The Coyotes of Carthage

by Steven Wright

  “We did have fun. I grant you that.”

  “And if you don’t make the flight tonight, there’s one tomorrow—”

  “But I’ve made up my mind.”

  “And the day after that. And the day after that. The airport never closes.”

  “Cousin Brendan.” The shortest boy holds open the door. “You coming?”

  Andre and Brendan stand in silence. What else is left to say?

  To Andre’s surprise, the kid gives him a hug, a tender, affectionate embrace, brimming with sincerity and sorrow. It is a kindness that Andre knows that he does not deserve, and in this moment, a moment that feels as though it could last forever, Andre understands that he’s lost his only friend.

  “Maybe I’ll call you later, okay?” Brendan wrests himself away and heads toward the door.

  “I don’t believe anything you’ve said here tonight,” Andre shouts at Brendan’s back. “Not about your grandmother. Not about calling later. And definitely not about busting Sean’s nose. I know you, Brendan Fitzpatrick, and not a single word you’ve spoken here is true.”

  “True? Oh, come on, Dre. Don’t be silly,” Brendan says. “Truth doesn’t matter. I learned that from you too.”

  Brendan pushes forward, hand in hand with his cousin, two Irishmen on their way to find a passage to Narnia.

  * * *

  The woman in the next seat weeps uncontrollably. Nose runny, mascara smearing, an occasional wail into the bend of her arm. She can’t be more than twenty-two, and, best Andre can tell from her brief, breathless phone conversations, she’s a recent college grad whose Capitol Hill internship ended without a job offer. Now she’s compelled by her parents, on whom she financially depends, to return to South Carolina to resume a life that she thought she’d left behind.

  Ordinarily he’d call such a woman ridiculous—White girl, please, yours is not a real problem—but now, seated on a boarding plane, three hours since he left Brendan, he has nothing but sympathy. He shares her outrage, her sense of betrayal and rejection, at having been welcomed into a world beyond her imagination, having been teased that she could build a life here, always in the back of her mind a fear that this life could fall apart with little notice, and finally having those fears realized, learning that no one ever wanted your sad, pitiful ass in the first place.

  “Ma’am, you a’ight?” the flight attendant asks with an aggressive mix of indifference and impatience, to which the young woman, eyes pink, face squished, says, “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Thank you for asking.”

  “Sir,” the flight attendant says, “how are you?”

  Andre knows what game the flight attendant tries to play, and he refuses to help her score, saying, “A scotch and soda, please.”

  Andre hopes this young woman’s heartbreak has taught her a valuable life lesson—never trust happiness—but, honestly, who, at that age, learns a damn thing? By her age, Andre should have learned another cardinal rule: never trust anyone. Friends. Family. A stranger on the street. Don’t trust any quiet motherfucker, and for damn sure don’t trust any motherfucker who opens his mouth. But clearly he didn’t learn that lesson. If he did, then he wouldn’t be sitting here, heartbroken that Cassie deceived him, astonished that Mrs. Fitz renounced him, wounded that Brendan abandoned him. Trust is an essential element of betrayal. A truism so simple, so fundamental, that it should appear inside a fortune cookie.

  Now look at him. As pathetic as this heartbroken intern at his side. A pair of disillusioned fools. Chumps on their way back to South Carolina. Brendan had a point: what exactly is back there for him? And yet, Andre obsesses over a better question: what remains for him here in DC? He’d be alone with his thoughts, sulking in a condo that, without a job, he couldn’t afford. The decision to return to Carthage, Andre’s convinced himself, is practical. A victory, he hopes, will renew his sense of purpose. If ever a man needed a win in his life, Andre Ross is that man. Besides, he’s nearly broke, and for a while longer, he’ll need to pay the medical bills for Hector, whom Andre didn’t visit this trip because, this week of all weeks, Andre simply couldn’t summon the will.

  The young woman’s phone pings, and she reads a text, and her grief springs forth anew. She opens her mouth and bursts with sadness. Passengers on their way to coach stop and stare in horror. Most clearly assume that he’s the cause of her grief, and Andre tries his best to mime his innocence. But the passengers, already resentful that he’s in business class and they’re not, can’t ignore the optics. A black man sitting idly beside a pain-stricken white woman. One guy, a white guy in chino pants, is clearly enraged. Tightens his fist. Bites his bottom lip. Rechecks his boarding pass in disbelief.

