The laugh grew louder and my stomach lighter.
What you laughing at? she asked, biting her lower lip, trying to keep a straight face.
You got so mad.
Ain’t shit funny out here, she said, stifling a chuckle. I’m serious, Daniel.
I’m saying though. I ain’t never seen you this mad before. I ain’t know your face got like that.
Like what?
I don’t know, I say. You was kind of cross-eyed. Ain’t never seen someone get cross-eyed mad before.
Aubrey slapped my arm.
Stop, she said. Stop it. This isn’t fair.
I kept laughing.
Man, your eye was damn near kissing your nose.
Stop it, she said, laughing now. A car honked behind us. She raised her middle finger to her rear window and we both cracked up.
I’m still mad at you, she said, driving down Palm Coast Parkway.
My fault.
Aubrey and Twig and Loudmouth and so many others made sure I got home safe that night, as they did on many others. Once I started getting good grades and posting fast times, my teammates sped me out of bad situations and started fights to protect me. They made sure I could get the scholarship to make it out. At first, I thought they did so because they wanted me to succeed. Then I thought they guarded me because they weren’t sure if they were going to get out of Palm Coast themselves. But if I escaped, we all did.
Remembering the nights my friends kept me safe, I worry that their loan was all for nothing, that I never repaid the debt I owed them, that I never got famous or rich. It’s debt that I feel as I finally reach down and feel something hard and cold under the seat. I pull it out by the peeled leather handle with both hands. The barrel is long and metal, pockmarked and tarnished. A Magnum. I let one hand go and its weight, heavier than I expect and distributed differently than I remember, turns my wrist. It’s been a long time since I’ve held a gun, since Twig stole his father’s handgun and we shot glass bottles in the woods. I pop open the cylinder. The bullets inside shine. Then I close it and look around. There’s no one else here. In the distance, police sirens flash blue and red atop a Dodge Charger. I duck and try to place the gun quickly but carefully, as though the slightest mistake will make it go off, back under the seat. Peeking just above the dashboard through the windshield, I see the cop swing around the curve on US-1 and disappear around the bend.
The fuck I need this for? I ask, turning to look at Loudmouth, who watches the passing train.
In case we get into any trouble.
What trouble you looking for?
Don’t act dumb.
I ain’t trying to shoot nobody and I ain’t trying to get shot.
And what you going to do if he flips on us and we all the way out here in Espanola? Loudmouth says. You going to let me get shot?
The boxy train covered in graffiti proceeds as we sit still. Its sound follows its weight. The last car leaves our sight. For a moment, the barrier sits still and its warning lights continue blinking. Beyond its thin post, a wind shuffles loose pebbles. Then the railroad barrier raises. The ringing of its alarm stops. It’s quiet. It will only get more so once Loudmouth presses on the gas and we head down that dirt road into Espanola, the town that arose years ago around Old Dixie Highway and then turned ghost when the interstate came in. After the people and the hotel left, it became a long unpaved stretch marked by the occasional farm, known now for the annual Cracker Day celebrations.
Shit done changed, Daniel. Ain’t no more fistfights. Everybody’s carrying now. So I need to know: You backing out?
His jaw shifts where he chews his cheek. His shoulders are raised and his arms are stiff. One hand holds the wheel tight. He is ready to keep going if I say the word. Knowing that Loudmouth will have my back again, years after my last fight, makes me nod slowly.
No, I say. I ain’t backing out.
Then we cross the tracks. If I’m going to find more answers about what happened to Aubrey, this is the road they’re on.
The Dead
Des turns off the music. On the pale dirt road, rocks kicked up by the tires sound like loose sand scuttling across a shore. We reach a slightly paved stretch, and the gravel clinks against the undercarriage. The car slides as we round a curve. In our rearview, a dust cloud hangs in the distance and then disappears.
Been a while since I been on a dirt road, I say.
Dirt roads and Confederate flags.
