Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi

by Nanci Kincaid

  Arnold jumped to his feet and grabbed his trash bag and the handles of his suitcases and started wheeling before Truely could change his mind. “This work out,” Arnold said. “Don’t worry. You’ll see.”

  “One wrong move and you’re gone, you hear me?”

  “I bet, after a while, you start to like having me around.”

  “This is only temporary. You understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “As soon as we get you straightened out, you go back.”

  “What you mean straightened out?”

  “Another thing. You’re going to starve over here. You’ve seen my kitchen. What you think you’re going to eat?”

  “I don’t know. We eat some more that damn Thai food, I guess.”

  WHILE ARNOLD SITUATED his stuff in a far corner of the loft, unpacking, piling his things on the floor, Truely went to take a hot shower. With any luck he might drown. He turned the water up as hot as it would go and stayed in it as long as he could stand it. The scalding felt almost good. It was like some fiery baptism by hot shower — he wanted to be renewed when he stepped out and dried off. He wanted to be new and improved — his mood at least. His skin was red as a lobster, almost blistered — but otherwise he was the same old jerk.

  Truely began his nightly routine, sweats and T-shirt, channel surfing through the stations in search of news of the war. He was silent. Meanwhile across the way Arnold was practically humming as he organized his belongings, lining up everything along the wall, neatly. Even his toiletries he began to line up, toothpaste, aftershave, razor …

  “You can put your stuff in that other bathroom,” Truely said. “For now.”

  Arnold grabbed up his toiletries and carried them to the bathroom.

  “There are some drawers in that cabinet under the window. Put your clothes in there. We don’t need your underwear and sweatshirts and stuff laying all over the floor like that.”

  “All right then.”

  By the time Truely was ready to switch off the TV, let go of his war vigil, Arnold had put his clothes in the empty drawers, made himself a bed on the sofa, stripped down and gotten in it. For a while the two of them lay in the darkness in a deafening silence. Finally Truely broke the spell and called out to him, “Arnold, I need this like I need a hole in the head. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know it.”

  Seventeen

  COURTNEY TOOK THE NEWS that Arnold had become a squatter in Truely’s loft in characteristic good spirits. “That’s great, True. You can keep each other company. You spend too much time alone. It’s not good for you.”

  “I like my time alone, Court,” he countered. “You know that.”

  “Just because you like it doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

  “Oh, man,” Truely moaned.

  COURTNEY CAME INTO THE CITY early on Thursday afternoon and waited with Truely for Arnold to get home from work. He had barely walked in the door and started his instinctive and determined search of the mostly empty refrigerator before she called out, “Okay, buddy-boy, look what I brought.”

  “Buddy-boy?” Arnold raised a leery eyebrow. Truely laughed at Arnold’s wary expression.

  “Okay then,” she teased. “Dude. Check it out, dude.”

  Arnold rolled his eyes and looked at the stack of books she had set out on the kitchen counter. The GED for Dummies, Basic History and Government of the United States, Math for Dummies, Passing the Test, English Grammar for Dummies, and who knew what else.

  “Looks like you got a bunch of books for a dummy,” he said sarcastically. “I guess you think that’s me.”

  “No,” she said. “Books for a future high school grad. I’m going to tutor you. We’ll start tonight, okay? I checked with the DOE and got a schedule of when they offer the GED test. Look. You might even graduate early. Who knows?”

  Arnold looked where Truely was sitting working on his laptop by the open terrace door. “Man, I got to do this?”

  “You can try telling her no,” Truely said. “I’ve never had much luck with that approach myself.”

  “Oh, don’t be a big baby,” Courtney said. “This is going to be fun, Arnold. You’re not scared of books are you? You know what they say — if you think education is a lot of trouble, try ignorance.”

  Truely winced. She was misquoting one of Jesse’s favorite sayings. But the spirit of the message was intact — which wasn’t always true when Courtney adopted a mantra.

