Joe Lansdale: A Fine Dark Line

We were sitting at the table waiting for him, plates of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy stacked in the center of the table, when he arrived holding something with a pair of tweezers.

I thought it was a balloon. It dangled limp from the tweezers and was tied in a knot at the top and was filled with something, and Daddy’s hand shook as he held it.

He looked at Caldonia, said, “I found it in your room.”

Caldonia turned red as Santa’s suit, slid down in her chair. Even her ponytail seemed to wilt. “You couldn’t . . .” she said.

But, he had.

Later we learned he had gone in Callie’s room to shut her window against the rain, and had seen what he now held with tweezers. But at that moment, all I knew was here was a very upset man standing at the table with an odd balloon dangling from a pair of tweezers.

“You’re only sixteen,” he said. “Not married.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Callie said, and with the speed of the Flash, she leaped from her chair and darted for her room.

Still holding the thing with the tweezers, Dad looked at Mom, who stood up very slowly, put her chair under the table and left the room with a sob. Down the hall I heard her crying, and over that I could hear Callie wailing.

Daddy looked at me, said, “I’ll just get rid of this.”

Not knowing what it was he was disposing of, or what had actually occurred, I just nodded, and when he left the room I sat there bewildered. Eventually he returned. He sat at the head of the table and stared off into space. Finally he noticed me sitting there. He said, “You go ahead and eat, Stanley.”

I filled my plate and started in, curious about what was going on, but in no way put off my feed. I was through my second piece of chicken when Mom came back and sat down and made a production of placing her napkin in her lap.

Daddy said, “You spoke with her, Gal?”

Mom’s voice wasn’t any better. “Some. I’ll be speaking with her again.”

“Good. Good.”

She looked up at me, smiled weakly, said, “Callie won’t be joining us for dinner. Would you pass the chicken, Stanley?”

3

IT WAS SUNDAY, and the drive-in was closed. Back then Sunday was taken seriously by Christians, and no legitimate businesses were open. Some Christians argued Saturday was the true day of praise and rest for the Lord, but the law thought it was Sunday.

For years there was a thing in Texas called the blue law, which meant there were certain items you couldn’t buy on Sunday. Like alcoholic beverages. Or you could buy a hammer, but couldn’t buy nails, a drill, but no bits. Anything that might lead to the successful completion of work. If someone saw you working, they looked at you as if you had just set fire to the courthouse while it was stuffed with pink-cheeked Girl Scouts and all their cookies.

As I recall, certain bathroom items were even considered taboo to be sold.

So, back then Sunday was not a day the drive-in opened. My parents were not churchgoers, and to the best of my memory, religion was never seriously discussed, least not from a theological standpoint.

Still, no matter what the family’s beliefs, there was no question there was some sort of moral event at the heart of Callie’s mistake. Enough that I heard Mother call on God. Twice. I think she was threatening him.

Daddy, realizing I was puzzled about the matter of the knotted balloon, tried to explain it to me that afternoon.

We were out back, inside the drive-in, under the awning over the front of the concession stand, sitting in chairs, looking at the green fence in the distance, watching what was left of the rain.

Daddy, without looking at me, said, “Son. Do you know what happened with Callie?”

“You found something in her room that shouldn’t have been there.”

Daddy sat silent for a moment. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, because, somehow, I knew this wasn’t a face-to-face kind of conversation.

“In a way that’s correct,” Daddy said. “Son, do you know about the birds and the bees?”

Of course I did. Was he asking me the difference? Was this a bird and insect lesson? I said, “I think so.”

“Well, there’s a time for the birds and the bees. You should know what it’s all about.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Callie found out too soon. Or maybe she knew, but she got involved too soon.”

“With the birds and the bees?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“You’re mad about it?”

“Yes. I’m hurt. I’m a little scared.”

I did look at him now. I couldn’t help myself. Daddy, scared? My daddy seemed to me invincible. Kind of man that would go bear hunting with a switch and make the bear carry the switch home for him. And here he was upset over some birds and bugs and a knotted balloon.

“Why, Daddy?”

“Because Callie is my little girl and I want the best for her, and she’s too young to be involved with that kind of thing.”

“Was she throwing them in her room?”

“Do what?”

“Water balloons?”

Daddy looked at me for a long moment, blinked, said, “Oh . . . Oh, I see . . . Why yes, son. She was. I can’t tolerate that kind of thing . . . Tell you what. We’ll talk later.”

Daddy stood up and went inside.

I sat there for a while, then toddled inside, confused. Whatever our conversation had been about, I was certain of one thing: It wasn’t a matter Daddy really wanted to discuss anyway.

———

IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS there occurred what seemed to me a series of random events. Oh, I knew Callie was in trouble for the water balloon, but it astonished me that Mom and Daddy told her she wasn’t going anywhere for six months or longer, or “maybe forever,” as Daddy put it, unless it was with the family.

Callie was also weepy all the time, and that surprised me. She normally took her punishment quite stoically, though it seemed to me she always got off lighter on everything than I did. She usually had Daddy wrapped around her little finger, but this time that wasn’t the case. He was harder on her than Mom was, and Mom wasn’t easy. She gave Callie all manner of odd chores, and would break out crying sometimes when she saw her.

Callie’s boyfriend, Chester, who she had met the second day we arrived in Dewmont, and who was nineteen, stopped coming around soon after, due to Daddy and him having what Mom would refer to in later years as an altercation.

To be more precise, Daddy told him not to show his face there again. After a few days, however, Chester ignored him, coming up one Sunday afternoon wanting to talk to Daddy, as he said, “Like a man.”

He came up in his black hotrod Ford, flame licks painted on the sides, got out, his hair sculptured into what looked like a black, overturned gravy boat. He had on a pink and black shirt and jeans with the cuffs rolled up, and a pair of, you guessed it, blue suede shoes.

Chester got out of his car slowly, like a visiting dignitary from the planet Rockabilly.

Daddy had already received word of his arrival, as I had been out in the front yard with Nub, messing about, and as soon as Chester showed, I rushed into the house to tattle.

I followed Daddy outside. Chester cocked his leg forward, tried to look like Elvis. He said, “Sir, I want to set you straight on something about me and Callie.”

That was the wrong tone. Daddy’s answer was to spring on Chester. Daddy’s fist found Chester’s mouth, and after that blow there was a sound from Chester like someone torturing a cat. Then Daddy was straddling him, beating him like a circus monkey.

Well, actually, had Daddy been serious, Chester would have never gotten up. Daddy was slapping him repeatedly, saying, “Getting any smarter, grease stick, getting any smarter?”