Hell of a Book

by Jason Mott

  “Parts of it,” Soot’s father said.

  Daddy Henry was Soot’s grandfather. He lived in a rest home on the far side of Whiteville, a sleepy, small southern town in a sleepy, small southern county with a long history of strawberry production and lynchings. Every few months, Soot and his father made the three-hour drive that only ever concluded in an hour-long visit. For the entire drive, Soot watched his father’s body tighten, mile by mile. He sat behind the wheel of his pickup truck, thin and lanky like a plucked heron. He sawed the wheel back and forth, his spindly hands clutching so hard that veins rose up on the back of them.

  “He’s your grandfather,” Soot’s father told him, staring ahead as he spoke, as if he were driving into a gray-bellied storm. “That’s the reason we’re going. That’s all.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Soot never understood why his father got so knotted up when they went to visit Daddy Henry. From his perspective, Daddy Henry was a nice enough collection of wrinkles. He smiled a lot—curling his wide, dark lips into plum slice smiles—and his eyes shined like sea glass when he saw Soot. Most people didn’t smile when they saw Soot. They stared. They stared into the impossible darkness of his skin as if the night itself had come to meet them. Or, if they didn’t stare, they looked away, which was almost worse. But not Daddy Henry. Every time Soot entered the room, Daddy Henry reached out his arthritic hands and wrapped his grandson in the tightest hug his ancient frame could manage and said, “There’s my boy. There he is.”

  Daddy Henry was a creature of magic. He was filled with stories of the way things used to be. People and places that used to exist in this world but that had long since faded away into little more than story and myth. He talked of muscadine grape vines that grew where now there was only highway and pavement. He talked of pear trees—reaching up like rockets to touch the heel of the sky—that used to live in places where now there were only housing developments and the clutter of traffic. Sometimes he even talked of the wife who had not lived long enough and he would try, and fail, at not hating the God who took her away from him.

  He was, from everything that Soot knew, a good man. And the fact that he was dying made it all the more sad. That’s why Soot never understood the anger his father had for the old man. Not until the time Daddy Henry asked about his son’s drawings.

  Daddy Henry turned to Soot and smiled, and whistled in amazement, and said, “When he was a boy about your age, he could do it all. Could draw folks so real you could almost reach out and catch ’em by the ankles. You could run your fingers through their hair. Stroke their faces. Smell their breath so clear you always knew what they’d ate for breakfast that morning. Ain’t that right, Willie?”

  “I don’t remember,” Soot’s father replied.

  “Well, I do,” Daddy Henry barked. Then he waved his hand and pointed off in the direction of a small box that sat in the far corner of the room. “Get that for me,” he told Soot, whispering a little in the way that people do when they want to spark a child’s curiosity.

  “Don’t do that,” his father said. His jaw was a tight, dark line framing his brown face.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” replied Daddy Henry. Then he turned his attention back to Soot. “Now go ahead and get that box like I told you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Soot.

  He went over slowly, glancing at his father now and again, waiting for a firm “no” that would stop him in his tracks. But it never came. His father was just as much a victim of his parents as he was. So the man only stood there, clenching and releasing his jaw, wishing he could say something more.

  The box was a small, leftover packaging box crisscrossed with used tape. The whole thing yielded like soft bread when Soot picked it up.

  “Do we really have to do this?” his father asked.

  “Hush up,” Daddy Henry said. He motioned at Soot with his thin arms. “Come on. Bring it on over. Open it up!”

  Soot kneeled and, after pausing once more, giving his father another chance to tell him to stop, finally did as his grandfather told him. He opened the small, mildewed box.

  The first thing he saw was a family. A small Black family stood in faded Polaroid glory. The man was Daddy Henry, vibrant and young. A familiar stranger to Soot’s eyes. He stood tall and lean beneath a bright summer sun, a wisp of a smile perched on his face. At his side was a stocky woman with dark skin and long hair. She wore a dark blouse and flowered skirt and a smile that looked as though it had never seen a cloudy day in its entire life. And between the pair was a boy, little more than five years old. He had a small Afro and wore a full suit with flecks of red and blue and his smile was even wider than his mother’s.

