by Jones, K. J.
Mullen nodded, thinking he did know.
“We’re all church-going folk. We don’t run around saying bitches and hos and niggas and all that bullshit. In fact, most Southern black women are very offended by being called a bitch, something Mister Mackey never seemed to get. Seen him slapped ‘cross the face for calling a respectable black woman a bitch. Man, that brother has a mouth on him that makes me cringe. Worse when my mama and grandma around, may they rest in Jesus’s kingdom. Our Jerome lived two doors down from Mister Mackey, across the street and two houses down, so he saw things. White men in suits visiting him. Every time they did, Mackey wouldn’t be seen outta his house for a couple of days, like those men told him to settle down and stop attracting so much attention to himself. He’d do it, behave, even use some manners for a while, but then he’d always go back to his rude, foul-mouthed ways, disrespecting folks.”
“White men in suits?”
“FBI, Jerome reckons. Ain’t no other reason for men like that to visit a man like Mackey.”
“Why would the FBI visit him?”
“Witness protection, Jerome said. Now, if anybody else gossiped like that, we’d dismiss it as folks wanting something interesting to happen. But not Officer Jerome.”
“Is that what you called him?”
“Officer Jerome? We sure did.” She smiled. Whenever she smiled, it struck right through him, making the world a better place.
She continued, “He was our neighborhood police officer. About the only one anybody ever trusted. Oh, he’d lecture folks and do his thing on people, since the Lord knows that man never had a vice. But he always had to answer to his grandmother. All of our mamas knew his grandmother so he had to treat black people good, or he’d hear it from her.” She laughed. “We’re like a little village in a big city. That’s the way it is in the South, I suppose. We like it small town, even in the middle of a big city like North Charleston. But, I tell ya. Mackey never even mentions his mama or his grandmother, to this day. No one. Once it a while, he’ll let it slip about,” she imitated, “‘my niggas done this’ but that’s always the extent of it. Just ‘my niggas.’ Ya feeling me?”
“I think so.”
“You know what I’m getting at?”
“Um.”
She leaned close to him and whispered, “He’s a gang banger. A gang member.”
“Oh. Really?”
She rested back to her position and shrugged. “That’s what Jerome reckons.” Her gaze moved to the mountain. “He had a gun that day. The day it began. He shot infected folks without batting an eye like he had killed people before. I now know how much damage them bullets he shot did meant they were explosive hollow tips. Why somebody got that in North Charleston?” She shrugged, still looking at the mountain. “I don’t know. Just a bunch of loose ends that make no sense and he won’t give no answers to when we question him.”
“You didn’t grow up with the other tribe members?”
“Who? Them all? Nuh. Met them all later. We known Monty, though. He attended our church for years, ever since he got out of prison. One of them behind bars Born-Agains. All are welcome. All those who believe Jesus is our Lord and Savior, which he does.” She corrected, “Did.” But then laughed. “Mackey attended service with us once. It wasn’t for him.”
“So you’re very religious?”
“Yeah. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the love and light. I try to live by it, but, ya know, life happens. We’re all sinners. Smoking weed isn’t approved of at our church.”
“You smoked weed?”
“Sure did, baby. Tried to do the medical marijuana for my grandma for her arthritis, but she saw it as a vice and a sin.”
“They were pretty fundamental then?”
“Yeah, I reckon. Black folks version.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Not entirely sure, but there seems to be one, from what I seen and heard. Never heard of black Christians shooting abortion doctors and doing all that craziness.”
“Yeah, you never do hear about that.”
“Black folks got enough problems being black.”
“Is it really that bad still? I mean, was.”
She laughed. He liked her laugh.
“The tenses are hard nowadays, ain’t they?”
“I keep messing them up.”
“Was it that bad? Not like it used to be. Nowhere near to what it used to be. But we knew them white men like Alden out there. You always know. Like you pick it up on your antenna. With white folks having to be nice to our faces nowadays, or then nowadays –” she laughed – “you don’t know where they stood. Not for real. You feel me?”
