Starcarbon

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “Oh, God,” King said, and laughed out loud. “If I was going to be jealous of anyone it would be Doctor Kaplan, since that’s all you and Mother talk about.”

  “You got any whiskey in this house?” Daniel asked. “It’s been a long drive. I sure could use a toddy.”

  “What do you think of him, Daddy?” Jessie asked. “Say you think he’s cute. Don’t you think he’s darling?”

  “He’s some boy, honey. He’s a beauty.”

  “There’s a bar on the corner,” King said. “We could go down there. Jessie won’t let me keep it in the house. I quit, didn’t you hear about that? I haven’t had a drink since K.T. was born. If I get drunk, she’s going to kick me out.” He laughed again. Suddenly, he looked like a grown man. Olivia and Daniel turned their attention upon him. “I quit drinking, Daniel. I don’t even miss it. But I’ll go down the street with you. I still like to watch people drink. I can get a Coke.”

  “I got a bottle of Chivas in the car.” Daniel stood up. “Just get me a glass and I’ll go get that. You don’t care if I bring it in here, do you? I’m not going to the psychiatrist. So I’m going to keep on having toddies if nobody minds.”

  “Manny and Crystal want to see you as soon as you get here,” Jessie said. “They want us to come over there if you want to.” She stood up. “I’ll call Manny for you, Dad. He’ll have a drink with you.”

  “Good,” Daniel said. “That’s a good idea. I like Manny. I’d like to talk to him.” Jessie walked over to her father and put the baby into his arms. “Hold him,” she said. “I’ll call Manny and let you talk to him.”

  Daniel looked down at the baby. I tried to get rid of you, he was thinking. Well, I’m glad I didn’t. Not to mention the two Charlotte aborted and the one Margaret got rid of last year. Well, she did that behind my back. I didn’t even pay for that. So I’m glad you’re here and I wish you luck with all these people.

  The baby made a sound. Ohhhhhhh, it said. Very small, very nice sound. Oh, oh.

  “Dad.” It was Olivia at his elbow. “Let me hold him. I want to hold him. I haven’t held him yet.” Daniel very carefully transferred the baby to Olivia’s arms. What a deal, Daniel decided. Girls having babies and not a woman in sight. Where are the grandmothers and the great-grandmothers? Where’s the plan in all of this? Where’s the blueprint?

  “Here’s Manny,” Jessie said, handing him the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Manny. Hello, it’s Daniel Hand. You all get on over here. The goddamn kids won’t even let me have a drink. Come on over here and have a drink with me.”

  In a few minutes, Manny and Crystal Weiss and their daughter, Crystal Anne, age ten, came running in and joined the party. Manny went into the kitchen with Daniel, and the rest of them sat in the living room worshiping the baby. Crystal Weiss had once been the wildest girl in Mississippi. Then she had been the wildest old girl, then the wildest old, old girl, then had the wildest midlife crisis. Now, at age forty-four, she was beginning to settle down. Grandmotherhood had settled around her shoulders like a cloak. From the minute she learned Jessie was pregnant she had been changed. The oldest son of her only son. These first few months of his life were a time of almost unadulterated joy to her. Every day when she woke up, she seemed to know exactly what to do and the largess of her happiness spread out to cover anyone she met. Of course, there were days when she got out of hand. The day she replaced all the glass doors with Plexiglas. The day she sent five thousand dollars to the Society to Prevent the Abuse of Children without asking Manny. The day she bought Jessie a diamond bracelet.

  Mostly, however, her transformation had been smooth. She had ordered several little washable knit dresses in bright colors and had taken to wearing them everywhere. “So he can spit up on me,” she told her friends. Also, she had started recycling and begun to worry about the sale of jets to Arab countries. “You’re making up for being too young to be a mother to King,” her psychiatrist told her. “You’ve been given a second chance.”

  Manny Weiss had flourished with his wife. What made her happy, made him happy. What lifted her, lifted him, and he forgot the trauma of his law practice and the constant struggle to make money, and began to really enjoy his wife and daughter. He loved Cyrstal’s wild spoiled relatives. They represented something his careful background would never let him become. Their self-indulgent escapades never failed to cheer him up, as though he were reading in the National Geographic about a tribe of savages recently discovered in Zaire.

