Welcome to Braggsville

by T. Geronimo Johnson

  Chapter Seventeen

  A relationship is like a road trip: You get bugs splattered on the windshield. By the time you see them, it’s too late, but you still keep going. It’s like starting out on patrol: once you strap on the battle rattle and mount up, you ride until it’s tits up, Daron’s father often said. Under Daron’s mother’s scowl, he would then bluster through an explanation of—and cobble together a synonym for—Tango Uniform, in other words, Tits Up, in other words, Toes Up, in other words, On Its Back, in other words, You stay in the transport unless absolutely necessary to leave, and even then you seek nearby cover and concentrate on protecting your squadmates in the vehicle. But after his mom left, he would say, Son, ride till it’s tits up and you’ll do all right.

  He’d first offered this wisdom after the Davenports once again made the long September school shopping trip to and from the outlet mall in aggressive silence. He’d gassed the shocks on the driveway curb, and terminated the journey not with his usual request—Permission to dock, Commander—which D’aron always granted, but instead ended with the strained plastic ratcheting of the emergency brake. On that trip, D’aron realized what he’d long suspected: He was the source of his father’s stress, as was the another-one his mother was apparently crazy to even mention. What he’d done wrong D’aron could not say, and it was years before he understood that, A credit card is not the same as money, or, Women work all the time now, or, A part-time job can’t carry a full-time life. Until those ragged perceptions coalesced into a nameable fear, the uncertainty kept D’aron in the car at every rest stop, afraid to be left behind—with the another-one his mother was apparently crazy to even mention. (The only thing missing on those trips, he once joked while possessed by alien technology, was the wet throstle sound of the compressor pumping its Freon-filled, single-chambered heart.)

  That deepest of fears, being left behind, even amplified as it had been in the mind of his child self—aka Little Mays—took new form on the return drive from the hospital morgue to Sheriff’s and Sheriff’s to the house, a journey during which neither the Davenports nor Daron’s friends even cut eyes at each other, scanning their respective sides of the road like grunts on security detail. Except Daron, again riding bitch, had no place to look except down, or at the backs of his parents’ heads, or at the gearshift, where his mother’s satiny hand lay draped over his father’s own fine diamond wrinkles, a reminder it was not their quarrel. They’d spoken only when necessary—not at all—angling over knees and elbows to retrieve ultimately unneeded items from the glove box, center console, seat pocket. Candice shrunk herself into the corner, as did Charlie, only their legs touched, and even that felt a reluctant concession to a need Daron couldn’t name, a need that nettled his chest as it desperately uncoiled, a need that also shamed them into contracting, shamed them into withdrawing that contact when they passed Lou’s and Candice gasped, or when the wire-haired pizza delivery driver pulled abreast of them on Main Street, or when they turned the corner where Louis had made the bingo wings comment on the way home from Lou’s—only yesterday!—a comment that Daron at last understood, watching Miss Ursula tax her rickety aluminum glider, hands interlaced behind her head like a stoic coach, the sagging skin under her triceps wavering like a bag of goldfish, but offering no wave. His mind flitted between Louis, mostly the first day they had met, how long it had taken to crack code word Lenny Bruce Lee, and his father, whom he expected to strike him at any moment. His father, though, was acting strange, tres bizarre: each time he caught Daron’s eye in the rearview mirror, he looked away, which he never did, but not before registering a certain surprise and relief—was it?—to see Daron still there.

  Once more Mary Jo, Bobby, Kevin, Dennis, Raymond, Lucille, Frankie, Coddles, Lyle, John, Andy, Miss Ursula, Jim, Lonnie, Postmaster Jones, William, Travis, Todd, Tony, Dennis M. . . . On the ride home from Sheriff’s office, everyone was again on porches or at windows. Daron didn’t call out their names this time, and this time no one waved. Where do the black people live? In the front yards! It was funny. (I guess that’s better than the back of the bus, Louis had later added. Daron had thought that funny, too.) Louis’s absence was always noticeable. Though skinny, he’d filled space like a fat man on a crowded elevator, except a welcome addition, not someone who provoked strangers to regard each other with situational solidarity. He had, in fact, induced people to regard each other with suspicion, to question the known. Louis would have made this funny—no, not funny but comic, and in doing so would have made it real, would have made it possible to express what they felt—aloud. When anxiety threatened to smother them, when the 4 Little Indians had nearly succumbed to the block and tackle of cluck and cackle in the entry line at Six Flags, Louis spurred them on, and relieved the tension of waiting forty-five minutes to enter the park (just to wait what they knew would be another fifty-five to ride Medusa) by interviewing Mary-Kate and Ashley, the honorifics he’d bestowed upon Candice’s prosthetic protestants.

