Delicious Foods (19 page)

Of course, moving to Houston don’t never solve nobody problems, and Miss D sure couldn’t solve the big issue that be obvious to any fool who seen the family together in the happy days, which was that Eddie took after his pop so goddamn much—not just physically, with them whiskey-brown eyes and them eyelashes and that big-ass mouth, but he had somehow picked up a truckload of his daddy’s ways. It got tough for Darlene to stay in the room with him and drain out all the unhappiness that start swelling inside her feet, ’cause her son be a living reminder of her dead husband. That gon be the same whether she in Ovis or Houston or the east side of Hades.

Around that same time, a few month after she start her job at that Hartman’s Pharmacy, me and Darlene got together and had our first li’l tête-à-tête. So it could be I’m partly to blame for why it done took another year and a half for her to get her and Eddie ass to Houston for real. Meanwhile, in them May evenings after work, she feeling that restlessness coming on right before she gone home, like a checkpoint had sprung up between work and home where the happiness cops gonna pull her over and test her to make sure she got a positive mood. She be standing around outside the store after her shifts, watching customers stroll in and out, counting how many trucks gone past, letting the sun bake her face while it’s dropping off behind the trees in the neighborhood cross the street. Sometime she sat on a crate, smoking alone ’cause the store discount done got her started on tobacco again, or she with her other so-called associates on break, everybody parking theyself at a wobbly old picnic table with all kinda graffiti gouged into the wood.

One afternoon she sitting there watching one them freaky sunsets where every type of cloud done mixed with airplane exhaust and space dust or some shit and the sky be turning all blue and orange and it look the way a brass band sound while it’s tuning up. This sky had so much drama going on up there that a few customers was gathered on the walkway in front of the store gaping at it like they waiting for the space shuttle to launch. Off to one side, a gigantic storm cloud be blending the darkness with the coming night, but on the other side, the sun had burnt a hole in a bunch of puffy globs of meringue and its beams was shooting through. Above that, some the meringue done gone bright purple.

Spar, her manager, walked out onto the sidewalk and stared, then he turnt his head to Darlene.

It’s a stunner, huh?

What is? Darlene said. She seen the whole spectacle, plus the onlookers, without noticing nothing at all; everything she experienced feeling humdrum, like it’s a washed-out photograph in a motherfucking View-Master.

You, honey. He grinned.

Spar flirted with every woman who crossed the threshold at that damn store, but with Darlene he ain’t never stop, and that made her nervous that he meant it for real. It disturbed her ’cause he said he met Nat once—you don’t be hitting on the new widow of no acquaintance before the tag’s off his damn toe. Spar a skinny white guy, shorter and younger than Darlene, who slick his hair back and can’t grow enough face hair for a goatee but try anyhow. Not nobody she felt she could take seriously, almost not even as a boss. How seriously you could take a guy named after Spartacus, that dumbass gladiator from them old movies? She had wanted to work there ’cause that branch was way far away from Ovis—other side of Monroe, almost to Ruston—and she ain’t always feeling the eyes of motherfuckers who knew ’bout the murder and the trial and Mount Hope. Only Spar knew about her connection to all them tragic events, and she ain’t think he had said nothing to the others; also, most of em ain’t read the papers too careful, ’cause they sure ain’t sell too much of em at the store. Darlene liked that she ain’t had no identity or no history at her job; being anonymous meant she could relax for a while and hide in the stream of shoppers that was high on buying shit.

Spar pointed his chin up at the sky. The sunset, Darlene, darlin’. It’s almost as pretty as yourself.

Darlene waved one hand at him and took a drag from her cigarette with the other. Yeah, I see it, it’s nice, she said, exhaling a couple gray plumes.

Spar seem like he egged on by the fact that she responded at all, but he ain’t noticed, or had chose to ignore, the rejection in her voice. He took a few clumsy-ass steps over to her. Could I get a smoke, please?

Darlene flipped open her hard-pack and a final cigarette rolled to one side.

Are you sure you want to give me your last one?

