"Where in me?"
"Where it counts."
"I can count to ten."
"Can you count to nine eleven?"
"That's a big number."
"It's small potatoes."
"How come you have metal legs?"
"My girls?"
"They're girls?"
"To me they are."
"Why?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
"I don't know a lot of stuff."
Don laughed.
"There was a guy who wrote a story," he said. "It was in a book my mother used to read. A story about a goose."
"I have Mother Goose."
"This is different. Anyway, one time, I was about ten, eleven, my mother was reading this story, and smiling, and she didn't smile a lot, so I noticed it right off. I asked her what she was smiling about. Then she read me the part of the story where the guy is describing this big tall army officer. I can't remember his name. I wish I could remember his name. I don't even have the book anymore. But this officer, he was a real mean guy with these high leather boots. Like up to the thighs. And the guy who wrote the story, he said the officer's legs were like girls coming out of those boots. It seemed weird to say that, wrong. But also right. And it made my mother happy for moment. It stayed with me. So, when… well, I call these my girls. And it makes me happy."
"How come you have girls and no legs?"
"Legs got blown off."
"Did it hurt?"
"Hasn't stopped."
"Was it the asteroid that did it?"
"Don," I said, "come on in the kitchen."
I'd laid out a plate of turkey wraps, a bowl of chips, a small dish of cornichons.
"Nice spread."
"Have a seat."
"Thanks. Getting a little sick of the dal and beans. This is nice bland American food."
"Dig in."
We ate without talking, like sad machines, our arms jutting out at robotic intervals for vegetable chips and pulls from our celery sodas. We ate quickly and then just sat.
"Coffee?" I said.
"Why not?"
I'd already brewed it, poured him a cup. Don studied the mug. Maura had brought it home from work, swag from the great swirl of need.
"World's Best Alcoholic Abusive Dad," said Don. "Is that ironic?"
"I guess," I said.
"See, I don't get that kind of irony."
"Maybe it's just glib," I said.
"I defer to your judgment," said Don. "So, you brought me to your lovely home for what reason?"
He rose from his chair, bounced a little where he stood.
"You can take them off," I said, "your… things."
Don's eyes went tight.
"I'm real grateful."
"Sarcasm," I said.
"What I was raised on. It's stupid but you can trust it. It's just there to hurt people. Nothing more."
"How's Sasha?"
"You like her? Did you like squeezing her tits?"
"I never did that."
"You think she wouldn't tell me?"
"She lied," I said.
"Doesn't matter," said Don. "Sasha and me, we're done. She went back to Pangburn Falls. Going back to school, she says."
"College?"
"High school."
"High school?"
"She's got a lot of road on her. I'm not even her first army of one."
"Sorry to hear she's gone."
"For the best. I'm not doing so hot, you know."
"No?"
"Not feeling that great."
"Oh."
Don took a sip of coffee. The stomps and shrieks of Tyrannosaurus rex drifted in from the next room.
"I'm not going to the zoo with my daddy, am I?" he said.
He looked almost disappointed.
"No," I said.
"What's the dollar amount?"
I told him the figure Lee Moss had shown me on the cashier's check.
"And I sign a bunch of shit that says I'm never to go here, call there, say this or that to X, Y, and Z. And I stay an orphan. Don't get invited to Vail for the ideas festival."
"How did you know about that?"
I saw a flicker in his face now, another Don, the vengeful one, the sneak, the creep.
"I'm informed. I'm a truther. A Purdy truther."
"What do you want me to tell them?"
"How much do you get?" said Don. "For brokering this crap."
"I get a chance to survive," I said. "It's a bad time. That money you'll get will carry you for years, as long as you don't burn it all in tinfoil."
"How do you know I chase the old dragon?"
"Your eyes are pinned. I figure you think snorting is for amateurs, and you are wearing short sleeves. You sure as shit aren't shooting between your toes."
"You're not all fool."
