Read Online The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate - Free Book Online Page B

hands.”
    Tick was still crying. Mom squeezed in next to the two of us on the step. Tick turned his hot little head toward Mom and she cradled him, leaving my lap cold and damp. I let him go reluctantly. I never stopped looking at Mom. “So you dropped the cake,” I said. Was she really going to stick with that story? That ridiculous story? We
saw
her. We
saw
them. But she looked back at me and said in a dead-even tone, “Yes, I did.” I nodded once and squinched my eyes tight shut. Then I leaned to put my head on Tick’s back. The truth was not to be spoken. I got that. The three of us sat there for a very long time.

Seven
    Earlier that evening, my father sits on a barstool, pink neon lighting his dark skin. His buddy Oscar sits beside him. The arc of these evenings—and he has avoided having such an evening for a month or so—tends to be remarkably similar. They spend all day working the line, like so many black men did before them and like gradually decreasing numbers will after. The work is stupefying; their hands are stiff from performing the same actions over and over and over. Bend lift screw. Bend lift screw. Bend lift screw. The car doors slide past them in a never ending succession. Around four, he begins to think of that first beer, the cool shock to the tongue, the friendly fizz of it, and the lightness that follows in his chest. He thinks of the smooth sound of Motown burbling out of the jukebox,the warmth radiating from his friend’s leg near his under the bar, the ease that exists in that dark room. Four-thirty comes and passes, the car doors keep sliding by, his hand keeps twisting screws in rhythmically. Until it is finally time to punch out.
    It was his fortieth birthday. He had two children and a wife whom he loved very much. He had a job that ate a little bit of his spirit every day. He felt time passing, as do we all, and it scared him sometimes. He meant to go home that night. He really did. But it was his birthday. He had been doing so well, resisting that impulse for so long. What could one beer hurt?
    He’d said to Oscar as they went into the bar, “I gotta get home, man. It’s my birthday and they’re expecting me home.”
    â€œIt’s your birthday, man? I didn’t know that. All the more reason to buy you a beer today. Listen.” Oscar turned to speak to the bartender. “This brother is—how old are you?”
    â€œForty.”
    â€œForty today! I think this old man needs a boilermaker to celebrate!” Oscar clapped him on the back.
    The sharp cold beer and the small warm glass of whiskey sat on the bar together, inviting him, all but smiling at him. Marvin Gaye eased out of the jukebox; Oscar grinningbeside him. He’d go after this one. He’d just have this one drink this time. This time he was sure he’d be able to do it.
    T HREE HOURS LATER. “O H , shit, man. I gotta go.” The same heaviness in his words that there always was after the one, two, three, how many beers? He made his way to the door, weaving slightly, the careful walk of a man who had done this many times. He drove home very slowly, peering hard at each stoplight and hesitating before he hit the gas. When he walked into the house, the children, the wife, the cake, the screaming, the dashed expectations. The weight of it was all too much. He said cruel things, none of which he meant.
How can I treat them like this?
he thought.
They just wanted to give me a nice birthday.
But the vicious words were out before they could be called back and made into anything else. He had to leave after that—his shame was too great. He felt all of our eyes, big and dark and frightened, boring through his back as he left.
    He didn’t have a place in mind to go when he walked out the door. He guessed that Oscar had left the bar by this time; the magic was gone anyway. His buzz was being replaced by a familiar, grinding wretchedness.
    He got in the