“I think so.”
She smiled at him. He was trying his best.
“A whole bunch of new experiences for you, huh, baby?”
“Yeah. I mean, I had black friends. Oh, God, that sounded so white.”
“It did.” She smiled. “I had me some black friends, too.”
He looked at her face. She was radiant when she smiled. In the darkest gloom, she could brighten the world when she smiled.
“My tribe had all these Northerners,” he shared.
“Oh, Sully. Couldn’t miss that accent.”
“I learned a lot from them. I mean, I have been to the North, but only as a tourist.”
“It’s a big-ass country. I cannot believe we’re in another part of it. I ain’t never been out of the South. My family worked too many jobs to go touristing somewhere. But we were getting places, us black folks. Moving on up, as they say. I was in school. Community college, studying to be a nurse. Before all hell broke loose. We just needed to get up out of our poverty. That’s hard. So many generations poor. We think poor. Officer Jerome was real big on getting us on the right track. Stop thinking like poor people. We were gonna end up like them white trash people if we kept thinking that way.”
“I was always taught white trash was a bad thing to say.”
“Probably is. But there’s a lot of bad things to say that folks say anyway. I don’t mean just poor people by it. I mean, trashy people, the kind you need to watch your back around. They don’t have no respect for themselves never mind others. Not to say we don’t have ‘em too. Lord have mercy, we got a lot of ‘em ourselves, trashy people. But we gotta get up from that and be doing things to make it better for future generations. That was Officer Jerome’s thing. Then here comes Mister Mackey, epitomizing just about everything Officer Jerome loathed and despised. The exact opposite of the Officer’s message to the youth. Jerome used his every off-duty moment involved with youth organizations and youth groups through the church, trying to make things better. My mama said he couldn’t fit in finding a good Christian woman and having a family because he was always trying to help everyone else. She was no help, calling him every time she heard a bump in the night from her ghosts. Calling him over in the middle of the night to check her property and make sure it wasn’t no-goods messing with her.”
“Ghosts?”
“Oh, yeah. Mama’s house was real haunted. But Baptists don’t believe in ghosts. Or not supposed to. I believe there are ghosts, just people lost and confused, just like the living are. But Mama refused to believe her house had ghosts and it always had to be no-goods trying to mess with her. Officer Jerome would come every time, look around, flashlight shining in the bushes, and reassure her nobody was there.”
“Did you have a father? Oh, sorry, was that insensitive?”
“It’s okay.” She laughed. “Yes, I did. Most of us did, of us here. Married parents and fathers at home with us. My daddy, he hated doctors. So, he up and had a heart attack one night. Gone before Mama could get the ambulance to the house. Just gone. Mmm-mmm.” She shook her head.
“But it’s alright now. Mama’s with him in Heaven. Dre and Vi were raised by their daddy. It was their mama who up and left them. Their daddy was the world to them. He was a good man. Upstanding. Hard worker in construction. He liked the outdoors. Taught them how to s
hoot, which I reckon is where Vi got her abilities to shoot from. We’d see him fishing with the kids all the time, too. They lost him after the outbreak. Natural causes. But Jerome, he had it the worst of us. Parents couldn’t keep from their vices. Their demons. Those are the real demons. He was raised by his grandparents mostly, who were strict, strict Baptists. His mama came and went. Daddy died from the drink. Cirrhosis of the liver. Jerome won’t touch any of that. Hates it all. Blames booze and drugs for the problems of mankind. I’m surprised he doesn’t call it the Devil, like his grandparents do.” She chuckled. “Bless them, they were so superstitious. They wouldn’t have nothing to do with black cats.” She laughed harder. “Wouldn’t cross the threshold of a house that had a black cat in it. Treated little house cats like they were big ole black panthers.”
He smiled, enjoying her hearty belly laugh.
“What did their father die of? Vi and Dre?”
