Bread and Blood (pt 6).

You can’t blame her for leaving, Dixie says. He’s sitting on the floor, his legs straight out in a V, leaning against the bed and holding his dad’s hand against his cheek. She already had people praying for us to die and obscene calls in the middle of the night and broke windows and cut tires, but with Davie and Ellie gone we outnumbered her. She went to Aunt Beth’s, I guess. We never looked for her and she never checked back.

His dad’s class ring is loose on his finger, but Dixie doesn’t dare try to take it off. It sounds like there’s somebody knocking on the door, but he doesn’t get up.

I watched you, Dixie says. I followed you when you went to those roach pits and made people pay up. Everybody said I was supposed to think that was so bad, but I never saw anybody beat you. You’re my dad and nobody could hurt you, so how come I got to feel bad about that?

The thumping on the door is louder now. Dixie listens and thinks he hears a radio; god dammit, somebody did call the cops.

But still he stays where he is, not letting go; they’d held hands since he was a little boy and never stopped until he left home. His dad said his own had been cold about things and he didn’t want to be the same, and he wasn’t, he never pushed Dixie away. It was just a thing that happened, he’d said, his eyes running day and night. Just bad luck, kid.

A voice calls out; Dixie’s eyes narrow. He places the hand on the bed. Somebody is in his dad’s house. Inside. His father’s. House.

Later the cop would report that he didn’t even think it was a person at first but maybe a dog that had been locked up inside for a long time the way it came charging at him and growling; it would take a month for his sight to clear and the ringing in his ears to stop, but the ribs would ache on rainy days for the rest of his life. And while he was lying on the floor coughing up teeth and trying to get the hell out of there, the corner of the living room suddenly caved in when the truck belonging to the home owner crashed right through it, the fugitive screaming like a banshee as he got out, his face slashed up like a cat got at him, giving the cop a crazy salute before running away.

*

He hides in the dark between buildings, eyes tracing the neon LIQUOR over and over, until one of them finally comes out and Dixie grabs him like a trap, dragging him by the throat into the alley. And then he comes inside, and Mr. Friend’s kid (so the other one was Charlie’s kid then, Dixie didn’t notice) sits straight up, not looking so tough now.

Pack of Marlboros, Dixie says, just about to laugh. Kid Friend gets it lickety-split, setting it on the counter. His eyes keep darting to the door, looking for help.

Dixie snaps his fingers. You know what? I forgot my money. Stupid, huh?

It happens, the kid says. Don’t worry about it.

Dixie grins. That’s cool of you, man. So how about the whole carton then.

The hopeful half-smile on the kid’s face falls; he reaches behind him and finds a carton, putting it in front of Dixie. There you go, he says. No charge.

Dixie’s got the giggles now, and if he could see himself he would be so afraid he’d never laugh again. But the kid certainly can see him; the kid moves back as far as he can.

I was gonna work for your old man, Dixie tells him, nodding. My old man had a heart attack or something when I was in high school and he didn’t work for like three months or so. We had piles of bills, man, you understand.

He leans forward, his hands spreading on the counter like something molten. Your dad calls up one night saying he can help us out if I’d could go do a couple things for him. Now Dixie has one knee up on the counter, slowly lifting himself up. The kid’s eyes are as wide as they will go.

Please, the kid says. My dad’s dead. He’s nothing to me.

Everybody’s dead, Dixie says, and then he jumps.

When he leaves he has a fifth of Jack under his arm and is chewing aspirin, biting open the little package with difficulty; his hands hurt.