The Lonely Polygamist Part 8

He'd brought Cooter along even though recent experience had proven it to be a bad idea. Cooter didn't like being cooped up in the trailer or in the cab of the pickup (left outside he would quickly become lunch for an enterprising coyote), he was terrified of the loud machinery, and fast became lonely for the dozens of children who, at any one moment out of the day, vied for his attention. Bored and homesick, he would sulk for the remainder of the work week like a teenager on a family trip to the Smithsonian.

But Golden decided Cooter was exactly what he needed: a distraction, a chaperon, a sidekick, a reminder of who he was and what his commitments were. When Weela didn't show up that evening he went home feeling just a little virtuous, as if he'd pa.s.sed some sort of test, as if he'd been saved from temptation by virtue of his good intentions alone. But the next day, he sat on his favorite boulder, sulking. The sun was going down, and the shadows of the peaks moved incrementally up the rocky slopes, filling the wide basin like water in a bathtub. A fever of disappointment had come over him; he'd been waiting an hour and a half and there'd been no sign of her.

If only he could figure out his attraction to this woman, he decided, maybe he could liberate himself from it. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that freedom itself was to blame; for the first time in his life he had been left to his own devices, free from the restrictions of church and family, free to do and think and choose as he saw fit. Ever since he was a boy all his choices had been made for him, and now that they had been given a little lat.i.tude, where had his questionable instincts led him? To a dark-skinned prost.i.tute with a strange name who liked to wash her clothes in a pond.

To clear his head he picked up a chunk of rhyolite, hucked it over the pond. It would be dark soon. She had not missed him in his absence, who was he kidding, she had no interest in him at all, she was just being polite to the big goofy guy who'd horned in on her private oasis in the desert. He ought to go home, he decided. He ought to go home and never come back.

That's when he saw the top of her head moving over the sagebrush. She wore a red handkerchief that in the last angle of light glowed like a hot coal. He waved his arms. Much too loudly he cried, "Weeeela!" and ducked his head, wincing; he sounded like a kid on a Tilt-A-Wirl.

He clambered down and waited for her, trying not to look pleased. As usual, she did not look directly at him, but stood a few feet away-out of wariness or simple propriety, he couldn't tell-looking out into the distances, occasionally sending a glance his way. Cooter, who had been making his rounds, peeing on as many bushes as possible, trotted up with his ball.

"This is my dog," Golden said. "Cooter."

She squatted and received Cooter with one hand under his chin and the other stroking his side. Immediately he twisted onto his back and offered his belly for rubbing, a lascivious look on his face, his eyes bulging, his tongue hanging out, his hind legs spread wide. Golden was hoping maybe Cooter would draw some words out of her, but she only murmured low nonsense noises and gave Cooter such a thorough rubbing that one of his legs pumped like a piston as he groaned in ecstasy.

To put an end to this embarra.s.sing display, Golden took the ball-a gray ma.s.s of wet dirt and hair that at one time may have been used for a game of tennis-from Cooter's mouth and tossed it high in the air. The ball bounced twice before caroming off a rock into the pond. Cooter, who an hour ago had given up a game of fetch after two or three throws because he'd decided there were better things to do, now raced to retrieve the ball, kicking up dust as he went. To Golden's surprise he leapt into the water, stretching for air like a Labrador. Cooter hated water, cried pitifully through his weekly baths, but the show-off in him had taken over; he paddled out toward the ball, woofing and kicking like he knew exactly what he was doing.

He made it to the ball without difficulty, but could not seem to get his mouth around it. He pushed it forward with his nose, snapped at it, kicked harder, eyes bulging with effort. Weela and Golden laughed together-he knew it had been a good idea to bring Cooter along! But then the dog began to tire. He had lost interest in the ball and now seemed to be paddling in place, the tip of his tail sinking out of sight until there was nothing but eyes and a snout.

