Chicken (3 page)

“Went camping last night,” Brant says, mouth full of his last bite.

“Yeah? Where at?” 

He crumples his foil into a greasy ball. “Just back on our place. Didn’t get much sleep. Guess I’m not great company.”

“You’ll do.”

“’Til Hannah gets back, huh?”

I’m glad for the cheek-flushing heat so he can’t see me turning pink. Hannah’s the person I’m supposed to think about when I think about having an artful make-out session on a snowman blanket. And I try. I try so hard. But even in my head, doing that stuff with Hannah feels like whenever my little sister jams her stiff plastic dolls up against each other and forces them to make grunting sounds she knows nothing about.

Brant doubles over, folding his arms across his middle, and groans. “Lord help me, Casper. What’d y’all put in those burgers?”

I shake my head. “Can’t divulge the family secrets.”

He pulls his hat off and fans himself. “I’m gonna divulge more than secrets here in a minute.”

A dark line of sweat runs down the back of his shirt, outlining every bump of his backbone. At the top, just above his shirt collar, he’s got two scars carved pink and jagged into either side of his nape, souvenirs from a run-in with one of the state’s infamous wild pigs a few years back. Before that, he always kept his hair buzzed but never again since. I like him woolly but don’t get why he wants to hide the scars. They’re cool, not ugly, and it’s all I can do not to touch them right now.

He straightens up fast, smoothing his curls down to his collar like he could hear my weirdo thoughts, and plunks his hat back on his head. He belches, blasting me with his meaty, cheesy, faintly weedy breath.

“Alright, I’m gonna live. Better head over to the Hop in case your daddy asks how it went.”

In any other small town, the Hop would probably be some sort of Golden Oldies dance thing, but in this small town, the Hop is a contest to see if anyone can jump across the Ditch. The winner gets three hundred dollars—a prize the city can only afford to offer because no one ever wins. Jocks around here are built for tackling and butt-slapping, not long-jumping, and it’s funny to watch them launch off the bank just to plummet into the Ditch. It’d be even funnier if they actually hit bottom, but since the Ditch is twenty-feet deep here and totally dry everywhere, the city stretches a net across about six feet down to catch the morons.

“Let’s go,” I say, but before I can stand up, some kid stabs me in the eye with an inflatable sword.

“Jesus Christ!” I knock the thing away and clamp my hands over both eyes, even though it’s only the left one that’s burning and probably infected with some sort of disfiguring bacterial disease. 

“I’m telling Daddy you took the Lord’s name in vain!”

I open my remaining eye and see exactly who I expected to see. My little sister Laramie with her stupid dark hair and her stupid tan skin and her stupid evil grin. What I did not expect to see was the happy little snake face painted on the mushroom-headed tip of her inflatable sword’s pink blade. 

“What the?” I grab for the toy, but she whacks it hard against my wrist and takes off running.

I turn to Brant, the heel of my left hand still pressed into my watery eye. He looks so solemn and shadowed under his cowboy hat that I’m not sure he even saw what happened.

He sighs but doesn’t look my way. “Casper, I do believe your sister just stabbed you in the face with an inflatable penis snake. If that’s what you’re wanting to know.”

I drop my hand but keep my eye squeezed shut. “Just checking.”

Brant nods, takes the plastic straw out of his hatband, and places one end between his teeth. Then he tips his hat forward and stands, rolling his shoulders so his shirt rides up, and I get a glimpse of his boxer-briefs—dusky blue with a hole where the elastic and cotton are starting to part ways.

I jump up quick.

When he finishes his stretch, he drops his arm across my shoulders. “You know, Casper, some nights I go to sleep thinking I’m the weirdest thing in this town, but—”

“Something weirder always comes along.”

He pulls the straw from his lips and exhales. “Every damn time.”

We make our way down the slope, careful not to step on the edges of the camouflaged and star-spangled blankets spread out beneath the Hickory Ditch-dwellers and their empty paper plates and crumpled chip bags. The cool, sweaty crook of Brant’s elbow soothes my sunburnt neck, but the casual weight of his arm threatens to buckle my knees. He is simultaneously breaking me down and holding me up and having no idea about any of it.

