Neither man spoke for a bit. Each regarded the creature that was Bubba Ray with grim detachment. Mickey Moe broke first: Let’s take a little walk together. There’re a few matters transpired hereabouts I feel you should know. But the rest of the family doesn’t have to bear witness.
They strolled along the riverbank in silence until they were well out of earshot of the others.
You’d be surprised what confidences people tell their insurance agent, Mickey Moe said, both before and after tsouris strikes. I don’t want to sound proud, but your family would be in very dire straits if I hadn’t convinced your daddy to take out that disability policy not six month before he got hurt. He didn’t want to, you know. He didn’t think he could afford it. He was concerned about your college tuition and ol’ Bubba Ray. Why, he’s never spent a day of that boy’s life he wasn’t worried about his future. And I confess, those premiums were high. But I told him he couldn’t afford not to make sure you all were covered if disaster came ‘round. And come ‘round it did, didn’t it, Jackson?
Yes.
Yes, indeed it did. Your mama was very, very grateful to me after the fact. She confided in me. Oh, the talks we’d have sittin’ outside your daddy’s room over to the burn unit. She said she wasn’t sure where it came from, but you and Bubba Ray were sworn enemies, couldn’t hardly bear to be in the same room. She felt it had somethin’ to do with your bein’ complete opposites at first, but it grew so strong over the last few years she thought there might be some dark secret at bottom, jealousies as dark as Cain felt toward Abel. She tried to see if I knew what the secret was but hell if I know, I said, every time she asked, hell if I know. Anyway, she feels caught in a trap between you. She knows it’s the Sassaport way to treat your children equally, no matter what, but she feels you can take care of yourself and she’ll need to watch over Bubba Ray the rest of her natural life. To tell the truth, that’s my feelin’ as to why she spoiled the decency out of that boy and left him, well, what he is. And that’s why her life insurance policy has his name on it, not yours.
Mickey Moe halted, stood back, and looked his cousin in the eye, waiting for a reaction. All he got was a shrug. This is the way Jackson looked at it: Bubba Ray was the son who stayed home after Daddy got hurt and he the son who went back to college. No matter that it was Mama herself who insisted on her elder son’s swift return to Yale in those difficult and complicated days, principally because he was annoying the authorities with his version of events, or that Bubba Ray was just a kid with no place to go. She hadn’t had to push that hard. He was eager to flee. For that reason, Jackson considered his departure a filial betrayal, one that hung over his head like the sword of Damocles. He’d spent not a few restless nights wondering what future price he’d have to pay. If the only price were his birthright, a mother’s devotion to her firstborn, he’d got off easy. He’d paid it already, the very day Bubba Ray came into the world. News of the policy’s beneficiary didn’t hurt him, didn’t faze him in the least. Mama was right. He could support himself. Who knew about his brother? If character was fate, that child looked destined for the gutter.
I don’t care, Mickey Moe. It’s alright.
Well, there’s more, son.
Tell me.
She puts cash money aside for Bubba Ray’s future, too. You won’t need it, she says. He will. But I’m here to tell you, that boy can take care of himself.
Can and will are two different things, Mickey Moe. He’s a block of sheer laziness. I’m not sure there’s a cure.
Your mama thinks he stopped goin’ to school because it tires him out, frail as he is, takin’ care of your daddy and otherwise helpin’ her out to home. Mind you, every doctor ever examined that boy for his health insurance claims he’s strong as an ox. That seizure he had back when? A whaddayacallit. An anomaly. That’s what the doctors work for Sassaport Insurance say. No. He dropped out of school so’s he could spend most of his time in the village. People say he has a sweetheart there, but I have it on the best authority that’s not it at all. He deals stolen goods. Young as he is—near sixteen, seventeen I believe?—he got a whole gang workin’ for him. Did you know that, Jackson? That car he drives your daddy around in has a trunk stuffed with other people’s stereos and fur jackets and watches and whatnot. That’s what I heard. Yessir. His boys steal in Jackson what he sells in Hattiesburg. That’s what I heard. Lord knows what your mama thinks he does when he’s not to home. My guess is she turns a blind eye. The thing of it is, you need to take care of this situation. Before it blows up on all of them.
