One D.O.A., One On The Way. Mary Robison

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      “Well, you’re not wrong,” I say.

      [23]

      The twins’ family business is one of prevailing and owning. They keep offices where they never go to do nothing. That is how they hold on to all the leftover wealth that was left to them, by utilizing skills I wasn’t ever meant to understand.

      [24]

      “Your parents have money,” I say and pause.

      Adam’s waiting for me to continue. “They do,” he says. “With you so far.”

      I say, “I’m getting there, give me a second. This has to be said in order.”

      “Albeit, at a crawl,” says Saunders.

      “Can’t we do this out of his earshot?” I ask.

      “Just,” Adam says, “go.”

      “Everybody in contact with your parents, tries to endear her or himself.”

      “Way to pronoun,” Saunders says.

      I say, “If I may. My point being—”

      “That’s all right,” says Adam. “I got your point. You cleared a lot of things up for me.”

      “It’s just that if I were sweet and pleasant around your parents, they’d file that behavior in a category, and then they’d assign it a motive.”

      “Yes, she’s quite right. They’d know it was a trick and that something was horribly wrong,” Saunders says.

      [25]

      I tried not working and staying “home” at Adam’s parents’ house for the first few weeks of our marriage.

      I would spend mornings and afternoons in their library, and keep reading as long as I could, then dine with them usually, but then get out of the way, put on a nightshirt, take a stack of books up to bed with me at 7 or 8 P.M.

      They could keep to themselves, that way. They could keep their privacy, keep one another’s counsel, keep private their long whispery talks about being rich, being them, being other things that I’m not.

      [26]

      I confided in my new sister-in-law back then, Saunders’ wife, Petal. I said at the beginning of the month I’d go back to work and move Adam into an apartment. “So we can have our own place, because I do want to stay married to him,” I said.

      “It’s your life, your vagina,” said Petal.

      “You mean I’m somehow wasting myself on him? How could you think that? You’re married to his twin.”

      “Umm, it’s just different,” she said.

      “Let me guess. You two are younger.”

      “Cold,” she said. “I’m older, and Saunders and Adam were born the same night.”

      “Of course, of course. Then the difference is that Saunders—I mean, I like him.”

      She said, “We all do.”

      “Although, he really does drink—Adam less so—all day. Every, every day.”

      “Nothing I can call untrue,” Petal said.

      “But that’s still not it, is it,” I said. “Then, I don’t know what. Are the two of them very different in bed?”

      “I’ve never had reason to ask them,” Petal said.

      I said, “Picture me with the bar of soap later, washing out my mouth.”

      “Things are just different,” she said, “when you have a child.”

      [27]

      Those days, my job was very pleasant, a pleasant kind of going around, snapping pictures of various landscapes, wandering through buildings, and over parks, observatories, school grounds, scouting the neighborhoods, learning all the dope, sitting in on things. The agency shouldn’t have paid me. I could have done all that for free. They should have asked how my day went. Perhaps, very carefully recorded my answer. Then they should have said, “Super. Great. Thanks a big bunch. Stop by again tomorrow and we can have another chat.”

      [28]

      The Way You Look Tonight

       Thigh Holsters are good when you want to Open Carry. A holster on the thigh puts your gun under your hand. Most have pop buckles for instant access.

       In Louisiana, you do not need a permit to Open Carry.

       In Louisiana, you may Open Carry at any time in your vehicle.

       You must be 21 to purchase a gun in Louisiana. However, a gun that was a gift is legal.

       In Louisiana, the minimum age for Open Carrying is 17.

      CHAPTER 2

      [29]

      TO LUCIEN, I SAY: “You’re always asking me these difficult questions. They’re difficult and they are several. And while I’m standing here, let me ask you. Are there more things you haven’t divulged to me? Like that you’ve had the wrong name.”

      “Ah, don’t believe so. No,” he says.

      “Well, I knew that you’d say that. But concentrate now. What else haven’t you told me?”

      “I’m trying to think,” he says.

      “And?”

      He says, “I do keep the dogs. Seven dogs. If that doesn’t have to be a secret.”

      “They’re your dogs?”

      “Yes’m, they’re mine.”

      “Live dogs that live with you. Seven in number.”

      He says, “There are seven. Unless my grandma narrowed it down to six.”

      “Who’s your grandma? I mean, where are your folks?”

      “Uh, deceased,” says Lucien. “But it’s not ’cause she’s my grandma that I live with her.”

      “Right, whatever that means,” I say.

      He says, “My clothes. That’s something you don’t know about. I spend all my money on clothes.”

      I’m smiling, and instantly not smiling, regretting the two seconds I was. I thought Lucien’s wardrobe involved clothes he just had.

      I thought maybe he’d spent the night at a friend’s, borrowed pants and shirts, wore them thereafter. Or that he’d gone on a road trip, stopped by СКАЧАТЬ