Scout

Every time I hear someone make over that photograph, I want to punch them in the face.  That damn picture.  I don’t know why I still have it, why I hang it on the wall to look at every day.  I took it years ago for a high school photography class – it took me a good half-hour to get the aperture right, the focus just perfect.  I dodged pickups that seemed like skyscrapers from where I was crouched on the edge of the dirt road.  It’s just the old beat-up millhouse down the road from my house.  Ain’t nothing special, but it won first prize in the county’s Arts and Sciences Festival.  And every time someone sees it, they make over how beautiful it is, and after they find out that’s where I live, how lucky I am to live there.  That’s really why I want to punch them.  They think it’s all roses and buttercups, living out in the middle of nowhere like that.  I hate it here, though.  Almost as much as I hate my daddy.

This is all his fault.  I ain’t never heard of any other 23-year-old girls sitting on their front porches at almost midnight with a shotgun, playing sheriff.  I told Momma, you want protection, get a big dog.  It’s a helluva lot scarier than I am.  But she just handed me the gun and told me to get on the porch. 

I’ve got the midnight shift – Momma’s got to get up for work at five in the morning, and my sister’s got summer school on account of she failed math again this year.  Me, I’m just lucky that I work a late shift at the store in town – I can sleep when Momma leaves, and still get up in plenty of time to get to work on time.  I will admit, though, it’s a lot easier on Momma and Gayle when I’m home.  All of this must sound strange to people that ain’t used to it, but it’s really very simple.  We just work on rotation, like crops. 

After he left, Momma got scared, and I began to notice that as long as daddy was gone, there weren’t no bruises on her.  For the first six months, my sister and me had to sleep in the same bed as Momma, otherwise she’d just lay awake all night long, whimpering and crying like a whipped hound dog.  As time went on, she got better, but she never really let it go.   

Something’s making a ruckus in the woods near the driveway.  Probably a possum or some other kind of critter.  I think about chucking one of the cat’s empty bowls over at it, but then I see something.  It’s a truck, and an old one, coming down our driveway.  It turns around in the side yard and parks facing down the driveway.  I can see the back of it clearly, but not who’s behind the wheel.  Who the hell is this at midnight?  I start to put the rifle down on the porch and go see who’s in the truck, but – that bumper sticker.  That bumper sticker makes me stop.  The radio station that’s written on it hasn’t been on the air for at least ten years – it was my daddy’s favorite radio station.  I see that bumper sticker, and the broken tailgate, and I know. 

Momma was right to be scared.  She was right.  Here he is, just trying to walk back in and take over our lives again.  He’s smiling, but all I can remember is how his breath would smell when he was three sheets to the wind.  He’s calling my name, but it has such a harsh sound to it – like he’s been yelling it for hours, and like I’m gonna get it with the business end of his belt when he finds me.  He’s coming towards me with his arms open, but I swear I can see that one hand’s holding a bottle of Jack and the other’s balled up in a fist.  I don’t think he sees the gun in my hand. 

Nothing I learned at school so far is helping me with this situation, and my thoughts ain’t too clear at the moment, either.  All I’ve really got to go on is my gut, that fight or flight response, and it’s coming through loud and clear. 

I raise the gun and start towards him.  He ain’t smiling now.