She stretch out her arm farther toward him and push the cigarette up out the box with two fingers. Take it, she said, like she a robot. If I want more, there’s others inside. On discount too.

He took it and used his own lighter to get it started and sat down on a concrete thing looked like a broken wall jutting up from the walkway. They looked up at the craziness in the sky again, and the thrill in Spar li’l face be rising up slowly.

Like the end of the world, he said to hisself, and then turnt to Darlene, thinking some new thought, or maybe one he just mustered the gumption to blurt out. You been off work the last hour and ten, ha’nt you? Why you ain’t go home? You like it here that much? You waitin’ on somebody? Your boyfriend?

Didn’t he remember? Did she need to remind him? Darlene screamed in her head but decided she ain’t gonna answer, and Spar, who making a show of listening, had took off his dark company shirt and folded it over his thigh, showing off a sleeveless tank top. On his left shoulder, down to his wrist, he had the ugliest tattoo Darlene ever seen, a orange-and-green cartoon of a vine that be strangling a evil octopus that had fangs and a human face.

She couldn’t keep from staring at the terrible picture and screwing up her nose, and when he seen her looking, he went, It’s new. Then he goes, I got another, and smirked and pulled up his shirt to show her the Tasmanian devil on his pec, all alone, like Taz had runned over there ’cause he scared of the octopus. Spar held the ugly image on his shoulder close to her face until she felt like she had to say she liked it to make him move it out her personal space. Then he told a long story ’bout where the idea had came from that ain’t make no kinda sense whatsoever.

Hey, Spar said, once the dusk getting started. As you probably know, I live walking distance from here? And I’m finna go on home and have me a couple beers, and uh, continue to smoke things, and you’re welcome to join me if you like. Don’t make me drink alone, honey.

Darlene peered at him like she didn’t trust him.

I promise to be a total gentleman. He stood up.

Darlene be shifting in her seat.

You can bring me up on sexual harassment if I’m not. He raised his right hand. God’s my witness, he said, and then, suddenly distracted, he pointed at her ring. Hold the phone, you got a husband. Then there was a pause and Darlene shook her head and glared into his eyeballs, then Spar suddenly lowered gaze to his shoes. Right! he exclaimed. I forgot. Damn it to hell, I’m such a idiot! He punched hisself in the head, maybe a li’l violently. How could I forget a thing like that? I’m real sorry, Darlene. He put his palms up like he wanna touch her, but she knew he couldn’t.

Darlene finish her cigarette and flick the butt to the ground and it bounced underneath a car grille. The temperature had fell real quick and she ain’t thought to bring no sweater. She stood up, folding her arms and rubbing her biceps with her hands to keep warm, looking away from Spar. She impressed that Spar forgot, even for a instant, the thing that had seared itself into
her
mind to the exclusion of damn near everything else. She thinking maybe he could teach her how to forget everything too.

No wonder you’re always looking sad, Spar said. They started walking down the sparkly asphalt. Did them guys ever—? he asked, and then waggled his head, thinking better of it. Oh, I ain’t gonna pry, Miss Darlene. You could say whatever you feel comfortable with. Then he gone off on another monologue ’bout how nosiness had done in his grandfather during the Great Depression; he ain’t stop till they walked into his house, one them shabby joints with peeling paint everywheres, fat columns framing the door out on the verandah, sitting behind a couple magnolia trees.

Darlene knew who I was—she seen people smoking, they even offered to introduce her to me several times before, but she think she too good for me then. In the back of her mind, she thought I was dangerous, but she also recognized that sometimes you could do dangerous shit without no consequences. I was good friends with Spar, for example, and he the manager of a convenience store. When Spar brought her to the garden in his backyard and casually lit that pipe, almost elegant, like a English dude from the past would do with a pinch of tobacco, they had already had a beer or three and he had loaned her a sweatshirt, one still a li’l bit warm from the dryer and that had a clean, flowery scent to it. Her resistance gone way the fuck down; she wanted to get free from the shit reality she living in, plus, with how nice her manager acting, it seem rude to turn down the trademark thick velvety smoke created by Yours Truly. Hello, Darlene, I said, and my smoke entered her lungs for the first time, gentle like a handshake at the start, then my lovely fingers of smoke got in her breath and grabbed it right where Nat’s breath had once spent all that time. I am so glad we met.

