She decided to take advantage of a lull in the conversation. “You know, you never talk about your brother.”
“I know.”
When Eph didn’t follow up, she quickly retreated. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s just that there’re some things I try to leave in the past.”
They ate in silence for a bit. D’Arcy feared she’d spoiled the mood. Eph looked as if he was struggling with something. He looked up. “You really want to know about Jack?”
* * *
Jack was always Big Mike’s favorite. Eph learned this at a young age. He didn’t like it—what child would?—but he accepted it. Jack was handsome and charming and confident in all the ways Eph wasn’t. Jack also inherited Big Mike’s physical presence, which he put to use in the way all physically gifted Alabamians do, on the gridiron. As a linebacker, he set an Ashley High School record for tackles in a single season. And, yes, his full name was Jack Russell, like the dog. Not John or Jackson, just Jack. Big Mike thought it was funny and just liked the sound of it, so he kind of forced the issue with Millie at the time.
It couldn’t have been a surprise when people started barking at Jack when he got older. It wasn’t meant to tease, it was more like respect—we know who the big dog is. Whenever he made a tackle, everyone in the stands barked. Two thousand people, barking. Eph was sure if that song had been around—“Who Let the Dogs Out”—the fans would have chanted it every time the defense came on the field.
Thankfully for all concerned, that song came later.
Even though he was eight years younger, Eph floated around in Jack’s wake. All things considered, it was a good place to be. Sometimes, Jack would take him squirrel shooting. Eph didn’t much care for it, but he was happy to be included. Jack also let Eph tag along when he went to the Dairy Queen.
Being undersized, Eph might have suffered the usual preteen cruelties had he been forced to navigate public school hallways on his own. Wedgies and swirlies were the stock-in-trade of Ashley’s bullies. But being Jack Russell’s brother conferred maybe not respect, exactly, but at least an occasional reprieve from the worst predations of his classmates. It helped that all of Ashley’s grades were housed in a single building, so Jack was always somewhere near.
One time, Jack came into the boys’ room only to find three of Ashley’s more notable delinquents cornering Eph, who looked terrified. The boys went white at the sight of Ashley’s football star standing there, demanding to know what in all hell was going on.
“Nothing,” answered Bobby Fincher, the pimple-faced scourge of Ashley Middle School.
“Is that a fact? I notice my brother’s pockets are inside out. Now why would that be, Bobby?”
“Dunno.”
“Eph, where is your pocket money?” Eph just shrugged and pointed to his inside-out pockets. “I see. Gentlemen, we have a problem, so I’m afraid an example needs to be set. But first, fork it over.”
Bobby sheepishly dug into his pockets and pulled out a small wad of one-dollar bills. He handed it back to Eph.
“That all of it?” Jack asked.
Eph could only manage a nod.
Jack turned to Bobby and hoisted him in the air. Sensing an opportunity for escape, the other two moved toward the door. “Uh-uh, you two are going to watch,” Jack said. Such was his reputation that the other two froze despite Jack’s hands being clearly occupied.
Jack nudged a stall door open with his knees. Lifting a squealing Bobby even higher with his left hand while reaching around with his right, Jack hung Bobby by his Fruit Of The Looms right there from the coat hook. He dropped about a foot and there was a great tearing sound, but the underwear held. Bobby hung there, howling.
“I think there’s serious doubt about you having children one day, Bobby.” Jack looked at the other two, who were wide-eyed, desperately hoping to avoid the same fate. “You pick on Eph and you answer to me. You hear?”
They nodded vigorously.
“Okay, then. Ya’ll have a nice day. C’mon, Eph, let’s leave our new friends here.”
Some boys might have been resentful at having to be rescued by an older brother. Not Eph. He worshipped his brother, who might have been the only person who made life in Ashley tolerable. But when Jack reached senior year, Eph knew his time under his brother’s protective halo would soon come to an end.
