I like awfully sweet, said Max.
Max had not healed in a week. A test he placed upon himself. In Germany, Max had begun to experiment with his healings. He wanted to understand the symptoms of acting and of abstaining. What he had noticed: each healing sent him into a moment of pure, sugar-filled bliss, followed by a migraine stupor where he’d stay for hours, sleeping off the effects. At first, the comedowns sapped him of serotonin. As time went on, he realized that if he healed small things once every few days, he could build up a kind of tolerance. His hangovers would not be as bad, his cravings would be moderate, and his headaches only a slight bruise. When he went too long between healings, eating sugar was a proxy that kept his headaches and energy levels manageable.
After Nils had died, Max had sworn off his power for good. He had quit healing at once, with no plan for how to manage the sudden transition. The symptoms of withdrawal had nearly killed him. In the months of sobriety that followed, headaches and fatigue pinned Max to his bed. Sugar alone could not fix him. He would sneak downstairs when his parents weren’t home and crunch handfuls of turbinado cubes and drink cups of maple syrup. But these had been small reliefs that lasted only an hour or so. His mother had taken him to medical specialists and cognitive therapists. None of them had been able to locate a medical reason for his behavior. Grief, each finally concluded.
After months of suffering, Max had finally detoxed off death. His hunger for sugar subsided. His headaches fled him. Running, he had realized, was another way to curb his cravings. It gave him purpose, a thing to do with the energy pinwheeling through his body. If he was moved to heal, he would run instead—or eat candy. When death stopped him in his tracks, he had comforts to turn to for relief. But Alabama left him defenseless. His old tricks did not soothe him in the same way. He had relapsed, and the only thing he could do was wait it out and see how his body would react. The rules could be different here.
Careful or you’ll find yourself with diabetes, said his mother.
Max shrugged. I don’t think so, he said. I run too much for that.
Are you feeling sad again? Lonely and displaced? Is that the reason for all this sugar? asked his mother.
You’re projecting, said his father. Lonely and displaced. My goodness.
No, Max said, and he wasn’t lying.
I heard the university has some excellent therapists if you want to see someone. Your father, he could get a recommendation.
I said no! Max had not meant to yell, but he did.
PART 2
THE BOYS WENT TO CANVAS for the Judge, and Max saw more of Alabama. They passed cemeteries where men buried raccoon-killing dogs in clean cotton sacks. The men had chiseled their names into bricks and placed them over the soil where their mutts lay. People came to scatter daisies across the graves. They passed an abandoned mill town where clapboard houses rotted in the woods. Bushes grew out of shed windows and kudzu crawled up the splintered sides. Ghosts live here, Max thought, and nothing else.
The boys dipped fries into chocolate frosties. They ate fried pork rinds and sugar and butter sandwiches as they drove up and down the state. They spit sunflower shells onto the truck’s floor, tucked strawberry chew beneath their bottom lips, and let the open windows wipe all thoughts from their heads.
They passed a garden of white crosses where an evangelical had scrawled apocalyptic verses from the Bible on lawn furniture, busted cars, a washing machine, tree trunks, flags, and orphan parts of a jungle gym. White crosses and planks of particle board rose from the ground.
REPENT TO THE GOOD LORD HELL IS HOT
Jesus Coming Soon
JESUS Love You
JESUS is the GOD DOOR
Davis quizzed the boys on the capitals of foreign countries as they drove. He solved complicated long division puzzles all in his head.
A mind must be sharp as a knife, said Davis.
The boys passed a monument of white soldiers erected by Daughters of the Confederacy to memorialize the Civil War. Protests had sprung up around the South led by people who wanted to take the statues down. The protests morphed into mobs that ripped some statues right from the ground and destroyed them with sledgehammers. That’s what the boys told Max. These protests convinced them of nothing but the rioters’ own ignorance. The man running against the Judge led a charge against these monuments.
If he gets elected, Davis said, his face serious and still, he will systematically erase our history. He will take a black marker to the lives of our forefathers and blot them out. He’s calling the Judge a monster. I mean. C’mon now, man. The Judge is a preserver. He doesn’t think we should forget the past or pretend it was all one way or all the other. He knows that seeing the truth isn’t easy. He’s for all of us. It just might take some people more time than others to see it.
