Delicious Foods (25 page)

I am not a—Darlene said, before How shoved her into the trunk of a tree.

A branch done scratched her arm and face and drawn some dotted lines of blood and she knocked her head upside the tree. How pull her up again by the back of her elbows. When she get standing again, he reach behind him and pull his Magnum out his pants. He put his fingers like he gonna grab the barrel and smash the butt of the gun against the side of Darlene face but when he twisted his torso tryna get some momentum going, Darlene covered her mouth to keep in a laugh. The eye contact that happened made me and Darlene bust out into total hysteria, and I bet that’s why How kept at it, shoving her and bashing her in the head and face, talking shit ’bout how he gonna give her something to laugh about.

Darlene kept tryna say she ain’t told the guy nothing, that she told him how great she had it at Delicious, but that ain’t done no good and she stopped talking. Obviously, the content of what she said ain’t matter as much to How as the fact that Darlene had went down there and start talking with folks from outside. He screaming ’bout that she knew it’s ’gainst the rules to be walking away from them limes in the first place and then you couldn’t talk to no random people who drive up in a car ’cause what if they offer you work somewheres else, or what if they take you to one of them other farms where they treat you badly. He asked her how long she had worked at Delicious, as if they ain’t both known how long.

Just like with TT, people start coming down out the trees to see the goings-on, ’cause they heard somebody screeching and getting beat up. Darlene heard it too, and for a second she wondered where all the screams coming from. She said to herself, Somebody oughta shut that screamer up, but then she figured out that the screams be coming out her own mouth.

While the punching and kicking happening from How, and the bruises that’s forming on her back and breasts and legs, and her eyes swelling shut and her mouth bleeding, Darlene made sure to think positive. She thinking ’bout what a blessing it was that she already got a few missing teeth and hadn’t got no new ones yet.
I feel blessed,
she told herself. Her luck made her giggle more, even though that put a bunch of dirt on her tongue and she had to cough and spit it out with her blood.
So blessed.

The reason she had started giggling was ’cause she remembered that she do know a Melvin. Melvin Jenkins. That Sirius real name—and that meant the sonofabitch done made it out. That plus me kept the beating she getting from How from feeling as bad as he want it to; for all them injuries he putting on her right then, she now had it confirmed that Sirius done escaped out of Delicious and got back to the real world. He could send folks who could figure out how to save anybody who ain’t belong, with a chance to do something different to they life, like Eddie. But why he ain’t came yet?

I figure Jarvis caught Darlene voice on tape that day, and that even though he ain’t get nothing in terms of a story, he gone home and played the tape for Sirius like that night. Not so he could hear Darlene, but so he could hear How. But Sirius woulda flipped the fuck out when he heard Darlene ’cause he had took for granted that after six motherfucking years Darlene and em woulda figured out how to quit Delicious.

But he ain’t hear just that she still picking nothing in the citrus grove for no pay and high prices, it sound like her son had joined her there too and that he doing the same never-ending chain of working and spending everything and debt climbing. And Sirius knowed that if you got sick, like the dude they used to talk about who got bit by a alligator, you ain’t gone to no hospital, you just had to figure out the fastest way to get back to work with a big chunk missing out your leg, or they brung you out somewheres and told everybody else you gone to the hospital, but didn’t nobody know for sure. Could be they just dumped you somewheres and you dehydrated to death, or the alligator came back for the rest of you. Delicious woulda shot the alligator and sold it to a handbag company. They’da sold your leathery skin too, if the alligator done left enough on the bone.

E
ddie sat inside at Summerton, contemplating the strange workings of the place as he concentrated on repairing the operating system on Sextus’s PC. Or perhaps just plugging it back in. After that he was supposed to fix the door to the microwave and install some shelves he had built and stained that would soon go into his own workspace.

He had just unscrewed the back of Sextus’s PC and placed the screws into a bottle cap on the desk, then edged out the interior components about halfway, blowing dust off the circuitry with a can of compressed air, when word came that How had an important mission for him. Eddie hardly needed to wonder anymore why How couldn’t ask somebody else; everyone knew that he stockpiled the worst jobs and set them aside in order to spring them randomly on Eddie whenever he got the chance.

