“I said get the fuck out of here,” Russell said.
“That ain’t exactly what you said,” Walt said.
“You look like a fag with that beard,” Larry said. “Don’t he, Walt?”
“Mostly.”
“Put the picture down.”
Larry dropped the frame on the floor and smashed it with his heel. Walt turned up the bottle and finished the beer and then he threw it at Russell but he was wild right and Russell didn’t flinch as the bottle smashed on the wall behind him. He stuck the pamphlet in his back pocket.
“Our boy has a shotgun,” Larry said.
“That ain’t fair,” Walt said.
“For now.”
“They do make more than one.”
“Where’d you get that?” Larry said. “Part of your package when they showed you the door? Or Daddy give it to you?”
“I’m gonna count to three and then one of you is gonna lose a foot,” Russell said. He put the shotgun against his shoulder and aimed at Larry’s feet.
“Fine,” Larry said. “Come on, Walt. Guess we gonna have to come back tomorrow.”
“One,” Russell said.
“Where’s your girl? The one you left the Armadillo with?”
“Two.”
“See? We’re watching you, boy,” Larry said. “Know where you are. Who you with.”
Walt grabbed Larry’s arm and pulled him on, his eyes a little wider than Larry’s at the sight of the gun. They moved away from the mantel and in front of the couch and toward the front door. Russell circled around them. Walt walked out first and Larry stopped in the doorway.
“You’d better keep that thing close.”
Larry stepped out the door and Russell held the gun pointed at the open door until the truck was cranked and gone. When he was sure he leaned the gun in the corner and he walked outside and down the street to his truck. He pulled it under the carport and he went inside and picked up the pieces of wood and glass from the frame. And then he took Sarah’s picture and he ripped it twice and he walked into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. Looked at himself in the mirror. The gray hints in the beard. The scar. The eyes that seemed to belong to a stranger.
He glared and was quickly impatient with the image and he headbutted himself and the mirror shattered and cut a gash in his forehead. He felt the blood run down the tip of his nose and across his lips and he leaned his head over the sink and let it drip among the shattered shards of mirror. He held his fingers to the gash and pulled a tiny piece of mirror from it. Then he wadded up some toilet paper and held it on the cut while he went to the truck and drove down to the all-night gas station where he bought Band-Aids. He sat in the truck and wiped the gash clean and covered it with a Band-Aid and then he went back inside and bought a pocket-size notebook and a pack of pens. The eastern sky had begun to change color and the sun would soon be on the horizon but he wasn’t going to stop now.
Back down to Magnolia. He felt the bruises from the fight and a lag from the booze. He drove fast and hoped that the dawn would wait until he did what he had to do. In ten minutes he was idling in front of Sarah’s house. He sat and stared and watched for lights. For movement. When he was certain the house was still he scribbled a note on the small notebook paper. He got out and hustled to the front door and slid it through the brass mail slot on the antique door. Then he got in the truck and left and regretted dropping the note through the slot but it was done now.
On one side he wrote his address.
On the other—Right or wrong I wanted to let you know I was back. Russell.
He drove back to the house and he walked into the bedroom and lay down on top of the covers with his clothes on. Just ahead of the rising sun. The shotgun next to him like a good friend. The bus ride and the fishing and the woman and the beer and the brothers all bunching together and taking over and pushing him to sleep though he hated the thought of closing his eyes. Knowing that the world still had him by the throat.
19
AT DAYBREAK MABEN WOKE ANNALEE AND TOLD HER TO GET dressed. Hours gone now. Enough time for the body to be taken away and examined. Enough time for men in uniforms to have combed the cruiser and the roadside. Enough time for word to have spread. Annalee asked why are we leaving and Maben said because we got to go and the girl moaned at walking again. Get up I said. We don’t have time for this.
When they were dressed Maben put the few remaining bills in her pocket and said I’ll be right back. She walked over to the café and stopped at the cash register. The same waitress from yesterday came over and said I bet you slept good.