Jackson was at a loss how he could manage that. He opened his palms to heaven, lifted his gaze, his shoulders. What can I do? his posture asked. What exactly can I do?
You can take Bubba Ray aside and reason with him. Point out the danger he’s puttin’ your mama and daddy in.
I don’t believe he’d listen to me. He couldn’t care less what I have to say.
He needs whuppin’, is what he needs.
Though unsure whether Mickey Moe was sincere or simply employing a common expression, Jackson considered then rejected the idea of corporeal correction. For a very long time now, he’d struggled against a powerful urge to do just that. If he ever came to blows with his brother, he wasn’t sure he could stop before the boy was dead.
Maybe I should drop a dime on him, Jackson said.
Mickey Moe pursed his lips and looked away, embarrassed for his cousin that he’d clearly forgotten a core proscription of the family coda, one dating back to the days when the Savannah branch was fresh off the boat, when the law of the land was applied willy-nilly by the redcoats in command and rarely in the favor of ladino-speaking immigrants.
Sassaports don’t turn in Sassaports, he reminded.
Then I am in a quandary.
The two men walked a dozen or more paces without a word between them until Mickey Moe had an idea: Why don’t we collect a dozen or so of the boys and have us a little midnight cousins’ party out in the backwoods with Bubba Ray the guest of honor, he said. Perhaps he’d find the weight of our number more intimidatin’ than singular argument.
What do you mean “intimidating”?
The look in Jackson’s eyes was read by Mickey Moe for what it was.
Come on, you know, bear down upon him. I’m not advocatin’ actual bloodshed. Although Bubba Ray doesn’t have to know that. Now, if he starts somethin’, that’s another story and shoot, I could use the practice....
Mickey Moe drained his drink and for emphasis heaved the heavy jar against a rock a few feet away from the riverbank where it shattered in a fine spray of glass.
Never one to miss a subtext, Jackson asked: What are you talking about? and Mickey Moe told him the news he’d got last week, the news he was getting used to little by little, the news he’d still not had the courage to tell his bride, Laura Anne: he’d been drafted. Three more months to go before his twenty-seventh birthday and he’d been drafted.
I don’t know what all’s goin’ on with the draft board, Mickey Moe said. I thought I was free and clear. There’s been some pressure over to the State House from those Yankee lawyers, I do know that, pressure to start drafting a few more white boys and a few less Negroes. I guess the Citizens Council decided alright then, we’ll start in with them agitators’ brother Jews. As I am a Sassaport, a family currently in disrepute, I imagine I was chosen as vanguard for the rest of you all....
Jackson did not know what to say. Mickey Moe did what he called his Elvis. He threw his head back and with it the long forelock that normally graced his brow, pulled out the cigarette stored behind his ear, lit it, and smiled.
I do not mind serving my country. I truly don’t. It’s an honor, a privilege. I’m proud to follow in my daddy’s footsteps. And I’m not concerned about a little police action in Vietnam. There’s hardly three Americans in a row over there, and that’s how things’ll stay, no matter what you read in the newspapers. Maybe I’ll wind up someplace interesting. Like Italy or Japan. It’s ju
st the leavin’ of the farm and Laura Anne. I haven’t had ’em long enough to get tired of either one.
He gave Jackson a crooked smile.
I wish I could ask you to look after them while I’m off to trainin’ and whatnot. You’re my favorite, you know, of all the cousins. But you’ll be up north a while longer, I suppose, so I guess I’ll have to stick it on Tom-Tom’s boy, Rodney. He’s alright.
