“You don’t have to,” she says. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No,” Jessup says. “It’s complicated.”
The crack of Corson’s boot against Jessup’s taillight, the thump of his body against the truck, the way his neck was turned, the dent in his head, Jessup on his knees in the snow puking up beer, the weight of Corson’s body as he laid it in the car, metal and glass as the car hit the trees, and more, the grainy footage from the camera in the alley, David John sitting down next to Ricky and waiting for the cops, letters from Ricky—I don’t regret it none. You got to stand up for yourself. Like we always say: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Those fourteen words a rallying cry for white pride, Ricky writing home that what he did he did in self-defense, but he’d do it again so “you and Jewel can be safe in this world, stopping them from taking away what little we have left.” Jessup’s mom’s eyes red-rimmed from crying, touching her wedding ring like a talisman, David John taking Jessup’s hand at Kirby’s, bowing heads, asking dear Jesus for a blessing, and then standing outside the restaurant, taking Jessup’s hand again, shaking it like a man, “Proud of you,” David John said. “Go have some fun.”
“Jessup?”
“Sorry,” he says. “Stepdad. He’s not my dad. But he’s a good guy.”
“Isn’t he . . . ?”
Even though she’s right there, naked, the two of them in a small space, the heater blowing over both of them, he can feel that she’s pulled away. He wants her to come back.
“Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“Tell me about it?”
So he does.
DAVID JOHN MICHAELS
I don’t really remember what it was like before Mom and him got together. I was five when they met, and they married quick. Ricky—my brother—remembers my mom drinking a lot before then, but I don’t honestly know if she was a drunk or what. I mean, she goes to meetings like once a month or something, but it’s never seemed like a problem to me. Maybe it was different back then—you talk to Ricky and he’ll tell you that everything got better when David John came along—but it’s hard for me to tell. The thing is, more than anything, you’ve got to understand, he’s a good man. He works hard, taught us to work hard. He’s always treated me and Ricky right, like we’re his own kids. He dotes on Jewel, like she’s a princess. And he loves my mom. I know that.”
“You love him?” Deanne says.
Jessup stops. He’s not sure he’s really considered it before, but he doesn’t have to pause long. “Yeah. I don’t know why, but I always correct people when they call him my dad. Just did it a minute ago with you. Someone says ‘dad’ and I say ‘stepdad.’ And I shouldn’t. I mean, he’s not my blood, but he’s never acted like my stepdad, never acted like anything other than my dad, so, yeah, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I love him.”
“Do you call him ‘Dad’ at home?”
He reaches up and cups the back of her neck. “It’s going to be easier for me if you just let me tell it, okay?” She takes his wrist and pulls his hand around so she can kiss his palm, and he smiles.
“No. David John. Always. Ricky called him Dad. Don’t know why I’m so stubborn about it. Anyway, I don’t remember anything different than David John and my mom being married. It is what it is. You don’t think anything of it. It just is the way it is, you know? You grow up and whatever it is in your house is what’s normal, and it’s only when you get older you start seeing that other people live other ways. I mean, you’ve always lived in a house, always had two parents around, and that’s what’s normal to you, but you’d probably look at my house and think it’s a dump because it’s a trailer.”
“I—”
“I know, I know.” He cuts her off as gently as he can. “Just . . . just let me, okay? If you want to know, just let me.” She nods. “It’s a nice trailer, double-wide, more than enough space, and we keep it up and we own the land and the trailer, which is more than a lot of people can say, but still, it’s a mobile home. Which is a funny thing to say, because it’s not going anywhere. But a mobile home, no matter how nice it is, isn’t the same thing as what people with money have.”
He thinks of Victoria Wallace’s house perched on the hilltop, the views over Cortaca and the lake, how it lets her and her parents look down upon the town like gods. The only way for him to get that high is to learn how to fly. Thinks, Icarus. Thinks, the sun.
“The point is, it never occurred to me to wonder why we live where we do. And same thing with David John. He came into our lives and that’s the way it was.
“Maybe it was harder for Ricky.” He shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. No, I don’t think so, because he took to David John right away, but then again, Ricky was nine . . . no, ten when Mom and David John got married. He was older than I was, and maybe it was more of a change with him? Because it was a change when they got married. At least that’s what Ricky always says. We bounced around from apartment to apartment before that, chaotic, and David John’s a discipline kind of guy.”
Deanne pulls back a bit, something flittering across her face, and Jessup laughs. “Not like that,” he says. “I don’t mean Old Testament shit. Never laid a hand on any of us. Seriously. I’m sure he must have yelled at us sometimes, but I can’t think of an example. My mom can scream, but not David John. He’s . . . gentle. ‘Gentle’ would be the right word. But firm, you know? When I say discipline, I just mean he’s a ‘do it right’ kind of guy. Make your bed, clear the dishes, chores get done before you have free time. He believes hard work is the only salvation. Well, hard work and Jesus Christ. Discipline and hard work can be a drag sometimes, but mostly it’s pretty good. I think kids crave discipline, you know? Order’s not a bad thing. And Mom liked it, too. Turned things around for us. Ricky wasn’t a troublemaker, not really, but he started doing better in school, and I guess I’d been acting out a bit before David John came along. And then they had Jewel and it was the five of us. David John worked hard, did okay with money—it’s his trailer and land—and my mom mostly just stayed home and took care of Jewel, took care of me and Ricky.
