Welcome to Braggsville (18 page)

I got up early and asked Daron to show me the knots, just in case, I said. He was outside with Charlie. I knew what was happening. I couldn't blame Charlie. If I were black, I wouldn't swing any more than I'd dress like a ten-year-old Chinese virgin at a reenactment of Nanking. At sunup, I put on the blackface. I mentioned it to Charlie once. He didn't like it. Candice liked it even less, and was reluctant to help me put it on. It smelled oily and was cold on your skin. For the first few minutes it keeps feeling like a cool wind is blowing on your face.

The wig? Mine was part of last year's Disco Ronald McDonald Reagan Halloween costume. I liked Daron's more. I put on the harness and then a torn shirt over it. We flung the noose over the highest branch and looped it around my neck. The noose rope was pretty
thick. The harness was ballistic nylon and we used a cable for that. The cable was thin enough to hide behind the rope, and we threw the cable and a pulley over the lowest branch. She hoisted me up with the pulley, and at the same time, pulled on the rope, so it looked like I was being lifted by the neck.

I always wanted to be taller. It was a beautiful view. From about four feet higher than usual, I could see across the valley to where the Union soldiers were camped and I could see the center of town, which the Confederacy hoped to defend and make the new capital. I read that somewhere. I knew when they were coming. That many people you hear before you see. They came over the ridge with the sun striking those canteens and tin cups, making them glow like scales, like it was a massive, slithering creature. You're never completely prepared for that. Candice was frantic. I felt kinda bad for her. And for a moment, I was scared.

But as they grew close, I thought, How could they hurt a hanged man? Then the big one snatched the whip from Candice and started cracking it in the air. He laughed and cracked it again. Another one grabbed the whip and did the same thing. We went on like this for several minutes, until another one grabbed it, and not being content to slap the air, started to whip me.

In the struggle to avoid the lashes, I must have snapped the hook, leaving all my weight to be supported by the noose, or maybe the harness caught my neck. What did I think as those troops continued to stream down that hill—their crushed gray hats so similar to the hipster style now popular in San Fran and New York? This would be a hit in the Castro.

A
relationship is like a road trip: You get bugs splattered on the windshield. By the time you see them, it's too late, but you still keep going. It's like starting out on patrol: once you strap on the battle rattle and mount up, you ride until it's tits up, Daron's father often said. Under Daron's mother's scowl, he would then bluster through an explanation of—and cobble together a synonym for—Tango Uniform, in other words, Tits Up, in other words, Toes Up, in other words, On Its Back, in other words, You stay in the transport unless absolutely necessary to leave, and even then you seek nearby cover and concentrate on protecting your squadmates in the vehicle. But after his mom left, he would say, Son, ride till it's tits up and you'll do all right.

He'd first offered this wisdom after the Davenports once again made the long September school shopping trip to and from the outlet mall in aggressive silence. He'd gassed the shocks on the driveway curb, and terminated the journey not with his usual request—Permission to dock, Commander—which D'aron always granted, but instead ended with the strained plastic ratcheting of the emergency brake. On that trip, D'aron realized what he'd long suspected: He was the source of his father's stress, as was the another-one his mother was apparently crazy to even mention. What he'd done wrong D'aron
could not say, and it was years before he understood that, A credit card is not the same as money, or, Women work all the time now, or, A part-time job can't carry a full-time life. Until those ragged perceptions coalesced into a nameable fear, the uncertainty kept D'aron in the car at every rest stop, afraid to be left behind—with the another-one his mother was apparently crazy to even mention. (The only thing missing on those trips, he once joked while possessed by alien technology, was the wet throstle sound of the compressor pumping its Freon-filled, single-chambered heart.)

