Rumble Tumble

“That’s metaphorical talk for you think they could be lying a lot. Right?”

“Right.”

Somehow we drifted toward the bedroom, and it was very cool in there, and the sheets were soft and sweet-smelling and Brett was warm and even sweeter, and I kissed her lips, then her breasts, pausing to roll my tongue around and over her hard nipples. I ran my tongue down the length of her long legs, and kissed where she had shaved herself, then I kissed everything else there was to kiss, rolled her on her stomach, moved her legs apart, and entered her.

Brett had the CD going, playing The Best of Percy Sledge—which means anything he ever sang. The song was “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and the way he sang made time stop. We made love for a long time, and eventually I had no idea which song was playing, and finally, when we finished, both of us satiated, I was somehow startled to realize we lay hugging each other in silence.

After a while, Brett said, “Now, that was some fuck.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and next time, I’m going to put my whole thing in.”

“Yeah, right,” Brett said. “What I meant to say, was that was some fuck, considering what you have to work with, and I don’t mean me, pardner.”

“Oh ho.”

“Ho ho.”

“Ho, ho, ho.”

“Oh, ho, ho, ho.”

We lay there for a while, kissing. Brett said, “You know, what we been talking about. About you and me.”

“Me moving in?”

“Yeah. I still want that. But right now, I don’t know we should. I don’t know how things are—”

“I understand.”

“—and Tillie, we go get her, well, I may need to keep her here, and with you and me trying to work things out together right now, I don’t know.”

“I understand.”

“Well, don’t understand too goddamn quick, mister. I want to do it, but maybe right now isn’t good. It could put a strain on all of us that we don’t need at the moment.”

“It’ll be all right.”

“I love you, Hap.”

“And I love you.”

“It’s okay we wait?”

“Sure.”

“Want to stroke the bald beaver again?”

“Will it bite?”

“Absolutely.”

We made love again. Less passionate this time, but satisfying nonetheless, then we lay with pillows propped behind our heads and Brett got the remote off the nightstand and turned the television on.

We lay there and watched some stupid talk show with a pig that was supposed to play a harmonica. The pig seemed bored. His owner held the harmonica, and the pig, a red neckerchief tied around its throat, tried to be cooperative and made a halfhearted attempt to blow into it. He could make a noise, but I wouldn’t call it music. The pig’s owner claimed it was taps.

Frankly, unless the sonofabitch can hit more than one note, I’m not that impressed with harmonica-playing pigs. In fact, way I feel these days, I don’t know one could actually play taps, or even “The Star Spangled Banner,” would excite me much.

We lay there holding each other, watching this pig, and finally some other program even more bland, then nothing. We fell asleep in each other’s arms, the TV going, and when we awoke in the late afternoon a famous talk show host was trying to help some whitebread woman in a five-hundred-dollar dress sell a book she’d written on the power of love; about how all we had to do to make things right was just believe in love and it would fill the air.

Pollution fills the air, honey, you believe in it or not. Love takes more work than that. And unlike pollution, sometimes love goes away.

6

When I got back to Leonard’s place my car windshield was caked with bugs. I used the hose and an old rag to clean it, but it wasn’t a much better job than I had done on Brett’s car at the filling station. Just call me Greasy Bill.

After I had been struggling for a while, Leonard came out of the house with a squeegee and gave it to me. I assumed he had been watching me through the window and had become frustrated. I used the squeegee and the hose and finally got the windshield clean. All the while I was doing this, I was glancing at Leonard out of the corner of my eye. I could see he was in a foul mood. He had that pouty mouth with the wrinkled forehead he gets when he’s ready to jump your ass. Not the look where his eyes are on fire and you know someone is going to get mauled or maybe die, but the one tells you he’s pissed and ready to let you know.

I tried some polite conversation about the bugs and the weather. Pointed at a couple of interesting birds I saw on fence posts, but Leonard wasn’t having any of that. I tried a clever slide into talking about Brett and her daughter, but he wasn’t having any of that either.

He said, “Before we talk any outside shit, we’re gonna talk some inside shit. I mean mine and your shit. Come on.”

I followed him into the house. He said, “Sit down right there and wait a minute.”