Delicious Foods

by James Hannaham

  Texas was stupid, I’m sorry. Fat sunburned gluttons and tacky mansions everyplace, glitzy cars that be the size of a pachyderm, a thrift store and a pawnshop for every five motherfuckers. Fucking limestone! Whole state and everything up in that bitch made of limestone. Damn strip malls look like they done come right up out the ground. Upon this rock, I shall build my strip mall. It’s like they ain’t heard of no other rock. Granite salesmen getting jealous. In summer, Texas too hot for 99 percent of life-forms; in the two-month winter, ain’t none of them houses insulated, so you gotta rub your legs together under your blanket like you a grasshopper, rub so hard you about to set your own ass on fire.

  Then some crew-cut ofay she hoping gonna be a trick—so she could score and we could hang out—he just slowed down and stuck his neck out the passenger side and went, Lazy.

  Lazy! Darlene took a few steps back—the flats made me feel for her since the first time I met her. (She said from the get-go she couldn’t wear a certain kind of pumps but wouldn’t say why, and it wasn’t till I penetrated the inner sanctum of her brain later on that I found out the truth.) She made a note to remember that guy and his li’l rabbit face. ’Cause when they said lazy they also meant nigger. Hardy-fucking-har-har. And lazy working on who behalf? Hustling this hard at the Peckerwood National Savings Bank, she’d be the damn manager. Hell, Darlene thought, I’d be the CEO. It’d be an easier job too. In that air-conditioning? I have put this paper in this folder. Now I will return that pen to its holder. Done. I am leaving for the day. Hey, Mrs. Secretary! Where did you put my golf clubs?

  A pothole by the white line tripped her, and my girl be wobbling. She twisted a tendon and almost dropped her handbag. My sweetheart thought bending over would be vulgar, even though she had on that long-ass skirt. She still ain’t knowed thing one about marketing herself. She squatted, and she saw that highway marker sparkling down there, and that took her mind off the rabbit-face man and sent it rushing back to her usual thoughts, thoughts about how to spend more time with me.

  I wanna rock with you, she sang without thinking ’bout it. The day start going dark orange, and some shadows starts to cut through the trees like they broken bottles. The past kept dogging her, like she could always hear its clunky old motor idling outside whatever else be in her thoughts. The sound of her dead husband whistling would get super-loud up in her head, and if I couldn’t stand that noise, you know it made her stone crazy. Darlene would double the fuck over—this time she bent down and put her hands over her ears like the sound coming from outside her head.

  Once that particular bad feeling passed, she got up and turnt to face traffic, thinking ’bout a happy person. The book said that to get good experiences and money in your life, you had to think positive thoughts and visualize shit. So she imagined some dude thumbing a fan of twenties into her hand. Held out her palm to take some imaginary cash—I almost busted out laughing. But instead of fat-money johns down this road, it’s only some soccer moms going by and frowning behind the wheel of they minivans. They kids heads be swiveling with they mouths open and closing, pointing they little chocolaty fingers at her like, Mommy, what she doing?

  Next thing you know the Isley Brothers singing Who’s that lady? in her head. Real fine lady. At that time, Darlene truly was fine—that girl coulda stopped more traffic than just some tawdry johns if she’d a wore some tight miniskirts and high heels. I kept telling her that shit all the time.

  Now where in the hell she had walked to? Halfway to Beaumont, seemed. Nobody else out there hooking, else they had better luck. Crickets getting louder, dog barks be coming from way the hell and gone, headlights whizzing by all silver and black, like low-flying spaceships—could be anybody in there. Aliens. ET and shit. Chewbacca smoking dope with ALF.

  Darlene start shuffling backward, staring into them headlights, till she got near to the end of the commercial strip of whatever the hell city she in. Out there, wasn’t no more traffic lights—edge of the world. After that, just flat dark. Brushy dirt, short trees, and squinty little stars—wait—was that the fucked-up carcass of a crow? Nope, just a busted tire tread in the damn emergency lane. The sun finally gave up and turnt its back on the dusk. Fuck you, went the sun. Fuck all y’all, you skanky freaks don’t deserve no sunlight. Find another star.

