“Police! Open up!”
John glares across the living room, shakes his head, and returns to his book. I stay on the other couch. My finger marks my place halfway through the article. Another bout of knocking begins, and it doesn’t stop. The screen door’s metallic clatter matches our saggy couches and dirty yellow walls. My housemate sighs, rises, and opens the front door, and Kenny’s not-quite-there laugh explodes through the screen.
“Tha’ was a good one, wasn’ it? I got you, babe!” He claps and snorts. “How’re you doin’, man? I know them classes ain’t fun. You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah, I’m doing okay.” John’s lack of enthusiasm rivals Kenny’s abundance.
“That’s good, babe, that’s good.” I can’t see Kenny from the couch, but I hear the screen door screech open. “School’s really somethin’. I shoulda gone to more school, you know? Man, I mixed up in all sorts of bad—but not anymore. No way! I turned my life around. Got Jesus, you know? Now this is all for Him. Just me tryin’ to be good for the Good Lord.”
“That’s good to hear, Kenny.”
“Brothers in Christ, babe! Us two, we is just brothers, man. Brothers. Hey, you got any of those cans or bottles lyin’ around?”
He came in reeking of beer. His face was small and pale and a little pimply, and Janine guessed he was too young to be reeking of beer in public, especially before noon. He was twiggy, and if he had smelled of cigarettes, she would have told him to leave.
“I want a haircut.” He talked loudly and all in a rush. His braces were large in his mouth like a bit.
Daisy howled the whole length of Used Car Road, and Mitch turned down his pre-hunting playlist to let dog excitement and dirt road crunching and old truck rattles fill the cab. After six miles of Daisy yowling and Mitch grinning, we spilled out of his truck and into the pre-dawn cold, and Mitch let Daisy explode from the truck bed. She raced every which way, sucking in all the good scents of sagebrush and dust and Autumn air and replacing them with the foulest farts I’ve smelled in my life, even though Mitch said Daisy’s way past her prime now, and I should’ve been there when she was a pup and ate that whole package of cookies off his dad’s kitchen counter.
She held my father’s hand, though, whenever we crossed a street. If he ever forgot or pretended to forget, she would scold him and trap his hand with her fingers. It is too dangerous, she would say. You need me. You do not know this country.
She met my father during a trip to Mongolia. Neither one told me how an austere billionaire found a poor Mongolian farmer and brought him back to America. They were engaged immediately. She bought him an apartment in the same building as her penthouse, and she paid for his food and transportation and English lessons. All she asked was that he love her completely.
My father tells me my mother was a hero.
My long runs always start at my grandfather’s nursing home. They end, depending on the day, fifteen or twenty or more miles later at the nature preserve across the street.
I visit my grandfather ever Thursday after work. I change into athletic clothes and drive to the nature preserve and, despite the mud and risk of a break-in, I park there instead of the nursing home’s immaculate lot.