He let Dog out of the car to take a piss, and she jumped into the ditch and rolled in the burrs. Blackburn got out and yelled at her. She ignored him.
Blackburn crossed the ditch and climbed into the field, shading his eyes. The tower looked like a dead robot. As he approached, he saw that its legs were only partially dismembered. If he had come two days sooner, he might have seen it still standing. Two days later, and he might not have seen it at all. But today was Sunday, and the carrion eaters were at rest.
He stopped beside the rust-smeared silver tank. Here were the letters wan, peeled and almost gone. And here were graffiti, although he remembered none of the phrases. ZZ TOP, they said. AC/DC. '84 RULES. PINK FLOYD THE WALL. KATHY BITES. JESUS IS LOVE. LOVE THIS. Beside this last was an arrow pointing to a red spray-paint drawing of a giant cock and balls. Blackburn pressed his lips and tongue to the tank's skin. The taste of paint and metal, at least, hadn't changed.
A truck rumbled past on the road, and Dog charged after it. Blackburn ran back to the Hornet, shouting. Damn stupid Dog had no sense. She would get herself killed. He blamed her first master. A mistreated pup never recovered.
After a while she came to him, looking happy. He shoved her into the car and then sat and talked to her. She put her head in his lap and slobbered on his jeans. He pointed at the crumpled tower.
"I used to climb that," he said. "I was king of the world."
He wished that the tower would reassemble and leap up, like a film run backward. He wished that the mushroom out on 132 would shrivel into the dirt. He wished that the town of Wantoda were as it had been when he had left it. He had wanted to think of this trip as a visit to the past, as a time-travel story about a man confronting his idiot ancestors. He had wanted May '84 to be a rerun of May '75.
But then tomorrow would be his seventeenth birthday instead of his twenty-sixth. It was better to be older. It was better not to be afraid.
Blackburn looked away from the remains of the water tower and started the Hornet. He steered back onto the pavement and drove down the Potwin road to kill his father.
Even for rural Tuttle County, the house was cruddy. The siding was blotched with orange, and the wooden shingles looked like scabs. The porch sagged. Dad had let the place go to hell.
A blue Celica sat in the dirt driveway behind a battered white GMC pickup. Dad had a visitor. That was too bad. Blackburn parked the Hornet against the Celica's rear bumper, then reached under the seat for his Colt Python. It had slid back, and he had to bend low and stretch before his fingers closed on the grip.
Dog barked in his ear, making him bang his head on the steering wheel. He yelled, and Dog barked again. Blackburn slapped at her with his free hand. Then he sat up, holding the pistol, and saw his mother on the porch. She was wearing a cream-colored summer dress like the ones she had always looked at in the Penney's catalog. Her hair touched her shoulders. Blackburn was amazed. He had thought she was in Oregon, or possibly dead. He ducked to hide the gun under the seat again.
When he rose, she was walking across the yard toward him. The south wind pressed the dress against her legs, and her hair blew back from her face. Her face was smooth.
Then she was at his window, and in her scowl he saw that she was not his mother after all. She was his sister. Dog barked at her.
Blackburn rolled down the window. "Jasmine," he said.
"Jimmy." She stepped back. She looked surprised.
Blackburn opened his door and got out. Dog cowered against the passenger door.
Jasmine was several inches shorter than her brother. He looked down at her. "You have breasts," he said.
Her eyes narrowed. "You don't."
Blackburn realized that he had said a stupid thing. But he had left when she was twelve, and now the twelve-year-old's eyes and mouth were pasted on a different body. Maybe he should have said "You're taller" or "You're bigger." Or "You look like Mom." But that would have been worse. She wasn't supposed to be here, anyway.
He pointed behind him with his thumb. "That's my dog."
Jasmine looked around him. "Black and white. Is she a border collie?"
"Beats me."
"What's her name?"
"Dog."
Jasmine looked back at him. "You're the same," she said.
Blackburn thought he knew what she meant. "You still hate me."
She shrugged. "I don't know you."
"But you said I was the same."
"You are." She glanced at the house. "Want to see Dad?"
Blackburn stared past her. "He isn't dead yet?"
"No." Her scowl darkened. "How'd you know he was sick?"
"Saw his name in the hospital lists in the Wichita paper. But when I went to the hospital, they said he'd left. They wouldn't tell me what he was there for."
"I'm surprised that you cared."
"Oh yeah," Blackburn said. "I care." He took a few steps toward the house, then stopped. "Is Mom here?"
"God, no."
"Any idea where she is?"
Jasmine gave him a sharp look. "We've been in Seattle for years, Jimmy. I'm a senior at the University of Washington."
"Outstanding." He started toward the house again.
Jasmine came along. "I would have graduated this spring, but I took incompletes so I could come down here."
"Why'd you want to do that?"
"Because he doesn't have anyone else."
Blackburn stepped onto the porch. "Of course he does." He nodded to his reflection in the storm door. Dad wouldn't like his haircut. "He has me."
Jasmine touched his elbow. "Jimmy. Are the police after you?"
"I don't know," he said. It was the truth.
Jasmine closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked different. Softer. "I haven't seen you in so long," she said. "I guess I should at least give you a hug." She put her arms around him and pressed close.
Blackburn didn't like it. He pushed her away, and she looked at him, blinking.
"Dog!" Blackburn called. Dog jumped from the Hornet and came running. Blackburn opened the storm door, and Dog sped into the house. Jasmine gasped.
Blackburn went inside.
The house smelled of ham and potatoes. Blackburn found the old man at the kitchen table, swiping at Dog with a butter knife. He was wearing blue work pants and a red plaid shirt. His face was still florid and stubbled, with the same broad nose and small, pale eyes. But he was skinnier, and he breathed with a phlegmy wheeze. His sparse hair had turned gray. Patches of scalp were visible, like dead leaves seen through mist.
"Hi, Dad," Blackburn said.
The old man glanced up, furious, and then looked back at Dog. "Get it out of here," he said. His voice shook. It wasn't as deep as Blackburn remembered. "Get the son of a bitch out of my house."
"Just 'bitch,' " Blackburn said.
Jasmine came past him and grabbed Dog's collar. Dog bolted. Jasmine lost her grip, and Dog collided with the old man's chair. Dad bellowed and tried to stab Dog in the neck, but his hand hit the edge of the table. The knife spun away and clattered on the linoleum. Dog whirled and ran from the kitchen.
Dad sat hunched over, gripping his hand. Jasmine reached toward him, but drew back when he started banging his fist on the table. Plates and glasses jumped. Then Dad swiped his arm across the tabletop, flinging a Pyrex bowl of salad. It would have hit Jasmine in the face, but Blackburn knocked it away. It slammed into the sink and shattered.
"Who let a dog in my house?" Dad yelled.
Blackburn squatted before his father. "She followed me home, Daddy," he said. "Can I keep her?"
Dad's eyes focused on him. Blackburn waited, letting the old man stare. Old man. Only forty-eight. But he looked ancient enough to be God.