Our Daily Bread (18 page)

“Larry!
Larry!
What the fuck are you doing, man?”

Tom turned as Hank Corkum hopped down from the loading dock, nimble as a cat, light on his feet and quick for a man his size.

“Hey, Hank,” said Larry. “I just needed, you know.”

“No, I don't fucking know. I told you to stay the hell away from here. Why don't you listen to nobody, man?” Hank kept his eyes on Larry, crossing the asphalt in a few long strides, his hands out to either side, palms up, in query or supplication.

And Tom thought:
So again, everyone knew but me.
It was very hard to keep his hands at his side, not to hit something, break or tear or crack something.

“I wanted to say I'm sorry. Like in that program, right, where you make amends and shit.”

“You have to be fucking sober for that, Larry. You hear me? Doesn't mean shit if you're high, you asshole. You took my fucking car? And you're drinking?” Hank looked at Tom for the first time. “You want to pop my idiot cousin, I'm not going to interfere.”

Tom considered the offer. It would be easy. He didn't know what it felt like to snap someone's jaw under his fist, had never hit anyone that hard before, although he had no doubt he could do it with a single punch. Faced with the invitation to crush the man he held responsible for his present agony, he could not deny the allure of bloodshed. Larry Corkum stood before him, eyes ragged and roaming under the weight of his own pain, skin blotched and pocked with the effects of whatever drug he was taking, cheeks hollowed by a variety of hungers, hands quivering slightly, not even preparing to defend himself. His mouth was slack and open, his breath a funk of beer fumes. He swayed on unsteady legs.

“Yeah,” Larry said. “You go ahead. You hit me. I deserve it.”

“No, thanks,” said Tom.

Larry began to crumple in earnest then. His lower lip trembled and his eyes dripped large, oily tears.

“Come on, Larry. Get you out of here.” Hank stepped forward and pushed his cousin's shoulder to move him toward the car. “I'm driving.”

“Wait, wait.” Larry looked at Tom and then, slowly, extended his hand. It hung there in the sticky air, shaking, the colour of ham. “I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I didn't know. Just didn't get it.”

Tom did not want to shake Larry's hand. He wanted to turn and get as far away from this man, from this place, as was possible. He looked down at Larry's hand, and saw it as an already-dead thing, simply unaware of its own mortality. “Let's just leave it, okay?” he said.

Before he could stop him, Larry reached out and took his hand, grabbed it and pulled Tom into an awkward and surprisingly fierce embrace.

“You're all right, you know that?” Larry blubbered into his neck. “She don't deserve you.”

Tom was so stunned he just stood there, his eyes meeting Hank's whose wide-eyed shock probably mirrored his own. Larry punched him lightly on the back with his fist all the while clutching his hand up against his chest.

“Shit,” said Hank.

“I love you, man. I'd fucking cut off my arm. My fucking arm,” Larry mumbled.

And without really knowing why, except perhaps it was the only way Tom could see to end this grotesque waltz, he reached up with his free hand and slapped Larry a couple of times on the back. “Pull yourself together, Larry. For fuck sake. Come on now. Come on.”

Hank tugged at Larry's arm. “Quit acting crazy and get in the fucking car.”

Larry let Hank lead him away, muttering all the time he was sorry, really sorry.

Tom stood in the sharp, unforgiving light and felt as though a strip of his flesh had been pulled away. It was hard to breathe and for a moment he was rooted, still sensing the weight of the other man hanging in his arms. At last, he turned to go round the building and find his car in the employee parking lot.

In the mouth of the loading dock stood a small group of men. He knew their names. Ed, Bob, Clint, Austin, Wooly and Huck. Had known most of them his entire life, knew the names of their kids and where they lived and in at least three cases, to whom they'd lost their virginity. But he hadn't known this about them: hadn't known they could stand at that coward's distance and watch a man's humiliation and anguish and smile about it. Hadn't known they could stand in the shade of a rubber and brick overhang and smile and snigger behind their thick, paint-spattered fingers. It did something to him; all that knowledge piled up inside him like stones. It filled him somehow, and protected him. His bent shoulders straightened. His head realigned from its bowed position to sit at ease and his eyes grew calm. Tom regarded these men with an unfaltering gaze and it seemed as though the distance, both temporal and spatial, was very great. It was a sort of detachment, an objectivity from which he imagined himself on a smouldering pyre, strapped to the post of his agony, waiting for the flames to begin, the smoke to rise, and while he accepted that soon he would be consumed by the loneliness all around him, just for this moment there was a kind of pride in his position. His naked pain glowed with a kind of grace.

