Hummingbird

by Jude Angelini

  “Alright,” I say.

  She goes on, “And I have an enteral attached to my stomach.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  She says, “It’s a connector for the feeding tube. I’ve spent half my life in the hospital.” She drinks her water then says, “The good thing about CF is from all the surgeries, I can’t get pregnant.”

  I say, “Yeah, but you can still get AIDS.”

  I pay the check.

  Maybe she’ll let me come in her.

  We walk back to my place. I got my arm around her and I’m street-side pulling the dolly.

  last words

  We park in the woods and hike a mile and a half to the beach. No one’s there, it’s just us and the dunes; the bone-white sand, the crystal-blue water, and the green clumps of grass.

  I tease my daughter as we pitch our tents. I say, “Assia, you prolly the first black person to see this part of Michigan.”

  She rolls her eyes, “Shut up, Dad.”

  I’m laughing, “For real, you the Lewis and Clark of this shit.”

  It takes us a while to set up: neither one of us camp. It’s not my thing, so it’s not hers either. I don’t really do the wilderness unless psychedelics are involved.

  My mom comes over to help. We tie up our food in a tree, then start a fire, go for a dip, and wait for Jack and Joelle to show.

  They come an hour later and bring sausages. We cook ’em on the fire then watch the sun set over Lake Michigan.

  It’s alright. Roughing it’s fun when you know you have a home to go back to.

  Camping’s making me appreciate the little things, like silence and family and not having to dig a hole to shit in.

  We’re all happy. We never get to hang out like this. Then my mom gets a phone call and her face breaks. It’s Uncle Jerry, Grandma’s in the hospital. It’s bad.

  We go to bed early and leave out the next morning.

  We drive five hours south and go see Grandma in the hospital. She’s in bed. She’s weaker than usual.

  It’s cancer.

  They ain’t say it, but I know it. She’s been chain-smoking Pall Malls for sixty-five years. It’s coming to collect.

  Grandma’s not sad, she’s pensive. She comments on what a beautiful young woman Assia’s turned out to be. Assia stands at the end of the bed and blushes. She asks her about school: it’s going fine, summer vacation is fun.

  My mom takes Assia out the room and leaves me with Grandma.

  We catch up and talk about family things. We end up spending most of our time trying to figure out why Aunt Lisa isn’t talking to anybody. She hasn’t spoken to half the family for years. It affects us.

  Then Grandma gets tired and I gotta leave. I kiss her cheek and tell her I love her. I walk down the hall with my arm around my kid, thinking that might’ve been the last conversation we got to have. I had so much to tell her and I wasted it talking about Auntie Lisa.

  I drive to the airport that night and that talk is nagging at me. What a waste. I pop a Vicodin and put it out my mind. That’s how things go, I guess. Maybe I’ll call her later.

  The plane’s delayed two hours, so I eat fried chicken and do drugs till I puke.

  Time goes by and still no flight. Be patient. You’ll get back to LA and away from here soon enough.

  Eleven at night, we’re finally lining up to board and they announce the flight’s been canceled.

  I rent a car. I go home.

  I don’t believe in God, but I pray when a chick’s period’s late.

  In fifteen years of flying I’ve never had a flight canceled. Maybe this is divine intervention keeping me off that plane, maybe it’s luck. I don’t know what it is but I’m not gonna waste it.

  I go see Grandma first thing in the morning. Before she’s diagnosed with cancer. Before they say it’s in her lungs and in her bones, I go see her. Before the chemo takes her hair and her words, I go see her. Before it breaks down her insides and she dies. I go see my grandma.

  I tell her how much she means to me. I tell how hard it was for me growing up. How I never felt safe. How her simple gestures did so much for me. When my shoes were filled with holes and rotten, she got me new ones. When I needed a place to stay, she gave me one.

  It meant a lot.

  I thank her.

  I tell her I’m older now, I understand things. When I’d beg her to step in between my mom and Terry, that we were dying over there and she’d be at the kitchen table, cigarette burning in the ashtray, drinking her coffee, and tell me no. I used to get so mad at her, but I get it. It must’ve been hard to watch us suffer, but they were grown-ups. People do what they’re gonna do.

  I’m okay now.

  I’m holding her hand, I’m crying.

  She tells me she watched me struggle raising my daughter and she knew I needed help, but she wouldn’t give it to me. She didn’t want me raising my own kid. She thought Assia’s grandparents would be better for her than I was.

  I remember that. I’m a teenager, my baby mama’s people don’t like me, and my own family’s not there. My grandma won’t even watch her when I need to run up to the store for diapers. I’m alone. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even want my kid. She comes over and cries, I lose my temper. I’m bitter she’s born, no one asked me. Then I see this little toddler and she looks like me, it ain’t her fault she’s here. You feel bad for resenting your kid. It kills you ’cause you know you shouldn’t but you do. And it’s so easy to let her go and it’s hard to see her once she’s gone.

  Truth hurts, I tell her I understand. I wouldn’t have been a good dad.

  We’re quiet. I’m thinking about that. About life. What could’ve been and what is.

