Fall Prologue: Hung Up It’s a shitty way to ring in the birth of the Savior, but it’s the way it happened in 72. I worked a thirteen, because son of God or no I had bills to pay. What I drank already was getting heavy in my guts. I smiled at the barman cause he was wearing the face of a basset hound, and smiling or putting him out of his misery are about the only options you get, and swallowed the rest of my pisswarm bottle. Randy, friend of mine from the Steel mill was going on about his family in Tennessee. None of them wanted him around this year, probably on account of the sad bastard showed up smashed and near crippled their great grandmother. Which is why he volunteered for the asscrack of Christmas shift. “Figured I’d let some lucky fucker with a real family be happy, y’know. My good deed for the season.” That was what he’d said about it on the way here. Now he was about eight beers deep, and well, he wasn’t talking quite so pretty anymore. “Fucking cunt’s what does it to me, Jimbo. Y’know, you’ve known me for something like ten years, and when have I been happy?” Barman handed me a cold one and I sucked some down. “After getting over the last one, I s’pose.” “You’re damn right,” he said, slapping me on the back hard enough that I nearly fell off my stool. “Every time I start getting over the last woman hurt me I find another one and start all over again. And soon the fighting gets me to drinking too much, and then before I know it she’s walking out and I’m here.” I lit a cigarette. “This bar?” He looked at me the way drunks’ll do when they can’t seem to get themselves understood. “No, goddamnit, not this bar. This place. Any bar. Always this place, right here, where everything’s nothing and you got no friends and no one love’s you.” I stubbed out my smoke and grinned. “Now that ain’t true. Al back there’ll always love you, so long’s you clean your own spew and leave a nice tip.” The barman took my cash and gave Randy another whiskey. “Cept it ain’t the same, Jim,” he grinned, “cause I don’t swallow.” “You think this sad fucker ever found a woman to swallow? He’d marry his family’s old, toothless goat if she’d swallow.” Randy stared down at his glass. “You’re one mean son of a bitch, Jim. You know how much I loved that old goat… even if she wouldn’t swallow.” Then the bastard started to laughing. “Shit, you had me worried for a second, thought you were going to swing at me.” Randy smiled. “I was, but I reckoned I couldn’t stand without falling over, and I learned from my daddy you never punch a man when you’re down.” Right about then I felt a squirrelly hand dive in my back pocket, and a pair of soft lips on my neck. “Lo Jeannine,” said Randy, nodding. “Jeannie,” I said, as she plucked out my wallet and had Al give her a Coke. She sat next to Randy drinking it up, talking and listening and cheering him up like only a pretty girl can. And when she was done she laid a big bill under her bottle, then kissed Randy on the left cheek and told him, “Merry Christmas,” then planted one on his right, “and a Happy New Year.” “I’d have just settled for what he got,” Al said, and I gave him the crazy eyes and he ran off down the other end of the bar. “Come on, darling,” I said, grabbing her arm, “before Randy forgets you’re my wife and tries something I’ll have to kill him for.” In the parking lot she handed over the keys to my daddy’s old mustard yellow pickup. “If I were a jealous man that might have gotten under my skin.” “You are a jealous man, but that was me cheering up your friend, cause no amount of stories about him and that old goat his family’s got were going to do. And besides, why would I need someone else when I’ve got a real man right here.” She kissed me, and made me feel secure, like only a pretty girl can. I opened her door up, and slid in the driver’s side. It wheezed like an old smoker and lurched as I put it into drive. A cool, night breeze blew through the cornstalks on either side. One of the rear tires fell into a pothole, and the truck bounced violent as the rear bumper scraped the ground. "Shit, James, you sure I shouldn't drive?" Jeannine asked, her lips curled up in a smile. "Hell, babe, I ain't had that much to drink." She leaned over the stick shift and tickled my belly. "But I haven't had any," she laughed, falling back in her seat, then- “and I'm not headed into the ass end of somebody’s shed!" We slammed into it going 40. Next I know, blood’s pouring out my nose and mouth, and my shoulder weren’t moving. Jeannine was unconscious, her breath labored. I forced my way out of my belt and crawled over to her. I tried to help her up and she started coughing up bloody chunks. "Baby. Baby. Please, baby, please be all right." The shack we hit was up on legs, like a camera, and the side facing us glowed. Jeannie grabbed me by the scruffy hair on my neck and kissed me, and I started to cry. The glowing wall folded over, making a ramp up to a door. She took my hand, and laid it on her belly. "James," she smiled soft, "I'm pregnant." The door slid open, and the whole world became light.