Read Online In Memory of Junior by Clyde Edgerton - Free Book Online

to get killed hunting and drinking, Faison. It’s stupid.” He is very stupid that way.
    â€œYou know,” he says—he throws his arm up on the couch, getting really settled in—“I ain’t been hunting since before, you know, Junior died.”
    Something snapped. “Faison . . .” I didn’t want to hear any more. Nothing.
    â€œWhat?” he says. Real surprised-like. This stuff builds up in me when he’s away.
    â€œFaison,” I said, “will you please put that tombstone back? It’s been over a year, and legally, it’s against the lawto have that footstone out there with the wrong name on it. I ain’t going to just forget it. You know I’m going to do something about it if you don’t.”
    â€œJune Lee, let’s don’t get started on that.”
    â€œYou know I’ll switch it back if you don’t, Faison.”
    â€œShit, June Lee, you know I’ll switch it back if you switch it back.”
    â€œYou lied to me, Faison.” He told me he’d never been married, never really loved anybody, all this.
    â€œJune Lee,” he says, “if I’d had the slightest idea it meant all that much to you, I’d a told you before I did.”
    â€œYou lie. You knew it would of made a difference and that’s why you lied in the first place.”
    â€œI didn’t lie in the first place.”
    â€œCome off it, Faison.”
    â€œI think we ought to forget it. The footstone’s in place and that was our agreement, June Lee. We made an agreement.”
    â€œI ain’t talking about the footstone, Faison.”
    â€œListen, June Lee, I want to ask you something,” he says. Going into his serious Mr. Lawyer mode. “Okay,” he says. “I just thought about this the other night. What if you
had
known I’d been married? What then?”
    Faison has this way of letting his face go into these expressions that may or may not go along with what he’s saying. And he’ll find a spot over your shoulder and stare at that instead of look you in the eye.
    â€œIt was more than if I’d known you’d been married, Faison. You know that. But if I had known just that,” I said, “then I’d known I was marrying a honest man.”
    I’ve had a hard time with men in my life.
    â€œHonest, huh? I don’t understand why it’s so damned important about this stuff that’s history. Sure, I was married. But it was a failure. I put it behind me. It was a failure. Like they say, you buy what you pay for.”
    â€œYou buy what you . . . ? Faison. And I don’t know why,” I said, “it’s so important for you to have a boy that won’t yours in the first place named after you. That’s history too, Faison.”
    He stood up. “I got to get out of here,” he says.
    â€œGood. Good. You just walk away from it, Faison. You always were good at that. Walking away. You’ll be walking away when you die.”
    That got his attention. He slammed the storm door so hard, the glass broke.
    I yelled, “Which won’t be one minute too soon!”
    Thank god the Pattersons—upstairs—were gone. The glass fell on the outside, not the inside. Several big pieces. One leaned against the door. I just stood there—started biting a fingernail. I’ve been trying real hard to stop doing that.
    Why couldn’t Faison have been just a little bit more like Tate, and had some ambition, some sense about moving up in the world? If he’d been different then there wouldn’t have been a fight that day, the day I started out in the car. Why couldn’t he have just been a little bit different?
    Can’t live with him, can’t live without him. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.
    At some point I’m going to have to change that footstone back myself. I know where I can find some help.

4
Gloria
    It’s like Mr. Glenn more