  The plane finally finishes boarding and takes flight through the moonless, starless night sky. In the darkened cabin, the woman continues to weep, and, for the first time, Andre feels the weight of his conversation with Brendan. A low, sorrowful moan fills the cabin, the most soul-piercing yet, and to his surprise, he realizes this expression of torment and sadness is his own. He wants to lean over to the woman, to share his own story in a whisper. The only person to have ever believed in me has died, and in the end, I can’t really say whether she ever believed in me at all.

  Part V

  The Final Stretch

  Chapter Eighteen

  The theme of this year’s spring fair, “Cowboys and Banditos,” is a bona fide hit. Thousands of fairgoers wear costumes and masks, some with Stetsons and spurs, but most dressed as Mexican bandits. The local superstore kept the bandito costume in stock, buy two, get one free, and thus all the bandits look alike: the same straw sombrero and striped poncho, the same thick black mustache and faux-leather bandoliers. The fairground, which borders the lake, is a twenty-acre cobblestone promenade packed with carnival rides and beer gardens and kissing booths and a pony park where chubby schoolboys can watch their slender brethren ride a Shetland. The liberty initiative has rented prime real estate, two booths, one inside each fairground gate. Word has spread across the fair. If you have a moment, stop by the Liberty Booth. Just let the volunteers look up your voter registration status, and you’re automatically entered to win a prize. A drawing, held each hour, promises exciting prizes like T-shirts and e-readers and rifle slings, each embroidered with the campaign’s motto: “Carthage County, Proud and Free.”

  In the fairground’s center, on the small amphitheater stage, the liberty initiative has bought time. Half an hour each night, which cost a small fortune but has proven a good investment. Right now, on the stage, Chalene paces, microphone clipped to her blouse, as maybe six hundred fairgoers watch. Andre feared that the campaign might need to plant a rabble-rouser to energize the crowd, but, no, this crowd, with faces new and familiar, is possessed by the Holy Ghost.

  “Amen. Amen. Amen. Can I get an amen?” Chalene says, and the crowd, hands flailing in praise, shouts back, Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord!

  Chalene has carefully crafted this production, with two dozen children, dressed in white, sitting cross-legged onstage behind her. The children’s purpose Andre doesn’t understand: props, Greek chorus, tenuous metaphor? She’s also got a band, a trio of pale-skinned, pockmarked teens, gangly and greasy, who can’t keep a beat.

  Five nights she’s put on a show, each night preaching a different sermon. She still has stage fright, but a crowd this big, she says, is different. Something about not seeing their eyes. Tonight’s message asks whether Paula Carrothers is qualified to hold public office. Andre recommended another topic, any other topic would do, but on this matter Chalene harbored strong feelings. Dre, I delivered five speeches with your themes, now let me do one of my own. And so, despite polling that suggests the liberty initiative has begun to alienate swaths of women, he relented.

  In her sermon, Chalene makes clear that her argument is not personal. She wrings the scripture tight to conclude that the Bible has set forth minimum criteria to hold public office. The Good Book says—and, according to Chalene, it’s perfectly clear, just re
ad it yourself, right there in the Books of Samuel—that a public servant must be male, must acquiesce to divine law, and must believe in God’s wrath and love. And because Paula Carrothers is neither male, nor acquiescent, nor a true believer in the power of Jesus Christ, she is unfit to lead this community that seeks God’s blessing.

  “White people are fucking crazy.” The voice, from behind him, is smooth and sultry. Andre twists his hips, finds an ebony woman with a huge wavy Afro, worthy of the voice. He recognizes her face, doe-eyed and rawboned with well-cut lips. She advertises as a mystic—palms, tarot cards, dreams, she reads them all. She says, “Professing themselves to be wise. They became fools.”

  She must need a customer—he hasn’t seen anyone enter her tent all day—and if he had the time he might volunteer. He doesn’t believe in prophecies, and even if he did, he wouldn’t tempt fate by having his future spoken aloud and, thus, written in stone. But these past three weeks, he’s needed a friend, so he’d be happy to fork over a twenty just to sit there, in the presence of a stunningly beautiful woman who wants to talk.

