Family Thang Read online

  “I love you more than anything in the whole wide world.” That seemed safe. “Don’t end our love like this. Please, baby, not like this.” He hugged her and she didn’t resist. “I love you so much.” Kissed her ear, eye, nose, neck. “Too much, really.” Urged her toward the bed. “I love you, Ruth Ann.”

  She stopped at the bed. “Do you have a prophylactic?”

  “A what?”

  “A rubber.”

  “Oh, yeah. I got one right here.” He picked up his pants, fished inside the pocket and pulled out a small red package. “Here it is.”

  Ruth Ann took it. “Lie down. I’ll do it.”

  Eric practically dove onto the bed.

  “Close your eyes,” she told him.

  This was new, yet he was more than willing to play along. He heard the package open—she’s using her mouth? She was so skilled with her mouth. And then he felt her hands on him.

  “Say arrivederci,” Ruth Ann said.

  “Arrivederci.”

  He waited, anxiously, eyes squinched tight. He started to tell her to go ’head and do it when he heard the door opening. “Get back here!”

  Ruth Ann closed the door behind her. Eric gave chase. She was walking casually down the walkway toward the end of the motel when he ran out.

  She looked back, saw him running toward her, shrieked and started sprinting. Eric caught her just as she turned the corner.

  “Ruth Ann, come back inside.” He pulled her by her wrist.

  “Let me go, Eric. Let me go! Stop it now!”

  “We have to talk… inside the motel room… like normal people. C’mon, stop acting silly.”

  “No, Eric! I said stop. If you don’t stop I’ll scream.”

  “C’mon, Ruth Ann. You gonna make people think I’m doing something to you.” He said this calmly, rationally, as if they were on a stroll in a public park instead of him stark naked and her resisting being pulled by the wrist.

  Ruth Ann screamed and collapsed into a ball on the pavement. The door directly behind them, room number two, opened and a tall white man wearing only boxers and alligator-skinned boots stepped out.

  “Pardon me, young fellow,” he said just as Eric was attempting to lift Ruth Ann into a fireman’s carry. Louder: “Pardon me!”

  Eric turned and looked up. The blinking red lights made it impossible to discern the man’s face.

  “There’s a western showing on the tube, cowboy. This here ain’t your business.” He returned his attention to Ruth Ann and tried to lift her, but couldn’t get a good hold. “C’mon, Ruth Ann. Stop this nonsense!”

  All he had to do was pick her up and carry her the short distance to the motel room. Yeah, he thought as he kneeled to get a better grip, get her back inside, talk to her, bang her real good, and everyone would be happy.

  Ruth Ann, arms wrapped around her legs, fingers interlocked, head tucked between her knees, screamed.

  “Excuse me young fellow,” the man said again.

  “Didn’t I tell you get some business, Roy Rogers?”

  “Ma’am, is this fellow bothering you?”

  “Yes, he is!”

  “Step away from the lady, young fellow. Now!”

  “Make me!” He moved to lift Ruth Ann in a jerk-and-roll maneuver when he heard a metallic clip-clap. He froze.

  “I’m mighty tired of repeating myself. Step away from the lady, boy!”

  Eric swallowed. He knew what he would see before turning—the transition from young fellow to boy was too quick for the man not to have a gun—and when he did, sure enough the cowboy was aiming a weapon at him. Not a gun, uh-uh; not an old rusty revolver, what you would’ve expected from a galoot like him, but a shotgun.

  Eric felt his heart in his throat. He raised both hands as he stood up. Where on earth had the man concealed the damn thing?

  “You’re moving too slow to my liking, boy,” gesturing with the shotgun.

  Eric, moving his head left and right, not liking at all the shotgun shadowing him, said, “Sir, is there a problem?”

  “Shut your pie hole, boy. Hey, Ebb, get out here.”

  Another cowboy, this one shorter, rounder in the middle, in a pink bathrobe, stepped out of the motel room. “Yes, Harold,” he said.

  “Ebb, help the lady to her feet.”

  Ebb moved to assist Ruth Ann, but she stood on her own. “I’ll guess I’ll be going now,” she said.

