some suicide ideation references, violence

My wife's absolutely gorgeous. The curtain's pulled up and we got the window cracked open. It's a risky venture in this neighborhood. But tonight we ain't fighting or screwing and the moon casts it's glow behind her. She looks angelic and wild and beautiful. I tell her as much.

"I'm just sipping tea," she tells me. Which is true enough. She makes herself a cup of Russian tea almost every night. But she has on a small grin that I don't think she's even aware of and her eyes sparkle so I drawl on some more sweet words because they're true and she ought to hear them and being alone with my thoughts makes me uneasy.

She likes her Russian tea and her American coffee with plenty of sugar. I'm a black coffee guy- no cream, no sugar, a bit of whisky in it to liven in up. But that's only after noon. She moves the messy strands that fall on her face behind her ear. I like it when she's unkempt better. She's a real knockout when she looks like she just got out of bed or just emerged panting and flushed from deep in the woods with a wolf on her trail. But I tell her appreciatively, "now I can see you better."

There's a rustling noise from under the table. I wondered when he'd start making himself known. My quiet one. I put the dish rag down. Clutch my hand to my chest and jump back and pretend to be surprised when I see my youngest boy peeking out behind the table cloth. We're eye level now and he licks my face. I close my eyes right in the nick of time.

God I love that kid and I give him a wet sloppy kiss. I laugh and hold onto a table leg so the whole table shakes and I hear Jo's saucer shake too. I poke my head up. "Sorry hon. Aww look here Jos we got ourselves a lil' kitty cat. You catchin' them mice?" I say it and then wish I didn't.

A few months ago we had a problem with mice and Jo was on my ass about it, though by the time the mice get through the foundation and siding it means the problem's been going on longer than you think. I had half the house rigged with traps but I didn't want to put too many around since I was afraid of the boys losing a toe or a finger in one of them.

"They're not gonna lose a toe, jiminy crickets," she muttered but she looked worried despite being my tough gal.

"Hell they won't!" I exclaimed and my toes and fingers started to ache in sympathy and that was it. I got rid of any mice traps that I thought could be a hazard. Then my mind got distracted and my finger got caught. It hurt like hell. My finger swollen and bruised and after I was done cursin' I'd almost felt bad for those mice getting their spines crushed in those vices before I remembered all the trouble they were causing my happy marriage.

We had a fight over it-over those mice but also over all they represented. How we were trapped in this tiny house that's half run down and unless we hit bank we ain't getting out for a long time. We could die in this house I think. And I can see us clear as day in fifty years with canes and in wheelchairs covered up to our chests in mice. I wondered if the boys would visit us or if they'd be too tied up with their own families and I already felt lonesome for them.

I lost my temper then. Moved my arms in the air like I was directing a jet in for a landing, screaming about how about I just dynamite the whole fucking house. Would that make her happy? Then she yelled at me that no, being homeless would not make her fucking happy. And she wins because even when she's screaming and cursing she makes sense. My wife's smart no bones about it.

But that only riled me up more and somehow I ended up planning a whole mice massacre and told her we could invite Mighty Mouse and Mickey and Minnie and the whole gawdamn gang over to pay their respects! We'll have a real hoe down! My hands were still up in the air when it hit me that I was talking about cartoon characters.

I apologized afterwards but still there's no excuse for acting like a damn jackass and I said as much.

She said she forgave me and she reminded me that she lost her temper with me plenty of times. Which is true enough. She loses her temper more than I do. But my temper when it does rise is volcanic. Which is to say it ain't no picnic being married to either of us.

When she was a little girl she was a real spitfire and a troublemaker though. She reminded me of this a few years back. After I mused that it might be nice if the baby she's carrying turned out to be a sweet little girl, since we already had two boys. She reminded me that she got in real trouble for fighting when she was in high school. And I reminded her that it was because she was standing up for a friend. Besides, I like being married to a criminal, I wink. But I hold her hand too and give it a squeeze and try to imagine those slender fingers causing damage. And she wondered what had happened to them girls and seemed wistful which she often was closer she got to her due date though she hated going back to Muskogee.

