Free Facing the Music by Larry Brown

she said. They had her tied when I came to. I had to go home finally. He didn’t hear me walk up to the car. The porch light was on when we pulled in and neither of us said anything. I figured she’d probably scream. I wiped my forearm across my eyes. He was probably abouttwenty. Maybe it wasn’t even my baby. “When you going to tell your mother?” she said. I didn’t know what I was going to tell my mother. You could hear that rain drumming on the roof while you were taking your clothes off and then when you were naked together on the backseat, with the doors locked, it was just the best thing you could want. Down behind the fence there were squirrels and deer. They used to live beside her. I didn’t know what to do. Give up my whole life for her and the baby? I walked up on the porch and knocked on the door and heard her mother tell me to come in. I got her in my car and the first thing she did was pull my hand up her dress. She wasn’t rude, but I could see that she just didn’t want to talk. By then I couldn’t do anything. He must have brought the whiskey because she never kept liquor in the house. “You bout two seconds away from gettin a bullet through your head,” he said. But I wasn’t ready to marry her. Then she squatted down, like she was going to pee on the ground. It was where we always went. She said she didn’t want to get married. We held hands. “Ya’ll done lost your fuckin minds,” he said. “I want to,” I said. It was cold outside. I parked my car in the woods and walked back down the road quickly, then went over a barbed-wire fence and down through a pasture. I know he was thinking about that night and what he’d done to us. She had her hand on my dick. I looked at Julie. “Don’t,” she said. That woman always seemed so hurt. I didn’t know what to say. “Hell, she wants it,” he said. We’d rest for ten minutes, kissing, and then we’d start again. I wanted to tell my mother and ask her what I should do. We pulled out finally and headed out of town. This night was a night we weregoing to talk. I thought I was going to wreck the car. You can’t do without it. I couldn’t see anything. We talked some more. She’d take her nails and scrape me so hard I’d almost tell her to stop. The rifle fell into the mud. “What are you waiting on?” she said. I got to be an expert at getting fully dressed sitting down. I was afraid she’d get up and walk in there and see us on the couch, but it didn’t stop us. The first boy had her by the arms and he was dragging her toward a tree. “Tell her to open the door,” he said. I’d always thought that having kids was something you should give some thought to. There’s nothing blacker than woods at night. You could have her whenever you wanted her. There were a lot of people on the square when I cut through. She unbuckled my belt and unzipped my pants. We ate in the parking lot. We had to hurry because the movie was about to start. And then we said we didn’t care what it was as long as it was healthy. When I went to bed, I pulled the covers all the way up over my head and saw it all again, every word and every sound and every raindrop. I didn’t want her to have an abortion. I guess it was kind of like when you’re little, and you’ve done something your mother or your father is going to whip you for, but you’re hoping that if you beg hard enough they won’t. I rolled the window down. He ran off into the woods with a crazy little cry. I got up quickly and went to meet her. “You get out of that car,” the boy with the rifle said. He sounded drunk. I took a drink of it. I like adventure. It surprised me when she said she did. I think she felt guilty about the night we got rained out on our fishing trip. She slid up on the console next to me and we left. The second one turned around