Littlejohn by Howard Owen Read Free Book Online Page A

backpack down for a pillow, take out another shirt and put it over my shoulders, roll a joint and smoke it all. It probably takes me like ten seconds to fall asleep, I’m so wasted.
    I dream we’re at the big Fourth of July celebration they have at Michie Park back home, the one we used to go to when I was a little kid. All the fireworks are going off up above us, and I’m sitting between Mom and Dad, who are sitting close enough together that I can feel and smell both of them. I’m kind of scared, and Dad looks down at me and smiles and says something, but I can’t hear him because of all the noise.
    And, of course, the way things have been going lately, I wake up in the middle of
Bambi, Part II
. You know, the one where six raving rednecks freeze a deer with their truck’sheadlights alongside a deserted highway at three in the morning, then get out and calmly blast him to Swiss cheese. There aren’t any houses around, but these guys act a little nervous, anyhow, and I hope they don’t see me. Winding up as a road kill is not my life’s burning ambition. They drag the deer over to the truck and manage to lift and push him into the back. Before they roar off, I can see the dark spot on the side of the road, staining the white line, where the deer fell. Then they’re gone, and I’m wide awake, shaking like a bitch, partly from the cold. I wish I was back in Montclair, hassles and all, and I damn near decide to turn my ass around and start thumbing north, although I know by now that it would not be smart to stand alongside this road after dark, at least not without a sign that says NOT A DEER .
    About two years later, the sun finally comes up. It’s beautiful from my spot up over the road, but I realize I must have picked the coldest place for miles, because I’m on top of an exposed hill where I can see east for just about ever. I stumble down the embankment, feeling froggy as hell and sore and tired and very, very hungry. In less than five minutes, before I wake up and realize I don’t deserve a ride, an old man, looks almost as old as Granddaddy, stops and takes me all the way to Durham, lets me out right in front of a Burger King. I order a couple of those croissant things, along with a large Pepsi. The croissants make me think of Mom, because on the last trip the three of us took to Paris, she must have spent fifteen minutes with me one morning at our hotel teaching me how to pronounce it, so I could order breakfast for all of us. What I want to know is, why do the French put all those letters in their words if they’re not going to say them?
    It takes me until almost lunch to get to Granddaddy’s. One guy is going as far as Benson, another one takes me to Port Campbell, right to Highway 47, and then another one drops me off at a place called the Hit ’n’ Run, right in Geddie. From there, I walk to his house.
    He looks older than I remember him, but maybe I just haven’t been paying much attention. I’m already thinking, damn, he needs help worse than I do. He’s obviously got me mixed up for somebody else at first, and when we go inside, I see he’s got notes on everything. There’s a note telling him to turn off the oven, except he’s spelled it “trun”—Mom said he’s had trouble spelling all his life—one telling him how to warm stuff in the microwave, instructions on the washer-dryer on how, step by step, to do the clothes. These seem to be in Grandma’s handwriting, and the paper is kind of yellowed.
    But he has his own way of doing things, and as long as nothing gets in the way of his routine, he’s usually all right. Guess that makes me a welcome addition. He gets my name wrong like about half the time, usually calls me Lafe, which was one of his brothers’ name, the one that got killed in a hunting accident, I think. Sometimes, he’ll start off with Lafe, then go to Mom, before he finally gets to me, like “Lafe … I mean, Georgia … I mean, Justin!” After I’d been here