Sleepovers Read online

  “See,” she said, pointing into the night.

  “Yes,” he said. But he didn’t see the stars on the river. He wanted to.

  At first Clara was proud that Hal was making enough money to put a bar in their home. She thought that’s what nice family homes had. He built it in the corner cabinet in their living room, with glass shelves, silver rimmed tumblers, and fancy track lighting.

  But soon after, when she’d come home from substituting, or leading a historic tour, or planting crape myrtles on Main Street, she’d find Hal slurring his words. And then she found him standing in the hall. He was in front of the pictures of their dead baby, the ones that were taken at the nice portrait studio, where all the families went to take pictures of their pretty children. And when the photographer saw that Hal had made a special wedge out of sponge so the baby could sit up without his back hurting, the photographer kept saying, “What a happy baby,” over and over again. And Clara put a white fuzzy blanket over the wedge to make it softer. And it almost looked like a little lump of snow.

  And that time when Clara found him drunk, he turned to her and slung his arm down the hall lined with pictures of their dead baby. “You should have never put these up here and you know it,” he said, “I got to see them every damn day. Our pretty baby smiling.”

  In her whole life of being in the church, Clara had never asked for an unspoken. It was a rare request, reserved for those who were brave enough to ask for prayers about the unspeakable. But after she saw Hal in the hall that day, in front of all the pictures, she wanted to ask for one. But she knew as soon as she did, everyone would know that something was wrong. So she did not ask for an unspoken because she was ashamed of him.

  Hal waits on the porch with coffee, watching down the corner for the police. He hears a gunshot from Corey’s house and looks over and sees Corey standing over Major in the pen with a shotgun.

  Clara runs out on the porch, eyes wide with fear.

  Hal catches her.

  “It was Major,” he says, “Corey shot him.”

  “I thought it was Corey.” Clara shakes in Hal’s arms.

  “I know,” Hal says.

  He holds her and hopes that Corey buries Major good enough that the stray dogs don’t dig him up and strow him in his yard.

  At church when the preacher asks, “Are there any more prayer requests?” Clara raises her hand and says, “I have an unspoken.”

  As soon as Clara puts her hand down, Hal puts his on top of hers. He whispers, “I’m proud of you.”

  She pulls her hand out from under his and whispers, “It wasn’t for me.”

  She looks ahead of her at the way the morning light comes through the tops of the tall windows. How it hits the stained-glass Jesus behind the baptismal pool. He’s standing with his arms open in a meadow. Baby sheep are sleeping at his feet. And when the preacher says, “Let us pray,” Clara closes her eyes. She bows her head.

  Uncle Elmer

  When me and Sister were little Uncle Elmer took us to Wendy’s because they have the biggest senior citizen discount, and we didn’t know what that meant, but somehow, we knew that meant cheap because this was a word he loved to say: cheap. I can get that for cheap at Sam’s he’d say. He wore a cap that said READ THE INSTRUCTIONS with a picture of an open book that said THE HOLY BIBLE and he played the guitar and made us sing “Power In The Blood” because it was the only song he knew how to play. And he held us too long when he hugged us real tight, and he made me sit on his lap, and it wasn’t until my first kiss hundreds of miles away when I was eighteen, sitting on a couch made out of leather, that I remembered Uncle Elmer licked my ear too. And I didn’t say anything to anyone about it. See, he’d tell us at Wendy’s that when he was born in Georgia his mama didn’t want a boy, so she sent him to school in bonnets and dresses, told everyone he was her little girl. He fought in Germany in World War II, got married and had two children: one became a jewelry thief, and the other one married a woman who believes Jesus had blue eyes. He lived in Virginia Beach and he drove with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake pedal. He wore shirts that showed his chest hair—it was black. He took us to the mountains. He took us to the mall. He paid us for picking up pecans in his yard. At Wendy’s, he’d dump whatever crust was left of his French fries out the box and onto a napkin and then lick his finger and pick up every piece of salt. After my Aunt Lillie died, he married a woman in the Philippines, much younger with children and dreams of an American college. He flies over to see her, navigating the overcrowded streets in his tennis shoes from before I was born. He sends us a picture of Philippine string beans—they’re real skinny and long. He takes out his hearing aids and has sex with his new wife, and when they’re done he takes her family out to Wendy’s, and he licks his finger again.

