Dominion Read online

  All these years later, it was difficult to remember her childhood without seeing it through the socially conscious filter provided by endless TV movies. Her real mother, her biological mother, she could not even remember. She’d been abandoned at birth, and had been passed from foster home to foster home, from uncaring foster mother to uncaring foster mother, suffering the litany of abuses that continued to provide topics for daytime talk shows. She finally ran away from the last home at seventeen, and at nineteen she was a bank teller in Omaha and pregnant with Dion.

  She had not done so badly, all things considered. She had not gotten trapped in the welfare cycle, had been fortunate enough to avoid the minimum-wage circuit, but she had never really been as independent as she wanted to be, as she felt she should be. There had always been the men, paving her way with sheets, assisting her financially and opportunistically in each of her attempts to better herself, to gain more experience or education.

  And there had been mistakes.

  Lots of mistakes.

  Big mistakes.

  Cleveland. Albuquerque.

  But all of that was behind her now. She was going to try to start fresh here, to learn from the past. It was not going to be easy. She knew that. She was like a recovering addict—there were temptations everywhere. But she just had to be strong, to focus her sights on the future, and to always, always keep Dion’s welfare—financial, educational, and emotional—first and foremost in her mind.

  Mr. Aames, her supervisor, walked across the carpeted lobby carrying a stack of folders, which he proceeded to hand to her. “Backlog,” he said.

  “From your predecessor.”

  “Thank God,” she told him, accepting the pile. “I was running out of things to do.”

  He grinned. “You never have to worry about that around here. Anytime you run out of things to do, you come and see me. I’ll find something for you.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes level with his gold wedding band. Was that a come-on?

  Did she want it to be?

  She wasn’t sure.

  She smiled sweetly at him. “Thanks,” she said, putting down the folders.

  “I’ll get started right away.”

  The afternoon was slower than usual, particularly in the loan department, and April found herself finishing all of Mr. Aames’ backlog before closing. She was cleaning off the top of her desk, putting papers in their proper drawers, preparing to go home, when she heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey there.”

  She looked up to see one of the new friends she’d met the other night when she’d come home late and she and Dion had had the fight. She couldn’t immediately remember the woman’s name, but she didn’t need to.

  “Margaret,” the woman said. “Remember? Joan Pulkinghorn’s friend?”

  “Yeah. Hi.” April glanced over at the teller’s cage, but Joan was either in the vault or in the back office, not at her station. Her gaze focused again on the woman in front of her. “So what brings you around here?

  Did you come to see Joan?”

  “Actually, I wanted to see you.” Margaret sat in the overstaffed chair reserved for loan applicants. “We all had a great time the other evening, and we were just wondering why you hadn’t been by. A couple of us usually stop off at the Redwood Terrace after work to unwind a little before going home, and we were kind of hoping that you’d be one of our regulars. I mean, you certainly breathed some new life into the old group the other evening. I asked Joan about you, and she said she’d invited you to come along, but you were busy. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t offend you or anything, or scare you away.”

  “No.”

  “So where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

  April shrugged awkwardly. “You know. I’ve been busy with my job, my son, getting settled …”

  Margaret nodded. “Yeah, I know how that is. When we were just getting our business started, I never saw the light of day. I was up before dawn, not home until after sunset. Work-eat-sleep. That was my life.”

  She smiled. “But now I have time for play. So what about after work today? You’re almost off. You want to come along, have a few drinks?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  April looked down at her desk, concentrated on picking up a paper clip.

  The offer was tempting, the pull was strong. It was not just the inducement of a good time. There was something else as well, something more subtle; the promise of belonging, the same sympathetic camaraderie she’d felt the other night. She looked up at Margaret, thought of her other new friends, and felt her resolve slipping.

  But then she thought of Dion, sitting alone at home, waiting for her, worried about her. What the hell kind of mother was she? How could she even think about leaving him to fend for himself while she was out on the town?

  But then, he was old enough to take care of himself.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Margaret smiled. “Great!” She leaned forward conspiratorily. “Do I

  have some stories to tell you. Remember that construction worker I told you about?”

  “The one with the—?”

  “Yeah. Well, that wasn’t the end of that tale.” She raised her eyebrows comically and stood. “I’m going to stop by and talk to Joan. I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes, okay?”

  “Okay.” April watched her new friend walk purposefully across the lobby to the teller window where Joan now stood counting her money. The two talked for a moment, and Joan glanced over, smiling and waving.

  April waved back. She looked down at her phone, thought of calling Dion to tell him she’d be a little late, then decided against it.

  Five minutes later, the bank closed.

  Ten minutes later, the three of them were in Margaret’s car, laughing about the construction worker, heading down Main Street toward the Redwood Terrace.

  The week passed in that quirky time rhythm which always seemed to be generated by school—individual days that crept slowly by yet somehow added up to a quick week overall. Dion had planned out several conversational paths to take with Penelope, but she was absent Monday, and by Tuesday his bravery had fled. They nodded to each other, said hi, but the tentative stab at friendship they had made at lunch on Friday did not seem to have survived the weekend. They were strangers again, awkward and distant with each other, merely classmates. On Thursday, however, Dion caught her looking at him when she thought his attention was directed elsewhere, and that cheered him up immensely.