Yes, he is, Jackson said and, rendered speechless by all the news his cousin had dropped on his head like an iron skillet from three stories, he clapped Mickey Moe to his chest for a long manly hug. Mickey Moe disentangled himself when it went on a little longer than either of them knew how to handle, blushing scarlet. Lord, but we wandered pretty far from the homestead, didn’t we? he said. We better get back before the others send a search party. When they were halfway there, he added: I’ll take some of the boys aside and tell them about tonight. Jackson had no idea what he was talking about.
Tonight?
Yessir. Tonight. Midnight? Bubba Ray? We did settle on that, didn’t we?
I suppose we did.
The rest of the afternoon went pretty well. Stella looked to be having a grand old time and an impressive number of his relations came forward to congratulate Jackson on finding her. Over and over, Sassaport men and women came up to him and pronounced: Why, she’s not like a Yankee at all, in some ways.... This was high praise any day of the week in the spring of 1964 in Guilford, Mississippi. From across an expanse of picnic tables, he watched his daddy and mama proudly hold forth to the elders of the verandah on the subject of the beauty and qualities of character of their future daughter-in-law. This was made obvious to him by their gestures, doting smiles, and happy, bobbing heads after they sent her into the throng of blood to fetch them this dainty or that drink and she bounded away willingly, gracefully to do their bidding. On her account anyway, Jackson relaxed.
Evening came and the older generation, including Dr. and Missy Fine Sassaport along with Bubba Ray, went home, leaving the young people to their own peculiar amusements. Then the women with children to put to bed left while their men, in Sassaport fashion, saw to themselves. By this time, Jackson’d had more to drink than he’d had in his entire college life put together, or at least he felt like it. When Mickey Moe came over to him and said: You know, son, you need to get the fair lady here home so we can be about our business, Jackson had no memory of what that business was, or perhaps he was reluctant to acknowledge he’d a job to do—an ugly job at that, a job that if he’d been home the last number of years instead of hiding out up north, he might have done a whole lot earlier and saved himself and his band of cousins a pot full of trouble. It dawned on him slowly what Mickey Moe was about and when it did, when he stood in the full light of revelation, he had a request that came to him either out of second sight or from the bottom of a bottle, there was no telling which, he only knew it was a brainstorm of sorts. He said: You mind if Stella stays here, tonight, Mickey Moe? Then I won’t have to explain to Mama or Daddy why I’m droppin’ her off and headin’ out again quick. In case they’re up. Mickey Moe agreed and got Stella and Laura Anne together fast so that the men could be off to their midnight rendezvous in the backwoods a good half hour ahead of time to rehearse their methods and objectives.
Sitting next to Mickey Moe in his pickup, Jackson asked: What kind of reason did you give Bubba Ray for meeting him out here in the middle of the night?
I told him I had a load of goods I needed to offload. He was shocked, don’t you know. First, that I knew his sideline. Second, that I might require his services. There was suspicion in his eyes, but I am a salesman. I know people, son. Greed is what makes that boy tick. I gave him what he needed to override suspicion on account of greed.
Jackson twisted around in his seat to see how the cousins in the bed of the truck were doing. All eight of them were down-home drunk, passing a bottle and shrieking like women when they bounced over the deep ruts and fallen branches of the dirt roads Mickey Moe plowed along as if his haul were tied-down bricks rather than flesh and blood.
And how do you know he’ll come alone? What if he brings his own boys?
Aha! Great minds think alike. I told him I ripped them offa some Negro folks. He won’t bring that gang of his if there’s even a hair of a chance they might recognize some of the goods.