After a couple hits, I had gave her the first confidence she felt in years, not to mention contentment. She talked more and played checkers and drank whiskey with Spar—in a couple hours, she was certain this social outing gonna lead directly to a promotion at work. It dawned on her that she felt like recently everything in life had twisted her ass out of shape, but right then she seen that her distorted outline was a piece of a puzzle, the last one hanging above what had been a real tough board. I floated her ass above the board on a cloud of smoke. The smoke lowered her down and pushed her in place and something inside her went
snap
and we finished the puzzle together. It felt so good we ripped all them motherfucking puzzle pieces apart and did that shit again. And the ripping and the doing-again felt just as good the second time. And the fifty-second. And…

B
ecause of all the expectations Eddie had stockpiled about being back with his mother, the reality couldn’t have held up even if things had been perfect. But he listed the ways in which things had improved. His mother didn’t go out on the street in Houston anymore—she stayed in one place and worked steadily, got regular meals, and had friends. She and Eddie could spend time together in the morning and for a while at night. Sometimes the drugs didn’t get in the way of her personality and he could see, behind the glazed looks and volatile reactions, the mother he remembered. His mother reminded him of the proverbial stopped watch that tells the right time twice a day. Every day he would wait for those two times.

In the late afternoon of their reunion, three men had followed Darlene up the path asking where she had gone. She responded by introducing Eddie as her son, and their attitude switched to a more jovial, relaxed one; pretty soon they sheathed their weapons and shook his hand. But the mood didn’t last long, and they hustled him and Darlene back to the sleeping quarters, where he got his first look at how her life had changed. Though he had clamored for them to bring Tuck as well, they kept the old guy quarantined.

Not even the chicken smell or the concrete of the barracks or the locking in at night bothered Eddie enough to make a fuss after finding Darlene. She’d introduced him to everybody at the place before he noticed anything untoward about the atmosphere. The novelty of a kid among the workers made everybody there curious and excited. People now wanted to play the incomplete, broken set of Connect 4 that had gathered mildew in the corner—you couldn’t use the last row because the chips fell through; they usually played it as Connect 3. TT gave a tour, pretending to show off a luxury suite; Hannibal taught Eddie an elaborate soul handshake. A child had arrived, and you had to show a happy time to a child, regardless of the circumstances.

By supper, the room calmed down, as everybody dispersed and tugged the matted plastic wrap off their green cardboard trays before munching privately. Darlene sat at the edge of her bunk, its metal bar creating an impression across the backs of her thighs. When she talked to Eddie about the place, her voice grew lower, softer, more urgent. Habitually, she scratched the bug bites on the back of her neck, the small of her back, and her legs.

Sirius got in touch with Mrs. Vernon? she asked. Is that how you found me?

Serious? Who? No…

Darlene’s face didn’t move for a few moments. You can’t stay here, Eddie. Don’t let them make you stay.

But aren’t you glad to see me?

Yes! You know I am. But it’s just—I wanted to get out of all this first.

It seems okay to me.

Darlene laughed uncontrollably, then slower, until she started to cough. Eddie slapped her on the back, and she twisted her torso out of reach. She lit a cigarette.

You need to go to school.

No, I don’t. I’m smart enough.

We’re not going to have an argument about that, she said. You’re going.

Under other circumstances, Eddie would have fought her, but it struck him that Darlene had made a motherly gesture, and that caused a wave of happiness and relief to whip through his body like wind through a bedsheet on a clothesline. In his mind, he flashed to a moment in the future when she would act like a real mother all the time; he ached for it.

Is there a school? he asked. Is it far, the school?

No. It’s around here somewhere, Darlene said, as if she’d misplaced it. She threw her pointing finger in a vague direction behind her and to her right. Cigarette smoke swirled around her hand. Out there, she said.

