Free 3 A Brewski for the Old Man by Phyllis Smallman Page B

taken to an art form, but he’s been strangely unaffected by them. When I looked at him for signs of change there were very few. He’d looked much the same throughout my whole life, a few more wrinkles from the sun and the cigarette that always hung from the corner of his mouth, but that’s about all. Sometimes I felt that one day I’d pass him in aging and while I grew old, he’d do a Dorian Gray and stand still. Only now was grey beginning to show in his dark hair.
    Still dressed head to toe in denim and still wearing a black straw cowboy hat pushed back on his head, he was still handsome. No denying it. A parade of women had been taken in by his chiseled features and laughing black eyes. He’d never worried much about those women wising up and moving on, knowing there was another one in the next bar, truck stop or marina. Ruth Ann was the only one he couldn’t seem to get over. In the past he’d gone to great lengths to get her back, even stopped drinking and catting around for a while. Then he’d get back to his old ways and Ruth Ann would throw him out again. Very entertaining, although ultimately tiring, but even that seemed to have died down.
    He had turned sixty the summer before but was still all bone and sinew. His dark skin stayed the same color no matter what the time of year, but then he was outside all year round, seldom making any concession to the weather except to pull on a jean jacket if the temperature dipped below fifty. He was as dark and mean as the feral pigs he loved to hunt illegally in the scrub brush out around the state park east of Sarasota. Every Thanksgiving and again in March he’d have a pork barbecue. The pigs went on a spit over a hardwood fire early in the morning and cooked all day. People started dropping in around three, the women bringing potato salads and desserts, the men carrying twelve packs of beer and some lawn chairs. They’d sit themselves down and drink and laugh and make a little music while they watched the spit turn. When Tully decided the pigs were done, two men would lift the spit onto a scrubbed picnic table and they’d begin carving them up. Served on a fresh bun with some brown mustard, it’s as sweet and tender a meal as you’ll ever get.
    I gave Tully a thin cautious smile and said, “That’s good, glad to hear you’re doing fine.” I turned back to the clerk, holding out my hand for the change and grabbing my bottle of water, anxious to get away from Tully. I shoved the change in the pocket of my jeans as Tully reached out and picked up the beer.
    “Well, see ya,” I said and walked.
    Tully beat me to the door. “Sherri, how’s ’bout we get a little bite?”
    I looked at him, trying to guess what he wanted, to judge if he was about to tell me some real bad news or if it was just a friendly offer. Yeah, right — as if. I knew it wasn’t going to be the last option. I could only hope for a moderately bad crisis, if such a thing existed.
    “Okay,” I agreed cautiously, looking for the open pit about to swallow me.
    “I’ll drive.” He pointed to the edge of the lot. “Park Jimmy’s truck over there.”
    “It’s my truck,” I snapped. It had been Jimmy’s until he died but it was mine now. Silly, but Clay always called it Jimmy’s truck, making a big deal of it and always wanting me to get something different. Another little sliver of annoyance in our splintery lives together, and I’d grown stubborn about getting rid of it, not that I had any deep attachment to it and certainly not to Jimmy, like Marley keeps insisting. I just don’t like being told what to do. Giving in just isn’t my style. Tully raised an eyebrow and said, “Fine, your truck.”
    I parked the truck and walked over to where he stood waiting for me, watching to make sure I really was coming and wasn’t going to slip away at the last second — such a close and trusting family.
    Tully also drove a pickup but it wasn’t a pretty little red one like Jimmy’s.