If You Want Me to Stay Read Free Page A

and when he woke up he did not know squat. Blacked out like a drunk man.
    Except he was not a drunk. With his work friends he’d drink a beer to be polite but you could tell he didn’t like the taste of it, sipping it, holding it finicky up against his chest. He’s a good man, my daddy. Did you know that in the fall he’d sign us out of school and load us up in the pickup and drive us to Raleigh for the state fair? And in the winter he’d turn right around drive us back up there for the circus? Sometimes we’d all ride over to Wilmington to attend SuperFlea and my daddy would know nearly all the people running the booths, whatever it was they were selling, old Coke signs or cassette tapes or Depression glass, he’d have them talking about favorite breakfast meat. I knew my mama loved my daddy. She must not of been feeling too good about herself right along the time of that broken up day, her one girl set up any place will tolerate her foul mouth and her three boys locked in a boiling pickup out in the no-tree-plantedest yard in the whole state and her high up in some hotel talking on the phone to some girl from work about I don’t know shoes or what kind of food you ought to order on a first date with a stranger.
    I knew she knew we were out there. If people loved you and you were in trouble that trouble rumbled in their stomach. They’d be driving along and get a ice-cream headache telling them you were in need. Happened to me whenever Tank or Carter ran off in the woods and Carter came up on a bee’s nest which, he was violently allergic, or Tank got chased by some wild I’ll-eat-any-damn-thing dog. People if they loved you, they had to leave though. Don’t ask me why, it don’t make sense to me, it’s just something that happens. But see, I must not could love right. I would not leave my little brothers there with him and I was for damn sure not about to let Sheriff Deputy Rex take them.
    Tank said, “He’s sleep.”
    Carter pried up the door lock and put his hand down to open the door. Myself I slapped the merciful Jesus out of that boy. About Jesus and all, I don’t think so, but what I like is prayer, even if it’s just singing or moaning while chewing the edge of your pillowcase when you’re fixing to flood the sheets with tears.
    Tank went to thrashing so I slapped his mess too. Then it was a tangle and crisp hot slaps on sweaty skin and grunted cussing of boys too young to know how to cuss and Carter pulling up the lock and me locking it back down. Finally he got it up and opened the door and flew out across the sandy yard up the steps into the dark-mouthed house.
    â€œHoly moly,” I said.
    Tank went to wailing. I hugged him quiet. He was shaking so hard the springs in the seat were singing.
    I had to crack the window wider because me and Tank, waiting to see what was going to happen, breathed up all the oxygen. It was straight nervous fumes up in there. Tank’s quart had gone to really humming. Neither of us could breathe good.
    Then Carter came strolling out on the porch. Screen door slapped his leisurely ass like it’ll do a slow old back-leg-dragging dog. He held his hands up All Clear.
    â€œHe ain’t even in there,” he hollered.
    Tank made a noise in his throat, a half-strangled hiccup, when we seen the shadow darken the rusty screen. Carter was shrugging and fixing I could tell to strut his cocky stuff,
I told you so, son, us sweating away in that pickup all day and he ain’t even in here.
    Daddy had Carter in a headlock before the screen door popped closed. Carter stared sadly at the bunch of bananas Daddy was carrying. With his free hand Daddy put the whole bunch up to Carter’s mouth. “Eat, monkey,” he told Carter.
    Tank was up in my lap, wedged hard against the steering wheel. He had his arms around my neck and I could feel the laughter welling up in his slight little chest. It vibrated