Part 22 (1/2)

25.

I sat in back and nursed Jesus. Has a nice ring, doesn't it? I sat in back and nursed Jesus. I'd never thought about naming a bottle Jesus until I told the skin-headed tripper I was the Virgin Mary. Spanish people name each other Jesus all the time, although they p.r.o.nounce it ”Hey-soos,” but for some reason you never hear of English speakers named Jesus. Maybe he's off limits to white guys.

Whatever, Jesus and I were in back with Marcella and the kids because I was drinking and would soon sleep, and Shane was in front because he had a cough. He pretended he didn't, of course-”Must be an allergy. I have an allergy to c.u.min that manifests in the lungs, and, no doubt, the chili was spiced with c.u.min”-but the truth was old Shane looked a bit peaked. The head twitches had taken on a rhythmic pattern. I'd have been concerned if he hadn't called me little missy when I helped him in the pa.s.senger's door.

”I need no a.s.sistance, little missy,” he said, then he pulled a harmonica from somewhere and went into ”Hey, Joe.”

”Don't sit on my Etch-A-Sketch, little missy,” Andrew snapped, and I almost nailed him with Jesus.

I hadn't seen his Etch-A-Sketch. A person could have hidden a small pony in the back of Moby d.i.c.k and I wouldn't have seen it. Up to the Comanche exit scene, I'd managed to avoid any close looks at the d.i.c.k's cargo section, but now I had to notice a few things just to find a stretching-out spot.

Shane's chair was folded against the back of the driver's seat next to his built-in perch. Marcella had created a kind of family nest from blankets, clothes, sleeping bags, cookie packages, and magazines with their covers torn off. She'd even rigged an orange-crate crib lined in socks and Jockey shorts for Hugo Jr., who lay on his back staring up at a Snap-On socket wrench calendar featuring a b.r.e.a.s.t.s-and-a.s.s floozie in a cleavage-stretcher top, shrink-wrapped hot pants, and painted fingernails caressing a socket wrench the way I used to caress Charley.

”What'd you do with my pistol?” I called up front.

”I've never seen your pistol in my life,” Shane called back.

”If I find him in your stuff, I'll shoot you.”

”Little lady, if that dratted cannon is in my possession, you have my permission to gun me down.”

”Thief.”

”Harlot.”

I propped myself next to the side doors against a hundred-pound bag of bad potatoes. They had erupted eyes and these white tentacle things that would cause me trouble if I ever DT'ed. From the spud sack to the back window was like an avalanche had swept through Lloyd's Salvage City. Fan belts, hub caps, clamps, more blankets, more slick-to-bald tires, piles of National Geographies, Guideposts, Max Brand and Ian Fleming novels, an empty gerbil cage, loads of clothes-why would two men who appeared to wear the same outfits every day need a thrift store wardrobe? From deep in the pile came the pet.i.te mew of the unnamed kitty.

Andrew screeched, ”Don't look!”

Of course, I looked. Marcella was pulling a jammie top down over his upstretched arms and head, while his bottom half was little boy naked. White f.a.n.n.y, remarkably skinny legs, dirty feet-I felt a pang for my Auburn. Who pulled on his Hopalong Ca.s.sidy jammies now and tucked him in and said Lay-me-down-to-sleep for him until he was old enough to say it himself? Dothan sure as heck wouldn't stoop to mother work, and I couldn't stand the feeling of Sugar Cannelioski touching my son.

The best of all bad possibilities would be Dothan's mother. At least she'd give him a bath. They'd all three be telling Auburn what a sick, sc.u.m-sucking Yankee his mother was. If I never saw my baby again, the Talbot family would probably invent a story where I died. Probably in a car wreck. Car wreck is the story most people make up when they create a death myth.

”Read to me,” Andrew demanded.

”Mrs. Talbot is cultured. She doesn't have time to read,” Marcella said. ”I'll read your bedtime story.”

”No. I want Maurey.”

He stood in his red cotton pajamas with black oil derricks pointing every which way, clutching a Golden Book. I'd been raised on Golden Books. Sam Callahan and Shannon had both been raised on Golden Books. If I didn't pull my act together and get back there to save him, Auburn would probably never know the smell when you first crack open a brand-new Golden Book. Dothan would raise him to converse fluently on cubic inches of truck engines and the Boone and Crockett point system for rating trophy heads.

I said, ”I'll read him the story. I used to read stories to my children.”

Andrew's face puckered in disbelief. ”You have children?”

”A girl and a boy.”

”Are they dead?”

I held the book in my left hand and Jesus in my right with Andrew snuggled on my lap in between. He smelled clean, like children do even when they're dirty.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs-not my favorite selection. It encourages pa.s.sivity until a man comes along to save you, and I think Dopey is a caricature of a kid with Down's syndrome. I wouldn't let Shannon read it back when I had some control.

The cover showed a flat-faced girl surrounded by seven midgets holding hands in a circle. They all had bulb noses like Shane and plucked eyebrows.

”'Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a lovely Queen sat by her window sewing,'” I read.

Andrew s.h.i.+fted against my left breast and popped his thumb in his mouth. Page one was about a woman dying in childbirth. On page two the King gets lonely and marries the biggest b.i.t.c.h in literary history. Why was he lonely? He had Snow White. Men always want more than loving daughters, they want b.i.t.c.h women to nail.

And where was dear old Dad later when the Queen s.h.i.+pped Snow White off to scrub floors in the bas.e.m.e.nt?

Mirror, mirror on the wall Who is fairest of us all?

”'If the mirror replied that she was fairest, all was well. But if another lady was named, the Queen flew into a furious rage and had her killed.'”

Andrew's thumb came out of his mouth. ”How did the Queen kill the other lady?”

”Crucifixion.”

”Like baby Jesus?”

”She made them go swimming during their periods and they died of shame.”

Marcella gave me a look, but Andrew seemed satisfied. He either knew the implications of swimming during your period in the olden days, or he didn't care.

I read, ”As the Queen was a dog, soon the kingdom had a shortage of women.”

”That's not the right way it goes.”

”This is the way I'm reading it.”

He slapped the book, right on the Queen's mirror. ”Do it right. The story goes one way.”

Marcella looked over from her baby maintenance. ”Andrew has all the books memorized, you can't change a word.”

”Then why read to him?”

She looked at me funny. ”I thought you had children.”

Put me in my place. I took a sip of Jesus and read the right way. ”'As the years pa.s.sed, Snow White grew more and more beautiful, and her sweet nature made everyone love her-everyone but the Queen.'”