  Outside the parking lot of a closed-down BBQ restaurant, somebody headlights drove up like glowing monster eyeballs, blasting in Darlene face and—hallelujah!—the car slowed down. Old cheapo car, VW Rabbit something. Darlene couldn’t see in, but somebody could see out, so the car slow to a halt in the gravel. In there, it’s some round-faced man, ’bout fifty, leaning cross a lap, cranking down that window. Light brother with a short ’fro, wine-tinted Coke-bottle glasses, rough skin. Had a cigarette stuck in his left hand, his round-ass belly up against the steering wheel. The lap in the passenger seat belong to a skinny teenage boy in a short-sleeve shirt. Kid had skin light as the man’s, pretty lips, ears out to here, the picture of a scared-ass virgin. Even a rookie could figure out that setup.

  Tobacco smoke poofed out in Darlene face so she pulled back like somebody done threw a snake at her, even though she a hard-core smoker herself. I thought Darlene coulda made a living as a singer; she moved like a dainty princess, like one of them bougie Marilyn McCoo, Lola Falana types. On the AM radio in the car, she heard DeBarge doing “Rhythm of the Night.” So she’s like, Good, they’re middle class, they have some money.

  The man leant across the boy and went, What you doing out here all alone, honey?

  Get cool, get paid, get some rocks, go home. Darlene heard them phrases in her head, and I thought they had a nice rhythm to em, so I asked her to say em out loud and she did.

  The father went, Say what? Go home? Aw right, then. He spun the window roller once but Darlene stuck her fingers on the top of the glass, so he stopped. The shit we do for love. The love we do for drugs.

  The boy went, She meant her, Dad. I think.

  We noticed a car key chain made of braided plastic swinging off the steering column, and the shadows of the braids was forming a pattern like a swastika. That got us both to thinking about what the book had said.

  What about the Jews? Darlene thought, and also said. What about the Jews? They couldn’t have brought the Holocaust on themselves, right?

  The kid went, Excuse me?

  The Jews! You know. She pointed at the key chain. Chosen People?

  Jews? the kid says.

  Yes, because if you’re an antenna—

  The kid went, Ma’am, you okay?

  With your good thoughts, I mean—

  The father shut the engine, took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, put the glasses back on. He scratched his ’fro and went, How much it’s gonna be?

  The grid on the kid’s shirt made Darlene remember a tablecloth from her childhood. People who know me well always be making interesting leaps and turns inside they head. I call it braindancing. Me and Darlene was doing the hustle right about then. You could hear the flutes from that Van McCoy jam going doot-doot-doot…do the hustle!

  She poked the boy chest and he bent his torso away like the curve on a banana. Let’s put the basket of fried chicken right here, Darlene said, figuring a li’l joke might break the ice. They ain’t get it, so she poked him again, closer to his belly button. And the potato salad goes here, she said. I busted out laughing and so did Darlene, but she scratched up her lungs and that made her cough and spit.

  Dad—

  The afro father twisted his face, getting uptight, squirming in his seat. He tugged a chunky wallet out his pants and peeled off two twenties, so Darlene says to me, See, the book is right. I thought a good thought, and here go the twenties I dreamed up.

  Nice trick, I said.

  The man went, Okay, here go my fried chicken. That’s my fried chicken right there. What you do for forty?

  Her eyebrows rose.

  Dad. She’s—

  The father yelling and muttering at the same time. You can just
shut the fuck up. You gon prove to me you not like that. To-night. Punk cousin done turned you.

  The son closed his eyes and twisted away from the father. No, Dad. It wasn’t what you—The son gulped down a sigh and stroked the car-door handle like he probably do his dick in private, then punched it in a half-assed kinda way. His Adam’s apple shot down his neck and then right back up.

  The father chucked them bills in the kid lap, but the kid ain’t budged, so in the pause, my girl picked up the Jackson twins, all gentle, like they was babies. She folded em together, thinking, My ticket to the morning light. Now we both got excited. Forty clams not much, but it did mean we was gonna be spending a whole bunch of time together in the very near future. We was like, Love, soft as an easy chair, love, fresh as the morning air. Darlene wondered if we could just book right then so she wouldna had to do nothing else; she had too much pride in her heart for this line of work, and I kept telling her, Yeah, fine, do what you want. I don’t judge nobody.

