Distant Sons by Tim Johnston

Author:Tim Johnston [Johnston, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

In the cab of the truck she leaned to him and they kissed a long moment before she settled back and drew the seatbelt around her.

The smell of her just dizzied him.

“Where to?” he said.

“Just take this all the way to Fourth and bang a right.”

“Yes’m.” He put the truck in gear and pulled away from the house.

“Good chat with Mr. Givens?”

“Good chat, yes.”

“Good smoke?”

He checked his mirrors. “How do you mean?”

“Did he enjoy the cigarette you gave him?”

Sean cleared his throat.

“It’s all right,” she said. “He’s got his own. He just wanted to see if you’d give him one.”

“I’m sitting there on the man’s porch.”

“I know. He knew it too.”

At the restaurant the waiter showed them the label, then opened the bottle and poured a small amount into Sean’s glass. Sean rocked the wine about and stuck his nose in the bowl of the glass and shut his eyes, and finally he tossed back the entire pour in one swallow. She had her fingers over her lips and her shoulders were shaking. They listened to the night’s specials and placed their orders and when they were alone again they touched glasses and sipped the wine. In the soft light of the dining room he could see little trace of the bruise under her eye. A faint darkness, maybe.

Sounds of couples at their meals. Silverware on china. A woman in a spangled black gown playing a black baby grand. Great blond beams of heartwood traversing the whole of the high ceiling, and in the spaces between the beams the black fans silently churning the air above the diners. One side of the room was a canted wall of glass and from where they sat, from wherever you sat in the room, you could see the distant lights of the bridge over the Mississippi and those lights slurring again in the black water. Beyond that you could not see the sky, the stars, only the far, depthless dark of Minnesota.

They drank the wine. They dipped small hunks of bread in olive oil and talked. The woman finished the tune she was playing and they clapped lightly with the others and she began a new one. They sat as if listening but then Denise looked at him. The light playing in her green eyes.

He waited.

“Did you keep it?” she said.

“Keep what?”

“You know what.” Holding his gaze.

“Oh, that.” He sipped his wine. “Yes.” Then: “Shouldn’t I have?”

She shrugged. “You can’t tell it’s me.”

“I can tell.”

She smiled. “I hope it came at a very inopportune moment.”

Sean looked to his left and right. No one was paying the least attention to them. “I wasn’t exactly alone,” he said.

“Dan Young?”

“Yes.”

“Did you show it to him?”

“No.” He gave her a sidelong look. “Did you want me to?”

“No. But I wouldn’t have minded if you did.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged again. “It’s not even that racy. And if you were just like, ‘Damn, look at this,’ I’d forgive you.”

He thought about that. Then he said, “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

She smiled and raised her glass to her lips.

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