— Dick’s got nothing to do with any of this.
— We have a good relationship. Don’t put any strain on it by talking to me like I’m stupid. I am not stupid, and I do not want to have this conversation again.
Stan felt ashamed and tired. There wasn’t anything about Frank’s position that was unclear. Still, Stan couldn’t say it. His silence would have to suffice as acquiescence.
— Go home, Stan. Your truck is outside.
Before Stan left, they agreed that nobody else in the family needed to know. Word would get around among the men they knew, but Mary and the girls didn’t need to know about it.
When he got home later that night, he couldn’t get any of it out of his head. For the first time, it felt like he was looking fully at his own desperation and foolishness and loneliness. He’d never felt more like an old man, long past his usefulness. The dense shadows in the room seemed to be crawling, seemed to be closing in on him. It was as long a night as he could remember.
Finally, he got up and turned on the light in the hallway and got back into bed.
— I’m sorry, he said. I don’t know what else I can do.
By Friday evening the weather had become cruel. Wind barrelled over the pavement behind the variety store. Pete had come from work. He parked his car and got out, carrying a shopping bag. He hustled upstairs and knocked on Lee’s door.
— What’s happenin’, Pete?
— Hey, Uncle Lee. Mom sent some leftover pot roast.
— Come in, buck.
Pete went into the crooked little apartment. The television was on and cigarette smoke was thick.
— I didn’t know you got a TV.
— I bought it awhile ago. I never used to like it. But I also never used to have any money to buy something like this. Who knows. Some of the shows I’ve seen are alright, and sometimes they have movies.
Pete still didn’t understand Lee. For most of his life, Lee had seldom been mentioned. Irene had photos of him squirrelled away somewhere but his mother did not. She had Luke and John write to him at Christmas every year, but otherwise practically never mentioned him. Pete had had no idea what Lee looked like until they met in September, and even now he was a mystery. It was hard to imagine that they had any family connection at all, really, that they shared blood. There was no way Pete had found of putting himself in Lee’s shoes.
Part of it was that he didn’t know what Lee had done. It was serious, whatever it was, but the crime itself remained unknown. Rape? Murder? High treason? Whatever it was, and in spite of his curiosity, he did not want to think about it. He’d come to like Lee-this strange newcomer in his life, who was tough and hard, yet, at the same time, oddly soft-spoken.
Pete had thought he would deliver the leftovers and be on his way but he ended up staying to watch television for awhile. And then something unexpected occurred: Lee went to the refrigerator and came back with a couple of beers. He gave one to Pete and he had one for himself. Pete held the beer can he’d been given. He opened it, listened to the fizzle. Lee was watching the television. Pete took a drink. They watched Sanford. When it was finished Lee got them a couple more beers and said should they see about supper.
— Unless you have to go somewheres, Pete.
— I’m not in a hurry.
— Not going to see a girlfriend or nothing?
— No.
— Well, let’s have us some of this pot roast.
Lee heated the meat and the leftover vegetables on his hot plate. He brought a bottle of ketchup out of the fridge. They ate while they watched The Dukes of Hazzard. Lee was doubtful about the events of the show. He kept asking how the fuck that would work or why wouldn’t they just shoot the goof. Finally he looked at Pete and said: See? Bullshit.
— You bet, said Pete. Say, how about the lady you were going with?
— Helen? All good, as far as I can tell. She’s her own kind of gal. Sometimes we’ll get together maybe three or four days out of the week. Sometimes once. You can’t ever tell.
Pete wasn’t sure how it happened but they were into their third beers. The Dukes of Hazzard ended and a television movie came on.
— I heard you quit going to Barry’s church, said Lee.
— Yes. I did.
— Didn’t you go there your whole life?
— Just since I was eight, when mom met Barry. But since then? Almost ten years, every Sunday. We weren’t living in town when Mom met him. We lived in North Bay, actually, just Mom and me. I was born up there. But Grandma was still here, and a neighbour of hers had got her going to the church. Barry was a junior pastor back then, and he was single. I don’t know exactly how it worked-I was too young to figure it out, really-but Grandma got Mom talking to Barry, and before long Mom came back here and brought me with her. We lived in Grandma’s apartment for about a year. Man, that place was tiny. Then Mom and Barry got married, and they got the house where we are now, and all of us moved out there.
— Well, said Lee.
Lee didn’t prompt him further, but after two or three minutes, Peter said: Maybe you think I’m, you know, that I’m going to go to hell. Because I quit the church. Maybe you think Barry’s right about how people have to get born again and again. How Christians have to bring people in and convert them. So I’m sorry if this offends you but I don’t believe any of it. I didn’t go to church one Sunday, and I’ll tell you why, but hang on, and Barry gave me a look but he didn’t say much. Three weeks in a row I didn’t go and then he brought it up. At dinner one night. I said I didn’t want to talk about it. But Barry said spiritual things are what a family talks about with each other. Which is bullshit because we don’t talk about anything ninety percent of the time, but whatever. He pushed. So I came right out and said I didn’t plan to go any more. That I didn’t believe it. Barry got upset. He said, did I know what I was doing about my salvation? And I told him that’s not something he needs to worry about, but he said he would be and that he’d be praying for me. Mom had to get up and go into the kitchen.
— Pete, I wouldn’t ask you to spill nothing you don’t want to.
— Well, can you promise you’ll keep something between us? Lee put his hand out. Pete shook it.
— You talk about what you want to, Pete. I won’t break any trust with you.
— Okay, look. Sheila Adams, she teaches Sunday School. She’s ten years older than me. Last year, I was … you know, sleeping with her. She’s married. She wasn’t then, but she was engaged. I hadn’t ever slept with a woman before. But I’m getting ahead of myself. From the time I was eight till last spring I was at church, like I said. Every Sunday. But I think I knew for a long time that I didn’t belong. At the church, when the people get going, it’s what Barry calls the Baptism of Fire. They speak in tongues and put their hands in the air and act crazy. But you want to know something about it? It never once worked for me. I never had the Baptism of Fire. I wanted it, I really did, but I never had it. A few years ago, I even quit pretending, quit faking that I was having the Baptism just so I’d look like everybody else. We’d be there at church, and while everybody else was with the spirit, I’d just daydream. Sometimes I thought about girls from school. If I really had guts I would have faced the facts and quit a long time ago. But I didn’t. I kept thinking I just had to hold out, open myself to God, pray more and do this and do that and then I’d feel the grace. I did stuff with the youth group. Why not? I never had a lot of friends at school. The youth group, we’d do retreats, we’d do lockdowns at the church-
— Lockdowns?
— Yeah, said Pete. Lockdowns are sleepovers at the church. Not lockdowns like you’d think of from jail, I guess. Sorry. Anyway, stuff with the youth group was alright. It made it so things at home were easygoing.
Lee nodded.