Raymond Atkins - The Front Porch Prophet

They were silent for a while. The afternoon was strolling casually toward evening. “You know,” Eugene said after a time, “I never understood why Angel and Johnny Mack got married. I understand it from Johnny Mack’s point of view. She was a real catch for a hayseed like him. What I have never been able to figure out is what she got out of the deal. She could have done a lot better than him.”

“I don’t know,” A.J. replied. “Maybe she could, maybe she couldn’t. There weren’t too many live ones left to choose from by the time Johnny Mack showed up. Who knows what the appeal was? Love? Security? A way out? Maybe she was just hot for him in his soldier suit.”

“No, I think she just felt sorry for him.”

“Charity sex between Angel and Johnny Mack?”

“I’m not talking about sex. They have never had sex.”

“So the stork brought you?”

“I don’t know who my father was,” Eugene said. “But I know it wasn’t Johnny Mack. He stepped on a land mine right before entering Paris. It was mostly a dud, but it took out what counted. It was actually Angel who helped nurse him back to health.” Eugene calmly related this as if telling an interesting anecdote about two strangers.

“You’re telling me Johnny Mack stepped on a mine and, uh…” A.J. was caught by surprise.

“He blew his dick off,” said Eugene matter-of-factly. “She married him anyway, and I was born ten years later. The math is not that hard.”

“Maybe they did artificial insemination,” A.J. offered, piecing his way through this mystery.

“They didn’t have that back then,” Eugene said, as if he actually knew. “Anyway, there’s nothing to work with. It’s all gone.” All A.J. could do was shake his head. He had always known that Eugene was a bastard but hadn’t realized it was the literal truth.

“When did you find this out?” A.J. was morbidly curious. He recognized this shortcoming in himself and vowed to change. Tomorrow.

“I’d had my suspicions for years. You just don’t grow up in a house with a man who has no dick and not get the feeling something is wrong. You ever take a shower with John Robert when you were a kid, or maybe take a leak on a tree together?”

“Sure.”

“We didn’t do that sort of thing. I’ve never seen him with his pants off. I sat down with Angel one day and asked her what the deal was. She hemmed and hawed but finally came across. She wouldn’t tell me who my father was, but she admitted the dastardly deed. She thought I would be upset. I told her it suited me just fine that Johnny Mack wasn’t my father. As a matter of fact, I was happier.” Eugene began to hum a quiet tune. Eventually he turned to A.J. “Cat got your tongue?” he asked.

“Since you brought it up, if Angel married a man she knew couldn’t dance the waltz with her, why did she dance the waltz later with someone else?”

“Dance the waltz? Come on, Victoria. If you mean fuck, say fuck.”

“We’re talking about your mama. Have some respect.”

“Boy Scout,” Eugene said, rolling his eyes. But he seemed to take the point. “I have a theory. Angel got Jackie the hard way courtesy of a Nazi. So I don’t think… dancing was very high on her list when she met Johnny Mack. She may have even married him because he couldn’t dance. I don’t know. Later on, her biology caught up with her, and she began to want to do the old two-step again.”

“Who all knows about this?” A.J. had until tomorrow to be morbidly curious and wanted to find out more while there was time.

“You, me, Angel, Jackie, and Johnny Mack. Assuming, of course, he understands how these things work. My real father, whoever he is, may or may not know. Who can say?” Eugene stood up, stretched, and started toward the yard, stumbling a bit when he stepped off the porch. He walked to the bulldozer, climbed up, and started it.

“I’ll be right back!” he hollered as he headed down the trail. A.J. walked to the remains of the Jeep for a smoke. The porch was still too combustible for his comfort. He wondered what Eugene was doing. He knew he would have issues to address with Johnny Mack if the Cat went off a cliff. He heard Eugene down the trail, making a great deal of noise. Then the Cat hove into view, and A.J. was amazed at what he saw. Eugene was pushing the Lover up the path. As he got closer, he waved A.J. to the side and shoved the old Chrysler right in beside the Jeep, as if he had been looking for a good parking spot and finally found one.

“Tell me you’re not going to shoot it,” said A.J.

“I’m going to shoot it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want it to outlast me,” Eugene replied as he climbed down from his perch. The effort winded him. A.J. had almost forgotten the central issue during the discussion of Angel’s unusual dancing habits. Now it was back on his mind, and it was depressing. Still, he hated to see the old Lover end up like the Jeep and the tree, riddled and abused.

“It’s your car, but it deserves better,” A.J. said.

“Don’t we all?” came the reply. A.J. looked at the Lover, the Jeep, and the remains of the tree across the clearing. He thought of the Navy Colt.

“If you keep getting rid of things that might outlast you, I’m going to get nervous,” A.J. observed. “Maybe I ought to hog-tie Rufus and get us both out of here before it’s too late.” Eugene looked at him with an odd smile.

“You’re getting paranoid. I would like to see you hog-tie Rufus, though. I don’t know which way I’d bet on that deal. You’re smarter, but his teeth are sharper. If you use your bat, I think you might have a little edge.”

“If I use your shotgun, I might have a bigger edge.”

“That would be poor sportsmanship. What would Coach Crider say?”

“Coach Crider dropped dead, which saved someone the trouble of killing him,” A.J. said. Coach had died of a heart attack while expressing a difference of opinion with a referee. He had spit in the official’s face a bare moment before he collapsed, so it was actually the first time in Georgia high school football history that a dead coach was ejected from a game for unsportsmanlike conduct. It was a sad moment, a true low point for the team, and the boys had not played well the rest of the contest. “Anyway, I have never claimed to be a good sport.”

“No, you haven’t,” Eugene said. “But you are.” He lit a cigarette. “What are you going to do with Rufus after I’m gone?” The question caught A.J. off guard.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything with him. Why don’t you give him to someone? Maybe Jackie. He has a lot of dogs.” It was a sure bet that A.J. didn’t want him.

“No, Rufus would kill all of them, and some of them are good dogs,” Eugene said. “Jackie would have to keep him tied. I’d rather see him dead.”

“What do you mean by that?” A.J. asked, suddenly wary.

“After I’m gone, I want you to shoot Rufus. Nobody is going to want him, and he’s getting too old to live wild. I don’t have the heart to do it myself.” A.J. sighed.

“Last week you asked me to kill you. This week, it’s Rufus. Next week, you’ll be wanting me to gun down Diane and the boys. Why are you doing this to me? I don’t like killing. I don’t even hunt! If Rufus walked up right now and keeled over, I wouldn’t shed a tear, because I really hate your dog. But I don’t want to kill him!” A.J. had become upset. “Why do you keep bringing up this kind of shit?” he demanded.

“Because you’re all I have,” Eugene said quietly, meeting A.J.’s eye. “Because I need the help.” He paused for a long moment. Then he continued. “Because I know you can do it when you have to.” A.J. stiffened. The clearing was as silent as the grave. A.J. walked to the bulldozer and climbed aboard. He fired up the old machine and sat there momentarily. Then he climbed down and walked back to Eugene.