Apparently How needed to see him in the barn he insisted on calling called
the
workshop, not
your
workshop. He stood outside the barn when Eddie arrived, arms folded across his smudgy tee as if Eddie had taken two hours rather than fifteen minutes to get there. Even though he didn’t have a watch, he poked his wrist when Eddie walked up, signaling his annoyance that the kid hadn’t arrived quickly enough for his taste. He had a lit cigarette wedged between his fingers.

Eddie said, Sorry, unconvincingly.

Sorry what? He sucked on the cigarette and disdainfully blew the smoke toward Eddie.

Sorry,
sir
.

Still not great, but better. He chuckled, pointing to the slightly open barn door. Go in there. I have a little discipline issue in there for you to take care of.

Eddie approached the door hesitantly. Punishment had never been one of his responsibilities, except for that time when How disciplined him by making him beat Tuck, and he did not relish a new experience of that type, nor did he want to give How the impression that he wanted it to occur on a regular basis. The door gave a high-pitched squeal as he pulled it forward.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did, he saw a body resting on the hay-dusted floor not far from where he had arranged his shelves the previous night in neat rows on pieces of plastic tarp. The figure was alive and clearly in a reasonable amount of pain, weakly writhing and groaning, straining to push a gag out of its mouth. Eddie went back to the door and swung it wider to let more light in. When he peered out, How made eye contact with him; a stifled laugh trumpeted out of his face. Confused, Eddie went back inside and got a closer look at the person on the floor.

Under all the bruises and lacerations, and behind the swollen eyes, he recognized his mother.

Oh Lord—Ma, what happened?

His head swelled with blood and his lungs seized up as he approached her. He felt his legs giving way, so he took the opportunity to kneel beside her. He checked the space for a rag he could wet to clean off her wounds or soothe the purple abstractions developing all over her skin. Finding one nearby that was not completely filthy, he got on all fours and reached across her to grab it. Using its cleanest corner, he dabbed as much drying blood off her split, swollen lips as he could without reopening any wounds. Gently he removed the gag.

What did they do?

Oh, honey, don’t worry about me, this isn’t anything. Her lips and her usual missing teeth got in the way of her speech, but she still tried to sound casual. Look at you, all worried about me, she teased. That’s a cute one. She groaned and twisted her torso.

I found out some good news, she said.

But what did they do?

Never mind what they did. The only part of me they can hurt is my body.

Mama, you’re using, aren’t you?

They must think I’m gonna kick the bucket or something, is that why How’s letting me see you? She managed a huff in place of a laugh. Maybe I’m dead already.

He wants me to give you some kind of punishment.

Her nearly shut eyes widened to the best of their ability and she coughed. These Delicious people are out of their minds. All I wanted was a good job.

What did you say about good news?

Hush! He’s behind you, she murmured.

Uncomfortable with the idea of keeping his back to the guy, Eddie turned and stood to face How. He remained silent and stared, trying to push How to the ground with his eyes but waiting for the official explanation.

Should’ve been picking limes but she ran down the road started talking to some guy from some newspaper. So I started her, but I’m going to get a bag of pork rinds, so I need you to keep it going for a while. Looking around the space randomly, How handed Eddie a wood plane and a spoon gouge. Go to it, he said. We need to make an example. He laughed—Did he expect Eddie to take him seriously? It felt like another attempt at a fucked-up joke.

All right, he said.

Eddie took a tool in each hand and turned them so that their handles faced out. He suspected that How, or even Sextus, had some kind of test in mind—of Eddie’s ruthlessness, his loyalty to the company, his willingness to follow orders. He wondered how close they thought he was to the kind of monster who would perform this task without hesitation, then considered what a mother would have to do to deserve such treatment from her son, and then, more dangerously, that maybe his mother had done one or two things from that list, but that this had no bearing on whether or not he could or should go through with his orders. Generally he felt that she needed his help far more than he needed to balance their relationship. There had never been a question about whether he would do as they asked; not a single nerve in his body twitched in the direction of fulfilling his assignment. Besides, what bizarre tortures did How expect him to invent with a plane and a spoon gouge?

