Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy Read Free Book Online

inside of skulls, and there up above it was Josie spelled just right, with an
i
.
    —
    THE SMELL OF bacon and eggs still held in the kitchen, but it was obvious the cast iron had cooled hours before. It wasn’t that appetizing kind of smell when everything is still sizzling in the pan, but rather that sweaty-feet kind of must that comes on later.
    “Well, Jesus Christ, look who decided to get up.”
    The sun shone bright through the blinds so that even those slivers of sunlight lit the room to something unbearable. “What time is it?”
    “What time is it, he asks. Care to venture a guess?”
    “No.”
    “Well, it’s a quarter past four. You’ve been in there hugged up to the toilet all goddamn day.” Daddy sat on the couch with his bare feet propped up on the coffee table. He didn’t have a shirt on, and his tattoos darkened the places that never saw sun. He stood up and situated a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants on his waist before coming over to the kitchen and grabbing a coffee mug from the cabinet. “Just go sit your sissy ass over there.” Daddy started to mix some concoction into the mug, but I didn’t stick around to catch the ingredients. I stumbled toward the couch and took a liking to the place he’d sat. When he came over, he put the mug down in front of me, some acrid-smelling shit steaming over the rim. Daddy sat beside me and kicked his feet back to the coffee table. He started flipping channels just fast enough for eyes to catch a glimpse of what was showing. “Drink up. That shit’s a goddamn McNeely cure-all.”
    I grabbed the coffee mug and took my first sip hesitantly. The taste sent my mouth to spitting and Daddy laughed as the mist glittered the air. “What the fuck is that?”
    “Black coffee, a little dash of bourbon, and two Goody’s powders.”
    “Tastes like shit.”
    “Ain’t supposed to taste good. Just quit being a pussy about it and drink it.”
    I took the next gulp in one big swallow, and though my face locked sideways like I was sucking something sour, by the time that medicine had hit my gut, I could feel the heaviness shedding.
    “Tell me about last night.”
    “Ain’t nothing to talk about.”
    “Don’t go giving me that shit. Now, tell me about your night.”
    “None of it worked out like you wanted it—”
    “Goddamn, you’re loose-lipped! I ain’t even talking about that! The boys came by late last night on a tear and told me all about it. Those are tales that only need to be told one good time. It’s better like that. Better to just let sleeping dogs lie, like they say. That’s the only way to let a fuckup like that come somewhere close to forgetting.”
    “Then what the fuck are you asking about?”
    “I’m asking about your night. Trying to have a little friendly conversation with my son, if that’s all right with you. So what the fuck kept you out all night and had you plowing my forsythias all to shit?”
    “I ran over the bushes?”
    “Did you run over the bushes? You come piling up that driveway on a goddamn tear. I was grabbing for britches and a gun just as fast as I could till I seen it was you through the window.”
    “Don’t remember that.”
    “Bet you don’t.”
    I grabbed the coffee mug and gulped down as much as I could stand. “Went to a party that they were throwing for graduation.”
    “They graduate yesterday? I didn’t know that.”
    “Yeah, they graduated yesterday and last night they were partying a little bit over there in Foxfire, over at Charlie Mitchell’s house. I don’t really think they wanted me there, and I don’t really know why I went. But one thing led to another, and I left Avery Hooper spread out on the floor.”
    “Shit doesn’t just unfold like that, now. Would be out of your character to just walk in and go to hitting somebody. Wouldn’t put it past me, but you avoided that kind of meanness somehow or another. No, I reckon something had to have happened for you to just haul off and hit