Page 55 of Small Town Beast 2: Saverin's Duet

“Even for a rascal like me?”

“You’re more bark than bite, Abi.”

“Don’t tell the boys that. I have to be a bastard from here on out. Aw!”

“What?” she said, startled.

“I wish you drove as well as you shoot, Lorraine.”

“Excuse me?”

“You nearly run over that possum.”

“What possum? There was a possum?” Lorrie slammed on the brakes.

Absalom groaned and rubbed his neck. “Want me to drive?”

“No, look! We’re almost there.”

Absalom’s trailer was small and tidy in comparison to his neighbors. He kept a vegetable garden in front, and a peach tree he had carefully been pruning for the past two years despite its refusal to bud. Something shaggy and yellow dislodged itself from the porch and came trotting up as the car approached.

“Is that your dog?” Lorrie exclaimed in disbelief. “He came back?”

“Sure is,” said Absalom, equally surprised. “The rotten sucker. He had me worried sick, but does he care? Look how fat he’s got!”

“Here, Lucky! Here boy!” Lorrie called excitedly, honking the horn.

The dog bolted up to the car as they climbed out and started chasing his stumpy tail in excitement. Absalom knelt and scratched his shaggy ruff. “The little bastard. I adopt him. I bathe him, I pick all them ticks off him, get him that flea stuff, get him snipped, buy all that fancy chow, and what does he do but run off and leave me there holding my ass?”

“Aw, did Absalom want to keep you locked up in that trailer, boy? Yes he did. Absalom is a big ol’ meanie who needs to lighten up, right? Good boy.”

“Yesterday I find him halfway across town, cozying up to Saverin Bailey,” Absalom said. “I try calling him and he ignores me. Won’t stay inside. Won’t stay in a kennel. He comes for his food and then he’s gone with the wind. What’s the point of a dog that don’t listen?” Lucky yelped in happiness and Absalomtackled him gently to the ground. Man and dog spent a minute or so rolling around while Lorrie laughed in spite of herself.

Finally Abi got up and snapped his fingers at Lucky, who followed him happily inside after he unlocked the door. But he didn’t let the dog past the screen-door landing. “Not today, my friend. You might got fleas or something. Gotta give you a rinse, I think.”

Lorrie snorted a laugh and followed with her pecan pie and tote bag. At the doorway her good humor died a little; she held her breath, wondering if she would see evidence of Abi’s new bride all over the trailer. Wondering what she would do in that case. Throw something else at his head?

But the trailer was exactly as she remembered. Not a whiff different. She saw no signs another woman had been busily about, redecorating.

“Sorry, Lucky,” she told the disappointed dog, who gave her a woebegone look as she left him in the landing. But then he started scratching his ear a little too vigorously. Fleas indeed.

Inside, she set the pie down in the kitchen, still on the lookout for feminine touches that had not been there before. “You always keep it so clean, Abi.”

“Home sweet home,” her man grunted. He went straight to the couch and sank into it, holding his head. Then he leapt right back up again with a curse and went to the kitchen, passing Lorrie on her way to the living room for further inspection. Lorrie heard the sound of dog food hitting the bowl, the landing door opening, and Absalom going, “Sit. Stay. Leave it. Yes, good boy.”

When he came back inside, Lorrie joined Absalom on the couch and put her arms around him. “The prodigal son has returned,” she quipped.

“I kept a bowl of food out for him every night hopin’ he’d come back. One time I foundfourraccoons circled around itfeasting like hogs. I come out and you know one of the little menaces starts running off with the bowl? Holding it with both hands and running like— like—” Absalom snorted and Lorrie dissolved into giggles.

“Just keep Lucky in here, then,” she suggested.

“Hmph. Maybe I should get him a buddy so he doesn’t mind staying here alone. A cat or something.”

In the following silence they looked at each other and said at the same time, “That’s a terrible idea.”

Absalom laughed again and drew Lorrie against him, kissing the top of her hair.

She turned on the radio, away from the lotto recap of the night before to the slow country station. To those soft tracks she rubbed Absalom’s shoulders out until he made a deep low sound of satisfaction.

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