Boys of Alabama

by Genevieve Hudson

  That’s what I mean! she said. Precisely. Evil isn’t confined to the obvious.

  He hadn’t expected Billie to agree with him so easily. Max didn’t know what to say.

  Like bad isn’t only Nazi stuff. It’s not only burning people alive in ovens and genocide, she said.

  You burned people alive here, too, said Max, repeating his mother verbatim, feeling almost defensive of the Nazis. You did all kinds of burnings, too, said Max. It is just you don’t talk about it the same way. You put up statues of the people who did the bad stuff.

  This was the first time he’d let himself take a stance against the Judge, and he realized he meant it.

  Max’s mother would be proud. Billie looked amused.

  This isn’t a competition, she said. It’s not the oppression Olympics.

  She passed the cigarette back. He took another drag. He held the smoke between his cheeks. He didn’t want to inhale, so he left it in his mouth until he felt like it’d been long enough. He would never have said the thing about the burnings to the football boys, but he could tell Billie was impressed by his observation about the statues.

  I bet you hate it here, don’t you? Max said.

  Pretty much, said Billie. But not everything. There’s some good stuff, I guess. But I hate the fuckwads.

  Max stayed quiet. He knew whom she meant.

  You think somewhere else will be different? said Max. No fuckwads?

  A hundred percent, she said. I met a guy on the internet from California. From Fresno. He told me about life out there. I know it’s different there, because he’s different. He’s, like, so different.

  Is the internet person your boyfriend? asked Max, confused by the jealousy he felt at the mention of this other boy. This so different boy. Max didn’t want Billie. But he didn’t want her to want anyone else either. He didn’t want there to be someone else who was so different.

  Billie shrugged.

  Boyfriend shmoyfriend, she said. Who cares?

  The bell rang. Billie stuck the lit end into her mouth and the ember died. She didn’t flinch. She looked at Max with her pale eyes.

  Time’s up, she said.

  It is not so romantic, said Max. Being somewhere else. In Germany, it is just fuckwads being fuckwads in another language, in another landscape.

  Maybe, said Billie.

  Certainly, said Max.

  Certainly, she repeated. You sound so funny sometimes.

  Now her camera was out again, and she was taking pictures of things: a close-up of the metal squares in the chain-link fence, the spot where the ceiling beam formed a trapezoid with another beam above them—shapes Max hadn’t noticed before Billie focused on them. The way she looked at things so closely, Max wondered if maybe she saw something he couldn’t. She held the focus, framed it, clicked it into place.

  RIDING TO THE MALL WITH Pan and Billie was a mistake. Max knew it as soon as Pan slumped into the front seat of Billie’s silver Civic. Pan was in a mood. The mood followed them into the mall, where Pan ripped blouses off the hangers, casually and without looking, from the department store displays they walked past. He watched the fabrics fall to the floor. A trail of rumpled clothes accumulated in their wake. Pan bought enamel buttons of skulls and anatomical hearts at the Dollar Shop. They walked through the food court and Pan made fun of fat people.

  These are the people voting for our future. The mass-tards of Alabama, said Pan.

  He kept trying to get Max to make fun of them, too.

  Just let him be good, Billie reprimanded, even though she encouraged all of Pan’s fun-making by laughing.

  You got to loosen up, Sarah, said Pan. You’re not Mother Teresa. You can say something bad about someone. Try it. Say something terrible about someone you don’t like.

  Max bought a soy hot dog from Dog King. He was starved and thought eating vegetarian would call back Pan’s approval or at least undo the mocking. The three of them walked together through the mall’s white, plastic stomach. Billie functioned as a kind of shield. Her girl presence made it easier to exist around Pan in public. Now they were just two boys and a girl. Weirdos but not fags. A trio but not a pair. Not a couple.

  If he wasn’t so cute, he’d be boring, huh? said Pan when they were back in Billie’s car. But don’t worry, you’re easy on the eyes. We’ll keep you around.

  Billie laughed—like yeah, Max, whattabore. Or like yeah, Max, socute.

  Pan turned and peered at him through the headrest. Max mouthed stop. Max shifted in his seat and stared at the pink clouds bound above them. The same strip of nothing stores collected below them. Same food-thrus. He watched the back of Pan’s head—a perfect swirl of untamed hair. He wanted Pan to do better.

