David Gates: Preston Falls

"I would even listen to Howard Stern,'' she says.

"Hey, that your rig?" Nodding at Willis's truck. "Fm fuckin' impressed."

"You've seen that," says Willis.

"No way. Last time, you still had that Honda piece of shit."

Tina extricates herself, slams her door (big American ka-thunk) and comes around the front with a purse-sized Bert-and-Ernie bag slung over her shoulder.

"I help you guys carry anything?" says Willis.

"Carry your hostess present if you want." Champ walks around and twists a key in the trunk lock. "Here, back here." But Tina's hugging Willis (he feels liquidy breasts, smells dirty hair) and saying, "Ooh, it's nice to see you."

"Here." Champ's holding up two six-packs of Budweiser tallboys by the plastic. "Replace those essential minerals." He always gives Willis shit about Sportif; the good way to read this is that Champ agrees flacking for Dandineau Beverages is beneath him. Champ, meanwhile, is clerking at the Counter Spy Shop.

"Hey, replace this," says Willis, giving him the finger.

But Champ isn't looking. "So, Teen," he says, setting the six-packs on the ground, "should I give him the test?"

Tina cocks her head.

''You know. The — c'mere." Tina goes over, he whispers, she shrugs. "My animal companion here," he says to Willis, "blew the test big time."

"You're a man, for God's sake," Tina says. "If you were wearing a skirt or something—"

"He'sh going to guessh," says Champ through bared teeth, "ish you don't shut ut."

Tina turns to Willis. "He did this at the service area. I was mortified. All these like families and everything?"

Champ climbs over the closed door into the back seat, sits down and calls, "Okay, you ready? Now watch, and tell me who this is." He gets to his feet, turns and crawls over the seat and across the trunk on his hands and knees.

PRESTON FALLS

"Rats leaving a sinking ship," says Willis.

"Whoa, getting warm."

"Let's see — me taking a leave of absence."

"You dick," Champ says. "Everything's not about you''

"Hey, so they tell me," says Willis. "Okay, I don't know. Good money going after bad? Pride going before a fall?"

"Cold, very cold. Shit, I got to take a piss something wicked."

"Why don't you make him happy," Tina says, "and say you give up."

"That would make me happy? To know my brother is an ignorant slut?"

"Okay," WiUis says. "I give up."

"Jackie Kennedy!"

Willis whams his forehead with the heel of his hand.

"Unreal." Champ dusts the knees of his black jeans, then wipes his palms on the thighs. "I thought at least somebody your age would get it. Isn't that what fucked all you guys up?" He holds up a hand for silence and says, "Okay: Jackie, for three hundred. How did Jackie dislocate her back? Or, like, sprain her back?"

Tina fetches a loud sigh. "Didn't you have to go pee-pee, honey buns?"

"Give up? She was reaching around, or kind of bending over backwards, trying to touch her Onassis. Get it? Reach her Onassis? I didn't tell that very well."

"No kidding," says Tina.

"Christ, I gotta piss." Champ trots around the corner of the woodshed.

"I think it's this country air," says Tina. "So where's the family?"

"Jean went to hustle some provisions," says Willis. "A la recherche de Frank Perdue.'' He'd thought of this on the way back from Calvin's; Tina's the lucky one who gets to hear it. "And I guess the kids went along to get their little hit of civilization. Store in town has video games."

"Wow, you'd think they'd be running around in all this woods."

"You'd think," he says, as Champ comes out from behind the shed, fiddling with his fly.

Tina claps her hands over her eyes: see no evil. "Jesus, Champ. Why don't you just shake off in front of us too?"

"Hey, it's my bro," says Champ. "So listen, where's the family?"

Jean takes Mel and Roger to breakfast at Winner's and stays at the counter drinking coffee and reading the Times while they play the video games. She leaves them there while she runs stupid errands: to the post office, to the cash machine, to the Grand Union, to Rite Aid for Off and Caladryl, to the new little hippie place for decent bread. But she can't stay in town forever.

When she pulls into the driveway, she has to go up onto the grass to get around this huge, sagging hulk of a convertible — the sort of car locals drive, except they don't know any locals besides that creature Willis buys wood from. Mr. Hog Roster, (It took her the longest time to realize this was a misspelling and not some kind of registry, or an obscure farm tool.) So this must belong to Willis's brother — ^who of course would also drive some V-8 rustbucket. The father really did a job on those two. She gets out of the Cherokee and sees the three of them— Willis, his brother and the girlfriend — sitting out on the plastic-resin Adirondack chairs Willis bought at Ames for $6.99, each with one of those tall cans of beer. Champ and the girlfriend look like a Gap ad with their matching white t-shirts and sunglasses. Do they plan their outfits? She wouldn't put it past them. Willis has his boombox outside, plugged into the long orange cord. Champ stands up and raises his beer can at her when she gets out to unload the shopping bags. (Mel and Roger are still in the car, arguing.) Finally the girlfriend bestirs herself to pick her way across the grass in fetching bare feet and give a cheek-to-cheek air kiss. Tina: that's the name. This apparendy shames Willis into getting up and coming over too. Jean can hear some sort of depressing fifties country music going — not Hank Williams, she doesn't think. Him she can usually tell.

"Hi," she says to Tina. "You must have made good time." She looks at Willis, who's just standing there. "Could you help with the bags, please?"

"Melanie, that is one of the great t-shirts," says Tina, touching a finger to Courtney Love's fat red lip. Mel shrugs.

Champ has finally roused himself and come over. "Cool," he says to Mel. "And you. Boiler," he says to Roger. "You're getting huge. You play middle linebacker? Here, what can I carry?"

"Sit, both of you," says Willis. "I got 'em."

PRESTON FALLS

"This is Roger?'' says Tina in fake disbelief. "Roger, I wouldn't have even recognized you." Of course not, Jean feels like saying; she's met him, what, once before? My guit-tar stays a little better in tune, the singer sings. The sun shines bright and there's honey on the moon.

Roger says to Willis, "She said we can't go swimming."

"Roger," says Willis. "When we have guests, it's nice to greet them? You too, Mel." He grabs up two plastic bags by the handles with his right hand and takes a third in his left.

"But how come we can't}" says Roger. Willis looks at Jean and raises his eyebrows: take a stand here, or let it go?

"We ran into Arthur Bjork and the kids coming out of Winner's," Jean tells Willis. "They invited Mel and Roger over to swim in their pond, but I said we had company."

"I'm sure they'll give you guys a rain check," Willis says. "Speaking o{ which, it looks like it's clouding over anyway. Tell you what. While Fm helping Mommy with the stuff, why don't you show your uncle and his friend where they're going to sleep." I.e., Roger's room, which he agreed to give up if he could sleep in his pup tent.

"Why don't youT' says Roger.

"Hmm," says Willis, setting the bags back on the ground. Heavy sons of bitches. "This is not going to end pleasantly."

"Roger," Jean says, "you were warned earlier about talking back."

"You're wrecking everything, Roger," says Mel.

"Melanie," Willis says. "Let your mother handle this?"

"Fine," says Jean. "Yes, let me handle it. Roger, you have a time-out. You can take it in your sister's room." She picks up a bag of groceries in each hand and starts for the house.