“Ha! You better forget that shit. You’re not gonna divorce me and then think you’re gonna get to do what you want to. Uh uh, honey. Me and these kids come first. You brought em into this world and you’re gonna take care of em till they’re twenty-one. And if that don’t leave you enough time for your life, tough shit.”

“Why do you have to make me so mad? Why do you have to make me want to bust your face open for you?”

“I just wish you’d try it. I’d have your ass stuck in that jail so fast it’d make your head swim.”

“When do I get the kids?”

“When I get ready.”

“That’s not what the judge said.”

“Well, you just let me know when you want em. They can be sick sometimes, you know. They can be out of town.”

All she wanted was for me to fall on my knees and grab her leg and beg to be taken back, so she’d have the enjoyment of turning me down. All she wanted was to be filled with hatred and bitterness for the rest of her life, and to turn her life into a secret and twisted and perverted thing that would torment her as badly as it would me. You read about these killings in the paper, between men and women, husbands and wives, ex-Adams and Eves? This is how they happen.

8

If I killed anybody that night, I didn’t know anything about it the next morning. I woke hot, sweating, dizzy with the heat. I pulled down all the windows and blinds, turned on the air conditioner, and made some coffee. While it was perking I picked up a clock and looked at it. 11:30. The mail had already run, surely. I put on a pair of blue jeans and slipped my feet into my house shoes and went down the driveway. There were three manila envelopes inside the mailbox. I went back to the house with the little mothers tucked under my arm.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and stirred some sugar into it, didn’t have any milk. I lit my first cigarette. I was almost out of beer again, but I hoped Monroe would leave me alone.

The news was bad, but it was news I was used to. I sat down on the couch with my coffee and my cigarettes and an ashtray and the three stories. All I could remember was her being nasty to me, and something about a pine tree being hung under my wheel on the way home. I looked at my tennis shoes on the floor. They had mud and pine needles on them. I opened the first envelope.