  As soon as his father eased up the driveway, Candice was out of the car and limping toward the house. Charlie, always more patient and self-controlled, waited for the car to come to a complete stop and called after her, carrying her crutches. Before Daron could chase after them, both his father and mother twisted around to face him. In the space between their heads, he could see Charlie helping Candice into the house; he could only watch as Candice shambled along with one hand on a crutch and the other on Charlie’s shoulder, only watch as she took slow steps steadied by Charlie’s arm around her waist, only watch as Charlie’s fingers grazed that slice of honeydew between her belt and her shirt. He wanted to be the one to help her.

  It’s a terrible thing that’s happened, son. It’s terrible to lose your friend like that. It wasn’t a good idea, either. It was dumb as shitting on your own shoe, to be sure, but that’s for later.

  I know you must feel terrible, baby. His mother’s face, like his father’s, was a mixture of grief and something else—relief?—two looks that stung his cheeks and fell Daron ill, queasy, as had the smell in the coroner’s office, as had the smell of bacon in the kitchen that morning. It opened a space in him that he didn’t want to explore, so he continued scooting toward the car door.

  What we need you to understand today—his father reached into the backseat to take a good handful of Daron’s jaw and swung it to face him—what you have to know is that you are alive and you need to keep on trucking, and you couldn’t have saved him. Maybe if you woulda went along to Old Man Donner’s things woulda gone differently because people would recognize you, but maybe not. And unless you plan to be everywhere for everybody, you can’t save everyone. That’s the first thing you learn under fire. And you are fixing to be under fire, son. Stay strong. Don’t give me that look. I know what you’re feeling, D’aron. I know it too well. That’s why I was glad when you went to school. Got it?

  Daron nodded, Yes, sir, and followed after his friends. When only a few feet from the car, he slipped in mud slick as oil where one of The Charlies had once stood and landed with his feet in the air. Hobbling through the front door, he found that inside felt like those afternoons when his parents fought in silence, everyone dispersed through the house like rival gangs, each spraying their territory not with graffiti, but with music. Tool on the living room stereo. Dixie Chicks on the under-cabinet receiver. Their dialogue a call-and-response of banging doors, slamming cabinets; stomping feet, scraping chairs; drill and vacuum. Today everyone wore headphones, but Daron knew Charlie was looping There for You by Flyleaf and Candice was listening to Cute Without the E on repeat. Candice vanished in the direction of Daron’s bedroom. Charlie went outside. Daron sat in the kitchen scrolling through pictures of Louis on his phone until it was unbearable. Then forced himself to start over again.

  In between, he watched the activity in the backyard. He focused only on what he could see through one vinyl mullion, as if confining perception meant controlling emotion. He couldn’t see where Candice had climbed the
fence, or where Louis had delivered his routine. He could see the six-pillared gazebo, built of wood, not the more durable synthetic lumber because, The doctor’s office and schools are the only places to sit on plastic. Charlie was drinking a glass of boxed wine with his mother, who had sparked the grill. She hoped it didn’t seem festive, but, he heard her say, People still have to eat, and it just doesn’t feel like a night for cooking. When she’d poured the wine, she and Charlie had held it to the sky like connoisseurs, and it occurred to Daron that his mom might be joking, but Charlie probably did know a thing or three about wine. His mother gave a sweet wave in the direction of the house. Daron returned the gesture, and was disappointed when his response didn’t spark an enthusiastic uptick in his mom’s flutter. The back door slammed, and he understood that she had not been waving to him. He expected to see Candice, but it was his father’s legs stamping grass across the yard.

