Into the Web by Thomas H. Cook Read Free Book Online

happy, Dad. Archie. Mama. None of us was happy.”
    “Whining, whining. Goddamn, Roy. Why don’t you just get in that car of yours and go on back to California?”
    “Maybe I will,” I said sharply.
    Something exploded behind his eyes. “Then do,” he snarled. “You don’t have to stay here. Hell, no, by God. I never asked you to come and I ain’t asked you to stay. You can go on back to that … whatever it is. That little room you got. Tend to them little snot-nosed kids that ain’t your own.” He shook his head disdainfully. “Pitiful, Roy. A pitiful life you got.”
    I watched him evenly, determined to hold my temper in check. “Try to get this through your head, Dad. My life is none of your business.”
    He shrugged, and the volcanic outburst that had erupted from him seconds before settled no less abruptly.
    “You’re right,” he said, his tone now oddly broken. “Forget it, Roy. Forget I said anything. Turn that TV on. I don’t want to talk no more. It’s time for my show. Go read your book or something.”
    But I remained in place, determined to probe at least some small part of his shadowy ire. “I’d just like to know what you get out of it.”
    “Get out of what?”
    “Out of insulting me the way you do. What have I done to deserve that?”
    He released a long, weary breath, so that for a moment I actually thought he might reveal some clue as to why he found me so pitiful. “You know what your problem is, Roy? You can’t take a joke. You never could.”
    He waited, watching me. I knew what he wanted, a fiery return, a dog’s angry snarl.
    Instead, I simply faced him squarely and told the dreadful truth as far as I knew it. “You don’t like me, Dad. You have no respect for me or for what I do for a living or for how my life turned out.”
    “You talk like a man that’s already give up on everything, Roy. That ain’t got no fight left in him.”
    “I left my ‘fight’ when I left Kingdom County,” I replied hotly. “So let’s put that subject to rest, shall we?” I turned to leave, but he drew me back.
    “Run off and bury your nose in a book,” he said. “But it don’t change the fact that if you don’t fight for nothing, you don’t amount to nothing.”
    I whirled around. “What should I fight for, Dad?”
    “That’s for you to come to,” my father shot back. “But I’ll tell you one thing, you don’t forget them that done you dirt. Like you done with Lonnie today. That burns my ass, Roy. Paying that snot-nosed little bastard a visit. Christ Almighty, of all the people for you to go visiting. Forgetting what he done that night, what he said.”
    “For God’s sake, he was a kid when that happened. Eighteen. Drunk.”
    “He knew what he was doing, that boy. And you know that too. Drunk or a kid or whatever, he knew exactly what he was saying.”
    “It was over twenty years ago, Dad. What difference does it make now? Or even then, for that matter?”
    “Then?” my father yelped. “I’ll tell you what difference it coulda made then. It coulda been Lila wouldn’t never have wrote you that letter if Lonnie hadn’t said them things.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Maybe she got to figuring How come Roy didn’t do nothing about that? How come Roy just let it go?”
    “And on that basis threw me over? I don’t think so.”
    “All I know is she could have made a good wife for you, Roy. A normal life.”
    “All that’s over and done with, Dad.”
    My father cut his eyes toward the blank screen of the television. “Ain’t nothing ever over and done with, Roy.”
    “I’m not going to discuss this any further,” I said.
    “‘Any further,’” my father imitated. “I ain’t gonna discuss this here ‘any further.’”
    We stared at each other icily for a moment, then he shrugged. “I just thought she could have made a man out of you, that’s all.”
    He’d said this last remark without ire, nor any hint of accusation, and yet I felt his