  The Bass

  I know I can get better if I want to. Everybody can get better if they want to.

  At the Duck Thru the black ladies are talking ’bout the Bradley man that used to be sheriff in Halifax County. He killed himself yesterday. Melissa’s rescue squad was called out to it. They say he called 911 and told them he was having chest pains. And by the time Melissa and them got there he’d shot himself in the chest with his sawed-off 12 gauge. He was still alive when they found him. Wallowing right there in his recliner. Melissa said he’d sold everything in the house except for that recliner. Like he’d been getting ready for it for months.

  The black ladies are making sausage biscuits. And all Krystal’s doing is looking at me.

  “Right wet out there ain’t it, Donnie?” she says.

  I nod and rain falls off the end of my hat.

  She giggles and leans on the counter, pushes her breasts together.

  I ask her for a can of Grizzly, and she bends over like she’s stretching. And I wonder for a minute what she’d be like, how she likes it. Me taking her from behind. Wrapping that white blond hair round my hand one good time. And it’s alright. She’s been acting like she wants me to be thinking about it—going on a while now. Since she turned up at our church, bringing them kids to Vacation Bible School.

  She puts the can on the counter and says, “I won’t tell Melissa.” Melissa put me on the prayer list Sunday. Her cousin just got mouth cancer so she thinks I will too.

  Krystal clicks her fingernails on the lighter case, her pointer finger has a little diamond in it. “Just got ’em done yesterday. You like ’em?” She holds out her hands in front of me, wiggles her fingers.

  Before I can answer, she turns to them ladies, smiles at them and says, “Miss Gretchen and Hilly think they’re gaudy but anyways…” She turns back to me and bangs the register with her fist to open it. She hands me my change, her bracelets clinking. “You got a plumbing snake? Melissa said she thought y’all did. I think one of my boys done put a truck in the commode.”

  “Don’t worry ’bout it,” I say. If I don’t help Krystal, I’ll hear it from Melissa so I tell Krystal I’ll come over ’round five.

  Krystal tells me to call her before I head over. She writes her number on the back of my receipt. I put it in my pocket without looking at it.

  When I walk out the door them women are trying to figure if the Bradley man is gonna have an open casket.

  “If he don’t look too bad, then they ought to do it,” one of ’em says.

  “It’s the right thing to do…for the family,” says the other one.

  I sit in the truck some and watch the cars fly down Highway 258. Flinging puddles out the road. ’Fore I even went out to the MacDaniel farm this morning, I knew it was gonna be a swamp. All that corn won’t be worth five cents. Count of that tropical depression, rain’s been here all week. I can’t do nothing. But I pull out my phone and call Wayne anyway like a damn piece of shit ’cause me and Melissa need the money now with another baby coming. I call him and ask him does he want me to do anything out there on the MacDaniel farm. If there is any work I can do on that old picker in his shop. Wayne says he wishes he can help me, but h
e’ll have me back in the field once the rain lets up. He tells me to tell Melissa he says, “Hello.”

  And right now she’s rubbing her belly so happy. And right now I’m sitting here alone outside the Duck Thru in my truck and one thing I can always do right is count the teeth on this Grizzly can. That bear comes out having five teeth every time you count it. I put in a good dip. Hell, when me and Melissa was youngins she’d dip too. Don’t know if she really enjoyed it, or if she was just trying to show off to all us on the baseball team. But she’d put a dip in bigger than anything you’d seen and sit right there on the tailgate looking just as pretty as you please, swinging her legs, telling us how she loved the tingle of it.

  Now she’s bought them special vitamins for having healthy babies. It’s the first thing she does every morning. Takes that bottle from her nightstand and pops them vitamins and looks at me and grins.

