The Coyotes of Carthage

by Steven Wright

  “We should play for time,” Dre said. “Something will come up. You could dig around, come across some info that’s worth something.”

  “If you don’t plea now, that Dylan motherfucker might wake up, and with that brain damage, who knows what he’ll say?” Hector looked over his shoulder. “Take the plea. Cops don’t care if they caught the right man. They just need the case closed. You plea, this’s all over.”

  “Over for who?”

  “What you want, Dre? Huh? You want me to take the fall? Something I didn’t do? Shit. I got a record. That means, what? Thirty. Forty years with sentencing enhancements. Habitual criminality and shit. Probably send my black ass to prison in fucking Montana. Fucking Montana!”

  “My lawyer says you lied on me.”

  “Is that what you want?” Hector said. “Me in Montana till I’m sixty?”

  “You gonna testify against me?”

  “After all I done for you,” Hector said. “Selfish. Think only of yourself. You think you would’ve survived without me? You owe me. Take the plea, ingrate.”

  Hector slammed the phone, walked away, the last time the two would speak for years. The next day Andre took the plea.

  Now, a drink in hand, the attic nearly dark, Andre decides against sharing this story. He hates thinking about that time. If he starts to tell the story, then he’ll have to share the whole story, which, no matter how much he hopes to atone, he will never do. He can’t explain why he took the charge for Hector, at least in a way that Brendan will understand.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, Andre has a videoconference with a neurologist, an attractive, green-eyed Sikh with a Boston accent. The doctor, warm and patient, provides answers that emphasize the positive. Hector, she stresses, retains considerable motor control. He does not yet need a respirator, nor does he need a feeding tube to prevent choking when he swallows, but he may need one soon. She makes one surprise diagnosis. Hector, she says, is clinically depressed, an observation to which Andre thoughtlessly replies, “No shit,” an asinine comment for which he immediately apologizes. The doctor has written a prescription but worries Vera will not administer the medication. Vera has taken offense at the diagnosis, claims that, despite the illness, she and Hector make each other happy, an assertion she roared while waving her finger in the good doctor’s face.

  The videoconference has nearly ended when Andre hears a ruckus in the kitchen. Andre abruptly folds his laptop, cutting off the doctor midsentence, and hurries into the kitchen in time to catch the kid racing into his bedroom. He thinks to shout an apology, but the kid’s already gone, the door slammed behind him.

  * * *

  Andre drums his forefinger against Chalene’s dinner table, staring at a splayed Bible open to Revelation, anything to avoid the hard, threatening stare of the Lees’ fourth son, the twelve-year-old with bronze skin, emerald eyes, and thick raven hair. The boy has bushy black brows, sports what Andre thinks is a grown-man’s stubble.

  The boy has a story, of which Andre knows bits and pieces, fragments gleaned from overheard calls, unguarded moments, pleas in Chalene’s spoken-aloud prayer. The boy—what is his name?—was an eastern European orphan, a product of an unnoticed civil war, when a wealthy local family picked him out of a catalog and took him into their home. The boy arrived with problems—aggression, nightmares—and, except for a perfect pronunciation of American profanity, didn’t speak a lick of English. That first month, he broke his new brother’s collarbone. The next month, he bit off his sister’s earlobe. His family pursued every conceivable treatment—prayer; medication; talk therapy; exorcisms, both Catholic and Pentecostal. Nothing worked, and six months in, his father woke in the dead of night, found the cellar flooded, the family’s cat drowned, and the boy, all of five years old, standing naked in Wellington boots, yawning, a half-eaten peanut butter and syrup sandwich in hand.

  Send his possessed ass back, recommended their pastor, who, that Sunday, delivered a sermon entitled “Understand When You’ve Been Beaten by Satan.” The family reached out to Chalene, who, days before, had delivered a stillborn child, this time a girl whom Chalene had held and hugged and loved until the nurses said she had to let go. The boy still has issues—he is a constant in his mother’s prayers—but Chalene claims God’s grace has changed his heart.