But all her warnings did was make me wish for a baby girl even more. A little girl who I'd teach how to throw a punch as good as any boy of mine.

After I agreed by keeping my mouth shut that she indeed loses her temper, she reminded me that she also holds grudges longer than me. Which is also true but I told her that it wasn't. But she gave me a look as if there was shit coming out of mouth and I relented and admitted that okay, maybe she did hold long grudges. But she had a good reason to and I was trying to apologize for being an idiot.

We laughed about it afterwards-the whole mice funeral part. Jo has a twisted imagination and I love her for it. I could never be like this with anyone else and she'd say the same about me. She held my finger in her hand and examined it again and I said it was better it was my finger than her own or one of the boys.

It was my non-dominant hand anyways. I sketched a little doodle of six grief stricken mice with tear ducts in their ears carrying a casket. It made her laugh, I also vacuumed the next morning since that would be the type of apology that would mean something to Jo and she suggested maybe we'd get a cat and that it was a good idea to get rid of the traps that the boys could have ran into which made me feel like a goddamn hero all because I might have saved the boys from getting a bone crushed.

"Sure," I said and shrugged though I like dogs better. Can't do better than Man's Best Friend, if you ask me.

Anyways we had mice in our home.

Ponyboy says in a real solemn voice, "I'm a puppy dog." Then he thinks it over for a few seconds. "I'm hidin' from Soda."

Well damn I think you're gonna be here all night.

Jo pulls Pony up. He squirms and fidgets a bit but then snuggles deep into her hold. "Baby, I think Soda's been done playing hide and seek for a while." They look here in profile holy and beautiful. Like a Madonna and Child painting come to life. They have the same expression on their face-somber and curious.

"Soda forgot me?" He sticks his thumb in his mouth. Maybe he's a bit old for that, but hell I'm not about to tell him to stop it.

Well hell if it ain't just the saddest thing I'd ever heard. Jo smiles at me and then at our baby, kisses him and gently pulls his thumb out of his mouth. It's that mixture of gentleness and firmness that she's real good at.

Me? I say let him suck his thumb. Once she took him off the teat 'course he's gonna want some other sort of comfort.

I just can't stop myself. I pull out my hick voice so I sound like my daddy but without the meanness. "Aww babes! Ain't nobody forgettin' you c'mon lets go on the hunt for good ol' Sodapop. He probably just forgot how this game's supposed to be played. We'll find him. Ain't like this house's very big." I mean it's big enough to hide a whole town of mice but that's beside the point...

We know our neighbors well enough that we let the boys run around the street after dusk. Darry's ten and can go farther long as he comes home before it gets too dark and doesn't go past the highway. My boy's at his mom's and I miss him every time he's not here like it's his first night away from me.

We're on the threshold between the porch and inside. Pony's on all fours sniffing around like a hound. I laugh and then remember there might be mouse droppings that we didn't get even though Jo does a fine job of housekeeping. Then you got the dirt and mud the boys track in even though Darry's usually pretty good about wiping his shoes on the front stoop. I tell Pony not to lick the floor. He gets up and takes my hand. Once his whole body could fit in my palm.

He has a strong hold for a little boy. I try not to think about how in a few years he's going to think he's too old to old my hand and Jo is adamant about not wanting another baby no matter how much she still babies Pony. Though hell I do it more.

"Daddy?" he asks me real sweet. He's got his momma's eyes.

"Yeah babes?" I grip his hand tighter too.

"I'm gonna bite Soda."

I shake my head and try not to laugh. "Naw..."

"But I'm a puppy dog!"

"True, but Soda's been at this longer than you, got his canines n' everything."

"I ain't no 'fraidy cat," he tells me and hell I believe that's what he believes and I want to protect him from all harm including self-delusions. He's back to sucking his thumb. Good, I think, like I had won something.

"Sure, you're my real tough boy-er pup. But first we gotta find Soda." It's not hard. He's in the backyard spinning himself dizzy on the tire swing. Usually he's doing something that makes me afraid he's gonna crack his head open or break every bone in his body.

Pony takes his thumb out out of his mouth. Not as good as a momma's tit, huh sug?