Golden ran to the water's edge, made a frantic attempt to pull off one of his boots, failed, and splashed out into the shallows. With a reluctant groan he launched his long body out into the water. At first he slid forward almost gracefully, like a great fish returned to its element, but then his momentum stalled, his boots filled with water, and he began to sink. He did not know how to swim, made evident by the way he slappped at the pond's surface with his palms and choked on the water that flowed easily into his open mouth as if it were a bathtub drain. He did his best to churn his legs, all the while casting his arms about in the hopes of locating Cooter, or anything else to hold on to, but there was only water and more water, bubbling up everywhere, pushing its way up his nose and down his throat. He felt something on top of him, a tug at his collar, and instinctively twisted his body and grabbed handfuls of cloth and hair. As he did so his boots touched the bottom of the pond and he pushed up with all he had. He broke the surface almost immediately and, after coughing out a mouthful of dank pond water, was amazed to find himself standing in the soft muck of the pond's bottom, the water just covering his shoulders, and Weela clinging to his back, one hand with a firm grip on his collar. She had tried to save him and if the pond had been deeper than five and a half feet he would have certainly dragged her down with him.

He pulled her around to his front and they held on to each other, coughing and gasping. He wasn't sure if he was a coward or a hero. She grasped him tightly around the neck with both arms as if to hold him up, to make sure he didn't try to dive back in.

"Thank you!" he shouted, his ears plugged with water. "I'm sorry! I don't think I know how to swim!" And coughed some more.

Cooter, who had somehow made it to the other side, pulled himself onto the gravelly sh.o.r.e and with a thin wheeze flopped on his side. Golden hardly noticed. He asked Weela if she was okay and she made a noise-he wasn't sure if it was a laugh or a sob-and pressed her cheek against his. Even in the cold water, he could feel the heat of her, could feel every part of her body that touched his: her thigh clamped with a rigid strength around the top of his hips, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest, her cheek against his, her breath hot on his ear.

Golden started forward, tried to walk them out of the pond, but found that his feet were firmly planted in the clayey silt, which was just as well. He was happy to stay right here, wet and cold in the insistent embrace of this strange woman. He asked her again if she was all right; he wanted a response from her, he didn't care if it was in English or Italian or Martian, he wanted to hear words, warm and moist, come out of the lips grazing his ear.

Cooter wheezed out a bark and they both turned to look. He was on his feet now, dripping and quivering, half covered in mud, his bloodshot eyes blinking furiously, his fur slicked down over his bony frame, whining at the ball still bobbing just out of reach.

Weela put her face back against his, her mouth next to his ear. This small gesture of intimacy flooded him with a tingling warmth, a sense of events trembling in the balance. He could feel her lips as she opened her mouth to speak.

She said, "That is a very ugly dog."

11.

ADVANCED LOVEMAKING TECHNIQUES FOR THE REST OF US

TONIGHT TRISH PACED AT THE FRONT WINDOW IN NOTHING BUT A towel, her razor-nicked ankles smarting with every step. Even though she'd showered twice, scrubbed and soaped herself silly both times, the lingering odor of Night Pa.s.sion perfume trailed her around the room. It was now nine-two hours after Golden had promised he'd be home-and the darkness outside had consumed everything but the lit windows of the houses across the street. Inside, her elaborate dinner of jerked pork and sweet potatoes sat hardening on the kitchen table. Faye had fallen asleep in the back room and the house was so quiet it hummed. towel, her razor-nicked ankles smarting with every step. Even though she'd showered twice, scrubbed and soaped herself silly both times, the lingering odor of Night Pa.s.sion perfume trailed her around the room. It was now nine-two hours after Golden had promised he'd be home-and the darkness outside had consumed everything but the lit windows of the houses across the street. Inside, her elaborate dinner of jerked pork and sweet potatoes sat hardening on the kitchen table. Faye had fallen asleep in the back room and the house was so quiet it hummed.

