Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  “Bummer,” Brenna says. “Poor bastard. Do we have to listen to this now?”

  But I love when he sings, “Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter. Togetherness, that’s all I’m after.” So I let him sing his song. Maybe, if he hadn’t hated himself for looking the way he did. Maybe if he had someone telling him before, earlier, before he ever got on a stage, something different about himself. Maybe then he wouldn’t have tried to move bone and skin and hair into shapes and textures and colors that he thought made him better. Or maybe, if he just could have been all of that, mixed up, in peace, weird and black in the first place. I tell Brenna all of this as we’re driving down the hill.

  “Maybe,” Brenna says. She reaches over and turns down the volume. “But too much money—and little boys—I think that’s what did him in. Be careful,” Brenna keeps saying whenever I hug a curve. “Jesus. Pay attention. Why live way up here? And he’s dead now, anyway.”

  Because it’s beautiful, because not that many people live up here, get to live up here, and because we can. But I say, instead, “I don’t know why Massimo lives up here,” thinking Michael shouldn’t be dead, that he’s not really dead, making people sad when they hear a song, like he’s in the car with us, reminding us of so many things we can’t articulate.

  In the Gelson’s we split up and get the things we need. We meet again and wait in line, making fun of celebrities on the covers of magazines and of some of the people in the market, like the alarmingly tan, middle-aged man desperately trying to look boyish, hunks of muscle straining under a T-shirt several sizes too small. “I hope that one right there takes a dump in that big bag of hers,” Brenna says. She nods at a black woman with long dreadlocks who is cooing to her Chihuahua. We laugh, but then I see something else that makes me stop. It’s a book, for sale, bargain bin, and Brenna is telling me to hurry up because the woman at the checkout is scanning our groceries. But the name on the cover, I recognize. John. John Etherton. I turn the book over, and there is John, the John of Playboy magazines and summertime. I scan the book, a memoir entitled Where I Used to Be. About his days lost to drugs and addiction. It’s all so interesting and book worthy, now that the devastation is behind him and touches no one but himself. I’m thinking, Of course this is how it has ended up, you and your book, famous for running around and doing drugs with a black man. What an edgy life you’ve led, John. I turn over the book, and the image staring back at me is a pleasant one, a smiling man with gray temples, who lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and son, the book says.

  “Avery!” Brenna says. “Stop making this woman wait.”

  “I’m sorry.” I put the book back on the metal rack and pay in a daze, wondering about John and how long I’ve made the checkout woman wait. I watch her bony wrinkled arm scan our things, thinking that she’s too old to be working, to be waiting for people.

  “What the hell were you reading back there?” Brenna takes the bag from my hand and pulls out an apple she bought. She pulls the tiny sticker off it, flicks it on the ground, and takes a bite.

  “You should wash that,” I say, not really thinking of the apple.

  “Fuck it. What were you looking at?”

  “This kid that I knew. That Keith used to know. He wrote a book about his addiction. They got in a lot of trouble together, and now he’s got some book.”

  “Good for him,” Brenna says, disinterested, though I’ve talked about John before, of course. Why would she remember anything about some kid I used to know from a long time ago? And anyway, she would only care about Keith, the one who is still lost.

  We are gone just for a half hour, but when we walk up to the front door, the house feels different. Bowie is singing to me about my face, my race, the way that I talk. “I kiss you, you’re beautiful,” he says, and I feel something dark and heavy. “Brenna.” I grab her arm and stare at the front door that is wide open. “Did we leave this open?” And the open door feels like a dark hole I’m falling down.

  “Shit.” Brenna pulls me back from the door and we take a few steps back. She says, “Stay here.” She takes a few steps, crosses the threshold of the door, and then comes back to me.

  We stand together, paralyzed for a moment, and then Brenna says, “Fuck it. I don’t hear anything. Let’s go in.”

