Alex stares at the child. He looks normal. He’s not cross-eyed, overly obese, or missing fingers. Alex glances back up to Shupee and says, “That baby looks a lot like you.”
Shupee keeps his eyes on the television set. He says, “Change the subject.”
AT SIX O’CLOCK Alex loosens his tie. He’s proud to have shut his mouth and listened since Lawrence came in. The dog that Lawrence retrieved from the Humane Society, as it ends up, will be a gift to Lawrence’s grandmother, once the dog’s house-trained. Finally, Alex says, “A wheaten terrier will never become house-trained, my friend. I mean, he won’t pee or crap on the floor, but getting him to stop running in circles around the yard, or getting him to obey sit and lie down and shut up? Forget it. Those dogs are incorrigible. They’re loveable as all get-out, but they’re wild. Maybe that’s why the Spanish Ramada sank. Maybe the captain was running around trying to catch his dog.”
Lawrence says, “Armada. Yo. I hear that, my brother-man.”
Shupee lifts his head up for Slick to pay attention. He mouths, “Coffee,” for Alex, who is now slurring his speech. Shupee says, “One more hour and you won’t have to worry about going to that funeral no more.”
Lawrence looks up at the television and says, “This will be the answer. They’re bringing in that guy from the bullpen. Anybody want to take some bets as to how many pitches before he gives up a home run?”
Alex orders another beer, but Slick acts as though he doesn’t hear him. Alex says, “It’s her wedding. Not a funeral, a wedding. And I have a confession to make.” The left side of his face is an inch from the counter. He’s eye level with the bottom of the baby carrier still set atop the bar. “When you said ‘bet,’ it reminded me.”
Slick looks at Shupee and says, “That reminds me. Maybe that’s why I said ‘funeral.’ I thought of something else you need to take with you in your coffin. A anvil. So’s in case you go to heaven, somehow, and you don’t like it. Maybe a anvil will bring you back down to earth, and then through it, and on down to hell.”
Shupee laughs. He pulls a bent and smudged Mead memo book from his top pocket and flips through pages. He motions for Slick’s pen, then writes down anvil. “I’m up to forty things. Might have to hire on some extra pallbearers, especially with an anvil in there.”
Lawrence says to Alex, “What kind of confession?”
Alex holds up his finger and says to Shupee, “What’re y’all talking about? What’re you taking in the casket?”
Lawrence says, “I know what that confession’s all about. You followed me to where I lived just to make sure Simone was getting a good home. You people were thinking that a nice wheaten terrier deserves the best house possible.”
Alex shakes his head. “Not even close. I thought you got the dog in order to kill it by pit bulls. It’s a long story that may or may not involve ethnic profiling, and I’m not proud of it. As a matter of fact, I’m ashamed. It wasn’t my idea,” he says, lying. To Slick he says, “Can I get a beer for myself, and two for Lawrence? I have some payback. I owe him. I feel guilty as all get-out.”
Slick looks at Shupee. Shupee nods and says, “I got his keys already. Let him do what he wants.”
Alex feels in his pocket, notices that he doesn’t have his keys, but doesn’t ask how anyone got them. Lawrence says, “Thanks, man. No problem. My people have been putting up with such since the beginning. I’m used to it. God will set it straight to you white people one day. You folks need to learn what people are, and be what people learn.”
Shupee turns to Alex and says, “I bet you never thought you’d come in here today and learn so many things, did you? People we get who ain’t from around here, they come in thinking they’ll be surrounded by the lost and the losing. But we’re some regular philosophers, when it all boils down.”
“Explain it,” Slick says. “I’m not taking any credit for this one. Most days I think it’s outright stupid, but you never know.”
