The Taste of Salt (3 page)

Not long after this conversation, he totaled his car on Fifty-fifth and Euclid. Went right up on the sidewalk, knocked over a streetlight. When they picked him up, he couldn't even say the alphabet properly. He went into rehab after that. I helped with the paperwork, but I spoke to him only once while he was there. He wasn't allowed to make too many calls, and when we did talk, he sounded as though he was at the bottom of a well. I couldn't stand it. I know, I know I abandoned him when he needed me. I know that's wrong. But I couldn't stand the aching, hollow sound of his voice.

I think that's why I came home without a fuss when Mom asked me to. I knew that I hadn't been there for the hard part before and I wasn't going to be there for the hard part to come. I could do this little bit of driving. That I could do.

This all goes through my mind rapidly as I sit there. I can't say any of it to Lakeisha James. So I just say this. I say, “We'll manage. We all love Tick very much.”

She sighs. “I'm sure you do,” she says. I can see her deciding that she isn't getting anything else out of me. She stacks up some papers and shows me where to sign, where Tick already signed. And then it's time to get him and go.

T
ICK IS SITTING WITH
his feet angled toward each other, the way he always did when he was a kid. He looks like he wants a cigarette, his fingers twisting nervously around each other. He looks like he's afraid they won't let him go. Lakeisha smiles broadly and hugs him, saying, “You make those meetings now, you hear?” And Tick nods and she rubs the back of his head like you would a little boy. I stand awkwardly to the side.

After another hug, he is released. He picks up his cheap bag and grins at me. “Let's get out of here,” he says. So we do.

“Feels funny being back out here again, huh, Tick?” I say as we pull out of the driveway.

He bristles a bit. “What, that place? I ain't never been there before.”

I suck my teeth. “Dag, Tick, I know that. I mean back out by Dean.”

“Oh. School. Yeah.” He smiles a little. “Actually, I didn't
think about that too much. But yeah. It is weird to be back out here. Especially when you think about why I was out here. He twists toward me away from the side window he's been looking out of. “You mind if I have a cig? I'll open the window.”

“Go ahead.” I wish he wouldn't smoke in the car—it makes me want a cigarette, too. But I have to grant him this—it's the one addiction he's got left. We hope anyway. I stare straight ahead as he lights up.

Tick reaches out to turn on the radio. I set it to the oldies station on the drive out so the Isley Brothers ease out of the speakers—I don't know why I love all that old stuff. But I do. I laugh. “Remember when I was little and I used to think that everybody on the radio was down there at the station, waiting to go on? I couldn't believe it when Mom told me it was records. You could've knocked me over with a feather.”

Tick laughs. “Yeah, I remember. You never was too good at thinking stuff like that through.”

“Stuff like that, yeah. I did okay with other stuff though,” I say. Tick takes a long drag and looks at me. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. I don't know. I just mean in school and all.”

Tick sits straight up. “Damn, Josie, I ain't been out that damn place an hour and you already steady telling me what's
wrong with me. I did the best I could. Shit, I know I fucked up.” He sighs. “Been steady fucking up. But I'm trying to stop. Always had you as the perfect example in front of me. That didn't help.” It's funny listening to him talk—his years with the Cavs have made his voice more … well … black. More slangy, less grammatical, more like the players—who, let's face it, are mostly young, unpolished black men. You can't hang around an NBA team and not talk the talk. I wonder what Daddy would think about that—he never liked us to sound too “street.” I like listening to Tick. I never hear truly urban, black voices anymore. I don't sound like him—in fact, a lot of other kids were only too happy to ask me “How come you talk so white?” for much of my childhood.

I slide the car into the flow of traffic in front of us. “So it's my fault.”

“No … damn, Josie, no. That ain't what I'm saying. I just had a lot of time to think in there, you know. I been thinking a lot.”

I have the feeling that whatever I say will be wrong. So I don't say anything. Tick smokes and looks out the window but then—we're saved by Prince. The song on the radio changes to “Purple Rain,” a musical peace offering. I seize on it. “Oh, man Tick, remember when we saw him in concert? That was so amazing.”

