Read Online Son of a Gun by Justin St. Germain - Free Book Online

the middle of my family, and we remaining men were standing on its edges, trying to shout across.
    As I sat alone on the porch, I thought again of Hemingway—
nada y pues nada y pues nada
—and peered out into the dark street at every car that passed, gauging the shape of the headlights and the sound of the engine, expecting the bright rectangles and diesel roar of my mother’s truck, for Ray to drive up our street and pull into our yard and run me over, crash into the living room, to kill us all and finish it.

FINAL GOODBYES

    The morning of my mother’s funeral mass, I pulled into the parking lot of the Sacred Heart Church in Tombstone a half hour early and sat staring at the basketball court behind the rectory where I’d played as a kid. The rim was low and bent by years of hanging boys. The steps of the church were empty. I’d stayed at a friend’s house in Tombstone the night before, so I wouldn’t have to get up early and drive down from Tucson. I was the first person there, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, go stand under the plaster Jesus and hold the door open, sit in the front pew and try to weep. I wished I had a basketball.
    I got out of my truck and smoothed the wrinkles from my shirt and walked to the entrance of the church. I went inside, blessed myself with holy water in the vestibule, and walked past the shuttered confessionals and a short way up the aisle toward the altar. My mother had tried to teach me the names of places in a church, the nave and crossing and so on. She hadgone to Catholic school and knew all the jargon, all the rituals; she used to sit next to me on Palm Sunday folding fronds into crosses, explaining the stations of the cross. She tried to raise me in the faith, but we only went to church on Christmas and Easter, or for a few Sundays in a row whenever she began to feel guilty. In the last years of her life she returned in earnest to Catholicism, started reading the Bible again, convinced Ray to convert, and cajoled me into taking classes to get confirmed.
    I still have a picture from my confirmation, in a frame my mother bought and signed on the back in gold marker:
Congratulations Justin, xo Mom
, beneath a drawing of the Jesus fish. In the picture I’m kneeling at the feet of a priest who’s about to rub chrism on my forehead in the shape of a cross and tell me to repeat his words accepting Christ and rejecting Satan. Ray stands behind me with his hand on my shoulder; he was my confirmation sponsor. My mother stands next to him, a bit behind. She’s reaching for something, but the camera’s angle hides her hand: it’s not clear whether she’s reaching for me or for him. That was the last time I’d been inside a church.
    I went outside and stood on the sidewalk watching the sun rise, warming away the chill of morning. A green Dodge pickup parked across the street. I’d been gone for more than a year, but I could still identify most residents of Tombstone by their vehicles. The Dodge belonged to Dave, my mother’s last boyfriend before Ray. He stepped down from the truck, straightened his bolo tie, and shrugged into his jacket. He was clean shaven and he’d tried unsuccessfully to tame his wild hair. I hadn’t seen him since we’d moved out of his house. Now he was the first person at her funeral besides me.
    Dave walked over. He asked how I was and I said all right, considering. We stood looking out at the cracked asphalt of Safford Street as cars parked and people in church clothes got out, pulling purses and coats from their trunks.
    “I could never make her happy,” Dave said abruptly. “I thought she’d found someone who could.” The last words caught in his throat.
    “I always liked you, Dave,” I said. It probably wasn’t much comfort, but it was the best I could do.
    He put his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. It looked almost as if he were saluting. The muscles worked along his jaw, and I knew he wanted to say more than that he