The Homecoming

Bobby was sitting at the corner of the bar in the same place as last year when Arlene came in. He didn't look up, but she knew him by the shabby plaid jacket that he wore. The snow must have muffled the sound of her tires in the parking lot and the thick, concrete-block walls blocked the light from her headlights.

"Hey, Bobby," she said, almost quietly.

Bobby raised up and turned his head toward her. The greasy bartender frowned at her with a disgusted look, then turned and continued wiping the beer cooler with a stained, gray rag.

Bobby's expression didn't seem to change, but there was a welcome tone in his voice. "You're early. I didn't expect you for a couple more hours."

"There wasn't hardly anybody in the store so they let a bunch of us go," she told him. "How many you had?" she indicated the beer in front of him.

"Three..."

She gave him a steady look as if she was wondering whether to believe him.

"Really..." he told her, "three. I been cuttin' down since I talked to th' doctor last year."

"You can't drive, though. Where's your truck?"

"It's okay. It's in the company parkin' lot. It won't get towed 'r nothin'. They're used t' it there."

"You wanna go?"

"Yeah," he said, "there ain't nothin' here."

"Well, come on," she said. Her thick accent came through each word, pronouncing "well" as if it had two syllables and saying "on" with a long 'O.'

Arlene stood next to Bobby as he stood up from the stool ready to help him walk if he needed. He didn't move quickly, but didn't appear to have more than a beer buzz and she considered that he might have told the truth about how many he had. He tugged the bent, heavy metal door open and held it, letting her walk outside and then letting it creak shut and slam with a thud.

The air was cold. Wet snow was falling, slow, but thick, all over the parking lot and her dented car.

"You still drivin' that same ol' rust bucket?" Bobby asked when he saw the car sitting alone in the parking lot with flaking paint and a layer of snow already collecting on the windshield.

"I know it's a mess, but it's got a good engine. I can depend on it."

The car door opened with a loud creak and showed a huge, irregular patch of gray primer. She sat heavily in the driver's seat and leaned across to pull the handle on the passenger door from the inside. He waited there without tugging at the door knowing it would only open from the inside. The entire door popped loudly, sagged a little on it's hinges, and he stepped inside, slamming the door solidly as he sat down.

"How's Oma?" he asked her.

"She's still bitchy as ever. She went to Nora's."

"Don't she know you're here?"

She worked her mouth a little as she tried to fit the key in the ignition and considered the answer at the same time.

"I think she does. She acts pissed off, but she didn't say nothin'. She pro'ly figgers I'm here. She knows I came last year."

The car started and the engine missed, belching smoke until it came to full speed. She put the car in gear and backed away from the building, then drove out of the parking lot and onto the empty two-lane road.

"It's too bad she never will talk to me," he said.

"I don't know why she's like that." Her brow furrowed a deep memory and her voice softened a little. "You never did do nothin'."

"It's pro'ly what I didn' do that pisses her off."

She drove a few seconds in silence. "She didn' do nothin' neither," she said, softly.

They drove past a vast factory parking lot, empty except for a lone, beaten truck covered in snow, and continued up the highway for more than a mile of flat featureless fields. A few scrubby trees and a post leaning at a forty-five degree angle stood alone in a snow bank where a gravel road intersected the highway. The street sign had been knocked off the top of the post more than a year ago and had never been repaired.

Bobby spoke up again. "You remember where to turn?"

"Yeah, I think so. Tell me if I'm about to miss it."

Arlene turned off of the highway onto the road next to the post, drove a few hundred yards and turned again up a muddy, rutted, dirt road. The car seemed lost and alone in a gray haze of falling snow and darkness. After a few minutes she came to a dented mobile home standing by itself in the muddy field with nothing to block the wind.

Bobby had to shove the car door hard to open it. By the time he came out of the car she was rummaging in the back seat for plastic containers and a plate covered in tin foil. The foil covered plate balanced on top of the stack while she slammed the car door, her breath misting in the cold air while flakes of snow landed in her dirty, blond hair. She proffered the plate.

"I made a plate of those brownies you like," she said.

He smiled for the first time.

"Did you get anything to eat?" she asked.

"I stopped after work and got a box o' chicken at Winn-Dixie an' some slaw. It's in th' ice-box."

"I love their chicken."

"Yeah, I know."

He lifted a plate from her and stomped up the rickety steps of the decrepit, wooden deck. His key came out and flipped forward into the doorknob with practiced ease and the door popped open. He left it open after he stepped inside so Arlene followed him. He turned on the tiny light over the kitchen sink and put the plate on the counter. The kitchen was bare, but scrubbed uncommonly clean in contrast to the overflowing trashcan next to the table in the middle of the room. In spite of the spotless counter and stove the trailer seemed dull and dingy, the cheap flooring of the kitchen and the trashy, green, shag carpet of the attached bedroom mottled and dull.