“What my mama used to call being too black.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sickle cell anemia. The too black disease. Mama used to tell us to never be upset by us being so light-skinned after we saw all what their daddy had to do to stay alive, blood transfusions all the time. Our white ancestors, for all else done, they gave us a lack of sickle cells in our blood. Apparently, their good-for-nothing mama was good for something. She didn’t have it, so Vi and Dre are halfway there. But they gotta watch out for having babies with black folks. If they do with somebody who is like them with the half sickle cells, the children could have the anemia, which in this shit nowadays, they’d die as babies. After the hospitals were gone, their daddy died of it. No transfusions. Hard way to die. Hard to watch. I think it’s why they grew so quiet, the two of ‘em. They didn’t use to be like that. Losing him, watching him die like that and they couldn’t help him, broke their hearts. Maybe even worse than the rest of us who survived. You lost yours, your parents?”
He sighed and looked to the mountain. “Yeah.”
“You don’t have to talk about it. Lord knows, I don’t want to even think what happened to mine. My family house, all boarded up on the inside once it all got going. Dark and dismal. Camping inside the house, my grandma called it. ‘This ain’t the out of doors, y’all. Gotta clean up your mess,’ she kept hollering at us.”
“I try not to think. Sully said thinking’s the enemy.”
“He got that right.”
“I really wish there was weed.”
She laughed hard. “Oh, Lord, baby, just what I was thinking. I nice fat blunt would be perfect right about now.”
Mullen smiled at her. Kanesha smiled back.
5.
A roaring fire in the front room fireplace. A stack of wood as tall as Tyler beside it. The kid fell face down on the couch. The first floor slowly warmed, but the cold had gotten into the house’s bones so it would be a while for warmth to build up. Around the kitchen wood-burning stove, the rest warmed their hands and feet. Matt closed the swinging door to the kitchen to retain the heat. Old houses, predating central heating, had a lot of doors to rooms for heat control.
“Gas stove,” Matt said.
A blue flame under a burner.
“Is this what your house looks like?” Jayce asked him.
“In Wyoming?”
Jayce nodded.
“Oh, no, not at all. My parents’ house is a recent build. I mean, recent compared to this. They do have a wood-burning stove and a lot of fireplaces, but that’s because we lose electricity during bad storms, being so far out in the country. We have barns and stables, all made of wood, though. None of the stone buildings this place got.” Matt’s eyes looked into memory. “They did actually put in a privy. One winter, we lost electricity for so long and the pipes froze up, the well was freezing deeper until we had no water incoming for the toilets. Dad decided we’d go old school rather than dealing with all that mess and stink again. We were kids, all at home, so there was a lot of us.”
“How many are you?” Jayce asked.
“Five kids.”
“Wow. Big family.”
“Yeah.” Matt chuckled. “They kept having more because they wanted a son.”
“Which is you, I presume.”
“They stopped once I was born.”
Pez said, “You’re the baby with four sisters?”
“Yeah.”
“You must be spoiled.”
“Not as much as you’d think. My sisters are horsewomen. Rural Wyoming makes for some strong people. As far back as I can remember, my sisters were goading me into things. Toughening me up. They weren’t allowed to bull ride. Mom and Dad didn’t think it feminine. So they, my sisters, challenged me into getting on a bull way too young, and unsupervised. Broke my clavicle and two places on my arm.” Matt smiled. “They were always getting me to do things. And I usually broke a bone or two doing ‘em.”
“What kind of horses?” Pez asked.
“Champion cutting horses.”
Pez’s face showed he knew what that was. “Really?”
“Yup.”
“Wow. That’s cool.”
“What’s a cutting horse?” asked Jayce.
“They’re cowboy horses,” said Pez. “Used to rustle the cattle.”
“Used at rodeo competitions nowadays,” said Matt. “They’re American quarter horses. Ever seen a rodeo, like on TV?”
Jayce shrugged. “I guess a little.”