  Outside, his brothers smash bricks against pavement, pausing occasionally to yell inside at the boy, Fucking Gypsy. Andre is troubled that the boys would use an entire class of people as a slur, and he debates whether he should say something to Chalene—from where do the boys get this? Maybe she doesn’t know that it’s offensive. But there’s a hitch—and Andre hates to admit it: in truth, the boy does look like a Gypsy. Straight out of National Geographic. Cap his head with a scarf, drape him in a too-short vest—God forbid he pierces his ear—and this twelve-year-old could crisscross eighteenth-century Romania in a bow-top wagon.

  A thud on the sliding glass door. One of the twins drops his shorts, presses his bare, pale ass against the glass. The teen swings his hips, streaking the glass, fists raised, middle fingers extended.

  “Thomas Gabriel.” Chalene enters, snapping her fingers. “Pull up your pants, and stop dirtying my glass.”

  Chalene turns toward Andre, shrugs—Boys will be boys—and Andre dislikes the change he sees. She’s chopped her hair short, too short—she looks like a death-row inmate prepped for an electric chair—and he considers invoking the clause in her contract that prohibits radical changes in her appearance.

  “Dre, I gotta show you something.” She opens a cardboard box atop a kitchen counter. Inside are yellow rubber bracelets, five hundred in all; half say Constitution, the other half Christ. “I used the campaign’s credit card.”

  “That’s what the card is for.” Which is mostly true. He hoped she’d purchase necessities—childcare, transportation, a trip to the salon. Instead she buys Christian swag.

  She continues to justify the purchase—God and county. Isn’t that our theme?—and he tunes her out, staring at her head, wonders whether pregnancy causes all women to have such dry, flaky scalps. He weighs whether he should compliment her, offer false praise to build confidence, or whether he should offer a blunt, truthful assessment, a move to correct course before she grows comfortable looking like a child soldier conscripted to fight in a foreign war.

  “Where’s Brendan?” she says.

  “He had a stomach thing.”

  She pauses, reads his face. “Dre, what did you do?”

  “Me? What makes you think I—”

  “Whatever you did, apologize.” The yellow bracelets slide up and down her forearms. “Listen, I don’t know Brendan all that good. But I do know three things about him. First, I know he’s a papist.”

  Which answers from where her sons get it.

  “Second, I know he’s sharper than a fox’s tooth.”

  He’s terrified of what she’ll say next.

  “And third,” she says, “I know he loves you. Honest-to-God loves you.”

  He feels relief.

  “Fine, don’t believe me, but I see it. Dre this. Dre that. Let’s ask Dre. Dre will know what to do. Whatever you did, just say you’re sorry.” She signals the Gypsy to take out the trash. “Trust me. I’ve raised six boys and a husband. The sooner you apologize, the sooner this too will pass. Otherwise, that’s a horse on you.”

  The Gypsy takes the trash, opening the glass door, passes Chalene’s twin boys, the close-knit sixteen-year-old conspirators who speak in whispers, the two now sharing a cigarette beside a burial plot. The backyard is unkempt, tall grass and weeds, cigarette butts scattered among gopher holes, but the graveyard, behind a lattice fence, is clean and cared for. Four small slates mark four small mounds, two sons and two daughters, the babies who never drew breath, yet who were loved, named, set here to rest. Chalene catches Andre gawking at the graves, and he feels embarrassed to have trespassed upon her pain. He says, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s o
kay,” she says, though he senses it’s not. At a loss, he says the one thing that comes to mind. “I love your hair.”

  “You do not.”

  “I do. Seriously. You look like a kick-ass Christian warrior.” The compliment makes her whole head blush. “You’re Carthage’s very own Joan of Arc.” He thinks, but does not say, Joan of Arc right before the English burned her at the stake.

  * * *

  Two hours into rehearsal, Andre second-guesses whether Chalene should make tomorrow’s speech. She’s having trouble focusing, trouble enunciating, trouble recalling the essence of a two-minute statement that she’s written herself. She insists upon memorization, refuses to read an index card, having learned from some evangelical blog that political statements, like an elegant sermon, are best delivered without notes.

  “I need more practice,” she says as her phone vibrates. She reads the text, sets the phone aside. “From the top. ‘God can be known through the experiences of the people.’”

  “‘The American people.’”

  “What?”

  “The line. It’s ‘God can be known through the experiences of the American people.’”