  “Look,” Courtney said. “I sent off for some practice tests. Samples, you know. We can go over those until you get the hang of actual test-taking.”

  “I’m not too good at tests,” he said.

  “That’s about to change,” she said. “It’s a learned talent, Arnold — test-taking. It comes from practice. First, we just demystify it, see?”

  Arnold looked like a man caught in an ambush.

  “Oh, Arnold honey,” she said. “Don’t look so gloomy. Fear no classroom. A brain is a terrible thing to waste. Open your oyster and discover your pearl. Smart is the new sexy.”

  “What she talking about?” He looked at Truely, desperate for rescue.

  Truely smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  THAT NIGHT while Truely went to the gym, then to pick up takeout pizza to bring home, Courtney held Arnold captive at the kitchen bar, books spread out, papers in neat stacks. When he returned Truely found the two of them exactly as he had left them, Arnold slumped over a book with sharpened pencil in hand, Courtney beside him whispering quietly, urging him on.

  They paused long enough to eat — Arnold was uncharacteristically quiet — then went back at it for a couple more hours. Truely felt trapped in his own home. He wanted to turn on the TV and watch a Thursday-night college football game, but he didn’t dare. It would disturb the prayer meeting going on in the kitchen. He didn’t want to be held responsible for sabotaging Arnold’s best shot at a high school diploma. Arnold sat with his back to Truely so Truely had no way of reading his face, measuring the degree of suffering going on. Truely picked up a book and pretended to read it. Minutes later he put the book down and reread the Chronicle sports page for the second time that day.

  Just when it seemed Courtney had finally put an end to the academic misery and officially declared their study session over for the night, she surprised them with one more well-meaning torment. “Arnold,” she said. “Instead of listening to your iPod all night, I was thinking, you know, maybe you could listen to these.” She fished through her big leather bag and held up a fistful of CDs and a CD player. “Audiobooks,” she said. “I got some of the classics. See? The Scarlet Letter. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The Red Badge of Courage. Beloved. Confessions of Nat Turner. The Color Purple. Huckleberry Finn. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Look at these.”

  It was like she was suddenly speaking a foreign language, showing them something so strange and otherworldly that Truely froze in place, incredulous, just like Arnold. Truely knew Jaxon’s wife, Melissa, liked to listen to books on tape while she carpooled their kids all over the place. He had seen the cassettes strewn all over her Suburban. Jaxon called it the lazy woman’s way of reading a book. But damn. There was nothing about it that appealed to Truely, listening to somebody gab in your ear, droning on and on and on. He was ninety-nine percent sure Arnold felt the same.

  In a sudden show of brotherhood, Truely said, “Damn, Court. How about he just rents the movie?”

  “The movie is never as good as the book,” she insisted. “I mean as long as you’ve got your ears plugged up with something anyway, you could just try listening to some literature, couldn’t you?” She looked at Arnold in that certain hopeful way of hers and Truely knew there was no chance Arnold could refuse her. “It won’t kill you,” she said. “I promise.”

  Arnold looked doubtful.

  “Here.” She handed him The Autobiography of Malcolm X. “This is good. I’ve read it. I couldn’t put it down. I mean it. It’s a must-read.”
r />   Arnold took it as if she were handing him a grenade.

  “Would it help if I told you it was full of sex and violence?” she asked.

  Arnold looked like he was about to break into a sweat. Truely felt for the kid. Unlike Truely, he wasn’t really used to being bossed around by a female type — at least not like this. Maybe if Court were his mother, or his wife, or even his girlfriend she could be forgiven for her devotion to trying to improve him. But damn, she was some middle-aged woman with no blood ties to him whose own life was falling apart as she set out to rescue Arnold from his ill-perceived destiny.

  “Give me one of those damn things.” Truely snatched up a random CD. The Scarlet Letter. “If we’re trying to get intellectual around here I guess I can sign on — on an experimental-only basis. I read this book in school. Forgot most of it. But Court, now, if I hate this audiobooks thing then I reserve the right to remain reasonably ignorant and to enjoy my ignorance as I see fit.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “What about you, Arnold?”

