Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

She offered Joe a glass of whisky. As she leaned forward, he saw a flash of delicate black lace inside her shirt. He took a quick sip, which burned his throat and brought on the memory of driving county roads with Arlow. That night seemed like a decade back.

The bartender was still leaning and he didn’t want to look at her because he knew he’d see her bra again. A Liberty Teeth pamphlet lay on the bar. He held it up.

“You believe this stuff?”

“Hell, no,” she said. “That crap’s nothing but a bunch of crap. Some of these round-asses think they’re better than the rest of us. They blame everybody else for their sorry selfs.”

“Then why keep these things here?”

“People just drop them off, same as lost-dog flyers or church bake sales.”

“Is it the Ku Klux Klan, or what?”

“Are they the ones who wear sheets?” Joe nodded.

“Not them, then. Nobody around here can spare the bedding.”

She finished her drink and poured another, her long hair trailing the bar.

“Who is it then,” Joe said.

“Could be you best not ask,” she said, “Could be that’s just the kind of thing you don’t want to know. Now sit here and let’s watch some TV.”

Joe stayed where he was. He sipped the whisky, and the burn ran from his throat to his chest and spread along his limbs.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll fix you something special. Ever hear of a mat drink?”

“No.”

She swayed to her feet and grabbed the stool. She sucked on her cigarette as if it would make her sober and pointed to the other side of the bar.

“You take that rubber mat and drain off all the spills into a glass, then drink it.”

“This is fine,” Joe said.

He touched the glass to his mouth as she sat down.

“Come on over here,” she said. “What’s the matter, you don’t like TV?”

“Not really.”

“My God in heaven. Why the hell not?”

Joe watched the television screen for a minute. At the next joke, the actress paused for the laugh track to begin.

“Right there’s why,” he said. “That’s not real people laughing, I mean it’s real, but it’s on a tape. They just turn it on and off.”

“It’s a comedy is why.”

“It doesn’t need us,” Joe said. “The damn thing laughs at itself.”

“You sure think different from the rest of these cowboys around here.” She pointed at the liquor shelf. “Sure you can’t find nothing you want?”

What he wanted was her, but he was afraid, and the fear bothered him, even as it increased his desire.

“Where you from?” he said.

“Up on the Hi-Line, Daddy moved us to Missoula when I was twelve. How about you?”

“I got a place on Rock Creek.”

“Not one of those tipis, is it?”

“I don’t reckon.”

“Aw, shucks,” she said. “I was hoping you might need you a dpi creeper sometime,”

She finished her drink and looked at him, her gaze moving from his face to his boots and back to his face.

“I was ready to close up when you came in,” she said. “This snow holds business down and the road’s too bad for me to get home. I usually just stay over. Got a bed in the back.”

“Guess I’ll be going then.”

“Have another drink,” she said.

“That’s all right.”

“There’s plenty of it, and more to come,”

“I probably ort to leave.”

“Maybe the roads are too bad for you to make it,” she said, as she stood. “Wouldn’t want you to wreck on us.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I like careful men,” she said, and moved close to him.

“I do my best.”

“Me, too,” she said. “Why don’t you stay and find out what my best is.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, bumping against his body. Her lips tasted like whisky and smelled of smoke. Joe returned her kiss and she pushed against him, her arms hanging slack at her waist. She stumbled, nearly pulling him to the floor, Joe maneuvered her to lean against the bar. He gripped her arms and kissed her hard, feeling the desire rising in him until the fear surpassed it. He leaned away, abruptly angry. He hurried across the room, hearing her laugh as he went out the door.

He drove through the Valley of the Moon, veering around boulders that had fallen into the road. The creek was dull black at the bottom of a steep drop and he wondered how many collisions had happened here. He felt an urge to stand on the gas pedal, yank the wheel, and plunge down the bank into the water. He slowed to make sure he wouldn’t do it.

At his cabin he parked out of the wind and left the truck. The snow fell in a steady rush, a blanket that never stopped. He stood in the darkness and let it settle on his head, making epaulets along his shoulders. He felt ashamed for not staying with the bartender, and wondered if there was something wrong with him. Perhaps he’d spent so much time alone that he’d been rained for company. He thought about Abigail. Leaving the tavern was not related to her and it had nothing to do with the bartender either. He’d left because he couldn’t be with a woman until he was sure of who he was. “Virgil Caudill was gone and there was no grave, no marker, no place for sorrow and rage. He had simply ceased to exist.

His mind ran through the events in Kentucky. There’d be no question as to who had killed Rodale, but the official interest would go only as far as it had when Boyd died. The police would take a report and little else. The sheriff wouldn’t do anything. Joe hadn’t told anyone where he was going because he hadn’t known himself, and he hadn’t contacted anyone at home. He’d gotten rid of the gun. He’d paid for everything with cash so paper wouldn’t follow him. The only improvement he could see was to have spared Rodale.

He went inside and studied the mirror. Facing him was long hair and a long beard, but it was still Virgil. He wondered who had killed Billy Rodale — Virgil or Joe.

He built a fire and went to bed. Everything he owned had once belonged to other people. Another man’s foot had stretched the leather of his boots. His sleeping bag conformed to the shape of someone else’s body. Even his name had come from the grave. He looked at his hands and wondered if he would recognize them on another man, or loose in a bin at a junk store.

Darkness and snow formed the borders of Joe’s life. He ceased to shave or bathe. He began a dozen books but never read past the first chapter. Many days he stayed in bed. One side of the canyon was always shade, with the sun arriving at midmorning and leaving by midafternoon. Great snow drifts muffled the land. At night the snowlight glowed.

As a child he had watched his father chop wood for the fire each day. He and his brother gathered kindling in a box. He remembered his father saying that wood made you warm twice — first when you split it and second in the fire. Now Joe split wood until his ax was dull and he had enough kindling to last for years. He reorganized the woodpile to make a separate place for the kindling, arranged according to size, then changed his mind and restacked it again.

He spent hours listening to static on the radio, turning the dial slowly to catch each tenth of every number. Occasionally he’d hear a scrap of music, the distant echo of a voice. When he tried to imagine what might be coming over the airwaves, his mind always returned to the advertising jingles of his childhood. He sang one again and again;

There is a reason why

everybody wants to buy

at Glasser Supply

in Rocksalt—

McCulloch Chainsaw!

This was followed by the sound of a chainsaw’s whine, which Joe duplicated with his voice. He walked around the house as if holding a chainsaw, cutting the walls and destroying the furniture. He pretended to lop the possum’s head off, then felt guilty and apologized. The possum continued its blank-eyed stare. Joe combed its tawny fur with his fingers.