  She walks in slowly, her head cocked to listen more carefully. Her hair is still damp from the pool and is sticking to her back. I place my palm there and grab her hand, expecting that I will have to pull her back and that we will have to run away from the house. But no one is there. It takes me a while to notice that things have been moved. A rug is missing. A camera that was sitting on the dining room table is gone. A few drawers are open in the living room, empty. Food is sitting on the kitchen counter that wasn’t there before. Some crackers. Cheese. Croissants with pieces missing from them like the shape of a mouth. “Hello?” I ask. “Hello?” When I don’t hear anything, I walk into the bedroom and see that my bed, which used to be smoothly made, is messy. There are two spots of blood on the end of the comforter and two tiny vials lying in one of the comforter’s indentations.

  Brenna is standing behind me, her breath hot on my neck. “Let’s go back in the living room,” she says. “It’s too weird back here.” She pulls me back into the living room and we both stand there, thinking. Something else about the living room feels strange. Two walls are blank, paintings missing. When I glance back at the entry, I see what else. My portrait of Keith and me is gone.

  10

  THE PORTRAIT ISN’T the only thing that’s missing, but it’s the thing that worries me the most. In addition to the camera and one of Massimo’s Rolexes that he left in a tiny bowl full of coins, the Persian rug—one that Massimo got in Tehran during one of his trips without me—a camel-bone mirror from Morocco, and some cigars are missing. The cigars are Cohibas, Genios Maduros, that cost “hundreds of dollars for just ten of them,” Massimo is always reciting. He loves his cigars, puffing on them after dinner, and I have to admit that I’m drawn to him, sitting in our garden in one of his crisp shirts, a cigar held between his brown, elegant fingers and smoke obscuring his green eyes. He looks like power, smoking his cigars. But as always, Brenna is not impressed by Massimo or his cigars. She rolls her eyes at me when I say, “Massimo is going to lose it. I’m half afraid to let him know.”

  “Fuck him,” Brenna says. She walks to the stereo and turns Bowie down. “Can’t believe they left this,” she says, tapping the stereo. “Call the cops. That’s who we really need right now.” She is stiff and alert, her skin shiny from the sunscreen she slathered on to protect herself from even more freckles.

  I feel a flash of loyalty to Massimo when Brenna disparages him this way, and yet he would say the same about her. And, no, he is not the priority right now, this is true. Brenna is still standing near the doorway, but when I hesitate, she blows air out of her mouth and takes three steps to the phone propped up on my bookshelf. Her finger stabs at numbers until I take the phone out of her hand.

  “What the hell, Ave?” She puts one hand on her narrow hips and throws the other hand up in the air. She is all action, always. If there is something to do, Brenna does it—that is all. But me, I am always thinking that there are too many ways to do things, and so as a result, I do nothing.

  I stare around the house, my eyes scanning the walls, the floors, the tables, looking for anything else that might be gone, and there’s not that much missing, not really. “Just wait a minute,” I say. She waits with a frown on her face, and I almost don’t tell her the truth of what I’m thinking. What if it’s Keith. It might be Keith. It is Keith. Brenna is waiting. She tries not to think of Keith in the ways I do. She does not want to be in a headlock or an embrace with him. She has tried to discard him, though she has not been successful. He is just a sad memory, a reminder of her teenage transgressions, of what her life could have been.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. Just wait.

  ALL DAY AND all night Im scared. Mama is home from work
and boiling a ham hock for greens, and me and Keith in the backyard kicking around a ball. Its dark in the backyard even though theres a light on, and Keith keep kicking it hard on purpose so it end up in the cactus in the corner of the yard. The cactus look like a giant spider like in the scary movies—its bigger than me and Keith and even Mama, Daddy, and Owen. The pieces of it grow up and out, like green giant spider legs coming out of the ground, and on the sides of the pieces it got sharp stickers like teeth. I already got the ball once and got stuck on my legs and scratched up on my arms. I make Keith get the ball after that because its his fault it end up in the cactus anyway. Dude! I say, Stop being so lame, but he just shine me on and ignore me. He keep running in the dark getting stuck by needles, and it look like he dont even care. But he got to care. It hurt.

