THUGLIT Issue One - страница 28

He nodded. They paged through it. Image after image of his wife, his pairs of sons and daughters, his four grandkids. They huddled together on picnic tables at the park ground on the 4th of July, stood before the Christmas tree’s glister, crammed around the Thanksgiving spread. Every picture gleamed with tight smiles and flashbulb happiness.

Dan didn’t look at the smiles. He studied the eyes. He wanted to run his fingertip over their hard pebbles; rub them like Braille to feel if a hidden story could be read.

“Everybody looks so happy,” Darly said, sober and slouched. “When did things go bad?”

“When they grew up and quit listening,” Big Dan said. He flipped pages faster. “And when your grandmother died.”

The truth was that things were always kind of bad. Big Dan and his wife, Allie, had tried to set the kids right. He’d spared no expense and no punishment.

The slightest show of weakness in these kids-bad grades, poor performance on the field, teenage romance-and he’d get the whole family to make fun of them. The tape recorders in their bedrooms and the late-night spying discovered their secrets and gave him grounds to correct them with beatings. And every time he got back talk, he’d lock them in the basement. Hell, he’d forgotten Andrea down there for a day and a half one time.

All that discipline, and still they’d broken bad. Turned sneaky. Gone bitter. Given up.

Big Dan shut the album and grabbed another at random off the stack. He flipped through, not exchanging a word with Darly.

“Everything looks so pretty,” Darly said, hands clasped in her jacket pockets again. “Guess that’s what money gets you: A lot of pretty.”

That’s all she said. And that was fine by Big Dan. It was enough to know she understood-knew what was necessary in life and what his family had given up.

Andrea gave up on everything but an endless course of scumbag baby daddies. Chrissie, she was a sour old maid at 35 with love only for cats and self-cutting. Dan Junior and Dick, they were in and out of the pen, the church and the poorhouse.

How he’d fought for those kids. Fought without compromise or remorse.

All they did was fight back.

He slapped the album closed midway and tossed it back on the table. A belt of scotch only made the cramped burn in him worse.

All that fighting, and now the only thing he had left-his Chevy store, his sign and his castle by the lake-would be lost to him.

The storm slammed the windows like the laughter of the mob. The chemicals had slipped their stink through his window seals. The burn in him just sank deeper no matter how long he drank.

Darly lifted it with a touch of his hand.

He set down the glass and found her eyes waiting. They were carved wise like his, but wanton. Interest glowed through their weary cores.

“Can we look at another?”

“I got a better idea,” Big Dan said, before he even really knew what it was.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Where?” The eagerness snuck into her lips and stretched them wide.

“New Orleans.”

“Really?” She giggled. Big Dan felt like giggling too. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt like that. Probably some time before his old man began to use the buckle of the belt to whip him with, and that was his first memory-stretched onto the stove, his nose against burner soot, as the iron gouged his bare ass.

“Yeah, let’s get out there and settle in.”

“But this place is so nice.”

Big Dan waved that away. “We’ll find another nice place. This place is done for.”

She didn’t take a moment to think-just nodded. Enthusiasm lunged Big Dan to his feet without even feeling his knees ache. He didn’t leave Darly’s eyes.

There was hope and youth enough there for the both of them-the bright breed of youth that still believed in flight and fresh starts.

“I’ll pack my things,” he said, tipping her chin with a finger. She lifted her grin, crooked little teeth showing. “You get drinks and snacks for the road.”

He wouldn’t bring much. Enough to live on until New Orleans.

Living was what this was about-getting out from the toxic flood, the tonnage of the business, the wreck of his family.