Fortune Smiles: Stories

by Adam Johnson

  —

  The UPS yard is almost empty, its skeleton crew of drivers out on the road. Nonc docks the van so they can clean and fuel it before heading out again. Geronimo grabs the hose, and as Nonc sweeps the crawfish out onto the pavement, the boy sprays them into the storm drain. He seems to relish the way they skitter against the beam of water, but when they’ve all finally disappeared, when they’ve slipped through the grate for good, he looks lost.

  UPS lets Nonc keep all his food and milk in the refrigerated cargo bay, so he can bootstrap up a few PB&J sandwiches and reload the sippy cups between runs. UPS is the coolest company that way—they let Nonc take the van at night, the way a cop brings home a squad car, and they look the other way about Geronimo riding shotgun. As long as you don’t fuck up and get your name in the paper, Brown is on your side. One driver got drunk and ran his van into a ditch. UPS just towed it out, no questions. Got him some counseling, sent him back on the road.

  Nonc downloads a new manifest to the DIAD, which diagrams the optimal route—right away, he sees that one of the stops is his own address, or his old one, the place on Kirkman Avenue he was evicted from. He heads there first. On his street, a pair of white oaks have blown down, letting a new light fall on the fourplex, so that he almost doesn’t recognize it when he pulls up. All four doors have been kicked in, and on the porch, some crows are taking turns poking their heads in a cereal box.

  When he came home last year to find the door padlocked, the sheriff’s tag said all his possessions would be auctioned to pay the back rent. But Nonc enters to see his old TV on its stand, his couch blooming with mold, his table and chair dusted with broken glass. The rest of the stuff isn’t his—the dishes on the floor, the broken picture frames, the bicycle on its back by the door. The mixture of his possessions with a stranger’s isn’t as weird as the fact that these things used to mean something to him. When did he find time to sit on this couch? Did he once know the names of TV shows? He feels like the person who owned that couch is just as much of a stranger as the person whose family photos litter the floor.

  That’s when Nonc looks at the package and sees that it is addressed to himself, Randall Richard, from his father. Nonc picks up a piece of glass and slits open the box. Inside is a note, one of his father’s unmistakable notes: “Aside from killing me, California has been okay. These are my effects. They asked what I wanted done with them, and I didn’t know.”

  Nonc turns the note over to see if there’s more, but there isn’t. Inside are his father’s clothes, his pants, shirt, belt and ball cap. Nonc’s pretty okay with the man’s death, but the notion that he’ll never get dressed again, that he’s to die in a gown, seems strange and impossible. There’s also a wallet. Tooled into the leather is “Nonc,” short for n’oncle, a Cajun term for uncle that’s used for close family friends. It’s what he called his father when he was a boy, before he started calling him Harlan. It occurs to Nonc that he never called his father Dad, and now, weirdly, neither does his own son.

  Inside the wallet are a Costco membership card, some cash and a handwritten list of Internet casinos with ID numbers and passwords. There is a California driver’s license with an address in L.A. that Nonc could map with his DIAD, and there’s an ancient laminated doctor’s note stating that he is a mute. Nonc picks up a key chain, a large one with all manner of car keys, Toyota, Ford, Hyundai. One of the keys is for a boat, a Grady-White, which are the best. And there’s a packet of white hankies, which his father used to clean his trach tube. All this stuff is just sitting on Nonc’s lap. He feels like he’s rifling through it, like his dad might walk in at any moment and catch him. He feels like his father died long ago, and these are relics. He brushes it all onto the couch, the keys, the cash, the LSU ball cap. He stands and takes a last look around. He tries to separate the different owners of all this stuff, tries to put them together. He tries to close the door behind him, but it is broken.

  —

  To get a break from Geronimo, Nonc and Relle attend A.A. meetings at the Presbyterian church, where an old maw-maw provides free child care. For two hours a night, they get to drink coffee and listen to other people’s problems. Tonight Nonc arrives first, and after dropping off the boy, he grabs a piece of king cake and sits in the half-empty circle. Churches are always acting like they have something incredible going on—white envelopes for your money, toddlers in three-piece suits, cops in gloves directing Sunday traffic—but their basements are all the same: folding chairs, old appliances, bins of dead folks’ clothes.

