Hell of a Book

by Jason Mott

  * * *

  —

  A little while later, Renny and Martha have both gone to bed and they’ve pointed me in the direction of my room. I almost get lost in the halls of their mansion, but it always feels good to wander the corridors of someone else’s home. It’s a good way to remember that lives are lived every day in a way that’s different from your own. It makes you feel like you’re a part of something.

  In one of the hallways, I spot a group of wedding photos. Renny and Martha have kids. From the looks of it, Renny and Martha have a lot of kids. In the photo, one of their daughters is getting married. In another photo, Renny and a different daughter are dancing together. Renny’s smile is all pride. Martha, in the background, is all tears of joy.

  I stand and look from photo to photo, and a life is built. It’s a life of love and caring. It’s a life of family. The longer I stare, the more the photos become real. Renny and his daughter begin to move over the dance floor. I hear the music playing—a slow waltz. Since Renny’s a Harvard man, his waltz is perfect. He and his daughter flow like mercury over the surface of the dance floor.

  I can smell the chicken that was served with dinner. I can taste the wedding cake in the back of my throat.

  As I keep looking at the photographs, I can see myself in them. I’m standing in the back corner, smiling. I’m happy. I applaud Renny and Martha and their daughter. I walk over and hug them. I’m a part of the family. Behind them, in the back of the photograph, blended in with the crowd, I see a couple dancing. The man is tall and thin as a flower’s shadow. The woman: short, rotund, with long hair pulled into a ponytail. My mama and dad. They stare into each other’s eyes, smiling and twirling around in a small circle, swaying in time with the music. My dad belts out a laugh, my mother manages a smile. He is not dead. She is not sad. I can walk over and hug them both if I want.

  But, in defiance of myself, I do not.

  Then the dancing stops. The photographs become just photographs again and I’m a thirty-eight-year-old writer standing in the hallway of a stranger’s home trying to build myself into his life. I’m just drunk and lonely all of a sudden.

  So be it.

  I make my way to my bedroom and flop down on the bed. I’m still wearing the robe and slippers from the hotel. I close my eyes and begin to drift off to sleep.

  “Hi,” a voice calls out. It’s The Kid.

  I sit up. “Hi,” I say.

  The Kid is sitting in the corner of the room with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. “Are you okay?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “I don’t want to talk about me.”

  The Kid’s fingers fidget with the material of his blue jeans. There are a few specks of mud around the hem of his pants, like he’s spent the afternoon playing in the front yard the way I used to do once upon a time. The Kid reminds me so much of myself that it makes it hard for me to remember that he isn’t me. He’s a dead kid.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “For what happened?”

  “You mean in the car?” The Kid asks. He looks genuinely surprised. “It’s okay,” he says. “You were just afraid. I should have gone in there with you, though. You shouldn’t leave people alone when they’re afraid, even if they’re being jerks.” He grins for the first time tonight.

  “No,” I say. “I mean I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

  “What happened to me?”

  His dark brow furrows and he stops fidgeting. He stares at me with wide, brown eyes and waits for me to tell him that he’s been shot and killed and that he’s not real. He waits for me to tell him that whatever gift he thinks he has didn’t save him from the barrage of bullets and there’s no way to take that back. He waits for me to tell him that he’s not real. That he’s a ghost. No, that he’s a figment of my imagination.

  So I give him what he wants. Even with figments of your imagination, it’s best to be as honest and forthcoming as possible.

  “You’re dead,” I say.

  After a beat, The Kid laughs. “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are,” I say. “Dead as a doorknob, as my dear, departed daddy used to say. And, more than that, I’m a little offended that you wouldn’t tell me that you were dead this whole time. Here I was thinking you were just a part of my condition and it turns out you’re something much more than that. Turns out you’re a real boy who got shot and killed a few days ago. I saw you. I saw your body.”

  Again The Kid laughs.

  “No,” he says. “That’s all wrong. Are you high?”

  “Drunk,” I say. “Not high.”

  “Well,” The Kid says, “either way, you’re wrong. I’m not dead. That would be stupid. I’m real. I’m as real as you are. I don’t know what you saw tonight or who that was, but it wasn’t me.”

  As much as I don’t want to believe anything The Kid is saying, I can’t deny the fact that I’m starting to believe him. After all, that’s the catch-22 of imaginative conditions like mine: you can’t trust things or people in regard to their reality. If a thing spends all of its time telling you that it’s real, eventually you’ve got to believe it simply because of the fact that most of the people you meet in the world are real and it would be terrible to treat real people as imaginary.

  “But if that wasn’t you, then who was that kid I saw at the funeral home?”

  “Don’t know,” The Kid says. “But it wasn’t me.” He lifts up his shirt to reveal his impossibly black chest that is free from bullet holes or any other sign of trauma. “See?” he says. “I’m fine. Nothing bad has happened to me and nothing bad ever will. I’m safe and I’ll always be safe because my mom and dad gave me this gift.”

