The Entropy of Bones

by Ayize Jama-everett

  Yeah, Mongolian and Black. I’m not taking offense. You’re saying Mexican. All I’m saying is you know how?

  “Who else would steal a man’s weed?” Dale smacked him in the head hard before I could react. Roderick put his calm voice on before speaking.

  “Jail will do horrendous things to a man’s sense of reason. Look, we’re not looking for bodies. We don’t want a war. But we’re fighting for survival, literally. This year’s grape harvest is down thirty percent. Last year it was fifteen percent. Without those green buds, we’d have already gone under. All we need from you is to do . . .”

  What I do best.

  I’ve always wanted to sing but when I was born I couldn’t even cry. My mouth made the shapes, my heart mourned. But there was no sound. I should have been able to speak. I was healthy. I could hear fine; sure, I’ve always been light for my age, but it’s not like I don’t eat. My mother says I hit my social markers a little late. I was shy. That’s the understatement of the decade. I wasn’t shy, I was terrified. All it takes is four kids chasing you around a schoolyard trying to get you to do the one thing you can’t do to cancel all thoughts of education as a safe refuge.

  I was on the boat experiencing what can only be described as multiple slow-motion mule kicks to my lady parts when I first got my Voice. My mother was not one to hold back anything so she told me what to expect with menstrual cramps. But her words did nothing to prepare me for the persistent Muay Thai jabs to my womb, or the splitting headache that was threatening to vibrate my teeth out of my mouth. Even the slow swaying motion of the ocean against the docked houseboat was enough to make me nauseous. I thought my body was going to split open, I thought something was wrong with me; this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I knew all of this period drama is pretty typical, but then there’s the added dimension of not being able to speak. Not being able to scream it out, or even cry it out. I wasn’t about to gain a voice just so I could complain about my period. Or so I thought.

  “Girl, what you need to do is calm down and take this pill,” my mother told me when she came into my room, hazel eyes already flushed with irritation.

  You don’t understand how much this hurts, I screamed in my mind.

  “Shit, girl, you think this is bad, try childbirth. Now take this damn pill.”

  Think you could bring me some damn water since I can’t stand up?

  “That’s the only ‘damn’ I’ll be allowing from you today. Pull it together, Chabi. This is just the beginning of your womanhood,” she said as she left my room to get some water at the kitchen upstairs.

  That was the first day I ever spoke without using my lips. I couldn’t really reflect on it, or even understand what happened until the pain meds kicked in, but even then I thought I was dreaming it.

  It wasn’t until I was at school a couple of weeks later that it happened again. The fact that I couldn’t speak somehow meant that I belonged with kids that couldn’t hear. At the Marin County School for the Deaf I was a star among the students for being able to hear and still sign; I still found it the most oppressive environment in the world at age twelve. It didn’t help that I was the darkest, poorest, most four-lettered signing child that had ever crossed their path. My mother’s frequent temper tantrums on school grounds coupled with her inconsistent payments didn’t do much to endear me to the administration. There wasn’t much Mom could do about it. She worked as a hotel receptionist from the day my father left her. I had a three quarter scholarship; guess they didn’t have a lot of half-black half-Mongolians on their brochures. But that quarter was a bitch to get around for Mom. The hotel where she worked paid well enough, but the only place in the Bay where we could afford a two-bedroom was the houseboat, permanently docked and forever in need of repair. The end result: a mute, dark-skinned Asian-looking scholarship kid among the wealthiest white deaf kids in California. Tween social relations being what they are, compassion was a hard currency to come by. Even deaf bitches from San Rafael can throw shade on the playground. So when Callie Mills decided to trip me while playing a game of volleyball I wasn’t planning on doing any more than signing for her to fuck off. But I face-planted hard and nearly broke my nose. The pain and the anger triggered that Voice again.

  Touch me again and everybody here will know why your dad shows up with a different chick every week, you skank whore, I thought-said-projected-felt, getting up from the ground and staring at her. Callie began putting her hands to her ears with a look of revulsion, almost unconcerned with me, and then stopped. She saw my gaze hadn’t shifted, and so did everyone else. Then the tears came. When you’re deaf and crying, it’s hard to be comforted: you can’t really read what people are signing to you behind a shield of tears. I didn’t care at the time. My nose was still bleeding. So I added fuel to the fire.

