Native Son

Brett turned away.

"What? Too ugly for you now?" she said, slipping into Levi's and a long-sleeved Jack Daniel's t-shirt.

Brett reddened; he felt heat rising on his forehead and neck.

She sat on the edge of the sofa and put her socks on, then fished around clothing and toys strewn about the room in piles, looking for her shoes.

"Where you going?"

"Store," she said, not looking at him. "Gotta get the kids some Ravioli-os or fruit rollups and stuff."

"I already did," he heard the righteousness in his tone and regretted it.

"Well, what do you want, a fucking medal?"

He rubbed his temples and stood. "I flushed that shit you were using. There's some money on the table for food and gas. The kids are at Mom's."

Lena wordlessly threw her shoe at Brett. It whizzed wildly past him and broke a lamp.

"Shit," she said.

Brett looked at the floor. One of Chuck's old OU ball caps lay by the broken lamp. "What is wrong with you, Lena?"

"Well," she snapped the lighter and lit a cigarette. "Lemme see, my husband is in several pieces lying in a grave somewhere, my kids are miserable and I can't stand myself. You know, the usual."

"Look, I can't say a word about what you do to yourself, but if you keep this up I'll take the kids away from you for good."

You take care of Lena and my boy.

"You just try. You just fucking try, Brett. Those kids are mine. Mine and Chuck's. You can't have 'em."

"You need help," he said, looking at the bloodstain from the pockmarked crackhead on the toe of his boot.

"Not from you."

"I can take 'em, and you know it."

"No you can't," she said. "You wouldn't take responsibility for them when your brother was alive and you damn well won't now that he's dead. Fuck off. Stay out of our lives," she said.

"Fine," he said. He stood, picking up Chuck's OU ball cap.

"Take it and get out," she said. "You can have that. Just keep your nose out of my business."

He walked out, glancing into the red sunset. The tubercular roar of the truck's exhaust shook him back to the moment. He tore out of the parking lot, past empty fields that crowded the anger out of his mind, replacing it was regret.

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Chips of memory fell around him like the crumbling plaster and lath in his ancient house.

Brett remembered Lena's pleasure as he kissed her nipples and the curve of muscle in her belly--unaffected by the birth of a son. The smell of Aqua Net and Skin-So-Soft.

Unafraid but guilty, he plunged into her. She was taut with rage at her husband for being so far away, at life for making her a mother at seventeen, and herself for taking her husband's brother for a lover. Her body shuddered under Brett; her hands balled into fists so as not to hold him.

They hardly spoke in the moments afterward until she lightly stroked his fair-haired belly and asked for his closeness.

Brett flinched, stepped out of the truck and into the starry night. He walked the three miles home, not caring what happened to his truck, himself or Lena. The night accused him at every hollow footfall on the road. He would not meet the half moon's reproachful gaze.