  The three—Charlie and his parents—sat like friends, like three old friends at a wake, his mother running her fingernails along his father’s jeans seam, Charlie across from them, where Daron usually sat, shielding his eyes from the sun whenever he tilted in to hear Daron’s mother. They looked to be giving advice. Each time they spoke, Charlie leaned in, listened silently, sat back and bowed his head with understanding, two fingers anchoring the foot of his wineglass to the table.

  When his parents fought, after a half hour to an hour of baking, tinkering, adjusting hinges, and other cacophonous domestic penitence, they would reconvene in the bedroom (Bang! Click! Listen up!), and start all over: muffled exclamations, roars, yellow bawling, silence. Next, rhythmic quaking pulsed optimistically, eagerly into shameless and squeaky clamor, followed by giddy, barefoot reemergence (and cigarette smoking). That was the enigma: argument fired hearts into crucibles of flesh. That was the mystery that drew Daron into the shadowed hall and kept him there watching Candice, kept him standing there even after working up the nerve to talk, even after taking several mental dry runs, even after he heard her shuffling toward the hall and he saw Charlie loping toward the house, even after he knew he had to talk to her before Charlie did, to have it out with her before Charlie did, even after he felt certain that having it out was part of adulthood, having it out strengthened bonds, having it out was his performative intervention. He was glad it was Sheriff who’d contacted the Changs. He couldn’t even start this conversation.

  From his bedroom doorway he watched her work. Half of Louis’s stuff was still strewn across the corner he had claimed as his own, the other half across Charlie’s corner. Candice was trying to clean it up. Her foot propped on Daron’s chair, she sat perched on the edge of the bed, turned three-quarters away from him, the soft line of her cheek and bend of her breast wavering in and out of visibility as she worked. At the hospital they had outfitted her with a fracture boot for her right foot, and with her sweats and tank top and faint tan, she resembled a skier reluctant to disrobe. So meticulous. Socks she sausaged like everyone else, but T-shirts she folded and stacked like a factory worker. She laid each one out on the bed, smoothed it gently, tucked the arms in first, then the collar, then the bottom, and flipped it over so the logo was framed in the center and no seams were visible. Louis’s DonkeyPunchLove shirt was thrown over the bed. Another one read, MY MOM WORKS AT WALMART, SO ALL I GET FOR XMAS IS THIS T-SHIRT, AGAIN. After folding each garment, she straightened and drew in her chin as if admiring her handiwork, patting each one like baby clothes.

  Charlie’s shadow plunged into the hallway. Not now, Charlie.

  Not now what?

  I need the bedroom.

  I’m going to the bathroom. He paused, obviously expecting Daron to explain himself, but wore so exasperated an expression as to appear wary of the same. When Daron said nothing, he walked on with a loud sigh.

  Okay. Daron slammed the door behind him. Locked it. Yelled.

  (Bang! Click! Listen up!)

  This isn’t time to clean.

  This isn’t time to barbecue, either. Candice didn’t bother turning to look at him.

  At every funeral or wake he could remember there was a grill burning, and it had never occurred to him as strange until today. After a moment’s thought, still didn’t. Daron snatched the shirt from her hand. She snatched it back.

  You can’t fix this. You can’t fix this. Not even you.

  How about you tell me something I don’t know. How about we let his stuff lie all around and get stepped on and messed up? That’s your plan? What’s happened isn’t enough? Your mom shouldn’t have to do it. Or are you going to fix it with a gun? The hillbilly cure?

  Fuck you.

  She turned to face him fully, to stare her challenge. Her lids were raw, but her face was swept smooth by grief, giving her a dignity. Her fingernails were chocked with black crescents of shoe polish. Do you mean You? Or You People?

  The thing about women, his father always said, is that what they say they’re upset about is never what they are really upset about.

  Just get out.

  You get out.

  It’s my room, and my house.

  That’s why you should leave. She turned back to her work, facing fully away from him.

  Daron said nothing.

  I know they let you see him.