That deepest of fears, being left behind, even amplified as it had been in the mind of his child self—aka Little Mays—took new form on the return drive from the hospital morgue to Sheriff's and Sheriff's to the house, a journey during which neither the Davenports nor Daron's friends even cut eyes at each other, scanning their respective sides of the road like grunts on security detail. Except Daron, again riding bitch, had no place to look except down, or at the backs of his parents' heads, or at the gearshift, where his mother's satiny hand lay draped over his father's own fine diamond wrinkles, a reminder it was not their quarrel. They'd spoken only when necessary—not at all—angling over knees and elbows to retrieve ultimately unneeded items from the glove box, center console, seat pocket. Candice shrunk herself into the corner, as did Charlie, only their legs touched, and even that felt a reluctant concession to a need Daron couldn't name, a need that nettled his chest as it desperately uncoiled, a need that also shamed them into contracting, shamed them into withdrawing that contact when they passed Lou's and Candice gasped, or when the wire-haired pizza delivery driver pulled abreast of them on Main Street, or when they turned the corner where Louis had made the bingo wings comment on the way home from Lou's—only yesterday!—a comment that Daron at last understood, watching Miss Ursula tax her rickety aluminum glider, hands interlaced behind her head like a stoic coach, the sagging skin under her triceps
wavering like a bag of goldfish, but offering no wave. His mind flitted between Louis, mostly the first day they had met, how long it had taken to crack code word Lenny Bruce Lee, and his father, whom he expected to strike him at any moment. His father, though, was acting strange, tres bizarre: each time he caught Daron's eye in the rearview mirror, he looked away, which he never did, but not before registering a certain surprise and relief—was it?—to see Daron still there.

Once more Mary Jo, Bobby, Kevin, Dennis, Raymond, Lucille, Frankie, Coddles, Lyle, John, Andy, Miss Ursula, Jim, Lonnie, Postmaster Jones, William, Travis, Todd, Tony, Dennis M. . . . On the ride home from Sheriff's office, everyone was again on porches or at windows. Daron didn't call out their names this time, and this time no one waved. Where do the black people live? In the front yards! It was funny. (I guess that's better than the back of the bus, Louis had later added. Daron had thought that funny, too.) Louis's absence was always noticeable. Though skinny, he'd filled space like a fat man on a crowded elevator, except a welcome addition, not someone who provoked strangers to regard each other with situational solidarity. He had, in fact, induced people to regard each other with suspicion, to question the known. Louis would have made this funny—no, not funny but comic, and in doing so would have made it real, would have made it possible to express what they felt—aloud. When anxiety threatened to smother them, when the 4 Little Indians had nearly succumbed to the block and tackle of cluck and cackle in the entry line at Six Flags, Louis spurred them on, and relieved the tension of waiting forty-five minutes to enter the park (just to wait what they knew would be another fifty-five to ride Medusa) by interviewing Mary-Kate and Ashley, the honorifics he'd bestowed upon Candice's prosthetic protestants.

As soon as his father eased up the driveway, Candice was out of the car and limping toward the house. Charlie, always more patient and self-controlled, waited for the car to come to a complete stop
and called after her, carrying her crutches. Before Daron could chase after them, both his father and mother twisted around to face him. In the space between their heads, he could see Charlie helping Candice into the house; he could only watch as Candice shambled along with one hand on a crutch and the other on Charlie's shoulder, only watch as she took slow steps steadied by Charlie's arm around her waist, only watch as Charlie's fingers grazed that slice of honeydew between her belt and her shirt. He wanted to be the one to help her.

It's a terrible thing that's happened, son. It's terrible to lose your friend like that. It wasn't a good idea, either. It was dumb as shitting on your own shoe, to be sure, but that's for later.

I know you must feel terrible, baby. His mother's face, like his father's, was a mixture of grief and something else—relief?—two looks that stung his cheeks and fell Daron ill, queasy, as had the smell in the coroner's office, as had the smell of bacon in the kitchen that morning. It opened a space in him that he didn't want to explore, so he continued scooting toward the car door.

What we need you to understand today—his father reached into the backseat to take a good handful of Daron's jaw and swung it to face him—what you have to know is that you are alive and you need to keep on trucking, and you couldn't have saved him. Maybe if you woulda went along to Old Man Donner's things woulda gone differently because people would recognize you, but maybe not. And unless you plan to be everywhere for everybody, you can't save everyone. That's the first thing you learn under fire. And you are fixing to be under fire, son. Stay strong. Don't give me that look. I know what you're feeling, D'aron. I know it too well. That's why I was glad when you went to school. Got it?

