Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

The moment to move was now.

Now.

Okay now.

They’re going to get up here, you don’t do something—

Pete slid over and shut the passenger door from above, and the dogs closed in on him, jaws clacking at his hand, and then he flung himself over to the driver’s side, dropped off the car, sprung into it, and slammed closed the door.

The Rottweilers scratched at the door and window, and then snapped at one another again, hindlegged in an outraged dance. The gnashing inches from him on the other side of the window like something you wouldn’t even see at a zoo. Buffeting the car with their muscle, Pete’s keys jangled in the ignition.

He opened the glove box and soaked up blood from his hand with a paper napkin. He grabbed a flask and opened it against his chest with his good hand and dribbled liquor onto the holes in his bad hand. It burned, and he winced hugely. He pressed the saturated and ripping napkin against his hot wounds until it finally stanched the bleeding and clung poulticed to his palm. The dogs crazed and slicking his window with slobber the whole time. He yelled at them, but naturally they could not leave him be.

He dropped his head back and tried to cease shivering. Pictured the Short house in flames. How he’d do it. He didn’t even care about the Shorts’ children anymore, children who’d turn out just like Tony or get pregnant by guys like Tony who bought and bred dogs for sheer destructive power. Raze the thing. Scatter the Shorts to the winds.

He grabbed their case file from the seat, and bloodied the case log:

The Shorts breached their agreement with Agency and were again (fifth time) absent for a previously scheduled from this agent. Agent believes that the Shorts are evading inspection as ordered by the Rimrock County Family Court and Rimrock County Office of the Montana Department of Family Services and may again be involved in criminal activity (see log 7/30). Agent was unable to survey house due to attack by the Shorts’ wild dogs who were left unsupervised at home location and may pose considerable danger to Short children. Agent was bitten on the hand and—

Pete set the paperwork aside. He reached into the open glove box, fetched the canister from within it, and cracked the window. He paused a moment in sympathy for the guileless animals, genuinely touched by the raw beauty and ideal breeding snarling wildly at the inch-wide gap in his window. Then he maced one dog square in its snapping face with exquisite joy. It bucked back and twirled coughing, fell, scrambled up in the mud, and then careened blind until it collided into a metal shed at full speed with an explosive bang. For a time it did not move. The second bore into the field after Pete sprayed it, simply trying to outrun the hot torment. Peace settled over the scene. The hornless billy chuckled like an amused codger. Pete stashed the spray and wrote some more:

Agent recommends to the Court that the children be remanded to their aunt’s (Ginny Short) until such time as Crystal and Antonio Short can demonstrate their willingness to work in good faith with the State of Montana and as per their plea agreement with the District Attorney’s Office and the Office of Child Protective Services.

— Agent P.W.S.

Did her father call?

Yes. She’d answered the phone assuming it was Kim or Lori and hoped maybe but probably not Kevin calling her back.

God, if it was Kevin. A soph-oh-more. Yes, more please.

Hey Applesauce, her father said.

Oh.

Yeah, hi.

Hi .

Look, I can’t make it down today. I’m really sorry. I got bit by a dog. I need to have it looked at—

She asked him did he even have any idea what was happening.

He said what, what was happening.

She said she couldn’t believe he didn’t know. She wanted to get back at him. Intuited that she had some power in knowing what he didn’t: her mother was in her bedroom, shoving clothes into garbage bags.

What is it, honey? What’s going on?

What is wrong with this family?

He said Rachel. He said come on Applesauce. He said to put her mother on the phone.

She placed the phone on its silver cradle. She ran her hand through her hair over and over and hated her tiny head in the reflection of the toaster. The phone rang again. She stood from the table and walked on the balls of her feet to her bedroom. Her mother said for her to get it, but Rachel closed her door.

Jesus, Rachel!

YOU GET IT! she shrieked. I’M PACKING LIKE YOU TOLD ME TO! GOD!

An empty suitcase. She heard her mother’s voice veer into a fighting pitch on the phone. She opened a drawer and pulled out an armful of shirts and threw them onto the bed. In the back of the half-empty drawer was a saddening fifth of vodka.

Was it for a party? Was it for showing how grown she was and practically sophisticated?

Yes. It was for sitting with Kevin. She’d seen his stomach once. His bare stomach.

God.

Soft. But hard.

Oh.

More.

It ached to think about.

Was that so over now?

Duh.

He drove four hours to the city of Missoula to see his wife. He didn’t eat or stop for gas. No radio. Like when you were a kid. The old man treated every road trip like a moon shot. You brought your grub for the trip or you went hungry. You held it or you pissed in the milk carton. Wasn’t anything on the radio anyway.

He took Orange Street under the railroad and went up Front. It was strange visiting the city again, their city. The specific feeling of this small western city geography. He’d done his undergraduate at the university. A liberal arts degree in seven semesters. He’d done three semesters of grad school before he couldn’t afford it anymore. All of it right out of high school with a wife and newborn daughter. No small pride in that.

There were cars around and people on the sidewalks. Buildings higher than two stories. He’d grown acquainted with smaller rhythms.

He turned onto his wife’s street and parked near their cottage apartment by the river. Her apartment now. Late morning now and the sun had warmed off the frost except in the shaded lee of things. The aluminum screen was propped open with a broken brick, the door ajar. An open U-Haul trailer sat hitched to her little pickup, and his wife’s clothes, his daughter’s box spring, and even some of his old things were visible in it. A fierce hammering commenced in his chest and temple at the sight of his leather chair. He started up his car and then turned it off.

When she saw him come in, she set down a cardboard box, took the bandana off her head, wiped her brow, and put it in her back pocket. She already had a beer on the floor near her that she picked up and drank. Put her palm on her hip. The loose beauty about her — the way her smile cracked across her face, her wide lopsided curls rigged into a bun that seemed liable to topple down — reminded him of a tooth about to come out, a button about to fall off. Everything about her always on the verge of falling down or out. Made a body want to screw her heart out. Even now. Even after she’d cheated on him and even though it still hurt like a purple bruise, he could see falling into bed with her. Just look at her. The beer, eyebrow cocked, her condescending grin.

She said his name plain. Even that ached.

What it must be like to go about in that body, to think with that mind. It occurred to him that even if he didn’t forgive her, it was possible to not blame her. Some narrow country existing between recriminations.