W “Why didn’t you arrest him?” Brazil wanted to know a little later, as they drove past Latta Park in Dilworth, close to where she lived.
“Wasn’t worth it,” she replied, smoking.
“He didn’t damage my car or me.”
“What if he takes out warrants on us, for assault?” The thought was weirdly appealing to Brazil.
She laughed as if her ride-along hadn’t lived much.
“Don’t think so.”
She turned into her driveway.
“Last thing he wants is the world knowing he got beat up by a woman and a kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” he said.
Her house was as he remembered it, and the fence was no further along.
Brazil asked no questions, but followed her through the backyard to her small workshop,
where there was a table saw and a vast collection of tools neatly organized on pegboards.
West built bird houses, cabinets, even furniture, it appeared to him. He had done enough
odd jobs around his house during his life to have a healthy respect for her obvious ability.
He found it a strain to even assemble K-Mart bookcases.
“Wow,” he said, looking around.
“Wow what?” She shut the door behind them and turned on a radio.
“What made you decide to do all this?”
“Survival,” she said, squatting to open a small refrigerator. Bottles rattled as she brought out two long-neck Southpaw Lights.
Brazil did not like beer, in truth, even though he drank it from time to time. It tasted
rotten and made him silly and sleepy. He would die before he let her find this out.
“Thanks,” he said, screwing off the cap, and tossing it in the trash.
“When I was getting started, I couldn’t afford to hire people to help me out around here.
So I learned on my own.” She opened hard cases and got out guns.
“Plus, as you know, I grew up on a farm. I learned whatever I could from my dad, and
the hired hands.”
“What about from your mom?”
West was disassembling the pistols as if she could do it in her sleep.
“Like what?” She glanced across the table at him.
“You know, domestic stuff. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids.”
She smiled, opening a tackle box stocked with gun- cleaning paraphernalia.
“Do I cook and clean for myself? You see a wife anywhere?” She handed him a
cleaning rod and a stack of patches.
He took a big swig of beer and swallowed it as fast as he could, trying not to taste it, as
usual. He was feeling braver, and trying not to notice how good she looked in her gray
T-shirt and jeans.
“I’ve done shit like that all my life, and I’m not a wife,” he said.
“What do you know?” she asked as she dipped her rod into a small brown bottle of
solvent.
“Nothing.” He said this as a sulking challenge.
“Don’t give me your moods, okay?” West replied, refusing to play games, because,
frankly, she was too old for them.
Brazil threaded a patch through his rod, and dipped it in Hoppes. He loved the smell, and
had no intention of confessing anything else to her. But the beer had a tongue of its own.
“Let’s talk about this wife-shit again,” she pushed him.
“What do you want me to say?” Brazil, the man, replied.
“You tell me what it means.” She really wanted to know.
“In theory,” – he began to clean the barrel of the . 380 – “I’m not entirely sure. Maybe something to do with roles, a caste system, a pecking order, a hierarchy, the ecosystem.”
“The ecosystem?” She frowned, blasting her barrel and other parts with Gunk Off.
“Point is,” he explained, ‘that being a wife has nothing to do with what you do, but with what someone thinks you are. Just like I’m doing something you want me to do right
now, but that doesn’t make me a slave. ”
“Don’t you have the roles a little reversed here? Who was giving who firearms
instruction?” She scrubbed the inside of the barrel with a toothbrush.
“You’re doing what you want to do. I’m doing what you want me to do. For nothing, for the record. And who’s the slave?” She sprayed again and handed him the can.