  “Goddamn, Manny, thank God you’re here to have a drink with me.” Daniel got out glasses and began to pour. “We been on the road for two days. Olivia’s going to Oklahoma for the summer. You ever live by yourself, Manny? It’s a bitch. Get up in the morning. No one to have breakfast with. I brought my farm manager in from the country. Lucas Dehorney. His nephew’s Salva Dehorney on the North Carolina team. You ever seen him play?”

  “Of course. I saw the Blue Devils play when I was in Charlotte last winter. I should have called you to go to the game, but it was a last-minute thing because my client had some tickets.”

  “Spook would have been better than that if he’d been given a chance. I don’t know about our black buddies, Manny. I don’t know if they’ll ever get their share. They’re not mean enough.” Daniel handed Manny his drink. “What do you think?”

  “You know what the Jews say, don’t you? It’s a joke. You can give the whole country to the blacks and the Jews will get it back in ten years.”

  “Yeah. Well, Spook could run G.E., but he doesn’t give a damn. I tried to get him to go to business school but he quit. He doesn’t care about money. I never could figure it out. You couldn’t bribe him to take his feet down off the table if he didn’t want to. Well, I didn’t mean to get off on race and politics. Little old boy looks pretty good, doesn’t he? Mighty good.”

  “Crystal thinks of nothing else. It sure has made my life better. I’ve never seen her so happy.”

  “How about Jessie? You think she and King can make it?”

  “I sure hope so. We’re doing everything we can.”

  “I know you are, old pardner, and I appreciate it. Here, let me freshen that for you.” Daniel reached for Manny’s glass and added Scotch to it, then “freshened” his own.

  “Daddy, come here.” It was Jessie, coming to find him. “Come and see him. Olivia’s getting him to laugh so much. He loves her. He won’t let anyone else hold him.”

  “We’re coming, baby. We’ll be right there.” He reached out and took her hand. Their fingers interlaced. Fathers and daughters, Manny thought. Will Crystal Anne and I be that way? Will I learn to protect her, even from myself and my desire to never let her go? I wish Doctor Lacey wouldn’t keep telling me that stuff. I don’t want to hear all that dark unconscious stuff. Can’t a man just love his children anymore? Can’t we just do the best we can?

  “Well, no,” the doctor might have told him. “New ideas are rising in the human psyche. New ways of being trying to become manifest. For example, we will teach fathers not to seduce their daughters’ minds, not to buy them off, not to bribe them for attention, not to want to be the primary man in their lives.”

  “How’s that boy treating you?” Daniel asked, pulling Jessie closer to him. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can get for you?”

  Chapter 13

  BOBBY drove into Tahlequah at sunset and stopped at a 7-Eleven and called his dad. “I’m in town,” he said. “I thought I’d come over and spend the night, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” his father said. “Come on. You can have the trailer. It’s right out in the yard. Hell, you didn’t know I moved into a house, did you? Sharrene made me get a house. We’re over on Plum Street, right down the block from the trailer park. Come on over. It’s 993 Plum. I’ll be out front waiting for you.”

  “I might stay awhile.”

  “That’s great. Come on. We’re glad to have you.”

  Bud Tree hung up the phone and tur
ned back to the men sitting at his kitchen table. “You boys clear on out of here,” he said. “My kid’s in town. I don’t want him knowing about this.”

  “Sure thing,” the oldest of the three said. They didn’t want to get in bad with Bud. He was the pilot. Without him, the whole deal fell through. “We can talk some more tomorrow. Come by my place.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. Go on. Clear on out.” Bud stood by the door and the three men marched out and got into their car and drove away. Then Bud went into the bedroom to find his girlfriend. “Bobby’s here,” he said. “Put on some clothes, Sharrene. He’ll be here in a minute. Come on. Get dressed.” He patted her on the shoulder to make it easier and then went out and stood in the front yard and waited for his son. Bud Tree was a good man. He had never cheated at a game or hurt a horse on purpose or been mean to women. He had done the best he could for forty-two years with what he had to work with. Now he was down to running dope for a bunch of Chinese gangsters from Kansas City and he was sorry he was doing it. Two more runs, he promised himself. Then I’ll buy a farm and start raising horses. Two more runs and there’ll be fifty grand sitting in the bank and I’ll have a stake.

