Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

Did she ever get in a car and feel in the way the date breathed through his nose or pinged his eyes to the rearview every few minutes that she should get out at the next light get out right away, that this one was too sketchy?

Yeah, but she didn’t think it would happen to her. The dates were so goddamn grateful for her tiny hands, her wry, filthy mouth that expressed in word and act a twisted and premature craving for cum, for specific cum, for your special cum, only cum, let me get it out of there, baby, I need it, give it to me, give me your goddamn cum baby. Give it. Come on. Cum for me. Come on.

And then it was three or four in the morning, and Rose and Yo would make their way in the dark back to the Golden Arms and Yo would give Pomeroy her money and Rose would too.

And Pomeroy would buy them presents with it?

Yes. A ghetto blaster for the apartment and new velvet pillows and a box of comic books and strawberry shampoo.

He talked about getting other girls, making some real money.

Did she get diseases?

Of course. Herpes came in a series of hot pinpricks between her legs. Yo took her to the free clinic on Madison Street. After she was examined, she waited for counseling in an office jam-packed with boxes of rubbers and other contraception, douches and paperwork. She fidgeted and then a large maternal counselor came in with a clipboard.

So where are you from, Rose?

Montana.

Family there?

Not really. My mom’s in Texas. That’s where I was last.

Bad situation at home?

She didn’t want to talk about it.

Where do you live?

Rose looked at the counselor with suspicion.

What’s with all the questions? Are you gonna give me medicine or not?

The counselor pulled off her cardigan sweater and pumped her collar up and down to cool off.

This is all just so I can help. I could maybe get you a place to stay for a little bit if you’re interested. Do you ever use protection?

I don’t like rubbers.

Do you like herpes?

Rose closed her eyes, gripped the armrests of her chair.

When was your last period?

I only ever had a couple.

Well, you’re young yet. Would you know if you missed one?

I guess not.

So you might be pregnant. How would you feel about having a baby, Rose?

I dunno.

Would you consider an abortion?

No. The baby didn’t do anything wrong.

How would you take care of a child?

I dunno. You got some services I bet. Or is all you do abortions?

The woman sighed and leaned forward. Sweat was beading over her lip.

You’re getting services right now. One of the services is trying to head off a pregnancy that both of us know you’re not prepared to handle.

Rose couldn’t concentrate on what the woman was saying. Her brain just wouldn’t engage with it.

You got sweat on your lip.

The woman set the clipboard in front of her and didn’t wipe off the sweat or even acknowledge that Rose had noticed it. She handed Rose a packet of pamphlets bound by a rubber band.

This is some literature. Read it and then sign down here. Here’s a box of condoms. Use them.

What about…?

The herpes?

Yeah.

Go to the drugstore and get some aspirin. Take a hot bath.

That’s it?

That’s it.

The woman’s grin was faint, serene, maddening.

Just back from dropping Cecil off in Spokane, Pete was stopped at a crosswalk in Tenmile waiting for an old cowboy to shuffle across the street when the judge spotted him from the courthouse lawn. The judge had taken a rake from a groundskeeper and was demonstrating some aspect of lawncraft when he noticed his own car and shouted at him and waddled over on his fat legs. Pete could tell the man had bad news.

“What is it?”

“You haven’t been to your place.”

“No, I was out of town. Why? What’s going on?”

“It’s gone, Pete.”

“What’s gone?”

“Your house.”

When they got there, the earth around the cabin was wet, and everything Pete had owned was now ash or burned beyond recognition in the charred crater. His heat-warped bed frame and coils of mattress springs sat in the dirt and black remnants of the wood floor. He climbed down onto the cast-iron stove where it had fallen into his cellar. He pulled several blackened potatoes from the earthen shelf and touched around the still-warm molten glass of a burst jar of pickles. That was all that was left. His books, his pictures of Rachel, his leather chair. A curl of his daughter’s hair he kept in a small jar on the shelf in his room. Love letters. His baby book. Quilts his mother had made him. His rifles and his great-grandfather’s.22 pistol.

For some reason, he thought of the piece of paper with his brother’s address on it, and then vaguely recalled putting it in his wallet. He looked and there it was, along with a small school picture of his daughter when she was ten, the scrawled phone number of some woman he no longer remembered, and several business cards. This and forty-odd dollars. His possessions entire.

The judge watched him thumbing through his wallet and then told him to come on out of there, and when he did his hands were black all over and he started chuckling.

The judge remarked sarcastically that Pete was taking the fire well.

Pete gripped his knees and shook in his helpless chortling.

“You’ve gone around the goddamn bend,” the judge said. “Come on, let’s get over to the courthouse and have a drink.”

Pete sat on the hood of the Monte Carlo and started to roll a cigarette.

“That’s all right, I’m good.”

“Nonsense. You come with me. You can stay with me.”

Pete smiled.

“Thanks, but no.”

“You gonna stay in Missoula?”

“Nah.”

“Your father’s?”

“God no.”

The judge shoved his hands in his pants pockets and watched Pete roll the cigarette and begin to smoke with diminishing acknowledgment at the things the judge said, how it’d be all right, how these things happen, that Pete would get on his feet again. How it was damn lucky that Jim McGinnis just happened to have his water tenders back from the fires outside of Whitefish. Could’ve lit up the whole mountain.

Pete nodded.

The judge said again that Pete should stay with him, and Pete again begged off. Smoking and grinning like a lunatic. The judge finally said for Pete to go to hell then, and climbed in the car.

He went to Pearl’s house up Fourth of July Creek. There were mice and a hornet’s nest and more than a few barn spiders fat as cotton balls, but when the Pearls lit out they’d left their home more or less furnished and Pete was able to make it clean and comfortable inside of a week. He swept up the dust and pellets of rodent shit and flushed the bats from the eaves. A bird’s nest caught fire inside the stovepipe the first time he lit it, and he went outside and chased down the large burning ashes of leaves and scrap paper that floated away from the house, glowing malefic in the dark and sometimes catching in the trees and burning the witches moss and other times landing in the dry grasses around the house. He wondered the while was he fated to burn down the forest.

Cloninger lived a few miles down the road and Pete was able to visit Katie and never left without a plate of Mrs. Cloninger’s corn bread or a tureen of casserole or soup. He held an old margarine container of corn and pumpkin chowder when his brother’s parole officer rolled by, slow and then suddenly accelerating, kicking up a plume of dust meant for Pete.