Uncivil Seasons Read Online Free PDF

slipper out of the snow. “Come on, Charlene. Let’s all go on back in the house and see what the problem is.”
    She had a high, twanging voice that got away from her when she raised it. “Y’all got to be crazy out of your minds! I want you to arrest his ass and get him out of here!” She shook both fists at her husband. “Goddamn fuckhead!”
    Cuddy said, “Now, don’t talk dirty out in the front yard in your nightgown, Charlene.” He, Preston, and I went inside, and finally she followed us, already with a cigarette in her glossy purple mouth.
    Local news was loud on the color TV, and Kenny Rogers was simultaneously singing a love song loud out of stereo speakers on the mantel above a fireplace that was used as a trash can. The Pope living room looked like a K-mart warehouse, like a cheap motel that didn’t care who came there or what they did there, and didn’t bother cleaning up afterward. Thin, green carpeting was oil-slick with grime and puddled with stains, and cluttered with bent Coke and beer cans, ashtrays, country-and-western tapes, electric drills, balled-up bags of junk like corn puffs and barbecued potato chips, and God knows what else. Foam stuffing poked out of the black vinyl couch, where a skinny orange dog lay on a beach towel. One shade was ripped in half and there were chunks gouged out of the plaster. On two walls were textured, color photograph portraits of various Pope boys and their brides, the boys in rented baby-blue tuxedoes with black piping. On another wall was an auto parts shop poster of a hefty blonde, naked and knee-deep in surf. On the floors along the walls were stacks of car stereos, CB systems, about seventy cartons of cigarettes, and five televisions—one with the screen smashed. I said, “So these are your Popes.”
    Cuddy said, “My, my, this is
messy
.” Two windows were broken and gunsmoke lay thick in the air. He poked open another door and peeked in; he looked down the halls and tilted over to see up the stairs.
    Preston picked a revolver up off the floor and handed it to me. “There ain’t nothing in it,” he said defensively.
    Charlene shrieked, “That’s right, you’d still be shooting if there was!”
    Wiry and sullen, Preston came at her, snow still white in his beard and on his jean jacket. She backed away, making faces. He said, “I wasn’t shooting at her, I was just shooting.”
    “Cleaning your gun?” I asked.
    “Blowing off. You know.”
    I said, “Not exactly.”
    Charlene said, “He is so
stupid
, I can’t stand it another second.”
    “Well, let me tell you this, this bitch here is a cunt.”
    “You dumb prickhead!”
    They started toward each other again, and Cuddy slid between and elbowed them both. He asked Preston, “Where’s everybody else, where’s Graham and Dickey?”
    “Greensboro. That’s where she thought I was too.”
    Charlene hissed back at him. “I came over here to pack up my own personal belongings that don’t belong to you.”
    I said, “In your robe?”
    “I was getting ready to take a bath. I can use the tub if I want to, I guess!”
    Preston was yelling again. “The hell you can, you can’t use nothing in this whole goddamn house, ’cause none of it’s yours, ’cause the goddamn water belongs to
me
and the goddamn TV belongs to me too!” He spun around and jerked out the TV cord, which just left the Kenny Rogers tape going at high volume.
    “I’m leaving,” she said.
    “You’re not leaving,” he said.
    “Yes, I am too!”
    “Go ahead and try!”
    “Well,” Cuddy said, “why don’t you at least go throw on a few clothes, Charlene.” He turned her toward the stairs in the hall. “What with all the windows broken, it’s kind of drafty.” Actually, they had the oil heat up to about ninety degrees; even with the ventilation, the place was so hot I decided to take off my overcoat and brush out some of the slush.
    Cuddy put his hand on Preston’s shoulder. “Preston, you need to calm down.