"Whatchya doin' son?" I ask my middle boy. "He forgot me!" Pony shouts indignant at his brother his fists balled up. Like his momma, I chuckle and Jo and I have been getting along pretty good lately.

"Baying at the moon?" I crock my head up and open my mouth and start howl. Then Soda and Pony do the same. And all three of us are dogs howling up at the moon.

Well goddammit it to hell! The idea hits me light a bolt of lightening in the middle of the night. I could make a whole slew of mice traps. Make them child-proof, idiot proof, the whole fuckin' nine yards. Sell 'em and make a whole fortune off them, maybe travel to New York or Hollywood and I'd sponsor a whole bunch of television shows. Have Lucy and Ricky and Jack Benny and all of 'em prance around with a Curtis Claw (?) around their necks or in their hands like a damn cigarette.

Already in my head I could see the blueprints laid out could see a 3D model and knew what tools, measurements and other instruments I'd need.

I laugh and almost wake my wife up to tell her my idea before I tell myself don't you dare you fucker. See, this whole idea came to me right now, like lightening and all because I saw another mouse.

I put it on my palm and warn it with my eyes that if it so much as pisses on me I'm gonna strangle it's ass to hell. "Don't try me," I warn and realize that I'm talking to a mouse and laugh. He seems to get the picture and I let him out to scamp on his way outside. And I wave cause it's four A.M. in the morning and I've only got to bed at 30 minutes ago and I'm half asleep.

And I laugh cause I can see myself from outside myself. Can see how humorous it looks, me, a big, brawny fella waving to a little mouse. Then I hit my head against the siding and think goddammit they're back.

I scrounge up materials for the trap, I don't care that I'm makin' noise I want all them damn big eared fuckers to know that I'm coming for them. Gonna put a real Dragnet on their ass. Gonna wipe the whole lot of them out. It will be glorious and Jo will love me forever.

"Dad-daddy?"

I turn and make a dramatic bow. "Oh hey Soda! Fancy seein' you at this hour. What you taking a whiz? Or 's Pony keepin' you up?"

He shook his head, "nah, just can't sleep none." He mindlessly scratches his rib cage.

I smile, I really love that kid, and most of the time I completely forget that he ain't mine, least I didn't jizz him into Jo's pussy.

"Well hell honey, that makes two of us, I can't sleep neither. Say how you like to be my first mate, help me build some traps, sounds good, Cowboy Kid?"

He shakes his head yes and grins like a puppy dog.

I bend down a bit so we're at eye level, man to man. He looks even more like Jo than Pony does. I speak in an over done whisper. "Okay but first you gotta promise me not to tell your momma..."

He says sure right away and that scares me a bit. He's a real cute kid. "Say Sodapop ya know if a strange man offers you candy or a ride in his car not to take him up on it."

"But..."

"But nothing, mom and me will buy you all the candy you want, just don't get in them cars with strangers. Ya hear me, son?"

"But wait now who's offerin' me candy? Where we gonna get candy?" And I got my son jacked up on thoughts of phantom Charleston Chews.

I didn't want to scare him but I had to warn him. Sodapop so much wanted to be liked he'd do anything for anyone. My poor Soda.

"Son, if any man wants to look at your junk or touch it no matter what he says to you or how friendly he's actin' you just kick him right in the balls as hard as you can and run real fast in the other direction. Don't be afraid to do some damage to the pervert."

And the thought of anyone hurting that boy-of hurting any of my babies or my Jo sends a curse of rage down my veins and it's enough to send a clump of shit almost to the edge of my asshole. I breathe in and suck it back inside.

He cups himself. "Who's been lookin' at my wiener?"

"Never mind lets go out on the porch and hack ourselves out a plan. And honey, call it a cock or a dick, or if you're gonna use a euphemism, 'your junk' you're gettin' too big to call it a wiener."

I wonder if I should tell him to put some pants on but hell it's our backyard and it's a free country and we're free men and we'll do what we please. I take my sweats off so I'm down in my boxers and t-shirt and I feel so much fuckin better.

I take my shirt off and toss my clothes into the yard, try to hit a bullseye into the tire swing and miss.

"We match," I say 'cept he's got briefs on.

