Free Tietam Brown by Mick Foley Page B

hoped. Not a single thing about my mother, or what my father did for work. Unless he’d been a boxer.
    I put the book away exactly where I’d found it. I wouldn’t mention coming down, but if he asked me, I’d admit it.
    My heartbeat had just regained its rhythm when the Fairmont came roaring back, a sleek, black Trans-Am close behind.
    My father, who was now walking toward the door with his arm around a blonde, his free hand pointing to the “Boo” sign in our yard, had been gone for thirty minutes, give or take a few, and had come back with a female companion. Where had he gone, Sluts “R” Us? Except the woman was not your standard off-the-rack white-trash specimen, the type I imagined my dad did his best with. No way. She was beautiful, in a shimmering red dress that hugged her hips tight. Classy, too. Or at least as classy as you can be while still getting picked up in record time by a middle-aged bald guy who has fuzzy dice hanging from his piece-of-crap car.
    Then Tietam and his new friend were in the door, at which point my dad ran into the kitchen and brought forth a glass, which he told me to “hold up against the wall, with your ear to the bottom.” Then said, “Listen real close, kid, your dad’s gonna put on a show.”
    â€œThe hell he is,” said the blonde, who turned to my dad with fire in her eyes. “You promised me a good time, not a circus sideshow, Tikki.”
    â€œTietam,” my dad corrected her, then turned on a charm that I can only describe as eerie, and said, “Hey, we will have a good time, baby, I promise, but look at the kid, he’s lonesome and it’s his birthday. He just wants to listen. He won’t even be in our room. He’ll be next door, just innocently . . . listening.”
    â€œPromise?” the blonde said.
    â€œPromise.”
    The blonde grew defensive and said, “I wasn’t talking to you, Tatum.”
    â€œTietam,” my dad said, correcting her again.
    â€œWhatever,” the blonde said with a shrug. “I’m talking about him. No surprises, kid, right?” I nodded. “You’re not going to do anything stupid like try to join in, are you?”
    â€œNo, ma’am.”
    â€œOh southern boy, huh?” she said, sounding a whole lot less repulsed than she had just eleven seconds earlier. I never have considered my accent to be all that strong, but apparently she disagreed. She sashayed over to me and put her thumb on my lip, rubbed it gently, and said, “Southern boy, you go ahead and listen all you want, and I’ll try to put on a little show for you, okay?”
    I nodded, and I’ll admit right now that the thought of Terri Johnson was a long, long way away from me at that particular point.
    â€œHappy birthday, southern boy.”
    â€œThank you, maaoohh.”
    The word “ma’am” is a simple one to say, and a short one as well, but somehow right in the middle of spitting out that short, simple word, the blonde caught me in midsyllable with her lips, and she momentarily explored the inside of my mouth with her tongue.
    â€œYou go upstairs now and listen real close now . . . ya heah?” she said with those last two words done in a pretty convincing southern belle drawl.
    I did as I was told, and went upstairs to my little room and put my glass against the wall so that Tietam Brown could explain the art of the deal.
    â€œSpeak into the tape recorder now,” I heard my dad say. Wait just a second, ‘Speak into the tape recorder’? Was this guy for real? How could you possibly get any lower than tape-recording women licking your ass? Unless of course you are standing next to a wall with your ear on a glass, listening to your father tape-recording women licking his ass. Which is, indeed, a little lower.
    â€œWhat the hell was I thinking?” I said out loud to no one in particular except maybe my conscience, and put the