“Miss Willard, we need to discuss your parents. As you know they’ve been sentenced and, well, before they go away they’re asking to see the boy.”
“No way,” Mama said.
“I can understand how you must feel. But please, Miss Willard, this is not about whether you three agree or not. This is about Brandon,” Nairobi said.
“Right here is where he belongs.” Mama put her hands in blue-jean pockets and bowed out her hip. “Do you even know how much they put me through by running away with my boy?”
“I know it was difficult,” Nairobi said.
“No, shug, you don’t know. You ever had your natural-born intestines pulled out? Huh?”
The government woman played with the pearls on the chain. “Miss Willard, really.”
“Well, I’m so sorry. I’ve towed the line on ever single thing y’all told me to. Hadn’t I? I said, hadn’t I?”
“Yes, you’ve progressed satisfactorily. Now, no need to get so excited.”
Nairobi cleared her throat. “With all due respect, Miss Willard, this is not about you. Have you asked Brandon if he wants to see them?”
“Give me a break. All that brainwashing they did to him. He don’t know what to think.”
“My question was have you asked?”
The government lady clicked her tongue and looked at Nairobi. She then touched Mama’s arm. “You have done well with him so far. We don’t want to push you now. You just think about this.”
Nairobi stepped closer. “This is just a chance for him to see…”
“This is just a chance to see if you think he’s up to it,” the government woman said without looking away from Mama.
“I just don’t. Not right now. Maybe later. Hey, listen I know we have check-up time and everything, but one wasn’t booked today. I got people over for Kane’s birthday, so…”
Before the government woman could turn around, Nairobi had already opened the front door. I hoped she had not noticed the way I jumped backwards when the door swung open. The pink lipstick matched the material she wore around her head. “Brandon. How are you?”
Before I could speak, Mama and the government woman were standing behind her like two guard dogs ready to leap at the first syllable of the wrong question.
“You’re looking good. How’s school?”
“Fine.”
She glanced behind her. Smiling, Nairobi winked at me. “Time for us to go, I see. But I’d like to talk with you again.”
Mama trailed behind them as they walked towards the official blue sedan. Words describing the fun we had had at the fair were offered even after the car doors had slammed. I met her back at the porch, and she brushed the hair from my eyes. “Nobody’s ever gonna hurt us again.”
When she pranced back inside and cranked the music up, I smiled. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and acted like she was playing an electric guitar. She liked it when I laughed, so I did that too. Soon the crowd circled us again. Their cups bent, and beer fell like waterfalls. Don’t worry, I told myself. It’s the same color as the carpet. We won’t get in trouble with the landlord.
Later that night after I had fallen asleep on the couch, Kane carried me to bed. The smell from the bonfire Tony had built clung to his shirt.
A bottle being broken jarred me out of sleep. Characters from the Peanuts lamp looked blue in the darkness. They lined the lamp like dummies in a store window.
Stillness had swept over the duplex, and only the sound of crickets and a barking dog let me know anybody else was up. I lay still and listened to them chirp and bark in some sort of song. My heart pushed against my chest until finally I gave in and breathed. Staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that Mama had taped to my ceiling, I thought of Uncle Cecil. I dug my nails into the sheet and fought hard not to move one inch of my being. I pictured him laid out on the couch of their trailer, listening to whatever the others had playing on TV. The next time I thought I heard a glass break, I jumped.
The smell of the bonfire had found its way down the hallway. Mama’s door was partly open, and I pushed it with my toe. The comforter we found at the flea market dangled at the end of the bed. Her teased hair looked like the end of a mop that had been painted black and propped on top of a pillow. Kane snored with one leg thrown over Mama.
Empty beer cans and paper cups were scattered across the living room. Hamburger buns and clumps of coleslaw remained on the kitchen counter as if more guests were expected. When I sat down in front of the TV, the carpet was damp, but the glow from the screen was warm. With an adjustment of the antenna Lucy came into view. I laughed right along with the audience until my mouth felt dry from the effort.