  Mama slide open the patio door. She say, Avery come here, and I know she talk to Joan. Keith, she say. Get in here. Keith face dont look scared, dont look worried, dont look nothing. I cant make my face that way right now. We walk through the door, and Joan standing in our kitchen. Inside. In our house. Mama never ask Joan in the house since we been living here. Joan looking all around her. She can see the living room, Jesus on the wall and our white leather couch that have black cracks all on it, my bedroom with my bed and nothing else but a Raggedy Ann blanket, nothing on the walls, no desk no chairs, just my bed. She can smell our food, and Mama looking at Joan looking around, and I know she mad about Joan being in our house on top of the watch that Brenna took. But Mama dont have speeches like Daddy. She say, Joan told me all about it and you need to tell her you sorry. I did not do nothing. Anything. Neither did Keith, but I say sorry before Mama even done telling me to say it. I just want it to be done. I say, Im sorry for cussing. And Mama say, For what? And Joan say, I did not mention that, Avery. Im thinking, You moron Avery. You moron. Keith dont say sorry fast. He stand there for a little bit. I am waiting for him to tell it. Avery a lie. I didnt take nothing. Brenna did it. This lady at the wrong house. But he more scared of Mama than his own mama. He know that Mama might hit him if he make her mad enough, and Daddy too. He mumble that he sorry.

  Mama say, Okay Miss Cooper? She say this slow. She say this like she dont remember how to talk. She say, Avery and Keith know better. I am very sorry, and they just caint come over to your house no more, worrying you to death. She say that like she done talking, and she look at the front door and then back at Joan and then back at the door again.

  I didnt mean that, Joan say. Her eyes catch mine, and then she look at Keith. I didnt mean that, she say again. Avery is still welcome anytime. These are just lessons that kids have to learn. Im sure you agree, she say, but Mama dont answer that question. She say, She welcome, but I have to see about all that. Well, Joan say after Mama dont say anything else. Ill let you get back to your dinner. It smells wonderful, she say, and turn around and walk out the kitchen and out the door. I remember wonderful, wonderful like the first time I met Joan, but it dont feel the same, and I feel more scared watching Joan walk out the door than I did when I saw her standing in the kitchen. Me and Keith are going to get it.

  Joan is gone. Mama standing in front of me and Keith. She slap me hard across the face. She slap Keith harder, and slap him two times. The water from the ham hocks is boiling over in the fire on the stove, making sounds like on cowboy movies when they burn letters on cows. Sizzle. It sizzle. But Mama dont move. She hit me again. Cussing, she say, like she getting used to the word. She hit Keith. She say, That woman will never come in this house again telling me what kind of lesson I need to teach you. Keith look straight ahead, aint even crying. But I keep wiping at my face and I say, Brenna really took the watch, not Keith. But Mama dont want to hear it. She say, Its too late for all that who shot John. If you run with bad folks, you bad, and if they took something aint theirs, you might as well been the one that took it now. She say, Look at me Keith, Im talking to you. Got me burning my food, Mama say. She all of a sudden hear the sizzle, but its been sizzling for such a long time now. She say, Get out of my face. You need to go and sit down somewhere. Keith go lay down on the couch where he sleep when he come here, and I go to my room. Close the door. Then I breathe.

  In the middle of the night, I wake up and my bedroom light is on. Its so bright I cant open my eyes all the way. Daddy on his knees in front of me, and Im scared because Daddy dont come in my room for nothing. Never. Most he do is stand in the doorway, and now he is on his knees. What Daddy? What is it?

  He put his face in mine. Close. I want to lean back but I know Im not supposed to lean back. Hes talking in a very low voice that I almost cant hear. Very quiet. He say, Im waking you up to tell you this one time. Are you awake? Are you listening to me? I bet not ever hear a story like the one your Mama told me tonight. He aint looking me in the face like Mama do, he is looking past my face at the blank wall next to my bed. He is very still and his hands make a fist. His jaw move like something crawling underneath his skin. He is trying, trying to stay calm. He talking to me like Mama do. He dont say much. He say, Do you hear me?

  I move my head up and down and my chin tickle from a tear hanging on the end until I wipe it.

  No, he say. Do. You. Hear. Me?

  And I know that Im supposed to answer the question with the right words. Not with my head. I say, Yes, sir. I am awake. I hear you.

  KEITH DOESNT TALK to me for a whole day and then he leave our house. Daddy take him all the way back home to Victorville, and he dont come back for two whole years. When he come back, he changed. And he the same.

