Joe Lansdale: Leather Maiden

Dad lifted his head out from under the hood, picked up a shop rag and went to wiping grease off his fingers. “They’ve taken care of it. Sixty-nine Plymouth Fury. Front seat is big as a living room, and it runs like a scalded pig.”

He came over and shook my hand. It was a big hand, callused and dark from years of putting it in grease and oil and gasoline. He still had the same sturdy body, though he had gained a lot more belly since I saw him last. His hair, which used to be as black as the bottom of a hole to China, was now as white as cotton.

“Congratulations on your job,” he said.

“Thanks. I guess it’ll be okay.”

“Got to think positive, boy. Can’t let the gremlins take over…Damn, son. You look like death warmed over.”

“You ought to be on this side of it.”

“Lay off the booze a little, boy. That stuff will mess you up.”

“Mom said the same thing. And so did Mrs. Timpson.”

“Good advice gets around.”

“Yes, sir. The little girl next door—”

“Jazzy?”

I nodded. “She said you beat up her Daddy Greg.”

“Me and him had words.”

“Words won’t hit you so hard they make shit run down your leg.”

“The words led to a whipping. His.”

“That’s what she said. How many times did you hit him?”

“Hit a guy hard enough he shits himself, you don’t need a follow-up.”

I laughed a little at that.

“World has changed,” Dad said and tossed the rag in the direction of the Fury. “Seems like every other girl you meet these days had a kid when she was fifteen or sixteen and the boy run off and the girl’s raising it alone. Someone needs to tell those gals babies are caused by screwing. Hasn’t everyone heard of a goddamn rubber by now?”

“Well, from my talk with Jazzy, I take it her mother isn’t so hot.”

“Good deduction there if you’re talking about her parenting skills, but from another viewpoint she is as hot as the proverbial firecracker. I haven’t seen anything that hot since Joey Heatherton danced on The Dean Martin Show. ”

“Who?”

“Thanks for making me feel old. ’Course, I’ve only seen Jazzy’s mother twice and one of those times she was being hit with a chair leg by Daddy Greg. But she’s a pretty, dark-haired thing…. Goddamn Child Protective Services. We’ve called them half a dozen times, but nothing. The agency is in disarray. There have been three or four scandals, them losing children, that sort of thing. So no help there. Not yet.”

“Jazzy told me she and her mom lie down on graves and look at the stars.”

Dad nodded. “When they cleared some of the land out back, down by the creek, they found a graveyard. There’s still a patch of trees back there and the graves are under those.”

“Me and Jimmy played there for years. We didn’t see any graves.”

“It’s from the eighteen eighties. Gravestones were knocked over, buried. People in the community paid to have the place cleaned up, the stones set in place. Boy Scouts go out there and pull weeds, keep it clean. I guess the place just got lost. But I figure I was a mother I could find some other way to entertain my daughter than to go out and lie down on graves and look at the stars…Hey, you hungry?”

“Mom’s fixing me a sandwich.”

“Good. I want one too. ’Course,” he said, patting his belly, “I could probably skip one now and then.”

He put his arm around me and walked me out of the garage, across the yard and into the house.

5

We ate our sandwiches and had some apple pie, talked until the sun went down, and then we watched TV. We found some boxing and watched that. Mom decided she had things to do in the kitchen, which turned out to be reading her newspaper.

Dad talked some about the new lake house they had bought on Lake o’ the Pines with my brother and his wife, and about how they wanted to go there this summer, and I was welcome and all that. I explained my job would probably keep me where I was for a while.

Boxing finished, we watched a bit of news until Dad saw the war news was making me uncomfortable. We went out back and sat on the stoop of the back porch with a can of Diet Coke apiece and talked some more.

It was just simple chitchat at first. Finally Dad cleared his throat like a cat coughing up a hairball, looked away from me, toward the backyard fence and our neighbor’s rooftop as if something in that direction held his attention, said, “You still buddies with that guy, what’s his name, Snot?”

I laughed. “Booger.”

“Yeah, him.”

I had written Dad about Booger when I was in the sandlot over in Iraq. I was honest about the guy. I was guessing Dad was hoping me and Booger had parted company.

“I guess I am friends with him,” I said. “But I don’t want to see him that much. Fact is, I sort of think I just said goodbye to him for good. He’s great at war, but back here at home, I’m not sure he’s a fellow I ought to stir up. He’s in Oklahoma. He runs a shooting range and a bar.”

“Well, it’s good to have contact with people who have a similar history. That can help. But your letters made him sound a little strange.”

“He’s not bothered by stuff that would get to you and me. So even though we’ve done some of the same things, we don’t have the same history. History is in the eyes of the beholder, and Booger’s eyes, they’re a lot darker and flatter than mine.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“I meant it when I said he was good at war. He didn’t care what the cause was or if there was a cause. He just wanted a weapon in his hand and an enemy in his sights. He’s kind of scary, actually.”

“Next question is why are you friends with him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know the answer to that. Here, he’s like a shark out of water. Over there, I liked him by my side, in front of or behind me. He throws in with you, he’s there all the way. He doesn’t throw in with many people, and he’s not a man of regrets. He once told me a good center shot and a trashy woman with dirty underpants were about it for him.”

Dad nodded. “I’ve known some folks like him…. The job. It gonna be all right?”

“I don’t know yet. I found something a little curious.” I told him about Caroline.

Dad nodded. “I remember that. Never solved, least not so far.”

“Still, after Houston, newspaper-wise, it seems pretty bland around here. The Caroline Allison thing may be the only interesting thing I’ll ever write about. Even Timpson seemed the most excited about a skunk in Wal-Mart.”

“Don’t fool yourself, son. This isn’t Houston, but it’s got its own blood and grits. You’ll find that out soon enough when you go to work for the paper. Trust me, there’s plenty goes on, and Timpson knows it.”

“Like what?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Black and white tensions.”

“I thought we were past that.”

“There’s this black preacher and politician, Gerry Judence.”

“I know who he is,” I said. “Snappy dresser, quick-witted and full of shit. I’ve seen him all my life on televison.”

“There was a time when he was a serious civil rights leader. Marched with King, did good things. But as the nature of civil rights changed, he had to find a new way to keep himself in the spotlight. Recently, members of the black community decided that a school should be built down in the black section of town.

“Idea was some of the rich black folks, some rich whites too, would try and raise the level of the kids in that area by building a school. Most of the black people in town, and people in the white community, were for it. Judence threw a monkey wrench in that. He’s got antennae for that kind of thing. Some assholes down in the black community made it out to be some white man’s plot to change them from being black to white, and Judence latched on to that. It got him back in the news.