Early this morning she had been awakened by the familiar pain deep within her abdomen that told her she was ovulating-a series of hard cramps followed by a sensation like a token dropping into a slot. As a teenager she'd gone to her mother, who not only told her what it was, but gave it a name: Mittelschmerz Mittelschmerz, a German word meaning "middle pain." It was such a ridiculous-sounding word, Trish used to say it over and over again in the midst of her cramps-Mittelschmerz! Mittelschmerz! Mittelschmerz! (using an exaggerated German accent, of course)-as a way to distract herself from the pain. (using an exaggerated German accent, of course)-as a way to distract herself from the pain.

But there was nothing to distract her from the situation she found herself in now: showered, lotioned, and perfumed to within an inch of her life, the owner of a body as ready and willing as it would ever be-and no man in sight. She kept telling herself that she was being absurd, that she should get herself dressed, that waiting around wantonly in an undersized towel was an obvious and tired tactic if there ever was one. But she couldn't deny the truth: she was out of fresh ideas, out of patience, nearly out of hope. She and Golden had made love only twice since Jack died, and she was beginning to believe that if it didn't happen tonight they might never make anything together again.

Two weeks ago, after the dust-up over Beverly's old couch, Golden had come home as happy and loose as she'd seen him in months, and she was sure it would be their night. Wearing a dress she'd cut and sewn herself and the slippery lip gloss of a teenager, she ma.s.saged his shoulders while he ate a few leftovers from the fridge. They chatted for a while, he made polite inquiries about Faye and her schoolwork, she stroked his neck and ears suggestively a few times, and after he put away three bowls of ice cream he went out to his pickup to get his overnight bag. When he didn't come back after five minutes she went out to find the driver's door open and Golden slumped facedown on the vinyl bench seat, which he apparently found quite comfortable. In the yellow glow of the cab light, his fingers wrapped around the handle of his bag, he slept, innocent as a babe. She came this close to taking the bag from his hand and clouting him over the back of the head with it. She woke him and, staggering under his weight, guided him inside the house to the bathroom, where she helped him brush his teeth, scrubbing his big chompers with an angry sawing motion until he begged for mercy through a mouthful of foam. She dragged him to the bed, yanked off his boots, peeled his clothes from his body as if in preparation for emergency surgery...but by then he was gone, a huge loaf of dead weight sinking into the mattress, smacking his lips and snoring even before she could get to his socks. She dumped a comforter over his head and went out onto the porch to cry.

Tonight she would show him no such mercy. Already she had spent two hours tucked into what amounted to a hand towel, occasionally wetting her hair so it would look like she had emerged steaming fresh from the shower. She had shaved her legs and, because she was five years out of practice, had lost a few bits of ankle flesh in the process. But it didn't matter. Her calves were smooth and b.u.t.tery, her hair damp and fragrant, and if all else failed, she had her backup: waiting innocently in the bed table drawer, a twenty-pack of Wrigley's Spearmint gum.

After coming home from the hair academy, she had read her pilfered Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan cover to cover between peeling potatoes and revacuuming the rugs. It was the hyper-peppy article called "Advanced Lovemaking Techniques for the Rest of Us" that received more of her attention than any other. Under the subheading "Oral Fixations" it read: cover to cover between peeling potatoes and revacuuming the rugs. It was the hyper-peppy article called "Advanced Lovemaking Techniques for the Rest of Us" that received more of her attention than any other. Under the subheading "Oral Fixations" it read: Many women are understandably apprehensive about striking out on their first oral adventure. Some are worried about the taste or smell, others are nervous about doing it "the right way." So for all you nervous nellies and old pros alike, here's a tip: keep it minty fresh! Before your lovemaking session, just pop in a cough drop, some Tic Tacs, or your favorite brand of mint gum, and you'll give your man a cool, tingling sensation that will leave him begging for more. You'll not only have fresh, minty breath, but a grateful partner forever in your debt!