  Careful not to smear your lipstick on the seat, said Billie. My mom freaks if the upholstery is even a bit dirty.

  Pan’s lipstick got everywhere—on his teeth, in the crease of his mouth, on his shirts, on Max’s collars. Max appreciated knowing that small detail about Pan. Intimacy, he thought. He liked that he could find Pan’s traces in places he no longer was. He was there even when he wasn’t. Once, Max discovered one of Pan’s contact lenses affixed to his bedside table. He had held it to his eye and looked through it, almost expecting the world to suddenly appear different.

  Does that mean I can’t smoke, said Pan, presenting a Virginia Slim. He adjusted the low V on the neck of his polyester tank. Shit, I’m showing way too much cleavage.

  A hundred percent, said Billie.

  So, you’re saying I look like a slut? asked Pan. Offended!

  What’s wrong with being a slut? asked Billie.

  Touché, baby, touché, said Pan. He flicked his eyes to the side mirror so that he could see Max, and Max could see him. So, is everyone in Germany as cold and distant as you?

  Why are you being such a mean person? asked Max. Do you try to show it off?

  Burn! said Billie. You are being a mean person.

  Pan slouched down in the front seat.

  I’m frigging curious, okay? I’ve never been to Europe. This could be an educational moment for me.

  When I graduate, I’m going to Paris, and I’m going straight to Jim Morrison’s grave, said Billie. I’ll bring him a bouquet of black roses and place it over his heart.

  They stopped at a red light and Billie toggled through the radio stations. She settled on something jumpy and electric with a head-nodding drumbeat.

  I’ll be twenty-seven when I die. Making sure of it. RIP rock ’n’ roll, said Pan. I’m making it to twenty-seven then—

  He drew his nail across his neck.

  A wilted leaf rested on Billie’s floorboard, right next to Max’s foot. He stared at it—the dead edges. The brown heart. The stiff stem and the paper-soft body. Max sat on his hands. He’d already healed two tulips that morning. He needed moderation.

  I just discovered this amazing band called the Who, said Pan. And I’m going to try to find them on my phone and play them for you.

  I know the Who, said Max. My dad owns their records.

  Your dad? said Pan, irritated. Whatever. They have an opera album that I’m like in love with.

  You mean Tommy? Said Max. Their rock opera?

  Pan sighed too loudly.

  Billie laughed and said, Musical genius in the backseat.

  Yes, I mean Tommy, Pan said. I guess you’ve heard it before.

  It is a good album, said Max, remembering his home in Hamburg and the record player by the window.

  Pan found the song on his phone and turned it up. He lit his Virginia Slim. Billie gave him the eye but let him smoke it. She even took a drag herself.

  Max had heard this song a dozen times, but his English hadn’t been as good then. He’d never listened to the words before. Its darkness revealed itself in a new way. It bumped against the sunny afternoon. Max enjoyed the contrast. Like how sad songs make me happy.

  As if he were acting out the lyrics, Pan touched the lit end of his cigarette to the top of his hand and pre
ssed it in. Pan held up his hand, so Max could watch the skin melt around the embers.

  Do it to me, too, said Billie. She held out her arm for the burn. Oui oui.

  You want one, too, Sarah? asked Pan. He turned in his seat to face Max again. He held the cigarette out to him, offering to burn him.

  The song reminded Max of his father, of Hamburg, and of Nils. The record player spinning. The snow falling into the snow outside. A clean quiet cold. Desire slid down Max’s tongue. Max hated himself, a deep animal hate. Where did the hate come from? He didn’t know. He looked down into his lap and back at Pan. The hate dissolved. Pan was a promise of something. Pan could be nice. He would be again.

  No thanks, said Max.

  LIGHTS IN HIS EYES. White stadium bright. Max was running and then he was hit. He braced toward the grass. The tackle came like a smack he should have expected. His head hummed. His joint snapped. He held up a broken finger. The pain panged, but he felt pride when he raised his hand to Coach on the sideline. His middle finger pointed back toward his chest. All wrong. Here, it seemed to say. The outside to match the inside. All wrong. Coach popped it back into place. Nothing else to do about a broken finger. Max knew. It wasn’t the first one he’d snapped.