  Soot lifted the photo and stared at the boy. Then he looked at his father. He had never seen his father smile like that, and yet he knew that the man he knew and the boy in the photo were one and the same.

  He placed the photo to the side along with a handful of others. Each picture was a flash of happiness. In one, Daddy Henry stood before a long record player, smiling back at the camera and holding up a Marvin Gaye album. In another, he sat on an old brown couch with his son on his knee, both of them looking at the camera with a wild mixture of confusion and joy.

  The rest of the photos came and went and, finally, Soot found the drawings his grandfather had wanted him to find. The first one took his breath away. Buried, dusty, and wilting, was a woman. She sat at a desk, leaning on one hand, staring solemnly back at him. Around her, real enough that it made him worry about her drowning, was the ocean, lorded over by an evening sun. Soot stared at the picture, mouth agape. He could almost hear the waves crashing around the woman. He could see her hair dancing in the salt air. He wondered how she had wound up in the middle of the ocean. He marveled at the expression she wore that looked so real it hid her feelings about where her life had taken her. Whether she was sad, happy, or afraid about floating through this beautiful ocean, Soot couldn’t tell. All he knew for certain was that she knew how she felt, and her truth was left for him to guess.

  There were more drawings in the box. Dozens of them. All of them beautiful. All of them real enough to spring to life at any moment. Meteoric and mundane, they all existed here. Men with swords stood at the base of long, ominous mountains punching up through purple clouds. Women walked through grocery stores, leaning over freezers, deciding on dinner. A bird took flight, feathers straining over treetops. A child leapt from a springboard, barreling downward at the shimmering surface below.

  “Now, ain’t that something?” Daddy Henry asked, a resonance of wonder in his voice.

  “Wow,” Soot whispered. He looked up at his father as though seeing him for the first time.

  “I’m going outside,” he said. Folded over his chest like saplings, his arms fidgeted.

  “Why?” Soot asked.

  “He’s ashamed,” Daddy Henry said.

  “That’s enough,” Soot’s father said.

  “No,” said Daddy Henry. “I might be on my goddamn deathbed, but I can still say what happens in my own tomb.” He punctuated his sentence with a wet, rattling cough. “Not my fault you’re ashamed of them. Don’t aim that at me!” More coughing. The old man gripped the arms of his chair until the coughing was gone and he was almost slumped over in exhaustion. He spat something red into the trashcan beside his chair and gathered his breath. “Don’t aim that at me,” he repeated.

  For a moment, no one spoke. The three of them only listened to the labored breathing of a dying man. All three of them listened. All three of them heard something different in the sound.

  “You want to know what he’s ashamed of?” Daddy Henry asked Soot finally. “He’s ashamed because they’re all White.”

  Soot’s father cleared his throat as though he were about to speak, but nothing came out. He only turned his head away and looked out the window. As the sunlight poured in through the window, Soot’s fa
ther looked skinnier and smaller than he had only a moment ago. Nothing more than a dark reed jutting up from the ground, aiming itself at a world it could not reach because this place was where its roots were buried, whether it liked it or not.

  “All he ever drew was White people,” Daddy Henry continued. “Never did draw no niggers. That was the best thing about it.” He reached into the box and pulled out one of the drawings—the drawing of a blonde woman leaning on her hand—and he smiled at it. “Look at that,” he said. “You ever seen a more beautiful White woman? You ever seen one drawn anywhere that looked that good? He tried to draw niggers a couple of times, but I put a stop to that. Wasn’t no future in that. Still ain’t.” Daddy Henry shook his head and gripped his chest. His face tightened in pain. Eventually, it passed, like a cloud promising that rain was not far off. “I was trying to secure a future for him in that. He could’a been a rich man drawing White people. But he quit. He goddamn quit. Then he grew up and started hating me for it. Said it was all my fault. Said I made him hate Black people.” Daddy Henry managed a laugh. “Can you imagine that? Like I could make him hate black skin.” He looked at Soot. “If I hated black skin, could I love you the way I do, boy?”