  “I called the police,” Ebb said.

  “Police!” Eric shouted. “Ruth Ann, tell these cowpokes what’s really going on. We do this all the time, don’t we? Tell em! Tell em, Ruth Ann, before the police come.”

  Ruth Ann walked away. “Yes, we do this all the time. I love being dragged to a motel room by a naked man. It’s exciting. See you on the news, Eric. Ta-ta.”

  “No, Ruth Ann. Tell em the truth. Ruth Ann!” She’d turned the corner, flipping Eric a finger before disappearing.

  Eric smiled nervously. “You guys mind I go to my room, put my clothes on? I’ll come back. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”

  “Mosey along, young fellow.” He lowered the shotgun. “The lady’s gone. But let me share this with you, partner. I don’t saddle up with a man who forces himself on a woman. That kind of thing chafes my hide.”

  Eric shook his head. “Sir, believe me, even at gunpoint, I wouldn’t chafe your hide.”

  The man spat a wad of tobacco a few inches short of Eric’s feet. “Next time I see you forcing a woman, any woman, to do anything, it won’t go so easy. You see what horse I’m riding, boy?”

  Back to boy again. Eric nodded and backed up toward his room, not giving a damn if Silver was hitched around the corner.

  Inside the room he closed the door, locked it and threw on his clothes. A siren warbled in the distance. Shit! He ran to the bathroom, pried open the small window and shimmied out. Thank goodness he’d registered under an alias.

  He hurried to his truck and hopped in. It whined but didn’t start. The siren sounded closer. “Damn!” No other choice, he got out and ran through the woods.

  Chapter 5

  Albert, an albino boa constrictor, slid across the lawn. Its owner shouted, “Albert, you get back here! You know those people don’t like you.”

  Albert kept going, not realizing he was slithering perilously close to the yard next door where his owner’s neighbor had posted a sign on his unfenced property that read All Snakes Will Be Shot.

  “Albert, you hear me! I said get over here!” Robert Earl crossed his arms and stomped his feet. “Stupid snake,” and walked over and picked up Albert.

  Disoriented midair, Albert wriggled fitfully.

  “Bad snake! Bad snake!” Robert Earl tapped the six-foot, orange-and-white snake on its bulbous head. “When I tell you come here, I mean come here!” He tapped it again, to ensure it got the message.

  Albert almost wriggled free… Robert Earl grabbed its midsection and held it up eye to eye. “Do you hear me?” Onyx eyes stared defiantly at him, so Robert Earl shook it. “You hear me?”

  Albert flitted its black forked tongue.

  “Okay, then. Stop acting like you don’t know come here from sic em.”

  “Robert,” Estafay called from inside the back porch.

  “Yeah.” He couldn’t see her through the wire mesh screen. “Yeah, honey.”

  Estafay stuck her head out the door, her eyes never leaving Albert. “Telephone.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Someone from the mill.”

  “Dang! What they want? Okay.”

  When Robert Earl, holding Albert, crossed to the house, Estafay quickly retreated. He dropped Albert into the snake house, three plywood boards abutted to the skirting panel. Two days ago Albert had companions, two rattlesnakes, Killer and Diller, who escaped after a storm blew the boards down.

  Robert Earl went inside and picked up the phone in the kitchen. “Hello.”

  “Robert?”

  “This him.”

  “Ro
bert, Dale Brown. Over at the paper mill. We were wondering when you were planning to come back to work.”

  “Y’all was?” Robert Earl replied, sitting at the kitchen table, stretching the phone cord to its limit.

  “Yes, we sure were. When are you coming back?”

  “You know I just buried my daddy yesterday. The mound on his grave hasn’t leveled. If there is a mound. Sometimes they don’t cover the hole till days later, you know. Why it’s a good idea to check on em.”

  “I didn’t know that, Robert. If you could give us a rough date to when you’re coming back. We need to mark something on the calendar.”