The thick forest to our right gives way to a clearing. Another field whose bright brown soil bears the marks of last season’s tilling. Strands of pale straw are scattered across this one, but the patches of bright-green weeds resemble those on the last. I don’t know how many fields we’ve crossed now. It feels like Palm Coast is miles behind us.
What’s the play? Des asks.
Knock on the front door.
Find out if he was fucking your girl.
I begin to say Aubrey wasn’t mine and she could sleep with whomever she wanted, but I refrain. Des might be right, but I don’t want to think about that. In our quiet, I estimate how long we’ve been driving. With the music off, there’s no record of time passing. We haven’t missed a turn. There are no turns to take. But I don’t remember the drive feeling this long. Did we take the wrong road in?
My mind slips to the picture of us. Viewed from the car window, we’re two dark boys. Stubble and whiskers collect on our faces, sullying our lineups. The forest beyond Des blurs into nondescript wilderness. Then, seen from above, our car drives alone down this unpaved road. The field on our right comes to an end. Thickly settled trees replace it. The car disappears beneath their canopy.
You sure this the right road? Des asks.
Pretty sure, but it’s been years since I been on it.
So long you forgot how to get there?
No, I say. Last time I came out here was senior year. Aubrey had to return something to Brandon. Fishing poles, I think. Came along for the ride. To tell the truth though, it’s hard to remember.
If you lost, just let me know.
Ain’t nobody lost, I say. It’s just what happened with me and her done happened so long ago I can’t tell if what I think happened is what happened.
Des rolls down the window and leans his arm out.
I keep remembering these jokes we told, he says, cracking on the bald-headed dude when we was out there picking up trash. But I don’t know if I said it or if she said it. Tell the truth, I can’t tell if anyone said it.
If you been thinking you said something for so long, you think that’s what happened. Maybe if she was here, she’d tell you something different.
You been telling the same story for so long, it start to feel true.
What Aubrey knew is gone. I can’t ask her about our memories or make up for any of the mistakes I made. Though I live my life by the belief that if I do wrong on Friday, I will repair it on Monday, next week will never come for Aubrey.
I think Mom and Grandma speak about the dead so much to keep the weeks going. They talk far more about Uncle Junior than his living sisters. They tell different stories about how Junior died.
According to Grandma, Uncle Junior befriended all the Jamaicans in high school. Teachers treated him and his friends poorly because they didn’t understand islanders. Frustrated, Uncle Junior and his friends dropped out. His friends needed money, so they started selling, but Uncle Junior never did. Jobless, he struggled to make ends meet. He started gambling. Hoping to settle his debts, he met his friends in an abandoned warehouse. They played Russian roulette. He lost. They ran. The police ruled it a suicide.
According to Mom, Uncle Junior ignored the law-abiding Jamaicans and ran with a bad crowd in high school. They all dropped out to deal. A few years after that, in the late ’80s, Mom got pregnant, moved out of Flatbush, and had my brother. Late one night, when my brother was still a baby, Uncle Junior banged on her door. Mom opened it a crack. Junior was covered in blood. Stab wounds pockmarked his shirt. He asked her
to let him in. Mom said she couldn’t endanger her child. Two days later, Uncle Junior was found in an abandoned warehouse with a bullet in his head.
I don’t think Mom ever told Grandma that Junior came to her that night. The pain of grieving and the fear that Grandma would blame her silenced Mom. When they do talk about him, they mostly catalogue what they don’t know about his passing: what the police found out in their investigation, who was there when he died, and why he didn’t reach out before things got bad.
Since Aubrey passed, I’ve thought a lot about all the things I can’t know about her because she was so secretive, in part because she broke laws and skipped school and in part because people talked about her too much. Rumors circulated about her temper, her home life, who she slept with. The lies I told about us made that worse. Now that she’s gone, I don’t know how to atone.
My brow tenses and my lips purse. The road curves and we slide with it. Around the bend, a large F-150 approaches, a rebel flag on its front plate. A brown cloud hangs behind it. Its headlights aren’t on, but they point at us. As we near, I see brown streaks scattered across its body. They’ve just been mudding.
