Save Me, Joe Louis by Madison Smartt Bell

Author:Madison Smartt Bell [Bell, Madison Smartt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-3544-7
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

fourteen

CHARLIE WAS OUT WHEN Porter and Macrae finally made it back to the house. No telling where. It was getting dark. They sat in the backyard, smoking and watching the light decline. No beer in the house, and they were too tired of walking to hump it to the store for more. Macrae could feel a hangover building as he came off the rum they’d drunk in the afternoon.

“Days getting longer,” Macrae said.

“You know it,” said Porter.

“C’mere, Sooner,” Macrae said. The dog, who lay with his head stretched over his crossed paws, pushed himself up, hindquarters first, and approached.

“Sit,” Macrae said. He took a dog biscuit from the half-empty box on the spool and balanced it on Sooner’s nose. The dog crossed his eyes to look at the biscuit and hung his red tongue out.

“Stay … ,” Macrae said. “All right, get it!”

Sooner flipped the biscuit off his nose and caught it in the air with a clop. Macrae shook another one out of the box.

“Sit … ,” he said. The dog gave him a disgusted look and walked back to the corner of the fence, where he flopped down with a sigh and relaxed himself over the weeds and dirt.

“Not gonna make him mind?” Porter said.

“He’s just bored, like the rest of us,” Macrae said. “I had a steak to stick on his nose, I bet he’d go for that …” He flapped his hand in the stagnant air. “Gummy out, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” Porter said. “This town gets miserable come summer.”

“I believe you,” Macrae said. “We don’t got any beer, do we?”

“Want me to check the fridge and see if some grew?”

Macrae rubbed around the bone of his eye socket, the area where the headache seemed to be concentrating. “Why don’t you order a pizza?” he said.

He lit another cigarette and smoked in the twilight while Porter made the call. It was breathless and so damp and still that his smoke hung all around his head without dissipating. He had to fan his hand at it to shift it away. A greasy white kid with a cap turned backward came out of the junkie half of the duplex and wandered over the litter in the yard. From one hand trailed the plug end of a heavy orange extension cord that issued from the house. When Porter came back outside the kid hailed him.

“Hey, man …”

“Hey, man,” Porter mimicked.

“Man, uh …” The kid lost momentum. His mouth hung slack and lusterless; inside, his tongue was gray. The plug of the cord swung pendulously a foot or so below his hand.

“Bugs gonna fly down your throat, man,” Porter said. In his corner, Sooner lurched up and scratched his ear desperately with his hind foot and then with a groan resettled himself.

“Uh, they cut off our electricity, man, you know?” The kid squinted across at Porter.

“Is that right,” Porter said. “I bet you didn’t pay your bill.”

“Gonna be dark,” the kid said. He hung the plug out across the woven wire fence. “You think you could plug this in on your side, man?”

Porter exhaled heavily.

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