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Thick red barbequed sausage and brown-n-serve rolls and chunky mashed potatoes with cream gravy and some peach pie all piled on one plate. That's what my dad got and I got pretty much the same thing. It was just me and him in those days. In the middle of everything the owner John Chambers came over and told us a funny story about whacking a stud horse in the balls with a board so it would calm down and get in the trailer. John had a big loose face like a camel and it would sag and twitch when he talked. With him every story came out fun to listen to, even the sad ones. If it hadn't have been for good old John I'm not sure where we would've gone for lunch seven days a week.
"This sausage is something else," I said chewing.
"Incredible," my dad said with a mouthful. We could really put it away.
"Aren't you going to finish those potatoes?" my dad said. He looked honestly concerned.
"Hey, I'm not through yet," I laughed. "Give me a chance will you." Then he laughed too and we kept on eating.
I watched John carrying a plate of just- cooked sausage out from the back. A big red link started to fall off right as he came through the kitchen doors. It sort of hung there, halfway off. He had a few steps to go before he reached the warmer and I knew it would fall off. So did he because he was cussing louder than ever like the thing had already fallen off. By the time it fell off I wasn't watching.
"I wonder what Parker's been up to?" I said.
This guy Parker and I were kids together. He introduced himself to me the first day of second grade and that was that. We did the whole growing up thing. Canal surfing and nigger- knocking and firecracker wars on the fourth of July. It was the best. Later on in high school we were as close as we could be even though he had gone one way with his life and I had gone another. The day before graduation I ran into him puking in the hallway. He looked up and I don't think he even recognized me at the time.
After high school his family moved to San Antonio. There was no reason to stay in the Valley after high school and both of us knew it but it looked like I was going to be staying. He was into music and got hooked up with some roadies and would call me every few weeks from one southern state or other sounding wildly amused about his life. His voice never sounded too amused, but his words did. I usually just tried to sound excited for him and proud of him.
"What do you hear out of Parker anyway?" my dad said over his fork.
"I talked to him a couple weeks ago," I said. "He sounded all right."
"Good, good," my dad said. He took another bite. "Good."
Actually, Parker hadn't sounded all that all right. About all I got from the conversation, if you could call it that, was that he was backstage somewhere. His voice was trembly in a way that made him sound like he was moving around a lot while he talked but the connection wasn't the best one in the world so I couldn't be sure.
"Hey Parker, still getting all sorts of pussy?" I asked, thinking he might respond to that kind of thing since for a few seconds he hadn't been responding to much. He didn't respond. I told myself that what with the concert in the background it was all he could do to hear a word I said.
"Hey man what are you doin' down there man?" he finally said. His voice sounded old and tired. "You ain't doin' anything. Why don't you come up here? Pussy's great man."
"Maybe next month," I said. I was always trying to get up there. But when you don't have a car and all, it's hard. Things kept coming up, too, getting in the way.
"Not too hot not too cold if you know what I'm sayin'," he said. "Awwwww, man. What I'm sayin' sayin' sayin'." There was silence for a while then he said suddenly "Who's this?"
"Take it easy Parker," I said. "Listen, I've got to run."
"Yeah, what what...you down there?"
"Catch you later, Parker."
That was a different Parker from the one I remembered from a few years before. It was in the sixth grade when girls started figuring into things Parker was really into the idea but I just didn't have the heart for them. That's just the way growing up goes sometimes. I didn't have the heart for much back then. Some days were worse than others.
"What's eating you, Sam?" Parker said. He was looking way off down the alley we walked along, but all his attention was on me I could tell.
"You know," I mumbled. "I don't know." As hard as I reached out from the inside it was like I couldn't even feel as far as my own skin.
"What say you and I chunk some cars?" he said. He plucked a Ruby Red from a branch that hung out into the alley from someone's back yard and wound up like a pitcher. I didn't feel one way or the other about his idea.
"How's it going with Felicia?" I said. "I heard about you two." Parker blushed for the first and last time I would ever see.
"Well, you got to admit she's pretty cute."
"I admit it, of course I do," I said.
"It's like a game being with her," he said. "You know?" I plucked my own grapefruit, which I peeled and ate as we walked.
"I guess I don't," I said. I could feel him watching me like he was working a problem in his head.
