Nitro Mountain (28 page)

“A day late and a dollar short,” he said.

His head was shaved. His eyes were clear and his skin was pure. Like I'd never seen him. Like he was finally in total control.

What was I supposed to do now? Everything that happened since he'd been gone, since I left, all the things I learned about myself—the time fell away.

But some things were different. He turned his head and on the back of his neck I saw these purple and white scabby pocks. They were part of him now. Scars on him for once. I held up my hand. He was right across the counter but it felt like I was waving to somebody far away. He said he liked what I'd done with my hair. I hadn't done anything to it.

“How are you doing here right now where you stand?” he said.

I didn't answer.

“So,” he said. “Sounds like things have changed.” He wouldn't look away from me. “It's nice to see you, Jennifer. Jennifer, standing here while the world spins around her. I'll see you again. You'll see
me
again.”

When he walked back out the door the air pressure dropped. I hoped I hadn't pissed him off.

I was breaking down my register at the end of the day when Don came by. “The door's already locked,” he said. “Just close it tight when you leave so nobody gets in. Hear?”

I took my time counting.

“One more thing,” he said. “I don't know who that was that stopped by, but you don't need to be hanging out with him anymore.”

“Don't worry,” I said, “I won't tell him anything.”

I put the bills in a bank bag, zipped it up and locked it in the drawer beneath the register. Then I sat there thinking for a long time but didn't get anywhere with that.

A security light flashed on in the parking lot when I pulled the door shut behind me and pushed on it to test the lock. And when I went around the corner of the building there was Arnett, sitting in a rusty hatchback with his arm out the window and a cigarette between his fingers. He pulled his arm back into the car, raised the cigarette to his face and the tip glowed.

“Need a lift?” he said.

“No.”

“You don't have a car and I do.”

“I like walking.”

“Let me give you a ride home in my car. You don't have one. Come on. Ain't nothing wrong with my car, is there?”

Inside it smelled like gasoline. “Spent days getting this fucker running,” he said. “Still illegal as shit. But so am I.” He tapped a bag sitting at the base of the stickshift. “Ain't smoked in months but I did just now. I feel like King James.” He turned to me. “You're a fucking bitch.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. And I was. It was the truth.

His short-sleeve shirt showed a fresh tattoo of teeth and eyes moving on his arm. Just a lazily drawn sketch of a nightmare. Scar-dots had crawled over onto Daffy's face. I let him talk all the way to my place about how shitty it was being back in Kingsport. “Ain't no opportunities to be opportunistic about here,” he said. “I refuse to believe you ran off to this boring-ass shithole. I'm just glad I found you. It's a sign of the covenant of our relationship.”

I stepped out, thanked him for the ride and shut the door.

“Hey now, whoa there,” he said. “How late you work tomorrow?”

“Late.”

“How late? I need to be leaving soon. We don't have a lot of time to do this.”

“Six.”

“That's not late. I'll pick you up here at six and show you how not late it is.”

I woke up to those same birds screaming. They only knew one song. And it said only the one thing.

I stayed in bed all day. I didn't go in to work. I let the sun go down. The window started catching the colors of the clouds. Those birds sounded no different as the dark came on.

I was now a responsible person who worked long hours, and because of this I had no clean clothes. The clean sheets were from Don. I wished he'd bought me some clothes.

I walked to the coin laundry in stained sweatpants and a wrinkled T. I didn't have enough time to do this. He would come looking in an hour.

It took longer to wash everything than I thought it would. I shouldn't have even bothered. I put it all into a dryer, went outside and smoked. Cars drove by.

What were we supposed to do when he got here? Talk about the good old days? We didn't have any. Or about what he planned to do with the rest of his life, which would be behind bars? I was going to tell him I wouldn't be there for him. While he was locked up or once he got out, if that ever happened. I was here now, but this was the last time.

I reached into the dryer and grabbed up my hot clothes and the brass buttons on my jeans burned my forearm enough to make me drop my nice shirt, the one I wanted to wear tonight, on the floor right into a puddle leaking from one of the washers.

“God damn everything,” I prayed. The first words I'd spoken all day.

Then my cell phone vibrated with a voicemail. Arnett. He'd been thinking about me. Couldn't wait to see me. He loved me. He
loved
me. He sounded buzzed and pissed. “I bet you're having trouble with your words lately,” he said, “so I'll help you out. Say it with me now, say it with me.”

