She laughed at him.
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Look, baby, just give me half, give me a payment, something to show.” She blew a smoke ring, reached out and broke it with her finger. “Listen, you've got to pay me,” my father said. “This is a desperatesituation.” “Come on in. We'll talk about it,” said the woman. My father went in and the door closed. He was in there for a long time.The sun was really up. When my father came out his 51 hair was hanging down around his face and he was pushing his shirt tailinto his pants. He climbed into the truck. “Did that woman give you the money?” I asked. “That was the last stop,” said my father. “I can’t take it any more. We'llreturn the truck and go home...” I was to see that woman again. One day I came home after school andshe was sitting on a chair in the front room of our house. My mother andfather were sitting there too and my mother was crying. When my mothersaw me she stood up and ran toward me, grabbed me. She took me intothe bedroom and sat me on the bed. “Henry, do you love your mother?” Ireally didn’t but she looked so sad that I said, “Yes.” She took me back intothe other room. “Your father says he loves this woman,” she said to me. “T love both of you! Now get that kid out of here!” I felt that my father was making my mother very unhappy. “YI kill you,” I told my father. “Get that kid out of here!” “How can you love that woman?” I asked my father. “Look at her nose.She has a nose like an elephant!” “Christ!” said the woman, “I don’t have to take this!” She looked at myfather: “Choose, Henry! One or the other! Now!” “But I can’t! I love you both!” “YI kill you!” I told my father. He walked over and slapped me on the ear, knocking me to the floor.The woman got up and ran out of the house and my father went after her.The woman leaped into my father’s car, started it and drove off down thestreet. It happened very quickly. My father ran down the street after herand the car. “EDNA! EDNA, COME BACK!” My father actually caught upwith the car, reached into the front seat and grabbed Edna’s purse. Thenthe car speeded up and my father was left with the purse. “T knew something was going on,” my mother told me. “So I hid in thecar trunk and I caught them together. Your father drove me back here withthat horrible woman. Now she’s got his car.” My father walked back with Edna’s purse. “Everybody into the houseWe went inside and my father locked me in the bedroom 17 52 and my mother and father began arguing. It was loud and very ugly. Thenmy father began beating my mother. She screamed and he kept beatingher. I climbed out a window and tried to get in the front door. It was locked.I tried the rear door, the windows. Everything was locked. I stood in thebackyard and listened to the screaming and the beating. Then the beating and the screaming stopped and all I could hear wasmy mother sobbing. She sobbed a long time. It gradually grew less andless and then she stopped. 53 13 I was in the 4th grade when I found out about it. I was probably one of thelast to know, because I still didn’t talk to anybody. A boy walked up to mewhile I was standing around at recess. “Don’t you know how it happens?” he asked. “What?” “Fucking.” “What's that?” “Your mother has a hole...”—he took the thumb and forefinger of hisright hand and made a circle—“and your father has a dong...”—he tookhis left forefinger and ran it back and forth through the hole. “Then yourfather’s dong shoots juice and sometimes your mother has a baby andsometimes she doesn’t.” “God makes babies,” I said. “Like shit,” the kid said and walked off. It was hard for me to believe. When recess was over I sat in class andthought about it. My mother had a hole and my father had a dong that shotjuice. How could they have things like that and walk around as if everythingwas normal, and talk about things, and then do it and not tell anybody? Ireally felt like puking when I thought that I had started off as my father’sjuice. That night after the lights were out I stayed awake in bed and listened.Sure enough, I began to hear sounds. Their bed began creaking. I couldhear the springs. I got out of bed and tiptoed down to their door andlistened. The bed kept making sounds. 54. Then it stopped. I hurried back down the hall and into my bedroom. I heardmy mother go into the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush and then shewalked out. What a terrible thing! No wonder they did it in secret! And to think,everybody did it! The teachers, the principal, everybody! It was prettystupid. Then I thought about doing it with Lila Jane and it didn’t seem sodumb. The next day in class I thought about it all day. I looked at the little girlsand imagined myself doing it with them. I would do it with all of themand make babies, I’d fill the world with guys like me, great baseball players,home run hitters. That day just before class ended the teacher, Mrs. West-phal, said: “Henry, will you stay after class?” The bell rang and the other children left. I sat at my desk and waited.Mrs. Westphal was correcting papers. I thought, maybe she wants to do itwith me. I imagined pulling her dress up and looking at her hole. “Allright, Mrs. Westphal, I’m ready.” She looked up from her papers. “All right, Henry, first erase all theblackboards. Then take the erasers outside and dust them.” I did as I was told, then sat back down at my desk. Mrs. Westphal justsat there correcting papers. She had on a tight blue dress, she wore largegolden earrings, had a tiny nose and wore rimless glasses. I waited andwaited. Then I said, “Mrs. Westphal, why did you keep me after school?” She looked up and stared at me. Her eyes were green and deep. “I keptyou after school because sometimes you're bad.” “Oh, yeah?” I smiled. Mrs. Westphal looked at me. She took her glasses off and kept staring.Her legs were behind the desk. I couldn’t look up her dress. “You were very inattentive today, Henry.” “Yeah?” “Yes’ is the word. You're addressing a lady!” “Oh, I know...” “Don’t get sassy with me!” “Whatever you say.” Mrs. Westphal stood up and came out from behind her desk.
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