1951

Jo's withering in pain. Her nails dig deep into my flesh.

In my head I say, 'shit, shit, shit' and aloud I say "shit, shit, shit." This baby's coming. Jo starts to whimper then full on cry so hard she shakes the truck in fear or pain or not wanting to give birth in a red truck on the side of the road.

I grip the steering wheel. Tell myself to be a man. She'll be okay, our baby will be okay. I must have said it aloud because she whimpers, "Okay, okay, okay." She reaches her hand out and I grab it. She says 'Momma.'

But I don't know if she's speaking about the mother who raised her or the one who gave birth to her. So I just say "shh baby girl. It's alright honey, Momma's here." I don't raise my pitch or try to sound like her mom-that would be stupid. But for that second I'm Mrs. Schmidt, I'm Jo's dead mother. I'm all the mothers.

This wasn't her first time giving birth. I thought of her birthing Soda in a cold room with just the doc and the nurse and I tried to tell myself this was better. Her momma's with her now. All the mothers.

I asked her if we still had time to get to the hospital. Aww Boy am I a fucking idiot! Then she screamed. She screamed so loud I was sure that a car would stop. I hoped so. A doctor. Or even a cop. But no one heard us or if they did they were all too busy with their own lives to wonder about why a lady was screaming red in a red truck on the side of an Oklahoma road.

Selfish pricks. I hoped they crashed and burned up in their cars and turned into ash. And before all that I hoped they screamed.

But the only one who was screaming the only one in pain was my wife.

She was in pain and I couldn't help her. Feel this. She's squeezing my hand so hard I feel things shift and crush under my skin. But that's just what it means to bring a new human into the world. The universe shifts. And what? You think you're too big, too solid not to shift with it? Nah you're just a particle of dust.

Jo was dust. Julia was dust. Darry was dust. Soda was dust. I was dust. You're dust.

The earth wasn't dust. She had her vice grip on us, squeezing and crushing. And we were dust and we were grinding into powder.

And from this dust from this powder a baby would come out. And the baby would be our baby and the baby would be dust too. And the stars were dust and the moon was dust and the sun was dust. And the bones were dust. And the dust was dust.

Her skin burns. Jo was in hell and I was in my own hell. Hell's suffering and the worst hell of all is watching your loved ones suffer and being unable to help.

I prayed to this Nothing that I wished with my whole heart was Something, Anything to take care of them. I got turned hard off religion all thanks to the church I attended as a child. So my prayer was all child-like, begging and vaguely threatening.

Granny Elizabeth Curtis stood 6'0 tall, reputed to be a witch and the most revered medicine woman our side of the Ozarks. She had her blackberry root and spells for making babies born and unborn. For making delivery smooth. And when all else failed turning dicks into flubs of wet clay. Where's her spirit now? Where was she nine months ago? Then I stop thinking about my dick because the head's crowning.

Jo and me lock eyes in pure terror. 'Oh God what have we done?'

But it's all too late, it's too late to push him back in. It's too late for us to go back into our own mothers. There was no turning back. The baby's cleaving through us and we're completely at his mercy. Oh shit. He's coming. But watch this. He's coming. Oh Glory! Our baby's coming! And suddenly I'm all jacked up on something that's not mine but comes through me much like a baby comes through a woman. A rush of excitement. I feel the way I did when I rode my first bull by 1,000,000 x that feeling.

I release a wild scream of my own and pump my fist up in partial-victory. "Jos! We're havin' a fuckin' baby!"

I had my hands out to catch him. To catch my baby. To feel my hands shift once more. Can you feel it?

Before I did that I locked eyes with Jo again. "You ready ol' girl?"

We looked at each other in shared jubilation and terror of falling for the third time into the unknown.

I was no tree and couldn't turn no new leaf. I was a big fat stumblin' bear.

These weren't what I'd call close friends. Just guys I didn't mind taking or losing a few bucks from every now and then. That night though we played for a bigger pot than bragging rights. There were shoulder twitches and shifty eyes. "Well, damn" and "somebody finally rob a bank?" Haw Haws and cussin' followed. Our cigars form rings of light, flame, heat and smoke.

