by Jesmyn Ward
“Chris there?”
“Who this?”
“Joshua.”
Suddenly Christophe was on the line, exhaling hard into the receiver. His voice was thick with weed.
“I need you to come pick me up.”
Joshua heard a click, and then a dial tone. Instead of his usual thirty minutes, Christophe arrived at the edge of the dockyard in twenty. Joshua held his arms folded across his chest, and eased into his seat.
“What happened?”
“Cut my palms open on a tie on a box. Had to get some stitches.”
“You alright?”
“It ain’t that bad. They gave me a week off.” Joshua heard clattering in the backseat, and looked around to find a sheaf of freshly scented plywood marked hurricane.
“Where you get that from?”
“Stole it.”
Christophe stopped at a burger place, ordered for Joshua without asking what he wanted, and set the meal on the seat between them without speaking. Staring at his hands on the steering wheel, Joshua imagined his brother’s palms, smaller than his own, pale and unmarked, and thought of the black scribbling on his own, of the added difference between them. He hated the immediacy of the wound: he wondered when he would be able to touch something again without the wrappings, feel warmth against his skin, and be rid of the throbbing pain. Joshua’s soda was bitter, and the fries left a waxy coating in his mouth. At the house, he left his drink on the seat. Christophe picked it up, walked it into the house, and threw it away.
13
THE FISSURES ACROSS JOSHUA’S HANDS felt like fish gills to Ma-mee: the threads were tough, yet the thin slit of the wound was leaking a yellow fluid that made the flesh hot and soft. She had known something was wrong when Joshua had called. She had left Cille talking midsentence and immediately walked from the kitchen where she was chopping onions for butter beans and rice to the porch, when she heard their car: Joshua walked in before Christophe. He held his hands in the air. Even with her fuzzy eyes, Ma-mee could tell that the color of the flesh was wrong, that the curve of his fingers was too stiff, that something was over them, that something must have happened. Christophe walked in behind him with his arms drawn into his sides and his hands in his pockets.
Behind her, Cille hissed and reached around her to grab Joshua, to pull him to her, to ask what happened. Ma-mee had sat as Joshua told them what happened: the stacked boxes, the old crate, the rotting slats, the ripping pain. The blood. She asked him to unwrap his hands, to hold them out so she could touch them and reassure herself there were no broken bones, no fingers ripped from his hand at the root by the thick twine. Cille had laughed as if Ma-mee were foolish, and it was Christophe who bent over Joshua’s hands to unwrap the bandages. He smelled as if he hadn’t taken a bath. Joshua smelled of sea salt and sweaty, sun-baked skin. His palms were swollen, and she could see black etching where there should be a wash of pink and pale peach. The lifelines that bisected his palms like small ditches were replaced by gashes, the perfect punctuation of the stitches. Ma-mee pinched the knobby spines of his knuckles.
“Oh . . . Joshua,” Ma-mee breathed. Cille brushed Ma-mee’s shoulder in the huddle as she made to touch Joshua’s open hands, and Ma-mee felt him startle. Cille paused, stone-heavy and still as she had been in the womb, skin to skin, and then moved away: Ma-mee felt cold air between them.
“They just cuts,” Joshua said.
“Could’ve been worse,” Cille said, and Ma-mee heard the concern evaporate from her voice like rain from a horse’s hot flank. She backed away and sat across the room from them all on the sofa, watching. “Chris, why you just picking him up now?”
“I got to do some work in the shed. Find some boards for the windows. Storm coming,” Christophe replied. His hands in his pockets, he was already shouldering his way toward the door. Ma-mee felt her family spinning away from her.
“No, you don’t need to do nothing in the shed,” Ma-mee piped. “Hurricane ain’t even coming this way for sure.”
He would tinker around in the shed, and then he would disappear. She would not know when he came home, and in the morning, he would be up and gone before she woke. Paul had told her he had heard Christophe was hanging around at Javon’s house, and everyone knew what Javon did. She wanted him to be still, to be safe, to stop running from what was chasing him.
“I got work to do.”
“Christophe!” Cille exclaimed. “I was talking to you.”
Ma-mee bounded upright in her chair, felt her way to Christophe, surprised herself with how fast she moved. She gripped his arm. He could not move with her holding him.
“Stop it, Chris.” His body was tight, turgid as a pine curving against a stormwind. She gripped harder. “Go take a shower. Help me take care of your brother.” She felt him sag. “For me.”
“Yes, Ma-mee.” He nodded.
While Cille ignored them and wrapped thin leaves of her hair around rollers, Ma-mee worked in a tight, worried orbit around the kitchen: wiping the countertops, stirring the pot, kneading dough, washing dishes. She could not help herself. She dropped one of the pot lids to the floor and picked it up to hear Joshua mumbling into the telephone.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, I promise. Love you too. Bye.”