  “Yes,” I reply, my head thumping like an 808. Maybe from the liquor. Or maybe from trying to understand what my life and mental state have become. I take a seat on the floor beside The Kid. I pull my knees to my chest and cross my arms around my legs as though I could become small enough to be safe from the reality that exists beyond this moment. “I’m tired,” I say.

  “Me too,” The Kid says. “I miss my mom.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” The Kid says.

  “Do you want us to find her?”

  “No,” The Kid says. He pulls his legs tighter to his chest.

  I want to ask him why not, but something in me tells me that it’s the wrong question to ask. So he and I just sit together and hold whatever this is that we’re both caught up in. I don’t have it in me to bring up again the fact that I saw his corpse tonight. And I don’t have it in me to bring up the fact that I saw my dead mother tonight. I don’t have it in me to bring up a lot of things, so the two of us just sit in the room surrounded by the unsaid things.

  “What about that girl?” The Kid asks. “She seemed nice.”

  “Don’t think it’s in the cards, kiddo.”

  “You should try it,” The Kid says. “You’re lonely. I can tell.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Most people like us are lonely,” The Kid says. “Anyone who imagines things is lonely. I’ve always been lonely. Since as far back as I can remember. The kids at school pick on me for being so dark. So does my cousin Tyrone. I like him a lot. He’s the coolest kid I know. But he’s mean too.” The Kid shrugs his shoulders. “But he’s still my favorite cousin. So I take his jokes and I don’t say anything and I forgive him even when he doesn’t ask for forgiveness because we’re cousins, because we’re family. And that’s what family does: they forgive each other. We’re in this together.”

  “Did Tyrone tell you that?”

  “How’d you know?” The Kid asks.

  “Just a hunch,” I say.

  We sit together for what seems like a longer time than is possible. I keep wai
ting for the sun to rise but time is moving slowly, and still The Kid and I sit together, both of us holding our knees, both of us languishing in loneliness. I worry about if The Kid is really imaginary, dead, or something else. The Kid worries about me being alone. We’re a pair, he and I. Both of us worrying too much about the other person.

  “Do you want me to teach you?” The Kid asks.

  “Teach me what?”

  “To be invisible.”

  “No,” I say. “I’ve already got my preferred means of dealing with the world.”

  And then there is nothing to do but sit alone in the quiet and wait for sunrise.

  Somewhere along the way, I fall asleep.

  When I awake, the boy is gone and my phone is lying on the floor next to me. I remember something and after a few swipes I dig through my messages to find the message from Kelly: “Need a ride to the airport?”

  * * *

  —

  The next morning, Renny and I are standing outside my hotel. I’m wearing my traveling suit. Renny’s wearing his limo driver’s outfit. We’re both looking down the street.

  Renny looks left. I look right.

  Renny looks right. I look left.

  No Kelly.

  “Well,” Renny says, “there’s always my car.”

  No sooner do the words leave his mouth than a small Honda Civic comes screeching up beside the curb in front of me. Kelly waves from the driver’s seat.

  Renny smiles.

  He helps me load my luggage into Kelly’s trunk. “Don’t forget me, State College.”

  “Never happen,” I say.

  Renny gives me a hug that reminds me of my father.

  Then I get into Kelly’s car and we start off for the airport.

  * * *

  —

  As we make our way through traffic, I feel compelled to speak. After all, I ran out on her in the middle of the funeral home. A pretty ungentlemanly thing to do. “Listen . . . about last night . . .”

  “Shut up,” Kelly says.

  She hits the radio. “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley plays. An honest-to-God theme song.

  * * *

  —

  We reach the airport with sore lungs and tired muscles. We’ve been singing the same song all the way here. The outside of the airport is bustling with people. Everyone’s headed somewhere.

  I step out of the car and unload my luggage. Kelly closes the trunk. Then, once I’m all squared away, she comes over to me and says, “Take your shirt off.”

  I hesitate for only a moment, but do as I’m told.

  Kelly reaches into the glove compartment of her car and retrieves a large Magic Marker. She writes something on my undershirt. The letters tickle. The people swirl around us, seemingly oblivious to what she’s doing. Which makes me wonder if she’s really doing it or if I’ve slid off into my imagination again.

  I’ve got a condition.

  When she’s done writing, Kelly says, “Read it when you get home.”

  I go to speak but before I can, Kelly leans in and kisses me.

  Fireworks. Music. Sunlight. Ginger and cinnamon. The moment our lips touch, these things are the only things that matter. The bustling crowd of airport travelers around us suddenly drops their luggage and erupts into dance. It’s a joyous, vibrant jazz number. Heavy on the drums. The trumpets, they’re giving it the business. Count Basie’s fingers are doing the Charleston and The Running Man on the ivories, sounding like how I imagine stars would sound if you could point your fingers to the sky and birth them from nothing. All the drab, comfort clothes are gone. Everybody’s dressed for a night out in high society or for a night in the smokiest juke joint this side of Harpo’s.