Despite her extended detour on the worldly byways of Reno, Trish had very little experience with Advanced Lovemaking Techniques; Billy had always been the traditional, three-frantic-minutes-in-the-pitch-dark sort of man, and Golden, sweet Golden-she'd made love with Golden only enough to know that he was entirely too gentle (worried that he was going to smother or otherwise damage her with his unmanageable bulk) and liked to be kept up to speed on her comfort and pleasure ("Okay? Ah? Right? There?"). s.e.x was one thing she and the other wives never spoke of, and though she knew there was very little in the way of advanced lovemaking going on with them or with other members of the church (the unspoken law was that s.e.x was meant for procreation and nothing but), she couldn't help but wonder.

The life of a plural wife, she'd found, was a life lived under constant comparison, a life spent wondering. Sitting across from her sister-wives at Sunday dinner, the platters and serving dishes floating past like hovercraft, the questions were almost inescapable: Who of us is the most happy? Which of us is his one true love? Who does he desire most? Who does he open himself up to in the middle of the night? And the one that, lately, crossed her mind most often: Am I the only one he won't have s.e.x with?

To her sister-wives, she knew, she was the new one, the young one, the pretty one (if only they'd seen her in her makeup days!), the free-and-easy one. But beneath the jokes about her movie-starlet bone structure and carefree days ran a cross-current of deep pity. That look look in their eyes sometimes, they might as well have said it out loud: in their eyes sometimes, they might as well have said it out loud: Poor Trish, cursed and lonely Trish, banished to her sad little duplex on the other side of the valley. Trish the afterthought. Trish the fifth wheel. Poor Trish, cursed and lonely Trish, banished to her sad little duplex on the other side of the valley. Trish the afterthought. Trish the fifth wheel.

She was sick of their pity, sick of waiting, sick of sorrow, sick of standing here half nude at the window, vulnerable with wanting. Her hand had cramped from holding the corners of the towel tight against her chest, and it felt good to let go, to stand naked before the entire darkened world. The cold coming off the gla.s.s of the window hardened her nipples and made the skin on her arms and shoulders p.r.i.c.kle with goose pimples. I don't give a d.a.m.n if anybody sees me I don't give a d.a.m.n if anybody sees me, she thought, and not two seconds later a pair of headlights swung around the corner, coming directly at her. She yelped, dropped to the carpet and crawled across the hallway to the safety of the bathroom.

She heard the sound of tires on gravel, the creak of the pickup's door. Frantic, she stuck her head under the shower, gave it a blast of freezing water, and dug around under the sink for the only other available towel, a beach towel that bore a colorful life-sized likeness of Bozo the Clown.

She came dripping and shivering out into the hall and found Golden at the front door with his overnight bag, holding the screen door open, hesitant, as if reluctant to tread on the carpeting. He looked like he might have spent the last few weeks as the subject of a sleep-deprivation experiment: hair tangled and mashed to one side, face pallid and drawn, eyeb.a.l.l.s so swollen and bloodshot they looked on the verge of bursting.

The sight of him made her temporarily lose her resolve. "Oh honey, are you tired?"

"Me?" he said. "Oh no, no." He seemed to concentrate intently for a moment, shaking his head as if to ward it off, but it came anyway: a great, cracking yawn that temporarily rearranged his face. Finally, he stepped inside and pressed his cheek against hers, delivering the smallest of electric shocks, and kissed her clumsily on the ear. She felt the crackling rasp of his whiskers, his large hands on her back, and she held him against her in a clutch that lasted several beats too long.

"You're wet," he said, standing back, a damp spot on the front of his shirt.

"Just got out of the shower," she explained. "I wanted to be...clean."

He looked from her face down to her body, and she was sure he was taking note of her barely covered b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the statements being made by her naked shoulders and smooth thighs.

"Hey, all right!" He nodded, grinning tiredly. "Bozo the Clown!"

