The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris

Author:Joshua Ferris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2017-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

Her boy come by after she threw that mug at me and I got to holler at him from the sofa. “You cain’t come around here no more, boy!” “But how come?” he says. “I like it down here.” “I don’t care,” I tell him. “Go on, sing it somewhere else.” Then, don’t even ask—just climbs the two cinder block stairs and enters the trailer. I got to remind myself to put a door on. “You not hear me, boy?” I have more than once expressed to his mama the need for a restraint of some kind, be it medical or an old-fashioned collar. He’s holding something behind his back, and when he brings it out real proud and happy, you’d think he had himself a gold seal on the Ten Commandments. “What you got there?” I ask. It’s one of my old 45s his mama’s been hoarding from me on account of her spite and damnation. Ghost Town Choir by somebody called Bluford Tucker. Tell the truth, I don’t much listen to music anymore. But his mama’s got a real advantage on me, not giving them records back. So I nod a bit to show him he’s done good, trying to recall that Bluford Tucker sound and drawing a blank. Hillbilly music, in all likelihood, but I’d have to give it a spin to recollect it proper. Just never too sure where that old player is around here. I take it out anyways, as if to inspect it for scratches and whatnot, and sure enough that’s when I see there ain’t no sleeve. “Where’s the sleeve?” I ask him. He acquires that look, the one his mama wears when I talk music, that says “I don’t speak music.” “See, now—all my records have plastic sleeves. Keeps them from getting scratched all to hell. Now where’s this one’s sleeve?” He don’t say a damn thing. “Has your mama been fucking with my sleeves?” “I don’t think so,” he says. “You know how important this album is to me, boy?” He nods like he does know. He ain’t got a fucking clue. Music is what I’d call a highlight in an otherwise low life. What’s the point of going on without your damn music? “You know what this means,” I say to him. “I guess she never really loved me, your mama.” Seems the right moment to drift off and lick my wounds, but there ain’t enough room in this goddamn trailer for that. So he says, “How come you and my mom broke up?” He’s got the one talent in life, and that’s making people talk. “What makes you say we broke up?” I ask him. “Didn’t you?” “Well, I guess it’s true she didn’t like the way I was treating you at that picnic.” “How were you treating me?” “I didn’t treat you any which way,” I tell him. “But you ask her, I wasn’t treating you like I was your daddy. Well, you know what, son? I ain’t nobody’s daddy.

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