  No doc needed, son, Coach said. Just make a splint when you get home. The only thing that’ll fix it is time. You’ll look at your hand in a year and think of this night. Just remember that, son.

  Coach’s face shone. Max studied the drenched seam of his hairline. Something inside him wanted out. What is sweat before it leaves the body? Max wondered. Where does all that water come from? Max watched a drop fall from Coach’s nose. A mosquito landed on his forehead, and he must have sensed it land, because Coach caught the bug and crushed it. Killed it. Flicked it. Dead bug. Dead bug in the grass.

  Max took his seat on the sideline bench. He had ruined a rare moment of playing time by getting tackled and breaking a minor bone. God’s Way lost again. Later that night, Max stepped onto the bus that would take them home. Away games usually excited him, a chance to see other towns outside of Delilah, but that night he swept his excitement back. Max wanted to be home. He longed for the Sunshine smell of his sheets. He sat next to Wes. Wes, who kept his headphones in for the entire hour ride and stared out of the window, frustrated by the loss.

  When Max walked into his living room, he was struck again by the size of his house. The tall ceilings and the sheer space of the entryway. Their old cuckoo clock bleated at him from where it had been affixed to the wall. The peek-a-booing bird was one of the only ornaments they’d taken from their house in Hamburg. His family had shared a single bathroom in Germany and never thought it peculiar. Here, Max could choose from three different toilets. A toilet for each member of his family. The picture of extravagance.

  His mother greeted him at the door and kissed his swollen, broken finger. Happy, maybe, that she could trace this broken bone to a knowable incident.

  Max stood in the downstairs bathroom and texted Pan a picture of it. He waited and waited for a response. Maybe Pan would kiss it with the black heart of his favorite emoji . The kiss emoji . The eggplant emoji . He would say something like That looks like it hurts. He might text a photo himself with his shirt pulled up to reveal his flat chest, his lips smashed into a duck face. But no text came. No text came until one a.m. The text said: I’m outside your door let me in.

  There was Pan on the front steps. He wore butch clothes and no makeup. A blue and white striped shirt like a sailor, like he arrived on a ship. Max blushed. To see Pan dressed so plainly disarmed him. It was more intimate than seeing him naked. Max stepped aside and in came Pan. He instructed Max to lie down on the sofa. Max let Pan hold his hand up to the moonlight and examine it. He let him put it in his mouth even though it hurt. Ouch, he didn’t say out loud. He wanted Pan to think each thing he did was the right thing. He wanted Pan to be proud of the way he tended to Max. Max would give him that.

  I’m channeling my grandmama’s ghost, said Pan.

  Pan took Max’s knuckle and rubbed it in. Pan kissed it all over. Then he curled up beside him in his sailor’s shirt. He whispered into Max’s ear.

  I can’t stay here. I’m going to go home.

  Stay, Max said.

  Can’t stay, said Pan, drowsy, tired, and slow. I’m going home.

  But he didn’t move. He didn’t go. Max clutched Pan’s body with his hurt hand. They fell asleep like that and slept for hours, unmoved by the night. They slept like that until dawn came in pink and uncooked and placed herself on the floor beside them.

  IT’S PROOF OF THE GREAT FLOOD, Davis said after Max explained that he and his family were going to visit Shark Tooth Creek.

  Cool place. Real pretty. I reckon you’ll find about thirty teeth if you look good.

  The Great Flood? asked Max.

  Davis pulled off his helmet and set it on the bench. He filled a paper cone with green Gatorade and handed it to Max.

  C’mon, Germany, said Davis. Have you literally not read El Bible? The Great Flood. You know—Noah’s flood. The one that covered Earth and wiped away every creature except the ones Noah saved with his ark. Two of each. A woman and a man so they could procreate. Save the world.

  Oh, said Max, who had been told by his mother that the shark teeth found in the silt bottom of the creek were geological fossils. The shark teeth had been deposited there 40 million years ago when north Alabama was a barrier island, not a landlocked part of the state.

  Forty million years! said Davis. You crazy, son. The world isn’t more than ten thousand years old at best. That’s right there in the Bible, too. I thought you knew better, man.