  He and his mother had not spoken since the beginning of the week, the night she hadn’t come home until nearly ten. This time she really had been drunk, old-style drunk, staggering, laughing, talking to herself, her speech slurred. She had ignored him that night, ignored his attempts to talk to her, to find out what had happened and why, and he had been ignoring her ever since, trying to punish her with his pointed silence, although it didn’t seem to be working. He was more disappointed than anything else, more hurt than angry, but she probably thought he was furious at her. It was a tense situation, and one that wasn’t getting any better, and he was dreading the weekend.

  Dion saw Kevin in the parking lot after school, standing next to a red Mustang, talking to a longhaired boy he didn’t recognize. He’d been planning to walk straight home, but Kevin called out his name, motioned him over, and Dion crossed the asphalt to where the other two boys waited.

  Kevin turned toward Dion as he approached. “So what’re your plans for tonight? What’re you doing? Twanging your tater?” .

  “Could be. I got this picture of your sister I bought last week.”

  Kevin laughed. “Well if you’re not doing anything, you want to go cruising around with us? Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and find us some hitchhikers.” He pointed at the license plate frame on the back of the Mustang. Written on the thin metal was the stock phrase “Ass, Gas, or Grass: No One Rides for Free.” Underneath this had been attached an addendum:
“And I have a full tank and I don’t smoke.”

  Dion laughed.

  “Whattaya say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not gonna pussy out on us, are you?”

  Dion thought for a moment. The phrase cruising around carried connotations of passed bottles and passed joints in dark car backseats, images which made him extremely uncomfortable. On the other hand, he didn’t want to alienate the only friend he’d made here so far. He looked at the longhaired kid leaning against the hood of the Mustang, and turned back toward Kevin. “Where’re you going to go?”

  “We’re going to have some fun with Father Ralph.”

  “Who’s Father Ralph?”

  “Episcopal priest,” Kevin said.

  The longhaired kid grinned. “My dad.”

  Dion shook his head. “I’d like to, but I already-have some plans. Maybe next time.”

  Kevin looked at him. “What plans do you have? Sitting at home with your mom? Come on, it’ll be fun.”

  Dion felt his options narrowing. “What are we going to do?”

  “You’ll see when we get there,” the longhaired kid said.

  “Paul always likes to keep it a secret,” Kevin explained, “retain the element of surprise. But I guarantee you it’ll be great.”

  “It’s not illegal, is it?”

  “Fuck it,” Paul said. “This guy’s a pussy. Let’s leave him.”

  “No.” Kevin moved defensively next to Dion. “I go, he goes.”

  “That’s okay—” Dion began.

  “No, it’s not. You want to sit with your momma and watch the damn TV

  while we’re harassing Father Ralph and looking for bimbos?”

  Yes, Dion wanted to answer, but he said, “No.”

  “Fine.” Kevin nodded to Paul. “We’ll meet you at eight at Burgertime.”

  Paul shrugged his shoulders, smiling indulgently. “See you there, then.”

  Paul got into the Mustang, racing his engine, and Dion and Kevin walked across the parking lot toward Kevin’s Toyota. “He’s kind of a wang sometimes,” Kevin said apologetically, “but overall he’s all right. You get used to him.”

  “You guys hang out together a lot?”

  “Not as much as we used to.”

  “So why does he hate his dad so much?”

  “He doesn’t hate him. It’s just … well, it’s a long story.” They reached the car, and Kevin used his key to open the door. “We’ll go by your place, tell your mom the plan, then we’ll cruise by my house.”

  “Okay,” Dion said. “Sounds good.”

  “Unless you want to skip telling your mom, give her a little scare, pay her back, let her wait up for you this time.”

  “I’d like to, but I’d better not.”

  “It’s your call,” Kevin said.

  The two of them got into the car, and Kevin put his key in the ignition.

  “Fasten your safety belts.”

  Before Dion could comply, they were off.

  Kevin’s room was the type usually seen only in movies. The walls were decorated with what looked like authentic posters of old horror films sandwiched in between an amazing collection of metal signs: stop signs, street names, yield signs, Coke signs. From the ceiling hung a lit display advertising 7-Up.

  The shelves above the king size waterbed contained row after row of records. In the corner, next to the freestanding television, was a working traffic signal, flashing green-yellow-red in sequential order, and next to that stood an old life-size cardboard cutout of Bartles and Jaymes. Dion stood in the doorway, taking it all in. “Wow,” he said.

  Kevin grinned. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  Dion stepped into the room. “Where’d you get all this?”

  “Around.”

  “Did you—?”

  “Steal it? No. My uncle did, though. Some of it. He used to work for the transportation department in San Francisco, but they fired his ass.

  Before he left, he took a few souvenirs.” Kevin laughed, pointing toward the stoplight. “I don’t know how he got that one.”

  “This is great!”

  “Yeah.” Kevin scooped a pile of coins from the top of the dresser into his hand and grabbed a small wad of bills. “Come on, let’s hit the road.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to meet him until eight.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to hang around here all night. We’ll find something to do. Let’s go.”

