A Ford in the River. Charles Rose

had bashed in the front end of his car, rear-ending this lady’s station wagon. He couldn’t drive with one headlight. He couldn’t open the hood of the car. Uncle Walton said he had to get on the telephone, locate a header. Uncle Walton was calling used part shops. No header for that Pontiac, Danny. They stopped making them fifteen years ago. He’d keep trying, come back this afternoon. Uncle Walton could put in a headlight, chop out half the header.

      His mother was vacuuming the trailer. Last weekend Slade had beat her up and stomped off to Knott’s Tavern. She had a black eye again, puffy lips. She ran the machine up and down the wall-to-wall, pennies clicking along the vacuum tube. The feathered dirt stayed where it was, no matter how many ups and downs she did. Danny had to pick up after her. Her ups and downs moved on—to the shared-with-Slade tiny bedroom, where the action was, where the price was right. Taut cord, forgot to move the plug, just thought she could stretch the cord forever like the fat lady’s bulging girdle, the long right arm of Plastic Man. Danny was out on the patio when the police car pulled up. You saw what happened. That I did, sir. Clear case of spouse abuse this time, but his mother had still taken the bastard back. And Slade had come back, dragged his sorry ass back in the rain after lying out drunk in the front yard.

      Slade had tracked mud on the carpet, untied his boots in the kitchen. His mother was turning away from the stove, putting one hand on her puffy lips. She did what she’d done for his father, pulled Slade’s boots off, set them on newspaper. There wasn’t anything Danny could do.

      Uncle Walton turned in his swivel chair. He gripped his eyes on you, fixed you in the armchair.

      “How’s your mama doing?”

      Danny felt something go slack in his jaw. “You know how she’s doing?”

      “Every time I been by to see her she’s gone.”

      “You must not have been by lately. She was working at Piggly Wiggly days. Try coming to see her at night sometime.”

      “I’m not about to do that. No, Danny. Not as long as Slade’s still around. I know Slade’s car when I see it.”

      “You’re family. You could help her.”

      “Lorraine made her own bed, Danny. There’s nothing I can do for her.”

      “She could go to your place if you’d take her.”

      Uncle Walton looked straight at him. “Dee wouldn’t like it. She’s got little Ed and Winona and me. That’s four. You three would make seven. We couldn’t get you all in the trailer. Five’s top. Maybe six. We could take you and little Ben, but not Lorraine. Dee won’t put up with her drinking.”

      “She only does it because of Slade.”

      “She’s been doing it for too long now.”

      The off-in-the distance look was back, Uncle Walton pondering something he would never actually get mixed up in himself. “The only way Lorraine stops drinking is Slade moves out on her. But Slade, he likes it where he is. He isn’t about to get out of her life. Not unless he got cut or got shot, and that just isn’t going to happen.”

      Uncle Walton’s right hand was swinging out. He let it fall on Danny’s shoulder. “Don’t you do anything rash, Danny. You go after Slade, you’ll regret it.” No, kill Slade, you get a medal, but Uncle Walton’s right hand stayed where it was. “You got a gun or a knife, I’d stash ’em somewhere. Somewhere you can’t get at ’em.”

      He didn’t have any weapon to get at. But he’d be getting one pretty soon now. Uncle Walton didn’t know this. Uncle Walton was looking to have his lunch pretty soon. He let his hand slide off Danny’s shoulder. It was time for Danny to move on.

      “I’ll have to charge you for the header. If I find one, which isn’t likely. And a headlight will cost you twelve bucks. I won’t charge you for labor this time.”

      “I can pay, Uncle Walton.”

      “Not this time, Danny.”

      Out of Uncle Walton’s paint and body shop, Danny crossed the road to Golden Acres. He stopped off at number nine. The sign on the door said disaster area.

      Billy Hudmon was cleaning his twelve-gauge, running an oil patch through the barrels. He had parked himself in front of the door, the shotgun canted between his fat knees. Pull out the stock, push in the barrel, cold muzzle kissing his goat beard, pull wires attached to the trigger. Coroner’s verdict—suicide Slade. Billy Hudmon pulled out the ramrod. He set ramrod and oil patch between his legs, replaced the oil patch with another.

      “This shotgun isn’t for sale.”

      “You sure?”

      “I told you it isn’t for sale.”

      “I can pay.”

      “How much can you pay?”

      “Eighty-five, maybe ninety-five.”

      He had the hundred and fifty for the exercise bike. Cross the state line into Georgia, head on south for the Florida line. He’d have Slade in the trunk, packed in ice. Ice you down, Slade, take you south.

      “Come back in two hours. Bring cash,” Billy said.

      “Why not now? Why wait?”

      “Read the sign. I can’t let you in here right now.”

      Another sign in one window—ex-alcoholic for fifty-three weeks. Last week it had read fifty-two weeks. Billy Hudmon was drinking a Budweiser. He hadn’t gotten around to taking the sign down yet.

      “What kind of disaster are we talking about? Hurricane hit you? Tornado?”

      “It’s Lou Ann. She’s the disaster.” Danny heard something crash inside. Billy Hudmon pulled out another Budweiser from a cooler without a top to it. He opened it and drank deep. “Lou Ann’s mightily pissed off at me.”

      “Then why doesn’t she leave?”

      “She thinks I’m the one who’s going to leave. And that I am, for two hours. Soon as I clean this shotgun, I’m going to put this mother in my truck and drive down to my watering hole.”

      “You got another gun you could sell me?”

      “I have a Colt .45 I can sell you.”

      “How much?”

      “How much you willing to pay?”

      “How big a thirst you got, Billy?”

      Case of Jim Beam worth, but Danny didn’t have the money for that. Ninety-nine fifty was the least Billy Hudmon would take.

      “You can have it for ninety-nine fifty. You come back I’ll have it for you.”

      Danny moved on up the road, toward the plastic pink flamingo in the front yard of their trailer. His brother Ben’s dirt bike was missing. Lorraine was in the bedroom with Slade. She must not have known he was around because he didn’t advertise it anymore, his comings and goings, not with Slade there. Danny’s guitar case was missing. His Penthouse Forums were missing. Where was little Ben, little Ben’s dirt bike? Danny picked up the Yamaha, cheapest guitar you can buy, man. The steel strings resisted his efforts to chord. He laid the guitar on the bunk bed, twanged the E string, out of tune. Through the dusty slats of the venetian blinds, he watched a squirrel make a leap for the bird feeder. Lorraine kept on trying to feed the birds, but the squirrels got most of the action. Danny was out in a flash with his BB pistol, in the heat sifting off the pines. He took aim for the left eye, pumped BB’s into the eyeball. One spattered, jellied squirrel eye for your dinner tonight, big Slade. Here let me put some on your plate.

      Danny dropped the dead squirrel in the garbage can. Its good eye stayed in his mind for a little while. The sparrows were back on the feeder. Cardinals and jays would succeed the sparrows. The big boys, grackles and cow birds, would come later, take over for awhile.

      Slade’s supersensitive radar had picked up on where the