Delicious Foods

by James Hannaham

  I arranged to move my own belongings with a local guy who had a van, and when I left Summerton, I did try to turn around and take a moment to appreciate everything I had experienced there, but the thick kudzu that had grown up around the farm obscured the view. I couldn’t see the place at all.

  In Shreveport, not many folks have the stamina to go running in the midafternoon even during the spring and fall, and very few—only the extreme types—can tolerate running in the triple-digit heat of midsummer, which could leave the most seasoned athlete dried out like a worm at the side of the road. But it’s possible to get in a few sweaty miles during the early-morning and late-evening hours. Once I finally got sober, I instituted a regular exercise routine for myself, one of many good habits I established in the first six months after I left Scotty behind. I also quit smoking, which I found almost more difficult than detoxing from crack cocaine.

  But I had always gathered strength from this city, and even though everything else in my life had changed drastically, I still could find, tangled somewhere in its grassy blocks and stooping live oaks, the person I had once known I would be, and traces of the husband I lost. I felt this most strongly whenever I stumbled across a diner that served undercooked grits the way Nat liked, or when I stood on the sidewalk in front of the place we had once lived on Joe Louis Boulevard, where Eddie had been conceived, or if I touched the gas lamp outside the Renaissance Bed & Breakfast (which had not changed at all) and looked up to imagine our shadows still crossing the window frames. One Saturday afternoon, not long after I got to town, I took a walk over to Centenary on what turned out to be graduation day. From the far side of Dixie Road I tearfully watched all the children in their black robes and square graduation hats streaming down the stairs and out of Gold Dome, then snuck into the rapidly emptying building myself. In the foyer, as I peered at all the basketball trophies Centenary had won during Nat’s day—especially with his friend Robert Parish—I could’ve sworn that I felt Nat touch my shoulder. Once I entered the court, I heard Nat’s proud, silky voice echo over the shiny floor and up to the spectacular roof that sheltered the bleachers like a space-age quilt.

  In comparison to the almost supernatural comforts that Shreveport gave me, I sometimes thought of my program as bland, but Tony, my sponsor from group, had recently reminded me, and everybody else, that party people think only self-destructive activities are pleasurable and exciting; everything else bores them. The mundane parts of my day had become vital, and so had my acceptance of the past, though the latter sometimes stunned me into silence or tears, and both—the mundane present and the sorrowful past—now had to keep me straight, each one like a rope thrown to me from a boat while I thrashed around in a cold, churning river.

  When I moved here, just two months after the trial, I decided on a complete renaissance for myself. No more unhealthy living. I had to emphasize fresh food, exercise, and moderation, like it said in the natural-foods sections in gigantic supermarkets I’d only recently started paying attention to, because my life depended on it. The thought made me imagine wooden grocery-store signs above my head, painted with pictures of celery and beefsteak tomatoes with smiling faces, and the idea made me laugh—another beneficial habit, as Tony and the rest often restated at the six p.m. daily meetings downtown. I started keeping a journal. I didn’t need the book anymore either, not with so many new friends living its principles right in front of me. Where had the book gotten me anyway? Delicious, that’s where.

  Every morning, I rose at five, even if I didn’t have the energy—especially if I didn’t—and cut apples or cantaloupe directly into a particular oversize white porcelain bowl I’d found at a thrift store. The bowl had a pleasing smoothness to it, like a good set of teeth. I’d spoon yogurt over the fruit and sprinkle it with granola, though not too much, since I don’t like the way granola sticks in my molars and would rather not spend half the time jogging with my finger stuck in the back of my mouth, trying to dislodge oats. Some days, when I wanted to reward myself, I’d squirt a little honey over the whole mixture before folding its contents together. I would always think about the people whose hands had touched those apples and that cantaloupe before I ate. Sometimes, at the supermarket, I asked questions about the growers that nobody could answer, and eventually the stock boys started to hide when they saw me coming.

  I learned to smile with my mouth closed during job interviews, and in that way I managed to secure a waitressing gig on the other side of Queensborough, at a family place called Quincy’s that featured a phenomenal all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet popular with—let’s just say, the area’s largest men and women. The program required me to take a job as a way of reentering the straight world—it wasn’t a job you were supposed to like, just a means to an end, but I happened to enjoy the atmosphere. Morton the Manager, as they called him, was a doughy-faced, empathic gay man who joked around with everyone, the waitresses in particular, and created a warm feeling of community for the staff, a group of smart-mouthed, hardworking women I identified with and admired, even though I often wondered what they said about me behind my back. My acceptance of the job sometimes enabled me to see beyond the present to some latent ambition I had previously expressed only by dating men I considered leaders, and I felt I had something to offer others myself, if only my difficult cautionary tale or the suggestion that if I could survive these experiences, anybody could.