Ma-mee had not known that he was telling Laila he loved her, even though she felt she should have recognized the sentiment in the way he hovered over her, big and wide, his body bent to hers like a spoon. She had wanted to slap Cille for treating the girl the way she had. She had been ashamed of her daughter, of her sharp, self-assured, demanding beauty. Outside, the sun had finally set and it was dark, and Christophe sat next to his brother on the sofa. Crickets cried through the open window, and she heard a car go by on the street. The crepe myrtle outside the kitchen window rustled. Cille said she was tired and went to her room without eating. Christophe shoveled food into his mouth, and Joshua fumbled with his spoon, dropping it into the beans. Each time, his brother would pick up the utensil and wedge it between the wrapping on his fingers. Joshua laughed at it, shallowly, the first time, but then he was quiet. Ma-mee wanted to talk to them, to say something that would make her feel like she wasn’t chewing and swallowing small pebbles, but she could not think of anything.
Joshua slept with his arms over his head, propped against the wall. The air tugged at him like warps of cotton against his skin. He felt exposed. He dreamed he was falling and jerked awake to the dark, quiet house: a rooster called in the distance. He walked into the kitchen to find that the clock on the microwave read 2:22. Light shone, etched along the cracks of the shed. He walked piecemeal from the house. The grass was turgid and wet with dew. When he reached the door, he knocked softly with his elbow. Christophe was kneeling amid rust-laced steel drums, corroded engine parts, and steel toolboxes, surrounded by a nest of tiny, greenish brown bags of weed. He was counting them and dropping them into a larger bag. Joshua had not known that he was selling that much. He said what he had not expected to say.
“How you got that cut on your tongue?”
Christophe looked up, dazed, and let his arms fall slack to his sides. Joshua’s hands felt as if they were going to burst from their wrappings.
“What you talking about?”
“You had a cut down the middle of your tongue. Look like it hurt.”
“A razor.”
“In your mouth?”
Christophe resumed shoving the baggies into the larger brown paper bag that was wet on the bottom. It was the kind of bag clerks slid forties into.
“I was fucking off at Javon’s house. I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
Christophe rolled up the bag and stood. He switched off the bare-bulb light affixed to a shelf and it was so dark that Joshua could not see his brother. He felt Christophe passing him. In the house, Christophe locked the doors, and Joshua turned to tiptoe to the bedroom and found him sitting on the sofa, staring at the television.
“I’m going to stay up and watch some TV.”
Christophe woke to morning cartoons at five. It felt as if someone had poured sand in his mouth while he slept. He was hungry. He cooked grits. He washed dishes. Soft white light diffused through the curtain and he looked at the phone, wondered briefly if someone would ever call him about a job, and if he really cared anymore. Javon would be expecting him today. He picked through the clothes in the dryer and tried not to wake Cille or Ma-mee or his brother, who he believed would want to come with him, boredom and bad feelings be damned. He did not want Joshua to come with him. He did not know why he could not sleep, only that every time he felt himself falling like a feather, rocking on currents of drowsiness, he would see the baggies blossoming in rows around him, his pockets bottomless with them as if they were BB pellets, see the razor, see the powder on it and Javon’s face, both white. When he woke, these were the first things he thought about. He did not want to eat unless he was starving, and he did not see the sense in taking a bath when he was living so grimily, when he was only waking and bathing and eating and getting dressed to go to Javon’s and make money. Joshua’s accident had scared him: What if his brother’s hands had been crushed? What if he had to support the family?
Christophe thought he had time to spare, but Joshua woke at his normal time. He sat down at the kitchen table as Christophe pulled on his socks and stood.
“What we doing today?” Joshua asked. Christophe felt the fight flare and fall to ash in his chest.
Fuck it, he thought.
They left midmorning, after Cille had left the house without saying goodbye to any of them, and afterward they’d watched Hollywood Squares with Ma-mee: she’d snorted at the jokes the personalities told, but seemed too tired to laugh. They were silent on the short ride there. Out of habit, Christophe parked their car in Javon’s backyard. He knocked once, a short, hard knock that was more of a punch, and walked into the house. Javon was sprawled on the couch with one leg hooked over the armrest, and he didn’t bother sitting up when Christophe walked in the door. A black and mild cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and he was wrestling with the videogame controller in his hand. He was playing Doom. Christophe sat on the sofa next to him, and saw Joshua hesitate in front of the closed door.
“Sit down,” Christophe said.
Javon removed his foot from the arm of the sofa. Joshua folded his arms across each other and let his hands hang limply.
“Your hands alright?” Javon asked. “You could get paid for that shit, you know?”
Joshua shrugged noncommittally. Javon threw the controller in frustration, and Christophe saw his brother almost flinch: he could read it in the way his eyelashes flickered shut, the way his mouth twitched. He picked up the other controller from the floor.
“I bet you could whip Javon’s ass in this one.” Christophe looked past his brother to Javon. “He was always better than me.”
“Everybody’s better than you,” Javon said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Christophe said.
Javon beat Christophe in the game. Christophe let the controller fall to the floor when the first knock sounded at the door. He rose, let the knocker into the room, and Javon walked to the kitchen and left Christophe to shut the door. Christophe hesitated, and then waved Tilda into the kitchen. Everyone knew their places. Javon served Tilda, and she shuffled out the curve of the door with a shy waggle of her fingers.