"Pony calls it a pee pee. Didya hear me dad? Pony calls it..."

"Huh? Well your brother's ain't hardly more than a baby and don't tease him 'bout it neither. I'll have to give you a whoopin' if you do." I wouldn't.

He's asleep in five minutes curled up in my arms. That's Soda, he's got more energy than either of his brothers but once out he's dead to the world. He could sleep through a whole twister no problem.

I carrying him back into his room and toss him on his bed and blow both boys kisses and toss a long one to Darry who's over with his mom and her family and I toss that kiss so hard it breaks the glass on Julia and Sammy's front window but lands unblemished on my son all the same.

I head back outside and it's beautiful, the sun about to rise and all. I should paint a picture. Capture this moment forever. It's the moment of anticipation that's truly awe inspiring. The moment where you hold your breath and just wait for something to unfold. When you think you know how it's going to happen, but it never quite exactly how you've seen it in your mind. There's always a surprise waiting for you and some guys hate surprises-but me I live for them.

I look up at the sky and grin and wait for them motherfuckin' surprises to come shining down on me. But above me the sky is blue not so much a cloud in sight and it's empty and disappointing even as I try to make out a dagger of orange just beyond the horizon.

I'm a better drawer than painter but hell I'll paint the most magnificent painting, be a Michelangelo, paint the type of picture that really makes you weep. I read an article about Michelangelo, I always like readin' articles, encyclopedias, newspapers to better myself and find out about the world. And the thing is apparently the man lived and looked like a real bum a sort of loner and hobo lookin' guy even as he made the most spectacular and breathtaking works of art this world's ever known.

Then I start to sweat with excitement and artistic energy. I throw my boxers up in the air and shout 'yee haw!' And I smile and feel joy because I'm walkin' on the sun and I'm walking on Michelangelo's grave and think that ratty ass sucker ain't got a clue whose coming for him. And I laugh.

I look around for anything I might use as paint. Then I realize that I got a paintbrush and paint right here on my body. We don't need fancy innovations or space ships or jets or nuclear bombs or televisions or mousetraps or paint brushes or paints. We have it all. Within us. And I hold my cock in my hand and think the Lord will provide a way, even though I don't really believe in God as some old man up in the heavens watching us. I think of Jo and I try to jerk off to her and I'm getting warm but nothing's really coming and I snort at my little play on word. But I'm determined so I try again and even though I love my wife and she's a real hot broad it's not happening. It makes me sad.

But I'm determined and I think of the whores and women whom I've messed around with and I'm a bastard but I cum hard and fast.

Jo runs out. Her face is all rage. "Have you lost your damn mind? What the hell Darrel? Darrel?!" Then she looks half hysterical. "What the hell are you doing?"

I look at her sheepish. I'm painting you a picture darlin' I want to say but she's looking at me all red in the face like she ain't seen me naked before, but I also think WOW you're so beautiful you look disheveled and also bright like the sun.

My body is brown and her's pink and golden. We are the earth and the sun, we are the life force. While I bask is the beauty of existence she grabs my boxers lying on the grass and runs towards them back towards me at lightening speed. She was a fast runner when she was a girl, won a whole slew of ribbons too.

Her mouth cracks open like she's gonna laugh or cry or yell and then she closes it again. "Quick, put this on on before somebody sees you." I give her a goofy grin. Damn she's cute when she's mad. Lucky for me she's cute a whole mess of the time. She starts to hit me-hard but not enough to hurt. Tiny pricks on my chest. Trying to get me to move.

"Darrel..." Her expression changes from rage to something hopeless and helpless. As if she was seeing something in me for the first time. Hell! Why should she have all the fun?! I ought to see it to. I spin to try to catch what she sees in the palm of my hand and when I turn back her face crumpled like she might start to cry. I'm standing here in our yard with cum all down my legs and some of it lands on her feet, on her bare toes.

"I'm sorry Jos," I say and I don't know what exactly I'm sorry for only that I ought to be sorry and that if I'm sorry I might look pathetic enough that she'll let me make love to her out on the grass and it would be real romantic and tender. Like a painting come to life.

