by Harvey Smith
BIG JACK is DEAD
Harvey Smith
BIG JACK IS DEAD
Harvey Smith
Copyright 2013 by Harvey Smith
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
Immanuel Kant
“It's not what you're looking at that matters, it's what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau
“There is nothing more depressing than trying to appear happy when you are not.”
Nick Cave
PROLOGUE
I flew to Houston first class. Why not? Your dad only kills himself once. The seat next to me was empty, which was great since I didn't feel like talking to anyone. So what brings you to Texas?
Slumping back in the seat, I turned my head and pressed my cheek against the cool leather. The plane wobbled and dipped, rattling a tray nearby. Two men across the aisle stopped talking briefly and the seat belt reminder chimed and lit up. We jerked around then hit smooth air, leveling out. An airline attendant passed, offering blankets. I closed my eyes to erase the people around me, cupping a glass of ice in my left hand. The whiskey was gone, but the smell was still strong and the ice cubes still carried the flavor. I struggled to unwind even as the warmth of the drink spread through me.
It would be impossible to relax around my family. They would come up with stunts I couldn't predict, guided by unknowable winds that resulted in improbable acts.
The fingers of my free hand clambered along the length of the armrest, searching for the button to recline the seat. I mashed it down and pushed backward until the angle was better. My eyebrows came together as I worked on what felt like a puzzle or a trap devised by forces outside my influence. Lowfield was my hometown on the Gulf Coast. I was bound to my family and to the place of my birth by shared history, by the power they held as a starting point. I wanted to see my brother Brodie, but this desire usually got trashed in the first hour. Something always came up between us.
The plane was cold, but I refused to take one of the blankets; too many people touched those things every day. So I settled further into my jacket, pulling it tight around the t-shirt underneath, where an eagle was tearing a snake apart.
The flight attendant came over and leaned toward me. “Want another drink?” She pantomimed the words, more than speaking them. Her eyebrows lifted up into her bangs and her mouth made a perfect circle. Part den mother, part sorority girl.
“Yes.”
She ducked into her cubbyhole and came out after a minute. As she turned and headed back to my seat, I watched her legs. She leaned forward with another drink and a cocktail napkin, flashing me a smile as she arranged it on the tray in front of me. I wondered about her panties and bra, deciding on black and thin. I pictured her bush waxed into a narrow strip.
A while later, I got up to pee, taking the glass with me. I made my way toward the washroom, squeezing past a girl who was no more than nineteen wearing designer pajamas. Headphone cords dangled from her ears and our bodies brushed as I passed. We smiled awkwardly at one another.
Wedging myself into the washroom, I sat my drink down on the counter next to the soap pump. On a plane, it's amazing how relaxing it is to step into this small space, invisible to everyone else. Leaning forward, I stretched my back. Tightness fell away from me as I rested my hands on the counter. The overhead light lit my face with an otherworldly shade of aqua. I leaned closer to the mirror, close enough to see how bloodshot my eyes were. After splashing water over my face, I felt better for a moment, but then my thoughts leapt back to why I was on the plane. Funny how death keeps surprising you.
The drone of the plane went away and I saw my father sitting in a dark house. I could hear the wind moaning through the cracks. He was living on candy bars and crying, smelling like four-day-old shit and sucking on the cool metal of a gun barrel. He looked old and haggard, alone in the last minutes of his life. I picked up my glass and drained it.
At the office I hadn't told anyone why I was taking off. Near the end of the day I sent a vague message about a family situation. Mandy feigned concern and asked if I wanted her to come over in case I wanted to talk. I considered it, but declined the invitation. Leaving her to book the flight, I went to pack. Now I was drinking alone in a tiny toilet, 25,000 feet above the ground. After washing my face again, I traced my forehead, eyelids and neck with an ice cube. The floor vibrated under my feet as the plane shuddered and the engine sounds increased in pitch. Back at my seat I considered ordering another drink, but decided to sleep instead.
The Gulf Coast humidity hit me as soon as I stepped off the plane. Everything I was wearing felt heavier and clung tighter. It was an effect I never noticed while growing up. Relatives from out of state always mentioned it when they came down for the holidays. Now I understood. It was totally obvious to me after living in California for years and I wondered again how people managed to live down here.
I made my way out of the terminal and rented a Lexus with dark-tinted windows. Guiding the car through the dense market of airport traffic, I was out on the highway ten minutes later with the windows cracked and my bags resting beside me in the passenger seat.
Oddly, I started to feel good. In Sunnyvale, I always felt like I was under observation. Down here all that slid away. What did I have to prove to these people? A feeling of familiarity settled over me as I drove along. The world outside was flat, eaten up with strip malls and gas stations. The whole place was tied down by black telephone wires, like Gulliver. The ground was riddled with fire ant mounds, and you were almost guaranteed to find a wood roach tucked into every crack. Ditches filled with trash hemmed the highway and flat salt grass fields lay beyond. The contrast with the Bay Area was startling and yet somehow it all felt familiar.