  The father broke the silence and went, Get out the car, go in them bushes, get laid. He stuck out his lower lip. Bitch got my money now!

  The kid put his hand on the door and went, You mean your fried chicken.

  Darlene smiled more than her usual amount, ’cause she still thinking ’bout the forty dollars and had forgot that they could see her.

  The son kept staring and his face gone all tight. Dad, this isn’t Christian, Dad. I want my first time to be special. You said you wanted me to wait for marriage!

  The father ashed in the tray, said, Don’t give me that first-time bullshit. You done some damn unholy shit already. You think I don’t know? You think I’m stupid something?

  The kid turnt his shoulders and leant into the father space, tryna keep his words private. Ugh, he growled. She’s really out of it. What was that crazy stuff she said about the Holocaust?

  Darlene shoved the Jackson twins deep in her bag to hide them shits from robbers, under a change purse she found on a barroom floor, a scratched pair of sunglasses, and a bunch of open lipsticks—she ain’t know, but one of em had got extended and be smearing her possessions with all kind of red smudges. I knew ’cause my ass was in the damn purse, a couple tiny rocks in a glass vial that she thought she had lost.

  Two months ago, on Easter Sunday, some guy who called hisself a coon-ass car salesman paid her to watch him fuck a watermelon. No lie. Set that melon on his card table, knifed hisself a round hole in it, and made her egg him on while he sliding his dick in and out that little globe.

  He says to her, It turn me on to got somebody watching. I like the shame.

  She couldn’t think what to say. Screw that round thing! Mmh! Juice it, boy!

  The fruit start weeping pink water out the hole. His hairy butt went umph and he came inside that melon.

  When he pulled out, he grinned and said, Hope it don’t get knocked up, ’cause I don’t want no green chirren!

  Even remembering that shit, we couldn’t stop laughing. Don’t want no green chirren! Like they gon be little watermelons with legs. I tell you, though, Mr. Melonfucker had him some green money. Darlene spent most of it on me in a day.

  Somebody as inside herself as Darlene right then, without no natural talent for hooking, could watch some melonfuckers on the regular, though. Not bad, not like some of them other johns. Melons had it all over cigarette burns, getting stabbed, leather belts across the back, and a curtain rod up the ass, all of which she had either had or come close to having. For a while, Darlene had this gentle, fresh attitude that made motherfuckers want to kick her in the tits, like a girl in one them Z movies.

  Out in the street, she always thinking ’bout Somebody Might Kill Me. She got so obsessed with dying that she ain’t take no kinda precautions ’gainst it. To Darlene, copping ain’t never meant risking her life—’cause not copping felt like dying anyhow, and she ain’t lost that game yet. And if she did lose—well, hell, she wouldn’t know. Her idea of heaven was that the two of us could kick it together 27-9, like we would say—that’s twenty-seven hours a day, nine days a week—without nobody judging our relationship. Without none of the issues you get from having a body. Y’all think a body be who you is, but it ain’t nothing but a motherfucking sack of meat.

  Darlene start inching away, thinking ’bout making a run for it—to where, she ain’t had no idea—and the father shout at her to stay put, but she ain’t heard him right.

  Another thought that we had sewed together in her mind right then like a thrift-store quilt spilled out her mouth without her realizing. Who does a watermelon…laugh at…when you kill it?

  Dad, I can’t do this. I can’t do this!

  Then get my motherfucking money back.

  What? You’re kidding. Dad?

  A ambulance screamed by, honking a high note, then a low note, and that took they attention. They waited like criminals for the sound to die down, for normal cars to whiz over the asphalt again, so they could get calm enough to ignore the background noise, and Darlene took a couple tiny steps away from them two before some regular noises crept back in. The kid moved his eyes to his father head, then to Darlene face, and swiveled again.

  First he asked politely. He go, Ma’am?, and opened the car door.