Turning to go into the kitchen, I jumped when I saw Him as plain as daylight. Leaning against the stove, He had his arms folded like a wayward guest who had roamed in after the bonfire died. Just standing right there smiling at me as easy as He had in front of God’s Hospital. Laughter from the TV grew weaker as I looked into the eyes. The same deep-set eyes that had been painted on the funeral fan back in Abbeville now radiated right into my nerves. Standing there looking up at Him, I felt the embrace of Nana wrap around me. Soft edges of her underarms and scratchy patches of dry flesh were light against my bare shoulders.
“What the hell are you doing? It’s four-thirty in the morning.” Mama played with the collar of her T-shirt. The side of her hair was matted to the scalp and the other side stood straight out at attention.
All I could do was point at the stove. “Jesus.”
“Watch your mouth,” Mama said and reached for a pack of cigarettes. “You had a bad dream or something?”
The words swirled in my mind but never did come out of my mouth. I stared at the black scratch mark on the side of the stove next to where He had stood.
“You still like Lucy, huh?” With her cigarette Mama pointed at the TV and giggled. When she stretched out on the couch, she patted the space in front of her. The charred smell of the bonfire lingered in her hair. The ends tickled my neck when she kissed the top of my head. All the while my eyes never left the kitchen, and the warmth never left me.
“You remember how we used to watch TV on Saturday mornings? You’d eat Pop-Tarts and lean up against me with your head on my chest. You always did have the thickest hair. The one good thing you got from…anyway, you remember?”
I stared at the kitchen and nodded.
“It was just me and you then. You know, I miss it sometimes.” She pulled up and looked me square in the eyes. “Quit looking off in the kitchen. You just had a bad dream is all. Listen, now. You know I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Nodding, I prayed that Jesus would come stand right in front of her too.
Leaning back against the sofa, she sighed. “You like Kane, don’t you?”
“Yeah. You gonna marry him?”
Her laugh was deep, and she ended up coughing. “Well, I guess I ought to if you like him. About time you liked one I picked.”
The TV glowed while Lucy held up the edge of her dress and stomped grapes in the wooden barrel. Mama laughed, and I decided that if she laughed one more time before the commercial I would ask her.
“Mama, if you marry Kane and we become a family, will we go spend Christmas and stuff at Uncle Cecil and Aunt Loraine’s? And then go see Nana and Poppy…”
“Now don’t start getting on my ass about all that.” She leaned back up and ran her fingers through the side of hair that was still teased. “What, you don’t want to be with me?”
“No. I just want to…”
“Brandon, cut me some slack. Why can’t you just be happy with you and me like it used to be? Huh? Remember how we used to watch cartoons?”
She lay back down and pulled me closer. I could feel her pulse under the bony part of her chest. She rubbed my arm until the beat was steady again, all the while Lucy ran circles inside a barrel of grapes. Running, but not going anywhere.
The paper turkey wobbled in time with the circulating fan. The
display that until yesterday had sat at the end of Mama’s checkout line at Winn-Dixie now stood guard over our kitchen. A real turkey snug in a tin plate rested next to the display. Band music from the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV competed with the electric guitars that flowed out of Kane’s speakers. He ran around taking pictures of Mama preparing our meal. She had that wild look in her eyes that made one of them look bigger than the other.
“Smile,” Kane said.
Mama sighed real hard and closed her eyes before a tense smile formed.
“Kane, is your mama and daddy coming over to eat with us?” I asked.
“Looks like we need more film.”
When he turned to fish through a stack of paper sacks on the kitchen table, Mama stared right through me. She slowly shook her head as if to warn that a danger zone was ahead.
But none of Kane’s blood family or ours, either one, showed up that Thanksgiving Day. Just the people that Mama called our new family. Cheyenne and her baby were the first to arrive. The baby, whose name I couldn’t pronounce, wore Indian moccasins on her feet and tiny gold balls on her ears. She wobbled over to the TV and pitched face first into the beanbag. Cheyenne’s voice roared louder than the music. Her laughter drifted around the room in currents that seemed to ease Mama’s tense face.
