Holding on to Nothing

by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Jeptha looked over at the blocks strewn outside the bathroom door. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t picked them up. He could have. He’d been sitting on the couch twelve feet away watching TV for half the day. He’d even stepped over the damn things three times on his way to the bathroom.

  “Exactly,” Lucy said in response to Jeptha’s silence. She held Jared in her arms. He was quiet, too quiet. Not even a year old, and Jared already knew the sound of his parents’ fighting. Jeptha remembered that quiet from his own childhood. Lucy shook the bottle in her hand with about ten times more effort than it needed and handed it to Jared, who grabbed it eagerly. Jeptha hauled himself up off the floor and sat down hard on the couch, rubbing his foot.

  Lucy’s phone rang.

  “What on earth?” she said, shifting Jared to her other side to answer it. He squirmed and started crying.

  “Here,” Lucy said and dropped Jared on Jeptha’s lap. Jeptha quickly faced him out so he could drink his bottle and keep his eyes on his mama. Jared peered up at Jeptha, his bottle clenched in his hand. Jeptha smiled at him and then leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, but Jared closed his eyes and pulled away.

  “Oh, sorry buddy. My beard’s pretty scratchy, huh?”

  Jeptha rubbed Jared’s belly through his pajamas for a minute until he realized that something was wet. He looked down and saw that Jared’s pajamas were wet with pee, which was now all over his own hand. He edged Jared up into a sitting position and looked down at his shirt, which was moist on the front where Jared was sitting.

  “Crap,” Lucy said to the person on the phone. “No, I understand. You can’t do nothing about that. I hope you feel better,” she said. “All right, bye.”

  Jeptha looked at her. “Uh, Jared peed through his diaper.”

  She stared back at him. “Well, maybe you should change it.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

  He held Jared out from his body and took him over to the table. He laid his son down and looked around for the diapers.

  “On the bench,” Lucy said, pointing at a small green basket stuffed with diapers, wipes, and two of the twenty-seven ointments that seemed to have taken over their trailer as soon as they had a kid. Jeptha saw she was furiously dialing numbers and was about to ask if everything was okay when Jared suddenly rolled over on his side, spreading a night’s worth of poop over the changing pad.

  “Come on, Jared,” Jeptha said. “Turn over. I got to get this off.”

  Jared laughed, turned onto his back, and waved his feet in the air, one of his heels covered in poop. Jeptha closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was a mistake.

  “Jared, I hate to tell you, but you stink,” he said to his son, who laughed, delighted.

  “Tink!” Jared shouted. Jeptha looked around guiltily, hoping Lucy hadn’t heard. He guessed “stink” wasn’t a horrible word for a kid to learn, but he was pretty sure she’d have preferred his second word be something else. Jeptha had hoped for “dada,” but had to admit the baby was probably far more familiar with stink than with dada. By the look on Lucy’s face, she’d heard.

  Lucy sat down on the couch. She held her phone in between her legs and was staring down at the floor. “Everything okay?” Jeptha asked.

  “Marla’s kids have a stomach bug so she can’t take him. And I can’t miss any more work or Teresa’s going to fire me.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.”

  Lucy looked at Jeptha with a face so hard it scared him. “You aren’t real clear on the relationship between showing up for work and keeping your job, are you?”

  Jeptha stared down at the ground, stung but unable to deny the truth of what she’d said. Lucy was all about the uncomfortable truths these days.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he heard Lucy say behind him. Jeptha looked down at his son.

  “Well, um … I could take him.”

  Lucy laughed like he’d told the funniest joke in the world. But when she looked up, she stopped. “Oh. You’re serious.”

  “I mean, I’m his dad. I can keep him alive for a day.” Jeptha went back to wiping his son’s bottom. “Jesus Christ, what is this?” he wondered out loud, pawing at the stuck-on flakes on his son’s bottom with his sixth wipe.

  “Cheerios,” Lucy said from behind him. He heard her sigh. “So much for having choices,” she said under her breath.