One by one, in silence, the men stopped sniggering and without looking at one another, they turned and disappeared into the factory shadows, until Tom was left alone. The factory clanged and clattered and voices, some of them gruff with embarrassment, skidded and scattered along the heat ripples rising from the asphalt.

It was a long walk to his truck and Tom was less than halfway there before his cheeks were wet and he was half-blind. Inside the cab, the air was hot as a crematorium oven. He thought he might dissolve to nothing but a puddle of bubbling fat and charcoaled bone.

The apostle Paul wrote
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”
Ephesians 6:1. The original command to honour father and mother applies to all of us throughout our lives. But in this place children, specifically, are told to obey their parents “in the Lord.” Because of his total lack of experience and judgment, it is absolutely necessary that a child be taught to OBEY his parents INSTANTLY and WITHOUT QUESTION. Explanations and reasons for this may and should be given to the child from time to time. But, at the moment a parental command is given, THERE MAY NOT BE TIME OR OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE THE REASON WHY! Therefore, it is imperative that a child be taught the HABIT of unquestioning OBEDIENCE to his parents. For, until the young child develops, his parents stand to him in the place of God. And God holds them RESPONSIBLE for teaching and directing the child properly.
“He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Proverbs 13:24. “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.”
Proverbs 19:18

—Reverend Wilson Carothers,
Church of Christ Returning, 1956

The unseasonable, dry-fever heat
thickened the night air with insects. The hard clay earth cracked into a crazy quilt and the fragile new leaves on the trees drooped. They needed rain and everyone said when it came it would come in a great thunderous clap of wind and fury. But for now, the air was a sultry hot breath on the face, fragrant with resin and tar.

Albert drove the truck by steering the wheel with his left wrist, the fingers dangling and loose. With his other hand he probed his teeth with a wooden pick. He and Bobby had shared a meat-lover's pizza at the Italian Garden and were now on their way to visit Gladys Corkum.

“She's good people, for mountain,” Albert said. “Although this isn't real mountain, you understand. That's not for you. Not yet anyway. This is like mountain-light.”

Everything was a question of degrees and Albert had been trying to teach this to Bobby. In town, you had the fat cats who lived on Washington, in the big houses, like Pataki, looking out on the river. Then folks like Mrs. Carlisle, who had a real nice house, but no mansion, and then people like Bobby's family, doing all right for themselves, working class, and finally, people like Stan Mertus who were scrambling pretty close to the “mountain line.” The mountain was like that too, only in reverse. Erskines at the top, which meant exactly the opposite of what it would in town. People like Gladys and the other Corkums, close to the bottom, living in houses on a web of roads just off the highway, neither here nor there.

“I'm cool,” Bobby had said.

“I'm counting on it.” Albert glanced over at the younger boy. He had pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. Bobby never wanted to go home, kept asking if he could hang out up at Albert's cabin. Albert thought it must be rough, thinking you had a normal family, and then finding out it was just as fucked up as anybody else's. He wasn't ready to bring Bobby up to the mountain, although he was eager to see how he'd handle himself at Gladys's.

“You know where that guy lives?” Bobby said.

“What guy?”

“
The
guy, Albert. The one my mother took off with.” Bobby kept his face turned to the window.

The houses here were not like the houses in town. The houses here were more or less just shacks on little pieces of land, yards scattered with car parts, broken furniture and tires filled with the dried-out skeletons of geraniums and snapdragons. Some of the shacks were wooden, painted bright colours: pinks and blues, and one purple. Most were unpainted, and one or two were tarpaper over ragged insulation and wood frame. One was burned out, just a couple of walls and some black earth. Every year, in the deep freeze of a dark winter night, a shack or two burned down and people died—the culprit generally being a short-circuited and untended electric heater, or a wood stove with a faulty chimney. The bright colours made Albert think of the three pigs and the big bad wolf. They looked like they'd blow down with even the mildest of huffs, the most inconsequential of puffs. At least trees surrounded his place. Even if it was a lie, they offered the illusion of protection.