Daron nodded, Yes, sir, and followed after his friends. When only a few feet from the car, he slipped in mud slick as oil where one of The Charlies had once stood and landed with his feet in the air. Hobbling through the front door, he found that inside felt like those afternoons
when his parents fought in silence, everyone dispersed through the house like rival gangs, each spraying their territory not with graffiti, but with music. Tool on the living room stereo. Dixie Chicks on the under-cabinet receiver. Their dialogue a call-and-response of banging doors, slamming cabinets; stomping feet, scraping chairs; drill and vacuum. Today everyone wore headphones, but Daron knew Charlie was looping
There for You
by Flyleaf and Candice was listening to
Cute Without the E
on repeat. Candice vanished in the direction of Daron's bedroom. Charlie went outside. Daron sat in the kitchen scrolling through pictures of Louis on his phone until it was unbearable. Then forced himself to start over again.

In between, he watched the activity in the backyard. He focused only on what he could see through one vinyl mullion, as if confining perception meant controlling emotion. He couldn't see where Candice had climbed the fence, or where Louis had delivered his routine. He could see the six-pillared gazebo, built of wood, not the more durable synthetic lumber because, The doctor's office and schools are the only places to sit on plastic. Charlie was drinking a glass of boxed wine with his mother, who had sparked the grill. She hoped it didn't seem festive, but, he heard her say, People still have to eat, and it just doesn't feel like a night for cooking. When she'd poured the wine, she and Charlie had held it to the sky like connoisseurs, and it occurred to Daron that his mom might be joking, but Charlie probably did know a thing or three about wine. His mother gave a sweet wave in the direction of the house. Daron returned the gesture, and was disappointed when his response didn't spark an enthusiastic uptick in his mom's flutter. The back door slammed, and he understood that she had not been waving to him. He expected to see Candice, but it was his father's legs stamping grass across the yard.

The three—Charlie and his parents—sat like friends, like three old friends at a wake, his mother running her fingernails along his father's jeans seam, Charlie across from them, where Daron usually
sat, shielding his eyes from the sun whenever he tilted in to hear Daron's mother. They looked to be giving advice. Each time they spoke, Charlie leaned in, listened silently, sat back and bowed his head with understanding, two fingers anchoring the foot of his wineglass to the table.

When his parents fought, after a half hour to an hour of baking, tinkering, adjusting hinges, and other cacophonous domestic penitence, they would reconvene in the bedroom (Bang! Click! Listen up!), and start all over: muffled exclamations, roars, yellow bawling, silence. Next, rhythmic quaking pulsed optimistically, eagerly into shameless and squeaky clamor, followed by giddy, barefoot reemergence (and cigarette smoking). That was the enigma: argument fired hearts into crucibles of flesh. That was the mystery that drew Daron into the shadowed hall and kept him there watching Candice, kept him standing there even after working up the nerve to talk, even after taking several mental dry runs, even after he heard her shuffling toward the hall and he saw Charlie loping toward the house, even after he knew he had to talk to her before Charlie did, to have it out with her before Charlie did, even after he felt certain that having it out was part of adulthood, having it out strengthened bonds, having it out was his performative intervention. He was glad it was Sheriff who'd contacted the Changs. He couldn't even start this conversation.

From his bedroom doorway he watched her work. Half of Louis's stuff was still strewn across the corner he had claimed as his own, the other half across Charlie's corner. Candice was trying to clean it up. Her foot propped on Daron's chair, she sat perched on the edge of the bed, turned three-quarters away from him, the soft line of her cheek and bend of her breast wavering in and out of visibility as she worked. At the hospital they had outfitted her with a fracture boot for her right foot, and with her sweats and tank top and faint tan, she resembled a skier reluctant to disrobe. So meticulous. Socks she sausaged like everyone else, but T-shirts she folded and stacked like a
factory worker. She laid each one out on the bed, smoothed it gently, tucked the arms in first, then the collar, then the bottom, and flipped it over so the logo was framed in the center and no seams were visible. Louis's DonkeyPunchLove shirt was thrown over the bed. Another one read,
MY MOM WORKS AT WALMART, SO ALL I GET FOR XMAS IS THIS T-SHIRT, AGAIN
. After folding each garment, she straightened and drew in her chin as if admiring her handiwork, patting each one like baby clothes.