by Jason Carney
Table of Contents
___________________
Dedication
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About Jason Carney
Copyright & Credits
About Kaylie Jones Books
About Akashic Books
This book is dedicated to:
LCC
OCC
SCC
ECC
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
—Walt Whitman
It was just one dusk in an eternity
of fireflies and casual cruelty.
—Phillip Brady
APRIL 2007
3:10 A.M. (00:05 BEFORE GRACE)
THE RED LIGHT TURNS GREEN. A surreal silence descends. I flick off the ignition and fixate on the body on the concrete. Only the smoke rising over this confusion seems peaceful in the aftermath. The debris field is a swirling cloud, a chaotic symphony gone silent like a pulse at the end of a phrase. The ease with which metal mangles is astounding. A one-car eruption that should have been two-car tragedy—I realize how close we came to a full-force impact.
He missed my car by inches!
I didn’t see this coming, despite the sense of doom I’ve felt on the horizon since my mother’s funeral. Every bad decision since I left the cemetery brought me to this moment. I don’t know what to do. I’m disoriented by this unreal reality.
This shit just really happened!
Old Fingernails and I, distracted by our own bullshit, stuck at the intersection. The wreck ran up our backside at eighty miles an hour, the automobile screaming past us. The lift of the front end as the car cartwheeled, the massive cloud of damage that would have consumed my life, if not for his last-second decision to veer.
How are we not dead?
Without thinking, I open the door.
“Get back in the car! Let’s go! Fuck that, dude!” Fingernails yells at me.
I sprint the forty feet to the body, my mind absent of the crack, the pipe, and the hooker with a purseful of dope in the front seat of my car. All my thoughts are of death. The feeling of impending disaster returns as I remember my mother’s corpse. I remember the softness of her hair, each strand flowing and fragile next to the stiffness of her face dolled up in a coffin.
How did I avoid this accident?
He is young, no more than twenty-five. Lanky and white, his body covered in black-and-white tattoos. A speed pipe’s bulbous end hangs out of his cutoff shorts’ pocket and one flip-flop sandal with a broken strap clings to the flesh between his toes. His eyes roll wildly, unsure if his head still connects to his body.
“Don’t move,” I say. “Stay very still, you’re all right.”
“White boy, get back here!” yells the hooker.
There is no blood on him, not even a drop. All his limbs are in apparent working order, his breathing does not sound obstructed. I shake my head in amazement.
How could you live through that shit? Something or someone is looking out for us.
“Thank you for not hitting me,” I say, retrieving the speed pipe from his pocket and tossing it to the ground. The glass shatters, camouflaged by the wreckage. “You’re a lucky bastard.”
“I’ve got 911!” a man yells from outside his truck across the street. “They just did a hit-and-run down at Peavey and Ferguson.”
I envision this asshole chasing after the other car, trying to play hero with a cell phone.
“Put your shirt under his head,” a voice in front of me instructs.
There is a woman standing on the sidewalk. I stare at her, wondering when she appeared. White with blond hair, she seems fit and well fed. Her skin brims with the healthy glow of a successful middle-aged life, her clothes pressed, her hair glossy. She does not belong around here. Without questioning her, I take off my orange T-shirt, ball it up, and place it under his head. Something sparks in his eyes as I cradle the back of his skull; a convulsion shakes his torso as if his lungs are underwater. Then a consciousness takes hold of him, faintly. His pupils enlarge and shrink as he struggles to focus.
“You’re okay, brother. You’re gonna be okay,” I say, slowly and clearly. “Stay down, brother, wait for the fire trucks.”
“The police are coming!” the man by the truck shouts. I turn to find the asshole already driving off.
I look to the woman on the sidewalk for further direction.
Where did she go?
The spot on the sidewalk where she stood fills with a small group of onlookers, filing out of the crack-shamble apartments and duplexes on the street behind us. Sleep and euphoria cloud their eyes.
“White boy, the police are coming, let’s go!” Fingernails yells.