“He’s just . . . You know you got lucky with your dad, right?” He thinks of Coach Diggins handing him the game ball. “He’s a good dude, and in some ways, I think, maybe he reminds me of David John.”
GRACE
Best thing I can think of to tell you about David John is that when I was eight, I broke my arm.” He takes Deanne’s hand, runs it up his left forearm. There’s no scar, but he takes her fingers to his elbow and then backs them down two inches so that she can feel the small divot in the bone. “Football, actually. Stupid. Just bad luck. Only serious injury I’ve ever had playing. Got tangled up with two other boys. Just fell funny and was on the bottom of it. Felt my arm snap. Could hear it, and right away, I’m crying. And when I say I’m crying, I mean I’m wailing, full-on snot-bubbling-out-of-my-nose crying, the whole thing, rolling around on the ground and holding my arm against my chest. This happens, and David John just comes right on the field, scoops me up in his arms.”
Her eyes go wide. She’s the daughter of a football player and coach. Been around the game her whole life. Knows the code. Knows what it means that David John rushed onto the field.
“That’s the thing about David John. He didn’t care that you aren’t supposed to do that. It’s always been family first for him. Picks me up, carries me off the field cradled in his arms, right to the car. Has my mom drive us and holds me in his lap all the way to the hospital and then carries me into the ER. Never told me to suck it up or stop crying or anything, just held me the whole time, told me it was going to be okay, that he loved me, and I was his brave boy.”
Jessup hears the way his words catch in his throat, but he doesn’t want to stop. It’s right there, in the truck with him: the smell of fresh-cut grass, the dirt rubbed into his skin, the whistles, the sound of
pads and helmets, cold water in the heat of summer, the sharp pain as he hit the ground, and more than anything, how carefully David John carried him. “But I did stop crying, pretty much as soon as he picked me up, because what I remember from that day most clearly is that as soon as he had me in his arms, I knew I’d be okay. I didn’t need him to say it. I just knew.” And he is crying now. Nothing dramatic, though it’s enough that Deanne can tell, and she leans in and kisses him, light, gentle, like grace itself.
GRACE ITSELF
And now that he’s crying, he can’t seem to get himself to stop, so he just gives himself time. Knows that Deanne’s thinking about David John, thinking that there’s something hard in Jessup that he doesn’t call the man his father, but he’s thinking about the sound his truck made, he’s thinking of Corson’s body, dead and gone, thinking of Corson’s parents, thinking of what it’s going to mean to carry this around with him for the rest of his life, so he lets himself cry, lets Deanne hold him.
It’s not so long, a minute at most, but that’s long enough.
WHERE YOU COME FROM
If you don’t want to—”
“No. It’s good,” he says. He can’t tell her about Corson. But he can tell her about David John. Do his best. “It’s just, well, this is why it’s hard. You don’t get a choice in things, you know? You’re born when you’re born, your parents are who your parents are, and things happen the way they happen. Some of it’s good and some of it’s not. I can tell you everything about my entire life, but unless you were there, unless you were raised like me, it won’t make sense. I know how it looks from the outside. Doesn’t matter what Ricky was like as a kid or how David John was as a dad, people are always going to think we’re a bunch of ignorant rednecks. I know that the only thing that matters to other people is . . . I’m not dumb.”
“I know,” she says. Her voice is soft. The heater rattles louder than she does, louder than Jessup’s voice, too, but the hot air feels good blowing against his skin. He knows that early November is too soon for the snow and the cold to stay, that there will be a break in the weather again sometime before Thanksgiving, at least a few more days when he can leave his coat at home before the snow stays for good, the winter settling on Cortaca, but right now, in his truck, Deanne on his lap, cuddled against him, their naked skin a beacon in the night, the truck alone and hidden in the woods, the falling snow and the cold feel like the best part of winter, like sledding, hot chocolate, and sitting in front of the woodstove and watching cartoons as a kid, like waking up to school canceled, the trees coated, eight, ten inches of snow on the ground, the sky dropping an inch an hour, the world made new.
“I know you’re not dumb,” Deanne says. “That’s one of the things I lo—” She smiles. “That’s one of the things I like about you.”
“I know how it looks from the outside,” Jessup says again, speaking before he realizes what almost came out of her mouth, but he’s talking again, and it’s too late to stop. “I know what people think. I read what they had in the papers, heard what people on television said when everything happened, and the thing is, even though some of it’s true, that’s not what it was like at home. Mostly, when I think of David John, when people ask me about him, about Ricky, I think of my brother making me popcorn or making sure I finished my homework, of David John teaching me how to shoot and taking me hunting for the first time, of the way my mom seemed to light up every time he kissed her, and yeah, of the way he carried me off the field when I broke my arm. I mean, before . . . before the thing happened with Ricky, before they went to jail, our family was as close to all-American as it could be. After school was sports and homework, dinner as a family every night and then sitting together on the couch watching sitcoms. All of it. We did things right.”
