Cold in July Read Free Page B

and had her buried. Other times I felt we had done the
right thing. But right or wrong, the face of the child I never saw came to me
in my dreams; a cold, gray face with its eyes open, and the eyes were like
Ann’s, bright, bright green. And I would awake. Sweating.
    Sometimes I would drive by the hospital and see dark clouds,
hanging over it, clouds that seemed full of storm. But I would know that it was
smoke from the black incinerators out back; incinerators where placentas and
lab experiments were disposed. And I wondered if my unnamed child had gone
there after autopsy. Just so much ruined meat in a black garbage bag, cooked to
past done, transformed to soot that would cling to the hospital roof and
outside walls.
    And when I dreamed or thought these things, I would always
think of Jordan and wonder how he put up with my inadequacies as a father.
Times like that, I felt like a bad actor masquerading as a parent in a school
play.
    I determined that this morning I would let nothing he did
irritate me. It was the millionth time I had turned over that leaf in my mind.
Each time I had failed to live up to it, but like some sort of Zen exercise, I
thought repetition might make it easier for me eventually. And after what had
happened last night, I saw the world in an entirely new and vulnerable light.
It was just good to see the boy sitting there with his cereal, and as always, I
took a secret pride in seeing my features on his little face. His hair was
blond like his mother’s, but the almond shape of his eyes, the prominence of
the lips, the cleft in his chin, were mine.
    Looking at him now, I hoped I was more of a presence in his
life than my father had been in mine, and I hoped I wouldn’t haunt him the way
my father haunted me. That when it was all said and done he would have more
than some uncertain memories and that there would be more between us than
Christmas cards from distant cities with “love” written at the bottom.
    I leaned out of my chair, kissed and hugged the boy. “Good
morning, big guy.”
    “What was all that racket about last night, Daddy?” Racket
was his new word. He used it every chance he got.
    “Some people we had over.”
    “Why?”
    “We needed them.”
    “Why?”
    “Just for some things.”
    “What things?”
    “Nothing much. You like that cereal?”
    “Yeah.”
    It was some sort of processed, multi-colored junk filled
with too much sugar and air. I felt like hell for letting him have that
garbage, but his mother liked it too, and there were those damn television
commercials that offered toys and games inside, and that fueled him for it, and
like so many parents, I had my weak moments. But I determined then and there
that next time we went shopping we would come home with oatmeal and granola, eggs
and bacon, a variety of fruits. Compliments of Richard Dane, part-time killer,
full-time father.
    “Taste?” Jordan asked.
    I dipped my spoon into the mess and brought it back full of
bright animal shapes. It tasted like shit.
    “See,” Jordan said. “It’s good. You can get a fwizbee with
one bogs top.”
    “That right?”
    “Uhhuh.”
    “You finish the cereal, then we’ll send off the box top.
Maybe you can start having some oatmeal when this is gone. Wouldn’t that be
good for a change? Oatmeal.”
    “I don’t like oatmeal.”
    “Some eggs. Maybe some sausage.”
    “I don’t like that neither. Just seerul.”
    I nodded, not wishing to argue, but grateful I had gotten
his mind off the police. I was even more grateful he hadn’t awakened last night
and seen the dead man on the couch.
    “You going to work?” Ann asked.
    She could see that I was shaved and dressed, but she was
giving me an invitation to stay home. It was an idea that did not appeal to me,
however. Being in the house all day with her gone and Jordan at day school
would just cause me to replay last night endlessly in my head. Every-time I
looked at the couch or at the brighter spot on the wall where the