Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer

Junior feel guilty most of the time. He knew what Henry was, and even from a young age, he knew that he and Henry were partners in it, in making his mother cry. He knew because he could do it just as easy as Henry could. And did so, without even trying.
    When Junior first saw Casey, was handed her at the hospital, that was one thing he knew he wasn’t going to do to her. He wasn’t going to put that kind of guilt in her. That’s what he thought back then, that children were some kind of little machines that ran on the guilt adults pumped into them. Now he knows better. Now he knows it’s exactly the other way around.
    He drives north, Seventieth to Pecos, toward the heart of Denver, Federal Boulevard. The Rustic Ranch Mobile Home Park, Pyro Fireworks. Homeless bagsippers and lowrider pimps. Then back toward the empty backroads of unincorporated Adams County and Commerce City, watching the evening get suffocated by the fumes of the oil refinery.
    From the street, Junior can see Jenny’s bedroom light burning behind the dirty box fan in her window. He spins the car around, parks out in front of her house. Slips a little in his cowboy boots as he steps out of the car. It’s been a long day of beer drinking and driving. When he gets up to her house, she’s sitting on the front stoop, smoking a cigarette. “I was betting you’d stop by tonight,” she says. “I still got that joint.”
    “Light it,” he says. “I need something, and I can’t drink no more beer.”
    “That was your excuse last time,” she says. “Too much beer.”
    “Are you gonna light the joint?”
    She pulls it out of her pack of cigarettes and sparks it. “My interview went real good, thanks for asking.” She exhales a stream of smoke up toward the streetlights, passes it to him. The night air has cleared out the big stink and the heat, leaving the neighborhood almost as cool and fresh as the San Luis Valley. “They already called me back for a second.”
    Junior hits the joint and passes it back to her. “I’ve got plenty of money,” he says, exhaling. “May not have much else, but I got plenty of money.”
    “That’s not the point,” she says. “Casey and I can’t live here forever.”
    “So move,” Junior says. “You don’t need a fucking job to move.”
    She pauses for a drag. “You know what I saw the other day? I sawa pit bull walking down the street, loose. No owner, nobody around.” She pushes the joint toward him, he waves it off.
    “You saw a loose dog,” he says. “That’s what started all this?”
    “Casey can’t play outside. Can’t play in the yard, even when the air’s good. And I wouldn’t even think about letting one of her friends visit. I’d die first.”
    Junior looks around the yard. A few islands of dry grass in a sea of dust, a rubbery black patch where the last tenant parked his car on blocks. “So move,” he says. “Start looking for a place right now. I got plenty of money.”
    “Yeah,” she says. “But I want a job.” She finishes the joint, the moon wandering in and out of the night clouds. “What’s on your mind?” she asks. “Something’s wrong.”
    He pulls his handkerchief out of his pocket with more flourish than he means to, puts it to his eye. “Hell if I know.”
    “Do you ever get worried, Junior? How you never seem to know what’s wrong with you?”
    He looks at her. “I don’t know.”
    “I do,” she says. “I know what’s wrong with you.”
    “Well. Whyn’t you tell me then?”
    “You shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. It’s hurting you.”
    “Driving?”
    “Yes, driving.”
    “What the hell else would I do? I sure as fuck ain’t going back to day labor.”
    “It’s a question,” she says. “It’s a question for you to answer. All I know is that when I get a job, you will have time to answer it.”
    “Shit,” Junior says.
    “You’re scared of the idea, aren’t you?” Her eyes glitter, girlishly cruel, and she chews on her