  Daron said nothing. She peeked back at him while saying it, as if to see if he would tell the truth.

  Who identified him?

  Daron said nothing.

  Candice clutched the shirt she held to her stomach. Charlie told me. I know you saw him. They wouldn’t let me see him. And they were the same people who took him. Her voice rose at the end.

  What do you mean?

  The soldiers who took him and the deputies who said I couldn’t see him are the same people.

  Everyone in town is part of the reenactment.

  I know.

  So you know it’s just what they do.

  They wouldn’t let me see him, she screamed, burying her face in the shirt.

  As much as he wanted to go to her, he seethed at the implication that Sheriff or the deputies had somehow caused Louis’s death, enraged because it was an absurd notion, a mockery of logic, so far-fetched and ridiculous as to only reinforce Daron’s own sense of culpability. It was as if she blamed them to avoid stating the obvious: Louis’s death was Daron’s fault. The thing about women to understand, his father always said, is that they never directly tell you what they’re upset about.

  Did his parents also look at each other with resentment born of intimacy; did they want more than anything else to reach out to each other, to close cold space; did they say things to hurt each other first intentionally and then again, without meaning to, in the midst of apologizing? Did they inventory their intimacies? How did you look at someone and care so much for them and hate them at the same time, be so angry that you didn’t even trust yourself to have a valid emotion, so angry it couldn’t be real?

  Had they asked themselves if they really knew each other at all, or too much? Had they wondered how can you despise someone who’ll share anything but cookies; who makes every fight her own; who is creeped out by penguins (they strike her as crippled, and crippled things distress her), who asks you to read certain books only so that you’ll hate them with her? Or did this anger itself illuminate the other person; did anger crystallize your affections; in a moment of alienation, did you see her anew? Admiring again the way she stood against challenge, even in the fracture boot, erect and long of limb, leaned forward when thinking as if her thoughts could support her, how her eyes sought yours and held them?

  Did his parents also want more than anything else to shake their heavy pride, their cursed vanity, to splinter the malediction, squeeze it between them like a crying child transformed by tender affection? Had they not wanted, more than anything else, more badly than anything else—to say, I love you? Would that stop it? Daron was afraid to try. How did you tell someone your feelings? Did you just say it? That wasn’t clever.

  What did her parents,
the professors, do? His parents were always happier after. And socked. Daron felt worse. Socked, shoed, shitty.

  THREE TIMES SHE TOLD THE STORY, each version different. They would have asked for a fourth, but couldn’t bear again the unexpected detail, such as how a soldier smeared with dirt smelled like fabric softener, or how the rebounding branch pitched a quivering green cloud, or how the sound of a regiment adorned with canteens and tin mess kits, scampering in confusion, could not mask the thump of his body knocking against the earth. Each version felt an account by a different eyewitness. In the first, she was initially approached by the captain, who incited the men. In the second, the captain was barely mentioned. In the third, the captain directed the cutting down. In all three versions, a man with a cross tattooed on his hand snatched the whip from Candice, brandishing it with zeal before whipping him.

  Of the rape she said nothing.

  The three of them sat in the gazebo. The box of wine his mother had left earlier remained on the table, now empty. The only light was the bug zapper, sleeved in a cyclone of gnats. His father had always called that life’s biggest lesson. D’aron first assumed he meant, Moths to flame. For years D’aron prided himself on having perceived the answer without posing the question, but in high school he learned that platitudes were venial sins—easily forgiven, even if not easily fixed—and then at Berzerkeley he discovered that they were mortal sins, evidence of a corrupted soul and lazy mind, that clichés were an order of unsanitary intellectual musing akin to wearing someone else’s crumbs on your own mustache. So the last time his father made the comment, Life’s biggest lesson, Daron shrugged it off. His father smiled, So you get it? Moths to flame, moths to flame, Daron muttered. His father scoffed, and after repeated inquiries refused to share the meaning. When Daron ventured to ask his cousin about it, Quint replied, There’s some shit you don’t want to know, Li’l D, some shit you don’t want to know, and then nearly broke a rib laughing at the wisps of exasperation wafting from Daron’s ears.