squared away is sometimes irresistible. We need to get home,
and not just so we can keep Jesse safe. Buying the Bambi
tapped out nearly half my reserves. Then we’ve got a charter
plane to pay for, and I can’t even imagine the hospital bill.
I’m not sure Jesse has health insurance.” I stared down at
the bottle of beer in my hand. “We may have to start
drinking PBR.”
“That’s a little extreme. In this family, we drink Shiner
Bock, made in Shiner, Texas.”
We both sat back, let a waitress set a plastic basket of
fried hush puppies on the table. “You boys can snack on
these while we’re fixing your supper.” She gave me a curious
look, thinking I might be a movie star, one of the uglier ones,
because for sure she had seen my face before. And not just
my face, I thought, and hoped she was kept too busy
delivering food to think on it.
“I can always get a job,” I said. “At least make sure we
get caught up on the bills.”
“Didn’t Jesse sell his painting to those museum people?”
“He said so, but you can be sure Sam took his cut, and
then the IRS was right in line behind him. And he’s been
staying in New York and DC, doing whatever promotion Sam
arranged. I can’t imagine there is a whole lot left. And I
would bet he has no idea how much there is, or even where
it is.”
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“If they gave him anything at all.” I looked up at this. “I
got the feeling he contracted with them to do the whole
series of eight cowboy angels. Though how in the hell he is
going to top this one is beyond me.”
I closed my eyes, took a long swallow of Shiner Bock,
and ate a hush puppy. “Hey, those are good!”
He tried one. “Damn! Somebody in the back’s frying
hush puppies in lard. This is my kind of place.”
I closed my eyes again, rested my head in my hands.
Lard? Did the old man have any idea what his cholesterol
reading was?
“Lorenzo, you don’t need to worry about all this.” I
looked up at him. “I may have been retired for twenty years,
but I love a simple life.” He stared at my blank face. “And I’m
still getting royalties from my comics, which are running
today in the
Stars and Stripes
. We’ve got enough, unless
Jesse tries to buy the Queen Mary to float out back in the
Rio Grande.”
I smiled at him. “First thing the guys did when we got
the paper was open up the
Stars and Stripes
and look for
Jarhead
. Then they looked for
Devil Dog
.”
“Son, you need to do what you came to Marathon to do.
Get your comic off the ground. We seem to have derailed
somewhat, these last few months, but let’s keep our eye on
the ball here. Let’s do what you came here to do, and we’ll
just both batten down the hatches and work through
whatever Hurricane Jesse blows our way. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” I ate another hush puppy and thought it
might be the best food in the world, bar none. Then I sat
back while our waitress loaded up the table with ribs and
steaks and coleslaw and potato salad.
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When we were leaving, I asked the waitress if we could
take a small order of ribs and potato salad back with us, for
my friend in the hospital. She must have put it together
then, because when she brought the food out, she gave me a
little hug, said to remember that Jesus loved me. “And tell
that boy in the hospital too.”
“Thank you. I will.”
“My son’s in the Army. He’s somewhere over there. I
don’t know where exactly.”
The Original put his arm around her waist, gave her a
squeeze. “It’s the mothers suffer the most.”
“Yes, sir, that’s true.” She handed him a little brown
bag, grease staining the bottom. “Here’re a couple of extra
hush puppies. I saw how much you liked them.”
He tipped his hat, strolled out of the place with his old
back a little straighter. Texas charm. Cowboy angels, they
were everywhere.
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Epilogue
THE house was full of people. We were having a launch
party, because
Devil Dogs at War
was live in a hundred
papers across the country, and Uncle George had most of a
pig on the barbecue pit in the back yard.
Jesse had finished the second painting, and he called
this one
American Angels
. It was as different from the first
painting as a painting could be, and the museum was
worried. “No, you’re going to love it, I promise.” He was on
the phone to Sam. “Yes, he’s in it. Nope, fully dressed. Look,
Sammy, I can’t paint that one again, you know? I just….
You’ve got to trust me.” He looked at me, shook his empty
beer bottle in my direction. “You’ll get it when the paint
dries. A week, okay?”
He closed the phone, and I handed him another beer.
“Sammy said give you some hugs and kisses from him.”
“Yeah, I bet.” I hadn’t said a word about Sam continuing
to represent Jesse’s paintings. After some private soul-
searching, I thought maybe Jesse was right, and I just had
some extra mad I hadn’t used up. And I was trying not to act
controlling.
But I still thought Sammy was a fuckhead, and
trying to crawl back into Jesse’s bed.
“Can I see it?”
“Yeah. It’s out in the studio.”
We walked out to the porch, and Anna-Maria, Miguel’s
little daughter, saw me and came running, her arms raised.
“Uncle Mary!” She was four.
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She adored me, and I had been Uncle Mary since we’d
posed for Jesse’s painting. I spent a lot of time carrying her
around Marathon on my shoulders, and I was starting to
understand a little better Jesse’s blind spot for Sadie. “Hey,
apple blossom! Ready to go see our painting?” I swung her
up on my shoulders.
American Angels
was long instead of tall, and it showed
a wide sweep of Texas countryside, the verdant and beautiful
hill country. A group of people were having a picnic under a
pecan tree. There was Uncle George, The Original, me, Anna-
Maria, and Miguel. Anna-Maria was wearing an adult-sized
Army fatigue cap, with the double silver bars of a captain,
her chubby little arms holding the hat in place on her head.