The guy didn’t have a whole lot of compartments in his emotional TV dinner, it occurred to Eddie. Eddie had counted How’s moods in the past, hoping to be surprised, but only ever saw How expressing either mild amusement at other people’s bad luck, like he’d just shown, or seething, molten rage that might as well have come up through his feet directly from the actual Devil.

Eddie thought that How was about to go off again, so he turned away and knelt by his mother.

You know the rules, Ma, he said. Or don’t you?

He set the plane aside, raised the gouge, and then brought it down in such a way that it missed her body and lodged in the dirt floor, where he worked it back and forth, exaggerating the movement of his shoulders and elbows. Darlene instantly understood his plan and volunteered a variety of pained shouts and groans to help make the injury seem real. Eddie’s body blocked the tool’s real trajectory from How’s view, but apparently this theatrical presentation worked, satisfying the supervisor enough that he let out a grunt that seemed to express his cooler emotion and probably convinced him that he had broken Eddie’s will and exposed the depth of the boy’s ambition. Encouraging Eddie to continue, How left the barn.

Once How’s footsteps faded, Eddie, still kneeling by his mother, tried to find ways to make her comfortable. He folded scraps of canvas and put them behind her head on the floor, made a splint for her broken arm by wrapping a long piece of twine around a wooden paint stirrer. He found a small jar of petroleum jelly to use as a salve in the many places she needed it, some of which she insisted on balming herself. While he took care of her wounds, she blurted out a disjointed story about Jarvis Arrow, trying to tell Eddie that Sirius had made it out and would come back to get them and make a run for it.

Darlene’s injuries, her restless state of mind, and Scotty, of course, had impaired her ability to articulate what happened, so her son paid only partial attention. Scotty never left her side even when—no, especially when—so much trouble tumbled down on her at once. She sounded amazed, like somebody having a religious conversion, and that made her story even harder to clarify. She kept saying, He’s coming, He’s coming, and Sirius will get us out of here, but this sounded to Eddie like
Seriously get us out of here.
Eddie didn’t remember Sirius, having only heard about him from Darlene and the rest of the crew. To Eddie, Sirius B sounded like a hazy legend that the heavy smokers conjured up to give themselves hope, a figure barely more real than Papa Ghede.

Even if Sirius had seemed real to him, Eddie remained skeptical of all the cosmic mumbo-jumbo everybody said that Sirius used to talk all the time—space clouds shaped like crabs and horse heads, a diamond bigger than the sun—it sounded to him like the kind of make-believe shit crackheads talked 90 percent of the time. When he heard Darlene’s half-conscious claims, through fat bleeding burned lips, that Sirius was alive and coming to get them, it seemed like a combination of a mixed-up prayer and a Negro spiritual about Jesus where a chariot comes down from heaven to rescue folks. And he didn’t consider her babbling nearly as urgent as her injuries. She rambled like a psychotic, and though Eddie had an excess of patience for her insanity, he’d heard plenty of her ravings in the past and had learned not to pay her any mind. He focused on keeping her calm so that her body could start to heal.

A few minutes after her breathing slowed, she laid her head back—a sign of relative stability—and he got up to test out whether he could leave. He pushed the two panels of the barn doors forward and discovered, without surprise, that How had padlocked them together and drawn a heavy chain through a hole in each side. He must have done it carefully and quietly, because Eddie didn’t remember hearing any chains jangling or even doors swinging shut, but then again, he hadn’t concentrated on anything except his mother for a while.

An hour or so went by. Once Darlene stopped trying to talk as much and seemed moderately comfortable, she fell into a shallow sleep. Eddie knew she wouldn’t sleep long and that when she woke up she would need to cop pretty bad. He thought he could get drugs for her on his next trip to the depot, but he didn’t know when that might happen.