  Jeptha looked at her, his eyes wide and his heart beating fast. He hadn’t actually expected her to say yes. Somehow he had yet to spend a whole day with Jared. With a hangover beating at his body like a July thunderstorm, today seemed like a really bad day to start. He watched Jared’s face crumple as if he could tell what was about to happen.

  “What do I do with him?” Jeptha asked.

  “He’s ten months old. Don’t you think you probably should know the answer by now?”

  He should know. But he didn’t.

  “I’ll write it all for you. Are you sure you can do this?”

  Jeptha bit his lip, terrified but not wanting to show it. “I think so.”

  Lucy found a piece of paper and a pen. After a couple of minutes of writing—during which Jeptha grew ever more scared, unaware that there was that much required in taking care of a baby—she looked up at him, her eyes narrowed.

  “Jeptha.” Her voice was stern and serious.

  “Yeah?”

  “No drinking. Not a drop. Not while you have him.”

  “I wouldn’t. He’s my son too.”

  “I mean it. He’s my everyth—” She stopped, but they both knew what she’d been about to say. “No drinking. Use his car seat like I showed you a couple weeks ago. And keep your phone on. Everything else is written down here.”

  Jared cried in force as his mom walked into the bedroom and shut the door. Jeptha heard her opening drawers and pulling on clothes. She was going to change her mind, Jeptha was sure of it. He waited a minute or two, sure that Lucy would come through that door, unable to resist the sound of her baby crying. No one emerged from the door. Finally, he leaned over and picked Jared up. He set him up on his lap and bounced him on his knee. Jared cried. Jeptha put him up on his shoulder like he’d seen Lucy do. Jared cried harder.

  The bedroom door opened—both Jeptha and the baby looked toward it like Christ himself had walked through. They were at the end of the hall, with Jeptha holding Jared out before Lucy was all the way through the bedroom door. Jared nearly leapt into her arms. She held him tight against her, kissed the top of his head, and then peeled his arms off her shoulders and handed him back, screaming, to Jeptha.

  “You’re all right, Jared. Mama’s got to go.”

  “But he’s crying,” Jeptha said.

  “He does that.”

  “How do I make it stop?”

  “Give him his bottle. Or some Cheerios. Or both. Change his diaper. Play with him.”

  She gave Jared another kiss on his head and walked out the door. The trailer was silent, both Jared and Jeptha struck dumb at the sight of Lucy heading down the long drive.

  Jared’s blue eyes peered up at his dad. Jeptha raised an eyebrow at him. “What the hell are we gonna do?” he asked.

  Jared cried.

  “Probably the right response,” Jeptha said, nodding at his son.

  THE CAR SEAT had seemed much easier to install when Lucy did it. Jeptha knew a seat belt went through a loop on the bottom and the handle went the other way, but he couldn’t figure out how to get Jared inside the car seat without being strangled by the belt. Jeptha’s nerves frazzled as he sweated through his shirt. He wrestled with the seat and tried to ignore Jared’s increasingly high-pitched cries. The poor kid had already cried for two hours as Jeptha tried method after method to make it stop. He gave him a bottle, changed his diaper, sat him on the floor and stacked blocks with him, and cuddled him. Nothing worked. His last attempt had been to make monkey noises at Jared, which had made him stop crying for about twenty seconds until he got scared and started up again. Surely, Jeptha thought, there was a limit to the t
ears a baby could cry. If so, they had to be near to finding it. Finally, exasperated with the crying and the car seat, Jeptha put Jared in it, did up the buckles inside as tight as he could, threw a seat belt over the entire contraption and pulled it tight.

  The drive to Cody and Marla’s was hellish, but Jeptha didn’t know where else to go. He was hoping like hell that Marla was still there, that he could convince her to feel better. He knew she’d say no if he called to check first, so he figured his best option was to show up with Jared. She couldn’t say no to helping when it was Jared’s sweet face doing the asking, could she? Jeptha couldn’t figure how he was going to do twelve more hours of this with the headache he had from last night. He rolled down the windows of the car, hoping some of the sound would flee the hotbox of tears. But an old lady at a stop sign stared at him, hatred on her face, like he was back there kicking the baby instead of plainly driving the car, incapable of doing anything but getting on to his destination. He rolled the window up and slunk down deep in the seats.