They came to a certain hollow known in the town as a lovers’ lane for teenagers, but it was close to midnight and the place usually cleared out by eleven Saturday nights since kids were universally expected to get up early for church on Sunday in those days. That Saturday was no different. They pulled into a deserted clearing. Mickey Moe stopped the truck and everyone got out. Right away, Cousin Floyd yelped. Stepped in a damn pile of condoms, he said. He lifted his foot and maybe five of the things dangled from his sole. Dang, that’s nasty, he said, wagging his foot around, but they wouldn’t drop. Dang, he said after one of the others suggested he scrape it against a rock and he did so, muttering his disgust into the night. The others elbowed one another and laughed and staggered about on tippy-toes in case similar mounds lay around, casting shadows under the full moon and Mickey Moe’s headlights in the shape of dancing bears or rearing deer according to their individual height and heft. How’d they get all in a pile like that? Floyd asked his brethren. What kinda horse makes a pile like that? Mickey Moe reached through his truck window to blast the horn. That put a stop to it all. The cousins gathered into a cluster at solemn, weaving attention.
I think you all should lay low by the treeline until Bubba Ray gets here. You too, Jackson. Let him think he’s meetin’ me all alone, or he might turn and run when he sees what’s up. Now, when he gets here, let him get out of his vehicle and approach me. Let him get good and close. Then you all can step out and make a circle around us. Let’s say five feet away. And while I’m talkin’ to him, I want Jackson to come forward and join me at the center and the rest of you all, all you all can keep comin’ in until Bubba Ray breaks a sweat. How’s that?
The men faded into the shadows of brush and tree, Jackson making himself scarce at the position nearest Mickey Moe’s truck so he could pop out easy when the time came. It’d been a long day on top of a longer one the day before. Two days in a row, he’d drunk more, ate more than he was used to. Whenever he let images from the morning come to him, anxieties about his father’s mental state bothered him the way a swarm of gnats bother the nostrils, in a tickling wave of crushing annoyance. So he shut his eyes, held his breath, blew out, and when that failed, he behaved much as the rest of the Sassaport men hiding in the woods—that is, he gave up trying to make sense of anything swirling about his consciousness. After about three minutes, he fell asleep.
Headlights and the slow crunch of gravel and dirt underneath tires woke him. He blinked, wiped the drool from his mouth and chin. His daddy’s car appeared out of the darkness, rolling slowly past him, high beams alight. It stopped in front of Mickey Moe’s vehicle. Bubba Ray got out and stood so close to Jackson that when he hitched up his pants and spat, the spittle landed not six inches from his feet. His heart pounding, Jackson jumped out of the bush ahead of his cousin’s signal, startling his brother into making a rapid half-turn back to his car but by then the other cousins had followed suit and he was surrounded. What the hell is this, Bubba Ray wanted to know, and Mickey Moe as eldest took the lead in explaining reality to him. You, Bubba Ray, he said, are a criminal, endangering the life and liberty of your disabled daddy and dependant mama. We all are here to let you know we’re wise to you, son, and you’d better change your ways or else.
While he spoke, the Sassaport men edged in close ‘til Bubba Ray could feel their breath on his neck.
He looked a little afraid, but not much. He swallowed hard, curled his lip, looked Mickey Moe in the eye, and said: Or else what? You all going to finish the job my brother here started a few years back when I was just a big overgrown baby and he cracked my head open? Gave me the seizures and ruined my health? You a
ll gonna kill me?
About to further lay down the law to Bubba Ray, Mickey Moe opened his mouth but no sound came out as it took a second or two to process what he’d just heard. It didn’t make sense. When had Jackson ever been violent? What was the kid talking about? And then Bubba Ray smiled, thinking he’d won whatever battle it was he’d walked into unawares, which just about infuriated Jackson, who’d been twice as stunned as Mickey Moe by his little speech and just as immobile only in his case with fear that Katherine Marie’s secret was going to drop out of that vile mouth next. When Bubba Ray’s smirk crept out, that last straw of a nasty smile, Jackson lurched forward with his hands stretched out as if to strangle him.
A heartbeat after his fingers gripped his brother’s pulsing flesh—and Lord, it felt good, that fleeting grasp of pulpy, beating, warm, soft neck—the cousins pounced on both of them and pulled them apart. Mickey Moe got in the middle and spread out his arms.
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