  It didn’t even feel like nothing when I made that baby with her. I thought it would feel different but it just felt like every other time.

  If I sit here too long folks’ll see me sitting here. Don’t want anybody to think anything. I just want something to happen. Or get caught up in something until something does. Wish I could just go to sleep and wake up and feel like there’s something to look forward to.

  I get out the truck and dig through all the shit in the truck bed. I find my cane pole and cooler and figure I’ll go out to the pond. Long as I know my family’s been fishing in this pond back off behind Slade Store Road. It’s real nice, lots of pin oaks and gumball trees round the edges. A big Magnolia so old the roots rise up out the ground and you can sit there on ’em. Don’t nobody ever come out there. Nobody to look at, nobody to look at me.

  Daddy always said there was a bass out there but I ain’t never seen one. Pond’s too small for a bass. My daddy worked for Wayne’s daddy. That’s how that works. Won’t until I was grown that I realized Daddy half-assed everything. Hell, he half-assed everything. He always told me he learned everything he knew from his daddy. I never knew the old man, he died before I was born. But I heard my daddy’s old man hollered at him from the time my daddy was a baby. Scared Daddy so much he didn’t talk until he was five years old.

  Reckon that’s why my daddy did some things to me too. I tell Melissa sometimes at night, before we sleep, and she listens and tells me it’s alright. Melissa’s too good a woman for me.

  Soon as I pull down in there, I spit out my dip and I find the Rich and Rare in my glovebox. It’s the best Canadian whiskey that’s bang for your buck. I drink till the rain lets up to a drizzle and it feels like time is moving easier. And the rain looks like static on the pond. I get out and catch some crickets easy. I catch me a couple baby brim with the crickets, and bait the brim for a damn bass. I throw in round the edges and start jigging the line. A bass would be something.

  Truth is, before our baby came, I came out here and swam out to the middle of that water. Went right in with my boots on. I wanted the water to fill me up till there won’t nothing left. I wanted something to come and just pull me to the bottom. But I just floated there all afternoon and watched the sky change to stars. I was waiting there when I heard Melissa calling for me. I watched the light she was shining on the water, watched it get closer to me. She was screaming my name, running down into the water with her big belly, pulling me out. Telling me she loved me over and over and I couldn’t say nothing. She was pulling stuff out of my hair and beard. Then she stopped and showed me. “Look, forsythia blooms,” she said.

  The line tugs and then pulls hard like a snatch and I know, I can feel it. It’s a bass. And he’s fighting too, boy. I get him to where I can see his eyes and get him on the shore. His stripe is pretty and straight. He’s got to be about eight pounds.

  I lay him in the tall grass, watch his gills open and close. He moves his fins real pretty. And he’s bleeding from where he swallowed the hook. And looking at him like that, I almost don’t want to keep him. But I sit there and watch his mouth move till the blood stops coming out of him. And I can’t hardly believe it all. My fucking daddy.

  I fill the cooler up with water and put him down in it easy.

  My watch says quarter till four. But I figure I’ll call Krystal up anyway, get on over there a little early. And I don’t know how she did it, but the way Krystal curled the “y” on her name looks like a damn heart, like some bullshit. I know she lives in Arrowhead but don’t know which trailer is hers. I call her up and she tells me she lives at the back edge, in the blue singlewide. The one with the baby pool she says.

  Only time I ever been out to Arrowhead was when Wayne’s son asked me to bring him out here to buy some drugs from Big Bay Odom. I pass Big Bay’s trailer and him and all them are sitting out in their yard watching me, smoking with their shirts off. When I pull up to Krystal’s all these cats go running out from everywhere. And all her kids are watching me from the window, all those little heads, one on top of the other.