  “Uh… I really don’t know when I’m coming back. When a man’s daddy is murdered it takes time adjusting, even though I couldn’t stand the sorry rascal. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I understand. I just need a—”

  “Do you really? Or are you just talking? Your daddy probably still alive while mine is six feet under. Worm food. Smelling like—”

  “Robert, I hate to cut you off. I just need a date. Take all the time you need, just give me a date when you think you’ll be able to return to work.”

  Drumming his fingers against the table: “I’m not coming back.”

  “Are you quitting?”

  “Yeah,” and hung up the phone.

  Forget him! Go back, go back for what? So Dale and his buddies could continue laughing behind his back, calling him the snake man and handing him the majority of the work load. Forget him, forget em all! He noticed his fingers were shaking.

  Might’ve been a bad idea, he thought, remembering the long line he’d seen at the unemployment office. He started to call Dale back.

  “No!”

  He had money coming, and once he got his hands on it he would go down to the mill and tell Dale and his buddies to kiss his rusty, black butt. And once he got his money he could finally catch up on all his bills, start his own business.

  Estafay entered the kitchen wearing a red terrycloth bathrobe. “Bad news?” she asked, taking a pot from the cabinet.

  “Dale wanted to know when I was coming back to work.”

  Estafay filled the pot with water from the tap and set it on the stove. “What you tell him?”

  “Told him I’d come back when I feel like it, not a second earlier. Told him not to call me no more. Dale ain’t nothing but a devil. Smile in my face then talk about me behind my back.”

  “Rent due next week,” Estafay reminded him. “And a payment due on those teeth in your mouth.”

  Robert Earl took out his dentures and set them on the table. “When we get that money I’m buying me some real teeth, the kind don’t hurt my mouth. Won’t have to work at no smelly mill, either.”

  Estafay scooted around Robert Earl and opened the refrigerator. “Not on the kitchen table, Robert. How many times must I tell you? That’s nasty!”

  He put the dentures in the front pocket of his gray flannel shirt.

  “Robert, that’s not where your teeth go. And the next time I find them inside the refrigerator, they’re going in the trash.”

  “Freezing em makes em softer on my gums.”

  “Put them in ice water, not my refrigerator.”

  Robert Earl hung his head, his chin resting on his chest. My refrigerator? He was the one who bought it. Shoot, he’d bought everything in their one-bedroom house. Estafay sat at the table opposite him.

  “Robert, do you really think a snake hole can make money here, in a small town in the sticks?”

  Robert Earl jerked his head up. “Not a snake hole, Estafay. A combination gas station and exotic snake farm. There’s not one here or anywhere near here, possibly not in the entire state. Honey, it can’t go wrong. You’ll see.”

  “We’re living in a shack. Look in the front door you can see through the entire house. The commode in the bathroom has been leaking for years. It’ll fall through the floor sooner or later. The refrigerator doesn’t freeze properly, only one eye on the stove works, the little furniture we have is worn out, and on top of all that we have a snake pit in the backyard.”

  “A snake house. It’s a snake house.”

  “Whatever. We need a new house, new appliances, furniture. I need a new car and…” She drifted off and looked away. Softly: “And some work.”

  “A job!”

  “Noooo!” Estafay said, frowning. “Woman’s work. Surgery.”

  “Oh,” looking confused and disappointed. “You know I’ve been planning a gas station and exotic snake farm for a long time. It’s my dream. When we start making money from our business we can buy all the stuff you talking about.”

  “Let’s not argue, sweetheart.” She took his hands in hers. “I’ll fast and pray on it. When the Lord tells me what to do, we’ll do what He says. He’ll tell me the right thing to do. All we need to do is obey His word. Now who do you think did it?”

  He didn’t hear the question, fretting over doing what the Lord told her to do. Every time she’d sought the Lord’s guidance in a disagreement between them, the Lord’s response always favored Estafay’s argument. Always!

  “Who do you think did it?” Estafay repeated.

  “Did what?” wondering if he should just cut her loose and pursue his dream.

  “Killed your daddy?”

  “No doubt in my mind, the fag did it.”

  “Leonard?”

  “The only fag in my family, and he told the old man to catch the next bus to hell. Then—plop!—the old man buys the farm.”

  “Are you upset?” releasing his hands.

  “No.”