The young man tries to rise up off the concrete. I position my hand over his chest.
“You got to stay down, your back might be messed up. Just stay down.”
There’s a tattoo on his left pectoral muscle; the delicate loops and bends of the letters scrawl the name Debbie.
That’s my mother’s name.
I am supposed to be here at this moment. But I don’t want to know this. I don’t want to face this. In a panic, I stand to return to my car and catch something out of the corner of my eye. It’s a figure hanging upside down in the wreckage. My gut lurches.
“My friend’s in the car,” the man on the ground says, relaxing his body against the glass and loose gravel of the roadway.
“Stay down!”
“White boy!”
The totality of the situation floods over me, the wrong place at the right time. This is the moment I saw on the horizon my whole drugged-out life. I am content in the knowledge that addiction ends in an accidental overdose. I see it clearly: either I jump off the cliff or step back from the edge. There is no last time as long as next time is the last. This moment of choice was never a car wreck. Not a near miss.
Heavenly Father . . .
The voice of my great-grandfather fills my head. There is a prayer dangling at the tip of my tongue, a plea to God that has not passed my lips since my mother’s death three months ago. A congested, complicated series of images flashes across my brain. The dark red velvet cushions of the pews in the chapel of our family church, the sweet fragrance of the wildflowers decorating its front. The drum I broke at four. The first time my father hit my mom. The Icees that came in miniature Major League Baseball batting helmets from the Stop-n-Go corner store. The face of Mrs. Williams who still runs the day care I attended. The family dinner we had after my baptism at Mamaw and Papaw’s house, a few blocks from this spot. The deep connection I hold with this neighborhood; both it and I caught up in the fantastic display of the wreck. The course of my days that brought me here, to this neighborhood, to this wreck, to myself, all three in shambles.
I look over at the upside-down car. A limb hangs out the window like a question mark. The reason I am still here among the wreckage.
. . . protect this man, ease his pain.
UNDER THE WATER
1976
THE WATER BITES MY LINGERING FEET at the top step. The bottom of the white choir robe, big enough for a large woman, floats out along the surface. A balloon halos around my body. I look like a jellyfish. The preacher, water up to his chest, stares out into the congregation, a forced smile on his face. He extends an arm, nods his head. My mind is still in the changing room, unsure if this is a good decision. The cold makes him impatient. Silence fills the sanctuary. My family is proud, occupying the first three rows, but I cannot see them from where I stand. I imagine the preacher is looking in their direction, wondering why their kin is not getting into the water.
I stare blankly at his robe. I see his chest hairs matted against his wet body. I am scared the congregation
will see through my robe, and notice I am not wearing underwear.
Why didn’t I bring a change of underwear?
I forget what my duties are in this situation, so I stand there waiting for him to tell me.
“We gather to bring another young lamb unto our Heavenly Father. In the name of His son, Jesus Christ,” the preacher speaks to the crowd.
I remember why I decided to do this thing in the first place. My father left when I was four, and after waiting two years for him to come back, having a new father sounded like a good idea. I am tired of waiting for my real father to show up. The idea of my mom finding a man to replace him makes me uneasy. Big Brothers and Sisters had two and half years to come up with a weekend buddy, but they were too overextended to help boys my age. A Heavenly Father is the best idea I came up with to fill the hole in my life.
Observant in Sunday school, I pay attention when the teacher speaks of our Heavenly Father and His constant presence in our lives. The whole thing sounds magical. Besides, I remember my family gave Craig gifts and a dinner party the day of his baptism.
I wonder what valuables I will obtain today.
“He’s a little nervous,” the preacher says to the congregation. Some quietly laugh in response.
“Amen,” Uncle J.C. and a few other deacons rumble from the back of the sanctuary, to quiet the crowd.
