The next morning, after a few hours of his father’s horrid night sounds, Daron awoke to find his parents at the desk, his mother in the chair, his father seated next to her on the luggage stand. His mother was studying a map. She occasionally flipped it over to read the legend before marking another destination. His father took notes and read the landmark descriptions aloud, his voice dramatic when describing Muir Woods or the Golden Gate, and less enthusiastic about the Union Square Shopping District, Coit Tower, and the Mission, though there was at all times a tenderness in his tone, an affection that Daron had understood at last in tenth grade as the reason why they had two cars but so frequently drove everywhere together, his mother dropping his father off even when her Saturday A.M. errands ran in the opposite direction.
Daron had heard that Europeans frequently landed on these shores laboring under the enthusiasm of ignorance and impossible itineraries, unaware of the magnitude of the United States of America, into which every EU country could fit twice and still leave room for most of Mexico to rest its head, leastways those who weren’t already doing so. California was no different: the Davenports in the New World. His parents eyed L.A. and the Redwood National Park with equal ardor when both were at least a day’s drive away, in opposite directions. He’d expected to play the tour guide, but this morning, knowing more than his parents about anything, even regional geography, frightened him, left him feeling exposed.
You coming?
Let the boy hang out with his friends.
I have to meet a few professors.
Or that.
Want us to come?
It’s college, Mom. I kinda have to go alone.
His mother tilted her head as if she needed to do that to take him all in. Are you okay with this memorial? Do you want to go later or earlier, after the crowd? We can go with you. Your father can go in and see if Mrs. Chang is there. Or gone yet, if we go after.
Thanks, Mom, but I don’t need to go. I’ll find another way.
That day there were three events honoring Louis. After the Changs’ San Francisco service, the university was hosting a colloquium and poetry reading on race and liberty (The Body Linguistic: Syntax, Sexicons and Civil Rights, bait he wouldn’t fall for under any circumstance, having learned the hard way that a sexicon was not a sexy-ass icon, but a lexicon inhabited by big-ass words, and that any course with a title such as Sexing the Victorian was about the lack thereof ). There was also a memorial remembrance sit-in at the university student center. Daron wondered what would be said at the colloquium and sit-in, what vitriol they would spray about the South. He wasn’t curious enough to attend in person. He wouldn’t have considered subjecting his parents to that. Not that anyone would recognize his parents, but they would be forced to witness Daron’s humiliation, so those events he mentioned not at all.
As he watched his mother bite her pencil between circling Jack London Square and Alcatraz, and his father begin to memorize the major thoroughfares as he did before driving through any new city, drawing his finger along the streets while reciting street names, Daron felt an unexpected burst of respect and appreciation. They were willing to make a go of it for him, and that emotion harrowed him, provoking Daron to imagine them lost, or worse. He ignored it, but after they left, each kissing him on the head and telling him they loved him, and all that remained was the scent of his mother’s hair spray and his father’s Brut, he locked himself in the bathroom and cried, overcome by the fear that he would never see them again. After drying his face, he found that they had left him two twenties and a ten beside the alarm clock, and he cried again because he felt, somehow, that he had never seen them before. What else had he missed?
When Daron was sure the tears had stopped—for good . . . finally . . . at last—he again caught the train to campus, arriving a couple hours before the colloquium. He decided against meeting with his professors and instead walked through Memorial Glade and up to the base of the Campanile to watch the waves: both the nearby students and the distant bay. Freshman year he’d often lunched here and wondered vaguely when the campus would feel like home. By the time the 4 Little Indians went to Braggsville, campus felt familiar, like a roommate who plays too many video games much too late at night but is otherwise reliable. The regional peculiarities were now badges. He knew what biodiesel was. He carried his own bag to the farmer’s market. He went to the farmer’s market! When it was time for the colloquium to begin, he visited Mrs. Brooks. He knocked on her open door, and she perked up at seeing him as no one had in weeks. After guiding him by the arm to a chair, she closed the door, her face as soft as Nana’s.
Daron, Daron, Daron. Poor baby. How are you?