  Still, I had life issues to concentrate on before I could think too far ahead. First, I saved up to get my dental implants. Then, after several weeks of rice-and-ketchup suppers, I had put aside enough, if I stretched it, to move out of the program’s quarters and rent an upstairs apartment at the Villa del Lago, opposite Cross Lake. The advertising for the place—Surrounded by beautiful landscaping and all the comforts and luxuries you desire—looked a lot better than the place itself, but this time I hadn’t expected anything much. The brown-and-tan two-story complex resembled a neglected Spanish-style motel from the days when Nat and I first came to Shreveport, but that didn’t bother me, considering the kinds of places I’d lived in the recent past. In the courtyard, though, many of the apartments looked out over the small pool, with a good portion of the oblong lake shimmering just beyond it. Mine had a view of one of the wooded interior courtyards, but I could easily visit the pool, with its lakeside view. To me this felt like the kind of place that Jackie had promised they were taking me the night I got in that stupid van.

  The Villa del Lago somehow made humility seem elegant. I felt a kinship with the place—we’d both seen better days, I knew, we could use some sprucing up, but something essential and beautiful about our inner construction would never disappear. I didn’t much like the clattering racket and loud horns of the freight trains that passed only a few yards away even late at night, but they were part of what made the apartment cheap, and I got used to them. I thought I might start to find them romantic after a while, those resounding whistles floating over the land in the earliest hours of the morning, like the howling of lonely animals.

  On the particular morning I’m remembering, once I finished my breakfast, I slid into a pair of shorts and tugged a sports bra over my head, the first one I’d ever bought. I liked how tightly the Lycra blend hugged my upper body. I adjusted the underseam against my sternum, pulling it forward and making a thwap sound on my skin, then pulled my shorts above my underwear. I swung open my front door to a humid blast of morning air and descended the stairs to cross the parking lot.

  As inviting as everybody found the water, Shreveport was a fish-in-the-lake city, not a jog-around-the-lake city, and they hadn’t put in a path for running along the shore—you might try dancing up the wooden ties, football player–style, on the stretch of railroad that kissed the east side of Cross Lake on its way to Mount Pleasant or Dallas, but that did not seem realistic. Instead I crossed Milam Street and made a loop east of the lake, on an old path partially submerged in dirt and dandelions.

  That day I had decided to be ambitious and take a
more challenging route farther away from the lake, four miles in total, as opposed to my usual three. As I passed the local high school, a hint of dizziness entered my head. That didn’t bother me at first. The beginning of any run always made me short of breath, and I became conscious of my heart jiggling against my rib cage like a water balloon. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and spat and breathed in through my nose and told myself, Keep going. My tongue seemed to swell in my mouth, though, and my left arm tingled uncomfortably.

  I looped around the high school, turned back in the direction of the lake, and ran toward a bowl-shaped embankment with a group of trees and a telephone pole. A huge convention of grackles had gathered there, as usual for that time of day, chittering and squawking in their peculiar way. The tingle in my arm became a throb. With all I have been through, I laughed to myself, one morning jog is not that much to bear. I gathered strength by thinking of Eddie and Ruth and little Nathaniel, how they would someday see me at my best and bring me back into the family. I was curious to know what my best even looked like! My heart wobbled and my head felt light as I thought of the joys ahead. Thanksgivings and Christmases together. Thoughtful gifts, homemade potato salad, loving embraces.

  At the same moment I reached the point where Ford Street parted ways with Route 173 and the sidewalk abruptly ended in a lawn, a semi barreled around from the left and nearly blindsided me. The truck sounded its implausibly loud horn, startling not just me but hundreds of those birds, who collectively fluttered into the orange sky like flecks of charcoal rising from a campfire, as if the deafening noise had broken some invisible force that had bound them to the trees. I leapt back from the street almost involuntarily and jogged in place for a second, regaining my composure. I looked both ways down the street twice before crossing. Shaken, winded, I took a deep breath and found it shallower than I’d expected. Keep going, I told myself, no matter what. I set my jaw and swallowed the trembling surge that rushed from my chest into my head, inflating the veins in my temples, stealing my breath. My windpipe constricted, and a sharp pain spiraled up my left arm, but I didn’t consider stopping. Can’t give up now, I said to myself. My eyes narrowed as I peered down the street to where the asphalt seemed to come together. I’m almost there, I thought. Almost home.

  Next thing I knew, I was regaining consciousness in a bright green room with a tube in my arm and another in my nose. I heard machines behind my temples, buzzing and chiming. A nurse poured water into a plastic tumbler and asked me if I wanted a glass of water. I nodded, or tried to nod, anyway. As she lifted the glass to my lips, it occurred to me that my life had just gone into overtime.

  29.

  Daydreaming

  Eddie heard thirdhand about his mother’s heart attack after a friend from her program found Bethella’s number and called her. Despite Darlene’s six months of sobriety, and her frequent pleas, through Eddie, for amnesty, Bethella still refused to speak to her sister, but she passed the information on to Eddie, who decided to visit. It wasn’t that his newly expanded hardware store had begun to make a profit and left him feeling flush enough to spring for a plane ticket, it was that the news had given him a number of unnerving premonitions: that his mother might not survive, that she might not want to survive, and that she might die alone. Although he had only the name of the hospital to go on, and though his one phone call to her room had gone unanswered, he flew to Shreveport anyway.