Joshua had flinched. He tried to deny it, tried to reason with himself: he was only a few inches shorter than Javon, and after all his work on the pier was probably as strong, yet he had flinched when Javon had thrown the controller with those pale, corded arms: they moved like snakes. He wanted to leave. If Laila weren’t busy, he could pick her up and drive up in the country, down the hidden dirt road, narrow as a path, to the river. They would emerge from the tunnel of trees, thin as a snake hole, to the beach, the sun, the winding water. He closed his eyes and saw himself wading into the deep. Perhaps he could convince Christophe to come, convince his brother to swing from the rope in the top of the trees and fall to the deep, dark water. He opened his eyes to another knock on the door, to Christophe muttering and shrugging as he continued to paw at the controller, and to Javon walking past him, sinewy and lean. This was what Christophe did with his day: the crackheads came in a steady procession, Javon passed back and forth in front of the television like white static, Christophe pulled sacks of weed from his pockets like loose change.
Joshua’s hands pulsed with the same pain as the headache slurring like a muddy, overfilled ditch at his temples. He was surprised to see Laila at the door, instead of Tilda again with another portion of Mudda Ma’am’s Social Security check. Laila wore a ruffled white tank top and flip-flops, and the light from the open door blurred her edges.
“You letting out all my air,” Javon said as he spit the black from his mouth.
“Sorry,” she said, and scooted into the doorway.
She tried to squeeze between Joshua and Christophe on the sofa, but instead fell into Joshua’s lap, awkwardly. He wished he could touch her with his hands, but he only grazed her shoulders with his fingertips.
“What you doing here?”
“I went over by your house and Ma-mee told me she thought y’all was here.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s starting to get dark.”
Christophe moved from the sofa to the floor. Another crackhead rapped on the door, and Christophe pulled the knob.
“How’s your hands?”
She pulled them toward her. They looked bulky and stiff as crawfish claws. She touched them and he could not feel it. He wrapped his arms around her as the crackhead passed over the television and eclipsed the glare of the game.
“Go home,” he whispered.
“Why don’t you come with me?” she whispered back, her lips touching his ear.
“Later, okay?”
Laila moved across his lap as Javon raised his voice in the kitchen. Joshua hooked her hand in one claw and pulled it up to his mouth; he kissed the smooth skin near her wrist. Her eyes were almost black in the gloom of the room; she leaned into him, and he knew she wanted to stay. Joshua glanced past the leaving crackhead. Christophe was watching them with his knees in his chest, openmouthed. An image of Christophe flashed in Joshua’s mind: tracing his finger along plastic bags of Now and Laters back when they were kids going on bike-riding candy missions to the country store. Laila leaned in to kiss Joshua and he stopped her by speaking against her cheek.
“Go.”
Laila closed the door so softly Joshua did not hear the latch click.
Christophe had been surprised when his brother had sent Laila away; he had expected her to stay, had sat on the floor in anticipation of it. He had hoped Joshua would leave with her; for once, he had wanted her to take his brother away. Christophe watched Joshua doze, watched him jerk awake and open his eyes and close them and his head fall again and again. It was dark. The volume on the television was low, but the crickets were so loud outside they buzzed louder than the game. He threw down the joystick. He was tired of playing. He kept dying. Perhaps it was time for them to go home.
A knocking sounded from the kitchen. No crackheads ever came through the kitchen; they knew it was safer to come through the front door because it was obscured by trees and a long row of bushes
as tall as Javon. Besides, Javon hated for addicts to come through the kitchen door. It felt too personal.
“Who the fuck is that?” Javon said.
Christophe shrugged to no one and leaned around the living room wall and peered into the kitchen. Javon bent to part the curtains over the small window at the top of the door, and he swayed side to side, surveying the carport.
“Aw, fuck,” he said, and switched the outdoor light on. The window lit like a television screen, and Javon opened the door and perched at the opening, leaving it ajar behind him.
“Sandman,” Javon said. “What the fuck do you want?”
“I got that plywood you wanted for the windows.” Sandman’s voice was thin and reedy. It sounded like a whistle over Javon’s shoulder. The sound of Sandman’s voice kept Christophe leaning against the wood paneling. “You got a dime?”
“You don’t get paid for work you ain’t did yet, mothafucka. I told you I ain’t fucking with you like that no more. I gave you a dub to clean my yard on the Fourth, and you left it half-done. I don’t fuck with credit. Take that shit somewhere else.”
Sandman looked skinnier than when Christophe had last seen him. His sternum had shrunk into his chest; his top was a shallow ditch. Joshua no longer resembled him in the least. He expected Sandman to duck his head, to leave, but he didn’t. Sandman had lost his hat, and his hair was spiky and tufted as branches, his skin as weathered and knotted as pecan tree bark. He listed like a naked tree in winter.
“Come on, Javon, I know you got it.”
“Leave the boards and get the fuck off my property.” Javon was luminous in the light from the bare bulb outside the door. “Yeah, I got it and I told you I ain’t giving it to you!” Javon said. He stepped out into the patchy, sand-eaten grass next to the door.
Sandman stopped and Javon bumped into him. Christophe could hear the bugs, big as his thumb, circling and weaving into the bulb, only to loop away singed to do it again.