Fat Lightning by Howard Owen Read Free Book Online Page A

filthy mind? Not wearing nothing but one of them mini-skirts that Carter says ain’t no harm, they just wear them to play tennis, but I know better. You can see near-bout everything she’s got.
    And them two colored folks in the truck up in front, her sitting right next to him like they was at the Riverview watching the X-rated drive-in movies or something. Been riding around town like that, I reckon, her probably playing with his thing. He gives her a big, long kiss before they get out to go inside. Just asking the Lord to rain down brimstone on them.
    I remember how disgusted Momma used to act when we’d be a-looking at the soap operas on TV, how everybody seemed like they was going to bed with everybody else. And it’s even worse now. It embarrassed me to death that she wanted to look at that stuff, but she never hardly missed a day until they took her to the hospital the last time.
    And them magazines. I had to fuss with Johnny Wampler at the barber shop because of the filth he lets get in there. He had that there Sports Illustrated with all them girls in swimming suits where they might as well not of had anything on at all. Any young’un coming in for a haircut could just pick it up and look at it. And Johnny said he didn’t see no harm in it, that that wasn’t nothing compared to what they show in Playboy and them others.
    I know. I had to get after Carter to quit carrying them magazines in the drug store, told him how ashamed Momma and Daddy would be of him, how they can still see him, up in heaven. And he did finally throw that filth out. Reckon he got tired of fussing about it.
    You can see about anything you want, right here in the parking lot. Like that city girl Carter’s boy married. She thinks I didn’t see her when she turned in, then just sat there for a while, but I don’t miss much. I spied her in my rearview mirror, cruising by in that Plymouth automobile of theirs, not a sign of Carter’s boy or their baby. Looked like she was a-waitin’ for somebody, then just drove off real quiet, circled around and come in the other side. Maybe she seen her boyfriend parked over on that side. Can’t trust none of them. Momma was right. Just want to get you to work yourself to death so they can slip out and do it.
    Had that fat lightning dream again, except now I’m at the table with all the family there. Don’t know what they’re eating, but I’m chewing on that fat lightning like it was ham. And don’t nobody say anything or notice anything until Sam’s wife starts staring at me, and then everybody does, and then they all start a-laughing, her louder than the rest, that trashy city laugh of hers.
    And then I see Sam’s wife slip around the corner and go in the front door of the Giant, giving a little glance over her shoulder like she knows she’s been spied. Reckon maybe she’ll pick up some milk for the baby and then go back to her van or his car and kiss some more. Maybe they’ll just do it right there in the lot, with it not even dark yet. Maybe she’ll just take off her panties and spread her legs like some whore right there in the van where if Sam was smart he’d even get a whiff of it when they was driving to church Sunday morning. Just do it right there where anybody could see ’em, and her not caring a-tall. Just do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    By the middle of May, Sam and Nancy have put their home in Richmond up for sale and moved into the Fischer place, a block back and two houses over from Sam’s parents. Mrs. Fischer died a year ago, and her children, scattered throughout the state, are willing to rent with an option to buy.
    It’s not an old house, by Monacan standards, built in the first 20 years of the century, with a nook carved into the wall where the telephone was put in later, arched doorways and ornate trimwork. The outside is old brick, like most of the houses in