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Some more nights later I was in the bar again and I saw her come in again but I
didn't look at her and she did her jukebox routine again without my quarters, but
with glances over her shoulder at me several times. I was nursing a beer.
I'd been sitting there thinking about things for a while. I wasn't too keen on
going back to work the next morning, and was pretty sure the boys could handle it
for a few days without me.  I knew she was going to sidle over, and pretty soon
she did.
"What you got the blues about?"
"Nothing. Sit down."
"We gonna do it again tonight?"
"I don't know if we will or not."
"I wish we would."
"I don't know."
"Please."
"Since you put it like that."
We wound up back in the same place. I knew that lightning didn't strike twice,
that I couldn't be unlucky two nights in a row. We shucked down, were moving and
grooving and saying baby baby baby when the lights came around the curve. I sat
up in the seat and reached under it for my pistol, told her I was getting a
little tired of this shit. I had just my pants on when I stepped out of the car.
I had that little hogleg down beside my leg. Somebody threw a spotlight in my
face and told me to freeze, and I heard a couple of shotgun safeties snick off
real soft.
"Just hold it , boy. Now turn around. Now drop that gun. Now spread out on the
fender there."
I got frisked while she was putting her clothes on and she was fully dressed by
the time they decided to shine their lights on her. They weren't pissed that I
had the gun, they were just pissed that I'd messed up their dope surveillance and
when they went to looking through her purse I had a few bad moments, but it
turned out that she'd wisely hidden her joints inside her panties, and being the
southern gentleman they were, they weren't about to ask her to disrobe again.
They told me they'd appreciate the shit out of it if I'd find someplace else to
park because they were working on busting some people right there and they were
sure I didn't want to be mixed up in it. I told them No sir, Budweiser was my
only vice. We booked on out of there, and I think it was like 3:47 when I got on
in home, after we'd finished with a motel room we'd used for twenty-four minutes.
I got on my forklift the next day and drove it all around the plant. We had to
load a bunch of dishwashers and it took all day. I thought I never would get out
of here. But finally the day ended and I just had enough time to get to the
Little League game, where all the upstanding other fathers were standing around
watching their kids swat, and there I sat, mired down in a lawn chair, getting
depressed when my own small slugger struck out or missed making a catch. It was a
hard life, and I didn't know if I was going to be able to keep on living it.
My wife came over and sat down next to me and said: "What you doing?"
"Nothing."
"You want to take the kids out to eat after the game?"
"Not really."
"What you got planned?"
"Nothing."
"You don't enjoy this, do you?"
"Not really."
She looked at me. "You hate being married, don't you?"
"Why do you say that?"
She looked back at the game. "Because. I can tell."
I watched them play for a while. Mothers were yelling. Once in a while a pop fly
would sail over the fence. One kid got hit in the eye and started crying and had
to be replaced. They gave him a towel with some ice in it, and somebody else held
his hand and bought him a snow cone.
"You want a divorce?" she said.
"Not really."
"Well," she said. "I hate you're so unhappy."
Then she got up and left me sitting there.
We happened again about a week later. I'd had two beers and she came in. She didn't even mess around with the juke-box, she just made a beeline for me and got
me by the arm.
"Come on over to my house," she said. I thought, Hell's bells. Thought, Why
didn't we do this before?
We rushed on over there, to a darkened apartment, and stumbled in, pulling our
clothes off and kissing in the living room. She couldn't wait for the bed, had to
get down on the couch. She was moaning, and stuffing a pillow into her mouth, and
that's  where we were when a vehicle pulled in up front, shining lights in through
the picture window, all the way through the curtains. She started making some
frantic motions but I thought it was just the heat of passion. Then the lights
went off. They don't have adequate parking in those places sometimes anyway, but
the car door slammed so hard I thought something about it, and the next thing I
knew the front door was opening and the light was on in the living room and there
we were, with a big maniac with a lug wrench coming toward the couch. I jumped up
and threw a pillow in his face, and he knocked the stuffing out of the couch
where my leg had been. She screamed while he was calling me 900 motherfuckers,
and I saw he was fixing to kill me. My dick was waving around in front of me just
briefly. I didn't mess around with any diplomacy, I picked up a kitchen chair and
hit him in the face with it, and the way blood flew was awful. I called her about
900 different kinds of bitch before I got my clothes on and got out of there, but
I did get out of there, hoping like hell he wasn't dead.
I didn't know what to do after that, whether to go fishing or just say no to
everything. I wanted to run off. I even figured out how long I could live in
another town with the money in my checking account. But he didn't know me, and I
didn't know him. Of course he'd seen my face, some of it anyway. He'd be trying
his best to hurt me real bad for sure if he could. Somebody busted my face with a
kitchen chair, I'd be looking to return the favor.
So I stayed home. Didn't go out and hit any bars. I hung around the house and
watched TV, drank coffee on the couch. Helped the kids with their homework.
Played Daddy. I came in before her a couple of times and started supper and put
clothes in to wash. Mopped the kitchen floor. Dusted the furniture. She got to
glowing, and things were great between us in bed. But I wanted the other one
again because it was different and it was dangerous now, and so the peace and
tranquility only lasted about a week, nine days tops.
The last time I saw him, he came in the bar with her. I was sitting at my table
in the corner, back to the wall, watching who came in the door. They saw me about
the same time I saw them. She was drunk off her ass. They went to the bar but he
eyeballed me, wouldn't turn his back on me. Smart move. I saw him checking the
exits. He kind of straddled a stool. They ordered drinks and the drinks came and
paid. I was wondering what to hit the son of a bitch with this time. There was
probably a shotgun behind the counter, but I knew I'd never make it to that.
There was always the side door, but I didn't think I was quite ready for that. I
wanted to see what her act was, what the game she was playing was, what I was
gambling with over a small piece of nearly skinny ass.
I got up and put some money in the jukebox and sat back down. People get ready. . .
And Jeff Beck cut loose and filled the whole place up with his guitar. The people
shooting pool moved to it. The drunks sitting around the bar wished it was them
playing it. She swayed on the barstool and looked over her shoulder at me and
winked, and his beer slammed down, and he was coming, and I picked up the wooden
chair I was sitting in and gave it to him, this time straight across the teeth.
Nobody said a word when I walked out with her, especially not him.
We found some place off in the woods again, not the same place, not her house,
not a motel room, just a place off in the woods. Crickets were chirping. Coon
dogs or fox dogs somewhere were running. She fed the end of the joint to me and I
fed it back to her and, while all that was going on in the face of what all had
gone on, I wondered: what was the purpose? But I didn't want to think about
things much right then. She laid lips on me, and we moved down in the seat, and I
knew that it wouldn't be but a little bit before those headlights, somebody's,
would ease around the curve.
Excerpted from Big Bad Love
Larry Brown's most recent book, Billy Ray's Farm, a collection of essays,
is available through Algonquin Books. His most recent novel is Fay.
©2002
Larry Brown and Nerve.com
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