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Show Go Love/112 recliner. In front of him flashed an Indian's head in a red circle and the tv made this high-pitched sound like when the emergency broadcast system said this is a test The station had signed off for the night. When I tiptoed into the living room to shut the noise off, O.W.'s eyes snapped open "What're you doing?" "Turning it off." "I'm watching." Him and Mama never slept the same room "It's a Indian," I said. Our house was entirely dark save the tv shine. O W. looked at me through the gap in his outstretched black boots. Light was in his eyes. "Then I'll watch a goddamn Indian," he said. I said, "Okay." And that's what he did; O.W. watched a goddamn Indian. By sunup, the screen had turned to snow. Years later, after Jimmy died, Renee and I'd meet him at a truckstop outside Greensboro, North Carolina, a stop on his Iceland route to Baltimore We'd eaten dinner inside where men who smelled heavy of aftershave talked into phones connected up at each table, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes O W.'d been best man in our wedding. Mama'd got herself into politics and was on a trip to Ocho Rios, he explained, somewhere in the Carribean. Her lupus was in remission. 0 W looked me in the eyes, then Renee "Do you think it's good for her? Ocho Rios?" 1 said, "Beats hell out of Maybelline." The waitress flirted with him, kept his cup full and offered him some more cherry pie "I guess so " |