And what the hell. I threw the last of my dollars into the coffee tin.

Like a blushing virgin to a volcano.

My truck needed gas and I wouldn't have a red cent on me. I looked outside and decided it would be a real crisp, clear night for a long walk.

The smoke reflected in the tin and our faces reflected in the tin and the smoke and our faces overlapped and all of it reflected back on us. We were on fire but we just stared hard-eyed into that coffee tin unconcerned that we were burning.

I won the whole damn thing. The rush just wasn't there. All the same I bought everyone a round of moonshine-tradition.

We're not worried about the law busting us for possession of alcohol-besides a good portion of Tulsa's finest are on the take.

I could of put my winnings in an envelope for my wife and kids. Slid it under the door snake-like with all my slitherin'-sorries.

Could of barged in, still my house after all, still my name on the bills and thrown that cash at her.

"Here! Take your goddamn blood money!"

Instead I was lying on a king size bed in one the new motels they put up along the highway. I paid extra for the room that came with a T.V. But it was late and now all there was just the test screen Indian in his ceremonial headdress. He stared in profile while I stared straight at him. I turned my head to see what in the sam hill he was gawking at but all I saw were the shadows on the wall.

I was lonely and bored enough that I started to talk to the T.V. 'Buddy, there ain't nothing there but shadows and death, death and shadows.' But he just looked on. Fucker.

I'd gone to a diner and ordered a $5.00 steak dinner. My mouth felt like I'd swallowed wool and the wool tasted like sadness and exhaustion. I had them wrap everything up.

I watched the waitress suck in her cheeks like she was sucking on a lemon while I flipped the Sundae upside down on the pecan pie and into the pie tin.

In bed the vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup ran down the pie. Gushing tears and its tears were made out of chocolate and cream and sugar and vanilla. Then it turned into milk and that reminded me of cats which reminded me of mice which reminded me of everything that was wrong with my marriage. I folded the pillow round my ears and squeezed.

I was surrounded by torn paper bags and crumpled up napkins and I was Gulliver and they were the little people. I was their Emperor of Cheap Steak, their King of Overcooked Green Beans their General of Soggy French Fried Onions and they were my loyal subjects. Greasy and stained they all bowed down before me.

I saw my reflection in the mirror. Saw my hair messy like an escaped convict. Thick slabs of muscle bulging out of my undershirt. My fat gut that made me look like an expectant mother ready to pop. My shirt hiked up revealing my stomach's pale skin covered in hair. I looked like Big Foot after he hibernated in the swamps for too long.

That dark uneven stubble on my face. Smelled my armpits. Gagged a bit. Well fuck I thought, I was the Shampe and it made more sense than anything.

My roommate vanished from the screen. The T.V. made a beeping noise to signify the end of the world. It turned off and at last I was truly alone. And I wasn't the pregnant lady or the escapee or even the monster. I was just me. I closed my eyes. And I was a body and I was the hole in the ground and I was pushing and sinking. Pushing and sinking. And falling.

When I opened my eyes I didn't know if I was facing up or down. I could see my truck in the parking lot. In my one concession in the past few days to responsibility I'd gone to a Texaco on my way to the motel. Talked a bit to the kid behind the counter who yessir and no sir me and couldn't have been no more than seventeen. The boy kept tuggin' on his bow tie.

I'm sure I scared the fella'. Funny thing is for a big guy I ain't that intimidating-least I don't think so. I ain't got no hesitation to defend my own, but I'm not the kind of man who goes hunting for a fight for no reason. If you end up on the wrong side of my fists-believe you me brother-you deserved it.

Course it's easy to be peaceful when I'm built like a linebacker who never skimped on the hog.

How lonely that red truck seemed out there in the empty lot in the cold dead of night. Well fuck, she wasn't gonna ruin my night! I took a few wads of napkins and hurled them like snowballs at the window. They'd hit, bounce, fall, hit, bounce, fall, hit, bounce and fall.

