Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  The ashtray I’m playing with makes a clink on the counter and everybody looks at me. Like they want to hit me too.

  Aunt Janice scratches her scalp. Her hair is pulled back tight with a blue rubber band. She crosses her arms. Shakes her head. Well, she says. Pack up your stuff, Keith.

  Ain’t got much to pack up, Mom says.

  He leaves his schoolbooks behind because school has just started and he’ll have to start up again in Victorville. He has a box of clothes and that’s it. When he’s leaving, I remember his skateboard and it makes me sad. I want to cry thinking of that stupid skateboard. Don’t even ask me why.

  Hey, I say. You’re leaving your skateboard.

  He looks at me and I know what he’s thinking because his eyes aren’t doll eyes this time. He doesn’t say it, but his eyes look like, Man, Ave. Fuck a skateboard. But because Mom and Dad and Aunt Janice are standing around him, he just says, You can have it. I don’t need it.

  Everybody stands around like they are going to say something, but nobody does. Until Dad. He says, You don’t have to keep traveling down this road, and Aunt Janice nods. Aunt Janice is hugging herself, but nobody’s hugging Keith. Dad says, You need to just straighten up and hit the books. That’s what you need to do.

  Keith is looking down at the white floor with black scuffs all over it. Either Mom or me, we’re always taking scuffs off the floor. Keith crosses his arms and puts his hands underneath his armpits.

  This don’t have to be the end of the world, Dad says. Keith takes a deep breath and I’m thinking, You need to answer my dad.

  You hear Darnelle talking to you, don’t you? Aunt Janice says.

  Yeah, Keith says. I hear. I know. I will. It’s not.

  Come on here, Aunt Janice says. She pulls on Keith’s shoulder. Get that box and let’s go.

  The box has Del Monte Pears stamped on the sides. I think the red behind Del Monte looks good outlined in yellow and the words Del Monte in white. Mom says, Give me a hug before you go, and I’m still thinking about Del Monte when I see Keith’s face while he’s hugging Mom. His eyes are closed, but will he open them to tell me something with his face? He doesn’t. He keeps his eyes closed the whole time and then he picks up the box.

  Bye Keith, I say. Aunt Janice has the door open and the bright light is coming in from outside. It’s Saturday and usually on Saturday we walk around. Keith and Brenna and I go to 7-Eleven or catch the bus to the mall if there is nothing better to do. Or we just hang in Brenna’s room and play records. It’s the kind of sun on a Saturday that’s just awesome. Gold and orange and bright and a beam behind Keith. But it’s blinding me so I can’t see his face. It’s gone, all of a sudden, his face. I wish I could do something, but what can I?

  Bye Keith, I say again, because I feel like this: If I keep saying bye, at least he knows that I care he was here, that I’m going to miss him. I hate it when people don’t say hello or goodbye to me, like at school or anywhere, like I’m invisible.

  All right then, Ave, Keith says. He looks down and then looks up again, right in my eyes.

  He walks out the door with Aunt Janice and Mom. Mom is standing at the top of the driveway waving. I know it. I don’t even have to be out there to see it. It’s like the last thing she wants to see is someone go. So long as she’s standing there and waving she can see you. You’re not gone. But I don’t go outside to say goodbye, because I already did. And I’ll see him again. He’ll be back. It’s not like he’s going to some other planet or something. It’s like Mom says. Every goodbye ain’t gone.

  Dad sits down at the kitchen table. He lights a cigarette and looks at me, puffing. I’m in some kind of trouble. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me and not talking. Somehow, Brenna and Keith have something to do with me.

  Avery, Dad says. Sit down.

  I do what Dad says and that’s when Mom comes in. You talking to her now?

  Yeah, Dad says. Right now.

  Good, Mom says. She says, You right there with them all the time and you ain’t seen nothing that was happening?

  Vicky, Dad says. Sit down.

  No, Mom says. I don’t believe I really want to sit down.

  Dad smashes his cigarette. You know why we talking to you, don’t you Ave?

  I’m thinking what to say. I didn’t do anything. I never do anything. Not really. I go, I didn’t do anything.

  That’s right, Dad says. But you knew what was going on and you did nothing. Didn’t say nothing. That’s worse. When you know something ain’t right with what’s going on and you still don’t say or do nothing. You just gone sit on the sidelines.

