Delicious Foods: A Novel

by James Hannaham

  Hannibal spoke up for the first time in a while. He took his hat off his nose and mouth and ask, What we going in there for? It’s all birdy and whatnot. He clamped the hat back over his face.

  Come on, y’all, Jackie whispered, like she afraid to wake up the birds. It’s people on this side, not no chickens. This the no-chicken area. She moved her hand in a half circle and went, Chicken, no-chicken. Okay? She clicked on a flashlight and walked into the no-chicken area, like everybody supposed to follow her.

  The beam from Jackie light danced around and Darlene and I seen little flashes of the room. For a no-chicken area it sure had a shitload of feathers and pellets on the floor and you had to make damn sure you didn’t slip on them pellets and fall on your ass. I went, I love this place, isn’t it beautiful? But Darlene disagreed with me. See, she had went to college and everything, not on the honor rolls or nothing, but she still had some high-bougie ideas about comfortability and accommodations that I found it hard to respect. For her, everything had to look like some stupid Renaissance bed-and-breakfast.

  Meanwhile, they got rows of perfectly fine bunk beds lying not very far apart going through the whole space. Aight, people of all kinda brown colors was tossing around in them beds without no sheets, looking like a box of chocolates that had fell on the floor and got smashed and then put back into the smashed box. Whatever. A bunch of them beds had striped mattresses on em with rusty springs poking through the tops, and the tops was ripped up. Them beds was close together as you could get beds without making it one big bed. The concrete floor and the walls had a ton of layers of paint all over em, and the layers had chipped away, so you could see brown and white patterns crawling up the paint and moldy-ass smears of water damage over the whole kit and caboodle. It’s some small windows up by the ceiling, but they got wooden boards over em. I was like, Fine. You take the good, you take the bad.

  But Darlene stopped cold, looking down from her motherfucking high horse, and in that moment come her downfall.

  These are the accommodations, she said to Jackie, trying not to put too much of a question mark at the end or give away all her disappointments, ’cause out the corner of her eye she seen her traveling companions pushing on into the room, going to the best of the beds that’s free, and Hammer helping the most whacked-out folks. Somebody climbed up to the top mattress of her bunk and the damn thing swayed like it might fall over if too big a person sleeping up there. She figured maybe Jackie playing a joke, maybe they only had to stop there for the night.

  Something wrong with em? Jackie asked. That’s me down the end. She threw the beam from her flashlight over to another cinder-block wall that stuck into the middle of the room but ain’t quite met up with the ceiling, giving her the only privacy. ’Sgood enough for me, ’sgood enough for you, ’less you some kinda uppity bitch, which you shoulda said. Her eyes gone up and down Darlene body all judgmental and shit.

  To be honest, Jackie, it isn’t what I expected. You said three stars! I thought we’d at least get two.

  You could go at any time, but you owe us for the ride and for the accommodations of at least this night because we ain’t taking nobody back nowheres until tomorrow.

  What do you mean?

  It’s in the contract. You signed the contract.

  How much do I owe?

  Five hundred for the ride and a hundred for the first night.

  Six hundred dollars? Darlene asked.

  She feeling tricked, like now she had to grow a whole crop of rice outta one grain.

  You’ll pay it back working, Jackie said.

  The others in the minibus had understood the situation lickety-split without getting snotty and had gone and got into they space, and right behind that, Darlene found her sorry ass at the foot of the least wanted, most disintegrated mattress. She done a li’l circle around the bunk real quick, looking for some other clean bed that maybe nobody else seen. The last bits of her pride was breaking up into nothingness when she laid her pocketbook down and parked on the most bedlike part of the bed. Her heart start beating crazy like a freaked-out little moth under a juice glass.

  For me it was a big reunion, a party. I could give two shits ’bout how many stars. I was like, Stars schmars.