  “I rather watch some TV. We already missed the game tonight.”

  “Weeknights only,” Truely declared. Since when did he start making up rules? Rules were Courtney’s great love. “Books on tape no more than four nights a week. That’s it. After TV. Not instead of TV. I’m not giving up the news and sports. And it’s voluntary too — books on tape. Not mandatory. Everybody got that?”

  “I’ll suffer with you guys, okay?” Courtney picked up The Red Badge of Courage. “We’ll just all suffer together in the name of intellectual pursuit.” She smiled.

  It would not have surprised Truely if Arnold suddenly decided to move the ten or so blocks back to Shauna’s place. He half expected him to sling his meager belongings into a pillowcase and bolt out of the loft in a hurry, never looking back. It fact, it actually crossed Truely’s mind to do the same damn thing.

  That night all three of them settled into their assigned beds, which was beginning to feel weird to Truely, the excessive togetherness of sleeping out in the open with people you should not be sleeping with, each of them wired to their book of choice more or less, forcing themselves to listen and see if they could learn anything from the classically renowned wordmasters. It made Truely think of when the doctors had hooked his daddy up to an IV and pumped nutrition into him, forcing him to stay alive a little longer in hopes that he would be the better for it. And maybe he was.

  Also, for the first time since moving into his loft, Truely found himself contemplating the merits of walls. It wouldn’t be too hard to install some strategically placed space dividers in his place, which was feeling less and less like his place. He thought of his mother’s discomfort trying to sleep in all this lavish open space when she used to visit Jesse and him. She would have much preferred a small, simple, enclosed space all to herself. Now Truely understood her sentiments. Maybe he was getting old.

  Within an hour after the lights were out, Truely noticed that Arnold had drifted off, his earphones still plugged in. When Arnold slept he usually lay on his back with the covers mostly kicked off and his arm slung over his forehead. Minutes after noticing Arnold’s surrender, Truely was almost sound asleep too, when Courtney tiptoed across the dark room and poked Truely gently.

  “Wake up,” she whispered. “I want to talk to you.”

  Truely got that same little pang of alarm he used to get when Jesse said those same words. “What is it?” he muttered.

  “Let’s step out on the terrace,” she said, “so we don’t wake up Arnold.”

  Courtney led the way across the unlit room in her robe and bare feet. She almost silently opened the terrace door and stepped outside into the soft night air. Truely was right behind her in his Spartan T-shirt and matted hair. “What’s up?” he asked her.

  She turned to face him in the darkness. Behind her the jeweled city sparkled like an artificial galaxy of stars. “This is not a big deal really” — she paused — “but in the interest of this involuntary pursuit of self-improvement I’ve begun — I’m scheduled for another surgery. I wanted you to know.” It was chilly out, but the panoramic night vista was beyond spectacular and distracting in its magnitude. Truely used to like to sit out here in a chaise lounge, all alone, and think his disjointed thoughts. That was before he’d had his solitude shattered by this houseful of technically uninvited guests.

  “My God, Court. What’s wrong?” The concern in his voice was as earnest as the alarm.

  “Nothing,” she said. “It’s not an illness, True. It’s a choice. Elective surgery, they call it — right?”

  “For what?” he asked.

  “A breast lift — if you must know. Maybe some liposuction too.”

  “Hell no, Courtney,” he said. “Liposuction? Isn’t that where they suck fat out of you? Damn, you don’t have any fat. What on earth are you thinking?”

  “The liposuction is still a maybe. But the breast lift — that’s scheduled.”

  “Don’t do it, Courtney. Damn. You don’t need it. You don’t need anything.”

  “I’m not seeking permission here,” she said. “Or even approval. I’m just being honest — letting you know what’s going on with me. I mean, True, you were so great when I got my face done.”

  “I don’t remember having much choice. There you were stitched together like a damn baseball.”

  “I haven’t had a minute’s regret either, True. I’m glad I did it.”

