Delicious Foods (10 page)

T
he minibus done slowed down to a bumpity-bump. The headlights lit up a wall, and the bricks of the wall turned out as part of a farmhouse made of cinder blocks. The red-eyed driver, a brother they called Hammer, put the thing in park, let the engine idle, and went, We’re here. Hammer wasn’t his name, they called him that on account a he look like MC Hammer—he a skinny brother with his hair shaved in stripes on one side and got them same big glasses. He stretched his arms by grabbing the top of the steering wheel and said, Home sweet home, y’all, then a second later he said
GET OUT
in a real loud voice, like the
Amityville Horror
demon, to a dude name Hannibal and to TT, who twitching and talking shit and hadn’t got up yet.

Didn’t nobody in that minibus care about nothing. TT and Hannibal—a spacey man who always wearing this raggedy-ass fedora—almost got into a fistfight over if Michael Jordan was the best
ever.
They agreed that he
played
the best, but Hannibal said just playing the best ain’t make nobody
the best ever,
because what about sportsmanship?

So nobody seen them headlights shining on the new digs as we passing, let alone the whole farm. I coulda told em ’bout some shacks I seen next to some white propane tanks, and then some wide-ass fields with orange trees sometimes, and swampy saw grass far as the headlights could throw they beams. Looked peaceful, like a place where wouldn’t nobody get up in our business, and you know I hate when people be judging my friends for hanging out with me. Whenever I could take a vacation with em I jump at the chance.

A chicken waddled into the road in front of us. Hammer almost hit it—he had to stomp on the brake with both feet and that made the bus jerk forward like Sherman Hemsley, so much that Darlene seen the bead cushion under Hammer’s ass when he leapt up. The whole crew got jostled and took to complaining. Hannibal dropped his pipe, and it ain’t break but it did roll up under the seats, and he had to get down on his knees and crawl around to find it while it’s rolling back and forth. When he bent down, everybody could see his butt crack and that caused some serious hilarity for everybody except a lively woman name Michelle who wearing pigtails even though she thirty-something—you know that girl hopped over Hannibal ass and looked out the window with a scared face on, gripping the seat back.

Did you hit it? she asked. You didn’t hit it, did you? That’s bad luck to hit a chicken!

Especially for the chicken, Hammer said.

Down in the road, the chicken waggled them red things on its head at the new employees in the bus like it saying, Course I made it, you dumbasses. The fuck you looking at?

In all the drama of stopping, Darlene and I sat in the back looking at the scene, studying it like it’s some philosophicated hypothenesthesism and with a li’l giggle we thought to ourself,
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Kind of as a joke, but Darlene also said that shit out loud. Why did the chicken cross the road? Ain’t nobody act like they heard, so we start asking the question seriously—my girl wanted a
answer.
Why did the chicken cross the road?

Right then the chicken booked into them tall grasses off to the side of the minibus. Hammer pointed at it and said to Darlene, Look like you missed your chance for a exclusive interview. Then he jump off the driver seat and gone to unlock the door that let us all out.

Michelle told Hammer, You funny. Glad you ain’t hit it.

Jackie frowned and squinted, tryna see where the chicken had went, like maybe she gonna have to go chase it down. How did she get out? Jackie muttered under her breath. But then her expression changed into one that ain’t care no more.

We was in front of this long one-story building made of concrete that had a line of muddy windows along the top of the wall. Jackie, Michelle, TT, and Darlene slid down out they seats into a pothole filled with water and had to shake out they shoes; Hammer poked and punched Hannibal and Sirius B till they stood up and got out, all sloppy and nervous. Now that Darlene out the shitty-ass A/C in the van, the humidity put her in a chokehold. She searching for a clue to where we had gone to—was we still in Texas, or had we went far as Louisiana or Mississippi or even the Florida Panhandle? Couldn’t nobody tell, and if I was the only motherfucker paying attention, they sure had a
mucho problema.
How long do it take to get how far? Was that a Texas tree? Was that? The hell time it was? Was that sugarcane?

Darlene look at the building kinda suspicious, and then, right with everybody else, the good smells in her memory gone away and got replaced with a strong shit smell. Like a shit smell so bad that it reached its whole hand up inside your nose, pinched the bottom of your brain, and twisted your tear ducts like a lemon peel going into a motherfucking cocktail. The newbies all gagging and making disgusted faces and talking with vomit voices. Somebody seen feathers on the ground and pointed and said they saw feathers on the ground.

This is a chicken coop, Darlene said, like she just discovered America. Why did we stop here?

No, no, this ain’t no chicken coop! TT said. How it’s a chicken coop when we just seen a chicken running around
outside?

Basehead, she muttered.

Bitch, I heard that, TT started, but Sirius B took a step to stand between em.

Darlene screwed up her face at TT and then turnt around, sighing to herself, ’cause TT always be saying the negative of whatever you said. She knew to ignore his ass.

I feel bad for you, TT, Sirius B said.

In the minibus, Sirius telling everybody how well known he is for music in Dallas–Fort Worth—mostly Fort Worth—and that hadn’t impressed nobody, but outside Darlene could check out his tallness and saw that he had these long sexy arms on a wiry muscular body, with a ballplayer butt. Big big big Sasquatch feet. She took a step closer so she could feel the body heat between they arms and the little hairs that be brushing together there.

You in the opposite reality of everybody else, Sirius told TT. You don’t gotta be Einstein to smell that this a damn chicken coop. He laughed at how ridiculous TT be.

Darlene smirked, and she wanna put her hand up Sirius shirt between his shoulder blades so she could know firsthand ’bout how smooth his skin. So she did. And instead of jerking around violent or nothing, Sirius turnt and shown her his face like a gift he gonna let her unwrap later, but she gotta wait. But between the feel of them silky back muscles and the open face he done showed her, his eyes touching her eyes, shit got all gooey, and that put the holy terror in her. She pulled her hand out and put it behind her on her own back, like she tryna undo what she had just did. Sirius looked forward again.

Jackie asked Hammer to leave the headlights on so everybody could see better in the early light and follow her to a heavy sliding gray door a few yards up. She kept hunting around, maybe to see where the chicken had went, then unlocked the door, pulled it open with some help from Sirius, and stood next to it so everybody could get in, even though she ain’t put no lights on. The chicken-shit odor got ten times stronger, and when Darlene moved inside the building, into the nasty musty chicken air, and stood in this hallway with a bunch of straw scattered on the floor, she could hear these
ting ting ching
sounds coming from the left. She looked to the left and seen that one noise had came from all the chicken feet plucking at the bottom of they cages, and the other noise was the birds going
what what what brock
all over the place, or at least the ones of the birds that be insomniacs.

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.