I started to move the car into the left-hand lane, but a black truck sped up to prevent me from getting over. Fuck. I stepped on the gas and squeezed into the gap anyway, coming inches from hitting the truck. It all happened in a thin slice of flying road, the emotion and the movement. The driver of the truck drafted behind me, deliberately close, then swerved over into the far right lane and began passing cars, weaving in and out of traffic as he darted upstream. I maintained my speed, watching through the darkened glass and pressuring the sedan in front of me in a bid to stay ahead of the truck. It slid into place a few cars further on, accelerating and leaving me behind. Gritting my teeth, I imagined the driver laughing at me.
I saw his truck spin out of control, leaping into the air like a tortured, bucking animal. It came down sideways in the drainage canal flanking the highway. No one else stopped, but I got out and approached. The driver hung upside down from the seat belt, face purple and eyes bulging. He gasped for breath through a neck that was snapped and swelling with blood. I knelt down, placing one hand on the window frame, leaning close. He gurgled as he tried to speak, like a baby, like an animal in a trap, like a ninety-nine-year-old in a rest home bed. Tears formed in his eyes.
I felt my heart beating at a crazy pace as I drove. Someone honked twice, reacting to the maneuvering. I shook it off and tried to breathe again, my face hot and puffy. The drivers around me drifted apart, adjusting for space. I swallowed and ran my tongue over my teeth, slowing the car as I slid back into the middle lane.
Whenever I went home, I stayed at the El Cinco Inn, a chain motel common throughout the region. The rooms were small and smelled liked smoke. The walls sweated from the humidity and the carpet was so thin that when I walked barefoot I could feel the grooves in the concrete slab underneath. Huge roaches sometimes ran across the wallpaper in the middle of the night, skeptical blots from a disgusting Rorschach test. What am I afraid of? Three-inch wood roaches crawling into my fucking mouth at night.
The El
Cinco was dismal, but there was no choice. I found myself near breaking after being with my family for even a few hours, ready to have a stroke or kill one of them slowly. The only relief was getting away. At the end of an evening, at least I could drive back to the motel, pull the filthy curtains closed and watch bad television in bed, with people above, below and to the sides like wasps curled up in paper-mâché nests.
Staying at the El Cinco involved turning down offers from both my mother, Ramona, and my stepmother, Mincy, the two women who had lived with my father for the longest period during my childhood. I always declined, mumbling about privacy or making a joke about picking up some local girl. Ramona reacted with a numb acceptance that angered me and disturbed me in equal parts. Mincy always made a fuss, playing disappointed and hurt.
The thought of them suffering through life with my father made me shudder. He was prone to infantile rage, occasional violence and an incessant demand for sex. Extreme jealousy and paranoia possessed him at random times. Socializing with him was nearly impossible. He hated our neighbors and avoided most gatherings, including parties and church. When he wasn't working, he was at home, where he usually sat around in his underwear listening to country music. He drank and never said anything that wasn't sarcastic or full of fury.
My father made very little money. (Or had, I reminded myself.) And he often wasted it, buying things outside his means on impulse. Coming home from work once, he stopped on the side of the road and bought a ski boat that wouldn't run. In high school, I saved up several hundred dollars in a college account. My father withdrew it and spent it on a thoroughbred horse that he sold a couple of years later.
Somehow, despite all this, these women managed to live with him for years. I wondered what they gained by living like that. Back in the Bay Area, Mandy made sense to me. She was ambitious, even as a personal assistant. As part of our unspoken arrangement, her salary was twice that of her peers, no one tracked her vacation time, and occasionally I fired someone she didn't like. Obviously, she didn't want to marry me. In exchange, all I had to do was reach for her.
I pulled into the El Cinco parking lot and shut off the engine. The emergency brake sounded like some kind of torture device tightening down. Gathering my bags, I walked to the motel office. One of the automated glass doors had been shattered and electrical tape ran outward from the central point of impact.
The lobby was Southwestern, but everything looked artificial. What's worse than a cow skull hanging on the wall? A plastic cow skull. This region was about as far from an O'Keeffe painting as Jupiter. Someone following a corporate decorating guide had positioned 3' tall jars of red peppers in all the corners. A television hung near the ceiling providing white noise.
Two women were working the counter. Both of them were obese, with rolls of fat bulging from under their El Cinco uniforms. Flush-faced, they seemed excited about something. The odor of cigarette smoke was almost overpowering. I relaxed, fighting against the contempt climbing up inside me.
“Hi,” I said. “I just need a room for a few nights.”
“Do you have a reservation?” Suddenly, the woman in front of me was all business. Her companion occupied herself by smoothing down the pleats of her uniform, pausing once to pluck the material from between two folds of her flesh with pudgy fingers.
“No,” I said. “I didn't have time to make one…”
“Well, we've got some families coming in for a reunion. It might be hard...”
“My father just died. He killed himself.”
A few seconds of silence passed. The El Cinco staff was stunned into submission faster than if I'd pulled a pistol on them. They stood behind the desk in their identical uniforms, the counter top a wide lake of reflective Formica. Finally, one of them made a quivering recovery. “I'm real sorry,” she said. “We'll get you situated right away.” She nodded in time with her words.
“Thank you,” I said.