  “All that anger, all that hate, all that negative juju,” she says. “Sure, they’ll win the election, and then what? Not a damn thing will change. Not for the better. Not for them.”

  “You’ve seen a win in their future?”

  “Don’t need to see the future, hon. Just need to understand the past,” she says. “White people in Carthage, trust me, they can always be counted on to do the wrong thing, especially in groups, especially when they think no one’s looking.”

  She pauses as an old woman and child pass. The old woman is dressed as a sexy, possibly slutty, bandita: too-short skirt, stiletto boots, strapless low-cut corset that reveals flabby midriff. The child, a little boy, maybe five years old, is also dressed as a bandito, his costume embellished: belly padded, skin greased and darkened, a tequila bottle duct-taped to his tiny hand. The mystic gives them a smile, says through gritted teeth, “See what I mean? That’s a damn shame.”

  Andre can’t disagree.

  “They let the high schoolers pick the theme,” she says. “In the past few years, let’s see, there was ‘Homies and Hoes.’ ‘The Orient Express.’ Last year, ‘How the West Was Won.’ You believe that? These fucking white people picked genocide as a theme for a county fair.”

  She isn’t joking, but Andre’s amused.

  “You know what they’ve never re-created?” she says. “A black man on elephants coming over the Alps to kick white people’s ass.”

  Chalene starts to wrap up, but first she must bring urgency to her cause. The election takes place in eleven days. For the undecided, she says: if you don’t vote for liberty, then you’ll vote for tyranny. For her supporters: don’t forget to cast your ballot. She conveys this message through prayer. Lord, touch the hearts of the undecided. Lord, bless those who cast the ballot in Your name. Lord, we know, as always, that You are watching.

  The prayer ends, and she surrenders her mic to Tyler before leading the children and the band offstage, a graceless transition that signals a tonal shift. Unlike his wife, Tyler prefers to remain unscripted, meaning he rarely stays on message. For the next ten minutes, Tyler will speak any thought that drifts into his mind, an uncensored stream of consciousness that yesterday ran the gamut from the bastards in Congress to the bastards in Hollywood to the know-nothing know-it-all bastards who run America’s universities.

  “You with them?” The mystic gestures toward the stage.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are. Don’t lie to me. I got the gift,” she says. “That and, you know, I saw you with them yesterday, talking in the parking lot.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “I didn’t mean to get personal, but I’ve noticed you. That’s all I’m saying. Ain’t many brothers in Carthage, even fewer helping white folks preach liberty,” she says. “You’re here each night. Hanging back, watching all this. I’m not judging.”

  The crowd laughs, and Andre realizes that he hasn’t heard a word that Tyler’s said. But Andre catches the next two, political whore. He and Tyler have talked about this, the need to use code. Call Paula radical, call her shrill, call her uptight or hysterical or frigid or self-serving or spiteful or ambitious or crazy or secretive or shifty, but please, under no circumstances call her a whore. It doesn’t poll well, even here in Carthage. Trust me, Andre told Tyler, I’ve checked. But now Tyler’s invested in this rant, blasting Paula Carrothers, who thinks she’s so much smarter than everyone else, thinks she’s so much better, thinks that because she’s got a fancy college degree she’s elite. The crowd, men and women alike, cheer, laugh, applaud. One woman, wearing a liberty-initiative T-shirt, claps her hands and cries real tears.

  “I’m just gonna come out and ask,” the mystic says. “And please, you know, don’t take offense.”

  Andre knows exactly what she’ll say. Black man. A conservative cause. He braces for childish name-calling: Sellout. Oreo. Uncle Tom. What business does a black man have advancing this kind of venomous rhetoric, which, not too long ago, justified the subjugation of black men? You think Jim Crow was just about separate drinking fountains? No. It was about language. About words. About angry language and angry words that denigrated and humiliated and provoked violence. Brother, she will certainly say, what are you thinking?

  But she doesn’t. She certainly thinks it, but she doesn’t say it. Instead she says, “I thought maybe, that woman, the crazy pregnant one who knows her Bible . . . I was hoping, I mean, if you know her and all, I was hoping she could—”

  Quiet down? Shut up? He would understand either; from time to time, he’s thought both.

