Read Online Father and Son by Larry Brown - Free Book Online Page B

again. Even Theron would have said enough by now. If he knew what he’d gone through. Did the dead see? Did they know? Did they take pity on what the living did? Did Emma?
    He turned back around in the chair and got up.
    â€œI’m gonna go up front and watch TV and lay down. I don’t want to get into it with you. Whether you believe it or not I’m glad to see you.”
    He put his cup in the sink. The puppy raised his head and looked at him, then sat up and pulled a hind foot to his head and started scratching his ear. Virgil glanced at him and walked out of the kitchen and up the hall. He thought he’d watch a little of the church music on television. He didn’t go to church except for funerals but he liked to turn it on onSunday mornings and not be completely heathen. The television had a tall wooden cabinet and a round screen about a foot in diameter. He turned it on and sat down on his chair right in front of it and waited for it to warm up. Saturday afternoons he got the Slim Rhodes show out of Memphis with Dusty Rhodes and Speck Rhodes. He liked to sit there and have a drink and listen to that before he went down to the VFW.
    He heard Glen come into the room behind him but he didn’t pay any attention to him. The picture was starting to come on and it was rolling. He got up and opened a panel in front and adjusted a knob until the picture settled down. Some choir was singing. He sat down. Glen sat down on the couch with his coffee.
    â€œYour mama used to like this show,” Virgil said.
    Glen didn’t say anything. Virgil wished he’d just stay in the kitchen if he was going to be hateful. The choir finished its number and the camera moved to the preacher. Virgil laced his fingers across his stomach and stretched his legs out.
    â€œWhat you want to watch this crap for?” Glen said. “All that fucker wants is you to send him some money.”
    â€œI don’t send him no money. I just watch him preach.”
    â€œWhy don’t you see if there’s some cartoons on?”
    â€œThey don’t show em on Sunday mornin.”
    â€œThey used to.”
    â€œThey don’t no more.”
    â€œTurn it over on another channel.”
    â€œI want to watch this.”
    â€œI want to see if the goddamn cartoons is on.”
    Glen got up and moved toward the television and Virgil started to get up but then decided he’d just let him see for himself. Glen flipped the channels, bent over the set with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. More preaching. More preaching. Bugs Bunny.
    Glen settled back on the couch.
    â€œTold you.”
    â€œThis is my TV,” Virgil said.
    â€œThis is Mama’s TV.”
    â€œIt’s in my house.”
    â€œThis ain’t even your house. Uncle Lavester give you this house.”
    â€œIt’s mine, though.”
    â€œYeah, till he dies and Catherine decides to boot your ass out. Then where you gonna stay?”
    Glen turned his attention back to the set and Virgil watched him watching it. Then he got up and walked back to the bedroom.
    His shoes were sitting beside a chair and he sat down to put them on. Glen was laughing up front. He wished he’d just go on and leave, let him alone. He tied his shoes and got up to comb his hair. There wasn’t much black left now, just a streak here and there. It didn’t take long to get old and he wondered where all the time got to. Like the war. It seemed so far back but still so close. It didn’t seem possible for that much time to have passed and left him like this. All the stuff you were going to do tomorrow turned into today’s stuff. You could screw around all your life and it looked like he had. Glen was right. He didn’t even own the linoleum he was standing on.
    The closet was still full of Emma’s clothes and he pawed through the hangers on his side, looking for a clean shirt. He thought he’d just get out of the house for a while,