  He sped up Cody’s driveway, flying in the air as he hit a bump at the bottom of their drive. He saw Jared’s car seat pop up off the cushion and resettle itself almost in the middle of the car. He took that as a pretty good indication that he had not installed it correctly. He parked the car, grabbed the car seat with Jared, who stopped crying momentarily in surprise at his father’s face, and banged on Cody’s door.

  “Marla!” he cried, beating on the door. “Marla!”

  “Damn it, man. What do you want?” Cody said, shuffling to the door, wearing a pair of threadbare tighty-whiteys, workout socks, and a head of disheveled hair.

  “Oh, man. I’m sorry,” Jeptha said.

  “What do you want?”

  Jeptha hefted up Jared’s car seat, so Cody could see the baby’s face. There was no sound coming out of Jared’s mouth, just an O of pain in a silent scream.

  “She ain’t here,” Cody said through the screen. He looked down at Jared. “He’s pretty pissed, ain’t he?”

  “When’s she back?”

  “Not until tomorrow. She took the kids up to her mama’s with her so she can rest while her mama watches them.”

  “How come you ain’t watching them?”

  “I got work at noon.” Cody stared at Jared’s squalling form and rubbed his face. “Hell, come on in. I can’t go back to sleep now anyhow.”

  Jeptha followed him into the house and collapsed gratefully onto the opposite end of the couch from Cody.

  “You gonna do anything with him?” Cody asked, nodding at the baby.

  “Should I get him out?”

  “Far as I can tell, being in there ain’t working for him much.”

  Jeptha unbuckled Jared and pulled him out of the seat, narrowly missing clocking Jared’s head on the handle. He cuddled him close to his neck like he had seen Lucy do, but Jared pulled away, his eyes screwed up tight as Jeptha’s beard scratched him.

  “Here,” Cody said. He grabbed Jared and tucked him in tight beside him, sitting up and facing the TV. “This is what I always did with mine when they was babies.”

  Jared quieted instantly, his eyes focused on the television. He looked up at Cody, and Jeptha saw a smile flit across his son’s face. Everyone else made it look so easy, even Cody. It seemed odd to have his son tucked beside the naked thighs of a man wearing nothing but tighty-whiteys on a couch, but he was quiet. For now, that was enough.

  “How you doing?” Cody asked.

  “All right. You?”

  “I ain’t the one showed up at my friend’s house with a screaming baby at eight a.m.”

  “Eh … things ain’t great. Lucy’s pissed I still don’t got a job.”

  Cody was silent.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Jeptha said.

  “It’s past,” he shrugged.

  “I’m wanting to figure out if I can do something more with the farm,” Jeptha said, haltingly.

  “More? Y’all are growing as much as you can, ain’t you?”

  “As much tobacco as we can.”

  “You got another crop in mind?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jeptha, don’t do nothing stupid,” Cody said, shaking his head.

  “Travis does it.”

  “Travis doesn’t have a wife or kid. If he gets caught, it’s just him.”

  “How’s he gonna get caught?”

  “Who knows? It happens, though.”

  Jared sniffled, his mouth turned down like a circus clown’s.

  “Why don’t you make this guy a bottle?” Cody said.

  “Another one?” Jeptha asked.

  “Can’t hurt.”

  Jeptha made the bottle and handed it over to Cody, who tipped it up for Jared to drink until his tiny hands grabbed the middle himself.

  “I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” Jeptha said, defensively.

  “The bottle?” Cody asked. “No, he seems to like it … Oh, planting pot under the tobacco? Just don’t seem that smart to me.”

  “What else am I gonna do?” Jeptha asked. He was genuinely interested. He had no idea what else he could do for Lucy and Jared. They’d long since spent the money he brought in from the tobacco, little as it was, and he couldn’t borrow any more from Bobby. He knew planting pot was a desperate idea, but he was nothing if not a desperate man.

  “Y’all ought to see if you can buy that land next to yours. Add some acres.”

  “Bobby done bought it.”

  “What? When?”