"Thanks for that."
Don sat back down at his plate, poked at some stray lettuce with his fork.
"I knew for a long time," he said.
"Pardon?"
"She had pictures of him in her drawer. I look like her but there were some things, my nose, my chin, I guess. She'd stare at me funny, like I was somebody else. Or also somebody else. I didn't know the name Purdy Stuart or anything. Just that I had to be related somehow to the guy in the pictures. To me he looked like a wuss. She told me my father had been a man she met in a bar. One time she said he'd moved away to Alaska. Another time she said he'd died. Maybe she had more bullshit ready if I ever said I wanted to find the man's relatives or something. But I didn't. What the hell for? My mother and me, and her sister, and my grandma, I already had a family. Sad fucked-up women, all of them. Dented cans, they call women like that. But I loved them. Besides, what the fuck was I? The most dented of all. But my mother, she was something, on a good day. Smartest person I ever knew. Worked her shifts and read her books. I wish more rubbed off on me. But it doesn't rub off. I always thought there was some big thing she was going to do. Had her acceptance letter from the fancy college. No diploma, just the letter, because she never finished. Hung it on the wall of every shithole we lived in. But she just went through her days. Pretty down a lot, but sometimes just, like, shining. And there were a few years there, at the end of high school, right before I signed up, when she was shining for a week at a time. It would build up for days, her happy, playing her CDs and even baking cookies and shit, and then she'd be off to visit some friends, or that's what she'd tell me, she was visiting friends for the night. She always left me a lot of food. She was only gone a night but the fridge would be stocked. Then she'd come home, be her depressed self again."
I heard a crash from the living room.
"Bernie! You okay?"
"Yeah, Daddy! I'm watching my show!"
"Sorry," I said.
"You're a good daddy," said Don.
"According to the manuals, I'm screwing up in more ways than I can count."
"You're a good daddy."
"I'm sorry. Please go on."
"I've said enough."
"I want to hear this," I said.
"Once I saw them. I was cruising around on a Saturday night and my friend called and he was at a party a few towns away and I took a shortcut I'd never done before, passed this motel right outside Pangburn Falls. Saw her car in the parking lot. I knew it was hers from her fucking lame-ass liberal bumper stickers. Always used to embarrass me. Save the abortionist polar bears and shit. Anyway, I pulled in and snuck up to the window. They were on a bed, it was still made, and they were dressed, drinking whiskey. I saw the bottle on the bureau. It was the guy from the pictures. A lot older, but him. They were just laughing. Easy. Reaching out for a gentle squeeze now and then. I couldn't hear what they were talking about. They both looked really thrilled to be there together in that shit room. I got out of there. Took some pictures and got the hell out of there."
"You took pictures?"
"With my cell phone."
"You have them?"
"She came home the next morning, seemed sadder than ever. That was the last time she went out for the night, at least while I was around. I joined up and deployed, eventually. You know, my convoy got lit up the day she had her car crash. Nothing happened to me that time, but still, kind of weird, right? Lot of rain up here, they said. She hydroplaned. Hit a tree not so far from that motel. Crash put her in a coma. They gave me leave to see her. It was a nice room, a decent place. They said it was taken care of. I thought she had some insurance from her last job. I didn't even go through her papers before I flew back. Then I get a message she's dead. Died in transit, from the nice place to a state place where they had to take her. Why'd they move her? I wanted to know. But there was nobody to ask. By the time I got home for good, after all that time recovering and rehabbing and learning how to not really get around on the girls, nobody could answer my questions. But I went through her stuff. Didn't find anything. Then the hospital had some papers they sent over. That's how I found out. Purdy had been paying for the nice place. But after a while he stopped. So they had to move her. I guess they didn't really know how to do it right. It's hard to move hurt people. I've seen plenty of that. A lot of people die on the way. Look, probably she wasn't coming out of that coma. Probably I would have had them pull the plug. But still."