He grins, “I think you were more amazed than I was.”

I change lanes, feeling a little embarrassed for some reason. “I guess I was. Did you know that for weeks after that concert me and Deena used to sit on the porch with that little radio of mine writing down every time they played this?”

“Is that what y'all was doing? For real? I never knew why you two sat out there like that all that time.” He laughs. “Thought you were watching the cars go by. Or the fireflies once it got dark. I never could figure it out.”

“Yeah, well, you were too busy hanging out in old McNeil's lot, getting into trouble.” McNeil's lot is a large overgrown tract of land behind our block that, for some reason, no one had ever bought and developed. You could get in there easily by going around the corner from our house. It was best known for kids hanging out there and committing nefarious acts—sometimes childish, sometimes not.

“Mmf.”
He pauses and takes a long drag. “You know they mowed that all down now and put a big fence around it. It ain't nothing but a big vacant lot now. Nobody hangs out there anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It's a shame.” Another long pause. “A lotta things changed since you left, Josie. A lotta things.”

I let that hang in the air. It's not like I didn't know
that. I decide to go ahead and say what I've been thinking about—the hardest question. “You gonna stay clean this time, Tick?”

He flicks his cigarette out the window and rubs his hands across his pants legs. He looks out the window. “Sure gonna try. I know I owe that to everybody. To try.”

He's like a stone around my neck, around all our necks. Is he really ready to set us free? Neither of us says another word the rest of the way home. “Purple Rain” ends and the Brothers Johnson's “Strawberry Letter 23” comes on. We might be kids again, sitting silently together, our thoughts washing over us like waves.

When we pull up to the house, Mom is sitting out front. She's gained weight recently, even though she knows better—she's a cardiac care nurse. Her hair is gray, straightened, and short. It's beautifully cut—she's more careful about that kind of thing since she got heavier. Her half-glasses sit on the end of her nose and she's wearing jeans and a tunic and sneakers. She looks like herself. Tired and worn but the self I've always known. The big surprise is that Daddy is sitting next to her. Their legs are almost touching and they're both looking straight ahead. I haven't seen my father in nearly a year—it's been that long since I'd come home to visit. He looks good. His skin is even and clear and he's lost weight. His hair, which has thinned very little, is
gray and close-cropped and he's wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Even though I knew that they've become friendlier as time's gone by and he's stayed sober, there's also this voice in me that's still about sixteen. It's yelling:
You threw him out. How can you let him back into your life? If you threw him out, that's that.
They look like statues together there, quiet, dark, and still. They don't stand up the minute we pull into the driveway. It takes a moment for them to pull themselves together to look really happy to see me driving their son, my brother, home. “Tick, did you know Daddy was going to be here?” I ask. I hate the way my voice is shaking.

He stubs his cigarette out. “Yeah, Mom told me. My group they thought it might be good for me to see him. And I don't know. I said all right.”

Our parents stand up and come toward us. Tick gives me one last nervous look and climbs out of the car. He moves toward the porch and drops his bag on the ground. “Mom?” He takes an uncertain step toward her.

Her face shatters. I don't know any other way to describe it. All that loss and anger and that she loves him anyway—it is all in her sorrowing face. She can't ever stop loving him, even if it might make her life easier. Never. Does she feel that way about me? I suppose so. But I've never been as much trouble—nor am I as charming—so I've never been in the spotlight the way Tick has. She steps toward Tick
with her arms open and it is as though I have never existed at all. My father grimaces uncomfortably—maybe, like me, he sees that she has never loved him the way she loves the man in front of her, the one she'd given birth to, the one they'd raised. Or maybe he is thinking of his part in all the pain my mother has borne.

Tick and my mother hold each other for a long time, making little noises, almost like lovers. I stare at the maple tree on the front lawn. My father stands with his hands limp at his sides. It is so quiet you can hear the wind move through the leaves.