Devon Daily
January 19
Club Item Goes Missing
The Society of Fellingham, an off-campus club that bills itself as a haven for foreign and socially elite students, has reported the theft of a valuable bejeweled scepter. According to the club’s president, Winslow Gubbins, the scepter was a centerpiece of the club and originally belonged to a Lord Herebert Fellingham, an ancestor of the club’s founder, Sir Alexander Hargrove.
“This is a great loss for us, and we are quite bereft,” said Gubbins. Club members have been known to march with the scepter through campus and nearby streets after nights of partying. Other sources tell the Devon Daily that they doubt the scepter is in any way a historical artifact, and that the jewels are likely reproductions.
The Society of Fellingham was founded nine years ago by Hargrove, then a Devon first-year. Interviewed by the Daily at the time, Hargrove was quoted as saying the society was a “refuge from those who eat ice cream in the street.” He declined to elaborate further, and no mention was made of the scepter.
It is not known at this time if the Havenport police have been contacted. Anyone with information about the scepter is urged to call campus police.
Jaylen Doesn’t Heart Red
JAYLEN BIGGS WAS pissed. He’d just watched the YouTube video of the Beta party. Bunch of frat boys singing “nigga” like pretend gangstas? Whatever. What made him mad was that he never approved the play. How dare those two-bit raggedy-ass revolutionaries do this without his say-so!
Jaylen pushed through the doors of the PSA. Why they get such a dope building, anyway? There they were, sitting around, getting high, as usual. Middle of the damn afternoon. “Man, that all you motherfuckers do is smoke weed?”
Red smiled. “Jaylen! Welcome, my brother!”
“Don’t brother me, asshole.”
“I thought you would be in a better mood today, Jaylen. What brings you by?”
“Fuck you. That’s why I’m here. Who said you could up and do another race play?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my friend.”
“Bullshit. I know you posted that video, the one with them dumbass frat boys.”
“Oh, you mean the one where they use that abhorrent language? Yes, we saw it, but damned if I know who made the thing. Good thing, though, right? Fucking racist fraternities.”
“Whatchoo think I’m stupid? Your boy Roof here was spinnin’.” Jaylen glared at Rufus.
“Hey, that’s all I was doing,” Rufus said. “Whatever else was going on was none of my business.”
“So, I’m confused,” Red said. “When I saw it, my first thought was ‘Boy, my man Jaylen’s gonna kill with this.’”
“Not the point. When you brought me and the Cultural Center into your little play with that teacher, that was one thing. It was little shit. This here is bigger, especially with that graffiti. You went rogue.”
“Graffiti?” Red asked.
“Oh, shut up, motherfucker. There’s probably still paint on your hands.”
“Moi?”
Some of the others snickered.
“Okay, listen up. Y’all can bitch all you want about LGBTIA-whatever-the-fuck-letter-comes-next, or unionizing the grad students, or fucking fracking, or whatever, but as president of the Cultural Center, this kind of thing is our turf. Don’t get me wrong—we gonna run with it, cuz it presents an opportunity, know what I’m sayin’?”
The last words came out nome sane. Despite Jaylen’s having grown up in affluent Rye, New York, gone to private school, and being the son of a prominent neurologist, he could don
a ghetto affect when it served his purposes.
“But understand this,” he continued. “Race is our thing, not yours. I already told you once, and I ain’t gonna tell you again. From now on, keep the fuck out. You hear me? Stick with yo’ hippie shit and keep the fuck out.” He turned and left.
“A thank-you might have been nice,” Red said.
Double Date
EPH STARED ACROSS the table at Sophie Blue Feather and her—their—date, whose name was Darrin. Eph warily pondered Darrin’s genetic provenance, an exercise he well knew should be a silent one. The longer Eph spent in the Northeast, the more aware he became of the cultural minefields. In his thought bubbles Darrin was “she.”
Outwardly, Darrin was a beautiful woman, although for Eph her completely shaved head complicated the picture. She was considerably younger than Blue Feather and had delicate pale features. A silver ring pierced her nose, while a series of smaller rings climbed the outer edge of her right ear. A tattoo on her neck read DO NOT RESUSCITATE. Eph wondered where Darrin placed herself among Facebook’s fifty-eight genders but decided he lacked the required perspicacity to sort it out.
