No.
Let me have the goddamn horse. And get the hell out of those goddamn dresses.
Dad took the reins and led the mare across to the big sliding door and shoved it open and jerked the bridle free and slapped the mare hard on the rear, and she trotted out across the empty lot, then he came back. The boys had removed the dresses and were working at getting the brassieres off. They looked like thin hairless animals, frightened and cold. They turned their backs to him and took down Lorraine’s silky underpants and stepped shivering over to the manger to their own clothes draped on spikes and got into their pants and shirts and coats.
Are you going to tell my mom? the Seegers kid said.
What? No. But if I see you in here again, by God, I’m going to whip you.
The boy looked at Frank once, quick, and stumbled across to the door and hurried outside. They could hear him running across the corral.
You want to tell me what this is about? Dad said.
There’s nothing to tell, Frank said.
Those were your sister’s dresses.
Yes.
Does she know you took them?
No. But we weren’t doing anything to them.
You think she’d see it that way?
Frank looked at him and looked out the open door where the boy had gone. She wouldn’t care, he said.
Why wouldn’t she care?
She just wouldn’t.
How do you know that?
I don’t know it for sure.
Have you talked to her about this, what you’ve been doing?
No.
She doesn’t know anything about it? How you two were wearing her dresses?
No.
Jesus Christ. He looked at Frank, watching his face. What am I supposed to do about this?
Leave me alone.
Leave you alone.
Please.
Dad stared at him. Christ, he said. What are you anyway?
I’m just your boy. That’s all I am.
Dad grabbed him and shook him, hauling him around in the cold air, they staggered in and out of the bars of light fallen across the floor, and then Dad stopped shaking him and grabbed the bridle reins and whipped at him. Frank pulled away, and in his wildness Dad whipped him once across the face and then he suddenly threw the reins away and grabbed the boy, holding him in his arms, hugging him and sobbing. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
Frank held himself rigid in his father’s arms and finally Dad let him go, then Dad hurried out of the barn, stumbling across to the house into the bathroom and was sick and then went back to the bedroom, his head aching and throbbing now. When he was lying in bed he turned his head and looked out the window. The sun was going down. His eyes welled up and he straightened his head on the pillow and folded his arm over his face in the darkening room.
After a while he heard Frank enter the house and climb the stairs to the second floor. He could hear him in his sister’s room where he must have been hanging up the two dresses in the closet, and putting away her underwear, then he heard him cross the hall to his own bedroom and he thought he could hear the bed as he lay down, and he thought he must be touching at his cheek now, fingering where the welt was.
At suppertime Mary stood beside the bed in the dark downstairs bedroom. Are you awake, dear?
I’m awake.
Can you get up for supper?
I don’t want anything.
You don’t sound good. Are you all right?
He nodded slightly.
Okay then. But you seem sicker than you did this morning. Call me if you need something.
In the kitchen she sat down with Lorraine and Frank and she noticed his face immediately.
Honey, what happened to you?
I ran into a post in the barn.
It must hurt. You need something on it. Let me look at it.
He pulled away. Leave it alone, Mom. Never mind.
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