Daron picked at the seam of his pants. Mrs. Brooks sat patiently, holding the space, no fiddling with her phone or computer. When the mail alert sounded, she turned off her speaker and waited without complaint. How did she do it? After a long, long silence, he admitted, I don’t know what to say. Sorry.
Don’t be. Take all the time you want. All the time you need. I’m honored that you came to see me.
How long did you have to live in California before you learned to say things like that without sounding stupid? Without sounding like you were practicing for an appearance on Oprah? How long did you have to live in California before you could hear things like that and believe them? Mrs. Brooks, there’s an apostrophe in my name.
I know. Your name’s been all over the news.
I’m sorry I lied to you, Mrs. Brooks.
Is that a lie, Daron? Can finding a personal truth ever be a lie? What if Chuck is a Chelsey inside? If a young person named Sheryl feels in her heart that she should identify as an Errol, is that a lie?
Daron rolled one shoulder. Chuck and Chelsey? Sheryl to Errol?
Or Saul to Paul. Malcolm X. George Eliot. You have the right to be who you say you are. But you also have that responsibility. You can be Da’ron, D’aron, Daron, or Chuck. But whoever you decide to be, be!
I tried being, he wanted to say. I found a like-minded group, he wanted to say. And look at what happened! he wanted to say. Daron felt his eyes welling. He stood. I have to go.
Wait a minute, Daron. Have you talked to any of your professors?
Don’t matter. I’m not staying. The trip. Louis. I missed too much time.
These are extremely unusual circumstances. Try talking to them. Just try. Okay? We can even meet them here if you want to. But you must be willing to try.
Yes, ma’am.
Speak your piece even if your voice cracks.
Yes, ma’am. That advice appeared on many bumper stickers around town—mostly old Mercedeses converted to run on French fry grease, and Priuses. (Prii?) Daron had never shined to the saying. He always imagined a tree nut in ankle bells and tie-dye complaining faintly about global warming. Now, thinking about what it meant, he liked it even less.
And Daron, have you talked to any of the grief counselors? Any counselor?
No, ma’am. Sorry, I have to go. Now he really did.
She handed him a card for student mental health services. And hugged him. Hugged him and he tensed. And hugged him and he melted into it. And hugged him and he hoped—knew it wouldn’t happen, but hoped—that maybe he could convince his parents to let him stay. What would his friends at home say? Perhaps his entire high school graduating class would jeer—Turd Nerd!—if they saw him sniveling in this black lady’s office, but right now that didn’t matter. Were they ever friends, or only fellow inmates?
COULD HE STAY when people only knew bits and pieces of the story, sawdust really, rumors and hearsay gathered from student blogs, Tumblrs, the news, Facebook, patched together into a self-contradictory account—though every news outlet agreed on two points: (1) It was D’aron’s idea; (2) D’aron had abandoned his friends. Professor Pearlstein officially said otherwise, but that didn’t matter. Hirschfield had been right. Solely by virtue of being from Braggsville, Daron was assumed to be the diabolical mastermind who lured his roommate into a
cruel trap. Surprised? At least one of James Byrd Jr.’s assailants knew him, and they still chained him to that truck, stated Francis Mohammed, leader of the Nubians, in one YouTube sermon.
Could he stay when part of him blamed the university for everything that had happened? Almost all of his professors offered to allow him to take incompletes, or submit work late and without penalty, except math class. They all seemed to sympathize, even the math prof, and he couldn’t decide how he felt about that because he couldn’t decide whether or not to leverage it, whether or not he wanted it, whether or not he deserved it; he was still in a state where solicitude only inflamed guilt.
But could he stay after he talked to the monocled history professor? After that professor suggested making his class project into an honors thesis? No. A repulsive suggestion. It was precisely the perverse type of academic thinking that caused the mess in the first place. It was as though academics thought the entire world was some kind of ant farm constructed for their pleasure and enjoyment and strained observations. He had no place in an institution that suggested personal loss be re-wrought, re-vised, re-fashioned as intellectual palaver, as a paper. Not even for honors.