  And you better stop telling people the only reason I’m here is because my mom gives the dean head or I’ll break your fingers. That was it, my first fully intentional “sentence” someone else heard. Her tears turned to panic screams as she threw herself on the court and began ripping at her ears. No one cared about my bloody nose after that. In fact, no one would look at me after that.

  The job itself was beyond easy. The two weeks of waiting would have driven most people crazy, or, more to the point, drove Shotgun Matt nuts. His uncles demanded he follow my lead and I needed only flash a disconcerting look if he ever challenged my authority and the former con stepped in line. I surveyed the land and walked the five fields of marijuana a few times in silence before I found the only spot on the property, about one hundred feet behind the nursery, where I could either see, hear, or feel each of the plots. Unfortunately for Shotgun, it was near a nest of deformed nymph growth that smelled . . . particular.

  It looked like a mushroom decided to molest a grapevine, and the grapevine was fighting back. Every time Roderick and his brother hacked at it, the growth just spread its fleshy purple, green, and white phalanges out farther into their property. Left alone it grew in a semicircular pattern around a huge boulder, creating an almost throne out of the stone that gave off the scent of crushed grape, mashed mushroom, and some foreign incense. It worked for me but I think the smell drove poor Shotgun crazy. It was a constant reminder of how and why his mostly legit family was growing criminal crop.

  If that wasn’t the cause for his lunacy, maybe it was my stillness. My routine was to hang at the Mansai until around three p.m. Then I’d run the seventy-ish miles to the farm. I run faster at night so I’d usually make it around 12:30. Dale would just be coming off his guard/tending shift. A large plate of food would be waiting in the nursery: usually a full roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. After a genuine effort to get me to share more about myself, Dale’s fatigue would get the better of him. To keep him quiet I’d take the jacket and sleeping bag he offered. But it was my katas that kept me warm and alert. By two in the morning, I’d be so energized and focused that a once-over of each weed plot on the property took a total of ten minutes. Then I’d sit on the nymph rock, focus my breathing, still myself, and train myself to notice the exact moment when night turned to dawn.

  That would be when Shotgun showed up, namesake in one hand, microwaved breakfast sandwich in the other. I knew my senses were sharp when I recognized the ping of his loose muffler a quarter a mile down the freeway. Frustration would set in the second he was done tending to the plants. He seemed surprised to not be allowed a headlamp to read. He didn’t know how to just sit and wait.

  “In his defense,” Dale told me after he took over his nephew’s shift, “he was locked up for a while. I think the young man has had enough of waiting.”

  I’ve had enough of excessive sighing and tantrum page turning, I said, looking down from the rock to where the older man sat. His dark plaid jacket was only slightly zipped so I saw the strap of his holster. His weapons of choice, the twin Berettas, were constantly with him.

  “I’ll do my best to make up for my family’s inadequacies, my lady.” Only a gay man
could flirt with a woman so casually. But it was his measured reasoning I appreciated above his flattery. Dale sat quiet, always awake, and always alert. But he was never excessive in his concern. His nephew carried a shotgun and held it like he was under enemy fire. Dale concealed two weapons with illegal hollow-point rounds but would only reach for them if he knew it was time to bring the pain.

