A Family Thing Page #6

famous painter.

Maybe you'll get the world

to sit up and take notice

of you someday.

The main thing is being happy.

You don't have to go out

and conquer the world.

Conquering the world

kind of makes you happy.

I know. I been there.

Virgil used to play football.

In high school, he was first team

on the parade all-america team.

Is that right?

What position?

Eide receiver.

Oh. I used to play a little ball.

I mean, I was small,

but I made up for it

by being slow.

You play college ball?

Ohio State.

Buckeyes. Damn, that's big time.

How'd you do there?

His freshman year,

he injured his knee.

No, no, no. I didn't just injure my knee.

I destroyed it.

Doctor said, if I was lucky,

I might be able to walk

without a limp someday.

So... I guess I'm lucky.

Girl, you better get

out of that window

in your pajamas.

People can see you.

I don't care.

Lay down.

Well, you better start caring.

Come on. Get in.

Where's my other pillow?

Here's your other pillow.

Can't we watch TV?

No, you can't watch TV.

I'm turning the lights out.

Those poor children.

Yeah.

Trouble between parents

is always tough on the kids.

You know, I don't

want to say this,

but I believe your boy's

got a chip on his shoulder.

Yup.

Well, that ought to do you.

In the marines,

I spent many a night

on a cot like that.

Of course, that was

on good nights.

Here you go.

Thanks.

Yes, sir.

Fine.

You see any action

over there in Korea?

Yeah.

I saw action.

How about yourself?

Nah.

I was never really under fire.

I was always kind of

sorry about that.

You didn't miss out on nothing.

You have to kill anybody?

Hmm?

I did.

I'm not proud of it.

You ever wounded?

No. Aunt T. Gave me

a rabbit's foot

to take away with me.

Guess it worked.

I never been hurt

in 40 years as a cop either.

Guess the good Lord has seen fit

to keep me out of harm's way.

I've been blessed.

Really blessed.

You know, they say that...

that nobody can

save another person.

That's bullshit.

You can save another person

if they want to be saved,

and I've been saved

by three people in my life.

When my mother died,

Aunt T., she took

r- r-responsibility for me.

And when we moved

up here to Chicago,

she worked 16 hours a day-

cleaning houses,

working in the laundry, whatever.

She made sure that I was never

hungry and I always had shoes.

And she whupped me

when I was bad.

Sh-sh-she saved me.

And then when I got

to be a teenager,

I was too big to be whupped,

so I started getting into trouble.

I stole a car.

I was a car thief.

The cops caught me

and took me before this judge,

and the judge gave me a choice-

prison or the military.

So, I joined the marines,

and the marines

made a man out of me.

Yeah. I was saved by the judge.

Then when I got

out of the marines

and came here to Chicago,

I brought the war with me.

Started drinking,

you know, heavy,

and didn't care

what happened to me.

Then I met my wife,

and it was like opening

the curtain on a dark room.

The sunlight just poured in.

I was saved again by her.

Is she dead?

Yeah.

Eight years.

Didn't mean to go on like that.

I saw you wiping your old

chicken-greasy fingers

on my shirt this afternoon.

Yeah, well, I ran out of napkins.

Ray, come over here.

I want to show you something.

Come on.

You want to show me what?

Now come over here.

I ain't gonna bite you.

I ain't gonna bite you, either.

What do you want?

Come on.

Now, look a-there.

I was never under fire,

but I got wounded.

When I was a fireman

on that flattop,

a fire broke out

in the engine room

when I was fighting it down there one day,

and the engine blew up.

I got this.

Yeah.

Ain't that some sh*t?

You bet it is.

I still got more metal in that leg

than they make new cars with.

What happened there?

You get that in the explosion, too?

This? Hell, no.

I... no, no. I...

I got this when I was a kid.

It's actually about my first...

my first memory.

I was about 3 years old,

and this little ol' colored kid

threw something at me.

It's coming back,

people of color and all that.

Yeah. This kid...

hit me with a rock right there.

You were coming out of

Burk's grocery store

on Apple street with your daddy.

How'd you know that?

Now, wait a minute now.

Hold on.

You see?

You never knew who I was,

but I knew exactly who you were,

and I hated your half-white guts.

So when I saw you

coming out that store

with that old daddy of yours,

I grabbed that rock, and I just...

did what come natural.

Only bad thing is that

Aunt T. found out.

She like to skin me alive.

What do you mean,

"The only bad thing"?

You could have put my

damn eye out or killed me.

Sh*t.

Sh*t.

Good night.

Give me a kiss, huh?

Yes!

I'll call you next week, ok?

Ok.

All right.

Give me a kiss.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye now.

Girls, get on in the car.

I'll open the door.

Bye, Ray.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Pilcher.

Luck. Yeah, but I've been

lucky all night long.

Uh-uh.

You messed up now.

You are at my mercy,

and I have... no mercy.

Watch my bottle.

Hey, Virg, this dude

be starin' at you, man.

Virgil, I want to talk to you.

Well, we're gonna have to talk later.

I'm in the middle of a conversation.

No. It's better now.

I might not feel in

the mood later on.

Come on, let's go.

Get up.

Whoa, n*gger, look out.

All right.

I'm here.

What do you want

to talk about?

When I was driving

up here from Arkansas,

I did a lot of thinking.

I thought about things

I'd never really thought about.

I thought about some things

I seen in my lifetime-

Is this going to be some kind of...

"Walking through the snow to school

and eating what you killed"

hillbilly lecture or something?

You goddamn right it is.

You might want to listen

'cause you obviously

ain't been listening to anybody so far.

I don't need this.

Oh, I think you do.

Why don't you just sit down

and listen to me for one minute?

I ain't gonna bite you.

Sit down.

Ok.

When I was coming up back home,

there was a guy

about four or five years older than me

named Bill Watley,

and Bill's folks both

got killed by lightning

at the same time, the same stroke,

while they were clearing,

and he was their only kid.

So he started working-

he was only about 15 then-

right after they died.

And he was pretty much on his own.

No other people to speak of, really,

so he started hauling hay

and worked at a sawmill.

And bill-hell,

he was a big ol' boy,

kind of ugly in the face,

not too popular around town,

and he was real quiet,

well, he worked his ass off

until he finally saved up a little bit

and opened up a little

sort of a fix-it shop...

appliances and small

engines and whatnot.

And when he got to be in his 30s,

he finally married this gal,

and, you know, she...

Hell, she made him look

like Elvis Presley.

Butt-ugly.

But he loved that gal

like you wouldn't believe.

I guess not having

any family and all

just made him kind of worship her.

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