An Atomic Romance Read Free Page B

they didn’t understand each other, that they were too young to understand their own natures, or their differences. Glenda had always been picky, and then she sometimes demeaned him by calling him boorish and overly macho. Their counselor began harping on passive aggression, which Reed understood to mean that Glenda blamed him for her own bad behavior. She said she had to go away so she could grow as a person; Reed said that was ironic for a person always on a diet. The divorce was simple, and she finished raising the kids, Dalton and Dana. Now his children were young adults whom he saw only once in a while. They treated him decently. They seemed normal. He was lucky.
    His kids bounced along with the scary optimism of youth. Dalton, with ambitions of becoming an architect, worked at a design company in North Carolina. And Dana, who didn’t quite finish college, worked with a producer on Music Row in Nashville. She sent him CDs, sickly pop stuff that you would call gruel if it were food, Reed thought. One of the songs Dana was so proud of had a line, “Carry the gospel to them all,” which Reed persisted in hearing as “Carry the gospel to the mall.” He often kidded her about that song, even singing it on her answering machine.
    In a titty bar somewhere on the edge of a river town, Reed ordered a beer. A jejune band was playing country-pop drivel, and he had to listen to half a dozen songs before the girls came on, swinging their fringed anatomies—fringe flying from their tits, fringe hanging between their legs like a collie dog’s skirt.
    Reed kept himself fit. Every day he stretched and pumped and jacked up his heart rate. He considered himself sexually attractive and had no trouble getting women. He enjoyed women, made new conquests easily, flirted shamelessly. He’d tuck his finger inside a woman’s blouse and playfully tug her bra strap, or he’d reach down and play with the hem of her short skirt. He would do that even before he knew their names, and they would giggle and swoon. Reed had a certain cockiness, and the way he moved seemed to thrill women. He had simple urges—always present, it seemed, throbbing like a hurt toe and keeping him on high alert, like those power lines humming into the plant.
    Sitting at a table near the door, he stayed through two beers, but he did not tip these girls. Tonight he did not feel like folding a five-dollar bill and tucking it under a G-string. He left the titty bar and whisked through the night.
    As he crossed the bridge over the river, his mood shifted. He gunned his bike, knowing that just a little slip on a pebble could send him flying. He was eager to check his telephone messages.
    His street was quiet and the moon was high when he arrived at his old bungalow, a relic from the 1940s with a pyramid roof and a pillared porch. He left his bike and gear in the garage and went to the backyard where Clarence was in an uproar. The dog was overjoyed to see him, nearly knocking Reed over as he entered the gate. Clarence lunged into the house with him, and Reed hugged him and let him slobber on him.
    “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Reed said to Clarence. “Woof woof. We’re in total agreement.”
    The answering machine held nothing significant, nothing from Julia. He sat on the dog-abused sofa with Clarence and read the newspapers, to see what had happened in the world during his absence. Same old thing, he learned quickly. More commotion at the plant, troublemakers demanding more investigations. The wider world in chaos. Clarence rested his head on Reed’s lap and ate corn chips with him.
    “Clarence, it says here the cops found five bags of marijuana at a yard sale.” Reed laughed. “Probably antiques.”
    He was glad to be home. It was comfortable here now with Clarence. Reed read the obituaries, noting the ages. On the page of personal funeral notices, a guy named Jack, a construction worker, had died at age sixty-eight. Reed said, “Come see Jack