With the blinds closed it turned pitch black in a blink. I tossed and turned and took the other giant pillow in my arms and pretended it was my wife, but it didn't feel right. Then I realized that the pillow wasn't so much smaller than my youngest boy and how it felt when he got scared and ran into our bed to sleep between us. I'd tell him bedtime stories and sing him lullabies with questionable morals and lyrics to calm him down.

There were the times when Ponyboy was a little baby and I'd wake him up in the middle of the night cause I was brimming and pulsating with stories.

I couldn't wake up Soda. The lil' tornado. The minute I woke him he'd want me to flip him over my shoulders and throw him on the couch. Then he'd want to jump on my back and wrestle me to the ground and he'd whoop and holler and grin while he was beatin' me half to death.

I couldn't wake Darry, he'd just complain, 'daaaad I'm sleepin', daaaaad I don't wanna get up,' and I would have rolled my eyes and thought to myself damn what a seven year old killjoy.

My energy always felt too charged too electric to sit down and try to write my stories out. I doubt I could have held a pencil straight.

That left Ponyboy.

I'd poke him and wake him up from a sound sleep and cuddle him in my arms and tell my newly agitated cryin' one, 'shh, shh, everythin's all right babe, don't worry, daddy's here, Ponyboy,' and tried to convince him that I had a great story to tell him-the damn best he'd ever heard.

And his little head would wobble back and forth and he'd give me a look like I was full of shit. Which he had some nerve given the state of his diaper. Besides I was the dad and he was the kid so I'd get to tell him my bed time story and he had to listen. He'd fall back asleep against my heartbeat even though it felt like a speeding bullet.

I wanted my boys to know that. That their hearts were living, breathing organisms. They were like baby chicks, tiny, fragile things. Wet and soft creatures that needed warmth and tenderness. Capable of feeling so much love and a whole world of pain. That there was hardly nothing they or anybody else could do when their little hearts shattered like glass except to known that they weren't alone. That everyone's hearts were baby chicks and wounded and lonely.

Then I'd tell my three that their hearts were also loaded guns. I'd tell them that the line about the heart being deceitful above all things was half a crock of bull. Cause the danger point wasn't that the heart was violent and deceitful, it was that the heart was was vicious and true. That it acted on our primal impulses and desires. That our hearts was nothing more than our animal brains armed to the teeth. You had to learn how and when to aim your heart at the ground and how and when to aim right in the kill zone.

And when to pull that trigger.

But my Pony only slept peacefully, making little snoring sounds and didn't hear a thing I was telling him.

Jo'd find me in her old rocking chair with Pony curled up on top of me. I was sure she'd catch on and get on me for waking the baby up and disturbing his sleep. But she only looked at us tenderly. "Ponyboy had trouble sleeping again?"

I handed Jo her baby. He wakes up and start talking to his momma in his little baby language. And maybe he was talking about baby chicks and guns because he had understood or maybe he was telling her that his ol' man was a fuckin' loon and if she had the sense of a billy goat they'd hightail it right on out.

Damn, my daddy's fucked. His green eyes said it all when he looked back at me. Why you so fucked up ol' man? And for a second I had to turn away and look down. I'm sorry Ponyboy. I said silently to my feet. How I'd apologized to the wife and children who live in my feet, in the ground, in the dirt, too many times.

But then I wasn't gonna lose a stare-off to a baby who couldn't even walk three steps without stumbling like a drunkard. I looked up and right back at him.

Just remember who powdered you and diapered you not less than thirty minutes ago, kiddo.

Jo was oblivious to Pony and my silent conversation. She breathe in his sweet neck the way she did when he was a newborn. I wanted to tell her about her heart being a helpless chick and her heart being a gun. I wanted her to put her hand on my chest and I'd put my hand on her chest and I'd ask her if she could feel the bullets firing. I wanted to beg her now, pull.

But all I said was 'yeah baby had trouble sleepin'.' And when I looked into the twin mirrors of her light grey-green eyes it was my own pupils that were all dilated.

"You and Pony have the same eyes darlin' except yours are more grey," I smiled at her. I dunno. It sounded romantic and sweet in my head.