Getting to this dinner had involved no shortage of awkwardness. Eph popped his head into Blue Feather’s office one day and, screwing up his courage, just blurted it out: “We haven’t had a chance to get to know each other, and I was, ah, wondering if you and a … friend?… would like to join my girlfriend and me for dinner some night?”
Blue Feather stared back, expressionless. “What would we eat?”
“I hadn’t thought that through yet, but we could go wherever you like.”
“I have a number of dietary restrictions. Also, I am still new here and am not yet acquainted with the culinary landscape.”
“Oh, well, this town’s not half-bad for food. Bit of a renaissance in the last few years. I’m sure there’s something you would like.”
“Very well.”
Eph decided to push his luck. “Will you be bringing someone?” He didn’t want to say “a date,” even if he wasn’t sure why. He was treading carefully.
“Yes,” said Blue Feather, elaborating no further.
They settled on Calendar, a new restaurant that varied its menu based on the time of year and what could be locally sourced. The amateur critics on Yelp liked it, one reviewer saying it was a “fresh newcomer on the burgeoning Havenport food scene, offering a mélange of seasonally correct cuisine.” It was mid-January, so Eph hoped the menu had something other than root vegetables.
* * *
The four of them arrived at the same time and Eph held the door. D’Arcy and Blue Feather entered, but Darrin stopped and glared. Eph smiled and motioned with his free hand for her to walk on through.
“Patriarchy,” said Darrin, not moving.
“Sorry?”
“Your behavior. It’s patriarchal.”
“Just trying to be polite…”
“That’s what you’ve been trained to think, but it’s a lie.”
“Well, my mother trained me, and I’m pretty sure she’d be upset, wherever she is, if I walked through that door first.”
“Then she’ll have to be upset.”
There was a brief standoff, but other people now wanted to enter, and a small part of Eph could see her point. “Okay, forgive me, Mom.” He looked up at the sky as he said it, then walked through first. Standoff resolved.
Darrin ordered an apple martini, while Blue Feather surprised Eph by ordering Maker’s Mark, neat. Eph went with an IPA and D’Arcy a cabernet.
The menus were made from some kind of particleboard. At the bottom was printed Made from 100% American hemp. Eph was relieved to see a varied selection of meats, game, and vegetables.
“So, how long have you two been together?” Eph asked, hoping he might steer the conversation back to how long he and D’Arcy had been together. He shoved feelings of shamelessness into a deep pit where they could not be retrieved. Tenure was tenure.
“About six months,” Blue Feather said.
“How did you meet?”
“At a poetry slam in Brooklyn. Darrin is a poet.”
“That is so awesome,” D’Arcy said, looking for a way into the conversation. “I love poetry. Are you published anywhere?”
Darrin fiddled with one of her many earrings, which appeared to be bothering her. “I don’t write any of it down. I don’t believe in it.”
“Where does it go?” D’Arcy asked.
“I only speak it aloud, and only once. Sometimes in front of others, and sometimes all by myself. I spoke my last work to a small copse of trees.”
“How intriguing. Why don’t you like to write it down? I’m sure people would enjoy it.”
Darrin lowered her apple martini, which was disappearing quickly. Her face betrayed the slightest hint of contempt. “True poetry should be as fleeting as a momentary gust of wind, relevant only to the moment, the right now, and then as disposable as our culture. I compose for only the present, not for yesterday or next week.”
“I see,” D’Arcy said, not sure at all that she did. “That is so interesting.”
“Is it?” Darrin looked absently into space.
Lacking anything else to say, all went for their drinks. Eph was throwing back his second beer as fast as he could without being obvious. Darrin seemed content to glower.
Thankfully, Blue Feather broke the silence. “So, D’Arcy. How long have you guys been together?”
“About a year.”
