loose and ran. When it was raining, it was wonderful to park with her. We’d have to get married soon. I know she was thinking about doing it just like me. I kicked the bottoms of his feet. But it’s all posted now and you can’t hunt on it. I helped her into the car and we looked for the third boy but we didn’t see him. There was so much I had to tell her and so much I needed to tell her and in the end I told her nothing. And maybe we wouldn’t even be able to make it. I couldn’t feel her with one on. I took a shower and shaved, walking around naked in the house. I didn’t want to see her hurt. She knew them. “Hey,” I said. Jeans and a striped shirt. I didn’t know what in the hell to do. I didn’t mind killing him so much, after what he’d done. It was my child. I guess he was loosening the transmission bolts. So safe and warm. “Whenever you tell yours,” I said. I turned on the defroster when it warmed up. I kept messing around with her. They used to come over and talk to her. The grass was high and there was an old dog pen or hog pen in the pasture with rotten posts and rusted wire. I’d always come right away the first time. We’d been going at each other for the last five months. He was crying and begging me not to do it. I begged him not to hurt her and he kicked me in the face. It hurt.