Next, Tony came carrying a case of beer in one arm and a bag of ice in the other. The girl with him was somebody new. She used her knee to help balance a bag from the liquor store and closed the door all at the same time. Pieces of her frizzy hair stood out, and I wondered if it might be on account of Cheyenne’s electricity. She had told Mama that electric fields were around her all the time. All I could imagine was the electric fence that Poppy put up at the farm to keep the hogs locked inside. As I watched our guests twined together in the kitchen, the thought made me wonder what had happened to the hogs back at the farm. Did Uncle Cecil take them to market before he got hurt and couldn’t move his body?
A picture of us all gathered at Nana’s table for the usual Sunday dinners flashed across my mind like the slide shows my teacher gave on life in Mexico. The vision put the usual pain inside my stomach, and I looked away at Cheyenne’s baby. She was staring at me just like she could read my mind. A stream of drool slowly ran from her opened mouth, and she pointed over my shoulder. Turning to look, I saw nothing but the artificial tree that covered a hole in the wall. But she just kept staring. Her dark eyes were wide, and she twisted her mouth like she was about to say something. That she would speak right out loud and make them all know what I was really thinking. Before she could blink, I ran to the stereo and turned up the music. As I turned, my arm slammed into Tony. He jerked his arm up in the air, and the drink tumbled to the floor.
“Damn it,” he yelled. “You blind or something?” His mouth twisted, and the skin around his eyes tightened. Laughter died, and music from the TV and stereo began to sound like sirens.
Mama was on her knees wiping up the drink with paper towels. The sweetness of liquor soon replaced the smell of the floral air freshener she had sprayed. “Brandon, watch where you’re going, okay,” she said. The words sounded weak and tiny rising from the floor.
The next day Kane was awake before I was. He sat in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and sipping coffee. As he riffled through the advertising section of the paper, there was an old-man way about him that made me think he could be one of Poppy’s friends. “What you think about us going up to the mall and doing some Christmas shopping?” His words sounded like the Spanish my teacher would speak each time she showed the Mexico slides.
“Well yeah, but…”
“But what? You got other plans?” He flicked his cigarette in an empty beer can and laughed.
I didn’t want to admit that Mama couldn’t afford it. But it didn’t matter. Mama’s money was no good that day. Kane paid for everything including a walkie-talkie set for me. We walked around the mall laughing and eating from the box of popcorn that Mama had wanted. She tried on clothes and even walked away with a pair of new shoes that Kane put in for her to have. Conversations bounced off of the mall ceiling to the beat of the water fountain. Anybody else might have thought it sounded like a crazy house, but to me the organized chaos was a release. That day we were just like the other groups who walked around checking off lists written on the backs of envelopes or in little notebooks. We were a family.
After lunch at a cafeteria with chandeliers, Kane and me sat on the bench next to the fountain dotted with good luck pennies. We could see Mama inside the store filing through the clothes on the rack. Kane kept making faces at her until she finally stuck her tongue out, and we laughed.
He leaned back and rubbed my head until the last bit of laughter was released. “You know, we’re a family so I need to come clean about something. Yesterday you asked about my parents. Well, the truth is I hadn’t talked to them in a while.”
“They’re dead?”
“Just in my mind. They’ve got money and everything. You know, always thought I should act and do things they wanted me to. I was never much for school. Not smart like you.” Kane turned to look at me directly in the eyes. “Yeah, school’s important. You keep on making good grades. But it just wasn’t my thing. For a while I kept up with my mom. But then she didn’t like…she didn’t like some of the people I was messing with.”