  The regulars start arriving. Even though it’s “anonymous,” Lake Charles isn’t such a big town, and Nonc has knocked on just about every door. Linda Tasso shows up, the oldest daughter of the mayor. She manages to find a new rock bottom every week, goes on and on about it. Jim Arceneaux brings this giant truck-stop thermos of iced tea. He used to run a reptile zoo out by the interstate, snakes and gators galore; he sobered up when they slapped him with animal cruelty charges after they caught him adopting too many kittens and puppies from the pound. Some folks from New Orleans show up—you can spot them right away, that look of wearing someone else’s clothes, those faraway eyes.

  Finally, Relle strolls in—she’s got a chocolate and maroon tracksuit on, and she takes a chair across the circle from Nonc. She slouches in her seat, which pulls the fabric of her pants tight enough that you can see the shadow of her pussy. The girl has really taken a shine to A.A. meetings, and not just because it’s the only time they’re free of the boy. She seems to love the idea that normal-looking people, people with careers and houses, are actually, according to their own testimony, weak and susceptible. Relle was the one pretty girl in high school who was never popular, so she loves standing in their group at break, being among the chitchat, bumming cigarettes, laughing when they start to laugh. And then there’s that moment when the break is over and everyone heads back inside for the second hour, that moment when she takes Nonc’s hand and leads him into the van.

  She’s even become a talker at the meetings. She loves to discuss the state of their relationship, out loud, in front of witnesses. Tonight she starts right in. One of the evacuees from New Orleans stands up. “My name is James B.,” he says, “and I am an alcoholic,” and then Relle is off and running. But Nonc’s still staring at James B., who’s wearing a brand-new Chuck E. Cheese T-shirt, and the crispness of the white makes the rest of him look battered, like some shit has truly befallen him.

  “My boyfriend,” Relle says, and looks toward the ceiling, as if nobody knows who that might be. “My boyfriend’s real strong, but so is his problem. There are struggles ahead, and he can’t see them. A funeral’s on the horizon, travel. I’m trying to help him. I’m offering my hand, but I’m afraid he’s not going to take it.”

  Bill Maque, the guy who runs Game and Fish, says, “Tell your boyfriend that he needs to find a meeting before he travels. Trust me, they need to be expecting him.”

  “A funeral,” Linda Tasso volunteers, “send in the shrinks, that’s a guaranteed spiral.”

  Nonc’s job is to figure out what “problem” Relle is really talking about. Last night she said, “Nobody should have to handle two people’s problems,” which was code for the position Marnie had put them in, and hell or high water, that girl had to be found. But Nonc can’t tell if tonight’s problem has something to do with Marnie or the paternity test, both of which could result in major developments. Your baby’s mama is dead? Your baby’s not your baby? Those things are as irreversible as a kid thrown from a bridge, and if Nonc knows anything, it’s that you want to minimize developments in life—a few are going to happen, sure, but you don’t go looking for them, and you sure as shit don’t cause them.

  “I can’t speak for your boyfriend,” Nonc says, “but maybe he’s thinking, thanks for the hand, but he’s on top of it. Maybe he doesn’t need any help right now.”

  Even though it’s anonymous, everyone turns to look at Nonc. He can read their minds—Dude, they’re thin
king, take the help.

  Astonished, Relle says, “You saying my boyfriend doesn’t want my hand?”

  “Take the hand,” James B. calls out. He looks up. “Lord, help him take that hand.” It’s clear the man is imploring the Creator Himself, and it puts weird gravity in the room.

  Nonc says, “I’m just saying maybe your boyfriend’s doing okay. He’s surviving, right? He’s putting one foot in front of the other, he’s making it.”

  Linda Tasso chimes in with a “One day at a time.”

  “Maybe that’s what my boyfriend thinks,” Relle says. “But he’s stuck, and going nowhere is going backward. I’m making plans, you know. I’m trying to bring him with me.”

  “What makes you think you know what’s best for him?”

  “Because he’s in my heart,” Relle says. “And because I know him better than he knows himself.”

