The World Made Straight. Ron Rash

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СКАЧАТЬ use it much?”

      “I’ve found some dimes and quarters on the riverbank.”

      Leonard sat back down in the recliner. He nodded at the couch. “You can stand there like fence posts if you like, but if not that couch ought to hold both of you.”

      A woman came from the back room and stood in the foyer between the living room and kitchen. She wore cut-off jeans and a halter top, her legs and arms thin but cantaloupe-sized bulges beneath the halter. Her hair was blond but Travis could see the dark roots. She was sunburned and splotches of pink underskin made her look wormy and mangy. Like some stray dog around a garbage dump, Travis thought. Except for her face. Hard-looking, as if the sun had dried up any softness there once was, but pretty—high cheekbones and full lips, dark-brown eyes. If she wasn’t all scabbed up she’d be near beautiful, Travis figured.

      “How about getting Shank and his buddy here a couple of beers, Dena,” Leonard said.

      “Get them your ownself,” the woman said. She took a Coke from the refrigerator and disappeared again into the back room.

      Leonard shook his head but said nothing as he got up. He brought back two cans of Budweiser and a sandwich bag filled with pot and rolling papers. He handed the beers to Travis and Shank and sat down in the chair. Travis was thirsty and drank quickly as he watched Leonard carefully shake pot out of the baggie and onto the paper. Leonard licked the paper and twisted both ends.

      “Here,” he said, and handed the marijuana to Shank.

      Shank lit the joint, the orange tip brightening as he inhaled. Shank offered the joint back but Leonard declined.

      “All these times I’ve been out here I never seen you mellow out and take a toke,” Shank said. “Why is that?”

      “I’m not a very mellow guy.” Leonard nodded at Travis. “Looks like your buddy isn’t either.”

      “He’s just scared his daddy would find out.”

      “That ain’t so,” Travis said. “I just like a beer buzz better.”

      He lifted the beer to his lips and drank until the can was empty, then squeezed the can’s middle. The cool metal popped and creaked as it folded inward.

      “I’d like me another one.”

      “Quite the drinker, aren’t you,” Leonard said. “Just make sure you don’t overdo it. I don’t want you passed out and pissing my couch.”

      Travis stood and for a moment felt off plumb, maybe because he’d drunk the beer so fast. When the world steadied he got the beer from the refrigerator and sat back down. He looked at the TV, some kind of Western, but without the sound he couldn’t tell what was happening. He drank the second beer quick as the first.

      Shank had his eyes closed.

      “Man, I’m feeling so good,” Shank said. “If we had us some real music on that stereo things would be perfect.”

      “Real music,” Leonard said, and smiled, but Travis knew he was only smiling to himself.

      Travis studied the man who sat in the recliner, trying to figure out what it was that made Leonard Shuler a man you didn’t want to mess with. Leonard looked soft, Travis thought, pale and soft like bread dough. Just because a man had a couple of bear dogs and a hotshot pistol didn’t make him such a badass. He thought about his own daddy and Carlton Toomey, big men who didn’t need to talk loud because they could clear out a room with just a hard look. Travis wondered if anyone would ever call him a badass and wished again that he didn’t take after his mother, so thin-boned.

      “So what is this shit you’re listening to, Leonard?” Shank asked.

      “It’s called Appalachian Spring. It’s by Copland.”

      “Never heard of them,” Shank said.

      Leonard looked amused.

      “Are you sure? They used to be the warm-up act for Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

      “Well, it still sucks,” Shank said.

      “That’s probably because you fail to empathize with his view of the region,” Leonard said.

      “Empa what?” Shank said.

      “Empathize,” Leonard said.

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shank said. “All I know is I’d rather tie a bunch of cats together by their tails and hear them squall.”

      Travis knew Leonard was putting down not just Shank but him also, talking over him like he was stupid. It made Travis think of his teachers at the high school, teachers who used sentences with big words against him when he gave them trouble, trying to tangle him up in a laurel slick of language. Figuring he hadn’t read nothing but what they made him read, never used a dictionary to look up a word he didn’t know.

      Travis got up and made his way to the refrigerator, damned if he was going to ask permission. He pulled the metal tab off the beer but didn’t go back to the couch. He went down the hallway to find the bathroom.

      He almost had to walk slantways because of the makeshift shelves lining the narrow hallway. They were tall as Travis and each shelf sagged under the weight of books of various sizes and shapes, more books than Travis had seen anywhere outside a library. There was a bookshelf in the bathroom as well. He read the titles as he pissed, all unfamiliar to him. But some looked interesting. When he stepped back into the hallway, he saw the bedroom door was open. The woman sat up in the bed reading a magazine. Travis walked into the room.

      The woman laid down the magazine.

      “What the hell do you want?”

      Travis grinned.

      “What you offering?”

      Even buzzed on beer he knew it was a stupid thing to say. Ever since he’d got to Leonard’s his mouth had been like a faucet he couldn’t shut off.

      The woman’s brown eyes stared at him like he was nothing more than a sack of manure somebody had dumped on the floor.

      “I ain’t offering you anything,” she said. “Even if I was, a little peckerhead like you wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

      The woman looked toward the open door.

      “Leonard,” she shouted.

      Leonard appeared at the doorway.

      “It’s past time to get your Cub Scout meeting over,” she said.

      Leonard nodded at Travis.

      “I believe you boys have overstayed your welcome.”

      “I was getting ready to leave anyhow,” Travis said. He turned toward the door and the can slipped from his hand, spilling beer on the bed.

      “Nothing but a little peckerhead,” the woman repeated.

      In a few moments he and Shank were outside. СКАЧАТЬ