“D’Arcy works in President Strauss’s office,” Eph said.
Blue Feather shot him a look that said, I think the woman can speak for herself. “Impressive.” If Blue Feather was in any way surprised that Eph’s girlfriend was “of color,” she wasn’t letting on.
“It sounds more impressive than it is. I’m basically a secretary, although we don’t call it that anymore. But it keeps me busy, and some pretty interesting people come through. I’ve met three U.S. presidents!”
“Sounds like the heart of the patriarchy,” Darrin said in a monotone.
“I don’t know if I’d quite put it that way,” D’Arcy said. “Milton is awfully nice.”
After ordering dinner and their third round of drinks, Eph said the only thing that came to mind. “I didn’t take you for a bourbon gal, Sophie.” He immediately kicked himself for gal.
Blue Feather fixed an unblinking stare on Eph. “What are people like me supposed to drink, Russell? Just curious.”
“No, ah, I didn’t … what I meant to say is…,” Eph stammered, shifting in his seat. This dinner is a huge mistake.
“Relax, Russell.” Blue Feather smiled. “I’m just busting your chops. I grew up in Kentucky. We’re weaned on the stuff there.”
“Well, I think it’s vile,” offered Darrin.
“So, you’re from the heartland,” Eph said. An opening. “How did you end up here? At Devon.”
Blue Feather leaned back. “Let me ask you something, Russell. I grew up in the middle of Kentucky nowhere, a town called Junction City, population twenty-two hundred. How do you suppose blue-haired, gender-fluid teenagers from ethnic backgrounds got along in a place like that? You think I was on the pep squad?”
From ethnic backgrounds? Damn, the woman is obtuse, Eph thought. “I suppose you got along about as well as an undersized bookworm in the football-mad town of Ashley, Alabama.”
D’Arcy gave Eph a surprised look. She’d never heard him mention Ashley with anyone else.
“You can’t be talking about yourself,” said Blue Feather. “Alabama?”
“Yes, ma’am. Roll Tide.” He said the words with a heavy Southern lilt. “Looks like we’re both outsiders, Ms. Blue Feather.”
“I’ll be damned. I took you for Northeastern establishment all the way.”
“We become what makes us most comfortable, I guess. Besides, if I played up my roots, it might set off some kind of alarm around here.”
Blue Feather laughed. “I hear ya.”
&nb
sp; “If I may,” Eph said, “I don’t think you are in much danger of being outed as a denizen of Junction City, Kentucky.”
“Probably not. I haven’t been back there since the day I got out of high school. Went to NYU and haven’t looked back.”
“Do you have family back there?” asked Eph.
“Some, but they’ve never known what to make of me, and I think I just embarrass them. Easier for all involved to go our separate ways. You?”
“Same story. More or less.”
“Do you miss them?”
“Sometimes.” Eph preferred not to elaborate.
Blue Feather raised her glass. “Well, here’s to us closet rednecks.”
The four of them clinked glasses.
“Isn’t it interesting how much you two have in common,” D’Arcy said. “Although, Eph, I’m going to have to insist you remain gender nonfluid, at least for the time being.”
D’Arcy honked at her own joke, but Eph froze, hoping she hadn’t crossed a line. But then Blue Feather broke into a smile and laughed. Even Darrin offered what Eph could only assume was her version of a smile.
“I may have misread you, Russell. You struck me as someone who was—how to put this?—not in tune with the times. Do you plan to remain stuck in the nineteenth century, academically speaking?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t imagine you want to go the rest of your life teaching Mark Twain.” Blue Feather’s elocution dripped with contempt at Mark Twain. “I mean, with the proposed steps toward decolonizing the curriculum, you need to adapt.”
Eph could feel D’Arcy’s hand give his knee a hard squeeze under the table. “Adapt … uh, naturally one should always try to stay … relevant,” Eph sputtered.
“I’m glad you feel that way. What was that book you wrote?”
“It was called Ralph Waldo Emerson: Muse of the Private Man.”
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