The Tiger Orchard by Sweeney Joyce;

Author:Sweeney, Joyce;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

ELEVEN

Zachary really believes everything will be all right, until Dad buys the six-pack. He knows it is always a bad sign, especially bad if that is the only purpose of the errand. If Daddy had stopped for gas, for instance, and bought a whole bag of things—cigarettes, doughnuts, and a six-pack—that might have been okay. But he just exits the highway, drives to the nearest 7-Eleven, leaves the car without a word, returns without a word, shoves the beer behind his seat, and speeds off like a thief. Zachary wants to say something, wants to point out that beer never does anything except bring out that bad part of Daddy’s personality, but he can’t make himself do it. No one else is on Dad’s side but him. Maybe it will be okay.

But already things are getting worse. Daddy is arguing with himself as he drives along. “It’s only fair, isn’t it?” he asks Zack, and Zack knows he doesn’t need to answer. “Each of us gets one kid. That’s the fair way.” He looks at Zack pleadingly. “That’s not how the courts would decide it, though. Is that what you think the courts would do?”

Zack shrugs.

“Not on your life. They’d say it was wrong to separate brothers, and they’d give you both to her. I know. I watch Divorce Court every day. What’s so bad about separating brothers? I never even liked my brother. Why don’t they think it’s terrible to separate fathers and sons? You know why? Because they think fathers are expendable.”

“What’s that?” Zack asks.

“It means they think you can just throw them away!”

Zachary gasps a little. That can’t be true. Maybe this is one of Dad’s exaggerations.

“If the only way to have justice is to break the law, then a person just has to break the law. Right?”

“I don’t know,” Zachary says.

“Look at Thoreau. Look at Dostoyevski.”

“Where?” Zack looks out the window.

“Isn’t it me you want to be with?” Dad asks passionately.

“Yes.” That much he knows even if he isn’t following the rest of this.

His father drives in silence for a minute, breathing hard. “Is that the truth, Zack? Really? Not just because you’re stuck with me in the middle of nowhere. Because if you want to be with Mom and Josh, I’ll take you straight home.”

“And you’d go away?”

“I have to go away. That’s a given.”

Zachary gives it thought. Dad likes it when he thinks carefully and gives his honest opinion. “I can’t talk to Mom like I can talk to you,” he says.

His father exhales deeply. “That’s what I thought.”

Zachary keeps glancing at that six-pack in the back of the car, glittering like a snake in the sun.

This night they choose a Howard Johnson. Dad shows Zachary where they are on the map. Fort Wayne, Indiana. “Maybe since we’re going west, we’ll Go West,” Dad says. The map seems to excite him. “You want to live in Colorado? Or Wyoming? And be cowboys?”

“Would I get a horse?” Zack asks.

“Sure. Why not?”

Zack is elated. Back at home they were still arguing about whether he was responsible enough to have a puppy.

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