Be Mine by Richard Ford

Author:Richard Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Six

Paul’s pit-stop (he believes I abandoned him) has resulted in a sorrowful pants-soaking, for which nothing can be done in the car. As a prostate veteran I know these matters well and can sympathize. In Paul’s case, in haste and clumsiness, he’s also snagged the tender dew-lap of his pecker in his khakis’ zipper, inflicting a paralyzing wound he’s made worse by zippering back over the site—twice as painful—and loosing a freshet of blood he’s tried to stopper with toilet paper, but which is still leaking.

“Some fat-ass attendant came in and saw me and asked if he could help or call someone.” He’s fuming in the car seat, fists balled, shoulders bunched, elbows into his sides, his face slightly waxen.

“Did you let him?” I am driving us.

“I told him I was fine. I got the wheelchair into the fucking disabled stall and wrapped my dick. It’s not that big a deal. I’ve got dick to spare. It just hurt like shit.”

“Do we need to do something? Find an urgent care?”

“Maybe a nurse could stitch me up.” He closes his eyes to seek solace. “It’s fine. Do I have to say it again?”

“Where’re we headed?” I ask. I’m driving us toward New Bemidji Street, but am ready to strike off for A Fool’s Paradise, take command of the Windbreaker and get us on the road. Our alternative is stay here, face blear facts in a blear nowhere, no-time on Lincoln’s birthday. Like all new graduates, he is released only back to the present.

“Aren’t we going to Mount whatever and do fucking something? I don’t know. I’m just along for the ride now. I missed my meet and greet.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“What do you think my great gift was?”

“A free tire rotation. I don’t know. How’s your schwantz holding up?” This he will not be able to resist. Slumped in his seat like a sack of Irish potatoes, he averts his gaze as we cruise past our neighborhood blind man, tapping along the icy sidewalk hoping in his blind-man’s sunglasses not to step off the edge of the world. Paul is working up a killer comeback, suppressing a wizened smile. This has been his way since he was thirteen—a skilled escape artist from life’s drab everyday. Now, though, he is this age and sick and alone with me in Minnesota, bound for someplace he doesn’t want to go. Jokes are hard to come by.

“You know what the message for the day is, Lawrence?” Looking straight ahead up wintry Bemidji Street.

“This better be good.” We’re stopped in front of our house. The neighbors have their recycling out, but ours is not.

Paul says, “There may actually be an excuse for elder abuse. There’s new research on it at Ball State.” His knees are jitterbugging. Possibly he’s already happy.

“You need to work on that,” I say.

“Shut up. What’s the most popular body function? It’s not as clear-cut as you think.” He looks over, giving me the dead eye, his tongue working between his damp lips, his poor tired eyes trained on me behind his glasses.

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