  All around Kelly and me the world is light and sound, bodies and bass lines. My heart is in my throat. My hands are on her cheeks, siphoning the electricity and maybe giving back a little of my own.

  And then the kiss is over. The music stops. The costumes fade away and everyone’s back in jeans and sweats and mild depression. Life is life again. Only the memory of imagination remains as reality sinks its teeth in. “I live three thousand miles away,” I say.

  “The sun is 93 million miles away,” she replies. “But you can still feel it on your face, can’t you?”

  * * *

  —

  I walk through the airport in a daze. TSA, whom I usually love, notices my distraction. Or maybe they don’t. All I know for sure is that the pat-down felt awkward for the both of us.

  “Did you ever make that switch to boxers?” the TSA agent asks.

  “Huh?”

  “No one ever listens to me,” he says. Then: “Next!”

  * * *

  —

  I’m seated on the airplane, still dazed, still far away from everything. How I got here I can hardly say. While the rest of the plane is still boarding, I make my way to the bathroom, lift up my shirt to read Kelly’s message: forgive yourself.

  * * *

  —

  I’m back in my seat. A large Hawaiian man sits down next to me. His bulk spills over onto me, but it feels comforting. Makes me feel like I’m a part of something other than myself.

  As the plane continues to board, I watch the baggage handlers toss luggage onto the conveyer. One of the baggage handlers looks up at me. It’s Kelly. A dialogue balloon appears next to her head: “See ya ’round!”

  I smile. The baggage handler looks confused. It’s not Kelly anymore. My phone vibrates in my hand. A message from Kelly shows up. Guess what it says?

  * * *

  —

  As we’re taxiing on the runway, the large Hawaiian man next to me begins to sing Whitney Houston’s rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” He’s a better singer than he should be. Before I know it, we’re both singing. Both belting it out. Both leaving something behind in San Francisco, maybe.

  The whole town turned out to solve the tragedy of William’s death. While the man’s body lay on a slab in the coroner’s office over in Whiteville, an old church in a small town groaned under the weight of people too angry, sad, and afraid to put their own thoughts into words. And so they sought God and a man of God to speak for them.

  “And I know,” Reverend Brown said, “we’re not the first ones to grapple with this particular type of beast but just like Jonah, we know that God is here and we know that God will not turn His back on us.”

  “What about Will?” somebody in the congregation asked. There was anger in their voice that the reverend and everyone else could hear.

  “God never let him go,” Reverend Brown said. “God just called him home.”

  Then he reminded everyone of Daniel in the lion’s den. He spoke on Daniel’s fear. He asked his congregation how many of them could have walked before the mouths of lions and not been afraid. “How many of you have that faith?”

  It was an amazing thing to Soot, watching Reverend Brown. The old, bald man stood in the middle of the church recounting stories of God and His miracles and the congregation hung on his every word. The stories grew larger and longer as things went on and, still, the people listened and nodded in agreement and called out “Amen!” now and again and, sometimes, they even seemed a little bit healed by the stories they heard. There was no shortage of weeping faces in the church when Reverend Brown first started, but the longer he went on, the more stories he told, the fewer salty tears the old church pews had to catch.

  Soot didn’t know it then, but he was becoming a believer. Not in God, as Reverend Brown and the rest of the church-bound southern community might have wanted, but he was becoming a believer in stories. He saw, there in the wake of his father’s death, that a story could take away pain. He saw smiles, however brief, where there had been tears. He saw fellowship where there had been loneliness. He saw hope where there had been despair.

  And he began to wo
nder if stories were something that he might be good at one day.

  As Soot wondered, Reverend Brown continued to salve those he could. Among the crowd, there were those who nodded their heads in agreement and allegiance to God Almighty and the reverend kept his focus on them and tried not to pay attention to those who were shaking their heads and looking around the church for others like themselves who were fed up with the way that things were going and who would not continue to wait for God.

  Soot sat by his mother and watched it all while his uncle Paul stood huddled together in the back of the church with a group of other men. They talked to one another and shook their heads instead of nodding with the stories of God.

  But the sermon went on.

  By the end of it, the pastor seemed to have won the day on account of the fact that the men at the back of the church all excused themselves and went out into the parking lot. They paced back and forth in the glow of their old pickup trucks’ headlights. They grumbled to one another about how something needed to be done. They made promises that they wouldn’t stand for what had happened to William, what had happened to men and boys like him all across the country. They swore that they would find a way to mend what the law had failed. They reminded one another that the law was always going to fail them. That was the one thing that they knew and understood clearly.

  The law was always going to fail them, just as it had failed their parents, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents, and on and on. “The laws were never made for Black folks,” Paul said, and the chorus of men grumbled and chirped in agreement. The other men all took their turns in explaining all the ways in which they had been failed by the law. They told stories of their own, different from Reverend Brown’s, but with all the same weight. Instead of God, there were dead Black bodies. Instead of whales and lions, there were police and judges, prisons and loan officers, politicians and legislatures. In the vacuum left behind by God, their black skin and all that came with it filled the void.