David Gates - Jernigan

I got down on hands and knees and dragged my suitcase out from under the ping-pong table, little brass tits scratching across the cement floor. When I raised my head I was looking into the single pink eye of a white rabbit. You saw only one of a rabbit’s eyes at a time. As with the jacks of clubs and spades, I think it is. What kind of a world must a rabbit reconstruct, with each eye pointing at opposite sides of things? Peter Jernigan, say, superimposed on the wrong wall of the basement, as if in a cheesy process shot. Like Cary Grant drunk-driving in North by Northwest .

I carried the empty suitcase back upstairs, made a quick stop-off at the gin bottle, then went on up to the bedroom. Danny and Clarissa’s door was shut. Voices behind it: council of war, obviously. What there was to pack didn’t take long. I folded the one suit and laid it flat in the bottom of the suitcase. On top of that, the four shirts, one white, three sport. Old sporting Jernigan. On top of them, the pair of blue jeans, the pair of chinos, the long-sleeve crew-neck sweater, the V-neck sweater-vest, socks, briefs. Put the other pair of shoes on top, soles up. Wasn’t there a sweatshirt? Gray sweatshirt? Probably in the dirty clothes. And that was it. The rest had been left at Heritage Circle, a whole closet-and-dresserful, now at a thrift store perhaps, waiting perhaps for some frugal Martha-type to come scanning the racks for a bargain to please a thankless man.

I carried the suitcase down and set it by the kitchen door, then went into the bathroom and pocketed the Pamprin. A handful of these would blur me out enough to sleep when I arrived. If I arrived. I took a couple more angry-tasting swallows of gin and stuck the bottle in my shoulderbag. Which I shouldered. And headed up the stairs for the last time, telling myself to look at everything and let it burn in. Drunk and sentimental. You’d have thought this place had been dear to me.

They were still talking in there, but my knocking put a stop to that. Martha opened the door and tried to stare me down. Ooh: stern mother. Clarissa got around behind her. I started to giggle. Old Martha looked like she was right out of Farmer Gray, boy, some kind of barnyard thing where the mother hen’s so mad her feathers get all big. Yes, yes, I know the word bristled , but I’d rather have something that’s blunt. At any rate, old Martha seemed to swell up big and protective and I was laughing and laughing and she was staring down at my dick. I thought she was giving old Dr. Johnson the evil eye, trying to wither him or something, until I looked down and saw that I’d pissed myself, the whole front of the pants and down the left leg. (I dressed left.) And now that I thought about it a minute, fuck if it didn’t feel wet down there.

“You are really falling to shit, Peter,” she said. And I guess it actually must’ve looked that way, especially since the pissed pants had only got me laughing more.

So I made an effort and got it together a little bit. Not that hard to do, really. It was like climbing up one level, up out of the laughter level and onto something else. It wasn’t that hard, but it wasn’t that easy. I don’t know how to say it was.

“Hey, I’m off,” I said. “Wish me luck.” Keeping it jaunty. I honestly don’t think I would have pissed myself if I hadn’t had that whole thing of coffee on top of everything else.

“What do you mean you’re off ?” said Martha.

“I told you,” I said. “Going to New Hampshire. Ayup.”

“After midnight and you’re starting out for New Hampshire,” she said. “In a blizzard, drunk out of your mind.”

“Mrs. Peretsky, don’t let him do it.” That was Danny. I think.

“Another county heard from,” I said. This was an expression. I think it comes from politics. County: it would make sense. Like election returns. “What everybody seems to be forgetting is that I — ta da!”—and I pulled it out of my coat pocket—“have the gun.” I gripped the thing with both hands, bent my knees — you’ve seen this on television, the arrest pose or whatever it’s called — and aimed at Danny’s big guitar amplifier. They had the tv sitting on it. I was just more or less fucking around; the amplifier was in the corner away from everybody. You want to be very careful if you’re going to fuck around this way with guns. They all stood there cow-eyed.

Well, this got me hacked off. Absolutely the worst thing they could’ve done.

“Lighten up , for Christ’s sake,” I said. Although naturally with a gun being waved around (not that I was really waving it per se) you couldn’t expect them to get into the spirit of anything.

“Pyew-pyew!” I went, and then I really did pull the trigger, and the gun gave a little pop, just a nasty little snapping pop. And bing, there was a tiny hole in the grille that covered the front of the amplifier. I was in the kind of head where you just think of a thing and do it. Thank God the bullet apparently just lodged someplace and didn’t go ricocheting around the room.

“Bones?” I said to Danny. “Do what you can.” I moved catlike into the room toward the amplifier. They all edged away from me. That gave me a feeling I liked. “Hey,” I said. “Now I like this.”

I laid my hand on the amplifier, as if taking its temperature or something. I turned to Danny again and said, “He’s dead, Jim.” Not a laugh, nothing. Then Clarissa burst into tears. Martha put an arm around her. “Hey now,” I said, motioning with the pistol. “Away from the door, okay?”

They all obeyed. I thought, If only I could have taken charge of them like this a little sooner. Although this really wasn’t the way to run a family. What you actually wanted was moral suasion grounded in quiet authority. Clarissa was sobbing away; Martha had her in both arms and was glaring at me, nothing left but contempt. So actually, if you think about it, I was already helping to begin the healing process. Only kidding, folks.

I backed into the doorway, looked at Danny. “Train’s pulling out, big guy,” I said. “Change your mind?” He looked down at his feet.

“Dad,” he said. “Don’t do it, okay? I mean if you’re really going to go, get some sleep now and do it in the morning, okay?”

I shook my head. “No can do, big guy.”

“Listen,” he said. “Dad, please? You’re really scaring me. It’s like Mom, you know?”

“Mom was Mom,” I said. “And never the train shall meet.” The train, I said, imagine. “Last chance Texaco here.”

“Danny,” said Martha, taking an arm from around her daughter and laying her hand on Danny’s forearm. “Just let him go.”

“Oh really,” I said. “Sick. Very sick. Big guy, piece of fatherly advice. She likes it up the heinie.”

She threw Clarissa off and came at me. I stuck the gun right up in her eyes and that backed her off, you bet, like a cross backing off a vampire. She stood there, her whole body swelling and shrinking as she breathed out and in. An amazing sight, assuming I wasn’t just imagining it. With the gun in my right hand, never taking my eyes off them, I crouched and felt around for my shoulderbag with my left hand. Finally I located the son of a bitch and reshouldered it. This was some midlife crisis, boy, if that’s what this was about.

“Want everybody just stay in this room,” I said, backing out the door. “You don’t come out until you hear the car drive away.” I looked at Danny. “Think you can handle that, big guy?” He stepped closer to Martha, then reached out and took Clarissa’s hand. “You’re the man of the family now,” I said.

Wouldn’t even look at me.

“Dad,” he said, “just go if you’re going, okay?”