"My eyes are green darling," she said and I nodded. Her eyes reminded me of storm clouds. Of the sky filled with twisters.

But now I'm in this motel holding my pillow son and missing my real sons even more than I missed Jo. And I was in a motel room surrounded by debris and crumbs.

The next morning I woke up took an ice cold shower. Slapped my chest like Tarzan. Shaved. Cleaned the room up and checked out.

My truck was still running when I knocked, "Karen Josephine Curtis open this damn door right now."

She opened the door a peep and I threatened to knock the door down if she wasn't gonna let me inside. For a second her eyes grew wide-then they narrowed she shook her head no.

"Are you nuts? You got a lot of nerve Darrel."

And I said I wasn't gonna leave and I didn't care who heard me. That I was gonna lay all of my dirty laundry right out here for the whole neighborhood to hear or she could come with me. It was her choice. It was always her choice. And we lowered our voices down to a whisper cause neither one of wanted to wake up the boys.

Then she said 'fine, I'm coming with you cause I'm your wife, not because you're threatening to blow your own door down. Leapin' lizards sometimes I think I have four boys..."

Well maybe I was the Big Bad Wolf, you know, from the kids' story. And she turned, 'hold on I'll tell Darry to watch the boys.' My heart clutched when she said that.

Darry came out in pajama bottoms and scratched his bare chest. "Hey dad, you comin' home?"

I hugged my boy. It was only after I had him in my arms a few seconds that he hugged me back. "Sure do hope so honey," I eyed Jo. She eyed me like I was an idiot and shook her head.

"Everything will be alright, okay sweetheart?" She said to Darry. I gave Darry the thumbs up and a stupid grin and felt like a fool and a potential liar.

"Alright go back in the house, there's cereal and toast for breakfast, you can watch T.V. if you do the dishes." Darry nodded at his stepmother but stood on the porch not moving. I wanted to tell him to come on, get in the bed of the truck! That he could ride with us. Instead I said, "You heard mom, get back in the house. And don't just wet 'em dishes use the sponge and detergent and..."

"Dad I know how to do up the dishes."

Now most parents wouldn't take to their kids backtalking like that and hell maybe I do spoil my boys, but hell he was right. "Atta boy. Now go on, git. And make your bed and straighten out the living room too, son."

"Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay, sir."

I could still feel his eyes from behind the curtain. I just hoped the little ones wouldn't spot us. We were half-way between the porch and the truck when Jo asked me sarcastically if she ought to bring her purse. And I felt sad cause there she was in her nightgown and bathrobe and slippers with her hair up in rollers, walking briskly but full of dignity to my truck.

We drove around for a while in silence then I stopped the car and I could see the Arkansas.

"Baby," she started out and I thought okay good I was still her baby, I could work with this. We weren't completely screwed. I leaned forward and open a tin of Red Man and started to chew.

Then Jo said, "hell, you might as well light me up while you're at it," and I lit her cigarette and she took two long drags and for a few seconds we watched the smoke rise out the window and into the morning.

"Baby," she said again, "you're not right. You're not acting right. You were naked in our backyard..." she said like my problem was a bad memory. Jo's voice, her sorrow and desperation broke down all my defenses. I ran my face through fingers, ran my fingers through the hair and looked at my wife good and hard.

I'd quite my quit drinking I told Jo.

She gives me a thoughtful, dismissive look. "you don't drink that much."

"Yes I do." Woman, I am the high priest of drunken revelry and debauchery. I'm a wild hoofed creature partyin' it up while Rome burns and Nero plays turkey n' the the straw on his fiddle.

It would be so easy to lay all my problems on alcohol. Hell I'd could even make a good career out of my new found sobriety. Hire myself out to one of them traveling revival tent shows. Talk about the power of Christ and how we stomped out Satan and his minions good. I'd befriend all the freaks and cripples who weren't no more freakish or broken than any of us. We'd gather round after the shows and slap our thighs and tell wild stories about how we fleeced Ma Barker out of all her money. Being hypocrites they'd pay us in wine and we'd drink the Christ's blood and burp up little holy ghosts into the sky.