“There’s competitions. A cowhand and his cutting horse separate individual cows from the herd in the ring – take control of the cow’s movements, which requires a lot of anticipation and knowledge of cows, heavily based on a specially bred horse who can do that. The rider and horse must move as one in tight, sharp movements. It’s called cutting. Cutting a cow out of the herd.”
“Your family does this specially bred horses?”
“Yup. We have champion bloodlines. Meaning these horses are the best.”
“How does that work?” asked Chris. “I mean, making money off that. Horses make me think of horse racing over at the Kentucky Derby. Rich people buying up horses. Not some dang cowboys.”
“Well, it works like NASCAR. They are sponsored and that’s how they afford our horses. Riders with great potential get the sponsors and then get the best horses.”
“I see.”
Pez asked Chris, “You’ve never been to a rodeo, a country boy like you?”
“When the fuck did I have time to go do something fun? Married with two kids. I’d have to travel. The ball and chain wasn’t unlocked that much. She wanted me home to yell at me and fuck with my head.”
Peter and Matt chuckled.
“Oh, I’m foreseeing stories,” said Pez.
“None good,” said Peter.
“I bet.”
“To be fair,” said Matt. “I’d yell at him too if he came home on rotation and sat in his recliner watching football all day and playing Call of Duty all night while I was raising two children pretty much alone.”
Chris glared at him with a slight sneer. “You don’t need to be taking her side. You my friend, not hers. Whatever happened to dang brotherhood?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, don’t just say nothing no more.”
Matt and Peter exchanged a smirk.
Peter said to Phebe, “His ex-wife is his clown-pig.”
She was too tired to respond.
“What’s a clown-pig?” asked Pez.
The others laughed.
“Your worst fear,” said Brandon.
“My worst fear is a clown-pig thing? Not getting ya.”
“No, it refers to anyone’s worst fear. Sully’s is clowns and pigs.”
“Oh,” said Kevin. “I get what you were saying before.”
“Yeah,” said Chris. “We got the big-ass pigs. Now we just need the clowns.”
“Nice,” said Peter. “Talk about what happened to brotherhood.”
“Just saying.” An impish grin from Chris.
“Some pork would be nice,” said Kevin.
“There’s dried salted pork in the cellar,” said Pez. “I guess they kept them for food.”
“Wait,” Phebe suddenly engaged. “What did the bites on the bodies look like?”
Pez looked at Matt, who screwed up his mouth, biting his lower lip, a body language sign of not wanting to say something.
“Oh, God,” said Peter. “They’re zom-pigs?”
They both slowly, sheepishly nodded as if they had not wanted to share.
“The bites looked like pig teeth,” Pez elaborated. “Matt said not to tell anyone.”
Phebe, more alert from alarm, asked Chris, “And they’re big?”
“Real big sows.”
She looked at Peter.
“I’ll just shoot ‘em,” Peter said.
“They’re omnivores,” Phebe stated. “They will gladly eat people if they get the chance.”
“Why do you think I hate them, babe? It’s a race against who’s gonna eat who first, us or them.”
“How exactly does a man from Boston big city get a fear of sows?” asked Chris. “I ain’t never got that clear.”
Peter sighed. His face showed he didn’t want to go into this terrible memory. But all eyes implored him.
“We have a farm in Walpole,” Peter said. “Which is, ya know, not in Boston. I mean, we inherited it. My oldest uncle, Uncle Tim, inherited it. The Sullivan side. The cop side. Anyway. He had this delusional idea he could be a farmer. So … um, he got pigs.”
“A Boston cop thought he’d raise pigs?” Chris’s brows rose high.
North Carolina was pig farming country. He knew about pigs.
“Among other livestock, but yes. Pigs. He thought the bigger the better when he bought them. We were little. There was an incident.”
“What kind of incident?” Chris’s mouth showed he was readying to laugh at Peter.
“We were told to go feed them. A nice thing for urban kids and all that bullshit. But we’re not allowed to just throw the food into their pen. We had to go in. Us and the cousins. Some idiot thought something stupid was funny and I ended up getting smashed between two big-ass pigs and so there ya go.”