The Risk Pool

topless.
    “This is on me by the way,” my father said. “I missed your graduation.”
    “You gonna wike up, Honey-bun, or just sleep through the best part?”
    The young woman was roughly my age, a better-looking girl than you might expect to find in a hunting lodge, though not much better. She was right, too. I’d gone right to sleep while she was in the little closet bathroom doing I couldn’t imagine what. She was astraddle me now, though, having pulled my jeans down around my knees.
    “I don’t mind jump-startin’ you, but I want you awike enough to know you got what you got.”
    That sounded reasonable to me. I watched her work for a minute, then asked her what was most on my mind. “Where are you from?” I said.
    “Marion.”
    “All right. Where are you from, Marion.” It wasn’t a Mohawk accent.
    “No, I mean I’m
from
Marion. Illinois. Where the penitentiary is. My boyfriend is in there, or was. They said they weren’t ever gonna let him out, but I was scared they might anyway. Which is how come I de-parted. He was trouble with a capital tee. How we doin’?”
    “Fine,” I said, though we weren’t. She had large, fine breasts, but watching them roll was making me seasick.
    “Good,” she said. “You know you feel just like a ace cube?”
    “I’m warming up though,” I said.
    “I can feel it,” she said, continuing her workmanlike assault on what ailed me. “I come up here, ’cause it’s a place he won’t think to look.”
    “It’s true,” I said. “It would take a stroke of luck to find you here.”
    It had taken a stroke of luck for me to find her, and I deeply regretted it. After a while she stopped. “I don’t thank you’re near as fond of me as you should be b’now.”
    “Marion,” I said. “Forgive me.”
    She must have, because I don’t remember any more struggles. When I woke up again, I was alone, gray light filtering in through the small window above the bed. It was incredibly still except for a hissing sound on the other side of the wall I’d been sleepingagainst. My jeans were still down around my knees, so I pulled them up, buttoned the fly, all the while listening to the hissing. When I pulled back the curtain and glanced outside, I saw it was Wussy pissing in an isolated patch of snow. He looked up and saw me.
    “First thing every morning,” he said, his voice flat and distant on the other side of the glass. “Can’t wait.”
    I checked the little room that Marion had disappeared into and discovered that it was nothing but a tiny dressing room, not a bathroom. There was nothing to do but join Wussy, so I did. By the time I got out there, he was finished, but he kept me company.
    “Snowing,” he said, and sure enough it was. When you looked up, you could see the flakes coming down through the trees, melting before they reached the ground. “Looks like you’re gonna have a good effect on him,” Wussy said. “Behaved himself last night for the first time in a hell of a while.”
    I looked at him in disbelief. If last night constituted good behavior, I didn’t want to know about the bad.
    “I wonder where he is,” I said, afraid he might be awake and listening on the other side of the wall.
    We found him snoring on the sofa, his mouth wide open, the way he’d always slept when we lived together. He snorted awake when Wussy kicked his foot. “It’s about time,” he said, sitting up, consulting his watch. He studied Wussy first, then me. “Well?” he said.
    “Well enough,” I told him.
    “Good,” he said.
    We went outside to where the convertible sat, all by itself now.
    “How’d the top get down?” my father said.
    Wussy and I looked at each other.
    “It was down last night?”
    “Right on the first try,” Wussy said.
    My father shrugged. “We must’ve froze, didn’t we?” he said, looking to me for confirmation. When I nodded, he grinned and said, “Let’s go see your mother.”
    On the way back to Mohawk, it occurred to me that sometime during the long night I’d gotten separated from my duffel bag. I was pretty sure I hadn’t had it with me when we got to the BigBend Hunting Lodge, and Wussy was even more sure than I was, and my father was positive. Which meant it might be back there anyway, but probably not. If I’d had to lay odds, I’d have put it at the Night Owl or Mike’s Place.
    “I hope it’s the Owl,” my father said. “Mike’ll be asleep, and I can’t face Irma this early in the morning.”
    He