“See,” Shupee says, picking up his cane—the baby cries out three times, widens his eyes, and expels a spit bubble that won’t pop on his lips—“I don’t want to say that I believe in an afterlife, but I’m afraid that if there is one, I won’t be happy with what they got to offer. I sure know that things ain’t exactly worked my way in this life. So. What I’ve come up with is this: I want to be buried with a crowbar, in case you can take it with you, and in case I want to pry myself out of a situation. At least that’s how it all started. Then I realized that maybe I should be buried with a fire extinguisher—you know, in case I need to cool off the flames. Slick here just added the anvil. I’ve also got some them cold packs they got stay frozen up to seventy-two hours, my two pistols, a battery-operated Sawzall, one them blowup sex dolls, a bullhorn in case I go upwards and need to give some advice for the baby, and I’m hoping for a mostly-filled oxygen tank, in time. There are some other things. I keep forgetting to record them when they come to me.” He flips through the pages.
Alex stares at Shupee for a moment, then says to Lawrence, “I’m all for restitution, if it matters any.” Shupee shows everyone where he’s carved an angel and a devil on both ends of his cane.
AT SEVEN ALEX starts humming the “Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin. Everyone has a pickled egg in his possession, even the baby. Slick had run one under tap water for a couple minutes to lessen its heat. Alex thinks, Would I ever be able to take care of Laurie and Todd’s child if she asked me? He thinks, I need to remember some of those accouterments, and he wonders when was the last time he used the word accouterments.
He says, “Todd,” elongating the name.
There’s been a long rain delay in the baseball game. The teams need to finish, since they won’t meet again this season. TBS shows a rerun of Gunsmoke during the delay. “You need to quit singing that song,” Slick says to Alex. To Shupee he says, “You need to change that baby before the crowd comes in.”
Shupee says, “It’s the pickled eggs that smells. It ain’t this boy.”
Alex says, “What crowd? Please tell me it’s not karaoke night or something. Is it karaoke night? I hope it’s karaoke night.”
His cell phone begins to vibrate. He looks at the readout and sees that it’s his old college roommate Paul Borick who, more than likely, is attending Laurie’s wedding. Paul studied architecture, became an architect, and never questioned his decisions. Alex flips open the phone and presses the answer button. He says, “Where are you?”
Paul says nothing. Alex can just barely hear what must be the preacher asking Laurie and Todd to share their special, from-the-heart, spontaneous vows. Alex motions for Slick to turn down the volume to Gunsmoke. He looks at his new comrades and whispers, “On three, y’all yell out, Don’t do it!’ like that. Loud as you can.”
Alex figures Paul Borick must be sitting on the aisle, maybe only a couple of rows behind the bride’s parents, holding the phone out and away from his body so Alex can hear this sacred moment—so, when Slick, Shupee, Lawrence, and Alex scream, “Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it,” over and over, both Laurie and Todd must turn from the altar. Shupee’s stepson lets out a wail that may be even more audible than the drunken Doffers Paradise crew yelling. The guests must be craning their necks. Paul’s phone clicks off.
Alex says, “Hello? Hello?” He smiles toward Lawrence and says, “Hello?”
Slick turns the volume up on the TV, and Festus says, “Well, I suspect there’s a time and there’s a place for such mischief, Matthew.”
The baby settles down. Shupee says, “I can’t believe that’s what’s on the TV right after what we done. Walkie-talkie! I been meaning to write down walkie-talkie for something in the coffin. Or half of one. Talkie.”
They sit silent until they all seem uncomfortable. Lawrence says, “I need to feed Simone. She starts eating the table legs if she don’t get her food on time.”
“Bring her in here,” Slick says. “I don’t mind. Hell, she’s got to be more hygienic than a baby crapping his pan
ts.”
Lawrence leaves. Shupee says, “He’s a good man. Lawrence’s a good man. I’d trust my life with Lawrence.”
Slick says, “Uh-huh.”
When Gunsmoke cuts off just as the bad guy’s pulled his pistol on a little kid who spooked him, and when there’s nothing but dead air for five seconds before the baseball game resumes, Alex thinks about how he could’ve made a mistake, easily, by turning Lawrence in for fighting dogs. He thinks about how he could be standing at a church altar with Laurie at this moment, confused from the sound of four invisible men screaming about how it’s all a mistake. Alex thinks, I have a mission in life—I’m here to make sure that dogs and cats live better lives than dogs and cats.
He bends his beer can in the middle with his thumb and middle finger. With his fist he squashes it straight down into the size of a puck. Slick says, “There might be a crowd. One night there might be a crowd. If I don’t keep thinking that, I might as well quit.”
