Joe Lansdale: Cold in July

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, son.”

I looked at the table and the spoon and the jar and went over and got a paper towel and cleaned up best I could. I made a point of not saying anything to him about the mess. Usually I jumped him. But I was trying to put things in better perspective this day, and suddenly the mess seemed a lot less major than it might have the day before. And for that matter, who was I to cast the first stone. I wasn’t that neat and organized now, and I was thirty-five.

I saw that Ted and his boys were in the living room, painting away. They had the floor covered in plastic sheets, but there was very little splashed on it. They had their backs to me, and as I had come in through the garage, they hadn’t noticed me yet. I watched them work a minute, then looked at my watch. Six o’clock. That was one good thing about hiring a man who worked for himself. He worked until the job got done, not until five o’clock. Besides, a painter had to take work where he could find it. They didn’t get the offer on a daily basis.

I kissed Jordan on the head and he told me a story his teacher had read the class that day. It was about Clifford the Big Red Dog. He liked the story a lot. He retold it loudly and with lots of gestures. During this time Ted and his sons turned to look and I gave them a nod. When Jordan finished his story, I poured him a fresh glass of milk to spill, and went into the living room for a full view of the work.

They looked to be about finished. The room was strong with the smell of paint, a smell I normally despised, but today it seemed fresh as a spring morning. And the old couch was gone. The new one was in the center of the room covered with a plastic sheet as I had instructed.

Ted wiped his hands on a rag he had in his back pocket and came over. “I’d shake,” he said, “but I might get some paint on you. We’ll b e out of your hair in about an hour or so. If you can keep your boy off the wall, it’ll look better than new soon as it’s completely dry.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“Locksmith came by. He put the bill in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t see it,” I said.

“It’s stuck to your refrigerator with one of those fruit magnets. I looked. He overcharged you. He said he’d be back tomorrow to try and finish. And, you can see the couch came.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re all right, I suppose?”

“Sure.”

“Well, get so you think you aren’t, give me a call. Hell, remember how we used to talk about things in high school? I’m still here. We ought to just get together for a beer anyway. It’s been a long time.”

“You’re right, it has.”

Ted went back to work and I went over to the door to look at the lock. It was pretty serious looking. Good. And there was a sliding grillwork that could be pulled across the glass at night and locked in place, just in case a rhino charged you. I didn’t know if I felt secure or stupid. The only thing I knew for certain was I wasn’t going to mention Ben Russel to Ann, least not now.

I got the portable television out of the storage closet in the kitchen, put it on the drainboard and plugged it in. I tuned in Bugs Bunny and left Jordan watching that and drinking the milk he hadn’t spilled yet.

I found Ann in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to me. Her elbows were on her knees and her hands were supporting her head as if it had grown too heavy. I closed the door and sat down beside her.

“I hate the couch,” she said.

“Sorry. I can take it back.”

“You should have asked me what I wanted. Don’t we always do that? We want something, we make up our minds together. Right?”

“I just wanted the other one out of the house.”

“You could have waited on a new one until I could look with you.”

“I’m not thinking clearly.”

“It wasn’t very considerate of you.”

“I’ll have them take it back. Could we talk about something besides the couch?”

“I just don’t like it, that’s all.”

“You talk to the police?” I asked.

“You’re changing the subject, but yes, I talked to them. Lieutenant Price was very nice. It went quickly.”

“Want to go out to dinner?”

“Jordan made himself a sandwich.”

“I thought maybe Dorothy could keep him. She owes us a babysitting , doesn’t she? What say just you and I go? Mexican food maybe.”

“I can call her and see.”

“Good. I’ll wash up and shave. I feel sort of grungy.”

“Brush your teeth too. Your breath has hair on it… Do you really think we need bars on the doors and windows? Alarms? Did you see that bill?”

“No, I haven’t seen the bill. But right now, the way I feel, I wish I could put this house on Mars.” I got up and started out.

“Richard. I still don’t like that couch. It looks like it was designed by that guy who did the sets for Alien.”

“It goes tomorrow,” I said.

· · ·

After dinner, we picked up Jordan and got him to bed early, and Ann and I made love. It was good. Our sex life had never turned bitter, but it had turned quick, spaced between too many obligations and performed far too often when we felt the least like it.

But this wasn’t like that. It was like the old times when we couldn’t wait to get at each other. It reminded me of college and the back of my old battered ‘61 Ford; worn out when I got it, worn out more by my neglect. We used to do all our loving in the backseat of that car at the drive-in because we both had strict dorms and roommates. I remembered that Ford with the sort of reverence a monk reserves for a shrine.

I lay there with Ann asleep on my arm and looked at the space between the curtains and saw one of the burglar bars banded against the window glass like a strip of cancer across a pale eye. I looked at the bar until I made it go away. I made everything go away. I imagined us in the backseat of the old Ford with pieces of ripped roof cloth dangling down like limp stalactites. It was a cold December night, not the dead of July, and Ann and I had the old patchwork quilt across us and the Ford’s windows were all frosted.

I lay there believing that for a long duration, traveling backwards by mental time machine to a time when all was right with the world and I thought Ann and I would live forever and that our future would always be as bright as the chrome on a brand-new Buick.

So the next day the alarms were installed and the couch went back and Ann and I picked a new one. And by the next day I was able to tell myself it was time to get on with life, and it was foolish of me to consider seeing Russel buried. That wouldn’t make things any better, and I just might see his old man, and I didn’t need that.

But on the other hand, what if no one went to the funeral but the grave diggers? That didn’t seem right either. Even the executioner would be more welcome, I thought. I had at least seen his face, and it was a face that would be branded on my memory forever.

Still, I wasn’t going. And I wasn’t going all the while I drove over there, telling myself I was only driving by. And I wasn’t going when I parked under some oaks across the blacktop from the graveyard, and I wasn’t going when I got out of my car and leaned on it, looked across at the burying.

It wasn’t funeral weather. It was hot and gummy. The oaks I was under didn’t provide much relief. It was as if they were dripping hot ink instead of shadow, but I knew if I stood out of that shadow, out in the bright sunlight, it would be even worse; molten honey. For this kind of business it should have been rainy and cold and the graveyard should have been full of people dressed in black, at least some of them crying. But it wasn’t like that for Freddy Russel.