Shame by Greg Garrett Page A

ear.
    â€œI know,” I said again, although by that point I didn’t really know anything except my fingertips moving across her body and my lips meeting hers and my body rising to greet hers and a lot of sweet movement, noise, and sensation.
    Maybe there was something to the idea after all, no matter where it came from.
    The next time I saw Bobby Ray, a few mornings later at coffee, I threw in the towel, threw up my hands, threw out the baby with the bathwater: “Why don’t you call Bill Cobb and officially accept his offer to send us some money?” I said, although before I’d uttered the last word he was shaking his head.
    â€œYou’re the coach, you made the contact, you’re going to have to make the arrangements. Besides, I’ve never liked the son of a gun.”
    â€œOh, and I do, right?”
    But I said I’d do it.
    That night, while the family watched Murphy Brown in the living room, I, with pulse racing—have I mentioned that I can’t abide the telephone?—dialed the number on our old rotary phone, the line crackling with the background noise common to rural connections. My heart began to speed up as the first ring burred through the miles between us, and then the second. My finger tapped at the cradle, and I wanted to hang up, but I let it ring a third time, a fourth, and then there was a click and a tinny version of Bill’s voice, strange and almost funny without the deep baritone, crackled into my ear.
    â€œYou’ve reached the Cobbs. We’re unable to come to the phone right now, but if you have business with us, please leave your name and number—”
    Business. No thanks. I hung up before the message concluded.
    â€œAny luck?” Michelle swung around the corner to check the refrigerator.
    â€œNada,” I said. “Nobody home. Hey, how was school today?”
    She turned and gave me a floodlit smile. “Wonderful. The seniors are getting ready to start bringing in their music. I played ‘Tomorrow’s World’ and talked about what I want them to do with their reports.” “Tomorrow’s World” was a song by Joe Jackson, one of the only songs about the future, Michelle said, that saw it as something worth looking forward to. “I still get choked up when I listen to it.”
    Her enthusiasm was always contagious, at least for me. “Do the kids get choked up?”
    She scarfed a carrot out of the crisper. “Who cares?” she said as she exited, the commercial break timed to perfection. Michelle’s classroom philosophy was that, as long as mama was happy, the rest would follow, and she was generally right.
    As she got settled back in front of the television, I could hear laughter—Michelle, B. W., Lauren, and a simulated studio audience. The din from down the hall, the direction of Michael’s room, was Guns ‘n’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction. I guess all of us have a golden age, and for Michael, maybe it was 1987; maybe this music reminded him of better times.
    Maybe, or maybe it reminded him of satanic rituals. Lately Michael’s behavior was making me believe in the possibility of demonic possession.
    I toyed with the idea of going in to tell him to turn it down, but I’d heard it louder, and it seemed wise to save such an interruption for something more serious, since the “while you’re under my roof, young man” gig was never one I played very well. It must be God’s judgment on rebellious children that they almost always become the parents of even more rebellious children.
    So I closed the door in the hallway, walked back to the living room, poked the fire, settled into my chair, and picked up Scott Turow’s Pleading Guilty where I’d left off.
    Practice the next day got off to a slow start. The kids had been hearing rumors about some kind of exhibition game over Christmas, and they had a zillion questions.
    â€œSo we gonna