  So Jackie goes, I don’t know about you, Darlene, but I’m exhausted. She stretching her mouth out to yawn, then shuffling back to the master bedroom. Once her new superior had disappeared into her space, Darlene start staring like a cat at the jerky light moving around behind Jackie wall. Then the light blinked out and a blackness thick as oil be pouring into her eyes and filling em up. She could make out maybe a couple of them folks on the beds. She put her hand in front her face and couldn’t see nothing but the pinks of her nails if she squinted. Outside it started getting light, but in there, couldn’t nobody see nothing. Sirius had took the bottom bed next to hers, which ain’t seemed as filthy to her. Darlene stared at his back, hoping he gonna suddenly sit upright and switch with her out the protection he shown to her before, but no, he grabbed his knees and made some wheezy gurgle noises and that meant that he had fell asleep.

  They ain’t let her get in touch with Eddie yet, and even though it’s late, she know she ought to tell him where she gone and that she safe. Since she think the company done cut off the phone, she figure she gonna call a neighbor who could check on him. She ain’t know how Jackie gonna react, but knowing the bitch already gone to bed, Darlene start thinking ’bout if she ought to remind her now or wait until morning. But then she got all up in her motherhood, start groping her way past the sleeping folks squirming on the cots until she found the special wall, and whispered.

  Jackie.

  She ain’t heard nothing back.

  Jackie?

  Yeah, honey? You need a hit?

  I really need to call my son. Where can I call my son from?

  Oh, Darlene, sweetie, I am so sorry. I forgot. It’s too late now, it’s almost morning, I can’t take you out there at this hour.

  Darlene start wondering ’bout what she gonna say next and the silence ate up her thoughts until Jackie open her mouth again.

  How old your son? He not gon be up this late, is he? Even though Jackie folded that question into a sweet tone, it sound like she daring Darlene to admit that she not a good mother.

  No, of course not. She figured he coulda stayed up waiting for her to get back—sometimes he did—but Jackie had this logical tone that bulldozed right the hell over Darlene feeling that she gotta do it right then, and all of a sudden asking for a phone seem ridiculous. Still, she kept on thinking ’bout Eddie Eddie Eddie, so I started to ignore her ass—I had a lot of other friends in the room, I ain’t need her—and of course I knew that was gon make her cranky. Then I said, Darlene, look how much positivity you brought to yourself, chile. Stop worrying about that stupid kid and come party with me.

  Jackie said, Good night, but Darlene’s ass stayed right there, didn’t know what gonna happen if she snuck on out to find that phone. She kept listening to Jackie clothing rustle while she tryna find a comfortable position to sleep in. She figured Jackie couldn’t see her loitering, on account a she couldn’t see Jackie neither, with both of em black and invisible in that damn dark room, and she hung out there, leaning ’gainst the wall, digging her nails in that rough concrete.

  It’s four miles away, Jackie’s voice said, all breathy and not listening. Six miles, I mean. We’ll go in the morning, she added with a little more feeling.

  Darlene felt like Jackie had listened in on her thoughts and decided to give a warning not to make no trouble, and whether that was a coincidence or a dead-on guess, it still gave her a jolt. She stood straight up, peeled herself off that wall, and stumbled back to her bed. Had to figure out how to pass what be left of sleepytime on that stained, lumpy box spring that look like it might poke out her damn eyeball if she turnt over in her sleep, not to mention all them strangers around.

  Then she thought about using her pocketbook as a pillow to keep it safe from anyb
ody fingers reaching in there and walking off with her stuff. She thought she left it on the mattress. No? Maybe she put it under the bed? Could she left it in the minibus? She touched the places on the mattress where she might had put the bag, but that method, though popular, don’t never make nothing reappear. She got on her knees to hunt underneath the cot but she couldn’t see nothing in the shadows down there, so she probing that hard cement with her fingers. When she pulled away, her hands was covered in dust and hair; she had little feathers, twigs, mouse pellets, and chicken feed sticking to her palms. A sneeze danced up her nose but she held it in and her face spasmed, like gnaufg! She brushed the crap off her hands onto her thighs and said, Shit shit shit, real quiet a bunch of times, like that be the name of every moment. I went to hang out with TT and we tried not to laugh at her. Rule Number One is keep your hands on your bags.