WHILE DARON WAS WITH MRS. BROOKS, there was no parking on the city side of the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower was closed for repairs, and the fog sabotaged the elder Davenports’ afternoon Alcatraz trip. His mother proclaimed there would be no more museums, no libraries, no self-guided tours, no historical sites. When Braggsville was founded, this wasn’t even a state yet. No guidebooks, no cultural stops, no on-off bus, no night tour of the bay, no zoo. No Japanese Tea Garden, no Botanical Gardens, no Cliff House. No stores that charge for bags—I didn’t charge for travel to get there, nor can I deduct for trunk space utilized to transport said purchases home. (Utilized! Said purchases?) Gesturing around the room, she declared, This is not how I intended to spend this year’s vacation, in a land where I can’t even get saccharine—with a wink—in a city where April is too cold for capris.
So, for the last day, let’s hit the bars and shops. The promise of spontaneity kicked in, and his parents’ mood noticeably improved after that decision. Daron’s worsened. When he was home, he’d wanted to come back to Berzerkeley. When he was on campus alone, he wanted to go back to Braggsville. When he was with his parents at the highest point in the Presidio, listening to his father whistle his appreciation for the view, Daron wanted to stay in California. Then when he was back on campus with his father, he couldn’t wait to leave. The night before they were scheduled to fly home, Daron’s father drove him to the dorm to pack. The door to the room he and Louis had shared was laden with photos, cards, and dollar bills taped in the shape of a heart, but they might as well have spelled C-O-R-O-N-E-R. This time, Daron couldn’t enter, couldn’t open that door, nor could he be made to.
After his father placed the boxes and bags in the car, he sat on the trunk with his feet on the bumper, as he’d always told Daron not to do, and motioned for his son to sit beside him. Daron hesitated. Come on, son. We’ve got full coverage.
Daron joined him, both pleased to be asked and aghast at the possibility of being seen. From where they were parked, he could see where Hearst Ave appeared to come to a sudden end, but Daron knew it simply dropped into steep decline, and that decline was the hill the Indians had all tackled when trooping from the other direction after the infamous Salon de Chat.
Don’t tell your mother I did this. She already hawks about me spoiling you worse than chocolate-covered bacon. He handed Daron an index card. This was taped to the back of the door. I thought you might want it. He was a funny fellow, a good kid.
Spoiled him? Daron didn’t bother asking, How?, when all his father would ever say is, Like now. He inspected the paper. Text was written on one side of the card; the outline of a fish on the other side. Louis divided his sets into fish, bird, and human. Fish meant that a joke worked early in a set; bird, middle; human, late. This piece was among Daron’s favorites because he had witnessed its evolution, starting as it did in a conversation. Daron once asked Louis why he didn’t date Asian women. Daron did not mention subservience, but Louis called him out on it, guessing with alarming accuracy, as he often did, what Daron’s thoughts were before they were apparent to Daron. Later, the joke became:
People always ask me why I prefer black girls, who are all rowdy, or white girls, who are self-righteous, to Asian girls, who are demure, subservient, and obsequious, and make very few sexual or social demands. Well, I always say, if I want a pet, I’ll get a dog. Then when I get bored with it, I can eat it if I want, and it won’t complain if I don’t.
Chapter Twenty-6
When the Davenports returned to Braggsville, their beloved Gearheart Lane was no longer blustering like a three-truck carnival on the set of a doomed B movie. The Nubians and the Klan had pulled up stakes. Only the rainbow coalition remained, and Daron hadn’t yet decided if they were against him or not. After a week, most of them—four out of five colors, to be impossibly precise—jumped tent, too, relocating to the park across the street from the courthouse, where once again they were sandwiched between the odd couple. After that, only the occasional busybody set up camp, never staying more than a few hours, Katy-catch-ups like the International Association to Prevent Bullying or Mothers Against Hazing or some tree-rights watchdog NGO investigating the potentially crippling girdling wounds (rope burns) that the giant poplar sustained from the pulley and harness rig, khaki arborists taking tree pulses and earing tree stethoscopes. Daron was relieved to have the front yard back, but disappointed that only three weeks after Louis’s death, it felt he was mostly forgotten. Charlie felt the same way.