It’s the seventh inning when the game resumes. Lawrence returns with his ex-stray on a makeshift bungee-cord leash. Shupee puts his stepson down on the floor in his car seat. The dog licks the baby’s face repeatedly. The baby waves his arms, then lets out a squeal. On the television, one of the announcers points out that no one has left the stadium during the long delay. The dog bounces up and down below the pickled-egg jar, then lunges at Alex playfully, tongue lolling. Alex closes his eyes and wonders what it would feel like should Simone change her terrier mind. He imagines the dog tearing into his calf, jerking her head back and forth, digging deep into muscle.
He opens his eyes. Simone sits at attention, her paw atop the baby’s leg. Shupee tries to get the child to hold the dog’s leash.
After the pitcher warms up, rain begins to fall again. The camera turns to the stands where a man in a bear suit—perhaps a locally known unofficial mascot—holds his gigantic furry head in his hands. Alex starts laughing, points to the screen, and says, “That’s not me. I could’ve been that guy, but I’m not.”
The baby doesn’t seem interested in the dog or the leash. Shupee pulls out another round of pickled eggs for everyone.
PERFECT ATTENDANCE
MADISON KENT’S FATHER SAID THAT THEY COULD EAT anywhere, but Madison remembered this trick. The last time they saw each other—a month before the boy began high school—Charlie Kent offered the same boastful invitation. His son chose the Peddler Steakhouse, one of the pricier restaurants in town. Charlie Kent swung by a McDonald’s on the way, and they ended up eating dollar-menu burgers and fries in the parking lot of the Peddler. So on this next occasion—the late afternoon of his high school graduation—Madison said, “I don’t care,” over the phone. “You pick. Maybe we can park beneath a tree.”
Like the last time they spoke over the telephone, Madison heard traffic in the background—car horns, plaintive cries from people living in a neighborhood Madison couldn’t picture. His father plunged change into a pay phone. Who used pay phones anymore? Madison wondered. Where were pay phones in the first place? Madison’s only experience with a pay phone occurred back when his parents still lived together. They had abandoned a trip to Florida after the car blew an oil gasket and threw a rod. Charlie Kent sold the car for junk after two days of staying at a Motel 6 in Valdosta that had a swimming pool in back and a bar across the street. Madison’s mother had walked across the street to get her husband, stopped at a pay phone mounted to the building’s exterior, and called her sister collect. Later on, Madison’s mother said she had to make decisions about her husband and her blood relatives.
“You think it’ll be all right for me to be in the same audience as your momma? I don’t want to get all settled down in my chair for your graduation and have your mother pull out a tape measure and decide I’m within however many feet I’m supposed to keep between us.”
Madison said, “Are you still living in Myrtle Beach? Mom said for me not to expect you to really show up, especially if a bike rally is going on down there.” Madison didn’t say, “She said you’ll just go off on a binge and forget,” though she had. He wanted only for his biological father to forget Madison’s given name.
“Living in Myrtle Beach, yes. Got me a job as a caretaker for a trailer park between South Myrtle and Murrells Inlet. I’m a glorified handyman. They give me a place to live free. And a golf cart to go from one problem to the next.”
Madison didn’t know that his father could fix anything. His mother told stories of having to tie her ex-husband’s shoes. Before everything fell apart financially, physically, and in the porous bubble of matrimony, Charlie Kent had worked as an H&R Block tax preparer, which meant that he kept busy from January until mid-April. He told friends and strangers alike, “For four months out of the year I work on numbers. For eight months out of the year, numbers work on me.” Then he’d extract a joint from his pocket, sock, wallet, or from behind his ear, as if to prove that he never exaggerated.
His son couldn’t think of a proper segue. He said, “Are you going to drive all the way up here, then turn around?”
Charlie said, “I’ve already heard from your mother. She says you changed your name. She didn’t say if you did it legal-wise or not, but that you changed it.”