Lorne clenched the steering wheel with one hand, and Max saw his grip tighten at the word preserver.
Come at our statues and he’ll see what happens, said Knox.
The truck they rode in had three bumper stickers on the back: Judge’s name, a Jesus fish, and a slogan that said THE SOUTH WILL RISE.
Thing is, people in America are not educated correctly, said Davis, his voice dropping an octave. I don’t know how it is in Germany, man, but the people here want handouts. It doesn’t make sense. This country is built on personal responsibility. You heard of that, Germany? It means you get what you work for. You get what you put in. No one looks out for you but you. That’s what makes America great.
And God, said Knox.
That’s right, said Davis. God gives everyone opportunities in this country. If people don’t want to use them, then that’s on them. God knows where my heart is.
A flock of birds came together in the distance and formed an arrow. Each bird stayed in the line. The arrow forged forward. A bird broke off, drifted down, and circled toward the trees. Max watched the bird right itself and return to the arrow again. Max tried to understand what God had to do with this talk of personal responsibility. He studied Davis’s profile to discern his mind, as if the answer to his thoughts expressed itself on the geometry of his face, in the deep pores on his cheeks or in the gentle curve of his lashes. The skin was raw on Davis’s neck where he’d razored the hair away. He would be beautiful like this for only so long.
Thing is, said Knox. He turned from the passenger seat to face Max. His breath smelled of peanuts. People are going to get what they deserve.
Knox dug his knuckles into his thighs, slid them down to the top of his knee brace. You can’t feel sorry when something awful comes down on a person. Fact is, they brought it on themselves. That’s the fact of it.
Lorne had been mostly quiet as he drove, but he spoke then.
The wage of sin is death, he said.
Sorry? said Max.
You heard me, said Lorne. You heard me.
Lorne had a notebook of the addresses they were supposed to visit. The men whose doors they knocked on offered them sweet tea or skim milk and wanted to talk football. They visited a computer programmer who, Davis explained, had sunk into depression after his mother died. They had lived together, and he hadn’t known what to do with her body when she passed, so he left it to decompose in her bedroom until the stench got so bad that he tried to move her to the shed behind his house, but her body began to fall apart, into pieces, as he transported her. The neighbors saw and called the police.
He didn’t mean harm, Davis said. But he was charged with something because he had been cashing her disability checks even after she died. Judge’s really been helping him out. Got him a good lawyer and everything.
And he also then brought it on himself? asked Max.
Nah, said Davis. This here is different. He was doing the best he knew to do.
They drove past plantation homes and under mangled oak trees. They drove past muddy rivers and clear creeks where water moccasins curled in wait. They drove past everything under that hot-as-hell sky.
A TEXT FROM PAN LIT up in Ma
x’s lap: Cum play with me PLZ.
Here is where I can get out, Max told Lorne as they approached the Chicken Shop intersection.
They had finished canvasing early. The evening was theirs. Davis wanted to take the boys fishing. Kill worms with hooks. Gut bass. Oil up and fry their scales for dinner. They’d pull blankets onto Davis’s front porch and sleep outside as the outdoor fan cut the air above them.
Seriously? What are you going to do? Hitch a ride home from the fry girl? asked Davis. We’re going fishing.
I’ll pick u up. Text when they’re gone.
You don’t want fish? asked Knox.
Ttyl.
Fishing on Davis’s dock was out of the question. He couldn’t put himself through that again. He pictured Davis’s face when he noticed that any fish Max caught stayed alive on the hook, stayed alive in his hands.
Walk on water, Germany. Go on.
Walk on the water.
Turn them fishes into wine!
Bread fishes. Sin scales.
He thinks he’s a princess.
Damn, it’s hot as balls, said Knox to no one, pulling at the crotch of his shorts.
The billboard near the intersection pointed a gun right at them. ARE YOU WILD & FREE?