She was laughing up at her father. It looked like a sweet all-
American scene, a Texas scene, but then you saw the grave,
up on the hill. He’d painted it so it was just a little less
bright than the rest of the painting, so your eye wasn’t
drawn to it first. And then your eye slid over it, a plain white
cross, a military cross, and in front of it was a photo of a
young woman in uniform, smiling, with Anna-Maria’s face,
all grown-up.
Anna-Maria’s mother was not actually dead. She was in
the kitchen, making salad, and Miguel was not very happy
with Jesse about this painting. She was a reserve nurse, and
had been back from her last deployment for three months,
but Miguel was convinced painting her already in her grave
was the worst sort of omen. Jesse had made quite a few trips
out to his favorite Bathtub Mary, trying to make it right.
But it was a brilliant painting, full of beauty and life,
haunted by an American angel. Anna-Maria pointed to
herself in the painting, wearing her mom’s cap, and then she
found me. “Uncle Mary! There you are!”
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“Yep, there I am. You want to come over to my side and
draw something?”
I set her up with some paper and a marker, watched
while she tried to draw a picture of the Devil Dog on my arm.
“You’re gonna be a cartoonist when you grow up, right?”
She hopped from one foot to the next in excitement. “No!
No! I’m going to be a nurse, like my mommy. I will take care
of you if you go to the war. I will take care of everyone who
goes to the war.”
I picked her up and sat her down on my lap, let her
draw a pony on my hand with her marker. There would be a
war somewhere for her. I closed my eyes, said a little prayer.
Please, let there not be a war for her.
“She’s pretty good for four,” Jesse said, studying the
pony. Anna-Maria had been fetched by her mom for her nap.
We could hear her wailing all the way across the yard.
“Better than I was. Maybe I should start teaching her to
paint.”
“I like the new painting.”
“It’s not as good as
Death of a Grievous Angel
.”
“It’s not as shocking. It’s not in-your-face, like the first
one was. But it’s beautiful, Jesse. It’s going to be more
popular. People are going to feel this one, take it to their
hearts.”
“You think Miguel is going to forgive me? He really
seems mad this time.” I looked at him. “He’s been mad at me
before, lots of times.”
“I believe that. I think he’ll get over it. Eventually.
Probably.”
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JESSE drank three beers and got weepy, loving us all, so I
put him to bed to sleep it off, walked around Marathon with
Miguel and Uncle George. Looking for strangers. Looking for
trouble heading our way. Miguel broke the silence. “Have you
heard anything from the FBI?”
I shook my head. Uncle George gave a quiet grunt. “I
don’t believe they’re still looking, tell you the truth.”
“Maybe we just need to stay down here, keep quiet.
Keep our heads down. We can keep him safe in Marathon.”
I looked at both of them. “This is America. He should be
able to go into town if he wants.”
Uncle George put his hand on my shoulder, the same
gesture The Original made when he didn’t know what to say.
“You just keep watching his back.”
I went back home, lonely all of a sudden for Jesse. They
walked on in silence, watching night fall across Marathon.
The Original was on the porch, and he raised his bottle of
Shiner Bock in a salute as I went into the house. Jesse was
in bed, but he scooted over when I climbed in. I pulled him
into my arms, and he curled up against my neck.
“Tell me you love me again.”
“I love you again. Maybe more today than I did
yesterday.”
“Really?” He smiled up at me, sleepy-eyed. His hair was
growing out since we’d been home, and it was falling across
his forehead, down into his eyes. I wrapped a piece around
my finger. Like honey, or sunlight. Soft as corn silk. “I love
you too. Mary?”
“Yes?”
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“Okay, now, don’t get mad, but do you remember that
riata?”
“I remember you took a picture of me with the thing
wrapped around my waist. Dangling down around my balls.”
“I was thinking about the next painting.”
I sighed. “Of course you were. Don’t you think America
has seen enough of my balls? No, forget it. I don’t want to
know. Just do it. Do whatever you want to do.”
“Mary?”
“What?”
“Have you ever worn chaps?”
“Jesse, I swear….”
He was up on his knees now, putting his beautiful
hands on either side of my face. “Okay, just listen. I’m going
to call it
Rodeo Angels
. Or maybe
Ride of the Rodeo Angels
. I
don’t know yet. Just think about it. We could get Gary to
make the chaps, do the designs. You know, roses, and little
cowboys on bucking broncos, designs like that. Like the
shirts Roy Rogers used to wear.”
Chaps? With little bucking broncos? Oh, God. I closed
my eyes. “I am not getting on a bull for you, my friend. Don’t
even ask.”
He was quiet above me, and his fingers started moving
over my face, tracing the lines of my mouth. “Okay. I won’t
ask, zo-zo.” He thought a moment, his fingers in my hair. I
opened my eyes, looked up at him. “You could be one of the
clowns. Wearing the chaps and holding off the bull with the
riata. Bare butt, and I could put a little tattoo on your ass.
That would be cool.”
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I stared at the ceiling, and he snuggled down against me
until I could feel his warm breath against my neck. There