Free Retribution by John Fulton Page A

woke and could no longer speak. Benny was in front, working a sort of head bandage out of napkins for the stranger’s wound. He had to hold the man’s head to keep it still and could smell the stranger’s exhaustion and the stranger’s blood, which were warm smells. But they were cooling down, getting cold now. The napkins didn’t work. They made the man’s head look white and papery, too fragile to be fixed. “Momma,” Benny said, “this isn’t Daddy. You know this isn’t Daddy.” He put the stranger’s head down again and it fell off the seat rest and leaned over the bloody glass of the side window. “We’ve got to go to the hospital, Momma.”
    They came into a small town, driving too fast. When they turned corners, the deadweight of the man’s head rose and smacked the glass. “Momma,” Benny said, “find a hospital, please.” She was looking for something. When she found it, she pulled over and told Benny to come with her and for Bo to watch Daddy and Black in the car. She sounded exhilarated and frantic. “This is going to work for us, boys. After I’m done, Daddy’s never leaving us again.” She counted the bundle of money, pocketed it, then walked Benny into the beauty parlor, holding his hand tightly enough to make the joints in his fingers crack and hurt.
    The shop was a bright pink color inside and stank of hair sprays, perfumes, things acidic and barely breathable, of suds and warm water and of the stiff hair of two old ladies who sat under large jug-shaped dryers, each reading a magazine as the machines worked on them. Bright yellow light-bulbs surrounded all the mirrors and long fluorescent cathode tubes buzzed white light down from the ceiling. There were no shadows in the room, and all the objects—the barber’s chairs, the bottles and tubes of soap, Benny, his mother, the two old ladies, and the magazines they read—were doubled, tripled, multiplied in the mirrors. Benny was glad to be holding his mother’s hand now, because he felt dizzy in this bright circus of images. The only hole in it was the glass door of the entrance, through which Benny could see Bo sitting in the car with the handgun to the stranger’s head.
    The hairdresser entered the room through a curtain in the back. She was a huge woman, wearing a purple-colored barber’s coat. Her hair was high and long, the same color of reddish purple as her coat. Her makeup looked fresh, still wet on her face. She said, “Come over here, honey.” She sat Benny’s mother down in one of the pink thrones and he sat behind them. His mother’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of her dirty face and the dry mess of her hair. The hairdresser handed her some tissues and said, “We’re gonna polish you up, honey. Don’t you worry. You’re gonna feel better.” She lowered his mother’s head into the sink now, shampooed her and soaped her face. The large woman was looking at Benny. “Your boy have a nosebleed or something? It’s amazing how much boys can bleed. Mine scrape their knees, cut themselves, hit their heads. Bleed and bleed. Nothing hurts them.”
    She left for a minute to release the old women from the dryers. One of them was waving a bony hand at Benny and he felt himself waving back. “So cute,” the old woman said. They paid and hobbled off, looking behind them at Benny and his mother.
    Then the large woman was standing in front of Benny with a steaming washcloth in her hands. The cloth was incredibly white. “Put your arms out, sweetie,” she said. It was hard to breathe in the woman’s perfume, and her beauty—her large hair and painted face—seemed too bright, electric, almost dangerous. But the hairdresser’s plump hands were forceful and warm as they squeezed his fingers. One of them gripped his shoulder and she wiped his face in the warm cloth.