And that’s the trouble with guys like Brant. They’re so sure of themselves, so far above speculation that they never think twice about moving in for a hug when you’re just looking for a handshake. They’ll ruffle your hair when they could pat you on the back, and instead of laughing at a joke, they’ll start an impromptu wrestling match. I’ve been avoiding these guys since puberty, but that was in Dallas where thirteen thousand people attended our church every week. There’s less than six thousand people living in Hickory Ditch, and less than two hundred of those people attend Harvest Mission, and less than forty of those people are in youth group, and less than five of those people are willing to be seen with me. Avoiding Brant is not an option.

Maybe if we could go somewhere else, like First Methodist or Powerhouse, but churches here ain’t like churches elsewhere. You can’t come and go as you please. Our church in Dallas called itself a community; Harvest Mission calls itself a family. You can choose a new community any time you get sick of the old one, but you can’t join a new family, no matter how poorly you fit in with the one you’ve got. My grandparents grew up at Harvest Mission, my mother grew up at Harvest Mission, and now Laramie and I will finish growing up at Harvest Mission. 

If someone had told me even a year ago that it’d be like this today, I’d have said they were crazy. It took Laramie being born for my parents to patch things up with my grandparents, so I was almost five before I ever set foot in this town. Afterwards, we still only visited once or twice a year, but when we did, attending at least one service at Harvest Mission with Grandma and Grandpa was required. Daddy always balked at the door like a steer seeing his first trailer. But when our Dallas community didn’t do anything to help us after the accident, it was Harvest Mission that took up offerings to keep me and Laramie fed. Because that’s what families do for each other, even if they only see you once or twice a year, even if they don’t got that much to give.

So I’m stuck with Brant. We’re family. Brothers in Christ. That’s how Mackey tells all us youth group boys to think of each other, and we all get that it’s a metaphor, but when it comes to me and Brant, most folks take it literal. Someone’s always coming up to me at church and patting me on the back or squeezing my elbow, saying some version of, “Brant Mitchell is like the big brother you never had!” This irritates me because one, Brant isn’t even a full month older than me, and two, I have a stupid little sister so any suggestion that I need an older sibling implies there is something naturally dull and middle-childish about me, and three, I don’t like to think of Brant that way because of this other way I think of him, this way that tells me he’s beautiful even though I know it can’t be true because girls are beautiful, not boys, and it ain’t right to confuse the two.

But somehow I do.

Ditch Daze happens for three reasons:

1.) To celebrate America’s independence from British tyranny.

2.) To honor our unique history as a town built around a bone-dry, butt-ugly ravine that may or may not be haunted and/or cursed.

3.) To stimulate the local economy by luring in out-of-towners with the promise of antique cars, teenage beauty queens, and all the useless knick-knacks a minivan could ever dream to carry.

In service to the third and arguably most important goal, the town tapes off large swaths of the park, making it not entirely impossible but extremely inconvenient to get from one event to another without getting lost in the arts ’n’ crafts booths. As we re-enter the maze, Brant’s arm slides off my neck, but his hand catches on my shoulder, fingers curling around the bone in a firm, split-second squeeze. Then his arm is back where it belongs, swinging at his side, while my heart races off in a direction my body will never follow.

We pass dozens of booths, each one hawking its own unique flavor of country kitsch but otherwise exactly the same—tarp roofs crackling in the hot breeze, sweaty vendors lounging in old plastic lawn chairs, rickety tables sway-backing under the weight of their wares. They’ve got leopard-print wall crosses and camouflage dreamcatchers, serious hunting knives and goofy switch-blade combs. Polished walking sticks with animal faces carved into the crooks and plush patchwork horses made from fancy old furs. One booth has a pyramid of those colorful, scented wax blocks all the moms have gone crazy over, and if that don’t make your house smell classy enough, there’s plenty of candles inexplicably shaped like high heels and martini glasses at the booth next door. Past that, there’s a man selling gun racks made from upturned deer hooves, table runners made from coyote pelts, and hundreds upon hundreds of little wooden signs that say things like, “Born to Hunt … Forced to Work” and “Missing Husband and Dog … Reward for Dog!”