Striding out of Sears, she swung her blonde hair as if to tell the world she was on the premises. They gripped bags in both hands and laughed real loud. With each step they came closer to the fountain. The pug nose and frosted hair gave her away. It really was Aunt Loraine. Mary Madonna was looking up at her, talking and flapping her wrist around all at the same time. The once soothing fountain roared like a waterfall, and Kane’s words of a lost home clapped in thunder. If they walked by and heard him, they would forever write Kane off as the same trash that his mama and daddy thought he was. Leaning down like Kane, I tucked my head and even tapped the tips of my fingers together. Maybe they would think that I was some little man. A midget talking to another old man about the weather and how women spent too much money on shopping.
The bags they carried ruffled against the legs of the people they passed. Aunt Loraine’s perfume of wildflowers drifted ahead of them as a warning scent. I tucked my head lower until it must have seemed that I had dropped something under the bench. The taps of their shoes were as loud as the marching of a thousand troops. A giggle, light and airy like the way Mary Madonna used to laugh whenever we ran through the woods, tempted me to look up.
“What you finding under there? Somebody drop some money or something?”
I ignored Kane and kept staring at a lipstick-scarred cigarette butt resting at the foot of the bench.
“Hey, what is it man?”
When I slowly looked up, a woman with white pants so tight you could see the outline of her underwear was standing in front of us. She was staring at the mannequin in the store window across from us. Staring as if nothing at all had happened. Then the water from the small fountain behind us began to soften and the voices of the crowd grew lighter. “I just thought I saw something…something I lost.”
In the distance, Mary Madonna’s hair swung to the rhythm of the shopping bag that Aunt Loraine carried. I watched them grow farther away until they opened the big glass door and disappeared into the parking lot.
Sixteen
“All your ass does is sit around talking about work. Work, work, work. I get so sick and tired of hearing about that shit,” Mama said. She reached for a pack of cigarettes just as Kane tried to squeeze her shoulder.
Tony straddled the kitchen chair and used his index fingers to play a drumbeat on the table. “Quit your bitching, Sophie. Today we grow from two trucks to three. Hey, we’re a monopoly.”
Kane tried to laugh and looked at Tony and then at Mama. She rolled her eyes and stormed off towards the front door.
I tried to block it and pointed to the TV. “Remember tonight’s when Miss Kitty gets kidnapped on Gunsmoke.”
“Brandon, not now, okay. I just gotta breathe.”
The red tip of her cigarette led her like a tiny torch down to the duplex six doors away. Every time Mama went over to Cheyenne’s, she would come back laughing all night. Wacky weed is what Kane called it. One time I saw them sucking up smoke inside a long tube that looked like a gun barrel the pilgrims used to carry. The first time I asked her about it, she said it was genuine medicine that people used to help them calm down. That was when I got nervous. Anything that helped settle nerves always ended up making Mama worse.
Sitting in front of the TV, I first tried to ignore the conversation Kane and Tony were having. But when the screen kept showing the jail with the keys to the cells hanging on an iron ring, I soon lost interest. No matter how many times I turned to look away, the vision of Poppy and Nana standing behind those black bars confronted me. Soon even loudmouth Tony was more appealing than the show.
“Man, we can do this, I’m telling you,” Tony said. He took a long drag off of his cigarette and blew smoke over Kane’s head. “We got the business. See, we get this truck and we’ll be playing with the big boys. No more bullshit stuff.”
Kane nodded and kept flipping through the bank papers. “If we get the loan.”
“Man, please. You said your brother told you he’d help. We’re set. Now’s the time to hit him up.”
“I don’t know,” Kane said.
“What’s to know? He told you he’d help. Go ask him to co-sign.” Tony took another drag and stared at Kane without even blinking.
Two commercials ran before either one of them spoke. Kane kept flipping through the papers like he might find the answer buried deep inside the loan application.
The day school let out for Christmas break, Mama came to pick me up with a Christmas tree tied to the top of the car. When she jumped out in her green uniform skirt, silver hair bow, and go-go boots, I felt proud. That moment, she looked just as good as the other mothers who circled the driveway to the school. Even the principal turned and looked.
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