  “We’re done here,” Soot’s father said.

  Daddy Henry shook his head. “You’re still acting like a goddamn nigger, huh? Ain’t I teach you no better than that?” His hands curled into fists. “You’re a goddamn shame.”

  “Let’s go,” Soot’s father said.

  “No!” Daddy Henry said. His tone shifted. Gone was the anger and bitterness, replaced by terror and something akin to pleading. “Don’t go,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry, okay? Please. Don’t take the boy. I’m sorry.”

  But Soot’s father did not listen. He walked over and grabbed his son by the arm and pulled him toward the door.

  “Listen,” Daddy Henry said, his voice trembling. “Don’t do this. Don’t take him away. Don’t spend your life blaming me. I helped you. You shouldn’t have quit. All I ever did was help you! I ain’t make you hate Black people. I ain’t make you hate yourself! You did that all on your own!” Daddy Henry licked his lips and looked up at his son. His face was frantic. There was something else that he wanted to say, something else that he wanted to put into words, but whatever that thing was, his mouth failed him and so he wrung his fists and looked even more panicked as he watched his son and grandson on their way out of his life. “I didn’t mean that,” Daddy Henry said. There was fear in his voice. The fear of a man who knows that he has pushed too far, too hard, and no matter what he does from here on out, that which he once held in his hands is forever broken. “I’ll let it go. I promise. Just don’t take the boy. Leave him here with me. Let me talk to him. There are things that he needs to know. There are things that I need to teach him about the way the world works. I can’t let him come out like you came out. I can’t let him come out hating people that didn’t have anything to do with who he is. I can’t do that.

  “White people didn’t do nothing to you. You ain’t never been a slave. They didn’t sell you and whip you. You can’t hate a whole group of people for something their ancestors did. But that’s the thing that niggers can’t never understand. That’s the thing that I need him to know. I need him to not be angry like you.” He looked at Soot. “I need you to be happy the way your daddy used to be, boy. I need to know that you won’t fall apart and give up on things like he did.” Daddy Henry’s eyes flitted from his son to his grandson. “I’m trying to help,” he said, staring at Soot. “I hear you like stories,” Daddy Henry said. “That’s good. There’s a future in that. You should take up writing. But you gotta tell the right stories. You gotta tell them the right way. No nigger stories, okay? You gotta do it right!” His face contorted with each word, it transformed from worried, to angered, to pleading, until it finally settled on a type of sad resignation. “Please,” he said. “Let me help him. . . . Please.”

  “Say goodbye,” Soot’s father said.

  “Goodbye, Daddy Henry,” Soot said.

  With tears running down his face, Daddy Henry made a move to get up out of the chair but his legs failed him. He pulled with his arms at the edges of the chair, trying to pull himself free of the prison that was his body, but that failed as well.

  As he left, Soot watched the old man continue to struggle against the weight of his infirmity. He raged and fought, but remained pinned by gravity to his chair. His breath quickened and that was the only thing that kept him from screaming in rage.

  But, in the end, his rage only left him trapped in his chair, as if he had always been there—in that chair, in that rage—and he always would be.

  It was the last time Soot ever saw his grandfather.

  The drive home was three hours of silence. Soot wanted to ask his father about why Daddy Henry said those things. He wanted to ask his father about the drawings. He wanted to ask about all the other parts of his father that he did not know because they did not get to survive the journey from child to father. He wanted to ask about the way Daddy Henry had pleaded with him to stay. He wanted to ask about the way the old man cried. He wanted to ask about forgiveness. He wanted to ask about love. He wanted to ask about telling stories. He wanted to ask if his father loved or hated what he saw in the mirror each day.

  He wanted to ask.