  WE’RE GOING BACK home. That’s what Daddy always calls it. I never feel right saying that because Tennessee isn’t my home. California is my home. But I love, love, love riding in the car. And Mama and Daddy are always so happy to be back home. Daddy and Mama are in the front and I’m in the back. Keith and his mama are driving too. Owen is riding with them to help. Sometimes they are in front of our car and sometimes they are behind. Daddy only got one week for vacation, so he drives and don’t hardly ever stop. If you have to go, you better hold it for as long as you can.

  We will get from L.A. to Tennessee in two days sleeping in places where you rest with a bunch of trucks all around and Daddy and Owen taking NoDoz. Now Daddy is driving and Mama is sleeping and my favorite is right now, before we get South, when we are in the desert. In the daytime I can see all of everything pass by in colors like purple and green and gold and pink and yellow. But the sky at the beginning of night is purple, the desert in New Mexico is gold and pink and sometimes purple and it all passes by so fast. When we get in the South I won’t like it at night so much. It will smell good, fresh, fresh like mountains of grass. But at night. Late at night it is black, but I will stare out the window trying very, very hard to see something. I hope I see Bigfoot and then I hope I don’t see Bigfoot. It’s just fake, I know, but if there is a monster out there, I think it is better to see it than not to see it. Or people out there in the trees. I don’t like trees as much as I like desert, it’s hard to see things in trees. I think that maybe I will see the shapes of people. Maybe I will see somebody walking around in the trees lost. I think, What if there is a secret world of people in the trees that only come out in the darkness and they blend with the dark, and only people who look for them really hard like I do can see them?

  Daddy turns down the radio, but I like hearing that song Listen What the Man Said, because it sounds like a country song in a movie to me, and it fits the desert and the nighttime. The wind is blowing in my face hot and dry like I just opened the oven and I say, Turn it back up Daddy, but Mama says, Ain’t nobody want to hear that country mess. But Daddy turns it back up. That’s not country, he says to me, he says, You like Wings? I say, Yes! He turns his head to the side just a little bit to look at me, and then he looks back at the road. They all right, Daddy says. He turns his head just a little bit to look at me. What you looking at, Ave? Nothing out there but dark, he tells me, but I don’t want to tell Daddy about the people I’m looking for becaus
e if I talk about the people, Daddy will tell me they are not out there walking around. I might sound touched but I’m being for real. I don’t want to be told nobody’s out there because I know they are. They are all in the dark, Daddy’ll tell me, Ain’t nobody out there Avery. Can’t nobody get you. But seriously, I don’t believe Daddy. I bet you ten dollars somebody is out there. How could they not be? That’s a lot of space for people. Somebody has to be in that space somewhere.

  11

  WE SIT IN the middle of the living room, on the rug, like we used to do when we were kids in each other’s rooms. There is a garbage truck on a nearby street somewhere in the neighborhood, making noises like a distant moan, the abrupt clunk of something heavy being put back into place. Brenna says, “At least call Massimo,” and now I know how unsettled she is. She thinks something should be done.

  She chews on her fingernails, what little of them she has left, works them on the tip of her tongue and spits them out. It pains me to look at Brenna’s hands, yet I am always looking at them, the map of them reminding me of who she is. Wisps of scars like white worms between her thumb and index finger from an accident when she worked at Arby’s in high school. Calluses from the jobs she’s had. Housepainter, McDonald’s, waitressing. She even worked as a truck driver, just as her father did. When we were children, she bit her nails so much that her fingertips rose over the thin line of the nail, like half-formed, flesh-colored bubbles, a hint of blood just visible on the nail’s edges. They were the ugliest hands I’d ever seen, worse than my mother’s hands, which were discolored, thick, and misshapen by so many years of endless factory jobs and cleaning houses without gloves. My mother’s hands were always like that, and she was a grownup, anyway, I reasoned then. But Brenna was just a kid. I used to look at Brenna’s hands with wonder, but I would never tell her to stop biting her nails, not until we were older. “Don’t you know how terrible those look?” I would ask her, never asking her what she was so nervous about, why she bit her nails in the first place. She chews on another finger, frowns, her eyes fixed on the rug at her feet.