  “Right. The American people. What did I say?” She rests her hairless head against her kitchen table. “Fudge.”

  He itches his own scalp, an unconscious act of sympathy, wonders whether he should, at least, recommend that Chalene do something about the flakes. He’s proudly borne a shorn head for nearly a decade; he could have given Chalene tips, chief among them, A nearly shaved head, with a crown like yours, simply won’t work. When she ignores another vibration of her phone, he asks, “You need to go?”

  “‘God can be known through the experience of the American people.’” She repeats it, once, twice, three times, before transitioning into her full statement, which goes well for the next thirty seconds until a crash, as loud and unexpected as thunder, breaks her train of thought. In another room, a son—Andre can’t tell which one—wails, sobs, which sends Chalene down the hall.

  Andre wonders whether he should leave. She needs a good night’s sleep. Maybe then she’ll nail tomorrow’s speech. Atop her microwave, a plastic-wrapped book on whose cover appears a handsome fifty-something white woman standing akimbo. From the photo alone Andre knows the book is Chalene’s. Say what you will about Chalene Lee, but she reads like a monk, three or four books each week, each page scrutinized in search of hope, wisdom, and inspiration. He’d call his straw man well-read except the books she reads are all the same, checked out from her church library, autobiographies of middle-aged white women who overcame personal adversity through faith and love of Jesus Christ. From sinner to starlet. From harlot to Harvard. From county jail to Southern belle. Rags-to-riches narratives that surely ain’t read for suspense.

  But Chalene loves these memoirs, takes pictures with her phone of her favorite lines. Just yesterday, she devoured the tale of a forty-year-old woman, four kids, living in a trailer park in West Texas, who for years straddled a pole, and, from time to time, in moments of shameful desperation, practiced what Chalene described as light prostitution. This story seems indistinguishable from every other book Chalene has read: a series of trials and tribulations—bad boys, bad choices, bad behavior—a sinful spiral that smashed her against hell’s rock bottom, a dizzying, harrowing experience that was, in turn, followed by a miracle, yes, a miracle!, the personal intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now, just look at her—this small-town ho turned CEO—she owns a chain of wash-and-folds that makes millions each year. Only in America. Only through the love of Jesus Christ. Indeed, His Word is true. Amen and hallelujah. God can be known through the experiences of the American people.

  Her phone rattles against the table, and Andre peeks between the curtains. Tyler sits in his truck, with a white-tailed deer strapped with bungee cords to the roof, typing another text message, and, sure enough, her phone rattles again. Andre hasn’t spoken to Tyler in three weeks, not since the two reached a fragile accord in this room, shaking hands, splitting a beer, each sipping from his own pewter stein. Neither Tyler nor Andre apologized. Neither mentioned the past. Instead, the two spoke of the future, their shared vision: Chalene, county, Christ.

  “No broken bones. At least as I can tell.” She closes the box of yellow bracelets, Constitution and Christ, and he wonders whether anyone will wear these silly things. In his experience, such trinkets are popular with younger voters, particularly college students, the eighteen-year-old zealots so confident in their newly acquired beliefs that they wear their political views as fashion accessories. But grown men and women in Carthage? Will they embrace this silly rash-inducing gimmick?

  “You’re going to be great,” he says. “Tomorrow. The council hall. I’ll get there early and sit in the back.”

  “Bring Brendan.”

  “I can’t promise.”

  “Fix his favorite meal tonight. Apologize. Everything will be all right.”

  “A good meal and all’s forgiven?”

  She raises a shoulder, as though to say, You’d be amazed how dumb men are, as her phone rings. She presses ignore, takes his hands, and, with eyes closed, they pray.

  * * *

  In juvie all the delinquents requested kitchen duty. The boys read teen magazines on whose covers starlets struck a pose. Inside, the pages also featured tips to seduce any beauty—clean beneath your nails, play it cool, don’t be a cheap son of a bitch but don’t be her chump neither—good, practical advice, but no tip appeared more often than learn to cook. A superb meal, advised each magazine, presented more seductive power than washboard abs and a fly-ass car. Andre never requested kitchen work—the heat, the noise, the reminder of his mother, who never visited—but, right now, he wishes he had.

