The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

looks at his face. It is calm and round, a child’s face.
    It is evening. On television, a man dressed as a chef, holding six pies, falls down a flight of stairs. The incident is teaching numbers.
    SIX, the screen screams.
    “Six,” David says.
    Jane and Jackson are drinking whiskey and apple juice. Jane is wondering what they did for David’s last birthday, when he was five. Did they have a little party?
    “What did we do on your last birthday, David?” Jane asks.
    “We gave him pudding,” Jackson says.
    “That’s not true,” Jane says, worried. She looks at David’s face.
    SIX TOCKING CLOCKS, the television sings.
    “Six,” David says.
    Jane’s drink is gone. “May I have another drink?” she asks politely, and then gets up to make it for herself. She knocks the ice cubes out of the tray and smashes them up with a wooden spoon. On the side of the icebox, held in place by magnets, is a fragment from a poem, torn from a book. It says,
The dead must fall silent when one sits down to a meal
. She wonders why she put it there. Perhaps it was to help her diet.
    Jane returns to the couch and David sits beside her. He says, “You say ‘no’ and I say ‘yes.’ ”
    “No,” Jane says.
    “Yes,” David yells, delighted.
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes.”
    David stops, confused. Then he giggles. They play this game all the time. Jane is willing to play it with him. It is easy enough to play. Jackson and Jane send David to a fine kindergarten and are always buying him chalk and crayons. Nevertheless, Jane feels unsure with David. It is hard to know how to act when one is with the child, alone.
    The dog sits by a dented aluminum dish in the bright kitchen. Jackson is opening a can of dog food.
    “Jesus,” he says, “what a sad, stupid dog.”
    The dog eats his food stolidly, gagging a little. The fur beneath his tail hangs in dirty beards.
    “Jesus,” Jackson says.
    Jane goes to the cupboard, wobbling slightly. “I’m going to kill that dog,” she says. “I’m sick of this.” She puts down her drink and takes a can of Dra¯no out of the cupboard. She takes a pound of hamburger that is thawing in a bowl and rubs off the soft pieces onto a plate. She pours Dra¯no over it and mixes it in.
    “It is my dog,” Jane says, “and I’m going to get rid of him for you.”
    David starts to cry.
    “Why don’t you have another drink?” Jackson says to Jane. “You’re so vivacious when you drink.”
    David is sobbing. His hands flap in the air. Jackson picks him up. “Stop it,” he says. David wraps his legs around his father’s chest and pees all over him. Their clothing turns dark as though, together, they’d been shot. “Goddamn it,” Jackson shouts. He throws his arms out. He stops holding the child but his son clings to him, then drops to the floor.
    Jane grabs Jackson’s shoulder. She whispers in his ear, something so crude, in a tone so unfamiliar, that it can only belong to all the time before them. Jackson does not react to it. He says nothing. He unbuttons his shirt. He takes it off and throws it in the sink. Jane has thrown the dog food there. The shirt floats down to it from his open fist.
    Jane kneels and kisses her soiled son. David does not look at her. It is as though, however, he is dreaming of looking at her.

The Wedding
    E lizabeth always wanted to read fables to her little girl but the child only wanted to hear the story about the little bird who thought a steam shovel was its mother. They would often argue about this. Elizabeth was sick of the story. She particularly disliked the part where the baby bird said, “You are not my mother, you are a
snort,
I want to get out of here!” At night, at the child’s bedtime, Sam would often hear them complaining bitterly to each other. He would preheat the broiler for dinner and freshen his drink and go out and sit on the picnic table. In a little while, the screen door would slam and Elizabeth would come out,