Delicious Foods

by James Hannaham

  Sorry, sir.

  Still not great, but better. He chuckled, pointing to the slightly open barn door. Go in there. I have a little discipline issue in there for you to take care of.

  Eddie approached the door hesitantly. Punishment had never been one of his responsibilities, except for that time when How disciplined him by making him beat Tuck, and he did not relish a new experience of that type, nor did he want to give How the impression that he wanted it to occur on a regular basis. The door gave a high-pitched squeal as he pulled it forward.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did, he saw a body resting on the hay-dusted floor not far from where he had arranged his shelves the previous night in neat rows on pieces of plastic tarp. The figure was alive and clearly in a reasonable amount of pain, weakly writhing and groaning, straining to push a gag out of its mouth. Eddie went back to the door and swung it wider to let more light in. When he peered out, How made eye contact with him; a stifled laugh trumpeted out of his face. Confused, Eddie went back inside and got a closer look at the person on the floor.

  Under all the bruises and lacerations, and behind the swollen eyes, he recognized his mother.

  Oh Lord—Ma, what happened?

  His head swelled with blood and his lungs seized up as he approached her. He felt his legs giving way, so he took the opportunity to kneel beside her. He checked the space for a rag he could wet to clean off her wounds or soothe the purple abstractions developing all over her skin. Finding one nearby that was not completely filthy, he got on all fours and reached across her to grab it. Using its cleanest corner, he dabbed as much drying blood off her split, swollen lips as he could without reopening any wounds. Gently he removed the gag.

  What did they do?

  Oh, honey, don’t worry about me, this isn’t anything. Her lips and her usual missing teeth got in the way of her speech, but she still tried to sound casual. Look at you, all worried about me, she teased. That’s a cute one. She groaned and twisted her torso.

  I found out some good news, she said.

  But what did they do?

  Never mind what they did. The only part of me they can hurt is my body.

  Mama, you’re using, aren’t you?

  They must think I’m gonna kick the bucket or something, is that why How’s letting me see you? She managed a huff in place of a laugh. Maybe I’m dead already.

  He wants me to give you some kind of punishment.

  Her nearly shut eyes widened to the best of their ability and she coughed. These Delicious people are out of their minds. All I wanted was a good job.

  What did you say about good news?

  Hush! He’s behind you, she murmured.

  Uncomfortable with the idea of keeping his back to the guy, Eddie turned and stood to face How. He remained silent and stared, trying to push How to the ground with his eyes but waiting for the official explanation.

  Should’ve been picking limes but she ran down the road started talking to some guy from some newspaper. So I started her, but I’m going to get a bag of pork rinds, so I need you to keep it going for a while. Looking around the space randomly, How handed Eddie a wood plane and a spoon gouge. Go to it, he said. We need to make an example. He laughed—Did he expect Eddie to take him seriously? It felt like another attempt at a fucked-up joke.

  All right, he said.

  Eddie took a tool in each hand and turned them so that their handles faced out. He suspected that How, or even Sextus, had some kind of test in mind—of Eddie’s ruthlessness, his loyalty to the company, his willingness to follow orders. He wondered how close they thought he was to the kind of monster who would perform this task without hesitation, then considered what a mother would have to do to deserve such treatment from her son, and then, more dangerously, that maybe his mother had done one or two things from that list, but that this had no bearing on whether or not he could or should go through with his orders. Generally he felt that she needed his help far more than he needed to balance their relationship. There had never been a question about whether he would do as they asked; not a single nerve in his body twitched in the direction of fulfilling his assignment. Besides, what bizarre tortures did How expect him to invent with a plane and a spoon gouge?

  The guy didn’t have a whole lot of compartments in his emotional TV dinner, it occurred to Eddie. Eddie had counted How’s moods in the past, hoping to be surprised, but only ever saw How expressing either mild amusement at other people’s bad luck, like he’d just shown, or seething, molten rage that might as well have come up through his feet directly from the actual Devil.