  They ended up simply driving around aimlessly. Dion asked where Penelope’s winery was, and Kevin took him down a narrow road which ran along the edge of the foothills just outside of town. He stopped the car for a moment, pointed at a large white wrought iron gate.

  “Beaver-chomping territory beyond. them there walls.”

  Dion tried to see something, anything, on the other side of the gate as they passed, but the daylight was gone, no lights were on, and whatever buildings lay within the property blended in with the foliage and the black background hills.

  They drove by twice more, but saw nothing either time.

  “Give it up,” Kevin said. “No one’s home. Besides, we’d better move out.

  Paul’s probably waiting.”

  Burgertime was straight out of American Graffiti, a chrome and tile drive-in complete with uniformed carhops. Paul was indeed waiting, and three other guys Dion did not recognize were sitting next to him on the hood of the Mustang. Paul grinned as the two of them got out of Kevin’s.

  car. “Well, if it isn’t the famous butt brothers.”

  Kevin flipped him off. “Knick knack paddywack, give your mom a boner.”

  Paul laughed, pushing himself off the car. “Well, we’re all here now.

  You ready to hit the pavement?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said.

  “All right. We’d better take two vehicles this time.” He looked purposefully at Dion. “It’s getting crowded.”

  “We’ll follow you,” Kevin said, either ignoring or not noticing the slight.

  “See you there.”

  The two cars raced quickly through the Napa streets, slowing to the legal limit only at known speed traps, those intersections where the city’s men in blue consistently sat in wait to nab unsuspecting motorists. The buildings changed from commercial to residential, the garish glow of signs giving way to the low illumination of lighted living room windows. The houses became spaced farther apart, the roads more winding, as rural tendrils encroached onto city space. Finally the Mustang pulled to a stop just before a huge oak tree whose massive leafy branches overhung the pavement.

  Paul and his friends got out of the car, Paul carrying a brown grocery bag.

  Dion and Kevin met them halfway between the two vehicles.

  “Hope you all wore shitty clothes,” Paul said. “This is going to involve some dirty work.” He gestured toward a two-story Victorian house on the other side of the oak. “My old man’s camped out in the living room in the back of the house, and we’re going to have to circle around through the trees and bushes to get to the window:”

  The rest of them nodded in understanding.

  “Let’s make this quick.” Paul disappeared into the blackness beneath the tree, and the other four followed. The night topography was confusing to Dion, but Paul obviously knew the way, moving swiftly between trees, around seemingly identical bushes, until suddenly the back of the house was before them.

  They crouched low between the branches of an oleander. Behind the translucent curtains covering a large double window, backed by the flickering blue glow of a television, they could see the indistinct shadow of a stiff backed man.

  “What exactly are we going to do?” Dion whispered.

  “You’ll see.” Paul grinned. “Come on.” He crept forward through the underbrush. The rest of them fell in behind him until they were just below the window. Putting a finger to his lips to shush them, Paul opened the sack. Inside was the object he had spent half of his afternoon working on.

&nb
sp; A huge clay penis.

  It was hard for Dion not to laugh as Paul placed the gigantic phallus on the windowsill. Grinning, Paul looked from one face to another. “Get ready to roll,” he whispered.

  Dion’s heart was pounding in his chest. He had no idea what Paul was doing, and he was more than a little nervous. Still, he could not help laughing as he looked at the object, silhouetted against the inside light.

  “Shut up!” Kevin warned.

  Paul suddenly stood up, pounding on the window with both his fists. In the quiet night air, the sound was explosive. “Suck me, Father Ralph!”

  he yelled at the top of his lungs.

  The rest of them scattered, taking refuge in the dark safety of the trees.

  Dion ducked behind a bush next to Kevin. He saw the curtains open, saw the priest’s expression of shock as he saw the clay cock. A moment later, the front door flew open. “I’ll get you punks!” the minister yelled. In his hand was a baseball bat, which he waved threateningly in the air.

  “Suck me, Father Ralph!” Paul called from behind a bush, The rest of them took up the cry:

  “Suck me, Father Ralph!”

  “Suck me, Father Ralph!”

  “Suck me, Father Ralph!”

  Dion laughed. “Suck me, Father Ralph!” he cried.

  The priest ran toward the nearest bush, toward the sound of Paul’s voice.

  “Haul ass!” Kevin yelled, and the bushes rattled as all five of them scurried back the way they’d come, heading for the cars.

  “I’m calling the cops!” the priest yelled after them.

  Dion was still laughing, his heart pounding, blood pumping with adrenaline, as they broke onto the street. “This is great!” he said.

  Kevin laughed with him. ‘Told you.”

  “Take off!” Paul ordered, rushing to his car. “Follow me!”

  “Let’s go!” Kevin said.

  Dion jumped in the passenger seat. He could not remember when he’d had this much fun. This was the kind of thing that happened in films, not in real life. Certainly not in his life.

  The two cars took off in twin squeals of burnt tire.

  The lights inside were off when Dion returned home, though his mom’s car was parked in the driveway.

  Parked in back of it was a red Corvette.