Back when we had money, Daddy liked to show off in front of all the folks who’d told Mama he’d never amount to anything. He would set me loose with a roll of twenties, and I’d spend it on the weirdest things I could find. Of course, back then, I had no idea they were weird. It’s only recently that I’ve realized an orange-and-purple Styrofoam lizard marionette might not have been the best use of all that cash. Of course, back then, I had no idea the flow of twenties would ever end. I convince myself it doesn’t matter, there’s nothing here I’d want, much less need, so who cares if Daddy gave his last five bucks to my stupid little sister without so much as a you’re almost a man now, son, you understand apology. 

That’s when it hits me, a smell as literally bittersweet as the memories it shoves up my nose and into my brain. Just like that I’m back at the ranch, sitting on the bench in the barn aisle, polishing my saddle while Vern bangs his hoof against his stall, demanding attention or sweet feed. He was the first horse that was mine alone and the first one Daddy sold. A well-bred barrel horse can still pay off a good chunk of debt, even in trying times like these.

We lift our heads, eyes searching and nostrils flaring like a couple of coondogs casting for a trail. Brant punches my arm, points out a camo-covered booth near the end of the row. He takes off, turning his torso so his shoulder slices through the crowd, and I fall into his wake, fighting the urge to grab hold of the back of his shirt so he can’t disappear. Two parents and nine children—all decked out in matching red, white, or blue T-shirts bearing the Old Navy American flag like some sort of family crest—pile out of a booth that sells red razorback lawn ornaments. Brant’s shoulder bounces right off the sweaty slab of a dad. He stumbles backward, nostrils now flaring in an entirely different way. 

Before he can do something stupid, I steer him toward the emptied-out razorback booth. He accepts my recalculated route, and I follow him around a herd of snarling stone hogs until we come out safely on the other side of the wannabe Duggars. He shoots a curled lip over his shoulder, and it occurs to me that if we were, in fact, a couple of coondogs, he’d be brash Old Dan for sure, leaving me as Little Ann, the smart one, yeah, but also the girl. I frown.

We reach the leathersmith’s tent and duck under the camo netting draped across the entrance. Inside, thick green-and-brown tarps create a suffocating sort of darkness I haven’t experienced since the last time I stepped foot in a Hollister store two Christmases ago—just switch out the odor of sterilized sand and the psychedelic beat of MGMT with the scent of cowhide and a guitar riff from Diamond Rio.

There’s only two tables in the booth, their ends pushed together to make a backward L-shape. An old man stands behind them, not a scrap of hair on his head but for a wispy, white goatee. He’s leaning over the front table, showing a slightly less-old man a leather-handled hunting knife. A little boy taps his grimy fingers on a display case full of pocket knives, leaving greasy, green smudges. I make a mental note not to let any bare skin touch the glass. 

A family of four fills the narrow space between the second table and the tarp wall, trying on hand-tooled belts. Brant and I wait behind them, the tight quarters forcing my right hip bone into his left butt cheek. My nose hovers just above his shoulder, breathing in the sweat behind his ear.  When he turns his head to roll his eyes about this new slow-moving family, his mouth comes so close my hands start shaking. I jam them in my back pockets. 

The family leaves without buying anything. Brant steps up to the table. One half is covered in wallets and cuff bracelets, the other in a snakey pile of black and brown belts. Brant unfolds a wallet and presses it over his face, inhaling with a passion he normally reserves for marijuana and bacon. He’s only moved a foot away, but it feels like extra-sticky bandages have been ripped off all the parts of my body he was touching, tearing off hair and skin and leaving me raw and exposed, like everyone can see I’ve got these festering self-inflicted wounds known as feelings.

I burrow my hands into the pile of belts, letting the crisp, cool leather slip between my fingers. All the belts feature these woodsy redneck scenes—bird dogs on point, bucks on alert, that sort of thing—and while some are similar in overall design, each one differs in the tiny details. I can’t believe that old man’s liver-spotted hands still have so much talent..

Brant tosses the wallet on the table and turns to the belts, choosing one of the size 30s. I rifle through a larger size, wondering if he judges me for being shorter and thicker than him and knowing he never thinks about it at all. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to look when I haven’t bothered to carry a wallet since Christmas. Plus, even if I did have money to spend, none of these belts appeal to me much since I’m not a hunter, fisher, or Confederate flag enthusiast.