Read Online Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby - Free Book Online Page B

we was married and had a kid, things would change.  They
did. They got worse. 
    The kid, Ethan Allen, he’s a lot like her. They figure I’m blind, but I
see them whispering secrets back and forth and I know damn good and well what
they’re up to.
    Susanna keeps filling the kid’s head with a lot of bullshit about going
to New York, when the truth is nobody’s going nowhere. She’s got no talent and
I got no money. How’s that for a shit-sorry life?

No Hell Like Home
    W hen Susanna arrived back at the
house, Ethan Allen was out in the field shooting at the groundhogs who’d been
digging up what was left of the soybeans; Benjamin was in the yard, hosing a
splatter of dirt from his new tractor. “Where you been?” he asked.
    “At the bank,” she answered; her voice cold and sharp as a razor.
    Benjamin gave her an icy cold look but stayed with the hosing.
    “I wanted to withdraw my money…”
    “For what?” he asked sarcastically, “A trip to New York?”
    “It
was my money! You had no right!”
    “I got every right!” he shouted. “I’m
your husband. I say what money gets spent on! This tractor’s more important
than some jerkwater notion of you becoming a singer!”
    Susanna scooped a rock from the ground and hurled it at Benjamin’s
head. He ducked and the rock cracked hard against the side of the tractor. 
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted, then came running across the yard and grabbed hold
of her hair. He all but dragged Susanna back to where the tractor was standing;
“See what you’ve done!” he shouted and shoved her nose into the dent. 
    “You think I give a fuck about this tractor!” she answered defiantly.
That thing’s a worthless piece of shit far as I’m concerned!”
    “Worthless? You call a tractor that cost more’n a thousand dollars,
worthless?”
    “I’d call anything you got an interest in, worthless!”
    “I had enough of your mouth,” Benjamin said; then he raised his hand
and whacked Susanna hard enough to send her sprawling across the yard.
    Ethan Allen, who was walking back from the field, saw it happen. He
took off running and came at Benjamin. “No, Daddy, no!” he shouted. 
    “Keep outta this!” Benjamin roared. He yanked the shotgun from the
boy’s grip and smacked him to the ground. “You dare raise a hand to me, you’ll
get worse than she got!” With a disgusted sneer he turned and strode off.   
    After Susanna had gathered herself from the ground, she went to the boy
and said, “Don’t worry, we’re still going to New York City.” She told Ethan
Allen he was to stay clear of his daddy until after dark, then slip off to the
diner and meet her. “Scooter’s going with us,” she confided, “he’s gonna see to
it we got everything we want, he’s even gonna take you to see that Yankee game
you been itching to see.”
    “Does Daddy know?”
    “Shit no,” Susanna answered. “That’s why it’s real important for
you to keep clear of him—one wrong word and the cat’s out of the bag.”
    Ethan Allen nodded.
    “And, don’t you pack no clothes. That’s a dead giveaway.”
    “I gotta bring my mitt!”
    “Okay, the mitt—nothing else!”
    “What about Dog?”
    Susanna gave him a look of disbelief. “No Dog,” she said.
    “But, Mama…”
    “No buts.”
    “I can’t leave Dog here with Daddy,” Ethan Allen whined, “He’ll shoot
him in the heart soon as he finds out we’re gone.”
    Susanna knew such a thing was true for Benjamin always claimed the dog
was a reminder of her whoring night. “Okay,” she relented, “you can bring Dog,
but not another thing—not a toothbrush or even a stick of gum.”
    “I swear,” Ethan Allen promised, making the sign of the cross over his
heart. He breezed through the kitchen, latched onto a wrapper of bologna and a
half loaf of bread, then disappeared out the back door.
     
    T hroughout the afternoon, as the
sound of dishes breaking and pots clattering against the wall echoed through
the