  The stress made her want to reach out to me, even though me and TT chuckling at her pathetic ass. She punched herself in the heart and went, Stupid stupid stupid, through her teeth. The minibus still idling outside and she thinking ’bout a tiny chance that she had left the bag out there on the seat. But first she visited every restless black shape in that long-ass room, forty-six in all.

  None of you are asleep! she burst out. You just smoked up Crack Mountain and now you’re pretending to be asleep? I don’t think so. Who has my bag?

  Darlene! Jackie yelled, and then her voice rang outside the wall. Calm the fuck down.

  One of these—has got my bag, and I am going to find out who.

  Go to bed, honey, we’ll deal with this once we’ve had some sleep, okay? What you had in there that you need so bad?

  Darlene silently had to admit her possessions wasn’t worth much. I was the most valuable thing in that purse—a half-empty glass vial and a rock in a plastic bag from the trip—and surely somebody gonna oblige with a hit anyhow when she start getting boogie fever. But Miss Darlene had issues with the principle—you know how violated you feel when somebody jack your belongings.

  After a while, Jackie voice ringing through the room, like Darlene mind be talking, like Jackie cutting in on our braindancing. Jackie go, You still want that hit? It’s yours if you want a hit.

  I smiled at Darlene inside her brain. I knew what she gon do. Not to be egotistical or nothing, but I am irresistible.

  A totally unnecessary moment went by and then Darlene said, Okay, and gone in Jackie room. Jackie took a hit first, and that shit surprised Darlene for a second, but the radio static sound of them rocks fizzling got louder when Jackie sucked on the pipe and sent Darlene eyes into a rapture like she a motherfucking saint. The flame from the lighter be giving they face a red-brown glow, and the hot glass tube almost singed her lips and fingers again. Darlene knew I was not in the best mood—somebody mixed my ass with levamisole, I hate that shit—but then again, good shit wouldna let her sleep.

  Then Jackie goes, It’s ten, okay, but don’t worry, I’ll just add it to your bill.

  Levamisole good for deworming a dog, but it ain’t pacified Darlene one goddamn bit once she got me inside her. When she groped her way out the bedroom area, Darlene kept tryna figure out who robbed her, without the use of her eyes. When that shit ain’t work, she fumbled over to the door they’d come through, a industrial slab kinda thing, and she thought she could maybe quietly raise that latch and go out to investigate. The bar felt cool when she touched it—weird for a place that’s mostly hot, where she and the others had started using the bottom of they shirts to wipe away the sweat that be trickling down they brows and turning everything they looking at salty. The rusty iron bar went up a little bit when she lifted it, but she found a giant padlock holding that bad boy shut, a lock she couldn’t believe she ain’t noticed snapping shut behind the group. Who locked the lock? Hammer? What if a fire broke out?

  Darlene stuck her hands in the little cranny where the door come to the frame, tryna cut a deal with the steel bulk and the pulley system that slid the whole motherfucker open. The crag ripped one her nails so bad she had to tear it off.

  Ah, she thought, that’s good. Nobody could’ve left this place with my purse. She decide to squat right at the opening of the door till sunrise so that couldn’t nobody pass and in the morning she gonna do a inventory and find the handbag. Her eyeballs tryna drink in all the light they could, but it ain’t much. The whole time her open eyes be feeling like closed eyes, and blinking didn’t hardly change the view none. She keep worrying ’bout what she had got herself into with this place. She closed her eyes for real and say to herself that maybe everything gonna turn okay in the morning. She thinking ’bout the book and visualizing somebody giving back the bag.

  She laid her head back and hit it against the concrete too hard, had to clamp down her jaw to keep from shouting, then start rubbing the sore spot where she thought a knot might pop up. After the pain got tingly and then got boring, I let go her arms and legs to make em relax and she accepted that she gonna have to take a wait-and-see attitude. She visualized that damn purse and getting the purse back until she done fell asleep.

  All the same, the purse ain’t never turnt up. Not only did it not materialize, but the harder Darlene tried to reckon out who done lifted it or where it gone, the more some the crew start wondering—to her face—if a crime had took place at all.

  Michelle started going, Did you even have a bag? I don’t ’member you having no bag when you was in the van.