"I'll quit my drinking," I said again, more forcefully.

"Alright," she said, "okay."

She looked like she could use a drink herself. We kept a bottle or two hidden in the floorboard in our closet. More to keep the boys from finding out than the law.

Jo leaned back in her seat and I admired her. Her legs were long and shiny like a Rockette. And I remembered how much I was supposed to hate Shaw for having her. And I laughed to myself thinking of him rotting away in prison. I bet he had a tiny pecker. Stupid tiny pecker bastard. Then I saw one of her nipples pop out from behind her nightgown and then the other. And I asked if she was cold and Jo shook her head no, but wrapped the robe around her titties tighter. And I thought what a stubborn ol' gal she is and felt like a fool because I didn't have a jacket to give her.

"It's a good thing you no longer work in construction," Jo said between puffs, "we couldn't afford it." She ain't telling no lie. Being nuts and working in construction didn't mix well.

I'm a salesman-knives and shaving kits. I'm good at it and as long as I met my quotas I can make my own schedules. I like it, I like being my own boss. I like not knowing what the day will bring. "You could sell anything to anyone," she had told me when I brought home my first week's pay. She had jumped into my arms and kissed my cheek. Teased how my newly shaved face was still baby soft and smoothed. Pride in me lighting up her face. It was true. How good I am at convincing people to buy things they have no need for. I wonder if deep inside she wasn't thinking of herself. How I'd convinced her to marry me when she was desperate and carrying a murder's baby inside her belly.

"How're the boys?"

"They miss their daddy."

My throat tightened, "I miss them too."

"I lose my temper too much with them and snap at them for no good reason. They don't deserve that. All I managed to do last night was burn supper and yell at Pony and give him a fright." She talks too fast and closes her eyes for a second before opening them back up.

It was true, my Jo did have a temper sometimes. But she also loved those boys with her whole heart, with a fierce and fiery love.

"I used to wake up Ponyboy when he was a little baby on purpose."

"What?"

"Yeah. I had all these stories racin' through my head-you ever had that? When you feel your brain's on fire it actually hurts?"

She paused for a second to really think it over than shook her head no.

"I'd wake the baby up in the middle of night from a sound sleep and the poor little guy would start cryin' cause some big idiot just disturbed his sleep and then I'd talk to him. You know, tell him my stories."

Jo paused, digested what I told her, then laughed. "He'll be thirty and not know how to sleep the whole night through."

And I laughed too but figured that it would be fine, that maybe he could keep me company. That we'd keep each other company.

Then I grew serious. "What I'm saying my angel is that we're both bad parents and good parents and we probably made big enough mess out of those babies, but it's too late to put that genie back in the bottle. At least you didn't burn up Ponyboy and yell at the chicken, Jos."

"Ground beef with kidney beans," Jo says evenly. "We had ground beef with kidney beans. It was on sale." I tasted my steak dinner and on the repeat it tasted like shame.

"We're doin' the best we can," and we laughed but it rang hollow and it hurt because there was a regretful, bitter feeling behind it.

"Why didn't you tell me those stories?" And she looked kinda hurt and I wasn't expecting that.

"Darlin', I didn't want to bother you in the middle of the night."

Jo has her feet firmly planted in the earth, while my head's often in the clouds. We balanced each other real good but it also meant that we sometimes glided right on past one another. Unaware.

"Darrel, I would have listened. You know I didn't just marry you cause I was pregnant with Sodapop or because you needed someone for Darry. You were my first friend in Muskogee." Her voice kind of broke over the word friend.

I tried to smile but it ached, "Oh I remember I showed up at the Steads for my biscuits and chocolate chip cookies and there's a little blonde whippersnap of a girl with short hair in dungarees eating my chocolate chip cookies and saying like she owned the whole place 'I'm Jo who are you?'

I claimed Jo my little buddy. And her shy smile melted me. I had thought she was a tag-along kid but I had fallen for her sister Lucy who turned out real pretty and about as dull as watching paint dry. That was one lonely little gal-lonely and feisty. I thought she could use a pal.

"So what you've been up to these past days?"

