Back Roads by Tawni O’Dell Read Free Book Online Page A

fucker,” Amber was still screaming at me.
    I walked into the living room and leaned my gun in a corner, then got down low to the floor and started pushing the couch toward the front door with my shoulder.
    “Keep it out of my house,” I grunted at her.
    “Harley, what are you doing?” Misty asked me.
    “Go to bed.”
    “It’s not your fucking house,” Amber screamed.
    “Harley, what are you doing?” Misty tried again.
    “Get out of my way.”
    I propped open the front door. Getting the couch turned on its side so I could angle it out the door was difficult by myself but I managed.
    “What are you doing?” Now Amber wanted to know.
    “Were you using something?” I asked her.
    “What?”
    “I didn’t see a rubber hanging off his dick or did he have time to take it off?”
    “Fuck you, Harley.”
    “You get pregnant and you’re on your own.”
    “I’m already on my own, you fucker!”
    She threw herself at me and started hitting my back. I got rid of her with a good shove and finished dragging the couch down the front steps into the yard.
    I couldn’t remember if I had filled the extra gas can at the end of last summer. Dad was always on me about that. He hated starting up the tractor for the summer’s first mow and running out of gas.
    I went and opened the shed door. A blacksnake as long as my leg slid slowly from one side to the other. He didn’t even have the energy to coil up once he stopped. He had been fooled into waking up too early like the worms and Bud’s rabid skunk. Now he was freezing to death. Taking the hoe and lopping his head off might have been a more humane end for him, but if he lived he’d keep the rats out of the garage and the moles from tearing up the yard.
    I left him alone and got the gas can. I gave it a shake. There was enough to douse the couch.
    I went to the kitchen for a box of matches.
    Amber was gone when I got back out front. Misty and Jody were on the steps. Misty started to ask me again what I was doing but fell silent when a ball of yellow flames roared up from the cushions. The blood drained from her face, making her frecklesstand out against her skin as dark as coffee grounds. She flashed me a furious look and ran inside with angry tears spilling from her eyes. I didn’t know why. It was a shitty couch.
    Suddenly, my whole body ached. Probably from moving the couch on my own. Dad had needed Uncle Mike and Aunt Diane’s husband, Jim, to help him carry it in after Grandma died and he inherited it.
    I took a seat on the grass and watched it burn. Jody walked over and stood on the other side of the flames, her little body in one of my old white T-shirts wavering in the heat ripples like a ghost.
    She didn’t ask me why I did it, and I was glad for that. She came and sat down beside me and laid her head against my arm.
    “I can’t wait to see Mommy,” she said.
    “Great,” I murmured.
    She looked up at me, her smooth forehead puckered with adult concern. “What’s a rubber?”
    “Hey,” I said quickly, glancing around for a distraction greater than a burning couch. “Where did Elvis get to? I haven’t seen him since I went to bed.”
    Her face brightened. “I bet I know.”
    She jumped up and ran over to one of the doghouses with my shirt flapping around her legs. She stuck her head inside, then pulled it out again, smiling and making a Vanna White hand gesture. Elvis slowly appeared, sniffed the air, and lay down in the dirt with a yawn.

chapter ( 4 )
    I ended up taking Jody to see Mom after all but only after Misty and Amber agreed not to go. I realized the problem had always been taking the three of them together so I asked Misty at breakfast if she’d mind not going this time. She was still mad about Dad’s couch. She gave me a quick, dark glance and said I couldn’t pay her to spend two hours in a truck with me. Amber never came out of her room.
    Before I picked up Jody at school, I put in two hours at Barclay’s unloading refrigerators,