When he asked about the color of the schoolhouse and the character of the teachers and the other kids, Darlene frowned and stopped giving complete answers and then excused herself to go to the bathroom, stubbing her cigarette out on the bottom of the bed frame. Eddie occupied himself by playing with the rusty bedsprings as if they were a musical instrument.

After about twenty minutes Darlene returned, having turned jittery and unresponsive. For a while Eddie tried to continue the conversation. He repeatedly attempted to find out whether she was okay, but the exchange became one-sided, her answers less and less like answers until eventually they resembled the growling of dogs or the cries of birds. He’d seen her in a condition like this before, though not as severe, and he knew to find something else to do as he nursed his plummeting optimism. He helped his mother lie down, his shaky hand supporting her underarm.

Eddie started working the next day. The night before, when Darlene told Jackie he was her son, Jackie had seemed interested in his hands. She put them up against hers and marveled at their large size compared to her own grown-up hands. That morning, How sent Eddie out with Darlene and a few other women on a weeding detail, to a wide field of young sunflowers. The topography of the field and the low height of the plants allowed Eddie to work at some distance from his mother without losing sight of her. Initially he enjoyed himself, running up and down the rows and depositing tiny clover-like plants and saplings into a cardboard box, but it didn’t take long for How to find fault with his work and ruin any pleasure he’d found in the job.

At first there weren’t enough weeds in the box for How, and he claimed that Eddie hadn’t done any work at all. Later, when How stomped out into the rows to check the kid’s progress and still found it unsatisfactory, he grabbed Eddie by the face and shoved hard enough to knock him down against a pile of rocks, where he wailed. Michelle, the mouthy one with the pigtails, protested just as loudly and pledged, to the tacit agreement of the other women, to make a report. To somebody. Somewhere. At some point. Then she tried to run, and How cursed and lunged at her, but instead of pistol-whipping her once he’d grabbed her wrists, he pulled her thrashing body back to the group.

If anybody made a report, nothing came of it. Although Eddie had only just turned twelve, there were a couple of grown workers from Mexico about his same height, and How would assign Eddie to work with them on projects that kept everybody low to the ground—weeding, laying down fertilizer, or transferring shoots from the plastic-covered greenhouses to the outdoors. At first, the other workers wondered occasionally about Eddie’s age and muttered confused sentences about why the company would allow someone so young to do the same work as older people. They clicked their teeth and said, Shame, declaring that somebody ought to do something, yet never volunteering themselves. Somebody better tell Sextus, they’d say. This could put him out of business, they’d muse, perhaps uncertain whether that would be bad in the long run. But the more Eddie began to resemble his dirty, rough-handed, tough-skinned coworkers, the less frequently the comments came, and as Eddie blended in, eventually they dwindled away entirely. Soon enough he’d grow into the job, and his age wouldn’t matter anymore. At Delicious, what you couldn’t see didn’t count.

In her more sober moments, Darlene never stopped urging Eddie to leave, to get back in school, but she mingled her urgent instructions with deeds that kept him nearby, bound him with tight hugs and tears, slept spoons with him.

You favor your father, she told him. In so many ways. Headstrong. Hardheaded man. You talk like him. Good-looking. So good-looking. She held his chin and studied his face. It’s like I’m looking at him when I look at you.

Don’t you want to leave? Eddie asked.

I owe them a lot of money. And with you working now too, we can pay off the debt faster and eventually start to make a profit. You can work here, but not out there.

Why not? Don’t kids have rights?

Darlene’s face opened. She touched Eddie’s fingertips against her own. Don’t worry, she said. The Lord will see us through. You have to think positive to get positive things into your life. She told him about the book.

Eddie accepted her burden as his own, partially because of his attachment to her, which grew stronger when he saw her need for him and felt his own for her, and partially because neither of them had any ideas about where else to go or how to get there. They might as well have been standing at the edge of an ocean, dreaming of a raft. Every so often he remembered his mission to bring her back from hell, but he couldn’t remember how that story went. Something about an apple?