  “Last year. Didn’t tell me about it until harvest time. Caught him about to slice off his balls coming over the barb wire fence.” Jeptha couldn’t look at his friend while he spoke. It had been his dream for years to buy that land, get a bigger quota, and Bobby’s doing it without him had made him madder than anything in his life. He’d been so caught up with Lucy at the time that he hadn’t even realized how mad he was about it, but now, he thought about it every single day.

  “Shit. Where’d he get the cash?”

  “That’s the part I can’t figure. I mean, he works, but it ain’t like he’s got that much coming in. Especially since we got almost nothing for the tobacco last year.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, man. I know you was wanting that.”

  Jeptha shrugged, noticing that Jared’s eyes were becoming more and more wrinkled around the edges. As he watched, they closed and then sprang open, over and over. The bottle drooped out of his mouth. Jeptha got scared—the boy clearly needed to sleep. Should he take him home now? Or could he put him down here somewhere? Before he could think through the question, Cody looked down and noticed the half-sleeping boy. He cupped one hand under his diaper, another behind his neck, and laid Jared down on the couch. Jared gripped his bottle and sucked on the nipple. After a minute or two, his hand fell to his side and Cody grabbed the bottle before it spilled on the couch. His son didn’t flinch. He looked like his mother from this morning. They were both easy to love when they were asleep.

  “That’s what mine always did. Passed out on the couch. Think it’s the TV that does it.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him today.”

  “You oughta take him for a walk. Go walk your property, see if you can’t come up with something legal to do with it. And ain’t that farm across from y’all’s coming up soon?”

  “Why are you so interested in me getting more land?”

  “I ain’t. Just interested in not having to go to the jail every time I want to say hi to you.”

  “I gotta do something.”

  “Well, here’s a thought,” Cody said. “You could stop drinking.”

  Jeptha seethed. “You don’t know a thing about it,” he finally said.

  “Seems like you been out every night lately. Sleeping on your couch, or your car …” He looked at Jeptha. “Girls talk. To Marla especially.”

  “I’m fine. I don’t know what she’s been telling Marla, but me having a couple drinks at night ain’t the problem.”

  �
��Sure about that?”

  Jeptha stood up. His keys clanged to the floor.

  “Shh. You’re gonna wake him up,” Cody said.

  “Don’t matter. We’re leaving anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “It ain’t the drinking keeping me from working. It’s all these assholes in town won’t give me a chance. And I sure as hell ain’t gonna sit here and listen to you lecture me about it. You ain’t the boss of me.” Jeptha’s belly squirmed with shame. Jeptha knew Cody was right, but he didn’t need to hear his best friend put words to what Lucy and everyone else in town was thinking.

  “I ain’t lecturing. Just sayin’.”

  “I get enough of that at home.”

  Jeptha picked up Jared from his nest on the couch. He woke up, of course, and started screaming immediately. Jeptha threw him in the car seat, none too gently, and tried to steel himself against the crying. He snatched up the car seat by the handle, carried it outside, slung it in the back of the car, and strapped it in the way he had on the way over. Cody would know how to install it the right way, but Jeptha had too much pride to ask.

  “You want a hand with that?” Cody asked from behind him.

  Jeptha shook his head. “I know how to do it.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Dammit, Cody!”

  “Hey man, I am sorry. But you are gonna kill that kid, and I can’t let you do it. Move.”

  Cody pushed Jeptha out of the way and leaned into the car. He flipped the seat around so Jared was facing the back, pulled the seatbelt tight across his feet, and slotted the strap through the two hooks on the bottom of the seat that Jeptha couldn’t for the life of him figure out a use for. He leaned onto the handle with his naked belly and pulled the belt tight. Jeptha looked away from the sight of Cody’s balls slipping out the bottom of his underwear.

  “All set,” Cody said. “You got a pacifier for him?”

  “No.”

  Cody closed the door. “Well, good luck with that then.”

  Jeptha looked away from his friend. He could apologize now, and everything would be okay. Part of him wanted to. The other part knew apologizing would be acknowledging that his friend had a point—and even though he knew it was true, he didn’t want to admit it. Drinking was the only true friend he had. He couldn’t lose it. Not now.