By the time my shirt was dry for the second time, I was already late to meet him. I walked down the dark street with my clothes basket on my hip. I saw Arnett waiting on the stairs beneath the porch light. Had his back turned. Long muscles showing through his shirt. He slapped a bug into his shoulder, inspected his hand, then he turned and looked straight at me. I stepped off the pavement behind a grove of cedars. Did he see me? He was still looking in my direction. He turned away again. No, he hadn't spotted me. Thank God, because I was still in those filthy clothes. What would he think? I peeked out of the cedars and untied the drawstring of my sweatpants.

I pushed my thumb under the elastic waistband of my underwear, which had gone a week without washing. I dropped them on the ground and peeled off my socks. Where was the blue pair? They had to be in here. I found one. But where was the other?

Bent over the basket without anything covering my bottom, I scattered clothes on the ground and kept looking. The nicest gift I ever had, now I'd lost. The one secret I promised to keep, I'd thrown away. I looked down at my thin, white legs. What was I doing out here like this? I found a clean pair of panties and put them on. I picked my jeans out of the basket and gave them a shake as I poked my head around the bush. I couldn't see Arnett but his car was still there.

You shouldn't have made him wait so long. Waiting is the worst. You deserve getting yelled at. Oh, you will, you will. I glanced again at my empty porch. I heard him say, “Peek-a-boo.” Fear almost tipped me over. His voice was coming from over by the neighbors' house. I forced a foot through the leg hole and looked around. The voice came again, from another part of the yard. “I see you.”

I struggled to pull up my pants but had them on backwards.

Arnett now stood beside me. “Quit crying.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I saw you run over here with that little basket of yours. I'm just here to help. Don't cover up your crying. Don't cover up anything.”

“I know I'm late. But I need my sock.”

He stepped in front of me, put his arms around and held my hips in his hands. Two little pears. He slid his hands into the front pockets of the jeans against my butt. “You put these things on ass-backwards. Bless your sweet little heart. What are you going to do without me? Come here.” He pulled my head into his chest. “That's it. That's my girl. Shut up. There you are. Come here.”

“You were watching me.”

He stepped back and slapped my face. “Now, wait. I didn't do nothing wrong. You know how long I was waiting on that fucking stoop? You know what they were asking about in jail? Cops coming in and taking me into rooms, asking if I knew Rachel. But they got nothing, no DNA. They just can't find her, that's all. Come on, Jennifer, I wouldn't do something like that without a reason. I
require
reasons. You know this. Anyway, I came early as a surprise. For you. I can't
believe
this bullshit. Just like every other bitch. Making you wait. Making you feel bad. Just like every fucking one.”

Then he hit me straight in the nose and I fell backward and knocked my head against the ground.

I think I said something, but I couldn't tell what it was.

The sky was clear and moonless. I felt numb and far away and dizzy, like when the hospital had me on drugs. I'd known I was going to be late. I shouldn't have been so stupid.

I tried to tell him but he said, “It's all good now. I don't got much time.”

His hands were hot. He held my face in them until I looked him in the eyes. My nose was bleeding into my mouth. “I forgive you,” he said. “Do you not hear me? Let's get these pants on you.”

I sat up and he knelt in front of me and helped me slide them off. Then he undid his pants. “Be quiet.” He took my shoulders and pushed me back down. The moss was cool. He pulled down his underwear. The spread of sky above was poked with stars. I could see straight up so high, no end to it. Somebody told me one time that space is black because nothing's up there, not even air. The sky was turning above us, the stars dropping with nothing holding anything in place.

He was hurting me and I made a noise. “What's
wrong
with you?” he said.

“My socks. What good is only one?”

“You don't need your socks,” he said. “You don't need any of that shit. What you need to do is hush.”

He finished inside me and rolled off. It was my fault. I made him wait. He was waiting for so long. So was I. He stood up and I opened my eyes. He was nine feet tall. He walked across the yard backward. He got into his car and it went away backward.

Close my eyes. Help me listen. There's something inside all of this. Inside of me. I can feel it. I know it. It's already growing. I make the promise to myself: You are not alone. I say it out loud.

Lee Clay Johnson grew up around Nashville, Tennessee, in a family of bluegrass musicians. He holds a BA from Bennington College and an MFA from the University of Virginia. His work has appeared in the
Oxford American,
The Common,
Appalachian Heritage,
Salamander,
and the
Mississippi Review
. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.