Eventually they released Tuck from his quarantine, and when he joined the rest of the workers in the chicken house, he made sure, when he could, that the kid got the proper amount of rest and he argued for his pay, and checked that he had a method of saving up, though Eddie loaned so much to his mother that it never did add up, something he never admitted to Tuck. Like the rest, Tuck grumbled that Delicious had put Eddie to work too young, but Tuck’s meek protests produced either answers that weren’t answers or violence.

He’s capable of doing the work, How explained, so he can work.

Tuck’s protectiveness inspired Eddie to arrange for Tuck to pay some attention to his mother, but after a while it became clear that something he couldn’t understand kept them apart. Still, in his mind, he thought of them as his parents and invented an elaborate home life the three of them would share after they left the farm, a fantasy he tried to keep to himself but sometimes referred to accidentally.

On Halloween, as a thundershower blasted across the sweet potato field, warm droplets poking and slicking all the leaves and drenching everybody, since they had to continue working, the man the management had identified as Sextus Fusilier himself finally drove his red tractor through on an inspection. Supposedly these took place every month, but no one could remember one for the last six. They happened as randomly as possible, because, the crew said, Sexy enjoyed the element of surprise.

Why he chose to drive the grinding old tractor was the subject of frequent debate. Some said that despite its slowness, Sextus could use it to get to anywhere on the vast grounds via a system of shortcuts from his house that no one else knew about. He could get around faster than you could by taking the roads, all of which were unpaved and full of potholes the size of salad bowls. Others called it a purely sentimental attachment, claiming that Sextus still craved a connection to the land he had grown up tilling and which had enriched him to the point where he didn’t need it anymore. The vehicle had become quaint and unnecessary, but its symbolic value to Sextus grew with the years. A legend circulated that his father had used what little he made from his beet farm to take out a loan for it and died the day after he finished paying it off.

You could hear the tractor coming long before it arrived, first a faint buzz and then a growl almost as loud as a helicopter descending on a dusty field; you’d see a cloud gather at the horizon and soon a hatted figure in overalls bouncing in the tractor seat, then he’d be on you. He always seemed to have a grin on his face. At first it looked like delayed amusement at a joke he’d heard earlier, but in his presence you got the sense that the joke was
you,
and your life, and the fact that everything in it depended on his mood.

Why wouldn’t a man with that kind of power be happy all the time? TT had said. I know I’d be happy all the time.

Happy? asked Hannibal. Man, I don’t get it. He smiling all the damn time but the motherfucker ain’t
never
happy.

This time Sextus came in rain gear, a bright yellow triangle atop the red tractor, with his craggy face sticking out of the top, the drawstring of the hood pulled tight against it. If Sextus hadn’t created an atmosphere among the workers and the supervisors of fear mixed with admiration, Eddie would have laughed, the man looked that comical. But as soon as How heard the engine in the distance, he immediately gathered everybody for the 5:00 p.m. roll call, at 4:50, probably to make himself look efficient, maybe to gain the workers’ cooperation, their gratitude.

Sextus swung his leg off the tractor and took his place beside How and the group of wet black and Latino men and women. They wore torn cutoffs and dirty T-shirts that had darkened with sweat and rain, and most of them fidgeted tightly, chafing against the requirement that they stand still. The rain surged, sending gray streaks through the air and muddying the dirt.

Sextus, after consulting with How, turned his attention to the roll call and surveyed the group of workers. They might or might not have met his approval; his perpetual smile made it difficult to tell. Usually the only indication they received would come later, from How, who would describe Sextus’s dissatisfaction and threats without being able to prove that orders had come directly from him.

As the crew, including Eddie, called out their names, Sextus’s expression modulated to a more neutral smile, down from a beam to a blank grin. He took several steps toward the group and his attention settled on Eddie, who stood in the second row next to Darlene. He grabbed rain off his forehead and threw it aside, then stepped back to face How and Jackie.

How, how old is that young fellow in the second row?

Chuckling, How looked down. Oh, Eddie. He don’t look sixteen, does he?