  I don’t answer him. Dad says, You know Keith and Brenna was doing something they shouldn’t have been doing.

  Like I’m supposed to be everywhere they are, watching out for them like I’m God.

  But I just look down at the table. I say, I didn’t know everything.

  Mom comes and stands close by my side. If I were a little kid that would have freaked me out because she would have smacked me for sure. They don’t have to hit me anymore since I listen without it. I don’t get smacked because I’m already trained.

  Mom says, That’s it for her.

  Look at me, Mom says. That’s it. You don’t do nothing with Brenna. You don’t go to her house. She don’t come here. You don’t do nothing with her after school. If it don’t have nothing to do with school or work, you ain’t doing it.

  That’s impossible. But Mom, I say, Brenna is my friend.

  Well you don’t need them kind of friends.

  Okay. She’s crazy. I’m supposed to just blow her off whenever I see her? How am I supposed to do that? How is that even going to work?

  Avery, Dad says, and he says it quiet, real quiet. So I know I better not say anything. Just listen and take it, like every other day of my life. Dad says, Brenna is obviously doing some things that she don’t have no business doing, and you really don’t want to go down that road. She already off to a rough start. Ain’t no telling what all else she’s doing. Drugs. Drinking. Everything but the right thing.

  Mom nods. This is her favorite thing to say and since Dad already said it, all she has to do is agree.

  Oh my God. Brenna doesn’t even do drugs. She thinks stoners are dumbasses. And she doesn’t even drink. Smoke, yeah, but so what? I don’t say any of this, though. I still have to just sit there and take it.

  Dad wants to know. Who all else she run with?

  I shrug. I don’t know, I say. Just me, really. We don’t really hang out with anybody else.

  Well, you gone have to start, Mom says. All I’m gone tell you is this. Keep your legs closed. If you come up pregnant, might as well hang it up. I feel sorry for you cause can’t nobody help you then. You on your own.

  I want to tell them, Nobody wants me. Nobody cares, seriously. Nobody has even tried to touch me, not since John did that time and called me Aunt Esther. If just anybody would. And if they did, I’m not stupid. Only stupid girls spread ’em so easy, like they don’t have any sense, and then get knocked up and that’s why I’m mad at Brenna. She’s not stupid. She’s not. And now look.

  Are you listening? Dad says.

  Yes sir.

  This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to go to school. He looks at me and waits for me to agree.

  Yes, I say.

  You’re going to do real good and you’re going to keep your job.

  Yes.

  And you are not going to end up like Brenna. You hear me talking to you?

  Yes, I say. I’m not going to end up like Brenna.

  I TRY TO talk to other people all the time. But nobody talks to Brenna. People stare at her, though. That’s the girl, I hear them say. Some black man did that to her, they say. But Keith isn’t a man.

  There are these two girls. Perfect. I sit by them at lunch and ask them if they know what time it is or do they have a pencil. Abby Batista and Letty Cruz. They look right out of Seventeen. Abby’s always in something Ralph
Lauren. She’ll wear a jean skirt with argyle socks and a pink sweater with a turtleneck. Top-siders or loafers. Her hair is always pulled back in a ponytail. Not one. Strand. Loose. Not one. Letty is always wearing super tight Calvin Kleins and plaid Laura Ashley blouses. She puts Sun-In in her hair so it’s kind of brown and blonde at the same time.

  I always wait until they get their lunch before I get in the county line for mine. They pay for their lunch with money, but I get a silver chip from homeroom every day. It kind of looks like a quarter, except it’s not. When I was a kid, and in junior high, your name was always on some list so it wasn’t a big deal. But now that I’m in high school, they call your name and you have to go up to Mr. Celaya and take the chip from him. You have to feel people watching you. And then, at lunch you have to get in the county line for free lunch. That’s what everybody calls it, like we’re on county welfare. It’s a totally different line from the kids who pay with money. I can’t even tell you how much I hate standing in line with a chip in my hand when other people have actual money. It reminds me of when I was a kid and saving up Blue Chip Stamps with Mom, trying to buy something. I was always asking, Why don’t we just pay with money? But I was still happy to get those stamps.

  So I wait until Abby and Letty sit down with their lunches and then I get mine and take it to their table. Sometimes they say hi. Sometimes they don’t.