She bit her lip, resisted the urge to make some childish remark along the lines of, Takes one to know one Takes one to know one. She led him through the kitchen, and once she'd ascertained that he needed no dinner, conversation, or shower of his own, she pulled him toward the bedroom. He went happily, eagerly, and with a sigh toppled stiffly and slowly onto the bed like the oldest tree in the forest.

Quickly, she turned off the lamp; the thing she was about to attempt, she was sure, should happen only in the dark.

She helped him off with his shirt and lay beside him, her face close to his, until he kissed her: a chaste kiss, a closemouthed kiss, but a half-naked bedroom kiss nonetheless. She let her mouth linger on his, and he gave in, moving his lips and tilting his head for a better angle. Emboldened, she kissed his neck and chest, making her way down across the smooth plain of his belly, abandoning her towel as she went. The length and breadth of him seemed edgeless. The room was as dark as a cavern and she could hear his every breath, every rustle of fabric, every watery thump her heart made against the bones of her chest. She felt desirable, capable of anything.

She unbuckled his belt, fumbled for a moment with b.u.t.ton and zipper, positioned her hands, and then, with the sudden, sure motion of a magician yanking a tablecloth out from under an elaborate dinner setting, pulled down his underwear and pants, all the way to the ankles, shackling him. He made a small surprised noise in the back of his throat and was quiet again.

In the pitch-black she groped for the bedside table, but it was out of reach. She stretched across the bed, opened the drawer and fished around blindly until she came up with the packet of gum. With her other hand, she found Golden's thigh, rubbed it so lightly and sensuously that she touched hair but no skin. She kept this up, one leg and then the other, though the package of gum was giving her trouble. She tried to open it one-handed, went at it with her teeth, gnawing at the smooth, hopelessly impenetrable paper, all the while trying to keep Golden rea.s.sured with her stroking fingers, and it became like a juggling act she couldn't quite manage. She gasped in frustration, strangled the packet of gum with one hand and clawed at it with the other, puncturing the paper with her nails, ripping and biting, until she fumbled two pieces out of their foil wrappers and into her mouth. To her ears it sounded as if she had just torn open a giant Christmas present in the dark.

"Trish?" Golden inquired. "You okay?"

"Um, yesh," she said, her mouth packed with gum now, and groped to locate him on the bed once again. Gnashing fiercely, trying to break the wad of gum down to a manageable size, she bought time by slow-ma.s.saging his chest and arms with the heels of her hands. She discovered that simultaneously chewing gum and giving a sensual ma.s.sage in the dark required a form of advanced muscle coordination she had apparently been born without; she ended up kneading the skin of his chest and ribs with the same quick rhythm of her gumchewing so that he began to gasp like he was being held down and tickled.

"Hey-" he said, and tried to roll over, but she was on top of him, pinning him in place, trying to find a way to position her mouth near his crotch, chewing, chewing, chewing that d.a.m.n gum, desperately trying to move her hands against him with some sort of erotic intent, kissing his breastbone and belly, moving down down down, raising her head for an instant to gather herself and then plunging back in, skimming her face along the smooth skin of his lower abdomen until her lips found and touched him there there, and he jerked sideways in surprise, his hipbone b.u.t.ting her jaw and knocking the gum out of her mouth.

"Oh!" he cried. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"No," she said, "it's okay, shush, lie back down."

"Okay," he said. "Yes. I will."

Letting out a small wail of distress, she cast around on the bedspread for the lost wad of gum, and when she couldn't come up with it, set herself again to her task. But as she touched his body again, found it tense and rigid, heard the hard pulse of his breathing, she knew she couldn't go on. As much as she wanted him, as much as she loved him, as much as she wanted to have another child with him, a child that would forever connect her to him and to his, she would not lower herself to this. She would not terrorize him any more.