Again, the preacher flicks his hand in my direction. The wet cuff of his white robe makes the preacher appear to lumber under the weight. The liquid escapes the large armhole with a waterfall sound, as the holy drops plummet back into the baptismal tub. I lower myself another step. The water above my knee, I shiver from the cold. The robe expands and sinks as the water climbs up the cloth.
The preacher reaches out and grabs my hand. He pulls me down into the tub, almost slinging me across his body. The instant I am about to go under he reaches out and catches me with his other hand.
“Not yet,” he says under his breath. He holds me tight so I do not move.
The preacher speaks to the congregation about deliverance and eternity. He quotes Bible verses. His voice, drowned out by the thoughts in my head, sounds like the wish-wash syllables of the teacher in the Peanuts cartoon specials. Wha—wha-wah-wah.
Is my mom smiling?
Wah-wah-wha-wah-wah.
I hope we go to Bonanza or Western Sizzlin for dinner.
Wah-wah-wha-wah.
Can they see my peter through this robe?
I turn my head to look out at the congregation. I cannot see anything because the flowers lining the front of the baptismal area are too high. The preacher’s body is close to mine, which makes me uncomfortable. The fact that I do not have on underwear and no one in the congregation can see me makes me think bad things are going to happen. I do not trust him, but I do not know why. I hang on his arm, waiting to be reborn.
He is telling the story of John baptizing Jesus and how baptism by water is the only act of salvation. With submersion comes the promise of eternity. For the first time, I understand I am trying to escape myself and create something better than the world I have been given. This is my first attempt to escape my father, my mother, and the loneliness of my childhood. I want to be reborn, a new life in front of me, one without the pain and scars weighing me down. I am too young to have scars. I need a father to teach me how to grow up a proper man.
Air shoots out the neck of the satin garment as the preacher lowers me into the water, into the arms of my new Father. The water covers me, but I’m not ready. Before I grab my nose with my free arm, the water rushes up my sinuses. I flail, a spastic fool. My feet go out from underneath me. We lose our grip on one another, my top half sinks. My feet kick the surface, splashing water high in the air. He pulls me up. I choke and cough, expelling water from my nostrils and lungs. The struggle stirs frivolity through the congregation. I hear my family laughing.
POETRY BOOKS
1977
THE OTHER KIDS have already started to line up. The library erupts with a ruckus. The library is my favorite part of second grade. I am always the last one to leave. I sit at the table, fingers rubbing the words on the page as if the contours of the print were visible to my touch. The green hardback book has yellow leaves on the front cover; the tips of the corners bent, small wrinkles run along the edges of the spine. The white pages smell of rubber cement. Some are stuck together by orange juice or something sticky so I pull them apart carefully so as to not rip the pages. I’ve never read a book like this one.
For the first time, I notice the format of the text. The book not divided into chapters, rather by sections. Each section titled for a season of the year. Inside each section are subsections. These pertain to months or holidays situated inside that month or season. Each subsection includes several poems; long poems that take up a page, short poems, others have only a couple of lines. The words appear free on the pages. Some of the poems take the shape of the subject, like a pumpkin, the moon, or a tree.
Something entrances me about the sentences, and the short rhyming four-line stanzas flow together with a beautiful sound as I read aloud. I understand the meanings and get a more complete picture of the story when I speak the words as I read them. I like the way the consonants and vowels blend together and roll off my tongue. The short pieces remind me of Bible verses, yet in a language I comprehend.
“Let’s go, Jason,” the teacher says.
I have never read poetry. I found this book by chance, sitting on a cart in front of the librarian’s desk. The last thirty minutes blur. I am lost in excitement, a feeling runs through my body I do not understand. This book makes me feel alive. I now want to write poems.
“You missed the checkout time, put the book down. Get in the back of the line,” she says.
I will not.
One of the boys pushes another. As soon as she turns her back, I stuff the book into my bag. Adrenaline rushes through me. My first two attempts at thievery—a Milky Way at El Fenix, and a pack of Juicy Fruit at Sadler’s—I was not successful.
I want this book.
