If You Want Me to Stay by Michael Parker

Tank.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œFor getting her to tell us.”
    â€œShe would of told you,” he said.
    So sweetly trusting dumb. I thought, I can’t leave him, but I also thought, Neither can I keep him.
    Bottomsail Beach was only forty-five miles away, but I had not a clue how to get there. I’d never driven farther than Moody Loop. I’d never driven in town and I’d never driven after dark. Cars had their lights on and the night eyes of catsblinked up from the ditches. I drove with my hands tight on the wheel to the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, where I parked behind the Dumpsters.
    â€œWhat are we doing?” asked Tank. “I don’t have to go.”
    I reached past him, slapped open the glove compartment, fished out a worn map. Daddy loved a map. He would spread them out on his lap and read them like some men read the classifieds. This one had routes inked along the spindly roads of the coastal plain, which was filled with big blue ovals signaling lakes and wavy marks telling you where the swamps were. Because of all the water you had to go around your thumb to get to your ass down here, Daddy used to say. But it struck me, looking at the map, trying to find some backroads to Bottomsail which would not be crawling with cops and would not be hard to navigate in the blackness, that he was always going around his thumb to get to his ass because some voice in his head said turn left or right or turn around and go home or lie down in the hammock and sing “Superstition” by Little Stevie Wonder or whatever it was the voices told him to do.
    I thought about asking Tank to help me navigate but when I looked at him he was sneaking his hands up and down the seat cushions in search of some stray Ruffles. He’d chugged his whole bottle of Coke. He’d be up all night, peeing. Which reminded me, he needed some underpants. It was too much. I made him a peanut butter sandwich by the streetlight, ripped off the crust like he liked. I rationed him a sip of my Coke for every fifty chews. Counting would keep him busy.I could not have that boy chattering and filing his wild blue yonder supremely unanswerable questions when I was trying to negotiate the strange dark countryside.
    On the road I started singing “Mr. Big Stuff.”
    â€œWho do you think you are?” I sang to myself driving my daddy’s truck down the nighttime streets.
    â€œDaddy sings that song,” said Tank.
    â€œI know. He taught me it.”
    â€œWonder what they’re doing now.”
    I started to make something up. It seemed like that was my job, to tell reassuring lies. But Tank was worth more than a Band-Aid lie. Plus he was too smart for it. He’d come right back at me if I was to put him off with a patch.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    â€œI bet Daddy made Carter sweep up all that hair.”
    â€œI bet so.”
    We were only five miles out of town. The shoulders of the road steamed. Tank’s innocent blather cut through me like the headlights diced the swamp-foggy dusk. I could have turned back. I could have done the right thing, by law at least.
    But I looked over and caught Tank sneaking sips of my Coke. The right thing by law of the truck was to belt his sneaky ass.
    Tank sat there pouting after I popped him. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t sing. I could have switched on the radio but I did not need the distraction. He slumped there chewing his peanut butter sandwich. Finally he fell asleep against the door. We passed through Chinquapin and Holly Springsand crossed 17 and reached the big ribbed bridge over the sound. The tires of the truck sang loudly and the body shimmied and I held on terrified to the wheel. From the highest hump of the bridge I saw all the island lit up with night lights, the motels with their neon signs, the fishing piers strung out into the black old ocean, a Ferris wheel spinning. I slapped Tank on the shoulder. He made his