Albert knew where the Corkums lived. Knew Larry Corkum, Patty's lover, to see, anyway. Larry was younger than Bobby's mother, a nice enough guy, but not too bright. The kind of guy who could be talked into things. Albert had sold him a lid once or twice and overcharged him. Larry didn't seem to mind. “Yeah, I know where he lives. You want to go by and see it?”

“No.”

“Good choice. Won't do no good, young Bobby and I can guarantee that his people aren't any happier than yours.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” He turned to Albert, a slight flush of emotion on each cheek.

“Still protective of Mom, huh?”

He turned away again. “No.”

A scrawny deer hobbled out into the road, one leg dragging uselessly. Albert swerved around it and then looked back in the rear-view mirror. “I should have hit that thing, put it out of its misery. Would have busted up the truck, though.”

“If you'll take me here, how come not up to your place?”

Albert looked over at Bobby. “So, what's the big attraction at my place?”

“I don't know. Curious, I guess. And—”

“And what?”

“Well, you're up there. You've got your own place. I hate being at my place. All that silence and moping around. Ivy thinks she's my fucking mother now, trying to bake cookies and shit. What's that about?” He shook his head and picked at a hangnail. “Anyway, I just thought it might be kinda cool, you know. I could come up there sometime. Maybe get a bottle of brandy or something from my old man's cabinet.”

“Jesus. What am I going to do with you? We're here,” said Albert, and they pulled up in front of a tiny tarpaper-and-board house. Plastic covered the windows and parts of the outer walls. Scraps flapped in the wind like thin shavings of dead skin, ragged and frayed.

“Come on,” said Albert.

Bobby's hand went to the door handle and then hesitated.

“Nervous?” Albert grinned at him.

“Maybe. A little.” Bobby blushed under his hood.

He looks about twelve, thought Albert. “Don't be. Gladys'll like you.” He reached over and punched Bobby lightly on the shoulder, then got out of the cab and waved at Bobby to follow. The younger boy got out of the truck and shuffled across the dirt.

Albert knocked and walked in, calling out, “Hey, Gladys, how you doing?”

Along the left wall was a kitchen of sorts. A stainless steel sink with a piece of yellow cloth stuck around it with double-sided tape, drooping, only half-hiding the cleaning products below. A battered stove, a small refrigerator painted a streaky pink. An assortment of milk crates, upended to form boxes, stacked one on top of the other, acted as shelving. Several boxes of macaroni and cheese, a box of cereal, a glass jar of rice, another of dried peas and five or six tins of soup. There was a green-topped chrome table and four chairs. A brown plastic door, folded back like an accordion, divided the main room from a small back room in which stood a crib, a cot and a set of drawers. The air smelled of cigarettes and diapers.

Against the wall opposite the kitchen a thin woman reclined on a legless, spring-shot and stained blue sofa. A cluttered white plastic coffee table stood in front of the couch, and a small television in the corner was tuned to a game show. An electric fan was plugged into the same extension cord as the television and a lamp, the wires a threatening snarl. A large square of brown speckled linoleum served as a rug. The woman on the couch twisted her neck toward the door. “Close the fucking door, Albert! You wanna let all the bugs in or what? Who's that?”

“Hey, Gladys,” said Albert. “This is Bobby.”

Gladys was in her thirties. Her hair was unevenly dyed blonde, frizzy and flat at the back where her head had rested against the arm of the couch. She had pouches under her pale eyes and her lips were thin, her teeth small and grey. She was still pretty, though, in a washed-out and worn sort of way. She wore jeans, an oversized man's cardigan (even though the evening was warm enough to warrant the fan) over a black T-shirt and large greyish-pink fuzzy slippers.

“Bobby who?”

“Evans,” said Albert. “And yeah, he's Tom Evans's kid, so don't go there.”

“Huh,” said Gladys, looking at Bobby without smiling. “What brings you boys here?”

“Been a while since you left an order at Maverick's. Thought maybe you might need a delivery.”

“I wanted a delivery I would have left word. I'm busted. You giving it away?”

“Have I ever given it away?”

Gladys snorted. “Well, then. You want a beer?”

“Yeah, all right,” Albert said. “Maybe we'll do a little something-for-something.”