  But he only listened to the low grumble of the old truck’s engine as it chugged its way beneath a freshly starred sky and, at one point, he reached over and took his father’s hand and squeezed it and that gentle touch was all he said.

  Hell of a Book book tour takes me out of the Midwest—with its flat earth and angry husbands—and deposits me somewhere on the West Coast this time. I haven’t eaten since I don’t know when. Not since meeting that kid, I guess. But I’m not really sure.

  All I know for sure is that since then I’ve been to two cities in Florida—I remember sweaty armpits and air humid enough to drink—three book festivals in New Orleans—I remember some woman named Gladys and lots of shrimp—a Barnes & Noble in New Mexico—more heat—and a booksellers’ conference somewhere in the upper Northwest—the woman I met there was named Kim. She was nice.

  The plane landing here out west is a little bumpier than expected. I almost get some sleep on the flight and when I come out of my half-slumber, everything—from fuselage to fun-sized pretzel bag—is shaking. So, naturally, I assume we’re in a freefall and death is imminent. I reach out and grab the hand of the man sitting next to me and I tell him I love him, I’m proud of him, and that I hope there are Nic Cage movie marathons in the afterlife.

  Then the announcement comes on that we’ve landed wherever we are and everything between me and the gentleman next to me feels odd and out of place all of a sudden.

  So it goes.

  * * *

  —

  I step off of the plane looking like a million euros and feeling like about two pesos. I smell like jet fuel, pretzels, and exhaustion. My eyes burn and I’m still more than a little hungover from a wild night with a woman from Colorado and some brownies that may, or may not, have contained certain illicit, mind-altering additives. It’s hard to say, really. My mind is usually pretty altered all on its own so fringe drugs, oddly enough, tend to counter that effect and leave me stuck in reality.

  I don’t have much use for reality in my line of work.

  I come down the escalator of Unknown Airport looking like a statue, which is appropriate because I’m asleep on my feet. When I get to the bottom, it’s the near fall that wakes me up. I come to my senses just in time to keep myself from face-planting. I look up to see an older gentleman—who reminds me of James Hong, one of the unsung heroes of the modern era of acting—standing among the crowd of people waiting for their loved ones. He wears a well-cut gray suit and what look like two-thousand-dollar Italian shoes. The sign he’s holding reads: hell of a book.

  “According to the sign
you’ve got there,” I say, “I think I’m the Joe you’re looking for.”

  “I’m Renny,” the man who is not James Hong says as we shake hands.

  “Nice to meet ya, Lenny.”

  “Renny.”

  “Lenny.”

  “Renny.”

  “Lenny.”

  “Ren-ny!”

  “Len-ny!”

  “There’s no L, you racist bastard! It’s R-E-N-N-Y! I went to Harvard.”

  The airport travelers stop and look at us. In spite of myself, I can’t deny Renny’s position. “Well then,” I say. “Renny it is.”

  Baggage claim is a sea of misanthropic souls. Everyone looks worn-out. Nobody looks happy to have arrived here in whatever city we’re in. They’re all staring blankly at the luggage carousel like a pack of Pavlov’s dogs, waiting for the buzzer to sound. Everyone is strangely quiet, as if there’s something going on that I don’t know about.

  You probably can’t tell this about me, but I’m actually a pretty quiet guy. Few things make me happier than to just sit and not talk. Or stand and not talk. Or lie down and not talk. Or go swimming and not talk. I think you get the idea. Silence is a golden thing. Maybe it’s yet another by-product of working for Major Cell Phone Company for all those years. Spend forty hours a week talking to people and you might come away from it not wanting to talk to anyone at all.

  As we’re waiting for the luggage to come, I can’t get away from Renny’s excitement. He’s a ball of energy, the sweet old man. He rocks back and forth on his heels and he can’t seem to figure out what to do with his hands. They flit about at the ends of his sleeves like trained doves. He looks at me the way a proud father looks at his son—his eyes slick with the beginnings of tears, his chest swelling to the point of bursting.