  The word ma’am itself made her back up faster, like a curse reminding her who she shoulda been, so she turnt and start to book behind the dusty front entrance to the BBQ, thinking the Jackson twins was hers now and she ain’t had to do nothing to the kid. A plastic cowboy on a red bucking bronco be dangling off the roof. Broken furniture sitting behind that greasy windowpane, and a For Lease sign be hanging by one corner inside the damn window.

  The father shoved the son ’gainst the door and went, Sammatawitchu, nigger! Git that money back!

  Ow, my elbow!

  Darlene ran, but it was a fence back there and she couldn’t jump that shit. The fence too high and she too high and a razor wire be swizzling round the top of the fence. She heard the car door slam and feet slap the asphalt behind her and the next thing she know, the sonofabitch had her wrists behind her back. He got some kinda sharp, athletic thing zapping through his fingers like a depth charge. Youth buzzing in his veins, all gruff and rowdy and shit. She bucked around and thrust her legs back, tryna find his nuts with her heel, but she kept kicking her bag on accident. She ain’t had his kind of strength.

  Some vagrant brother be lying by the dumpster without no shoes on, showing off his rough-ass swollen feet. One of em had a open sore that’s all meaty, attracting flies. Darlene yelling murder and rape, but the bum just lift his head and ain’t react no further. The young man hand had came down over her mouth and it tasted soapy—cleaner than some of Darlene recent meals. So she licking the webs between his fingers to get him to let go her face, but he just clamped onto her jaw more tighter.

  The bum lift his head and put it down again. A bottle of Old Crow be his pillow and his pacifier. The kid let go her mouth and figured out how to cram his hand into the bag and rifle through without letting her go. Once he had got the money, the bag fell off her arm and he pushed her forward. She twisted her ankle and fell on her face ’gainst the curb by the dumpster and she could feel her nose and lip and face had swole up already. A police car slowed down fifty yards away on the main road. One cop checked the scene from the passenger side, but they ain’t stop, probably because the father said everything cool. Darlene spat out two teeth and felt a third so loose it come out when she touched it with her tongue. She rolled that puppy round in her mouth.

  I guess that made Darlene go more nuts. She not vain, but she had to keep her looks to get business. I made sure she knew at least that. She picked up them teeth, stuck em in her skirt pocket, and tore after the kid—leapt on his back right as his hand touched the door handle and tried to throttle the motherfucker, using his shirt collar to get control. Man, she wanted that forty dollars something bad. But some powerful surprise demon leapt up out the kid too, and he threw her off and slammed her in the cheek. Darlene h
ead snapped back, then she stumbled and doubled over. Dull, heavy pain spread out from her nose into her skull. She couldn’t turn her neck without no more pain and she tasted iron and salt, touched her lip and held out her hand to see some cherry-red fingertips, and all her love lines and heart lines and fate lines be wet with blood. The car wheels was skipping around in the gravel, then the car turnt onto the road and got smaller in the distance till you couldn’t see it no more. The dust be mixing with the gritty metal taste in her mouth and she spat the blood and the grit on the dirt. Her gums was throbbing real bad.

  Forty dollars…Shit, Darlene, I said. We coulda been done for at least one motherfucking day. Much as I loved Darlene, I couldn’t hide my disappointment. I could get sorta angry sometimes. I ain’t proud of it. But she had that thing where she crumbled under pressure. So I threw a fit. I lost it, I was hollering and cussing and accusing her of being unfaithful to me. Then I guess I made it clear that I wouldn’t let her go home until she could get some money so we could go braindancing together 27-9.

  She looked at me with her cheeks deflated. Who’s going to pick up my sorry behind now, she asked, with my face broken, three missing teeth, and no shoes? I can’t do this anymore. This is horrible. I give up.

  Goddamn it! I shouted. Maybe Crew Cut’s right! Maybe you is lazy, you fucking—! I made myself hoarse yelling inside her head. I called her a bazillion nasty insults I can’t even repeat here. I went, You don’t really want to be with me! You don’t love me! I cried—she made me weep.

  Scotty! she screamed. Please, stop! Just tell me how can I get the money now. Scotty! I do love you, and I will do anything for you.

  I pointed her face at the road. Get out there! I said. Ain’t nothing shameful ’bout trying to survive, bitch. Don’t you know the street always got a answer?

  And of course I was right.

  2.