  I sat and imagined the stories of the nymph growth. I’m not prone to fancy but the growth fascinated me. I’d looked up the word “tuber” and eventually Wiki-trolled my way to the term “rhizome.” The idea of an underground growing mushroom/potato that could have been growing for hundreds if not thousands of years resonated with me. It made the idea of trees, growing upwards searching for a sun they could never reach, seem arrogant. The rhizome stayed underground, quiet, growing out instead of up, growing with whatever was around it instead of pulling from around it to break through the very earth. Here was an unseen, quiet changer of fortunes that represented massive amounts of power. If I sat long enough, still enough, it encroached on my lap. If it was truly as pervasive as Roderick swore, then it ran underneath all their property, spreading in its haphazard fashion, choosing other growth to interact with at random. I felt/imagined the white thin tubers interacting with the roots of the large spruce Dale rested on early one morning. In that connection, the growth knew all there was to know about Dale: how he’d been discharged from Naval intelligence because a hated subordinate found him in bed with his lover. How Dale evened the score by guaranteeing the subordinate would never advance beyond the rank of yeoman. How he worked in private intelligence in Yemen, South Korea, and Pakistan for five years until he realized the information he was securing was open to anyone willing to pay. Anyone. How he left it all, bought into the restaurant in his hometown, and worked this vineyard with his hunter/hippy of an older brother and tried his best to care for his dead sister’s kid.

  The knowledge came without asking and was in no way verified. But it was felt, like when I got a kata right or when I was in perfect running stride. I didn’t even focus on the man; the knowing came just by keeping my senses open, like the knowing of the weed stealers.

  Seven on the ridge two and a half acres away, I said after almost two full weeks of sitting. As expected, Dale was up with both Berettas in hand before I even knew what I was saying. I witnessed the statement coming from my non-mouth with my Voice in the same time that Dale heard it.

  Wait, I told him as I stood. Call your brothers in now and we’ve got war. I’ve got this.

  “You’ve got seven, possibly eight guys?” he asked, already following behind me as I ran in the early morning light toward the southeastern field.

  If you stay quiet, yes, I whispered.

  I cut into the dense pine that hid a half-acre of weed plants and disappeared up a tree before Dale could protest. I heard his feet shuffle on the soft ground as I did my first Tarzan leap from one tree trunk to another. But Dale did right and took cover where he was. By my ninth jump I’d perfected my technique so I didn’t shake the receiving tree at all.

  The marijuana plants were planted less in rows and more in concentric circles, navigating around all sizes of sage bushes, berry patches, and large pines. Shotgun was partially right: three of the seven were Mexican; the rest were white. Locals, if their accents were to be believed; all of them had guns. I waited until Dale came in range with his weapons before I made my move. That gave them time to spread out. They were disciplined thieves, snipping buds in teams of two. It was only good fortune the terrain was with me. With all of them desperately snipping, no one noticed my descent from the massive sequoia. I choked the first one out in between clippings. His partner only noticed a prick on his neck, then he was out. I signaled to Dale to grab their guns, then moved to the next two, who harvested closer to a thick raspberry bush out of view from the others.

  I let the large Mexican see my fist and when he raised his thick Adam’s apple to speak I shoved it into his mouth. Falling on his knees caused such a thud his partner had to look over. All he saw was my head-butt causing three grand in dental bills. The last three were closer now. It would have been easier to play it straight but I wanted the challenge. I gathered three stones, half palm sized, and launched them in the thieves’ direction. All three hit, but only two went down. The last, another local, twirled, confused by his own pain and fallen friends. I pounced on him quick, covering the distance between us without regard to sound, and finally choking him out with a hush.

  All good? I asked Dale as he came up from the berry bushes holding the guns of the others. His breathing was even but his eyes were wide. Before he could say anything I went around salamander-smacking the small of the thieves’ backs, keeping them both paralyzed and unconscious. That snapped Dale back into business mode and he began searching wallets.

  “Walking up hills both ways again, huh?” was what my mom said when she heard about me getting kicked out of school. I didn’t help my case by telling her I wanted to go to a normal school. I couldn’t figure out how I was “speaking,” but it was all I ever wanted and I wasn’t trying to question it. I did my best begging impression to Mom in her room, the loft section of the houseboat. She was seeing what I was trying to demonstrate to her. Namely that somehow I was speaking. I could see her trying to logic out what was happening, why I’d been going to the deaf school in the first place, but every time she got close to an answer, her deep red forehead would smooth, her forever light-purple-stained lips would cease their endless dance, and her chest would relax. After that, whatever acknowledgment of my former state disappeared. It was like she never even knew I was mute in the first place. She looked . . . into me, trying to see what was missing, what she couldn’t understand. I would’ve tried to help her, honestly. If I had any clue myself.

