Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

Barry spun around. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“I knocked.”

“Anyway you’re late. It was supposed to be ten.”

Roy remembered that Barry was from Boston or somewhere. He had a way of talking that Roy didn’t like.

“You’re the electric guy, right?” said Barry.

Roy put a few things together: Ms. Steinwasser’s calls from the school, the blinking message light, Barry here the whole time, not picking up. Barry says I can call him Daddy too.

“I’m Rhett’s father,” Roy said.

Barry squinted at him. “So you are.” He hunched forward a little; his hands crossed over his groin. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Where’s Marcia?”

“Momentito there, amigo. I asked the first question.” He rose, a flabby guy but big, much bigger than Roy, and confident even in his underwear. “Or maybe you’re forgetting this is my house you barged into.”

“I’m not forgetting anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barry came closer.

Roy said an ugly thing. It just popped out, popped out of some pit of weird and angry confusion inside him. “Your tits are bigger than hers,” he said. He regretted it at once. To cheapen Marcia like that, to mix her up with this guy in a physical way, was sickening.

Barry reddened, but just from the neck up. The rest of him went even paler. Roy knew this was crazy, two grown men moving toward violence. He knew that, but deep inside him a voice that sounded like his, but rawer, was saying: Take a swing at me. His lungs suddenly filled with oxygen, rich and potent.

Moving toward violence, with Rhett in the house. Wouldn’t there be something very wrong with a father like that? Inside him, the raw voice went silent.

At the same time Barry’s computer beeped. “You’re going to regret this very much,” said Barry. “Trust me. Do I have to tell you what Marcia will say when she gets home from the hospital?”

“Hospital?”

Barry turned back to the computer.

“What’s she doing in the hospital?”

On the computer screen, something happened that Barry didn’t like. He banged his fist on the desk.

“Is something wrong with her?” Roy said.

“Time’s up,” said Barry.

“What are you talking about?”

Barry’s eyes were on the screen. “Can’t you see I’ve got a play going here?”

“Play?”

Barry shot him a glance, so brief Roy almost missed the strange look on his face, almost triumphant. “I’m shorting Yahoo,” he said. “There’s a freebie you don’t deserve.”

Roy backed out of the room. The last thing he saw was the king-size bed. Mixing Marcia with this guy in a physical way: maybe the dumbest thought he’d ever had. How much more mixed could they be? They fucked in that bed every night. Shouldn’t say fucking. And Barry didn’t even bother getting dressed in the morning.

Roy went down the hall, tried the next room. Rhett was inside, lying on the bed, face to the wall, hand between his knees. It was a bigger bedroom than his old one, and had things his old one didn’t-a TV, compact stereo system, video game console. The little tuft of hair was sticking up at the back of Rhett’s head.

“I thought Barry owned a mortgage company,” Roy said.

There was a long silence. Roy heard Barry banging his fist on the desk again. “He did,” Rhett said. “Now he trades online.”

“Is that a step up?” Roy said.

Rhett laughed, soft and quickly ended, but a laugh.

“Let’s go home,” Roy said.

Rhett turned over, head at a funny angle to get Roy in view with his good eye. “Home?”

“Just for the night.” The counselor had advised that Rhett not sleep in his old bedroom: We like to smooth the transition. “I’ll get you to school in the morning.”

“I’m not going back to school.”

“Got to go to school, Rhett.”

“Why?”

“If kids don’t go, the whole system falls apart. Then where would we be?”

“Is that meant to be funny?”

“Guess not, if you have to ask.”

Rhett smiled, not much of one and quickly erased, but a smile. He got off the bed. Roy walked him down the hall.

“We’ll be at my place,” Roy said as they passed the master bedroom.

Hunched over his computer, Barry made no reply. Roy was getting plenty of air now, his lungs working effortlessly. Maybe the Buckhead atmosphere agreed with him.

Rhett loved Monopoly. Roy ordered pizza, got out the board. Rhett chose the cannon, Roy the top hat. Pizza came. Rhett picked the pepperoni off his slices and laid them aside. They polished off a family-size Coke. Roy landed on North Carolina with a hotel, rolled snake eyes on his next turn, hitting Pennsylvania, also with a hotel, to end the game. Rhett counted his winnings to the last dollar, brandished the wad of play money, and said, “I’m the man.”

After that, they watched a sitcom that Roy had never seen and didn’t find funny. It was about a group of people in their twenties sharing an apartment in a big city and putting each other down.

“You like this?”

“It’s cool.”

Rhett’s swollen eye started seeping a little. He got tired, went to bed in his old bedroom. Roy thought of tucking him in, even reading him a story, but did none of that. The boy was going on twelve. “ ’Night,” he said from in front of the TV; and turned it off the moment Rhett was gone.

Roy called Gordo at home.

“He’s out drilling,” Brenda said.

“Drilling?”

“With the regiment. It’s part of the initiation.”

Roy felt the weight of the oxidized lead bullet against his thigh.

“Didn’t he tell you about the regiment?” Brenda said.

“He told me.”

“Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

“I don’t know,” Roy said, although he thought it was.

“Do you realize he may even have to pay for some kind of uniform? What army makes you do that? He said it could cost three or four hundred dollars.”

Roy said nothing.

“It’s even more, isn’t it?” Brenda said. Brenda was quick; there were women like that all over the place these days.

“Did he mention anything about a train?” Roy said.

“What’s a train got to do with it?”

“Just tell him I called,” Roy said.

“A model train? ‘The General,’ or something like that?”

Roy sat down at the kitchen table. He had a stack of bills, not like Barry’s-Barry’s and Marcia’s-but big for him. A legal bill-divorce was expensive; the counselor’s bill; the mortgage, all his now; the home equity line; the car payment-two, in fact, since he’d missed last month; the two credit cards, both near their limits; utilities, phones, property tax. He wrote the checks he could cover, then sorted the remaining bills into immediate and less-immediate categories. There may be a few things opening up soon. Nice things, Roy. He considered calling Mr. Pegram at home. A promotion would sure be nice, Mr. Pegram. He didn’t know how to put that in a businesslike way. Job, salary, payments, money in and out-it was a little like Monopoly, but no fun at all. Roy corrected that thought right away-he wasn’t complaining. He liked the job, he liked the house, and his car, an Altima like Gordo’s, but a little older, was all right too.

Roy got up, walked around the house-a small house, and a fixer-upper, but solid, and built of brick just like Marcia’s, meaning no termites. He hadn’t done much fixing up-any, in fact-since Marcia left. There were tools and a workbench in the cellar, his housewarming present from the Irregulars. Roy went downstairs.

He hadn’t been in the cellar in months. A box of square tiles-not marble but something that looked like marble-sat on the workbench. Marcia had wanted him to replace the linoleum in the downstairs bathroom. A long two-by-two was clamped in the vise. It took Roy a moment to recall what he’d been building when he’d left off: shelves for Rhett’s room. Measurements were penciled on the two-by-two. Roy plugged in his Black amp; Decker and started sawing.