  “—I was hoping she could condemn me.” She hands over a black sheet of paper with blood-red print that lists twenty-one Bible verses that explain why Christians should avoid a mystic. “Please, brother. It won’t cost you nothing, and I’d really appreciate it. Do me a solid and help a sister out.”

  “This really works?”

  “People come to the fair for thrills,” she says. “What’s a bigger thrill than risking your soul? I can double my fee.”

  Tyler, onstage, waves a rifle overhead. He wanted to bring a real rifle, but the fair’s executive committee forbade firearms on their grounds. An insurance thing, they claimed, an assertion Tyler distrusts, a policy, he insists, that violates his Second Amendment right. This replica is a compromise, a Confederate assassin’s rifle, a Whitworth complete with scope. To Andre, it’s a waste of money, a fancy-ass toy that cost a grand to custom-make on the quick. But Tyler swore. A Whitworth rifle means something around here. You never heard of a Whitworth sharpshooter? What did you learn in grade school? Andre still doesn’t understand, and yet, as Tyler pumps the rifle into the air, Andre must concede this prop has electrified the crowd.

  “Trust me,” Andre says. “You don’t want these white people mad at you.”

  “I can’t pay you, but do this for me, I’ll give you a free reading,” she says. “A good one.”

  Andre’s curious what differentiates a good reading from a bad. Probably a five-dollar tip.

  “Come on, brother, don’t be an asshole,” she says. “You want to know your future, you know you do. I can sense it in you. All that emotion, all that sadness and anger and fear. I see it written all over your face. You’re like a—”

  “Yeah. I get it. You see that I’ve hit rock bottom.”

  “Oh no, sweetie, I see that you’re still falling. But trust me, rock bottom, it’s coming soon, and it’s gonna hurt,” she says. “Tell me honestly, though, why you this sad? What woman’s done you wrong?”

  “Tell me honestly, what woman hasn’t?”

  Tyler preaches anarchy. Hates government—federal, state, municipal—even the local school board doesn’t escape his scorn. Evolution? Global warming? Islam? What are they teaching? He urges revolution, if not at the ballot box, then on the city streets, and for this noble cause, he swears he’s ready to give his own life.

&n
bsp; “See what I can do,” Andre says. “But you gotta let me buy you a drink.”

  “I sense you’re the kind of fella who prefers to drink alone.”

  “We’ll have fun. I promise. You can tell me more about my shitty future.”

  She ungloves her hand, wiggles the finger that bears a diamond ring.

  “Honestly,” he says, “that’s not a deal breaker.”

  “Well, it is for my wife.”

  Tyler reaches the tag line that marks his end. The revolution is not a part-time job. He welcomes Chalene and all six sons, each dressed in white, back onto the stage. The family performs their grand finale, the final bow of Appalachia’s very own von Trapps, the moment in which each member of the Lee clan flings a baseball cap into the crowd. A pack of campaign enthusiasts—children, teens, way too many grown men—rush the stage at breakneck speed, an honest-to-God stampede over shitty, poorly stitched two-dollar caps made in Saigon.

  * * *

  The Gypsy, with his patent air of menace, sits cross-legged beside a giant stuffed panda in the bed of his father’s pickup. The boy whittles a walnut block, big, bold, aggressive strokes of a pearl-handled knife that he won blasting tin ducks at the county fair. Nine pulls of the trigger. Nine bull’s-eyes dead center. Nineteen seconds flat. A record, the carny said. Ain’t never seen no one do nothing like that.

  How exactly did this happen? Andre and the Gypsy alone in the back of a pickup. The other Lee sons swore, pantomiming their hands on a Bible, that they had already purchased nonrefundable front-seat tickets to tonight’s stadium show, ten dollars each to see dwarfs blasted from cannons, an extravaganza set to fireworks and the marches of John Philip Sousa.

  “Tyler wants to show you something,” Chalene shouts through the open cab window as the pickup takes an unexpected detour. Tyler shouts, “Brother, you’ll love it. It’s a surprise.”

  Fucking Tyler loves surprises.