Once her breathing became even and her biceps stopped twitching, he returned the plane and the gouge to their rightful place with the woodworking tools and examined the shelves he was planning to put in. He would continue building them so that he could at least finish some of the tasks assigned him that day. It was as if the rest of the day had been a kind of grimy window, and his labor the rag he wiped everything else away with so that he could see clearly. From time to time he peered over at Darlene to make sure nothing had gotten worse, but primarily he remained fixated on assembling the boards.

When he heard voices coming up the path, he figured that How had come back with somebody and would soon unchain the door. He stopped working on the shelves, put away his tools, and moved to the center of the room, positioning himself between his mother and the slowly opening barn doors.

The chains clanked and swung loose from their position, going slack in the holes that someone had bashed into the door in order to make the chain lock. One of the chains gained momentum and hurtled to the ground like a fleeing snake. When Eddie looked up from watching that happen, he met How’s eyes, and he could see Sextus standing just behind and to the left of him, hands on his hips, a bit of wind flipping up a strand of the waxy silver hairs on his head. He scowled like a mechanic watching a car crash and wondering how much he might get for the scrap.

Something didn’t seem right—How looked good. His brown irises glowed, color flooded into his tan dimples. Was this emotion number three? It looked like he’d sent a better-looking younger brother in his place, not the sweaty dude who led late-night watermelon details and forced workers to pick nonexistent citrus. The brushy sides of his haircut glistened like an otter’s pelt; his spiteful smile got so broad he looked like somebody discovering that his mission in life was to help others.

The three stood there like the last pieces left in a chess game. Scowling, How breathed through his mouth in a way that made him sound like somebody who snored loudly, his windpipe flapping deep inside him. His switch flipped to his second emotion.

You didn’t do nothing, did you? I asked you to do things and you didn’t do nothing. She’s still lying there in that same position that you left her in. Didn’t I say what to do?

You did. Eddie didn’t think he would get anywhere by pointing out to How that Darlene was his mother and that people didn’t torture their mothers. In the world of Delicious Foods, though, obedience came first; everyone had to submit to a preposterous system of laws that had nothing to do with justice, logic, or even maximizing company profits—it seemed as if the managers made up rules just so they could enforce them and their employees would have to follow them, a pure sadism free of any incentive aside from its own continuation.

Eddie’s defense fell out of his mouth anyway. That’s my mother.

Oh, really? I didn’t know that! How said, back to emotion number one. Wait, let me ask myself: Do I give a fuck about that? No, I believe that I don’t give a fuck about that. He turned his neck to address Sextus. Can you believe this? Without waiting for an answer, he turned back around. Sextus regarded How with mild discomfort, his face twisted slightly, like he had a stomachache. I don’t care if it’s the president of the United States, you do what I say. What do you have to say for yourself?

Eddie didn’t have
nothing
to say, but he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to give How the pleasure of letting loose another hurricane of abuse.

How’s eyes darted around the space again, and he moseyed past Eddie, giving Darlene a cursory examination to prove his point. He sucked his teeth and picked up a length of sheathed cable and a long chain not unlike the one used to keep the barn doors locked. He took it up in one hand and pushed Eddie, struggling and stumbling, into one corner of the room with the other hand, shouting, See? See?, like he’d proved a point about Eddie that he and Sextus had discussed before arriving.

He took all that stuff and bound Eddie to the hole in one of the doors. First he wound the cable around the kid’s wrists tightly enough that after a few minutes it cut off his circulation. Eddie felt his hands swell and tingle—first they felt like gloves, later like someone else’s hands. He wrapped the chain tightly but randomly around the cord, and from somewhere on him he pulled out a rusty pair of tight handcuffs that he passed through themselves and cinched around Eddie’s wrists until he could no longer get the cuffs to make their characteristic clicking sound as they tightened. Then he looped everything and the chain through the hole in the door and left Eddie to dangle by his wrists, his butt not quite touching the floor. He picked up one of the boards designated for the shelves, although it was relatively light and unwieldy, and used it to jab Eddie in the chin, the tender skin behind his ear, and finally to thwack him on the back of the head hard enough to raise a bump.