  Wearily, people turn to look at Nonc. They’ve had about enough of tonight’s episode of the Cherelle Show, but Nonc doesn’t care. “If this guy’s in your heart,” he says, “then so are all his mistakes, you know—so is his kid.”

  Relle leans forward in her chair. “I am making you,” she says. She looks into Nonc’s eyes. “Nobody ever made you, no one ever cared enough. Take my hand, let me make you.”

  That’s when James B. points toward the rafters. “The roof is weak,” he says, and everybody looks up. “Lord, let it be weak, let me find where.”

  There is a silence, and James B. stands. He really doesn’t look very good.

  “I used to plot out every single drink,” he says. “I used to plot the liquor store, now you got to plot away from it, from the glow of it. Why would the Lord make a liquor store glow? Now you got to plot out a folding chair, a cup of coffee.” He looks at his coffee like he’s never seen coffee. “You got to plot a toilet, a bus, a single slice of pizza. Take the dogs off the chain.”

  Nervously, Jim Arceneaux says, “Okay, I think we’ve all been where James has been.”

  “Seize the knife from that table, you will need it,” James B. says, and he’s talking like a man from a Bible story, like he’s one of the guys spelled out in the stained glass above.

  Jim Arceneaux stands. Fake-laughing, he says, “Hey, no knives, please.” He looks at Bill Maque like he should stand, too. “James B., we can hear your hurt,” Jim says. He has a Bible. He opens his arms. “Would you like some personal fellowship?”

  “Prepare for the dark,” James B. says. “The water’s at your feet, your knees, ribs. All day long I used to breathe for a drink. Close my eyes, and I’d still see the glow—Budweiser blue, Coors yellow. Take your knife to the ceiling, plot your way through the attic. Beware that insulation floats. A bottle you hid long ago. Take the dogs please take my dogs off the chain. In that small space, insulation will swarm you. You got to plot the roof. Please let it be weak. Cut till you see the glow, in the dark water look for the glowing. Make yourself small, scrape through. Lord unhook the chain off the porch or else they do drown.”

  —

  After the break, Nonc has Cherelle’s legs high, and he’s inside her. The van smells of baby wipes and crawfish. From the chapel comes the sound of scales on the organ. The notes are aimless and mechanical, someone trying and trying to do better. Relle’s thing is that she looks right at you when you’re doing it, she never unlocks her eyes. It’s kind of unnerving, but Relle says she can’t help it, and she reminds Nonc that she comes every time. She reminds him how well their bodies fit, the fold of his arms around her shoulders, the way her legs figure-four his waist. Sometimes, though, Nonc gets the distinct feeling she’s trying not to come, like she doesn’t want to let go of something. Maybe it’s more like she’s trying to delay it, be in control of it as long as she can. Nonc can feel her fight what’s building, and when she finally gives in, when she lets herself be swept, that’s when she closes her eyes.

  The result is that, with her glaring at him, Nonc tends to close his own eyes, and that puts him in his own world. Then it’s easy for his mind to wander. It’s easy to start thinking about James B. and what happened to those people in New Orleans. He’d been imagining Marnie freeloading a ride to town to drop off Geronimo in some kind of vacation from parenting. But it’s clear some shit went down in N.O. to Marnie, to the boy.

  Relle reaches down, grabs his hips and stops him. Sometimes, when she’s in a bad mood, she’ll stop him and make him put on a condom right in the middle. But she doesn’t seem mad.

  “You heard what I said in there, right?” she asks. “I’m trying to put myself in your heart.”

  “You’re already there.”

  “Then I need you to act,” she says. “Act that way.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to Beaumont—I’ll go see if it’s her.”

  Relle reaches into her bag. “It’s not her. I called after lunch. Turns out it was some other dead girl.” She pulls out a powder-blue debit card from FEMA. “I’m acting,” she says. “I’m making a future for us. The thing is, as decisions need to be made, as options materialize, I need to know you’re with me.”

  Nonc’s seen a thousand of these cards, all the evacuees have them. The trouble is they don’t help you survive, because there’s nothing for sale—the only thing they’ll buy is your way out of Louisiana. “Where’d you get this?” he asks.

