Call Me by My Name
Page 22
“Still too hard, huh?”
“Too a lot of things,” he answered. “For one, I don’t think Tom would appreciate the question. Would you like somebody asking your wife about her past with a colored boy?”
“Don’t call him that, Pops.”
“What do you propose I call him, then? African American? Those people, I tell you. They change their names so much it’s impossible to keep up.”
“I don’t think I’d care,” I said.
“You wouldn’t care about what, Rodney?”
“I wouldn’t care if somebody asked Regina about an old boyfriend.”
“Not even a colored one?”
“No, Pops. Not even that.”
The old flame came up in his face again, and I understood that nothing would ever put it out. Bent at the waist, he shuffled over to his chair and fell back into a pile of fishing magazines. “How is football?” he asked.
“Good,” I said, even though I hadn’t played the game in eighteen years.
Nothing’s really right there anymore without Mama, but I make these annual visits as much for my benefit as for his. I need to see him, need to hear his voice in person, need to smell the talcum powder he wears under his khaki pants and western-style shirts with faux pearl buttons. I still love my father, but I don’t understand him any better than I ever did.
I suspect the day is coming when he doesn’t know me anymore. For now, though, we have a great old time confusing each other. I drive him by the plant and show him how little it’s changed, then I take him to Wal-Mart and buy him new artificial lures even though he doesn’t fish anymore. We eat hamburgers and milkshakes at the fast-food joints by the interstate, and finally, after the silences have had their effect, our long handshake leads to a tearful farewell hug.
He stands waving good-bye at the lobby door, and I keep to routine and head out for a few last stops before leaving. I bring flowers to the graveyards and say the prayers I learned as a boy. Then I run by Helen Street and the little house that burned colors in the rain. Of all the stops I make, this one is toughest.
Pops sold the house once he could no longer keep it up, but the new occupants aren’t any tidier. Today there’s a dented aluminum bateau resting on sawhorses on the front lawn, and a kid in a sagging diaper digs with a stick in the dirt where Mama had azaleas. I sit with the engine idling, and I halfway wait for my sister to emerge from the carport door. I want her as she was at seventeen, striding out with her sketchbook and paint box, defiant of those who would deny her and too sure of their love to back down. But in the end the only person who shows is a beefy young mother brandishing a kitchen spatula to spank her kid with.
Tater and Angie. It’s a sorry confession, but I’ve lost them both, the one on the field that night, the other to a destiny that wasn’t meant for her.
“I know you,” an elderly African-American man says to me at the Exxon where I’ve stopped for gas. Joubert’s Esso is long gone, so I pulled over at one of those places with fifty do-it-yourself pumps and a TV playing commercials in each one. Dapper in a new seersucker suit, a doctor or a lawyer or some other professional, he stands at the pump next to mine, squeezing gas into a Lexus so new it still has temporary tags.
I smile the way I always do when a fan says hi. “Rodney Boulet,” I say.
“Rodney Boulet,” he repeats. They usually tick off highlights from my career now: LSU and the NFL, the seven trips to Honolulu for the Pro Bowl, the bust in Canton. But this old bird isn’t that easy.
“You’re Angie’s twin,” he says.
“That’s right,” I tell him.
“And how is Angie?”
“She’s fine, last I heard.” He seems satisfied with the answer, but I suddenly miss her and feel a need to say more. “She was never the same after Tater died. It’s like she died with him. The person we knew, anyway.”
It’s a morbid confession to make to a stranger, but he’s kind enough to offer a sympathetic nod. I put the gas cap back on and return the hose to the pump.
“How’d you know Angie?” I ask.
“I didn’t—not the girl,” he answers. “But we all know the legend.” Then he gets into his car and drives off.
What else can I say about Tater Henry? That he never lost a game as a starting quarterback? That the town honored him with a memorial parade that turned out more people than the ones for Mardi Gras and the Yambilee combined? That a photo of him, framed in gold plate, still stands on display in the trophy case at the high school?
For a long time I wondered what he might’ve made of his life—what he might’ve become, you know? It was the same question he’d once asked about his sister, Rosalie, and I was no better at answering it than he had been. I also tried to see Tater as an adult with Angie, the two of them happy together, making their way in a world more tolerant than the one we knew. But it was so painful an exercise that I had to stop doing it.
We go on. We don’t want to and sometimes don’t think we can. We almost hate ourselves for trying. But we do.
About the Author
JOHN ED BRADLEY is the author of several highly praised novels and a memoir, It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium. A former reporter for The Washington Post, he has also written for Esquire, Sports Illustrated, GQ, and Play magazines. He lives with his wife and daughter in Mandeville, Louisiana.
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Copyright © 2014 by John Ed Bradley
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bradley, John Ed.
Call me by my name / John Ed Bradley.—First edition.
p. cm
Summary: “Growing up in Louisiana in the late 1960s, Tater Henry, has experienced a lot of prejudice. Despite the town’s sensibilities, Rodney Boulett and his twin sister Angie befriend Tater, and as their friendship grows stronger, Tater and Rodney become an unstoppable force on the football field. Rodney’s world is turned upside down when he sees Tater and Angie growing closer. Teammates, best friends—all of it is threatened by hate Rodney did not know was inside of him. As the town learns to accept notions like a black quarterback, some changes are too difficult to accept”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4424-9793-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4424-9795-5 (eBook)
[1. Race relations—Fiction. 2. Prejudices—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Football—Fiction.
5. African Americans—Fiction. 6. Louisiana—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B72466Cal 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013031133