Read Online Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Ed Tarkington - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ed Tarkington
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trying to scare me,” I said.
“It’s true,” Paul said, “as far as I know.”
I pictured a hulking, nightmarish Indian warrior with black eyes and long, death-black hair.
“Sometimes at night,” Paul said, “they could hear little John in the woods, calling to them. They’d run out and look, but they never found him.”
I felt dizzy. When I looked back up the hill at the tree line, the woods seemed darker and closer. Paul flicked his spent cigarette down into the gap, and it went careering off into the falling night, a tiny little hot orange bullet on a field of darkening blue.
The air had grown cold. I dropped my cigarette and let it roll away. Without my asking, Paul pulled out the pack and shook another one loose. I took it and let him help me light it one more time.
My eyes lost focus. I clung to the rock beneath me, yet still felt as if I were tumbling through space.
“Could have been a coyote, I guess,” he said.
I dropped my head to the rock and retched. A beery, bilious mess gushed out beneath me, spewing across the sandy surface of the limestone.
I couldn’t stop heaving. I choked and gagged and spat, with Paul beside me, still smoking. Except for when he sucked on his cigarette and the ember at the tip fanned out in a little gold bloom over his face, he was invisible.
When I tried to stand up, I felt myself falling forward. I saw myself bouncing down the mountainside, piled up on the rubble, my mangled corpse covered with a layer of soot, as if it had been rolled around in the ashes of a thousand Camel Lights.
I fell sideways and hugged the slope. The rock was cool against my face. When I looked up, Paul was gone.
I whispered his name. I was sure that I had missed him in the darkness, or that he had merely stepped from my field of vision. Lifting my head, I looked up and down and sideways. I howled his name and listened to it echo back to me from across the gap. I cried out again and again until, panting, I put my head back to the rock, listening to the echoes of my cries trickling off into silence.
SOME YEARS LATER, my mother told me a story about how Paul had come to take me out of school and, in one of those odd chance instances, had found me waiting in the principal’s office. He might have known what he was going to do all along, or he might just have taken the opportunity as it presented itself. Life happens in moments, she said to me. Sometimes the most thoughtless, accidental, seemingly irrelevant choices seem to ripple on endlessly. Sometimes the weight of the choice is obvious.
That morning Paul had driven home from Ohio. The day before, he had watched Anne, his mother, be lowered into the ground. There was no open casket at the funeral. Anne had passed out drunk in her bed with a lit cigarette in her hand.
Paul had sat there in the church with what was left of his mom’s people, looking around for the Old Man, but he wasn’t there. Maybe Jimmy Hutter’s father was right. There’s a strong case to be made that only a cold, arrogant son of a bitch would allow his first son, still essentially a boy, to bury his mother alone. But that’s how it went. After that, Paul came for me.
I HAD FALLEN into a fitful sleep plagued by murderous Indians lurking in the woods nearby when I felt Paul pull me up and into his arms. I spat and coughed and rubbed my nose on the sleeve of his oxford shirt. He told me to wrap my legs and arms around his neck and back and he crab-walked down the slope with me clinging to him and trying not to gag from the smell of smoke in his hair.
Paul helped me into the backseat of the car. With my face buried in the crook of my elbow, I listened to the purr of the engine and the pebbles flicking up from beneath the tires until we reached the top of the hill, where Paul hooked a smooth, deliberate left back onto the paved road. As we drove on, I thought of poor little John, wandering around in the hollow, wailing at the night. I imagined a boy about my age,
“It’s true,” Paul said, “as far as I know.”
I pictured a hulking, nightmarish Indian warrior with black eyes and long, death-black hair.
“Sometimes at night,” Paul said, “they could hear little John in the woods, calling to them. They’d run out and look, but they never found him.”
I felt dizzy. When I looked back up the hill at the tree line, the woods seemed darker and closer. Paul flicked his spent cigarette down into the gap, and it went careering off into the falling night, a tiny little hot orange bullet on a field of darkening blue.
The air had grown cold. I dropped my cigarette and let it roll away. Without my asking, Paul pulled out the pack and shook another one loose. I took it and let him help me light it one more time.
My eyes lost focus. I clung to the rock beneath me, yet still felt as if I were tumbling through space.
“Could have been a coyote, I guess,” he said.
I dropped my head to the rock and retched. A beery, bilious mess gushed out beneath me, spewing across the sandy surface of the limestone.
I couldn’t stop heaving. I choked and gagged and spat, with Paul beside me, still smoking. Except for when he sucked on his cigarette and the ember at the tip fanned out in a little gold bloom over his face, he was invisible.
When I tried to stand up, I felt myself falling forward. I saw myself bouncing down the mountainside, piled up on the rubble, my mangled corpse covered with a layer of soot, as if it had been rolled around in the ashes of a thousand Camel Lights.
I fell sideways and hugged the slope. The rock was cool against my face. When I looked up, Paul was gone.
I whispered his name. I was sure that I had missed him in the darkness, or that he had merely stepped from my field of vision. Lifting my head, I looked up and down and sideways. I howled his name and listened to it echo back to me from across the gap. I cried out again and again until, panting, I put my head back to the rock, listening to the echoes of my cries trickling off into silence.
SOME YEARS LATER, my mother told me a story about how Paul had come to take me out of school and, in one of those odd chance instances, had found me waiting in the principal’s office. He might have known what he was going to do all along, or he might just have taken the opportunity as it presented itself. Life happens in moments, she said to me. Sometimes the most thoughtless, accidental, seemingly irrelevant choices seem to ripple on endlessly. Sometimes the weight of the choice is obvious.
That morning Paul had driven home from Ohio. The day before, he had watched Anne, his mother, be lowered into the ground. There was no open casket at the funeral. Anne had passed out drunk in her bed with a lit cigarette in her hand.
Paul had sat there in the church with what was left of his mom’s people, looking around for the Old Man, but he wasn’t there. Maybe Jimmy Hutter’s father was right. There’s a strong case to be made that only a cold, arrogant son of a bitch would allow his first son, still essentially a boy, to bury his mother alone. But that’s how it went. After that, Paul came for me.
I HAD FALLEN into a fitful sleep plagued by murderous Indians lurking in the woods nearby when I felt Paul pull me up and into his arms. I spat and coughed and rubbed my nose on the sleeve of his oxford shirt. He told me to wrap my legs and arms around his neck and back and he crab-walked down the slope with me clinging to him and trying not to gag from the smell of smoke in his hair.
Paul helped me into the backseat of the car. With my face buried in the crook of my elbow, I listened to the purr of the engine and the pebbles flicking up from beneath the tires until we reached the top of the hill, where Paul hooked a smooth, deliberate left back onto the paved road. As we drove on, I thought of poor little John, wandering around in the hollow, wailing at the night. I imagined a boy about my age,
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