Joe Lansdale - Waltz of Shadows

He thought about that a moment, fingered his chew out of his cheek and flicked it onto the ground and yelled at his dog. “Butch! Git under the goddamn house!”

Butch didn’t get under the goddamn house. He proved to be no better behaved than my children. He kept barking and jumping and flicking slobber on my window.

“Goddamnit,” Arnold said, coming down to the bottom step. “Git on back here. Butch! Git on back!”

Butch quit rearing up on the truck and throwing saliva. He growled and barked a time or two, and finally got under the house. He didn’t do it happily. He stuck his head out of the opening and barked some more dog words at me and Arnold slammed the palm of his hand against the double-wide and yelled, “Git on!”

Butch went silent.

Arnold lifted a hand and waved me toward him. “Well, come on.”

I got out of the truck carefully and walked toward the house. Arnold said, “You look older.”

“You look older too.”

The wind picked up and the bottle trees hooted. I turned and looked at the tree, then back to Arnold.

“Don’t pay that no mind,” he said. “Come on in.”

Inside the trailer was a mixture of what I expected, and a lot of what I didn’t expect. It was fairly neat, with old furniture that hadn’t come with the joint, and there was a new TV on the far side of the living room wall. Against another section of wall hung a huge black velvet cloth painting of Elvis holding a microphone to his mouth. There was a tacky silver tear dripping out of one of his eyes. Next to Elvis was a cheap particleboard bookcase. It was full of paperback books. I could see a few of the titles, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen to Go, Zen and the Art of Archery, a fistful of Western and detective novels, most of which looked pretty old.

“I got some photographs of the place, you want ’em,” Arnold said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Just haven’t been here in a while.”

“Let’s see,” Arnold said. “You were here once before. About ten years ago, give or take a month or six. As I remember, last time you stopped by was a few days after Billy’s mother died. What the hell was her name, anyway?”

“Fran.”

“That sounds right. I had quite a bit of hooch that day, puked on one of our cousins. Let’s see. After the funeral I came back here and was moving a new chair inside when you came up. That right?”

“I don’t recall exactly.”

And I didn’t. I thought the funeral had been the last time I had seen him, but now it came back to me. I had totally blotted that event out, probably due to its awkwardness.

“Well,” Arnold said, “as I recall, you were here maybe thirty seconds. Told me you were sorry about Billy’s mom, and I said I was sorry about her too, though I didn’t know her from dick and you said, I got to go, and I believe that was about it.”

“You were pretty drunk, Arnold.”

“You did help me get the chair inside. Right inside the door, anyway. I pushed it from there. I don’t have that chair anymore. Some mice took up inside it and I had to burn it. I let the mice loose first. I’ll poison the little bastards, but I won’t burn them.”

“Arnold, I don’t know what to say.”

“What’s to say about mice?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Arnold went over and got behind the counter and sat on a bar stool. He put his big hands flat on the bar in front of him, and after a moment they crawled together. “Now you’re here, maybe it doesn’t mean a thing you’ve finally come around. I get this urge like I want to beat your ass, or hug you. I don’t know. I figure you’re here ’cause of something doesn’t have anything to do with me. I figure it has to do with you. You were always good for you.”

“That’s not true, Arnold.”

“In my case it’s true.”

“All right,” I said, “in your case it’s true. At least one time it was true.”

“That was one big time, little brother. Listen here. I’m going to do a little fishing. I was putting on some warm stuff when you came up. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m still gonna do a little fishing. I’ve planned it all week. Just an hour or two, but I’m gonna do it. I go back to work tomorrow wrecking out a car for parts a fella needs, and I want to feel like I did what I told myself I’d do. I’m trying to do more for myself these days. I read about that in some books.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“You want to talk about something, you can go wityoun="h me to the pond, go out in the boat, and we can sit and fish and talk. That’s unless you just come over for another thirty seconds, thinking I might need to move another chair.”

“I came to talk.”

“I warn you, you’re gonna talk to me about something, I got something I’m gonna talk to you about, and you know what, so get yourself ready, or go on out of here and come back in another ten years. I’m not trying to be a bad ass here, I’m just saying how it is. If I’m gonna open this can of worms for us to chew on, I want to be sure you’re ready to digest them.”

His voice was very calm, thoughtful, not the way I remembered him at all, when everything that came out of his mouth seemed to be announced with a trumpet.

“All right,” I said. “I owe you that, and maybe I’ve got some things to say about that, too.”

He got his coffee pot and the fixings and put coffee on. He got a couple bottles of nonalcoholic beer out of the fridge and gave one to me and twisted the cap off the other for himself.

“I don’t drink the real stuff much anymore,” he said, swigging. “I get fat enough, way I eat. I switched over to this, I started losing a few pounds. I quit getting in fights too.”

“I prefer this,” I said. “I never drink to get drunk, even when I do drink a beer. Fact is, since that night, I’ve never been drunk again.”

He didn’t say anything. I thought it was an opening he’d take. I lifted the bottle and drank so I could hide some of my face from him.

“Coffee’ll be finished time I get dressed,” he said. He set his bottle on the counter and went into the bedroom, and after a few minutes came back. He was wearing jeans over his love handles, and had on high rubber boots and a thick coat, like the one I had in my truck.

“By the way,” he said, “that Elvis thing behind you there. I got to let you know, I think that’s a piece of shit. Gal that was living with me put it up there and I never took it down.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

“Couple of years,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “me too. I think she did for me what your mother did for Dad. Before I met her, I just thought I was a man. But I guess some of my learning came a little late.”

I didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so I changed the subject. “You use the cabin a lot?”

“Hardly go out there,” Arnold said. “Used to quite a bit. Not these days. I keep the electric paid up, but I’m not sure why… Before you come up with more small talk, come on and help me with my gear.”

Arnold got a thermos and an extra plastic cup and poured the coffee into the thermos, and we went out into the cold.

Arnold walked out back and I went to my truck. I took off my coat and youn=: pagebreaput on my Dad’s coat, joined up with him behind the double-wide.

I watched him gather his gear: a tackle box and a couple of stout rods off the carport, and a bucket of something out from under a tarp. A smell came from the bucket that made me think of highway kill.

Arnold gave me the bucket and a rod and reel to carry, and he got the rest of the stuff, and we started off walking toward the creek.