Sundays, liquor is scarce in these parts. Inside a dusty cabinet in his kitchen, one sticky bottle of Kahlua leftover from the year of the flood. I come down the porch steps with the bottle. “Who drinks this stuff?” I say.
“People do, people do.” On the lawn chair in burnt grass he’s baking himself.
“If you weren’t so mean to people, you could’ve gotten Jerry to bring a bottle of gin over, Sunday or no Sunday.”
“He can go to hell.”
“See. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
He pulls the straw hat over his face to blot me out.
That big row with Jerry over anti-semitism, neo-Nazis, and guys with bald heads and no facial hair. They almost came to blows.
Jerry is bald with no facial hair. He doesn’t shave it, he has a medical condition called alopecia. When everything erupted, I tried explaining that but it fell on dead ears.
“You could stop by the liquor store, the back door is open for inventory. Explain to Jerry that you’re sorry, you meant nothing personal. Just that you’re uptight all the time with so much violence. You don’t know which end is up.”
My desire for a gin and tonic has reached that level of desperation, that I’m feeding him lines.
“Is that so?” is all he says.
Sitting up he flings the straw hat. Ranger, his dog takes off after it. “Tell me everything,” he says. “All your new men. I want to know names, dates, places.”
“Are you with the FBI?” I say, trying to make a joke. Except it isn’t a joke and will never be. Even a heartless tough guy like him feels pain, I suppose.
“Another iced tea?” I say.
His lemon slice looking dismal in the glass empty of liquid.
“Tell me everything,” he says again. “Or I’ll kill you.”
Where shall I begin? Which country?