Lorne dropped Max in front of the Chicken Shop. The truck idled at the red light. Knox spit out the passenger window. The engine revved. They screamed off into the fading day. Max bought a Dutch apple pie and an ice cream sundae. He inhaled them in almost one breath. He sat on a bench outside and waited for Pan. The parking lot before him was empty except for three SUVs and a red truck. Behind the parking lot a black road kept the cars backed up at a light. He watched traffic inch forward. Eating in cars was a thing that happened in America. He could have eaten his apple pie in the car with Pan.
Max had seen Pan only at school since their night together. But Pan had visited Max in his dreams, appearing in visions so strong and physical that when he woke in the morning, he’d been shocked to find himself alone.
Pan pulled up in front of Max, rolled the window down, and angled his head toward the half-mast of glass. Max blushed at the sight. A rose bloomed on the front of his throat.
Hey.
It was all he could manage.
Pan’s car smelled of mold, which was the reason Pan had placed a Dove bar on the console. The soap soaked up the stink. Max grabbed the melted bar and brought it to his nose. It smelled like soap was supposed to smell. By neutralizing the odor, it hadn’t destroyed its own essence.
Pan drove with his left leg tucked under his seat. Max liked being his passenger. He liked being driven by someone else to somewhere else. An image swung in front of Max’s eyes. The two of them twinned on Pan’s bed. As they got closer to Pan’s, the land transformed just like he knew it would. No more manicured lawns and parking lot asphalt and signs blinking out desires. ICE CREAM. WARM BUTTER YEAST BREAD. FRESH/NOW. HOT/NOW. They passed tangled browns and sun-dead things. The car followed a perfect white fence around a bend and down a country road. A black crow sat on the telephone wire and turned its head at the car. Then another.
One crow sorrow.
Two crows joy.
Crows flew above them, trailing their car.
The smell of manure careened through the open windows. They passed a plot of land on their right, a place to dump junk. A woman emerged from a rusted pile of car parts and washing machines. A cascading blonde mullet. A sleeveless red sweatshirt.
That’d be a tough place to live in, Pan explained. Too cold in the winter. Too hot in the summer.
When they pulled up to Pan’s trailer, Max was still thinking: Too cold or too hot. He hadn’t registered that the land they passed, the junk dump, had been a home. In his mind, children climbed over weather-beaten couches, through discarded truck tires, and sat on rusted car parts. What world was this that he’d found himself in? He brought to mind the stories he’d heard of Alabama boyhoods: running barefoot over the hot ground, catching tadpoles in rain puddles, jarring the lit tails of fireflies, finding antlers in a pile of bleached bones. He imagined eating frogs for dinner like Knox had done.
What up, Ivetta, Pan called to the neighbor on her rocking chair, the one who was always on the porch. Today she did not yell. Her teeth were not in her mouth but in a glass of water beside her foot. Her dog whimpered and bit its own leg.
Ivetta shot Pan a look that was neither hateful nor good. It was just a look that said I see you.
MAX TOSSED AN EMPTY CHEETO PUFF bag into the can under the kitchen sink. He had consumed the entire family-size sack while standing in Pan’s kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and stared into it like it held the answer to a question he’d just asked.
Hunger sat in Max’s stomach, but Pan did not want to eat. Pan never wanted to eat. He consumed only Spaghetti Hoops and Chicken Shop fries and hardly even that. He starved off any trace of a figure. His dresses couldn’t get tighter if someone painted them on. A cigarette smoked itself beside Pan. It rested atop the rinsed can he used for an ashtray. The countertop was bare, aside from a bottle of ibuprofen, a roll of paper towels, a neat stack of receipts held together with a paper clip, and a spray bottle of all-purpose cleaner. Three bananas turned brown in a mixing bowl on the table. The kitchen was as big as Max’s kitchen in Germany, but the thick-legged table and heavy, meat-colored chairs gave the illusion of less space.