Des pulls over, reaches under the seat, and places the gun on his lap. Then he rests his chin on the other hand and perches a finger on his upper lip. I consider reaching for the Magnum under my seat. Anxiety floods my stomach. I don’t know that I’ll be able to hold the gun still.
Des looks ahead, and I stare out the window. In my peripherals, I keep track of the slowly moving truck. There’s barely enough room to pass. Its mirrors near the car. They’re less than a foot away. I resist the urge to look at them. They drive by. I lean forward, place my elbows on my knees, and run my hands over my face. Des eases us forward. I turn on the radio. Static. I turn it off.
After an exhale, I say, You hear she moved up north?
Who’d you hear that from?
Jess.
Blond girl with the glasses? The one who sat with you and Aubrey at lunch?
Yeah. Called her after Aubrey died. Jess said Aubrey was getting her life together. Moved in with her grandma. Became a bartender or a waitress or something like that. Met a dude who worked construction. Got engaged. Quit drinking. Was trying to quit smoking. Wanted to buy a house.
Who’d have thought? Des says.
Not me. Definitely don’t sound like the Aubrey I know.
A dull pain begins throbbing in my right hip. I stretch my leg out, pull my knee back to me, and then repeat. An old track injury acting up, as it always does whenever I sit for too long. My leg bobs. I try to calm down, but I’m riled up. I picture myself throwing the door open and running out when Des slides to a stop at a paved, T-shaped intersection. Ahead lies the Espanola Fire Department. A single, shirtless man washes a fire truck. His hairless head shines in the sun. Black-ink tattoos cover his back. A faded bald eagle, stars dropping from its wings, words I can’t read. He turns around as we stop and looks at us. His eyes are cold blue.
Turn right, I say.
A thicket of trees and bushes lines the road. They rustle with unseen deer or armadillos or boar. As we drive, branches extend over the road. Spanish moss colored golden by the late daylight sways in a breeze, frays like rope. To our left, squat houses sit twenty feet back from the road on permanent foundations, though they look like trailers. Grass driveways extend from them. Underwear hangs from a clothesline at the last one. At its edge is an uncleared lot where a dog trots, stops, and turns to us. As we pass, it runs with us until we outpace it.
Pretty close now, I say.
Can’t believe you came out here to his house, Des says.
Ain’t know how far out it was at the time. This was before the brawl, so I ain’t really know him. He was just this dude who came through lunch sometimes when I was eating with Jess and Aubrey.
We leave the gathering of buildings and head into the woods again. The gravel road forks and we turn onto another dirt road. We pass an old, burned-down building, marked only by an exposed foundation, on top of which sit some cages. They look like they’ve been there for years, but I don’t know what for. I shudder. On our left lies another field of scattered dead straw. A lone tree stands in its center. I think I see a silhouette of a man sitting at its base, back against its bark, but I might be seeing things, mistaking windmills for dragons. Above, pink gathers in thick ruffled clouds, rolling in with the night. Soon we’ll be on this unlit dirt road in the dark.
Being this far out on a dirt road makes me wonder why I’m here at all. Mom says we came to Palm Coast because of my great-grandmother. I never met her—she died when I was still living in Jamaica—but after we moved to the States, Grandma told me what she remembered. She was a caramel-skinned, strong-jawed woman who left Jamaica and Grandma just after World War II to find work.
Most of Grandma’s stories were about their time together in Flatbush, where they reunited when Grandma moved to the States. Her mother helped her find work watching other people’s children. They shared an apartment, but, according to Grandma, they were so tired when they returned home that they said little and fell asleep early. They spoke most while they drank their coffee in the morning before work, when it was still dark. Sometimes, Grandma said she was too tired to go to work, to which her mother always responded, No wait till drum beat before you grind ax. Other times, Grandma complained about the way her employers treated her, and her mother always responded, Every day devil helps thief; one day God will help watchman. Whenever Grandma told me about their mornings, her eyes lit up and she seemed like a child again, passing on her parents’ explanations for the world like elementary-school kids at recess. She made me wish I had met my great-grandmother.