  Sirius remembered the bag and described it pretty good, but Michelle was not convinced beyond a doubt. Didn’t nobody trust TT or Hannibal, including TT and Hannibal, and Hammer wasn’t nowhere to be seen. Not one motherfucker confessed to the possible theft of the probable bag, and the whole episode made Darlene look bad and wacko ’cause she had accused everybody before hardly meeting em.

  Just ’bout two hours after they got there, sleepytime got done and everybody had to get the hell up and start the damn day, even if they ain’t had no rest. For these folks, rise and shine meant get a hit off a dirty pipe, but Darlene ain’t had me or her bag no more, so she had to mooch. After breakfast—aka a hard-boiled egg, a gritty, no-name yogurt, and a half-pint of ’bout-to-go-sour nonfat milk—Jackie unlocked the door to go out and smoke, but she wouldn’t let Darlene search nobody for the pocketbook. When Darlene checked the road, the minibus gone, probably left during the hour or two when she’d drifted off. Hammer must have drove it somewheres. Had he been inside or outside? Had Jackie had the key all this time? Did Jackie snatch the bag?

  Darlene snuck a short, angry walk away from the chicken house to breathe some fresh air. She figured out that the building was one of three look-alike connected buildings near the top of a ridge with a dusty road cutting through it all like the part in some old white man’s hair. Once she had scampered up to a higher place, jumping over them potholes, and she could see over the ridge, she turnt to get a look at the farm.

  For 360 degrees, the view stayed ’bout the same. Bunch of shiny-ass, frilly leaves of corn be fluttering out to the horizon, like the invisible hand of God ruffling em, and they get small in the distance and morph into a emerald glop. Beyond that was some teeny-tiny gray trees and a long chain of them electrical Godzilla towers in the far far distance where the world start to curve, a crazy distance couldn’t nobody imagine running away to. No wonder they let her walk around during the day.

  Darlene gave a nervous look to the chicken house, like she wanna skip out, but then a man she ain’t never seen before come out the nearest building and called her back by name. The way he said her name made her feel like she had did something wrong by wandering off—the second syllable came louder than the first, exactly the way her daddy used to say it when she got him pissed. The sound of the voice alone tugged her back over to the coop and she picked up speed as she went.

  Darlene feet going chuff-chuff and stopped in the rocky dirt and the dude pointed at the chicken-house door. In his other hand he had a gun—still in a holster but he got his damn hand on it—and th
at made her wonder what’s wrong and is he gonna shoot her if she don’t come back?

  He told her, They’re gonna dock your pay ten dollars for missing roll call.

  Ten dollars ain’t seem like much compared to what she need to make, or her expected salary, so she didn’t hardly notice what he said.

  The man was a ethnic type with a round-ass tan body and a face too small for his head that be held in by some elephant earlobes sticking out at almost ninety degrees. He petting his mustache like a kitty cat. He ain’t introduce hisself at that time, but he did take his hand off the gun right as she gone back inside.

  Darlene heard the last couple names of the other workers as she going in the sleeping quarters. Jackie had everybody lined up in two rows, one of twenty-three, one of twenty-two, so the new girl seen where to put herself. She filled the empty place and wait for her name but Jackie ain’t never called it. She told the men to divide themselves from the women and that they had a special assignment. While the women waiting, Jackie had herself a private chat with the mustache man who had called Darlene inside. Darlene stepped out the group of women and waited right behind Jackie to ask her a question.

  Darlene words come out strange, on account a me, and that she ain’t had much sleep. Jackie, did anybody who…called my bag? I mean, my son. Did anybody find my bag, and can I call my son?

  Jackie let out a breath. Nobody got your bag. I don’t think you had a bag. Did you show me your ID? We need to keep your ID on file.

  That’s it, the ID was in my bag! And how about my son?

  When we’re on detail we can stop at the depot and you can call. She threw her attention over Darlene to the rest of the group. Men to the right, ladies left, please.

  What, Darlene said, it’s different work?

  Darlene, if you want to get with the men, you could certainly try it. Jackie had this high, edgy note in her voice, tryna sound all businessy.

  It’s more money, isn’t it? I owe you six hundred twenty already, I need more money.