Read Online American rust by Philipp Meyer - Free Book Online Page A

where she was, she was pulling him in and in and trying to get closer, they could not be close enough. He was still going and she hoped the feeling wouldn't end. She felt him get very hard and his whole body went rigid and it started to build up in her again but then he stopped moving. She rubbed his back and he was not looking at her, or at anything, he was just still. She found a comfortable position for her legs and they were like that for a long time. She dozed awhile, had strange thoughts, if Virgil was able to take home some money she'd be able to go back to school, here he was, then she thought you could probably plant the tomatoes soon, take them off the windowsill and get them into the garden, the peppers as well. She decided she could spare a few dollars and plant more herbs this year. Virgil began to move again inside her.
    “Let's go to the bed,” she said. “I don't want Billy coming home and seeing us like this.”
    She got up and walked to the bedroom; Virgil followed after her carrying the whiskey bottle. Worry about tomorrow's problems tomorrow, she reminded herself. They sat in bed and Virgil took a long pull from the bottle and then another, and then passed it to her.
    “Drinking that whiskey like you stole it.”
    He mumbled something in response—there was something going on. He didn't look at her; when she reached between his legs again he wasn't interested and then she didn't think she was, either.
    “What's going on with you?”
    “I've just been thinking.”
    “I'm sure you have.”
    “Maybe we should take it slow,” he said.
    She thought about that. In the old days she wouldn't have dared say it, but now she told him: “You just want to fuck, in other words.”
    “We don't have to put it like that.”
    “Except that's how you'd put it to someone else, right? What you told Pete when you went fishing today.”
    “Nothing's changed with you, has it?”
    She wiped between her legs with the sheet and pushed it away, her stomach got tight but then she didn't feel anything, she was just looking out the window. The day was nearly over. She could have been lying next to anyone. There was still time to get the tomatoes in the ground. She felt herself choke up.
    “You leaving?” she said.
    “I wasn't planning on it.”
    “Maybe you better.”
    “This is still my house.”
    “I've made every payment on my own since you left, and a couple hundred dollars here and there doesn't make a dent.”
    “Come on.” He rolled toward her and she felt the frame give under his weight. They had never been able to afford a proper bed. Then there was the trailer with its fake wood paneling. She had never wanted to live here—she'd let herself be talked into it.
    “I talked to a lawyer from the shelter.”
    He looked at her, half- grinning.
    “She said the house is legally mine until you pay your share.”
    “That's a bunch of bullshit,” he told her.
    He was right—she hadn't talked to any lawyer. But she was surprised how angry her own lie made her feel. She believed those words. They might not have been the truth but they should have been.
    “Go talk to someone,” she said. “See for yourself.”
    “You're a fucking nightmare, Grace.”
    “Get out. Bud Harris said it's a felony, you still owing so much on child support.”
    “Our kid isn't a child anymore.”
    “It doesn't change what you owe. The court still ordered it.”
    “You would bring a cop into it, wouldn't you?”
    “I would. I will.”
    “Well, that figures.”
    She was quiet.
    “Petey's wife said your cop boyfriend takes enough pills to kill a steer—Xanax, Zoloft, the whole routine. Biggest prescription in Fayette County.”
    “Maybe CVS ought to know their employee is going around talking about people's business.”
    “Most people think that Barney Fife motherfucker is queer.”
    She thought, he's got a bigger pecker than you do, but she kept her mouth shut. She suppressed a giggle.
    “What,” he said.
    “Go on and take