Bobby turned to look at Arlene as she put her plastic containers on the table. She didn't seem to move like a woman. The baggy, non-descript slacks fell below the thick-soled shoes and disappeared upward in her quilted winter jacket. Her gender was betrayed by a tuft of frizzy hair that had come untucked from the back of her coat but was held in check by a brown, plastic barrette.

"I brought a big plate of ham and a dish of potatoes," she said.

He studied her.

"You want a beer?" he asked.

"I can't drink, the doctor gave me some pills to take to help me sleep."

"You still seein' that doctor?"

"Yeah...I don't think I'll ever be much better. He's helped me a little, though."

Bobby looked away from her out the window. "I keep wonderin' if someday you won't be comin'...if you was gonna call me an' say you got married."

He sat down in a chair next to a tiny television and turned it on.

"There ain't nobody that'd marry me. Nobody wouldn' understand. You're the only one that could understand," she said. She stood looking at him, sitting in the chair.

"Bobby, do you want t' come t' bed?"

He looked at her as if he hadn't expected her to ask; as if the idea hadn't occurred to him.

"Is it alright?"

"Yeah," she said and hesitated, "I want to."

Bobby seemed a little confused about this for a moment, but then stood up. Arlene unzipped her coat and stepped out of her shoes, then walked over to the cheap frame bed in the corner of the living room. She shed the coat onto the bed and began unbuttoning her shirt, turned away as if she didn't want him to see. Bobby stood across the room from her and pulled off his wet, muddy boots, dropping them to the floor. He removed his jacket and sweatshirt with the same air as undressing for a doctor's exam. He pulled his pants off before she could remove her blouse and he left them in a wadded pile on the floor. Sitting on the corner of the bed without looking at Arlene, Bobby took off his boxer shorts and socks, turned off the television, then scooted onto the bed and slipped under the covers.

Arlene turned toward the bed and slid her pants off onto the floor. She tenderly looked at him laying motionless on his back on the bed as she unsnapped her bra and let if fall off, then slid an unflattering pair of large panties to the floor. She was neither too thin nor too fat, but had the lack of sex appeal of a woman that fails to keep herself. Her skin was pale. Her breasts were nicely shaped, but soft and hanging. Her face was pleasant and her lips were full, but she showed no trace of make-up.

The room was cold. Arlene slipped into bed next to him as Bobby looked into her face with something that wasn't quite excitement, but wasn't quite fear. She was careful not to pin his arms as she spread herself on top of him and he lay uncomfortably still and stiff. She lay against him, pressed herself to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

"I washed my hair before I left. I used the strawberry shampoo you like," she stated it as a fact, rather than an offering.

"I love your hair."

He pressed his face to the side of her head and let her hair brush his cheek, breathing in the clean scent. After she held him for a few minutes she reached down to take him in her hand and guided him inside of her. He didn't try to hold her as she moved against him softly. He closed his eyes and began to lose himself in the smell of her hair as she rubbed against him gently and sighed softly. Gradually her movement became more insistent; her sighs turning to gasps as he held his body ridged and breathed heavily into her hair. She sobbed suddenly and gasped for breath. A tear ran down her cheek and fell onto his face. He ventured to touch her knees, afraid that she would push his hands away, but she didn't seem bothered and continued to move softly again him. He gasped for breath like a drowning man and arched his back tightly, then relaxed, breathing heavily. She brushed her hair from his face.

"I don't never remember how much I need that until we do it," he said.

"Kiss me. Bobby, kiss me."

"Is it alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think it's alright."

She kissed him, softly pressing her lips to him and he touched his lips to her face. She nestled against him and cried softly, a few tears running down her cheeks onto him.

"Someday I want to come stay with you," she told him.

"Maybe. Maybe someday...maybe you could."

They lay together like two children that could only trust each other until Bobby fell asleep. She eased herself off of him and out of bed and found her purse, produced a bottle of pills and took out two. She found a cup in the cabinet, and swallowed them with a gulp of water. After a trip to his tiny bathroom she came back and slid under the blanket with him. He suddenly thrashed awake with a cry, but she whispered to him.

"It's just me, Bobby," she said, put her hand on him and eased him back onto the bed. "It's just me...it's okay...go back to sleep."

They settled back into bed and she nestled against him. He closed his eyes again and she put her head on his shoulder. In a few minutes he was drowsing again, but she rested her head on his chest for thirty minutes or more before she fell into a dead, dreamless sleep.

Bobby woke after about an hour and slid out of the bed. After using the bathroom he pulled his shorts back on and wandered the room, looking alternately out of the windows for thirty minutes before he came back to bed and lay next to her. She didn't stir.

Bobby slept for an hour at a time; waking, wandering the trailer and looking out each window until he became drowsy, then pulled himself back into bed next to Arlene. Near dawn he sat in the chair looking out at a lighted window far across the field in a grove of trees. The snow had turned into gray drizzle and was washing the snow away. The half-light played across the room and he became aware that she was awake and looking at him. She lay on the bed in the same position, but her eyes were softly on him, watching.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Bobby," she whispered to him softly.

He looked across the room at her soft body, lying gently in his bed.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Sis," he said.