Madison said, “Yeah, you never know about Mom. Maybe you shouldn’t come to the actual graduation ceremony. First off, you’re right—she might have that restraining order still going on about not being within a hundred yards of her. On top of that, I’m just walking across the stage with four hundred other losers. I’m not the valedictorian.”
“You like seafood?” Charlie Kent asked. “I eat nothing but the freshest seafood down here every day. Flounder. Scallops. Catfish. Crawdads. I know this sounds weird, but I miss fish that ain’t so fresh. Y’all still got that Cap’n Del Kell’s up there? Cap’n Del Kell’s Galley Bell, is that what it’s called?”
“Yes sir.” He didn’t bring up how catfish and crayfish weren’t seafood.
“Let’s you and me meet there. Your graduation’s at two, so let’s meet about four. That should be enough time, don’t you think? Hey, you got a girlfriend? You can bring her along.”
Charlie Kent’s son did have a girlfriend, Laney. They would both be attending Reed College in the fall—either nine or eleven states away from South Carolina, depending on the route taken—on full scholarships. Laney, in fact, would be giving the valedictory speech. Her boyfriend, Madison, third in his class, would receive special recognition for never missing a day of school, from kindergarten onward. He would get booed, laughed at, and taunted by his classmates, and he didn’t want his father to witness such a spectacle, especially after driving two hundred fifty miles.
“I didn’t change my name. I just don’t go by Chip anymore,” Madison said to his father. A computerized voice asked Charlie to put in ninety-five cents more. “I’m using my middle name.”
“You don’t go by Chip anymore?” his father bellowed. “Damn, son. That was our whole thing—Charles and Chip. Charles Chip. Like those potato chips that come in a big can. Home delivery and everything. Your middle name? That’s your momma’s maiden name, right?”
“I don’t think those potato chips come that way anymore,” Madison said. “Yeah, we can’t go around doing that anymore. I’m not even sure I’ve seen any Charles Chips lately.”
“They still make them,” his father said.
Madison thought, Maybe they’re available at all fine pay phones everywhere. He said, “I go by Madison. It’s not a big deal.”
“Madison sounds like a lawyer’s name. Or a fancy hotel,” his father said. Then the line went dead.
AFTER THE CEREMONY, Madison drove to Cap’n Del Kell’s Galley Bell alone. He left his friends—all of whom would come running back home one day after their college degree, he felt sure—at the entrance to the gymnasium, and said that he’d meet them later in the Walmart Superstore parking lot. One of last year’s graduates now ran a cash register, and promised to fake-check fake IDs. Madison kisse
d Laney, said, “Great speech,” and left to see his father. His mother came up to him in the parking lot and said, “Call me when you order, call me when you’re done. Do not let him talk you into lending him your graduation money.”
In the history of seafood restaurants, Cap’n Del Kell’s fell somewhere between Long John Silver’s and Red Lobster. Cap’n Del strode around asking how everything was, and sometimes he drank too much and tried to wear a wooden leg. The waitresses wore bandannas on their heads, said “matey” more often than needed, and always approached a table with, “What can we hook you up with?” They prided themselves on hush puppies.
Madison Kent said, “Lemonade,” when the woman asked what she could “hook him up with.” He thought at first, You can hook me up with a grammar textbook, and I’ll show you how come you’re not supposed to end questions with prepositions, but he decided against it. Laney might’ve done so, seeing as she graduated first in the class.
“I’m waiting for someone,” Madison said. He looked at his wristwatch. “Maybe I’m late, though. Has anyone come in here saying he was waiting for a Chip?”
The waitress pointed at her name tag, which was the shape of a curled smiling shrimp. She said, “I remember you. You graduate today? I’m from last year. I’m just doing this until I get into dental hygiene over at Tri-County Tech. I ain’t doing this the rest of my life. Like I see it, though, I get to take notes on people’s teeth while they chewing, you know. I ain’t got all the technical terminology down right, but from what I can see firsthand, most people dining at Cap’n Del Kell’s either got gum disease or a variety of problems with their canines, all the way through their molars. Anyway,” she said, still pointing at the flat plastic shrimp below her collarbone, “I’m Karla.”
Madison thought, I remember her being a cheerleader. He said, “Yeah, Karla. I know you.”
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