But Mom’s stories make it seem like I was better off not having known her. According to Mom, she was a mean, stubborn old woman who disliked her children and her grandchildren. She made Grandma pay most of the rent on their one-bedroom apartment in Flatbush. After Grandma’s mom retired in the ’80s, she spent all day watching soap operas and every evening berating Grandma. Then, one afternoon, when Grandma’s mom was watching Days of Our Lives, she saw an advertisement starring Erik Estrada. He stood on the deck of a boat bobbing in the Intracoastal. His unbuttoned shirt billowed in the wind. Water gleamed on his hairy chest. He spoke about the weather and the real-estate prices in Palm Coast. That night, Grandma’s mom told Grandma she had to move there. Grandma borrowed money from her daughters to put a down payment on a house. Grandma’s mom moved to Florida alone.
According to Mom, Grandma’s mom fell ill in the early ’90s, so Grandma moved down to take care of her. There was only one bed; Grandma slept on the sofa. After some months, Mom flew from Jamaica to visit them, leaving me and Junior with my father. That Sunday, at church, she overheard Grandma’s mom tell the dark-skinned Jamaican women that Grandma was her Coolie helper.
I have overheard my family argue about the kind of woman my great-grandmother was—nice or mean, racist or a product of her circumstances—so much that I learned not to trust anyone’s remembrances of the dead. I certainly don’t trust my memories of Aubrey or my motivations for being here.
I squint to see what lies in the distance and then look over both shoulders to see what’s behind us. The road is clear on all fronts and the woods are beginning to look familiar, but who can tell the difference between one patch of forest and the next? Then, just ahead, on the clay-colored road, there is a small opening in the woods. Clay-colored dirt in the shape of two wheels marks a path. Pale-green grass shoots up from the driveway made by tires.
That’s it on the left, I say.
You sure?
Positive.
Des slows at what looks like a snake. The wind stirs and it floats.
Just the skin, I say, wondering if it’s from a rattlesnake. Des continues driving as trees crowd the road. The open fields feel long gone. The sky is hard to see through the canopy.
Nigga, where are you taking me?
Des stops. He looks around. Then he tur
ns left. The woods continue on both sides. The bark shines golden, and the leaves and the grass a bright green. They look untouched, as if they have shone this color for many sunsets before, as if the animals live in homes long settled. Brandon has walked through these woods with a gun, I am sure, hunting them.
After a half a minute, the driveway branches out and we approach a square wood house, raised from the ground by a wood foundation. It’s small, maybe three rooms. I wonder if it was built by hand or if they somehow got a truck down these roads.
The building is paler than it was when I came out here with Aubrey, just after Jess and Brandon had broken up. She asked me to stay in the car and met Brandon on his porch. She said something and tried to hand him the poles, but he didn’t take them. Then she dropped them on the ground. He yelled. She yelled back. While his voice was still raised, Aubrey turned around, rushed back into the car, and slammed the door behind her. Tears collected small dots of mascara at the corners of her eyes as she turned the engine on. Her hair was slipping out of her ponytail and into her face as she drove out. I asked if she wanted to talk. She didn’t say anything. We were silent until we reached US-1, and I spent the whole drive wondering what she said to Brandon, the boy who became the man sitting there today on the porch in the shadow of the sunset.
That’s him, I say.
Des parks the car on the side of the yard and gets out. His shorts sag on the left, his gun weighing him down. I leave mine under the seat, feeling a little foolish for coming out here and even more so for letting Des almost talk me into carrying his Magnum. Nothing’s going to happen; Des’s just being paranoid. Then again, we are out here on a dirt road in what might be a sundown town. Maybe we should turn around, leave well enough alone.
Before I can make a decision either way, Des starts walking toward the house. I get out of the car. Brush rustles all around us, some unseen animal stirring it. Maybe it’s just the wind picked up by ears perked for something dangerous. Aside from the rustles, it’s quiet. The day is cool but the air is thick with the scent of soil. Somehow, I feel much farther from home, though we have only driven thirty feet off the main road.
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