The morning after their sleepover, Max had woken up and eaten cereal at this exact kitchen table with Pan while his mother had brushed her teeth and dressed for bed. The cereal had turned their soy milk pink. They had held their bowls to their mouths with one hand and gulped, their free hands laced together between the chairs. Pan’s thumb had rubbed and rubbed until it had bruised Max’s skin. Now the bruise was almost gone. The sadness that had bristled through Max in bed upon waking had evaporated into a pleasant steam. Eating cereal at the table, Max had felt calm-shaped. Capable. He saw Pan in all his possibility. Mr. Sprinkles had slept in the chair beside them, tabby tail twitching and long.
Max eyed Pan sitting on the countertop, legs crossed and filing his nails. He thought of the places he still hadn’t touched—the edge of skin between earlobe and neck, the hollow of collarbone, the pink pad of foot bottom, the long line of shinbone, the tendon at the back of the knee.
Pan snapped his fingers in front of Max’s face.
Earth to Max.
Yes, said Max.
I said there’s nothing to do in this godforsaken town but wander through the Walmart or drive out to the river to go inner-tubing and get drowned.
Is there? said Max.
You go to the river and you get drowned, said Pan. It happens ten times every summer. Some dumbo can’t swim and thinks it’s shallow enough, so it doesn’t matter. Then he ends up dead. His body bloated and blue in the dam.
But Max had loved his trip to the river, the rope swing and the white-tipped water that pooled in eddies and spun off the top of rocks. The boys had taken him out to climb the sides of trees and cannonball off cliffs and nap on rocks slimy with water-hair. They had floated down the river with a cooler cinched to its own raft. They had spilled their beers like nothing mattered.
There is a plenty lot to do here, Max said. He unzipped a bag of generic taffy candy. Teenagers have cars.
He became embarrassed after resealing the bag and returning it to the counter next to the stack of receipts. Pan’s mom didn’t have money, and here he was eating her out of food.
It doesn’t matter if you have a car or not, said Pan, if there’s nowhere good to go. If I have to spend one more Friday night hanging out in the Walmart parking lot, I’ll eat my own hair.
My mother she says only boring people will get bored.
Deep, said Pan. Sounds like this is her first year in Alabama.
Max shrugged.
You and your joking, Max said.
You know where I want to visit? Pan said. Mongolia.
Why would you want Mongolia?
I want Mongo
lia because I want to learn to be shaman, that’s what. I saw a Discovery Channel documentary about a shaman in Mongolia. He pulls liquid from people’s necks with just his fingertips. They filmed him doing it. It’s like a cleanse. He’s extracting darkness from their aural body. He pulls out their suffering and their trauma with his fingers.
Pan held up his hand, spread apart his fingers, and stared at Max through the gaps.
Deep, said Max, hoping he sounded funny.
I could learn how to do that stuff, too, like, read energy fields, move cups of water with my mind. That’s the kind of stuff shamans do. Battle darkness. Heal stuff, said Pan.
You want to heal? I trade you.
You might be a shaman, you know, said Pan. With your power. Maybe you need to go to Mongolia and see this guy. Maybe you need a guru.
I don’t want a guru, said Max. He frowned at a cockroach that emerged from the light socket behind Pan.
Maybe you are a guru, said Pan.
No, said Max. I am not that.
You of all people should know that there’s more to this world than we can see, said Pan. So, don’t be looking at me like I’m the crazy one for talking gurus.
Sorry, said Max. I am not trying to look at you like that.
Don’t you think you’re trying to make a guru out of the Judge? Just a little bit. Don’t lie to me now, Sad Sarah. This is a no-lies zone.
No, said Max. I do not think.
Max blushed, which meant lying. He walked through his mind and found the Judge in a cut cornfield with a gun to his eye. He shivered at the thought and shook it off. Why would he have gone there if he didn’t want something from that man, if he didn’t want his secret revealed, caught—absolved?
Okay, said Max. I’ll give you maybe. Maybe I am just curious about what the Judge is saying. How he is saying it. Why it feels good when he talks with you.
Well, at least you can say it, said Pan. At least you can say it. Now that’s good.
I don’t know, said Max. He is against evil. He talks about love. So, I don’t see what is all bad about him. I can maybe take what I want and leave the rest.
Boys of Alabama Page 14