  Eddie thought that How was about to go off again, so he turned away and knelt by his mother.

  You know the rules, Ma, he said. Or don’t you?

  He set the plane aside, raised the gouge, and then brought it down in such a way that it missed her body and lodged in the dirt floor, where he worked it back and forth, exaggerating the movement of his shoulders and elbows. Darlene instantly understood his plan and volunteered a variety of pained shouts and groans to help make the injury seem real. Eddie’s body blocked the tool’s real trajectory from How’s view, but apparently this theatrical presentation worked, satisfying the supervisor enough that he let out a grunt that seemed to express his cooler emotion and probably convinced him that he had broken Eddie’s will and exposed the depth of the boy’s ambition. Encouraging Eddie to continue, How left the barn.

  Once How’s footsteps faded, Eddie, still kneeling by his mother, tried to find ways to make her comfortable. He folded scraps of canvas and put them behind her head on the floor, made a splint for her broken arm by wrapping a long piece of twine around a wooden paint stirrer. He found a small jar of petroleum jelly to use as a salve in the many places she needed it, some of which she insisted on balming herself. While he took care of her wounds, she blurted out a disjointed story about Jarvis Arrow, trying to tell Eddie that Sirius had made it out and would come back to get them and make a run for it.

  Darlene’s injuries, her restless state of mind, and Scotty, of course, had impaired her ability to articulate what happened, so her son paid only partial attention. Scotty never left her side even when—no, especially when—so much trouble tumbled down on her at once. She sounded amazed, like somebody having a religious conversion, and that made her story even harder to clarify. She kept saying, He’s coming, He’s coming, and Sirius will get us out of here, but this sounded to Eddie like Seriously get us out of here. Eddie didn’t remember Sirius, having only heard about him from Darlene and the rest of the crew. To Eddie, Sirius B sounded like a hazy legend that the heavy smokers conjured up to give themselves hope, a figure barely more real than Papa Ghede.

  Even if Sirius had seemed real to him, Eddie remained skeptical of all the cosmic mumbo-jumbo everybody said that Sirius used to talk all the time—space clouds shaped like crabs and horse heads, a diamond bigger than the sun—it sounded to him like the kind of make-believe shit crackheads talked 90 percent of the time. When he heard Darlene’s half-conscious claims, through fat bleeding burned lips, that Sirius was alive and coming to get them, it seemed like a combination of a mixed-up prayer and a Negro spiritual about Jesus where a chariot comes down from heaven to rescue folks. And he didn’t consider her babbling nearly as urgent as her injuries. She rambled like a psychotic, and though Eddie had an excess of patience for her insanity, he’d heard plenty of her ravings in the past and had learned not to pay her any mind. He focused on keeping her calm so that her body could start to heal.

  A few minutes after her breathing slowed, she laid her head back—a sign of relative stability—and he got up to test out whether he could leave. He pushed the two panels of the barn doors forward and discovered, without surprise, that How had padlocked them together and drawn a heavy chain through a hole in each side. He must have done it carefully and quietly, because Eddie didn’t remember hearing any chains jangling or even doors swinging shut, but then again, he hadn’t concentrated on a
nything except his mother for a while.

  An hour or so went by. Once Darlene stopped trying to talk as much and seemed moderately comfortable, she fell into a shallow sleep. Eddie knew she wouldn’t sleep long and that when she woke up she would need to cop pretty bad. He thought he could get drugs for her on his next trip to the depot, but he didn’t know when that might happen.

  Once her breathing became even and her biceps stopped twitching, he returned the plane and the gouge to their rightful place with the woodworking tools and examined the shelves he was planning to put in. He would continue building them so that he could at least finish some of the tasks assigned him that day. It was as if the rest of the day had been a kind of grimy window, and his labor the rag he wiped everything else away with so that he could see clearly. From time to time he peered over at Darlene to make sure nothing had gotten worse, but primarily he remained fixated on assembling the boards.