  He found his mother sharing a room with a high-school girl also recovering from heart surgery—an athlete, by the looks of the sports-themed decorations around her bed, which sat on the window side of the room, where hazy brightness spilled in through the vertical blinds. The girl or her family had taped greeting cards all over her headboard and pinned many more to the wall; arranged a line of plants on the windowsill, their pots wrapped in colorful foil; left shiny gift bags littering the floor, the chair, the food tray. Above the bed, a banner told her GET WELL MINDY in metallic block letters.

  The corner-store daffodils Eddie had brought, their silky white petals supporting orange cups, seemed clownish by comparison. On Darlene’s side of the room, the bluish curtain remained half closed, blocking most of the small amount of light her area received, and the only objects in her vicinity were a glass of water on the nightstand and a phone. She had an oxygen tube under her nose, and the monitor beside the bed whirred quietly.

  The differences between the two sides of the room suggested to Eddie that his mother had tried, in her usual fashion, to tough it out by herself, doing it her own way without admitting how often her own way went express to Failure. At this late date, it would seem cruel and pointless to harp on her self-destructive patterns; by now even to her they must have felt as obvious as a freight train barreling toward a car stalled on the train tracks. The bare room meant either that Darlene had called no one or that she had, but no one cared. Eddie wasn’t sure which was the sadder scenario.

  Only when he stepped across the threshold, though, did he feel as if he’d made a mistake. That surprised him, since he’d had so much time to consider his options, his motives, and the possible reactions of his mother.

  Her initial response did nothing to reverse his self-consciousness. She lay back in bed, absorbed in a rerun of Family Feud on the wall-mounted television, and, when she recognized that Eddie had entered the room, she raised herself slightly with the automatic button by her side and shimmied into an upright position, stiffening her spine. Her body language suggested puzzlement rather than joy.

  She glanced at him from beneath lowered eyebrows and said, You couldn’t call?

  He stopped at her bedside and laid the flowers on a chair. He rested his metal prostheses against the bars at the foot of the bed, making a noise like a service bell. For an instant, the festive atmosphere on Mindy’s side of the room caught his eye again. Mindy herself lay on her left side, face toward the window in a patch of sun, peroxide-blond hair brilliantly glistening in the light, snoring like the engine of a small car. His eyes returned to his mother and he focused on the distance between his mechanical pincers and the bare soles of her feet. He could already feel himself becoming angry at the thought that she might turn him away after he had made so much effort to see her, but the glance at the other side of the room had reminded him of Darlene’s loneliness, and he thought that she might not decide to send him away for failing to announce his arrival if he could find a way to cure that loneliness without calling any attention to it.

  I did, he told her, choosing his words carefully, but no one picked up the phone.

  Oh, she said. Well, then. I’m glad you’re here, but I didn’t want anybody to see me this way. This is not ideal. Without moving, she indicated with her attitude that it would be okay for him to approach and sit beside her, and that while she might not approve of him interrupting the television, which had switched to Jeopardy!, they might begin to have an elementary conversation.

  Eddie edged his way to the chair by the side of the bed and sat in it at what he determined was a comfortable distance. I heard what happened, he said. You’re feeling better. He realized that he’d sat on the flowers, and he raised himself on his haunches enough to move them to the nightstand. A few of the blooms were still intact.

  She laughed, and through her laughter asked him not to make her laugh because laughing hurt. If I started feeling worse, I would’ve died, Eddie. The statement did not strike Eddie as humorous but bitterly true. He felt guilty that he’d destroyed the daffodils. He watched the television and said nothing for a few moments to allow the moment to pass.

  Your smile’s looking good! he told her.

  She brightened up and demonstrated her restored teeth. Why, thank you! she said. You came all the way from Minnesota. Where’s the family?

  They stayed back. It seemed like the best idea.

  Because why? Darlene asked. Are you ashamed to—

  No, no. Expenses and everything. Ruth’s working, Nat has preschool.

  Nat, she said, and when she sai
d the name it sounded to Eddie like she had addressed her husband rather than his son.

  She asked when he would let her see young Nat, and while Eddie should’ve expected to hear the question, he found himself caught off guard a second time.

  Obviously, she said, I’m not going to be around forever. I might not be around next week. We’re letting too much time go by.

  Eddie struggled to find a proper response without lying and once more resorted to silence. There was no way he could try to set guidelines at that point—to do so seemed both premature and overdue, it would be neither useful nor logical. Maybe she had meant to put him on the spot. He could feel it now between them more clearly than ever before in life, an ominous sense of time as an enormous set of gears, each generation interlocking with the ones on either side, all of them forced to react by turning each other in opposite directions.

  Occasionally speaking over Alex Trebek, they embarked on a rudimentary, halting conversation about the most recent months of their lives. Darlene emphasized her significant time living clean and sober and incorporated many familiar homilies that she credited with getting her through the roughest parts of her recovery and her new life. Fake it till you make it, she said. One day at a time. She returned so frequently to the principles of the program, in practically the same way she had hewn to the precepts of the book, that Eddie couldn’t help doubting her. Everything she said reminded him of the book, which made him remember the urine-soaked barracks and the sweltering fields of Delicious Foods. Surely she knew the truth, which was that only time could prove she had conquered all of the terrible patterns, the vicious cycles whose pains he could still feel in his phantom fingers.