Chapter 1
1972
Jack walked home from elementary school, clutching a stack of construction paper drawings in one hand. His stomach rumbled, but he was in no hurry. Rain clouds gathered overhead and the wind picked up, blowing a paper cup down the street. He leaped out into the gutter to stomp it flat, his windbreaker spreading like a sail, the hood snapping out behind him as he landed. It was early in the afternoon and there was no one else on the street. The song from a distant snow cone truck warbled over the rooftops, off-key and half speed.
His house was at the end of the block. It was the second home he could remember. Built in the 1940's, an older relative once said, it was small with a handful of rooms. The exterior was white with mossy window frames that sloughed off paint chips like molting insects. Sitting on pier and beam-style blocks, the house concealed a dank underbelly that was thick with roaches and fat-bodied spiders, legs like black fishing line. His parents talked about moving, but for now this was home.
He slowed, spotting a familiar car parked on the street a few houses down. It was a rusted VW bug that belonged to Daryl, one of his mother's friends. When Jack's father wasn't home, his mother acted differently, especially around Daryl. She had special rules for those times, rules that Jack had to keep.
Putting his head down, he trudged through the clumps of clover in the front yard, following a path that allowed him to hit a couple of outgrowths. The toes of his sneakers turned green. A fire ant mound caught his attention, but he couldn't muster the enthusiasm to kick it to pieces. Using his body as a wedge, he forced himself between the screen and the front door. The spring on the screen door groaned as it stretched out against his back and shoulder. The front door was locked. Leaning into it with his weight, he rested there between the hard wood and the wire mesh, knocking as loudly as he could, which wasn't very loud. Using the flat of his hand, he slapped the door, trying to get his mother's attention.
When Ramona opened the door, Jack nearly tumbled over the threshold. She wore a blouse covered in cream-colored splotches, a pair of cutoffs and nothing else. Her red hair was cut closer than usual and was badly disheveled. She stepped aside, adjusting the shorts on her hips.
“Ohhh…come in, baby.” With an air of dreaminess, she reached out, stroking his head with unsteady hands. Once he was inside, she locked the door.
Jack blinked in the dimness. “Mom, look.”
“Yeah, baby…those are real good.” She took the drawings and dropped them on the coffee table. “Sit down on the couch, okay?”
He did as she asked, wide blue eyes locked onto her as she turned on the television. Twenty years old, she was slender and pale. Her breasts were larger than her petite frame would otherwise suggest and hung low within the baby doll blouse.
“You wanna watch cartoons?”
Jack nodded as she found the right channel.
“Here you go. I'll give you a hug then I'm gonna be in the other room, alright?”
“Okay.” He watched her approach. Ramona slid onto the couch next to him and he leaned into her clumsily, holding onto her shoulder with one pale hand. She hadn't showered today and he could smell her skin and her hair, a combination of cigarette smoke, day-old deodorant and sweat. The smell of his mother and the warmth of her flesh made him feel safe. Holding on, he buried his head in her blouse, pressing his face against her floppy breasts through the thin material. He closed his eyes and smiled.
Ramona took his shoulders and gently pushed him back. Looking down at him, she smiled back, distantly, before getting serious. “You 'member what we talked about?”
Daryl's voice came through the walls. “Hey, Ramona,” he bellowed.
She looked over her shoulder toward the bedroom then locked eyes with Jack again. “Remember?”
He nodded.
“Okay, you stay in here and watch cartoons.” She rose from the couch, pulling away from him.
He watched her recede, crossing the room quickly. The bedroom door closed and Jack turned his attention to the television. From the other side of the wall, Daryl said s
omething but it was muffled. Music started to play.
Jack sat watching Speed Racer. It was shortly after one in the afternoon and he remembered his hunger. The television was up loud and the sounds of cars accelerating and exploding echoed off the walls. During a commercial break, he slid off the couch and made his way to the kitchen.
Rummaging around in the pantry, he found a loaf of bread, untwisting the tie with his small fingers. Standing in a kitchen chair, he slathered two slices of bread with a layer of margarine before dropping them into the toaster. He'd been told before to butter the bread only after toasting it, but with no one around this was a small rule that he generally broke. If he buttered it first, the bread tasted better, coming out of the toaster in a dozen shades of gold and lighting his tongue up with the pleasures of grease, salt and burned things.
Big Jack, his father, had walked in on him once while he was toasting the already-buttered bread. Jack was sitting on the counter after a slow climb up from the tiled floor, aromatic smoke filling his senses. Watching the toaster greedily, he was barely aware that his father had entered the room.
Big Jack was short, probably five foot seven, with skinny arms and legs. A basketball-sized belly was molded to his lower abdomen and a pair of B-cup tits sagged from his chest. Intermittent patches of wiry hair covered his pale, freckled skin. Watching his son up on the counter, it had taken Big Jack a few seconds to realize what was going on. He looked dully at the toaster before his eyes flared with anger. “Boy!”
Jack jumped, his heels banging against the cabinet door.
“What're you doing? You want me to knock you through that wall?” Big Jack took a step closer. His eyes were red-rimmed from cigarette smoke and bulged in outrage. Standing in front of the counter, he stared straight into his son's eyes.