“You know where they are.” She turned back to the game show. Celebrities sat in cubicles built to form a large tic-tac-toe board. They answered questions posed by the game's host and the contestants had to guess whether the celebrities were lying or not. “They got Whoopie Goldberg in the centre square now,” said Gladys. “I heard that woman owns the show.”

“You only got two beers,” said Albert, his head in the refrigerator.

“Yeah? So split one with your friend. You sitting down, honey, or what?”

“Thanks.” Bobby pulled a chair around so he sat on the other side of the coffee table.

Albert opened a cupboard and reached for a glass. “Fuck, Gladys, you got mice turds in here.”

“I don't bother them, they don't bother me. No roaches, though. I can't stand those little fuckers.” She shivered without taking her eyes off the screen.

Albert handed Gladys a beer bottle and poured some into a glass he then handed to Bobby. “So, what you been up to?” He took another chair and straddled it, his arms on the back. He peeled the corner of the label off his beer and then smoothed it back down again.

“Playing Florence Nightingale. Jake's sick again. That kid is always sick. I wasn't never sick when I was little, but he gets every cold, every barfy bug that goes around. He been puking all day. Only been asleep the past hour.”

“That's too bad,” said Bobby. “How old is he?”

“Jake's four.”

“Gladys's got a boy my age, too,” said Albert.

“Really? Wow,” said Bobby.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You don't look old enough,” said Bobby, shifting on his chair.

Gladys laughed, swung her legs off the couch, and looked at him. “How old do you have to be?”

“You just look so young.”

“Aren't you the sweetest thing? Hell, I was fourteen when I had Ricky. That's how I met this sorry sack of skin,” she said, waving her beer bottle at Albert. “They ran together for a while.” Gladys leaned forward and slapped Albert's thigh. “You remember how you used to come sniffing round?”

Albert grinned but said nothing.

“Yessir, little big man he thought he was. So I said one day, ‘Bertie, darling, you want to come over and park your car in my garage?' And this fool looks at me all innocent and sweet and says, ‘Gee, Gladys, I don't got no car. I ain't even got a bicycle!'” Gladys threw back her head and laughed. Albert laughed, too.

“Yeah, well, maybe it wasn't me sniffing round. You were only too happy to see me later when I came back looking for parking space—once I'd learned how to drive.”

“Nice try. I was your first driving teacher.”

“You wish,” said Albert.

Gladys leaned back on the couch and drank from her beer, then lit up a cigarette from a green and white menthol pack. “Yeah, Ricky's in the Navy now. Has to support that baby-mama of his. He's a better man than his father, I'll say that for him. So Bobby—it's Bobby, right? How are things at your place?”

“Gladys,” Albert growled.

“I'm just asking.”

“All right,” said Bobby.

“Well,” said Gladys, “don't let it get you down, kid. More assholes in the world than angels. Might just as well get used to it.”

“That's what I been telling him.” Albert pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket then and rolled a joint and they smoked it, laughing at the game show for a while, until Jake began to cry in the back room, calling for his mother. “Shit,” said Gladys and went off to tend to her son, who'd begun retching.

“Let's go,” said Albert.

“Shouldn't we stay and help?” Bobby said. “I mean, she's pretty high, we all are.”

“You think this is high? This ain't high. I've seen Gladys drive a truck down the highway doing ninety after drinking a case of beer and smoking enough dope to knock out five full-grown men. Believe me, she ain't high. Hey, Gladys, we're leaving,” he called.

They heard a car pull up and moments later the door opened. Bill Corkum stepped in, wearing a 49ers jersey and baggy shorts that fell to below his knees. He saw Albert and Bobby and stopped in his tracks. “What are you doing here?” He sniffed the air. “Right,” he said.

Jayne Miller stepped in behind him. “Hi, all,” she said, and then, “Oh.”

“This is pretty,” said Albert, glaring at Jayne as though there had been something between them she just wouldn't admit.

“You on your way?” said Bill.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” said Albert. Just looking at Jayne, standing there with her hand on Bill's back, made him want to break something. She looked good. Hair all black and shiny. Her fingernails painted a pale pink. She wore a white miniskirt and a T-shirt that showed her belly button. She had a little silver chain around her ankle.

Gladys walked back into the room, a little boy clinging limply to her neck, perched on her bony hip. He had stains on his pyjamas and he gazed dully from caked and swollen eyes. “Hey, Bill. Don't you ever call first?”