They break their embrace, my mother wiping at her cheeks like an embarrassed child, Tick standing so close that their shoulders touch. A big black Escalade drives by, booming “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” My father says, “Let's go in.” He and I lead the way. He walks ahead of me but I can still see his face in my mind. He looks older and more relaxed and handsome than he did when I was young; each year he spends sober seems to make time itself sit more easily on him. He seems settled into his soul, if you believe in that kind of thing—I'm not sure I do. He says hello but he doesn't try to touch me. I think he wants to. But he doesn't.

We sit in the living room and I suddenly wish Daniel was with me. He offered to come but I told him he didn't have to—that it was too expensive and that it would be easier if
he didn't. But that's not true. He has an ease with my family that I don't. That's pathetic, I know, but that's how it is. Maybe he's more relaxed because they are not his blood kin. He didn't live with them and see my father's quiet disappearance into a beer can or watch Tick start to disappear after him. He just takes them the way he finds them now. Back when we got married, I was still so angry with Daddy that I wasn't going to invite him to our wedding, but Daniel insisted. We fought over it. I finally gave in when we were arguing about it (again) and his eyes actually welled up. He said, “You will be sorry for the rest of your life if you don't invite him to your wedding, Josie. I know it. My father's dead. He can't be with us, and I'm telling you … you don't want to throw away the chance to have him there. I know he's hurt you, but he should be there, even if you can't stand to talk to him.” He was almost crying about it and I wasn't. That made me think that perhaps I should soften my stance. And you know what? He was right. Sometimes I think that's why I married Daniel—to soften my stance. He would have known what to say as Tick fidgeted in front of the mantelpiece and my father sat down in the same chair that he always sat in, even though it hasn't been his living room for many years. My mother and I sit on the edge of the sofa. I wish I could leave. But of course I can't.

“So I've got the basement fixed up for you, Tick,” my
mother volunteers. “I know you won't be there long. Just until you get back on your feet.”

Tick puts down the figurine that he has been awkwardly fiddling with on the mantelpiece. “Thanks, Ma. I appreciate that.”

“And son, I've got a list of AA meetings. I'm sure they gave you one but it's good to have one on you.” This from my father. He extends a printed pocket-size booklet toward Tick.

Tick looks right through him. I can see that he wants that list but, at the same time, he doesn't want Daddy to be the one he takes it from. After a frozen moment, he reaches out and takes it. My father nods and then stands up. “I guess I better be getting on. Tick, you be in touch when you need to, all right?” He stands and walks to him, puts a hand squarely on his back and lets it rest there for a few moments. Tick turns his eyes from the mantel after a minute and looks at him, but he doesn't offer an embrace. Daddy nods once more and then steps toward me. I stand up and he puts his arms around me. Like an awkward teenager, I stand there with my arms hanging straight down my sides. He pushes me away from him and looks into my eyes but doesn't speak. He sighs and turns to my mother, saying, “So, Sarah—we'll talk?”

“Yes, Ray. We will.” She gives him a real hug and walks
him to the door. Tick and I stare after them, united in bafflement and anxiety, like we used to be. Not like two people in their thirties. More like a couple of kids.

My mother comes back. “Well, I'd better get dinner started,” she says, her voice twinkling like a television mother's. And with that, she goes off to the kitchen. Tick looks at me for a long moment. “Damn,” he says, “ain't that something. With Daddy, I mean?”

“It's something, all right. He looks good, huh?”

Tick sits down in Daddy's chair and looks out the window. “I guess.”

“He might be able to help you, you know. He's … well … he's been there, right?”

Tick looked away from me, through me, his eyes hard. “No one has been where I've been. No one.” After all the phone calls and the worry and the agony, when he says that, that is the most frightened I've been.

I'm a scientist. I like to get to the bottom of things, to state the working hypothesis quickly. Narrative is not my specialty. But when I stop to think about it, in some ways, telling a story is like science. Trying to understand how a system works, what makes it function or not function, that's part of what a story does. Nothing is unrelated to the things that came before it. It's true of evolution and it's true of a family. I am, in part, the sum of all who came before me, my parents and brother, their parents and siblings, and on and on, back onto the slave ships and then back farther, back to Ghana and the slave castles at Elmina and to wherever my ancestors were before that.