"So you're a little heavy" he said to me. "You shouldn't let it get you down." How he came up with that I don't know. I finished the grapefruit and wiped a sleeve across my tingling face.
"It does, though," I said.
"Aw, I know some girls think you're something," Parker said.
"Yeah, right. Like who?" I said.
He scooped a handful of gravel from the ground and walked backwards beside me tossing the rocks at little targets. "I'll tell you who like," he said. "Like Melissa."
"Melissa?" I said. "Melissa?" I'd never even thought about it. "But when she opens her mouth her teeth are all crooked." I sounded so serious he had to burst out laughing and he had such a great laugh that soon enough we were both laughing.
"So?" Parker said. He said it like he knew more than me. "She thinks you're something all the same, so there's bound to be others." I started walking backwards too and aiming rocks at little targets. "See what I mean?" Parker said.
"Like a game," I laughed.
"That's it, sport," he laughed back.
"She really likes me?" I said.
That was a strange day. I guess you never know when that need's going to hit. When we ran out of rocks we kept right on walking backwards down the alley, side by side. We forgot about the little targets everywhere and sometimes we bumped arms.
Me and my dad went on to other things while John kept on cussing about the sausage in the background. Driving back out to the house I counted phone poles, twentyone to a mile I'd heard. San Antonio was twohundredsixtyfour miles away. It was hard to say how many phone poles between there and here. Too many to think about. Back at the house a woman's voice came out of the answering machine. It was Parker's mom. He was lucky to have her.
"It's Kathy...we've...had something...terrible... terrible...happen." The way her words shook made me think of only one thing. It seemed pretty obvious. Like a headline from yesterday. My dad came from the bathroom, trying to button his pants. He was having a hard time.
"Who was that?" he said. I hit Play again and stood there like a statue and afterwards he picked up the phone and dialed quickly.
"Kathy? Kathy?" he said. "What is it?" he said into the phone, holding the phone to his head with both hands. His fly was still open. "Tell me!" he shouted. "Oh, no," he said. He looked purely disappointed. "Oh, no," he said again. He looked over at me and said it again. I stared out the window, my stomach growled. I don't remember my dad there after that. The phone was replaced. I didn't know what to think. I gripped myself around the middle, like I was in pain. But I felt fine for the most part.
There's not much to say about a funeral. Parker's quiet little sister screamed and screamed and waved her arms around her face like someone clearing something away. Parker's mom wore big sunglasses and a crazy grinlike thing and she didn't move a muscle till she fainted. "Damn," I said.
People perked up a little afterwards back at the house. There was more talking and less crying but every once in a while someone would really let loose and someone else would lead him or her into the bedroom. Parker's dad kept having to be helped into the bedroom. I don't think anyone said Parker's name the whole time. Everybody just said He. I met Layla, Parker's girlfriend. She had found him. She came right at me and I had to hold my egg salad sandwich with my mouth just so I could hug her.
"He always wanted me to meet you," she said. "He talked about you a lot." I figured she'd say something like that.
"At least we're meeting now," I said. She smiled right into my eyes. Even with her face all twisted up she was simply beautiful. I made my way to the corner where the fathers were. My dad was there, next to the dining room table. He and I didn't have much to say to one another right then and there, so we didn't say anything.
"You know how he did it, don't you?" Fred Shelby whispered to me.
"I guess I do," I said, but he told me what he knew anyway. He talked like someone really impressed with something and he kept rubbing the back of his neck hard, like he was nervous.
"By God, that boy must've really wanted to die," he said. He probably meant to say it to himself but it came out a little loud and made some people look.
"I just talked to him the other week, too," I said. "Damn."
That night I had a dream where I was at the grave. Grass was already growing there. I pushed my fingers into the ground and they grew down like roots until they reached the coffin then they went through and curled around his skull. What a dream. I could feel the bumps in the bone. I covered the inside and outside of the skull with my touch, which in the dream was better than eyesight. All the same I had the feeling there was something I hadn't found. Then I was in the bathroom naked looking at myself in the mirror. I guess I was still dreaming. I tried to feel my own skull through my skin but I couldn't. My fingers danced all over my head like they were lost. They found my neck and held onto it like it was a valve. I thought that would be the end of the dream but it kept going. I didn't know when it would stop.