PRIDE
He looks at her, waits. She wants to say something, and he wants to give her the space to say it.
She starts off tentative: “I hear you. I do. I mean, he sounds like a good guy in so many ways. . . .”
“But?”
“I didn’t say ‘but,’ Jessup.”
“You’re thinking it.”
She puts her hands on his cheeks, kisses him gently, her lips lingering on his, just the slightest flick of her tongue. Pulls back. “I’m sorry. This isn’t easy for me. I mean, you’re telling me about how good of a guy he is, and you’re telling me what he’s like at home, but your brother . . .”
“Ricky.”
“People say it was a hate crime. He had Nazi tattoos on him.”
“They weren’t Nazi tattoos,” Jessup says. He says it too quick, too strident, doesn’t want to say anything about the tattoos David John carries, the double SS lightning bolts on his left pec, the letters F and R and G and N, “For God, Race, Nation,” inked below, the iron eagle with the swastika high up on his right shoulder. “And it wasn’t a hate crime. They attacked him first,” Jessup says.
Deanne retreats into herself. He feels like an ass, wants to apologize, but isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for. He didn’t do anything wrong. Ricky didn’t do anything wrong. He was just trying to protect himself.
Deanne speaks before Jessup can figure out what to say. “I guess what I’m trying to ask you, Jessup, what I’m trying to say, is that I’ve had a lot of kids tell me your family is into white power. And, you know,” she coughs out a laugh, “for obvious reasons, that’s not exactly easy for me to accept.”
Jessup looks out the side window. With the falling snow, there’s barely enough light for him to make out the dark sway of the trees. “But that’s not me,” he finally says. “I don’t know what to tell you about my brother. He’s my brother. He’s not perfect, and he’s going to be in prison until he’s forty. And my stepfather did time, too. And yeah, the church my family went to—goes to—thinks that it’s good to take pride in our skin. It’s . . . it’s not a white power thing, but I guess I can see how it looks. It’s more of, like, pride in your heritage. A lot of talk. Like, at church, they’ll say, what’s wrong with being proud to be white? If you can sit with the black kids at lunch, or if the Jews can call themselves ‘the chosen people,’ what’s the problem with wanting to hang out with people who are like you, who think that being white is a good thing? That kind of stuff. But that’s not me.”
“But that’s your church,” she says. She’s not angry. She’s trying to have a conversation.
“But it’s not my church,” Jessup says. “I haven’t gone there in more than four years, not since what happened with my brother and my stepfather. That’s not me. You know me. That’s not me.”
He stops. Thinks. It’s true. At least, he thinks it’s true.
He wants it to be true.
“I don’t know what else to say. Here we are. It’s not my church, but yeah, it’s my family’s church, my stepfather’s church, and he’s home now. And if I’m being honest, I’m happy to see him. I’m sorry, but it’s true. And I get it if that means . . . I don’t want to break up, but I guess I’d understand if . . .” He can’t look at her. “It doesn’t change anything having him home, not between you and me, but in a lot of ways it changes everything. I want to stay together, I mean, I’m so into you, Deanne. But I can’t turn my back on my family. I’m not part of that church, but my mom takes my sister there. It’s still my stepdad’s church. I’m not part of that church anymore, but no matter how much I like you, and I like you so much that it makes me hurt sometimes—I can’t even tell you how much I think about you—I’m still always going to be part of my family, and like it or not, they’re always going to be part of that church. I don’t know what I can do about that,” he says. And then he adds, “It’s complicated.” Because he doesn’t know what else to say.
ANSWERS
She’s quiet for a minute. He can’t look at her. Afraid of what she’s thinking, so when she speaks, it’s a relief, not just because of the words, but because of the end of silence.
<
br /> “Jessup.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for telling me that. It’s important.”
“Okay.”
“I like you, Jessup.”
“I like you, too.”
“No,” Deanne says. She bites her lip again, but it’s different than the way she bit it while they were making love. “I mean, I really like you.”
He realizes she’s the one crying now. A dampness around her eyes that reflects the light from the dashboard and the stereo. He reaches up and thumbs off a tear.
“Deanne . . .”
“Are you going to make me say it first?”
But neither of them says it, so he pulls her close and kisses her for a few minutes and then they make love again—Jessup is vaguely aware that this is only something he can do again so soon because he’s seventeen—and afterward Deanne asks him to drive her home. They don’t talk much, just a few words about seeing each other at work, plans to go out after with Deanne’s friends, but there’s nothing uncomfortable. She holds his hand with both of hers, and when he drops her off in front of the church on Pearl Street, they spend several more minutes kissing. When she opens the door, it’s all he can do not to grab her and stop her and tell her he loves her.
THE SLEEP OF THE JUST
By the time he gets home, it’s close to two in the morning. He eases the door of the truck closed but can’t do anything about the trailer shifting under his weight. He brushes his teeth, goes to the bathroom, strips naked, and climbs under the covers of his bed. He’s expecting to be tortured by the sound of it, the soda-can crush of Corson’s body against the truck bed, everything that’s happened today, but as soon as his head touches the pillow the alarm on his phone goes off: 6:30 a.m.
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