I study the faces of my classmates; none are looking at me. The librarian is not at her desk. The line of students files out past the teacher holding the door, eyes down the hall. I wait patiently next to my chair, book bag in my left hand. I do not think I am stealing the book. I tell myself I will return the copy in a few days.
I can’t wait to get home and read it.
WE GATHER ON SUNDAYS
1978
WE GATHER ON SUNDAYS in a small white-framed house. My great-grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw, improved their home over the years. Time overran their poverty with technological advances like central heat and air, a dishwasher, and a washing machine. These were unaffordable luxuries for my great-grandmother for many years, but hard work kept a faithful home and Mamaw never fractured.
Every effort she’s made in her life was from scratch. Ernest Morrison, my great-grandfather, shows his emotions only when it comes to my great-grandmother, Bill. She earned the nickname Bill as a child; the townsfolk knew her by her rough-and-tough exterior. Since the age of twenty, she has snorted only the finest French snuff, which she spits into a rusted Maxwell House coffee can.
The house holds four rooms, square and simple in construction. Every surface smells of Alzheimer’s and bacon fat. Bill grew old by fits of forgetfulness. The thin, ancient windowpanes bubble out in the heat and bow inward from the cold: they always portray a blemished reflection. Cobweb ghost towns hang in the deep corners of bedroom ceilings. These all remind me that old people live here—folks too tired to maintain appearances. Three-step concrete stoops descend from the front and the back doors, surrounded by honeysuckle bushes. The stoops double as lounge chairs for lazy-day conversations and shelves for perspiring glasses of sweet-tea lemonade when the men play horseshoes on the lawn. It is safe here.
By the time the family caravans out of the West Glen Baptist Church parking lot and down Ferguson Road, taking a right at the Piggly Wiggly onto L
akeland Drive, my great-grandmother is already at the house finishing Sunday supper. No one misses Sunday supper.
As the six-car parade travels down Lakeland, the large hill of the railroad crossing bends the road. It resembles a ramp Evel Knievel might launch off, over a tank of surefire death. My cousin Craig, age eight and a half, and I, age seven, hold our breath in the backseat as we pantomime rocket car explosions to our doom. He the youngest grandchild, I the oldest great-grandchild, we built our bond in the backyard and at Papaw’s sides at the table on Sundays. The cars pass Daytona, Diceman, and San Fernando Way. We slow for the downward dip of the turn onto Santa Clara.
The street is lush with vegetation, big pecan and oak trees create a canopy overhead. Front yards with junk-pile litter make the manicured lawns of Papaw and his immediate neighbors seem out of sorts among the uneven blocks of sidewalk, upended by roots strangled for space between the road and the walkway. Modest is an exaggeration for this home’s splendor. We pull into a driveway made of grass and two tire-track strips of stone.
“Y’all hurry! Supper is on the table!” Mamaw waves from the front door, the screen resting across her large bosom.
“Jase, come on now, son, help your grandma,” Papaw beckons from the porch. All of my aunts, uncles, and cousins scurry into the house for a good seat. Until I am fourteen, I never hear a sound other than laughter here.
“Heavenly Father . . .” Papaw’s prayer begins. There is seriousness in the humble language he uses, as if every breath carries fatal consequence. “Bless this home and those gathered in it. Thank You for the gifts that You have given us, the richness You have brought to us, the joy that lives inside us, and forgive us our shortcomings.” His prayers always end with mercy and grace for others. His God is a god of resurrection and Ernest knows about resurrection; he was born again, maybe more than once.
He eats hunched over his plate. The sideways dangle of the fork scooped with the fever of a boy who never knew if there was going to be another bite; each hurried shovel reveals a life of worry. Craig and I giggle. We kick each other’s legs under the table. Mamaw reaches out and pinches the back of my left arm. Her nails, filed arrowheads, clinch the smallest amount of flesh to cause the largest amount of pain. The thin and yellowed nail bites like a sharp knife across my finger.