And I feel stupid and hopeless and my head's buzzing. I scratch my head, it itches. I'm in the pit of hell and I can't stop smiling.

The sky is a pure blue and the clouds running down my legs the magnificent world illuminates below me and I feel fucking glorious.

I'm at a bar and I'm trying to feel something other than grief and shame. I'm a worm. Figure hell a dive will cheer me right up.

The bartender hands me my usual and says 'here Chief, your usual.' They call me Chief on account that I'm big and part Indian-Cherokee and Choctaw through my mother's mother to be exact, not cause I'm a leader of men. Glory help anyone who looks up to me. But I sit up a little straighter and give a sharp nod.

Once my son Darry was playing with a model airplane. It looked sharp and I told him as much. Asked him where he got it. He said, 'some Indian guy who hangs around Jay's."

He held the propeller right up to his eye and spun it around. He told me he wasn't gonna poke his eye out and he gets that cockiness from his mom's side of the family and from me.

I asked him if he paid for the airplane or gave the gentleman anything in exchange for the nifty plane. And he said no and that the guy just gave it to him.

I told my namesake how the white man and government really fucked the Indians up the ass. Though I didn't use those exact words. I told him about the Comanche on account that they were the only Indian tribe I really knew, and I learned about from books and I wished I had soaked up my grandma's stories the way my brother Patrick did or that I had learned how to speak Cherokee and Choctaw. Not that Paddy could speak nothing more than English himself.

I missed my grandmother and my brother, though my brother is alive and I could have called him up and would have talked about our childhood because he's the only one who knows exactly what it was like, even as I've known Jo since she was ten years old and I was thirteen.

The next day I seek out the gentleman to hand him a buck and say how much my son loved his model airplane (he'd driven it through Soda's head at least 3 times and we'd taken the plane away from him and Jo threatened to break it if he wasn't gonna play nicely. Darry behaved after that).

There he was hanging around where the alley meets the intersects with the pavement not far from Jay's, just like my son said. He had on old pants held up by a twine rope and a shirt so dirty it was hard to tell what the original color was. He had a basket full of toys.

And I forget all about how Michelangelo lived in squalor and gave the world great art. Something in me grew cold, "so buddy you just givin' these toys away out of the pure goodness of your heart?"

He glanced up at me. His left eye jiggles. Why didn't my son tell me that? It was a pretty goddamn interesting thing if you ask me. "You want a toy?" He flipped out a switchblade. And I think fuck, this is one crazy-eyed insane motherfucker.

"Stay away from my boys," I hiss.

"Who the fuck are your boys, pops?" He calls me Pops even though I'm much younger and better looking than he is. I look younger than my age. It's a devil's blessing because it makes me feel more invincible than I am.

He screams a bloody loogie. Wow, I think, as I snarl and wipe his blood and phlegm off my chin, he's got good aim. The angle of our bodies I was sure he wouldn't be able to make it anywhere above my chest. He'd make a good hunter. I can smell the alcohol on his breath and sure enough I see at least two bottles of malt liquor standing guard around him like dobermans.

Goddamn motherfucker I think, making us all look bad.

"Whose your boys pops?" He repeats. "You like little boys?" He lifts a bottle and thrusts it into the air and jerks it up and down at an angle of incline or decline depending on how you see it.

I lift out of my body and then my arms shoot up and I'm a grizzly bear, "they're all my goddamn children! You even so much think about messin' around with any kid I'll stick that bottle so far up your rectum it'll cut your throat. I am the sperm king! I look at a woman and boom! She's pregnant. Forty years ago and that's estimatin' on the low side, I looked at your crossed eye jiggly eyeball mother and BOOM there you were, now show your daddy some fuckin' respect!"

I felt a sharp sting. Blood spurted out of me like catsup out of the bottle. I had insulted his momma -which I shouldn't have, he had to defend her honor.

I'm here and most everyone's a regular. It smells like the inside of a person, like urine and dried up blood and beer. We're specs of stardust floating through the dank cosmos. Or maybe the gawdamn universe smells like the inside of an armpit and we're these little beads of sweat trickling down. We turn into rivers that taste like warm beer and then become the piss aimed right and true into the hole, but more often than not our little piss selves stick to cement walls.