  Excuse me, I say, Do you have any extra ketchup packets?

  Abby says, Here, and tosses one to me. She doesn’t even look at me. Knock yourself out, she says.

  Oh my God, she says to Letty. Did I even tell you? Marcus is totally trying to scam on me, like he’s even close to being my type. It’s like, are you serious? Gag me. Not for a million dollars, burnout. In your Pinto. I’m sure! I need a Clydesdale, sweetums, not a jackass. She shivers all crazy like she’s having a fit, and Letty laughs and then puts down her sandwich. She only took a bite. I watched her. Gross, she says. I can’t eat any more of this or else I’ll be a cow.

  Look, Letty says. How sad. There’s that girl. And I already know who they’re talking about. I watch them look at Brenna eating at a table all by herself. She looks back at us and they keep talking about her and looking at her. They don’t even care that she can see them looking. Her life is over, Letty says.

  I heard she’s not keeping it, though, Abby says. She picks up her sandwich and tears it into a lot of small pieces and pours some milk over it. There, she says, and then she pushes her food away.

  It’s going to be a black baby, Letty says.

  Abby rolls her eyes. How can it be a black baby? Look at her. She’s all pink and like, red. You can’t get a black baby out of that.

  Yes you can! Letty says. It depends.

  I’m still thinking about this when they stop talking and I know they’re looking at me. I can tell. I don’t even have to see them doing it.

  Can’t you get a black baby out of that? Letty points her chin in Brenna’s direction.

  Yeah, you should know, Abby says.

  Not mean, though. She just thinks I should know.

  But I don’t know what the baby will look like. And they said that. They pointed at Brenna and said that. I go, All mixes are different. I guess you could get almost anything if you mixed all kinds of colors or people or things together. Anything is possible.

  19

  MASSIMO STAYS IN bed, still resting, satisfied with all the work he has done, having helped his brother’s son purchase a new house in Rome. He stayed curled up in the sheets when I left him there, moaning that he was happy to be home.

  I have four hours until I have to be at the gallery. I’m expecting not to sell my art but hoping to sell ideas. It is truly a rare thing, a privilege, to have an audience, even if, ultimately, they don’t care and still won’t know what I’m trying to say.

  I play a CD I made for myself, one of many I play when I’m working or at gatherings. This one starts out with Bay City Rollers chanting exuberantly that it’s Saturday night and ends with Talib Kweli singing “every poor person is a nigger now.” They always unsettle Massimo, not only silly relics from the past like the Bay City Rollers, but all songs with the word “nigger” in them being blared through speakers during a dinner party or while you’re quietly reading the Sunday paper. Somebody is bound to be disturbed. But to my mind, it all belongs together, so why segregate the music for each listener’s comfort, playing safe, inoffensive music sure to go down easy for everyone? Still, I make sure that the music is down low and only coming out of the outside speaker so I don’t disturb Massimo.

  There is a breeze now and the day is ending, so the mountains are shaded at their edges in purple and burgundy. I can step outside myself and see the picture. The clean simplicity of a person and a landscape, elegant like a Hockney painting. But can it be true that Hockney is too simple? Facile? True that nothing is captured in his images? Sure. In my picture of a woman sitting by a pool, for example, there is simply this: A person. A place. And yet. Underneath all of that, there are layers, invisible as they may be.

  I have my phone sitting next to me on the table because I’m sure that I will get calls from people with last-minute questions and regrets about tonight. In my family, people don’t go to computers for info, so they won’t be looking up all the information that I’ve sent via e-mail. Dad doesn’t have a computer. Neither does Mom. And Owen, there is one in his house, but he just doesn’t care. Smart phones are too much of a bother for him, even. “Does it still call people?” he asked me when I complained about his obsolete phone. “That’s all I need it to do.”

  The phone rings. I think it’s Owen on the other end of the line, but it’s Mom.

  “You home?” she says. “It sounds quiet. Thought you’d be running the streets.”

  This is something that she always accused Owen and me of, running the streets rather than staying still, not knowing how to stay home and just sit down somewhere.

  We catch up quickly about everybody. I ask, “How’s Aunt Janice? Anybody hear from ReRe lately?”