  Well, shit, Bobby’s coming home. If Sharrene doesn’t like it, I’ll run her ass off.

  Lights were coming down the street. Bud held his arms up in the air and began to wave.

  Bobby turned his truck into the unfamiliar driveway and felt his throat constrict at the sight of his dad. His coach, his old partner, who had never beat him or made him do a damn thing and had never had to. He loved Bud Tree the way he loved Olivia Hand. Blindly, perfectly, steadily. If Bud saddled a horse that had never been ridden and smiled in Bobby’s direction, Bobby climbed up on it and broke the son-of-a-bitch. If Bud got drunk occasionally and cried on the kitchen table, Bobby stood by and hid his own tears. If the score was twelve to twelve in the last quarter of a game against Broken Arrow and Bud Tree was in the stands, Bobby found a way to lead the Indians to victory. It was just that easy to love someone and want to please them, just that easy to take the pain yourself and let the other person go.

  I missed him so much, Bobby thought, watching the tall spare figure. He turned off the lights and climbed out of the cab. I can smell him from here. Then Bud was beside him and pulled him into his arms and the smell was right, cigarettes and horses and something that always seemed like the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “How you doing, Dad?” Bobby said. “How things going? So she made you get a house. You didn’t tell me. What if I’d written you a letter? It might not have ever gotten here.”

  “I can’t afford it. That’s for damn sure. Work’s scarcer than a chicken’s brain. What brings you home out the blue? Not that I’m not glad. I’m about sick of living with a woman and no man to talk to.”

  “I came home to see my girl. She’s coming here in a day or two. I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

  “Nothing stops that when it starts. You won’t get any arguments from me about the heart. I’ll just stand by to pick up the pieces. Is this the same girl that ripped you up a year ago? The little short stout one?”

  “Olivia. The only one I ever had. Don’t act like you don’t know her name.” Then they were laughing together and Bud had a suitcase and a duffel bag over his shoulder and they were starting down the path to the house, which was dark behind overgrown shrubs.

  “Sharrene better be up and finding something for you to eat. Damn. I sure was glad to hear your voice. I didn’t know I’d been missing you. The old trailer’s right over there by the drive. You can clean it up and move in tomorrow if you like. I was thinking about selling it. Damn, I’m glad you’re here.” They went into the living room and the old table they had made together out of railroad ties was by the sofa and Bobby leaned over it and read the things they had carved on it during several winters when he was ten and eleven and twelve. “It’s only a mountain, I can move it.” “Shit happens.” “No Cats.” Including a tic-tac-toe game that had taken place during a snow-covered Christmas when Sharrene got mad and it was just the two of them for four days while the snow fell. Bobby had won the games but he always thought Bud gave them to him.

  Chapter 14

  IT was Saturday night. At Jessie and King Mallison’s house on Webster Street in New Orleans, the grandparents were babysitting while the young people went to Tipitina’s to hear the Neville Brothers and hook up with Andria Brown, a half-black, half-Norwegian prima donna who was the niece of Crystal Weiss’s housekeeper, Traceleen. Jessie, Olivia, King, and Andria had spent the past summer together on the coast of Maine. Olivia and Andria had been privy to the secret romance between King and Jessie and the begetting of Kingman Theodore Mallison (K.T.), and they thought of themselves as participants in some great and tragic drama.

  Jessie, King, and Olivia made their way into the crowded noisy heat of the dance hall bar. “Way down yonder in New Orleans, in the land of the dreamy dreams,” Charles Neville was singing. “There’s a garden of Eden, that’s what I mean.”

  Andria emerged from a crowd of young people near the stage and pulled them to a table she had been saving. “God, I’m glad to see you,” she said. “How come you didn’t answer my letters, Olivia? You get them?”

  “I was having a terrible time. All I’ve been doing is trying to pass a goddamn physics class. We’ve got this teacher who’s a lunatic. He had a sex-change operation. I’m not kidding you. Besides, I knew I’d see you sooner or later when I got down here.”

  “Jessie said you were coming. How long can you stay?”