  When he heard voices coming up the path, he figured that How had come back with somebody and would soon unchain the door. He stopped working on the shelves, put away his tools, and moved to the center of the room, positioning himself between his mother and the slowly opening barn doors.

  The chains clanked and swung loose from their position, going slack in the holes that someone had bashed into the door in order to make the chain lock. One of the chains gained momentum and hurtled to the ground like a fleeing snake. When Eddie looked up from watching that happen, he met How’s eyes, and he could see Sextus standing just behind and to the left of him, hands on his hips, a bit of wind flipping up a strand of the waxy silver hairs on his head. He scowled like a mechanic watching a car crash and wondering how much he might get for the scrap.

  Something didn’t seem right—How looked good. His brown irises glowed, color flooded into his tan dimples. Was this emotion number three? It looked like he’d sent a better-looking younger brother in his place, not the sweaty dude who led late-night watermelon details and forced workers to pick nonexistent citrus. The brushy sides of his haircut glistened like an otter’s pelt; his spiteful smile got so broad he looked like somebody discovering that his mission in life was to help others.

  The three stood there like the last pieces left in a chess game. Scowling, How breathed through his mouth in a way that made him sound like somebody who snored loudly, his windpipe flapping deep inside him. His switch flipped to his second emotion.

  You didn’t do nothing, did you? I asked you to do things and you didn’t do nothing. She’s still lying there in that same position that you left her in. Didn’t I say what to do?

  You did. Eddie didn’t think he would get anywhere by pointing out to How that Darlene was his mother and that people didn’t torture their mothers. In the world of Delicious Foods, though, obedience came first; everyone had to submit to a preposterous system of laws that had nothing to do with justice, logic, or even maximizing company profits—it seemed as if the managers made up rules just so they could enforce them and their employees would have to follow them, a pure sadism free of any incentive aside from its own continuation.

  Eddie’s defense fell out of his mouth anyway. That’s my mother.

  Oh, really? I didn’t know that! How said, back to emotion number one. Wait, let me ask myself: Do I give a fuck about that? No, I believe that I don’t give a fuck about that. He turned his neck to address Sextus. Can you believe this? Without waiting for an answer, he turned back around. Sextus regarded How with mild discomfort, his face twisted slightly, like he had a stomachache. I don’t care if it’s the president of the United States, you do what I say. What do you have to say for yourself?

  Eddie didn’t have nothing to say, but he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to give How the pleasure of letting loose another hurricane of abuse.

  How’s eyes darted around the space again, and he moseyed past Eddie, giving Darlene a cursory examination to prove his point. He sucked his teeth and picked up a length of sheathed cable and a long chain not unlike the one used to keep the barn doors locked. He took it up in one hand and pushed Eddie, struggling and stumbling, into one corner of the room with the other hand, shouting, See? See?, like he’d proved a point about Eddie that he and Sextus had discussed before arriving.

  He took all that stuff and bound Eddie to the hole in one of the doors. First he wound the cable around the kid’s wrists tightly enough that after a few minutes it cut off his circulation. Eddie felt his hands swell and tingle—first they felt like gloves, later like someone else’s hands. He wrapped the chain tightly but randomly around the cord, and from somewhere on him he pulled out a rusty pair of tight handcuffs that he passed through themselves and cinched around Eddie’s wrists until he could no longer get the cuffs to make their characteristic clicking sound as they tightened. Then he looped everything and the chain through the hole in the door and left Eddie to dangle by his wrists, his butt not quite touching the floor. He picked up one of the boards designated for the shelves, although it was relatively light and unwieldy, and used it to jab Eddie in the chin, the tender skin behind his ear, and finally to thwack him on the back of the head hard enough to raise a bump.

  Sextus watched, twitching now and again, then Sextus and How left Eddie dangling there.

  21.