  He spreads ingredients across the makeshift counter. Fresh cod. Russet potatoes. Sea salt and egg whites and two kinds of oil, not to mention a dozen spices that were neither easy to find nor easy to pronounce. He skims online recipes, most featuring at least one offensive Irish stereotype, each recommending that he soak the potatoes overnight. One website, TrueIrishCuisine.com, offers a shortcut, parboiling, a foreign concept whose name alone suggests that he’s way out of his league. Each recipe will take forever, with no guarantee of success.

  The sliced potatoes splash into boiling water, a moment that reminds him of Cassie, the slim-hipped beauty who could never resist any fad diet that required boiled produce. Boiled cabbage. Boiled carrots. She once drank boiled beet juice each morning for a week. Didn’t lose a pound, but temporarily stained her teeth a purple hue. He imagines her sitting at this table, snacking on parboiled potatoes, sharing the details of last night’s gig: the drunk asshole in the front row, the club owner who grabbed her ass, the shitty, tone-deaf act for whom she opened. Dre, I swear, I’m better than those white boys. He wonders whether he’ll ever know why she left, whether he did one specific thing wrong or whether she simply buckled beneath the constellation of his faults, and part of him fears that he will never feel whole until he knows the answer for sure.

  He cuts the fire, leaves the kitchen to lie down. He doesn’t feel like cooking anymore, thinks he wouldn’t have fixed a good meal anyway. Tomorrow, he’ll find a better way to make amends with the kid.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning Chalene calls frantic, pleading, begging, Dre, I’m sick. Please don’t make me give this speech. He tries to reassure her, to explain that tonight’s two-minute statement is a low-stakes formality, a check of the box. He, however, fails to provide comfort and she swears that her Tyler refuses to attend the council meeting if Andre is there. You’re both such children. To ease her angst, he promises to avoid the council chamber. Instead, he’ll watch the meeting live-streamed, an invited guest at the home of Duke and Victoria Boshears.

  * * *

  The Boshears estate impresses, a lush, spellbinding landscape, acres of well-cut grass and smooth, calming slopes. The road winds upward between two plump hills, toward a three-car garag
e and grand two-story manor, which causes Andre to wonder whether the Boshearses’ finances are as dire as Victoria claims.

  Andre bangs the cast-iron knocker hard enough that he fears he’s asserted some form of alpha-male dominance. He hopes not, hopes that this evening will lack the customary Boshears drama. The council meeting, polite conversation, maybe a salty snack, that’s all he wants. An old black woman wearing a lime-green tracksuit opens the door, face blazoned with a half-astonished, half-annoyed stare. He feels the need to apologize, or, at least, to explain, I don’t know my own strength, but as he nears explanation, from somewhere deep inside the house booms Victoria’s voice. “I told you. I told you, I told you, and you didn’t listen, Duke. You never listen.”

  “Miss Vicki!” the old woman yells. “That man you want is here!”

  He enters the foyer, a palatial space with a cinnamon warmth, and instinctively cases the house. The rock-cut candy bowl sitting atop a handcrafted trestle table, filled with apple-peel potpourri—pawn that bowl and you might buy yourself a decent winter coat. Does this house have security? Andre doesn’t see a keypad, nor wires around the window, nor sensors around the floor. Not even a silly sticker fixed onto the front door.

  Victoria makes a grand entrance—a hug, a kiss on each cheek—brings with her the scent of sweet wine. He says, “Am I interrupting? If now’s a bad time . . .”

  “Why would you say that? Let me show you around.”

  Victoria plays the perfect hostess, provides a first-floor tour: dining room, sitting room, anteroom, and den, each room full of dead animals stuffed and mounted against the wall. This house has been in my family for six generations. In the music room, an elegant, intimate space, the tour ends. Piano, cello, oboe, and harpsichord. The walls are smooth and round, the ceiling domed and high, a hemispherical shape that, he assumes, enhances the acoustics.

  “Growing up, every night before bed, we’d make music. Mother loved hymns. I played piano, much better than my sisters. Go ahead and laugh, but it’s true. I received a scholarship to Vanderbilt’s conservatory. But I left after first semester. Missed my parents. Missed Duke.” She plays a few somber notes. “How is it fair that our destinies are written when we’re that damn young?”