  “You want to go to public school, you’ve got to learn how to fight.” To her credit, Mom grew up in East Oakland in the crack era. For her, public school and fighting went together like wine and bottles.

  Got it. I knew the perfect teacher.

  Narayana began taking notice of me after the snake incident. He’d taken on a bit of hero status around the pier. I was just one of his rescues. He’d gone into people’s houses with a machete and diced snakes. Apparently he also had some violent words with the “director” as well. But it wasn’t his violence I was after. It was his eyes: eyes that could stare down a cobra and not flinch. I caught a glimpse of that stare and I wanted to adopt it.

  He’d only spoken to me one time since then. Mom was looking at a DUI, and while she was able to avoid Marin’s finest, her seat belt and car door got the best of her entangled and suspended as she tried to get out of the car. I heard her in the parking lot attached to the port, a good two hundred feet from our front door, screaming and cursing up a storm. I went out to help her and had to deal with her wild swings and violent sobs. At the scrap of grass in the middle of the cement parking lot, probably intended to be something more than a place for houseboat dogs to shit and piss, Mom’s meaty breast slipped out of her dress. I tried to help but then she fell. I was able to get her to her feet again, but was losing her when Narayana appeared, again out of nowhere, and grabbed her other side. She struggled against him, but only for a second. He dragon-clawed her, but in a gentle way. She seized for a second and then passed out. I didn’t have voice at the time to say anything. Instead I watched as he took all her weight and carried my mom back to the house. He put her in the bed without a word. It was only when he left that he spoke, voicing his phone number, and waited until I nodded acknowledgment.

  “Ever again, you call. No one talk? I know you. I come.” And once again, he was gone.

  There’s a feeling you get when someone really hears you, you know? You can do all that eye contact, attentive body language stuff, but if you’re not paying attention, people really know no matter what you do. I seemed to be able to force that attention, to make people pay attention to me. And that attention was so strong, people understood what I w
as saying, thinking . . . something. But when I tried to use the phone, the illusion failed. It felt like a mental trick played on me by the world.

  I ran out the house in my Crocs and the clothes I slept in, a pair of jean shorts and a gray wife-beater a size too big. I ran over to the Mansai, the authentic old-school twenty-five-foot hunk of junk with more power than a small brown man was supposed to be allowed to have in this country. Narayana terrorized the clueless and novices alike in the S.F. bay with that ship when he first docked in our harbor, but after a few months he seemed happy to just have its menace on the waves as a potential threat.

  The afternoon cold was beginning to roll in but Narayana stood on his deck shirtless with the snake-destroying machete and sliced paper-thin sheets of watermelon, not nicking the deck in the slightest. He thought weighing more than one hundred and ten pounds was a sign of American gluttony and on his 5'3" frame, he was probably right. Even though he rubbed cinnamon oil on his arms and legs every day, his skin still seemed slightly ashen to me.

  Cool, I said once I realized what he was doing.

  “It’s practice,” Narayana said amiably, right before he did some wild overhand right swing with a machete, and delivered a pancetta-thin slice of watermelon this time to my nose. “I have little caramel downstairs. In between slices tastes good. You want?”

  The slice was in my belly before half his sentence was done. Narayana just laughed at me.

  My mom says I can go to regular school, I said tentatively suddenly frightened of what would happen if Narayana stopped “hearing” me.

  “And why shouldn’t you?” he said after another slice. I looked up in delight to see him judging the slice with his eyes closed. He let the edge of the blade roll up and down the light green of that watermelon with his machete, never far away from him. That blade was sharp, but the machete was nothing special, just a farm implement. With that blade, he recorded every ridge, bump, and crease of the fruit. And once he memorized those indicators, Narayana once again chopped a leaf of watermelon off the fruit with an overhand right and would not nick his deck. Only this time his eyes were closed, and he sent the slice directly into my face. I caught it half with my hands and half with my mouth. The fruit was almost gone by the time he opened his eyes.