  “Just a day. I’m on my way to Tahlequah. I’ve got to see my folks.”

  “You getting laid?” Andria lowered her voice.

  “No. Are you?”

  “Hell, no. I wouldn’t let anyone stick a dick in me with all the stuff that’s going on down here. Everyone in Louisiana has AIDS. And every other goddamn thing. I’m trying to keep my scholarship. That’s all I care about. I got a job for the summer with a radio station downtown. An oldies station, but it’s pretty good money. All I have to do is announce the news and do a few ads.”

  “Quit telling secrets,” Jessie said. “When are you coming to see the baby, Andria? You haven’t seen him since he was born. He’s twice as big as he was then.”

  “I’m coming. He was big then. I thought he looked real good.”

  “Let’s dance,” King said. “We’ll turn into pumpkins in an hour.” He pulled Jessie up from the chair and led her out onto the crowded dance floor. The Nevilles were playing “Angola Bound,” a song that had been King’s favorite in the days when Tipitina’s belonged to him. It was at Tip’s that he had taken the famous twenty-seven hits of acid that had fixed his reputation as the wildest boy in uptown New Orleans. He led the equally mysterious Jessie out onto the dance floor and the crowd moved back to give them room.

  “They look like they’re doing okay,” Olivia said.

  “Aunt Traceleen said they’d all quit drinking, the whole family of them.”

  “Jessie never drank anyway. That time last summer was the only time I ever saw her drink anything. She hates it.”

  “Aunt Traceleen said King gave up all that shit. Of course, she always thinks the best of everyone. Look at them, you got to admit they look good together.” The two young women gazed out onto the dance floor. Jessie and King were twined around each other.

  “She’s devoting her life to him,” Olivia said. “Can you imagine that? She’s only nineteen years old. Give me a break.”

  “Fucking A. Still, they do look nice together. You’d never know they already have a baby.” The band had moved into an old Allen Toussaint song, “With you in mind, with you in mind.” King and Jessie were even closer now.

  “It disgusts me,” Olivia said. “You wouldn’t believe this house they’re living in. It’s so Yuppie it’s unbelievable. I guess Crystal gave them all that furniture.”

  “Boring,” Andria said, and sat up straighter. One of the younger Nevilles was heading
their way. “That’s Carter Neville. I went to school with him at NOCCA. He thinks he’s so cool. They almost never even let him play.” She wet her lips and gave him a profile. “So tell me about the University of North Carolina,” she said in a loud voice. “You haven’t told me about your classes.”

  Later, much, much later. Andria and Olivia and the young Neville and two of the Lewis triplets were sitting on Jessie’s porch talking politics. A quarter moon was sinking in the west. Stars moved in and out of vision in the dense, moisture-laden sky.

  “I should stay a few more days,” Olivia was saying. “I’ve hardly seen my nephew.” She leaned back and gazed up at the sky. She decided the Lewis boys were half in love with her already. “Why am I leaving this great city?”

  “Because you got that fortune cookie at the Chinese restaurant.” The dominant brother moved nearer to her on the porch.

  “‘You are on a mysterious journey,’” Olivia quoted. “‘The destination will soon become clear.’”

  “A computer writes them,” Andria said. “My Mass Com teacher said it’s just a bunch of bullshit.”

  Chapter 15

  THE next morning Olivia woke up in a small high-ceilinged room painted white and blue. Its windows looked out upon a garden with hollyhocks and gardenia bushes and morning glory vines upon a trellis. Along a fence were six azalea bushes in full bloom, red and pink and fuchsia. The windows were open. It had been cool when Olivia opened them at three in the morning. Now it was hot. Hot, hot, hot, hotter than hot. The languor and humidity of New Orleans had invaded Olivia’s soul as she slept. How will I ever drive all the way to Oklahoma? she wondered, and put her feet down upon the floor and began to think of coffee.

  She walked barefoot across the room and opened the door. She heard the baby making noises and followed the sound and found Jessie in the living room with the baby at her breast. “He is my gene-bearer,” Olivia announced. “I thought he was a bad idea, Jessie. I’ll admit that, but as soon as I saw him, I changed my mind. He’s really wonderful. He’s fabulous. How does that feel? Does it hurt to do it?”