  The Plan

  I heard it secondhand that Jarvis Arrow gone back to Sirius B, who only lived a couple towns over from him, and played that tape of Darlene talking ’bout how good they had it at the farm and how everything hunky-dory, and when Sirius heard it his eyes might as well popped out they sockets and his scalp jumped off his skull. ’Cause it been a whole bunch of years, five or six something, since he heard Darlene voice, and that gave him a big surprise, on account a he assume that anybody he know from back then had figured they own way to get the hell outta Dodge. And here come this lady he’d had feelings for, who had worked in this place that whole time, who had helped him get away hisself, and him knowing she couldn’t tell the truth to no microphone, like she a brainwashed zombie.

  Meanwhile, he remembering that she had asked him to memorize the phone number and to find her kid and after all the time it had took to get off the farm—he had forgot the number and his promise too. I think he felt damn guilty about that, like he ain’t cared enough for her to risk nothing. It’s just as likely, though, that them Delicious people with they guns and whatnot scared the stuffing outta that boy. I bet fear had kept him from coming back to save folks as much as some dumbass guilty feelings.

  For most of them years Sirius tried to put Delicious behind him and move on in that fashion that black folks often got to. He stopped hanging out with me, start going to them stupid meetings where they always talking ’bout higher powers and one days at a time, ’bout as ridiculous as that book Darlene read. Sirius cut me dead and I resented that shit, but we had a lotta mutual friends, and I be hearing ’bout all the li’l developments in his life. Underneath I liked him, and I woulda kicked it with him again any time he needed a little pick-me-up. I know, I say that about everybody. I’m so damn easy. My ass always tryna love some motherfuckers more than they love me, or more than they love they own self. I’m a mess.

  Anyhow, I heard that Sirius had moved back to Houston and start making music again, some tired-ass rap jams with all kinda anti-drugs, anti-gang-violence messages in it, which I found hard to keep from taking personally, or seriously, but whatever, but I still loved that sonofabitch, just like I do all my friends.

  Even with them low-quality goody-goody songs, Sirius start to make a li’l bit of a name for hisself, and this Jarvis guy got a gig interviewing him for a fanzine called Fresh. They talked for a long-ass time, probably ’bout social justice or some other bullshit that make people think they gotta wear hemp instead of smoke it, and for the first time since Delicious, Sirius got real comfortable and start talking ’bout some of what had went on there, and it blew Jarvis mind. That egged Sirius on, and he start telling Jarvis ’bout how he had escaped outta there through that drainpipe a
nd lived in it for three weeks while he gone through the agony of being apart from me, eating lizards and stealing sweet potatoes to get by, and how he could only move at night, in the moonlight, and that it took him ’bout another month of living in a swamp to figure out where the hell he at and how to get the fuck out, until one morning, at dawn, he get up the nerve to hitchhike, but he only checking for cars he know Delicious people wouldn’t never drive, like a Subaru or a beat-up Volvo. He wait for almost a eternity, too, ’cause folks in that area don’t be driving no liberal automobiles. But eventually some black folks from outta town in a Volkswagen picked his ass up and drove him far as Shreveport. He spent six months working low-wage jobs out there before he gone back home to Houston—moving and construction, frying up pancakes at some nasty 24-hour diner, cleaning toilets for the crazies out at West Oaks Hospital. Good times!

  Jarvis couldn’t believe how good Sirius story was. Meaning good like journalists says it—a real bad nightmare for the motherfucker it happen to, but good to write down and put in a goddamn newspaper for some idiots to gape at. At the time, though, Jarvis mostly reviewing bad rap music for Fresh, but he want to be more like a hard-news man. So he decide to do a exposé on Delicious for the Houston Chronicle, ’cause it be a chance to do some good for Sirius, bring some people he felt was bad guys down, and get his own career going at the same time. But once he had actually got up there to Delicious and brung back that tape of Darlene, Sirius ain’t want to do the story no more, ’less they did a rescue up there. ’Cause it’s one thing to get the story out, right, but a whole nother story to get them people out. Jarvis told Sirius that soon as How told the management that some newspaper guy done talked to Darlene, it gon be like Lockdown City up there, so they gotta move fast, and Sirius agreed that they need to go back to do a rescue that same night.