  “There’s five grand on it,” she says. “It’s a small-business grant. They’re giving ’em away.”

  “Small business?”

  Relle reaches into her bag and pulls out a brochure for “Nonc’s Outfitters.” On it are images of bird dogs and ducks, along with a scan of Nonc’s high school photo and a Google map on the back to some property her father owns to the south. “Not bad, huh?” she asks. “I made it on the computer at work. All those hunting dogs and shit? I pulled those pictures off the NRA website. We spend the money on a four-by-four, and there you have it, there’s our business. Maybe we’ll build a hunting lodge someday. Or whatever, we can spend the money on whatever.”

  Nonc could remind her that he doesn’t know anything about duck hunting, and neither does she. He could mention that her father raised greyhounds, not bloodhounds, that this is technically a crime, that his wages are already garnished. But it’s his picture he can’t stop thinking about. In it, his smile is a mix of optimism and relief, as if now that high school is over, the hard part is done. It’s the sucker’s look that people had on their faces when they got off the buses from Katrina, when they didn’t know Rita was on the way.

  “At the Visitors’ Center,” Relle says, “I get all these calls looking for hunting guides. I’m supposed to take turns recommending the guys on the list. And then it hits me. The answer is right there.”

  “This kind of shit doesn’t bother you?” he asks.

  “What?” Relle asks. “The hunters are stockbrokers and shit. We just drive them out there. They’ve got fancy rifles and gold-plated whistles.”

  “Shotguns,” Nonc tells her. “You hunt birds with shotguns. And you know what I’m talking about.”

  “You wanna know what bothers me?” she asks. “I’m bothered by living with crazy people for my room and board. I’m bothered by having to go to A.A. to get a date with you.”

  He looks at the map to the property Relle’s father owns. The guy used to run a racing kennel there. The whole thing was a fiasco, and everybody knows, though nobody will say, that there are dogs buried everywhere. Whenever Nonc feels bad about having his loser dad skip town, he just thinks of Relle and what it’s like to have him stay. The truth is that Relle’s not about schemes and money but about wiping her slate. For someone who grew up the way she did, Relle’s the best possible version of herself.

  “Just as long as you know how fucked up this is,” he says.

  “Please,” she says. “I mailed this brochure to four people today—they’re sending in their deposits. One of them lives in Hollywood.”

  She massages him, pulls him inside again, though he can tell she’s got the sex
cordoned off, like there’s a velvet rope between her and what’s happening below. Then she’s looking at him, a narrowed, questioning gaze. It’s not an angry look—he’s just being read. He closes his eyes, sees a roadhouse he and Marnie used to go to, the place where they met, actually. It was called the Triple Crown, out on Highway 90. He recalls this one night they went out—hadn’t known each other too long—and no, Marnie said, she didn’t feel like drinking that night. That was okay with Nonc, he understood, but he had a feeling, and looking back, what seemed like an insignificant event was a major development. He wouldn’t know for a month, but that was the day Marnie knew she was pregnant. Developments can happen right in front of you like that, you don’t even see them.

  —

  When it’s time, they pick up Geronimo in the annex.

  At the door, they pause. Through the little window, they can see the maw-maws inside, arms folded as they confer with one another. Relle says, “These ladies give me the creeps.”

  “Just don’t talk to them,” Nonc tells her.

  “I don’t get old ladies,” she says. “Who are they, what do they want from you?”

  Nonc feels the same way. Old women look all innocent and goody-two-shoes, but then they level some all-knowing eyes on your ass. Plus, they look alike—Nonc can’t even be sure if these are the same old ladies as last week.

  Inside, Geronimo is sitting in a small plastic chair. He’s wearing a smock, tied at the waist, and he’s real serious about some clay that he’s rolling out. He doesn’t even notice when they enter. Nonc stares at the boy, his round forehead and long eyelashes. When Geronimo reaches up to rub his ear, Nonc knows he’s sleepy. “Come to Nonc,” he calls out, and crouches to receive him.

  But the boy doesn’t move.

  The maw-maws walk to Geronimo. One takes his hand. “Such a sweet child,” she says.