  She says, “Jude, there’s something that’s bothered me for years and I’ve always wanted to apologize for it.”

  I tell her, “We’re good, don’t worry about it.”

  She goes on, “When you turned three, at your birthday party. Your parents were breaking up. It was hard on everyone. It was tense. Your father was throwing you in the air and catching you. I told him, Angie be careful not to drop you. He was going through a tough time. I think he felt like he was being attacked so he threw you in the air and dropped you on purpose. You landed on your butt and started crying. I wanted to stick up for you, but I didn’t. I thought if I said anything more I would just make things worse.”

  I’m shaking my head, grinning.

  I say, “Grandma. I don’t even remember that.”

  But she does and it hurts her. Sometimes people gotta apologize for themselves; it’s not for you.

  We’re silent in that hospital room with the machines beeping and the nurses’ voices in the hallway and I squeeze her hand.

  She says, “You know, Jude, you don’t have to be so hard. You don’t have to be so angry.”

  I sit with that. I smile. I say, “Aw, Grandma, when anger gets you this far in life, it’s scary to let it go. You start thinking that’s all you got. You don’t know what else is gonna drive you.”

  She says to me, “Just know you’re more than anger. There’s joy in the world, if you let it come to you.”

  I say, “I know that. I’m trying. It takes a long time to melt an iceberg. Nothing happens overnight, but I’ll get there.”

  st. jude

  My dad has the car. My mom’s walking me home from kindergarten. I just started. They enrolled me early to get me away from all the fighting. It was Grandma’s idea.

  It’s sunny out. The grass is green. There’s a breeze in the air.

  She’s asking me about my day. I tell her I made a friend. I’m shy.

  We’re a block away from my house, I look down and see a penny on the ground. I stop talking. I reach down and get it.

  “Find a penny pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck.”
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br />   I’m happy. That’s a lot to a four-year-old. I got a lucky penny.

  I’m standing there holding it, looking at it. It’s tarnished and brown but it’s mine. I squeeze it in my hand. I take a few steps. I think a moment.

  I say to the world as much as to her, “You know, Mom, I’m gonna leave it here. So someone else can find the penny. And they can have good luck too.”

  I make a ceremony of it as I put it back on the concrete and my mom tells me what a nice little boy I am.

  I walk down the sidewalk empty-handed and proud. She leads me back to my house needing all the luck I could get.

  I wish she woulda told me to keep it.

  thank you

  First and foremost, I wanna thank all the Sirius and Shade 45 listeners who bought the last book. Although I like my writing, I realize most of y’all don’t even buy books, you were buying me, you’re the main reason why Hyena was such a success and why I was able to do this follow-up.

  Secondly, I wanna thank my mom and dad. You read to me and Rach and took us to the library as often as you could. You stressed the importance of books. And even though I was in an English class with the kids with the helmets on, I still read in my spare time, from Judy Blume to Eldridge Cleaver to Larry McMurtry. I’m not formally educated and reading taught me how to tell a story.

  Now for the business end: Dennis Ardi is my lawyer. Foundry is the agency. Peter McGuigan is my agent; Claire Harris is his right hand. Richie Kern is handling the Hollywood shit for Hummingbird. Ally Musika pushed to get Hyena optioned by HBO, which made me look cool. Andrea Grano edited the last book and still gives me notes. Matt Jelmini is handling my FB.

  Paul Rosenberg saved me from busting suds on Santa Monica.

  Thanks to Rare Bird for putting this out. You’re creative, driven, and flexible. You treated Hummingbird like the piece of art that I view it as and not a fucking product. Shit, what other publisher’s gonna let you drop a memoir with no words on the cover? Tyson Cornell, Julia Callahan, Hailie Johnson, Alice Elmer, Gregory Henry, Jake Levens, and the rest of the fam: thank you.

  While we’re talking covers, Sage Vaughn did mine and I fucking love it. Thank you, bro.

  Ruby Roth did the illustrations. I’ve admired you forever and it was great to work with you.

  Jack, Joelle, Danny, Sarah, Rachel, thank you for being so supportive. I’m nothing without my family. My daughter, Assia, I love you very much, I’m very proud of you, and one day I hope to have a vocabulary as good as yours and for you to have a book out next to mine.

  Sonya, no one has your grind, watching you has made me try harder and you were a big inspiration for me to write.

  Stephen let me bounce my daily writing off him. Patricia’s support meant the world. Alex tried to sober me up…didn’t work. Diana fueled some of these stories. Taryn was in these streets. Nathan got me to start that blog in the first place. Brian, Ross, and Alan ain’t do shit on this one, but fuck it, thanks for letting me talk your ears off about this shit. Mikey’s my guy. Chiko used to drop me off at the hooker’s spot. Sarah Saiger did absolutely nothing for this book but she’s been bugging the shit outta me for a thank you.

  I hope my last two books have carried some of y’all through tough times, got some of y’all reading again, and inspired others to write.

  Thank you all.

  hummingbird,

  don’t fly away.