Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

“Oh God.” She covered her mouth. She blushed and was altogether fetching that way. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

“It’s okay. I know I look like hell. I’m Pete.”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

He stuck out his good hand. She took it. He held up his other hand.

“I’ve had a rough couple days. Dog bit me. Visiting a client.”

She took his bandaged hand and inspected the filthy thing.

“Did you see a doctor?”

“No.”

She pulled him into a harshly lit break room that smelled of the melted plastic someone had burnt in the ashtray. He sat in the chair she pulled out for him. She got a first-aid kit out of a drawer and sat in front of him.

“Take it off,” she said.

He tore away the bandage with his teeth. The black arc of punctures against the white of his hand. His yellow bruises smelled like wood smoke. She sucked her teeth and looked hard at him.

“You didn’t even wash it out?”

“Sure I did.”

“Well, now it’s infected.”

He cowered mildly at the reprimand in her voice. Rather liked it.

She ripped open a bag of cotton balls, soaked one with iodine, and sopped the back of his hand. He gazed at the ceiling, breathing through his mouth. She opened a sterile gauze pad, cut it to fit, and taped it in place. Told him to get to a doctor for antibiotics.

“Thank you.”

She gave him a curt nod.

He could smell himself, a tinge of dirt, sap, sweat, and beer. How repellent he must be. He started in chuckling again. She quit putting the first-aid kit back together and crossed her arms.

“Stop laughing at me.”

“I’m not. I swear.”

She searched his face, like she wondered was he telling the truth. He thought perhaps she liked him, might at least be intrigued despite his foul fettle.

Then she stood to leave.

“Hey. Wait. I’m sorry. This was real nice of you. I just came in to tell Jim I gotta take some time off. I didn’t expect all this.” He held up his fresh bandage. “So thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mary.”

“I’m Pete.”

“You said.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you.”

“I’m not bothered.”

“Sure you are.”

Mary touched her throat, then noticed she’d done it, and abruptly shook Pete’s good hand.

“You want to have lunch? The Palace.”

Her turn to laugh.

“Ouch.”

“You’re all bandaged up. You’ll be all right.”

“Still.”

She stood and looked at him a minute and then shook her head. He thought maybe she was deciding to join him, but then she said it was nice to meet him and that she’d tell Jim he’d been by.

Two cops standing outside squinted at him for a moment like he might be their man. He loped across the courthouse lawn, then crossed Broadway straight for the Palace. Cafe, bar, and poker joint. Many small hours in here playing cards. Old boys on fixed income who sat lively as stones. Guys who sheriffed every hand because they couldn’t stand to be bluffed and the pushovers who quit at the sight of a raise. The guys who didn’t say a thing and felt acutely some mistake they’d committed in antecedent games or hands, and who now played with premonitions of coming disaster. A percentage at every table arrived simply to do some sort of penance. They shot hot racing glances around the table that would only mellow with muted relief when you took their money. Some drunk freshmen. Some lawyers. Saps who paid for Pete’s books, his rent. Diapers and burp cloths. Because, above all, poker is a congress of punishment.

ONE WINTER PETE is playing every night. He has a job as a janitor on campus and is making up the difference here. Rachel is about two or three.

His father appears in the doorway of the Palace, and the cold air blows in around him such that everyone in the place turns and says to get in or get out. He steps just inside. The snow clots to his cowboy hat red and obscene in the neon. He takes the hat in his hands, brushes it off. He peers into the gloom. Can’t see that Pete’s at the rear table, by the wall, waiting to fold.

But Pete sees him, sees everything in the poker room.

His old man slaps the hat against his thigh, comes in palming it to his chest. Pete’s not exactly avoiding him. Just wants to see how he acts. And he acts like he’s been in a place like this, but never for long. He frowns at the scoundrels and when he’s about ready to give up, Pete chucks his cards and stands. His father sees him then, and Pete points to an empty booth up front. They sit together. His father observes Pete, these surroundings.

His silver hair glistens with pomade. His father looks older, and Pete realizes that it’s been a couple of years. Since Rachel’s first birthday. His father deigns to undo the top button of his coat. He’s sweating. A couple drunks neck in the booth behind Pete and the old man frowns.

I see you’ve found your level , he says.

Got rent to pay.

As though it were some surprise.

I thought you wanted me to go to college.

And here I did not realize this was a class.

This is how I’m doing it.

My understanding is that people finish school.

I’m in graduate school.

Graduate school.

Yes. Jesus, what do you want?

Tell me the degree I paid for.

Liberal arts.

Tell me what does a person do with a degree in liberal arts?

He gets a graduate degree.

The old man shakes his head demonstratively. Pete wonders what Ma ever saw in him, if ever he was so much as pleasant.

And I don’t suppose you have any concern whatsoever about that child of yours.

We can’t all be paragons of fatherhood like you.

The old man’s eyes flame up like they’d been blown by a pair of bellows.

Let me just write that down. He takes out his little Moleskine, the black pencil. How do you spell it?

Pete tells him.

And it means…?

Model of excellence.

The old man jots this down and condescends to grin at Pete. Garlands and tinsel and blinking Christmas lights play on the wall behind him. Crude cartoon Santas on the windows. Reindeer play poker.

What do you want?

His father reaches into his coat and slides forward a check. A great sum.

Your little brother worked summers. In high school he worked the whole school year.

He’s been arrested three times—

Just for fighting. And he never asked for a dime of bail.

No, you’re right. He’s a perfect angel.

Are you bitter that you’re the oldest? Is that it? Do you tell yourself I was too hard on you?

Pete doesn’t answer. He won’t say shit. Let the old man figure out what went wrong. Pete takes a cigarette from inside his coat and lights it with a match.

Your mother heard you were playing cards for money. He taps the check. About put the old gal into a tailspin.

Just then Spoils comes over, almost on cue. The guy can smell money, it’s why they call him Spoils, even though it goes through him like beer. Oftener as beer. He greets the old man who doesn’t remember him from the wedding, and says he hates to ask, but does Pete have a dollar. Pete and the old man enter a silent exchange about this. Then Pete says to go over there on the table, go on over. Pete waves to the dealer that it’s okay, and Spoils takes up a chip and shuffles over to the cage. The old man’s burning up in myriad objections.

Pete slides the check back toward him.

I don’t want it.

The old man smiles.