Dear Libby,
Well, Libby, we sure find ourselves in a strange place after all these years. At leest I do. Never thought I’d be this old, and tired, and by myself. Got cancer. They say only a few months. All rite by me, Iv’e been here longer than I deserve any way. So I was exited to here from you. Look, I know I was never close with you. I was very young when we had you, and I was’nt the greatest dad, altho I tried to provide for you and be close with you when I was able. Your mother made it difficult. I was imature and she was even more. And then the murders were very hard on me. So there you go. I need to let you know—and please do’nt lechure me I shoold have done this before. I know I shoold have done this before. But between my gambling problems and I am an alcaholic, I have had truble facing my demons. I know the real killer of that night, and I know it was’nt Ben. I will tell the truth before I die. If you can send me some money, I woold be happy to visit you and tell you more. Five hundred bucks shoold work.
I look forward to hering from you.
Runner “Dad” Day
12 Donneran Rd.
Bert Nolan Home for Men
Lidgerwood, OK
PS Ask somone what the zip code is, I dont know.
I grabbed the thin neck of my table lamp and hurled the whole thing across the room, the lamp soaring three feet until its electrical cord stopped it short and it fell to the floor. I charged at it, yanked it from its socket, and threw it again. It hit the wall, the lampshade bumping off and rolling drunkenly across the floor, the cracked light-bulb jutting out the top like a broken tooth.
“Fuck. You.” I screamed. It was directed toward me as much as my dad. That, at this stage of my life, I was expecting Runner to act correctly was stupid to the point of outrageousness. The letter was just a big long palm stretching out over the miles, asking for a handout, working me as a mark. I’d pay that five hundred and never see Runner again, until I wanted more help or answers, and then he’d work me over another time. His daughter.
I was going down to Oklahoma. I kicked the wall twice, rattling the windows, and was going for a good third windup when the doorbell went off downstairs. I looked outside automatically, but from the second floor saw only the top of a sycamore tree and the dusky sky. I stood frozen, waiting for the visitor to go away, but the doorbell went again, five times in a row, the person on my porch knowing I was home, thanks to my tantrum.
I was dressed like my mom in the winter: big, formless sweatshirt, baggy cheap longjohns, thick itchy socks. I turned to the closet for a second and then decided I didn’t care as the doorbell went again.
My door has no window in it, so I couldn’t get a glimpse of the person. I put the chain on and opened the door a crack to see the back of a head, a mat of tangled tawny hair, and then Krissi Cates turned around to face me.
“Those old women over there are kinda rude,” she said, and then gave a showboaty wave, the kind I’d given them the week before, the broad, fuck-you wave. “I mean, hello’? anyone ever tell them it’s not polite to stare?”
I kept looking at her through the chain, feeling like a little old lady myself.
“I got your address from the—when you were at the club,” she said, bending down to reach my eye level. “I don’t actually have that money for you yet. Uh, but I was hoping to talk to you. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you that night. I drink way, way too much.” She said it without embarrassment, the way someone would say they have a wheat allergy. “Your place is really hard to find. And I actually haven’t been drinking. But I’ve just never been good at directions. Like, if I reach a fork in the road, and I can take a right or a left, I will choose whichever is wrong. Like, I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. But I don’t. I don’t know why that is.”
She kept talking like that, adding a sentence and then another, without asking to be let in, and that was probably why I decided to let her in.
She walked in respectfully, hands clasped, the way a well-brought up girl would, trying to find something to compliment in my run-down place, her eyes finally alighting on the box of lotions by the TV set.
“Oh, I’m a total lotion fiend too—I have a great pear-scented one I’m really into now, but have you tried udder cream? It’s what they used to put on dairy cows? Like on their udders? And it’s so smooth, you can get it at a drugstore.”
I shook my head loosely, and offered her coffee, even though I had only a few granules of instant left.
“Mmmmm, I hate to say it, but you have anything to drink? Long drive.”
We both pretended it was the long drive, like two hours in a car would make anyone need some liquor. I went to the kitchen and hoped a can of Sprite would appear in the back of the fridge.