Page 18 of A Real Goode Time
“Old Man Fenner’s back forty,” he repeated. “James Fenner, he was—still is, far as I know—one of the most successful farmers in the area. Owned like two hundred, two hundred ’n fifty acres of the most prime farm land, had it fenced off into chunks of forty acres, most of it south of the county road, with like, two chunks of forty north of it. The chunk of forty that was north of the county road was way back, out of sight of the road and the town, and it was the party spot for the kids in town. Any given night after sunset, there’d be trucks parked all over the field, kids sitting in trees, maybe a bonfire going.”
“Didn’t Old Man Fenner do anything about it? Seems like a liability.”
“Oh, he knew,” Rhys said, “but it was an unspoken rule that you cleaned up after yourself. You didn’t leave cans or bottles or trash, you put out your fire, and you didn’t do donuts and tear shit up. If you didn’t fuck up the field, he wouldn’t come checking, and nobody ever broke those rules. The adults all knew, because the back forty had been the party spot for decades. Generations of people from my town had their first drink in that field, their first kiss, and for a lot of us, lost our virginity there. The deal was, you didn’t drive around town acting a fool and being vandals and jackasses and hooligans. You got your kicks out in the field, far from the houses, where no one would get hurt and shit wouldn’t get broken. The sheriff and deputies left us alone as long as we kept a lid on it. And we, in turn, had a place to go be kids.”
I frowned at him. “You say ‘we,’ but you said you didn’t go to the parties.”
He grinned, somewhere between amused and sheepish. “Well, I did go sometimes. But there’d be at least a handful of kids in that field every night, and probably a few dozen on the weekends. It was pretty much the only thing for anyone between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one to do in town, so it’s what you did. So yeah, I went. But not every night or every weekend, and I usually only had a couple drinks. I almost never drank to get hammered, but for a lot of the kids I grew up with that was the only goal, and as frequently as possible.”
I nodded. “So you’ve always just naturally been a man of moderation.”
“More or less, yeah,” he agreed.
I indicated the paraphernalia in his hand. “Well, be moderate in taking a little puff. See what you think.”
Rhys laughed. “Enough talk, huh?”
He put the pipe to his lips, flipped his thumb over the wheel of the lighter; the flame erupted to life with a softwhump, and he touched the flame the tip of the tube. There was a soft crackling, and he drew his cheeks in concave and inhaled. Except he did it wrong, and the pipe was still in his lips when he inhaled and got another bolt of the smoke. Immediately, his lungs reacted, forcing him to cough, but coughing only meant he sucked more smoke in, and then he was hacking and his eyes were watering.
I watched him with amusement. “You were supposed to pull it away from your mouthbeforeyou inhaled,” I said, my voice wry.
He laughed as the hacking spell tapered off. “Yeah, no kidding.”
I took the fake ceramic cigarette from him and took a hit with familiar ease. Inhaled, held it, and exhaled the smoke out of my mouth, inhaling it again through my nostrils before spewing it out again—showing off a little, I admit.
“How you feeling, Rhys?” I asked.
“Um, fine, so far?” he said.
I nodded. “Give it a few minutes.” We sat in silence for a while. “You said you have a sister?” I asked.
“SEER-sha.”
I blinked at him. “Say what?”
“It’s an Irish name. S-A-O-I-R-S-E, pronounced SEER-sha.” He laughed, sounding somewhat self-conscious. “My mom has always been a little obsessed with Ireland. She’s first-generation American, her parents moved here from Ireland when they were first married, ended up in the town where I grew up, outside Lexington, Kentucky, had Mom. Mom met Dad and had Saoirse at eighteen, and thus the cycle began. Except Saoirse was pretty much my idol and example growing up—she’s three years older than me. She kept her nose clean, stayed off drugs and alcohol, did good in school, worked her ass off during the school year and had two jobs in the summer to save up enough money for a car, and then enough money to move the day she graduated. And she did exactly that, just like I did—the day she got her diploma, she left town and didn’t look back. She’s living in Dallas, Texas, and she’s…” He rolled a shoulder uncomfortably. “Ah hell, she ain’t embarrassed about it, so I shouldn’t be. She’s stripping to pay her way through med school.”
I widened my eyes, and hunted for something to say. “Med school. Wow. Good for her.”
He laughed. “Don’t hold back on me, now, Torie. You can say what you’re thinking.”
“I guess maybe it seems a little ironic that she kept herself out of trouble to leave your hometown, only to end up a stripper.”
He chuckled. “I guess there is a certain irony in it. But the club she works at sponsors this competition or something where the dancers get scholarships, and I guess she’s pretty good because she’s getting a scholarship, plus she got good grades and is getting more money in loans and grants and scholarships from the federal government, so she’s gettin’ through med school with pretty minimal debt. And I guess, to her, that’s worth being a stripper.” He laughed. “And, truth is, when I said she stayed out of trouble, I meant the chemical and pregnancy kind. She was kind of, um…fast and loose, you might say. Not exactly concerned with her reputation, and I guarantee you, tell anyone we grew up with that Saoirse is stripping her way through college, not a one would be in the least surprised. She’s smart as hell, she’s just not overly concerned with virtue or modesty. Part of the reason I avoided the back forty parties was because I stood a good chance of seeing my sister parading around topless. She just didn’t much care about folks seeing her topless, if not naked.”
I nodded, shrugged. “I’m…well, not prudish or overly modest, but not extroverted like Lexie, or not giving a shit like Cassie.”
“Takes all kinds to make the world go round, so no shame in being who you are.” He shrugged. “It is a little weird to me that my sister is a stripper but, like I said, she ain’t embarrassed by it, and hell, she’s almost proud of it. Some girls wait tables and pour drinks to get through college, she takes her clothes off. In the end, she’s doin’ what works for her, and I ain’t about to judge her for it.”
“Are you close to her?”
He tilted his head side to side. “Kind of. We talk pretty regular, every week or two. Text each other now and then, keep up with each other. She’s in Texas and I’m here, so I wouldn’t say we’re, like, besties, but I love her and if she needs me, I’m here for her.”
He was smirking. His eyes were glassy.
“How you feeling now?” I asked
He laughed. Nodded. “Pretty good. Just sorta…whoosh.” He rocketed his hand in an upward arc. Laughed again. “Whatever the hell that means.”