Daron and he talked a few days after SF. Charlie had seen the Otis interview on YouTube and wanted to thank Daron for trying, even though, You got straight Mike Myered. More importantly, Charlie wanted to—and did—apologize for letting Daron run off with a gun, for not preventing him from undertaking a fool’s task that could have been a life-changing event. Daron felt himself grow cold when he imagined what might have happened if he had found his way to the Gully, and grow colder still—a chill so cold as to feel wet—at this thought, new to him, that Charlie should have stopped him. A knot of silence welted tender while he mulled this over, swelling as certainly as the space between him and his friend. After a moment, the conversation turned to the news, how Charlie was glad to see the coverage fade, as much as he wanted to see Louis remembered, and Daron understood anew what Louis meant when he said that a conversation could have an astral body. When Daron hung up and looked at the picture on his phone, Charlie at Muir Woods, he looked a stranger. This would have upset him greatly had he not already started to doubt everything he knew. On his last drive through town, he’d not seen The Charlies in a single yard. The Hobarts’ bumper wore a new saying: I DON’T LIKE HIS WHITE HALF EITHER was replaced with ELECT JESUS TO LEAD YOUR LIFE. Even the Welcome to Braggsville sign was made over like for a morning talk show, and now sported a rainbow heart. The transformation felt a conspiracy, and almost sparked him to reconsider Candice’s account of the Incident, until he remembered that he’d asked his mom to hide everything offensive, and that made him guilty of nothing but discretion.
Only now did it occur to Daron that they’d struck out each day, all 4 Little Indians, with the same intention. Candice reading up on Georgia botany and football, Charlie sifting his memory for his own nana’s tales of the South, whispered as if specters could be spoken into the room, and Louis’s constant efforts to, Keep it real, which translated into assiduous affirmations of all Daron and Charlie said and did. And Charlie, had he really wanted to watch all that Sex-Tube?
In retrospect, Daron understood that he had actively courted his friends, becoming a mirror to their ambitions. By Daron being what they needed, Berzerkeley became less foreign and he more Californian. For Louis, he was the real American, from the original heartland, Clan Davenport staking their claim in the wilderness when the Spaniards were still building missions ou
t of mud and straw; the Davenports fighting the Civil War while Louis’s great-great-grandfather stowed away on the SS Westhall II, praying Buddha would deliver him anywhere but back to Ceylon. To Candice he was the liberal she thought herself to be in Iowa. Despite his rainy-night accent, an accent that bespoke a region staggering yet under the duress of history, a political microclimate where the past was alive and itching like a hive to be heard, his two best friends were of two different races, opposites, if one could imagine such a thing: He made Louis and Charlie a complete set, a triumvirate.
But Charlie was different, at turns chatty and taciturn within the same conversation, always profound, like wading into a lake in which one knew a sudden drop-off existed, but not where. As he did at Berkeley, Charlie had collected many acquaintances in high school, but few friends. He was the scholarship kid that Daron later became, and he tried to show Daron the keys to success, to school him literally: plenty of face time with the instructors, submit all assignments early for review, request extra credit even when unnecessary, in short modeling a work ethic of twice as good to be equal, but they could only be partners in anxiety because Daron couldn’t apply himself that much. Only dumb kids studied, or so he’d thought until meeting Charlie. Besides, D’aron was a black name, Charlie always joked.
But hadn’t they shared the same practical attitude about many things—vegetarianism, for example, began for both as a moral stance held with fundamental certainty. They preferred interracial porn only when their own race was doing the penetrating, and they harbored lurid fantasies featuring the young TAs, and neither understood at heart what it was feminists were in such a row about. In every hall were woman professors and woman administrators and some departments, like English, were nearly all female.
Thinking back, was Charlie only looking at the penises? (There were an awful lot of penises in straight porn. In fact, when he didn’t think about it, the mortar/pestle ratio was more ghoulish than piquant.) Daron wanted to ask but knew he never would. He had been excited to have a black friend, and now felt a little let down that Charlie was gay. That simply didn’t count as much, like if Daron was gay, his being friendly with Charlie wouldn’t count as much. You didn’t have to be Methuselah to know that gay people were friendlier than the Devil on Sunday morning. (As Slater Jones from 4-H once said, How else you reckon the name?)
Welcome to Braggsville Page 21