agitated crackle of static on the TV. It wasn’t quite snow. There was some kind of image buried in it. Silent, fuzzy figures moved like shadows behind a curtain of noise.
Her voice was a decibel above a whisper, and she looked like she was conscious of being watched as she said:
“He raped me.”
After he’d calmed down enough and the baby had quit crying and had gone back to sleep, Kelly sat down with her on the couch.
They sat there together, watching the figures moving behind the static on the TV, not saying anything, Gabriel asleep on Maggie’s lap. Kelly tried to hold her hand, but she didn’t want him to. He tried to put his arm around her, but she flinched, she didn’t want to be touched at all.
At a quarter to seven they heard the dogs barking outside.
Jackson Reno had pulled his car up on the gravel outside, and they heard him sink his palm into the horn of his green Chrysler LeBaron three times, probably guessing that Kelly had fallen asleep. Kelly had to go to work.
• • •
Fred wet the seam of the joint he’d just rolled, double-sealed it with an index finger, and presented it to Lana.
“This,” he said, holding it the way one would hold up an interesting archaeological artifact for schoolchildren to see, “is a joint rolled with the inveterate craftsmanship of a dude who lived through the sixties.”
Lana smiled and accepted it, almost over-casually, Fred thought, like not making too big a deal about this new illicit wickedness between them, as if to say there was nothing wrong with sharing an illegal marijuana cigarette such as this with her uncle, though it was obvious the wrongness of it thrilled her.
“Do not, I repeat, do not, tell your mother about what we’re gonna do here,” he said. “She wouldn’t get it. This is not porn—this is art. I don’t think she would get it. I don’t think she would understand the difference.”
“What is the difference between pornography and art, Fred?”
“That’s a time-old question of aesthetics and the answer has to do with your, uh, philosophical outlook, but what I say to that question is very little actually when it comes down to it. But still. Bottom line, don’t tell your mother.”
“Yeah, no duh,” said Lana. “She wouldn’t get it.”
They were sitting at Fred’s kitchen table under a jittery fluorescent tube full of dead bugs, looking at books of nude photography. Fred had just dropped the needle on an album of Alan Lomax field recordings; the antique recording warbled and crackled with static, and Lead Belly sang:
Brady, Brady, Brady, you know you done wrong
busting in the room when the game was going on
Lana extended her neck out with the joint between her lips and Fred lit it for her with the feeble blue sputter of a Zippo that was running out of fuel, clacked it shut with his thumb, and set it on the table. This is what was on the table: the lighter; some empty beer bottles; two orange Fiestaware plates, on which were forks, knives, and crumbs of toasted hot dog buns and spaghetti; a brown glass ashtray Fred had stolen from a Best Western in Utah, containing the ashes and butts of the cigarettes they’d smoked; several books of art photography they’d been looking at together; some matte prints and proof sheets of Fred’s own photographs. The table itself Fred had made out of tree stumps and a slab of concrete he had painted pink and decorated with Mexican Talavera tiles. Every spring he hauled the bastard thing out to the sidewalk art fairs in Denver, Boulder, Aspen, Durango, Santa Fe, Taos—along with his paintings, framed prints of his art photographs, and the other unwieldy pieces of furniture he’d made and painted with kaleidoscopic patterns, turquoise, green, neon pink, diamonds, suns, crescent moons, lizards, cacti, jaguars, dog-headed snakes, Aztec gods—and he would sit under his designated tent in a lawn chair with a cigarette and a beer and an ice-cream cone and hope for customers, and if
Her voice was a decibel above a whisper, and she looked like she was conscious of being watched as she said:
“He raped me.”
After he’d calmed down enough and the baby had quit crying and had gone back to sleep, Kelly sat down with her on the couch.
They sat there together, watching the figures moving behind the static on the TV, not saying anything, Gabriel asleep on Maggie’s lap. Kelly tried to hold her hand, but she didn’t want him to. He tried to put his arm around her, but she flinched, she didn’t want to be touched at all.
At a quarter to seven they heard the dogs barking outside.
Jackson Reno had pulled his car up on the gravel outside, and they heard him sink his palm into the horn of his green Chrysler LeBaron three times, probably guessing that Kelly had fallen asleep. Kelly had to go to work.
• • •
Fred wet the seam of the joint he’d just rolled, double-sealed it with an index finger, and presented it to Lana.
“This,” he said, holding it the way one would hold up an interesting archaeological artifact for schoolchildren to see, “is a joint rolled with the inveterate craftsmanship of a dude who lived through the sixties.”
Lana smiled and accepted it, almost over-casually, Fred thought, like not making too big a deal about this new illicit wickedness between them, as if to say there was nothing wrong with sharing an illegal marijuana cigarette such as this with her uncle, though it was obvious the wrongness of it thrilled her.
“Do not, I repeat, do not, tell your mother about what we’re gonna do here,” he said. “She wouldn’t get it. This is not porn—this is art. I don’t think she would get it. I don’t think she would understand the difference.”
“What is the difference between pornography and art, Fred?”
“That’s a time-old question of aesthetics and the answer has to do with your, uh, philosophical outlook, but what I say to that question is very little actually when it comes down to it. But still. Bottom line, don’t tell your mother.”
“Yeah, no duh,” said Lana. “She wouldn’t get it.”
They were sitting at Fred’s kitchen table under a jittery fluorescent tube full of dead bugs, looking at books of nude photography. Fred had just dropped the needle on an album of Alan Lomax field recordings; the antique recording warbled and crackled with static, and Lead Belly sang:
Brady, Brady, Brady, you know you done wrong
busting in the room when the game was going on
Lana extended her neck out with the joint between her lips and Fred lit it for her with the feeble blue sputter of a Zippo that was running out of fuel, clacked it shut with his thumb, and set it on the table. This is what was on the table: the lighter; some empty beer bottles; two orange Fiestaware plates, on which were forks, knives, and crumbs of toasted hot dog buns and spaghetti; a brown glass ashtray Fred had stolen from a Best Western in Utah, containing the ashes and butts of the cigarettes they’d smoked; several books of art photography they’d been looking at together; some matte prints and proof sheets of Fred’s own photographs. The table itself Fred had made out of tree stumps and a slab of concrete he had painted pink and decorated with Mexican Talavera tiles. Every spring he hauled the bastard thing out to the sidewalk art fairs in Denver, Boulder, Aspen, Durango, Santa Fe, Taos—along with his paintings, framed prints of his art photographs, and the other unwieldy pieces of furniture he’d made and painted with kaleidoscopic patterns, turquoise, green, neon pink, diamonds, suns, crescent moons, lizards, cacti, jaguars, dog-headed snakes, Aztec gods—and he would sit under his designated tent in a lawn chair with a cigarette and a beer and an ice-cream cone and hope for customers, and if
Similar Books
