Jernigan by David Gates Read Free Book Online Page B

graciousness. “When does the gala event get under way?”
    “Right now,” he said. “Or whenever you want to come. It’s real casual.”
    “Sounds real inviting,” I said. I was giving him shit about the wayhe talked, but either it went right by him or he was being tolerant. “Can you wait’ll I take a shower and put on some clean clothes?”
    “That’s cool. You know, if you even feel like coming,” he said. Then I got it: he was being too casual. So this was obviously a command performance, for whatever reason. Well, I was game. Well, maybe not game, but I did recognize my duty when I could no longer ignore it.
    Clarissa’s house was at the end of a cul-de-sac off Maple Avenue. You went down into a little hollow and there it sat among a lot of trees, with only one other house in sight. Fake Tudor, two-story, stucco, which meant probably ’30s or ’40s. It had obviously been the only house on the street for years. Most stuff around here was built after 1960; Heritage Circle went up in I think ’64. At the time I was born, this house must have been sitting here alone in its little dell like Snow White’s cottage. Sort of. The gray paint was peeling now, the stucco was cracked, the picket fence was missing pickets the way cartoon hillbillies are missing teeth. But at least this house had something to it. Though maybe I mean therefore instead of but . That a house with character could produce a little girl as bombed-out as any kid from a split-level shitbox like mine made you wonder if you could ever make anything right.
    I parked next to a faded mustard-colored VW bus, if you can imagine, and in front of a blue Reliant, doing my best to get so I couldn’t be blocked, and Danny led me across the crumbling blacktop, through the gate in the picket fence, around the house and into the back. He was right about this being no big deal. I counted six people, three and three, my age pretty much. Two women in shorts and t-shirts, one in shorts and halter top; two men in jeans and t-shirts, one in cutoff jeans and t-shirt. Then a couple more men and another woman came out of the house laughing about something. The women were still looking okay; the men had begun their bellies. Two of them had beards, which of course didn’t tell you anything anymore. A net was stretched between a maple tree and a clothesline pulley attached to the frame of the kitchen window; a volleyball sat in the grass, which needed cutting. In a galvanized washtub, cans of beer and Diet Pepsi; the necks of screwtop wine jugs sticking up out of the icewater. Taco chips in a wooden bowl, guacamole in an earthenware bowl. Twostereo speakers, each on a metal folding chair, the wires leading back into the house through another window. “My Guy” by Mary Wells bravely playing out of them. My kind of scene all right.
    “She’s probably inside,” said Danny.
    He led me into a kitchen, then into a living room. Funky in a way you wouldn’t mind sitting around in. Big oatmeal sofa, bottom sagging. A Morris chair, for Christ’s sake. The tv covered up by a white tablecloth with a pattern of red cherries. Even an old woodstove, which looked as if it got used. A woman in shorts was down on her knees, bare heels denting her buttocks. She was flipping through a red plastic milk crate full of LPs, going at it with both hands like a dog digging. Strong arms, strong legs, maybe a little overweight. But not unpleasingly. Her t-shirt had shrunk, or she had bulged, so you could see below the shoulder the—what would you call it?—that arc of skin, that ridge beyond which lies the armpit. I wanted to see what she was like in the face, now there’s a crude way of putting it. “Mrs. Peretsky?” Danny said, touching her shoulder. “This is my dad.”
    She turned her head. Wide, pretty face. Eyes farther apart than I liked. She got to her feet and came toward me, tugging down one side of her shorts.
    “Peter Jernigan,” I said.
    “Martha Peretsky,” she