Why Dogs Chase Cars by George Singleton Page B

marker; that he told me over and over how his wife ran off to Nashville to become another Patsy Cline who wanted to croon in a way that would make men and women alike break down; that he hired some mysterious woman to call me up periodically on the telephone—or send sporadic birthday, Valentine’s Day,and Christmas cards—to say how much she missed me.
    I said, “You haven’t been to Charlotte. You’ve been to Gruel’s All-U-Can-Eat BBQ.” I said, “I know how you killed Mom and buried her over by Mr. Ebo’s farm.”
    To our left, at the end of the bar, Dunny Dunlap urged the pinball machine from his wheelchair. His father stood behind him, feet pressed hard against the wheels so his son wouldn’t roll backwards. The boy would graduate with my class, even though he only got to go to school because his rich Forty-Five National Bank–owning father had paid off the school superintendent somewhere down the line. Dunny’s IQ couldn’t have been much more than those of any of the feral dogs I’d ever encountered, but all of us knew that he’d end up running that bank once his father died off. Dunny performed with the high-school marching band, in his own way. The back of his wheelchair had been designed to hold a snare drum, and Nelson Townes paradiddled away in the rear, while shoving Dunny through the routines—the band members just had to stand together, start an off-key song, then walk to their spots to make a big 45 in the middle of the football field. Because our football team always lost, and because no girl from Forty-Five High would ever date either of us, Comp Lane and I usually sat in the short wooden stands on the visitors’ side, hoping to make time with girls from Greenville, Aiken, McCormick, Ninety Six, Batesburg, Laurens, or Clinton. During the halftime show, from our vantage point, our band looked like it was spellingout S4, which seemed appropriate.
    My father said, “Boy, I hope you think you’re only dreaming. Pain doesn’t hurt as much in dreams.”
    Mr. Lane got up and walked to the men’s room. I said, “Shirley Ebo took me to the graveyard, and I saw that jug you put down for Mom’s tombstone, and I saw all the buttons on it from that picture.”
    My father’s eyes looked exactly like those of the copperheads I’d seen before in the woods. He had his head turned funny, and I could tell that he had sobered immediately. He said, “You stupid son of a bitch.”
    I said, “I saw what I saw,” threw back my bourbon shot, and proceeded to cough it right back out. My father hit my back until I quit. “I saw what I saw, and then I figured out what I figured out.”
    Dunny Dunlap yelled out, “Neeee! Neeee! Neeee!” His father looked at the machine’s back glass and tapped his son’s head over and over.
    My father looked at Mr. Red Edwards and nodded once. I drank half of my beer, cleared my throat, and coughed for five more minutes. “Is Shirley Ebo your girlfriend, Mendal?”
    I said, “No sir. No.”
    â€œIs Shirley your friend, like her papa’s my friend?”
    I didn’t get where he was going. “I guess.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    Comp’s father returned and said, “There’s a good onewritten in the bathroom now. Someone wrote, ‘I’d rather have a beer than a lobotomy.’ No, that’s not right. It went something like that. It’s funny. Some them college boys must’ve come in here recently.”
    My father grabbed my forearm so I couldn’t leave. He said to Mr. Lane, “I’m glad you’re back. You remember when you took that pottery class up in Greenville, and you gave me that big old jug you made with the handle on it?”
    â€œUh-huh,” Mr. Lane said. “Why are y’all making fun of me?” He spoke quietly and measured his words out. His eyes sliced