  “You sound upset.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Robert, I’m your wife, and as your wife I will follow your lead. But the Lord is the head of this household. A divided house cannot stand—you know that!”

  “Yes, you’re right,” fearing she would embark on a long sermon.

  “Have you talked to Sheriff Bledsoe?”

  “Not yet. I will, though. He’s calling everybody in for an interview. I’ll tell him what I know when it’s my turn.”

  Estafay interlocked her fingers, closed her eyes and shook her head. Oh-oh, Robert Earl thought, here comes the sermon.

  Estafay opened her eyes and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t wait till he calls you. Maybe you should call him. Maybe you can help him, keep him from going in the wrong direction. The sooner he solves this case, the sooner we get our money.”

  Robert Earl nodded. She was making sense. “I guess I could.”

  Estafay got up, retrieved the phone and handed it to him. “You know the number, don’t you?”

  As he dialed he looked at Estafay. Her short hair parted in the middle, brushed down the sides. What kind of style is that? She stared back at him and he looked away.

  Sheriff Bledsoe picked up on the first ring. “Sheriff’s office. Sheriff Bledsoe speaking.”

  “Ennis, this Robert Earl. How you doing? Hey, Ennis, we need to talk about my daddy’s murder, the sooner the better.”

  “Yes, Robert Earl, we sure do. In fact, I was about to call you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I was reaching for the phone when it rang. Your mother, Ida, she’s here in my office.”

  “Momma?” He heard someone crying in the background.

  “Yes. She’s here. Uh… she just confessed to murdering your father.”

  Chapter 6

  The smoke alarm whistled. Shirley, lying on the couch in the living room, didn’t hear it. Dreaming: Eric and she were standing in a chapel before Reverend Walker.

  Eric dressed in a baby-blue tuxedo. She wore an off-white gown with a train trailing down the aisle. Wedding bells rang in the background. Smoke filled her nostrils. The pews filled to capacity. She sniffed… sneezed.

  Smoke?

  “Ain’t something burning?” Eric yelled from the bedroom.

  She jumped to her feet and ran into the kitchen. White smoke billowed from the skillet. Wha
t once were two sausage patties and three eggs was now a black lump dancing and sizzling in the skillet as if it were alive. Shirley turned the burner off and pushed the skillet off the red-hot coil with a spatula.

  “Ain’t something burning?” Eric yelled again.

  Shirley tiptoed and removed the smoke alarm from a nail in the wall.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “Your breakfast!”

  She heard him cursing. The gall of that man. He’d come home late last night, after midnight, sweating, his pants unzipped, talking about the truck had broken down, he’d had to walk.

  He’d justified everything, but one thought dominated her mind: he’s cheating. Again. Yet she didn’t confront him.

  She stepped out onto the back porch and placed the smoke alarm on the window ledge. In the backyard a large raccoon pilfered through trash scattered around an upended trashcan.

  It stood on its hind legs and bared its teeth. “Git!” Shirley shouted, feigning to throw something at it.

  It grabbed whatever it was eating and disappeared into the pine trees lining the back of the mobile home park. Confronting Eric a waste of time; he’ll only lie.

  Maybe she was jumping the gun. He could have taken a leak and forgot to zip up. If he’d been cheating, surely he had enough sense to tidy up before coming home.

  No, Eric wouldn’t cheat on her the day after her father’s funeral. She heard the doorbell ringing inside the house.

  Eric was tiptoeing to the front door in his underwear when she stepped into the living room. “You expecting company?” he asked. He looked into the peephole. “Darlene. Blabbermouth Darlene.”

  “Come in,” Shirley said, and Darlene—tall, thin, two diamond studs in one nostril, braided hair extensions brushing her butt—pushed the door open.

  “Get out of here with no clothes on!” Shirley told Eric.

  Eric just stood there, eyeballing Darlene. “You need to gain some weight,” he said. “A strong wind might carry your narrow ass away. I don’t appreciate you coming over here filling Shirley’s head with bullshit about me. Why you ain’t got no man, huh?”

  “Don’t disrespect my friends,” Shirley said. “I don’t disrespect your friends.”