If You Want Me to Stay by Michael Parker Page B

him up under pretense of letting him see better the big silver beautiful fishbut what it was, I wanted to hold him tight. Which I did until he went to squirming and saying, Put me down, put me down.
    At which point I was ready to smack him again.
    Just as quickly I’d want to hug him. It was just that way with Tank, or maybe that’s how it was with me and most everybody. I wanted to leave them sometimes, just go off by myself and sit and listen to whatever it was in my head, mouth the words, hum the guitar solo, but I knew how awful I was at love, I knew I’d have to just suffer through the sticky parts rather than go off by myself. It was just that other people could turn so suddenly into something like that memory that needles you out of bed in the middle of the night—say you think you might of left the toaster oven on—even when you know you turned it off and unplugged it. They aggravate you for no good reason. Take Carter. He had this way of getting away with me with just a look or a not-look, just by drumming the table when me and Tank were watching
Soul Train
or lying to Tank about something I would have lied to him about myself. People just get to me. Because I guess I let them. I sometimes envied my daddy a little when he went off, because it seemed he was at the least safe, wasn’t anyone going to bother him, he was off by himself someplace nobody else could get to. Then there was my mama; she didn’t even have to be like my daddy to wall herself off from everyone. I wondered how did it happen, coming from the likes of them and turning out like I turned.
    The magic caster took an interest in Tank. He was nice to me because I was with Tank which was often the case when I was with Tank.
    â€œWho you boys out here with?” he said after we’d stood there an hour watching his magic.
    â€œNobuddy,” said Tank. He jerked his thumb at me. “Just him and me.”
    I kneed him to get him to shut up, let me do the talking, but Tank did not listen to my knee.
    â€œWhere’s y’alls mama and daddy at?”
    â€œMy mama’s gone off we don’t know where to and my daddy’s—”
    â€œWe’re down here staying with my older sister,” I said. “She works over at the Breezeby.”
    I had worked over close enough to Tank to grab the excess of his wind-billowed work shirt and tighten and yank it to get him to look at me. I shushed him. Fortunately the magic caster had his eyes on his lines the whole time he was talking to us. Tank nodded as he liked anything conspiratorial, even when he didn’t understand it. To him it was like hide-and-seek.
    â€œShe working right now?”
    â€œShe’s with her boyfriend.”
    â€œTold y’all take a walk?”
    â€œIt’s not but one room,” I said.
    â€œY’all had anything to eat?”
    â€œWe’re good,” I said.
    â€œI’m not, I’m about starving,” said Tank. That was the thing about hide-and-seek, it never lasted very long.
    â€œYou know how to tell if a fish is biting?” the pier fisherman asked me.
    â€œYes, sir,” I lied.
    â€œWatch my poles while I run inside then.”
    Thankfully nothing bit until magic caster returned with bags of chips, sausage biscuits, and corn dogs. For dessert he had bought orange pushups which by the time we got to them dripped all over Larry from Merita and Mario from Johnson Distributing. He said he was going to stay out there all night long and when I said my sister told us not to come home he asked us to watch the poles again and went to his truck and got us some sleeping bags. I was a little worried Tank would roll off into the ocean—I’d spent many a night with him in our bed at home when he got scared and came and climbed in with me and I knew what a roller he was—but the magic caster must have sensed my worry as he said he’d be right there with us, if he had to go to the