She got up, stumbled down the hall, and locked herself in the bathroom. She heard the coils of the mattress creak as he stood up and the reverberating whump whump of his large body hitting the floor, tripped up by the pants around his ankles. He recovered quickly, groaning and leaning for balance against the walls. of his large body hitting the floor, tripped up by the pants around his ankles. He recovered quickly, groaning and leaning for balance against the walls.

The bathroom doork.n.o.b rattled. "Trish?" he said.

She told him she wasn't feeling well, to go back to bed.

"Is there something wrong? Let me in and we'll talk."

"Just a little stomach thing, I'll be fine. Please leave me alone now."

He waited at the door for ten minutes, occasionally calling her name. She wanted to open the door to him, to fall into his arms and be carried back to the bedroom, where they would make slow, tender love, but some bit of pride, left over from who knows where, prevented her. She ignored him until finally he went plodding back to the bedroom, the carpeted floor squeaking under each step.

She waited in the dark bathroom, her mind blank, until there was no more sound, not even of the bed complaining under Golden's nearly three hundred pounds. She opened the door and walked through her compact house, her eyes wide, as if new rooms might miraculously present themselves. When finally she slid into bed next to her husband-asleep, of course, sputtering, whistling through his nose-he stirred, rolled over, and rested his hand on her hip.

She waited, poised for a change in his breathing, for him to move closer, to press his body against hers, but his breathing slowed and he began to snore. His hand was warm and heavy, and though it wasn't much, she knew she was going to have to learn to accept what she was given, no matter how small.

12.

DRIVING LESSONS

WHEN GOLDEN RICHARDS WAS NINETEEN AND BY EVERY MEASURE STILL a boy-one who built model battleships and took a gla.s.s of warm milk every night before bed-he made the first real decision of his life: he abandoned his mother. That was how he would always think of it: a betrayal, a defection, an escape. One May morning he woke up before dawn and snuck away, limping across the town square in the muggy dark, with nothing but a knapsack of clean underwear and a plane ticket to Las Vegas. a boy-one who built model battleships and took a gla.s.s of warm milk every night before bed-he made the first real decision of his life: he abandoned his mother. That was how he would always think of it: a betrayal, a defection, an escape. One May morning he woke up before dawn and snuck away, limping across the town square in the muggy dark, with nothing but a knapsack of clean underwear and a plane ticket to Las Vegas.

Upon his arrival, he did not receive the hero's welcome he had expected. A small, dour Mexican man met him at the airport with a cardboard sign that read ROYAL SON ROYAL SON and drove him, without a word, to the house in Utah, where he waited two days for his father to return from a business trip. The Mexican man's wife, a cheerfully fat woman named t.i.ta, fixed his meals and cleaned up after him, and he did little but sleep and wake occasionally to stumble around the house and its grounds, his eyes raw and full of grit, trying to acclimate himself to the dry air, the alien landscape, the constant blast of light. and drove him, without a word, to the house in Utah, where he waited two days for his father to return from a business trip. The Mexican man's wife, a cheerfully fat woman named t.i.ta, fixed his meals and cleaned up after him, and he did little but sleep and wake occasionally to stumble around the house and its grounds, his eyes raw and full of grit, trying to acclimate himself to the dry air, the alien landscape, the constant blast of light.

The house was like nothing Golden had ever seen: a red-brick Victorian with steep gables, mullioned windows, blond limestone detailing and a three-story turret that looked like it had been transplanted from the castle of an Austrian duke. The house was more museum than domicile, filled with booty from Royal's desert expeditions: giant glittering geodes, moqui marbles, amethyst cathedrals and back-lit fluorescent minerals lined up along oak shelves. Earlyman spearheads and Fremont rawhide shields, meteorites and Anasazi baskets filled with beads. A beaver skull half encrusted with rose quartz. The jawbone of a megalodon. And the piece de resistance: the calcified femur of a Tyrannosaurus rex Tyrannosaurus rex weighing half a ton and displayed on a giant table carved from yellow sandstone embossed with fossils of whiskered prehistoric fish. weighing half a ton and displayed on a giant table carved from yellow sandstone embossed with fossils of whiskered prehistoric fish.