  “But why not stop while you’re ahead?”

  “Just to keep my spirits up, I guess. No pun intended.” She smiled. “Surgery is a way for me to be proactive, to take action, you know — actually do something with myself. You’ve heard of self-improvement, right? Everybody is in favor of self-improvement.”

  “You’re starting to worry me, Court. You aren’t turning into one of those people who’s addicted to plastic surgery, are you? I saw an article in the New York Times about this woman who got addicted to surgery and turned herself into a total freak. No lie. She ended up looking exactly like a circus lion — like some kind of wild animal. It’s not funny, Courtney. You can’t just play around with your body — your health — like that.”

  “You’re sweet, bro,” she said.

  “I’d like to try to talk you out of this,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Any chance I could do it?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You’re scaring me a little, Court. This new avocation of yours — it’s damn bloody. Don’t you think?”

  “I’m results oriented, True. I don’t obsess on process. You know that. I remember when I was growing up in Hinds County and Mother thought women who colored their hair were straight-up harlots. Remember? Mother was full-out gray before she was forty. She looked a good ten years older than Daddy. But she would never stoop to hair dye — that was supposed to be some sort of moral victory.”

  “So you’re trying to tell me that this breast lift is the new hair dye?”

  “Something like that.” She laughed.

  The door to the terrace opened then. Arnold stood half asleep in the doorway, bare-chested in a pair of Truely’s sweatpants and a nylon-looking knit cap on his head. In Mississippi they had grown used to seeing black boys with one of their mama’s stockings cut and knotted and pulled down on their heads just this same way. “Y’all out here talking about me?” Arnold asked.

  “No,” Truely said matter-of-factly.

  “You sure?”

  “We’re more than sure, Arnold. You can go back to bed now.”

  “Why you got to sneak out here and talk then? Unless you worried I might hear what you say.”

  “We’re not sneaking,” Courtney said. “We didn’t want to wake you up.”

  “Y’all out here talking like this — that’s what woke me up. I’m wide-awake now.”

  “Well, go back to bed. It’s late.”

  “If you got something to say about me, then just go on and say it to my face. We don’t have no secrets aroun
d here — right?”

  “This might be a shock, Arnold,” Truely said. “But Courtney and I have plenty to talk about that does not concern you. We actually had conversations before we ever knew you — before you were even born.”

  “If y’all ain’t talking about me, then what are you talking about?”

  “Oh good heavens,” Courtney said. “I was explaining to True that I’m thinking about having some surgery.”

  Arnold paused and studied her a minute. “Female surgery?” he asked.

  Courtney glanced at Truely. “That description is a little vague — but yes, I guess so.”

  “Yeah, my grandmama had that. So did Suleeta.” Arnold closed the door to the terrace behind him and walked over to where the two of them stood with the city lights flickering behind them. “So you worried about this?” he asked Truely.

  “He’s trying to talk me out of it,” Courtney answered.

  “You better be careful,” Arnold warned. “Some people go in the hospital, just something minor, and they die in there.”

  “Thank you for the uplifting thought, Arnold.”

  “If she got her mind made up, you can’t stop her, man,” he told Truely. “My grandmama was the same.”

  “I don’t remember anybody asking for your opinion on this,” Truely said. “And this is not an argument, Arnold. We don’t need a referee.”

  “Well, I just tell Courtney what my mama used to tell me whenever I started wanting to do something real bad.”

  “What?”

  “She’d say, ‘If you got the money to pay for it, then you can do it. If you don’t, you can’t.’ Of course she knew I never had no money — so I never could do the stuff I was talking about. She’d just say that because it made deciding easy.”

  “But Arnold, I do have the money,” Courtney said.

  “I know.”

  “So, what’s your point?”

  “So, you can do it then. Go on and do it. Get that surgery. You got the money.”

  “It’s not just money we’re talking about here,” Truely said. “No need to take a chance with your body — unless maybe it’s a matter of life and death.”