"Darrel." She shoots me a look-the same look she shoots the boys when they're acting more ornery than normal.

"Naw, I mean it. I miss you, 'sides last time I check I'm still your husband, I ought to know what you've been up to while I've been..." I didn't know how to finish that.

She had gone to a movie theater with her friend Marcella and gone grocery shopping. She had told lies and half-truths to our boys on my behalf. Reckon it wasn't such a different life than the one she lived when I was at home. And I could feel myself slipping away like the smoke out of her cigarette.

"What if the boys had seen you or a neighbor?"

I snorted. Fuck the neighbors.

"You scared me," she said, "you were masturbating in our backyard, the way you smiled..."

I had scared her I was lower than dirt. This was one tough gal too. My smile had scared her. I wasn't expecting that part. And I thought of that kid in the gas station and maybe it wasn't because I was a big guy but the look of my grin that terrified him.

But I was tired of trying to explain myself, I've been trying to explain myself to myself for years and nothing made sense. I was a nut job. Fine. But I was a tired nut job. I just wanted to go home. To put this all behind us. "Maybe I just wanted to be naked and jerk off in the bushes."

"I wish it was in the bushes. An ol' prickly bush." She laughed and winked and her eyes sparkled. I paused and joined her. I grabbed my nuts and opened my mouth in an exaggerated silent yelp. I was an idiot sometimes. Plain and simple. Also it was either that or slam my fist through the window. I wasn't gonna do that. She laughed until she snorted and then remembered she still wanted to be mad at me and told me 'stop actin' like a dang idiot.' But we we're both laughing picturing my dick filleted by a bunch of thorns. And I thought of Lucy or even Julia and how neither of them would have thought it was funny and how lucky I was to have Jo.

Then I stopped laughing and told her I was part of something holy and cosmic in that moment and she was part of it too.

Don't. Just please. Don't." She held her hand up -telling me to stop.

And I thought about telling her what I'd told that Test Screen Indian, that the world was nothing more than shadows and death and we were part of that too. But I didn't. "Dammit Jos said I was sorry 'bout ten million different ways. I ain't never done nothing like that before and you know it, girl. Didn't get enough sleep. That's all. Jesus Christ." I gave her a hard look-she was tired too. Her eyes were raccoon eyes.

She glared back at me. And I thought. Well fuck. I'm screwed.

"It doesn't matter anyways. You're coming home today."

I wasn't so sure if she was questioning me or telling me so like an idiot I stammered, "I am?"

"You do want to come home don't you?"

I did. Wasn't I the one who preparing to storm my house like a human-battering ram? So desperate I was to claim my family and home again. But I felt a sadness too cause there might be a time in the future where I wouldn't want to come home or wouldn't want to come home so readily or I'd want to come back home and Jo or even the boys wouldn't want me. I saw us fracturing into five sharp shards of glass. My eyes burned. We were Darrel, Jo, Darry, Soda and Ponyboy and we were all on fire. And there was nothing we could do to stop our burning. I felt the fire in my chest, I felt the broken glass in my throat when I breathed out a begging parched "please."

She nodded and then I felt her hand on top of mine.

"I am sorry," I told her.

And she nodded and told me that she knew.

"I'll quit my drinking," I reminded her again.

She sighed and told me again that I wasn't an alcoholic. And I reckon we were back to where we started from. That we would talk around in circles and land in the same place every time.

I thought she'd say something else, maybe lay down some ground rules like she didn't want me naked as a jaybird in public but she said nothing so I said nothing and turned the engine on. And I didn't feel anything like a victory or even a sense of relief or even a sense that we were okay.

"Think the boys actually did the dishes?"

"Nah those animals? Probably burnin' down the house as we speak. HEY! lets bilk the insurance company and move to one of 'em fancy south side estates?"

She laughs, "you don't want to live there-you'd break out in hives if you had to wear a tie at dinner...'Sides you'd buy a big ranch down in Texas."

She was right. It's been my childhood dream. I'd buy a ranch and I lived there along as I had my family with me.

We drove in silence the rest of the way home. To our future that was also our past.