If the interior of the house confused him, he could make even less sense of what lay outside: a huge, blank sky hovering over a landscape of wild chockablock colors: flat-topped mesas of black basalt, the white, crosshatched elephant hide of Navajo sandstone, ocher cliffs streaked with desert varnish, distant trembling blue mountains covered with pygmy forests of pinon and juniper, the gypsum-rich hills, candy-striped red and yellow and orange.

After a few expeditions into the backyard and over to the river, which at this time of year was a silver ribbon cutting a channel through a bed of crimson sand, he admitted to himself that this place scared him. He preferred to stay inside and, when he wasn't asleep, positioned at the window way up in the tower where he could see everything, watching and waiting-this feeling of clenched expectation so familiar he almost welcomed it-for his father to come home.

When Royal arrived, he did so piloting a shiny new car. It was the morning of Golden's third day out West, the sun edging over the eastern cliffs, drawing long shadows that moved like living things across the knurled landscape. From his window, Royal watched his father get out of the car and stand next to the lilac hedge that flanked the gravel driveway.

"Where is he?" Royal shouted at the house. "Where's my Goldy?"

Golden didn't move. He was almost nauseous with the confusion and uncertainty of what he had done, of this sudden turn his life had made.

Besides the gray cowboy hat tipped back on his head, his father looked, from this distance, like the person who had left him ten years before: a short man who made himself large with a sharp, flashing smile, every word accompanied by dramatic gestures of arms, hips and head.

"Hey!" he cried, moving toward the house. "Wake up! Goldy! Look what I brung!"

When they met on the front porch his father took a step back and laughed. "Whoa, hold on now, lookit here. Make way for the Jolly Green Giant."

It was the kind of thing one of the bullies at school might have said.

"Come on," Royal said, his arms held wide. "Come on now, right here."

Golden went to his father, bent down to embrace him. He smelled his cologne-something sharp and musky-could feel the pleasant rasp of his whiskers against his own soft cheek, and decided that even though it wasn't the reunion he'd planned or hoped for, it was good enough.

This sudden wash of satisfaction caused him to squeeze too hard and he felt the air go out of his father with a wheeze, and then came a faint popping sound. His father fell away from him, clutching his side. Doubled over, he coughed and raised his head, wincing. "Hoooh," he said, blowing out his cheeks. "Hah. Guess you could say I deserved that."

From his shirt pocket he took a ring with a key on it and tossed it into Golden's chest. "See that car? It's yours. Just drove it in from St. George. Let's go see what she can do."

It was a beautiful thing, a black 1956 Ford Thunderbird with portholes in its white detachable hardtop. Golden slid in behind the wheel and held the key up to his face as if the tiny letters engraved on it might offer some instruction. He turned to his father in the pa.s.senger seat, who was still gently palpating his ribs. He said, "I don't know how to drive."

"How now?" Royal said.

Golden knew the key was to be inserted into a hole or slot somewhere within arm's reach but he couldn't locate a likely spot.

"You're telling me you're eighteen, a southern boy, and you don't know how to get it down the road?"

"Nineteen," Golden said. "I'm nineteen."

"Okay then, right," Royal said. "Yep. I get it. I get it now. Son don't know how to drive because Daddy's not around to instruct him. See? Even a fool like me will come around eventually. Well, let's do it, then. That key, it goes in the ignition. There on the steering column. No, other side. Now the clutch. Right there on your left. Push down. With your foot, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Now give the key a turn."

