fuedom Rider, circa /993
up from the apartment where Karen has left him, and Mimi has said, Robbie hit Karen. I am shaking by the time I get around the earth mover, Oh for the sweet, unproductive curve of my flirtations in a closeted town, "What happened?" he asks. A truck passes with a gun in its rack. "Hit by a car. He was caught in mid~flight, running like mad," "Good old Shadow. He was a strange agent." Robbie inhales noisily through his nose. "What happened with you and Karen?" I ask and it is as perilous as when I blindly pulled around the Gem of Egypt. "It was a lot of things." Another noisy inhalation. I am afraid in the car with my 25~year~0Id son, afraid as ifhe were running flat out with his paws raised, his untamed eyes trained stubbornly into the head lamps that will explode his brain. "Like?" I press. ''A long story." For some reason, this prompts me to remember his asking: Have you ever kept a gun and the memory I'd thrust aside. I click on my turn signal, exit to a cafe on a bluff above the Ohio. As 1 turn into the parking lot, I tell Robbie, "The first time I shot a gun, I was five months pregnant with Mimi." I'm not sure where I am going with this story. I drive across a wet, pebbled lot and park in front of the picture window and continue. "The FBI trashed the pub~ lishing collective where 1 worked. This was after Georgia." Robbie and 1 thump our car doors closed. "We decided to guard the office. With shotguns." Robbie opens the cafe door for me and we sit in a booth. "We trained at a rifle range." Robbie smiles, like, You, Mom, at a rifle range? "The first time the gun exploded at the range, I was scared for the baby." Audibly, he breathes in and out. We order 24-hour breakfasts---biscuits, bacon, scrambled eggs, fried apples. "Makes me think of breakfast at Kanawha Elementary," he says with his dimpled smile. "Those cooks loved you." I smile. "Your dimples." The first sip of coffee burns the tip of my tongue and is flavorless. "Is that the only time you've shot a gun?" "Yeah." "Kick, don't they?" I nod before finishing this story. "One night, about 3:00 a.m." He smiles appreciatively, as if 1 am telling a ghost story. "I heard a CB radio outside the office. Squawk, squawk." I'm usually too self-conscious to tell a story and usually tell the end before 1get to the middle, bur I'm getting into this. "I looked out the window. Three men got out of a van, and stood on the pavement. Under the street lamp, 1 Summer 2004
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