  I grab the plumbing snake out the truck bed. And I check on the bass and his gills are still opening and closing. He’ll probably be dead by the time I look at him again, suffocate in that water. I put in another dip and I hear Krystal yell at the kids. She flings open the front door and hollers, “Don’t be a stranger Donnie, come on in the house.” She’s in a top she’s about to fall out of. I know then what all this is gonna be. I look back towards Big Bay Odom’s. They’re still watching me. I can feel them watching me when I step into Krystal’s trailer. She hugs me and thanks me for coming over and her kids all go stand in front of the couch. There’s four of them, a boy ’bout twelve, two middle ones—a girl and a boy, and a baby. They all have white blonde hair like her. The place smells like cat piss.

  “Y’all ’member Mr. Donnie don’t ya?” She tugs at her shirt to show more of her breasts. “He’s the one that cuts the grass at church.”

  The middle girl starts to pick her nose.

  Krystal pops her hand.

  “What’s that?” The oldest points to the plumbing snake in my hand.

  “A plumbing snake, ain’t that a funny name?” Krystal says.

  “Don’t look like a snake to me,” the middle girl says.

  They giggle and she tells them to go play in their room. The oldest one looks back at me and follows the rest of them ripping down the hall. Krystal leads me to her room and hollers at them to make her some more pictures. And I look back at the fridge and it’s already covered in paper, every one of them is pictures of horses. Horses running in fields, on the beach with big suns over them. She’ll have to take some down to make room for more.

  Krystal’s bed is made up with velvet-looking pillows that say “Angel.” She picks one up and squeezes it against her. Her skin looks glittery. “Got these from the Dollar General,” she says. “Can you believe it? They’re getting more cosmopolitan all the time.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Where you want me to put this plumbing snake?”

  “That sink there’s fine,” she points behind me to her bathroom.

  There’s a big picture of Marilyn Monroe blowing a kiss above the commode and Krystal’s got a candle lit in front of the bathroom mirror, smells like cotton candy. It’s next to a pink ashtray slam full of butts. It’s a glass one, looks antique. I tell her that most folks think you need a plumbing snake when they just need a plunger.

  “Well I tried the plunger already. All day yesterday I was trying that plunger.” She comes into the bathroom and lights a Virginia Slim with a flowery lighter. She edges up on the counter and sits her lighter by the candle.

  “I’ve been having to use the kid’s bathroom,” she says. “And with all of them, it’s right crowded.” She flicks her cigarette into the ashtray. “’Bout like living in the old days,” she laughs.

  “I reckon,” I say.

  I grab the plunger from behind the commode and while I’m plunging, I can see her out the corner of my eye, tracing her knees with her diamond fingernail. I can feel whatever that’s in the commode give
and I spit my dip out in it. I give it a flush and it unclogs just fine.

  “Well, that won’t much of nothing,” she says and she stubs out her cigarette.

  “I don’t think it was a toy, coulda just been a lot of paper,” I say.

  She gets down off the counter and wiggles her toes into the pink rug. “I knew it, I’ve been telling Jeenie to stop using so much paper, but she likes using my bathroom. What can I tell her? She’s my only girl.”

  Krystal is acting dumb but she knows what she’s doing. I study her feet. She’s picked every one of her toenails down into the quick. There’s dried blood in the corners of some of ’em.

  “You just don’t know how much I appreciate it,” she says. She comes closer. “It’s hard here you know. I need all the help I can get.” She runs her fingers down my shirt buttons. Her nails make a sound when they touch my buttons. Like a clink like a tap.

  “And I know you need some help too sometimes. Let me make you feel better, Donnie.” And she puts a finger into my shirt between the buttons, scratches my chest. “I know you’ve been hurting,” she says, “for a long time.”

  And I’m caught up in it. I don’t have no control. I pick her up and put her on the counter and rake my teeth down her neck, all the way down to her collarbone. Her nails go into my shoulders and her heels go into my ass. I shove my hand under her bra and her breasts are hot and soft at the same time. I pull off her top, rip down her bra. I bite her nipples and she clinches harder, gasps.

  “You like it hard, don’t you,” Krystal says.

  I throw her on the bed. She gets up to reach for me and I pull her legs out from under her. She gets up again and I grab her hair, wrap it ’round my hand one good time.