  “Oh,” she says, “you know how everybody is, fair to middling. ReRe call herself starting her own cleaning business, but we’ll see.” This is what she says about everybody all the time, even herself. Nobody is ever great. No one is ever terrible, even if something terrible has happened. There is always somebody in limbo, and I always saw this in colors when I was a child. Middling was orange, but on the bad side there was only black and blue and on the other side, the good side, the color was brilliantly golden yellow.

  Everybody is in limbo, and she is sorry that she won’t be coming tonight. Tired. Don’t feel like being around a bunch of folks she don’t know. “The next thing, though,” she says. Now, so many years later, now that she and my father are no longer swimming against the tide of their individual burdens and resentments, she doesn’t seem as tired and tough as she used to be. Home used to be where trouble was, but now my mother simply wants to be home. Because I have her on the phone, I tell her about Keith. In these situations, a long time ago, there was never a middling. The finality and clarity with which she and my father declared what was the right and wrong thing to do was oppressive when I was younger, but now it strikes me simply as a solution to the problem.

  “Keith showed up over here, Mom.”

  “You see him?”

  “No. Brenna and I were at the store.”

  “What Massimo say?”

  “He was mad, but he says it isn’t his place to do anything about it.” I wait but hear nothing. “Hello? You there?”

  “Yeah,” Mom says. “But there ain’t nothing to do. He in his own way, been in his own way for years.”

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t born getting in his own way.”

  “Well,” Mom says, which means she agrees, but. So much more could be said, but what, exactly? “We did the best with what we had,” Mom says. “And you all came up every which way, did whatever you wanted to do. You didn’t come up the way we did.”

  This
strikes me as outrageous, this business about me doing whatever I wanted to do.

  “Seriously? You and Dad ran a tight ship. I mean tight. You don’t remember?”

  “I remember everything,” Mom says. “Everything. And all I know is your brother married a Korean? And you living with a Italian? Over there making stuff with Popsicle sticks talking about it’s art?”

  When she says all of this it sounds like a madcap adventure, the premise of a wacky television program with bizarre characters. It makes me laugh and makes her laugh, too.

  “And Keith,” she says, identifying the one dark element of the adventure. I can imagine her shaking her head. “If you all had come up in Tennessee, wouldn’t be none of that.”

  “Well we didn’t, though,” I say. “And I’m glad. And you’re glad too or else you would have gone back.”

  “I guess you right. Ain’t no need of talking about what didn’t happen. I like my little house. Hold on.” She pauses. “I smell something,” she says. “Let me get off this phone. My cornbread about to burn up.”

  “You all right with money, before I let you go?”

  “Could use a little change,” she says, and I let her know it’s on its way.

  When my mother hangs up, I think about her liking her little house, the house I grew up in. I wonder what could have been different, to keep us all together in the new house that promised stellar living. But there is not one or even two things that we could all agree on. It was, and is, still floating among us, waiting for us to grasp it someday. And I think of the Popsicle sticks Mom brought up. Once, when she was here, I was working on a house, using canvas and Popsicle sticks and paint. I had painted the side of a house, thinking of the house next door to us. White with blue trim. And then, I adhered Popsicle sticks to the canvas, creating the fence dividing the property. Below the fence I tried to replicate the gummy bright blue of dried Popsicle juice, to allude to a swimming pool, or maybe the sky, turned upside down. Just a house, a fence, water, and sky. Sticks and glue. Nothing and everything.

  When we were kids, Brenna would complain about the tight ship I grew up on, the S.S. Arlington, I now imagine, barely staying afloat on treacherous waters, the threat of us drowning as we headed to an unknown land. Brenna thought my mother, in particular, was a strict co-captain, the Bitch, she would always say. Mean. And me, I was always wondering why my mother was so angry when I was younger, so exhausted in later years, and content now, without the trappings I’ve stumbled on. No care in the world about the difference between a Hockney and a ham hock. I used to wish we could have conversations about the difference. But now. I see: I was looking at the picture of who we were—and are—all wrong. I knew nothing of aesthetics. My mother was looking at that picture with fierce clarity. In fact, she was the creator of the picture. An artist. Her family, her children, were an expression of her skill and imagination, the composition of which she, as the artist, wanted utmost control. Of course, I know now. Of course. An artist insists on her vision alone.