I look around, I know everyone here, some as long as I've lived in Tulsa. The lighting is shoddy but I see old man rubbing his old man dick and I think, well hell, there I am in about thirty years.

We are sad and lonely and we laugh when we should cry and cry when we should laugh. We are dripping with anger and shame. The air smells pungent and acetic as urine. These are my people, I think to myself.

And that's when I pick up the payphone and call home.

Jo answers and I start to recite from memory the love poem I wrote for her.

"Dammit you're drunk," she hangs up before I finish the first stanza and I can feel the storm in her eyes from miles and a world a way. And I think, damn, I'm burnin' up in here because they don't have air conditioning in this joint. And I am in hell.

She wanted me to go to the hospital and I didn't want to be strapped to no gurney and be turned into a droolin' idiot and I told her as much.

"Okay, you're not stayin' here, not in this state."

It was all settled then and I said 'bye' but not as miserable sounding as I felt and that felt like a pyrrhic victory of sorts.

She told me "don't do anything stupid," and I asked her, "what you mean don't off myself?" And she won't look at me but looks right at the ground and I put her chin in my palm and think 'shit, shit, shit, you fuckin' worthless motherfucker,' and I say as soothingly as I'm capable, "okay babes, okay." And her eyes looked like I felt but I managed to smile and told her, "hey it's gonna be alright, okay baby?"

She said nothing.

"Jos, I'm a lunatic and I'm tryin' to comfort you, least work with me here honey," and like I said she's got a demented sense of humor too and it made her laugh. It sounded like a choke but it was still a laugh and she shut her eyes.

When she opened her eyes I was still there looking dumb and weak and sad but hopefully not like a guy who'd kill himself and with my eyes I said, I know.

And then it was all agreed mutually between us because we like to think we have the type of marriage where we compromise and work together for the good of our little family. I hightailed it out of our house before the boys got home so they didn't have to witness this pathetic scene.

I get in my truck and start up the engine. Think about warning her that the mice are back but decide I ought to give her some peace and leave her alone.

In the truck driving around I say I love you, I love you to my wife inside my head.

And I hadn't, I hadn't killed myself, I was sleeping on the truck's bed with a woolen blanket and I wondered if it had Smallpox infused in it and I held it around me extra tight. But I hadn't killed myself or tried because I'd made a promise to my wife. My youngest was born in this truck and after he was born I didn't want to clean it because it felt holy but Jo said it was unsanitary so I hosed it down. But I sat in the truck and feel lonelier than ever -though I can point out the exact spot I caught my son.

I crouched down and relive the moment and hold a greasy bag of fries in place of my son and closed my eyes and tried to remember when everything was new and hopeful.

Later I sucked the salt off my fingers and thought about Jo and jacked off to her and I had a distinct thought that if I had jacked off to her earlier I wouldn't be in this mess and I wasn't sure how I knew but I did and my dick went limp.

"Jo! JO! Dammit Jo listen!" I plea and bark into the dial tone. That woman knows how to get me all riled up. The receiver says nothing and I slam it down so hard I'm half surprised it doesn't break.

I think about calling her again and telling her that the only thing I'm drunk on is my devotion to her, but that would be something I'd say half-smashed and since I'm not anywhere close to being wasted I don't call her back and don't say nothing at all.

I knew everything I did that morning. I have a mind like a steel trap and it's great for trivia or remembering my wife's favorite flowers and who dealt what hand in a card game. But I remembered the way I acted. It played back to me at warped slow speed.

I thought about my wife and I felt sorry for her and then I started to weep.

Okay, Okay, Okay, I'll fix it, but she didn't want my apologies and groveling or the sunflowers I left on her doorstep and she didn't want my love poem and I wasn't goin' to the nuthouse. The boys missed me, Jo had told me matter of factly and a bit disappointed too, I thought. She expected something better from her boys. I took them as they came, maybe that's why they liked me better.

She sounded exhausted.

And then I thought, fuck I'll turn a new leaf. I'll give her a new me.

Thank you so much. S.E. Hinton owns.