Free When the Saints by Sarah Mian Page A

I’ve given up on her, tell you the truth. Ma watches them kids and they seem like they’re doing all right. I help out some, and Poppy sends money when she’s been gone a while.”
    “Not this time.”
    “Well.” Jackie sits up straighter. “Jewell won at bingo last week. I’ll borrow some if I have to.”
    “How’d you nab a good girl like Jewell?”
    “She’s from Fiddle Bay, came up to Jubilant to see her cousin.I was driving by and seen this tight denim ass walking into the bar, ran in after it.”
    “Well, there’s a heartwarming bedtime story for the baby.”
    “By the time she found out I was bad news, we’d already soaked the sheets a few times. It was too late then, she was hooked. But I ain’t telling my baby boy none of that.”
    “How do you know it’s a boy?”
    “Every one of them has a pecker so far. Bad little fuckers, but some good-looking. There’s only three of them, by the way. Kim was just putting you on.”
    “Three different mothers, I suppose.”
    “Carla, Chrissie, Cora Lee—the three Cs. All batshit crazy.”
    A house appears between the trees. The family who lives there is sitting out in lawn chairs facing the road instead of the sunset on the lake behind them. I wish I was one of them, all settled in with a lapdog and a Corona. One of them points at the truck and I imagine they’re playing a game, trying to guess where people are going. I wonder if it would occur to anyone we’re a long-lost brother-sister duo trying to track down a missing hooker.
    “It’s time I got a real job,” I say out loud.
    “You never had a job?”
    “I spent four years in Raspberry. No one hires juvenile delinquents who don’t even have a social insurance number.”
    “What?” Jackie turns. “I thought you moved to easy street.”
    I shake my head no and he keeps staring. When we were kids, the older sister of one of Jackie’s friends got sent to Raspberry. Cher was a typical small-town bad girl, too cool for school but not so tough you wouldn’t bum a light off her and slip it in yourpocket. When she came back months later, she’d shaved the words FUCK OFF into one side of her head and choked out her boyfriend with his belt when she found out he’d cheated.
    “I’ve worked before,” I say. “Just not for a paycheque. I cleaned motel rooms, harvested pot, was a tattoo guinea pig, things like that. One summer, the Tilt-A-Whirl operator at the Bill Lynch Show used to let me take over for him when he went to jerk off. He only paid me in ride tickets, but he’d give me a whole whack. I’d go out to the parking lot and sell them half price.”
    “Tabby, what in God’s name is a tattoo guinea pig?”
    “Some guy was starting up a tattoo business and he used me to test out different inks and designs. I got a few on my ass that I’m trying to hide from West.”
    “West? That the bartender?”
    “Yeah.”
    Jackie looks at me, shakes his head and snorts. “Jesus Christ. You know you can’t put any of that on a resumé, right?”
    “Oh, come on. I don’t have to get specific. I’ll say I’ve been a canine handler, a gardener, a carnival relief worker and an artist’s assistant. They want my resumé, I’ll bend over.”
    “Carnival relief worker.” He grins. “I think I missed you a whole lot.”
    The sun dives behind the trees and the clouds start to roll themselves into in a giant ball. In the half-light, the two-lane highway shimmers.
    “Look at that,” I say, pointing. “So pretty.”
    Jackie squints ahead. “That’s busted glass. From drunk-driving idiots.”
    “Oh.”
    He taps his knuckles on the windowpane then sighs and takes a bag of chewing tobacco out of his pocket. “Don’t tell Jewell. This shit was supposed to help me quit smoking. Now I can’t stop.” He paws in the bag and scoops a bit under his lip.
    We drive on in silence while I debate how to bring up Daddy.
    “So, what was it like at home after I left?”
    “Same as when you were around.