The starter whinnied and screeched, and after Golden negotiated what amounted to a seven-point turn in order to get the car out of the driveway, they lurched out into the road, gears grinding, engine revving frightfully, new tires chirping with every touch of the brakes. Royal was a terrible teacher and Golden a worse student; the father's instructions started out as firm suggestions that turned quickly to mild cursing and then to shouts of "No, oh no G.o.dd.a.m.n no!" when the car swerved off the road and nearly took out a couple of boys waiting for the school bus. The son, so big he looked like a teenager stuffed into a child's pedal car, rode the brake and grew damp with sweat, flinching and jerking the steering wheel every time his father called, "New gear, new gear!"

Eventually, the road straightened out and Golden managed to keep the car from drifting off it. Royal took advantage of this lull to fill Golden in on the things his letters had left out. "You know how I got rich and famous and all that, but I didn't write what happened afterwards, I didn't want to upset your mama." He told Golden that after he'd made his fortune he'd carried on a life of such base sin and debauchery he couldn't bring himself to talk about it in the light of day. "Let's just say I was a hot-blooded man with too much money living in Las Vegas and leave it at that," he said, staring out the pa.s.senger window with what might have been a touch of wistfulness, as if his past life continued on in some parallel trajectory beyond the clouds. After two solid years of drinking and women and not much else, he'd hit bottom, and that's when Uncle Chick found him drunk and bloodied and stumbling along the crumbling margins of Highway 89 after losing control of his prized 1949 Vincent Black Lightning and running off the road into a thicket. "It was G.o.d's doing, see, I was wandering in the desert, literally and, you know, otherwise, and Uncle Chick saved me. Good Samaritan, et cetera. Brought me home where I belonged."

Golden risked a glance at his father, who was staring at him intently, and he realized that besides the deep creases in his tanned neck and the thinning hair of his temples, there was was something different about him: he had a look in his eye. A spark, a glint that gave him the aspect of someone moved by forces beyond his control. something different about him: he had a look in his eye. A spark, a glint that gave him the aspect of someone moved by forces beyond his control.

After Golden pulled the car back toward the center line-it was like it was trying trying to run itself into a ditch-Royal went on, explaining how he'd accepted G.o.d's call, how he'd read the Book of Mormon ("sorta like the Bible, only with more sword fights"), and eventually become baptized and dedicated to the plan of salvation, which included the holy covenant of plural marriage, the only means by which man might ascend to the highest levels of the Celestial Kingdom. to run itself into a ditch-Royal went on, explaining how he'd accepted G.o.d's call, how he'd read the Book of Mormon ("sorta like the Bible, only with more sword fights"), and eventually become baptized and dedicated to the plan of salvation, which included the holy covenant of plural marriage, the only means by which man might ascend to the highest levels of the Celestial Kingdom.

Even though Royal's letters had mentioned finding G.o.d and becoming a new man, it was still disconcerting to hear his father, a person who'd always considered G.o.d a nuisance and killjoy, talking like this. But Golden wasn't listening very closely, anyway; his focus was on keeping the car between the white and yellow lines. He found this was easiest to do by keeping it in second gear and holding a steady rate of speed of fourteen miles per hour.

When the road turned from asphalt to chalky red dirt, Royal, increasingly annoyed at his giant son's skittishness, had Golden turn the car around.

"Now," he said suddenly, "tell me about your mama, how she's doing and all that."

"She's fine," Golden said. He thought of her sitting at the kitchen table, completely alone now, that ashen, lost look on her face, and he wanted to cry.

Royal didn't press for any details, just nodded, pointed out a hawk at the edge of the road, peeling the coat off a roadkill jackrabbit. Like somebody asking a neighbor how their weekend had gone, Royal said, "And how 'bout you? How you been?"

Golden looked at himself in the rearview mirror. He was sitting in a spectacular new car with his rich and reformed daddy at his side, the sun coming up to expose the wild beauty of a place he once believed existed only in books and magazines, and yet he felt unaccountably sad, gripped with a desolation he could barely comprehend. He turned away from his father and with his voice breaking said, "I haven't had much of a life so far, Daddy."