  Davis shook his head like Max was something.

  Max shrugged.

  At Shark Tooth Creek, Max waded through the clear water. He bent down and ran his hand through the sludge: pebbles, the smooth edges of stones. A girl with wet hair spilling out of a scrunchie ran by him, her camo shirt soaked through, and her feet splashed water onto everyone she passed. She wore neoprene shoes and cut-off jean shorts. A kid chased her through the creek. They ran up on the sandy banks and crawled between the chaos of branches and vines. Trunks plunged upward from the sides of the water. Moss covered their knotted limbs. Max had never seen so many kinds of grass: brown and short, shagged and sparse. Tough tall tufts. Fallen trees were scattered along the creek banks, eroded by the wind and unstiffened by the water. People sat on the trees and counted the teeth in their palms.

  Max’s hand sifted through the wet clumps of earth until he found the hook edge of what he knew was a tooth. In his palm, it curved up in a cloudy black color. The tooth root took on a rough gray. He thought of the mouth it once lived in. The jaws that snapped together to make a body dead. The scales it tore and the muscles it cleaved. A tooth that had tasted blood. This was its own kind of weapon. Max put it in his mouth and pushed it against one of his own teeth. He spit it out.

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM PAN: We got 2 do something with ur powers. Wasteful if u don’t use them. Plz do more than pull up weeds from the ground & hand me a bouquet of grass. (it’s cute ok ok ok) but we need bigger. Need 2 use them 4 real. Think big!

  Max: I don’t want it I wish I could just give it to u and u could use it.

  Pan: Don’t say that. Mr. Sprinkles will get mad at U

  Max: I don’t want it.

  Pan: Don’t believe U. UR power is so much a part of U that U wouldn’t know who U even are w/o it.

  Max: I’d feel normal.

  Pan: U need to use it more really use it. U got a gift

  Max: Ich don’t want it ok!

  Max: Sorry autocorrect been txting w my aunt.

  Pan: Cuz I got an idea

  Max: What is it?

  THE EVENING CAST A SHADOW over the woods outside Pan’s trailer. Somewhere leaves were being burned. Max had a view of the yard from where he reclined, kicked back on Pan’s mother’s bed. Her purple curtains were parted just enough so he could see the first splat of stars through the
open window.

  Do you know where the word glamour comes from? Pan asked as he painted a color called Divine Streak onto his mouth.

  Where? said Max.

  Pan posed in front of his mother’s full-length mirror with her dress unzipped down his back.

  Glamour comes from witches, he said. It started as the name of a witch’s spell. Glamour was what they called it when witches made reality bend in their favor, when they cast out an illusion to make something appear as it wasn’t. Glamour affects the eyes of the one looking. It makes a thing seem more beautiful than it is.

  Pan covered his bottom lip with color, pinker than a cat’s paw, and examined the open tube.

  To make yourself glamorous, said Pan, is to make magic.

  A motorcycle thundered up the gravel road. The engine roared then cut to silence. The front door squealed open with an unoiled yelp. Then it slammed on its hinges. Heavy boots on the thin floor. The walls of the bedroom shook as the boots walked to the room adjacent. A man’s voice mumbled to itself: Baconbaconbacon. Bringing home the bacon.

  Who is here? Max wondered to himself.

  Relax it, said Pan. It’s just Quaid. He rolled his eyes. He’s going through it. So, he’s, like, staying here or something.

  Pan smacked his lips to spread the color.

  What is he going through?

  Curiosity killed the cat, said Pan.

  Max heard the metal skid of a skillet pulled from its drawer. The phlegm of a cough. He could piece together Quaid’s movements from the sounds that echoed off them.

  Are you mad at me or something? said Max. You have not been so nice this week.

  Pardon moi, Pan said. I’m on my period. I’m not mad at you. Why would I be mad at you? Now do I look glamorous or what?

  Max followed Pan into the kitchen, where Quaid fried up thick-cut Walmart bacon. Pan sashayed around the room, air-kissed no one, and said hola in Quaid’s direction. Max hung back inside the door frame. The smell of fat sealed itself onto every surface. Quaid dipped his thumb into the hot oil of the pan and licked it.