Delicious Foods (32 page)

Eventually after all that blah-blah-blah up at the wooden desk, they gave our ass a lunch break. So I said, Darlene, honey, this whole deal so crazy-making, let’s go to the ladies’ room and kick it for a while. Maybe let’s not even come back. Everybody waiting for Sirius to testify on account a he be a Texas celebrity now with his social rhymes, but he had came with a li’l entourage and split early. He wave to Darlene cross the room at one point and she waving back, and he mouthed some shit that look to her like
I’m sorry
but she couldn’t tell. She mouthed back
Love your music
but she really only heard one song. Tuck snuck out the courtroom right on Sirius heels, probably desperate to beg him for a gig as a backup singer or some shit.

The top thing on Darlene mind was getting a opportunity to talk to Eddie. She had waved to Sirius, but she ain’t feel like talking to him on account a he brought the whole trial on. It’s all ’bout Eddie. So she start edging her way to the front, but a mad rush of people come out either side into the middle aisle, and my girl couldn’t push through till they got done. She turnt around to go the long way, but two fat white ladies she ain’t recognized, dressed in purple and pink, was sitting at the far end, fanning theyself and gossiping, and it ain’t look like they gonna go nowheres without a airlift. When Eddie come down through the crowd, he on the far side from her, the woman and child walking closer, and right up next to Darlene be some tall white lawyer guys with big guts and watch chains keeping Eddie from seeing her and her from reaching across and grabbing his arm or even getting his attention. She called out his name and his neck done twisted round, but them lawyers still blocking his view. He kept moving like he ain’t heard nothing but a echo from somewheres, but then he stop looking, and she ain’t wanna shout, so she ain’t said his name again.

Once the crowd thin enough for Darlene to get in the aisle, Eddie almost out the courtroom door. Next thing she know, somebody loud-ass voice up in her face yelling, Oh Lord have mercy, is that Darlene Hardison? And TT bear-hugged her like they was all good friends in the Delicious days, and he ain’t ratted her out on the TV. Motherfucker wearing a pinstripe suit that ain’t look bad considering all the ways she had seened him look before, but everybody from back then looked like new people to each other ’cause they had a bath, a haircut, and a decent set of threads. Some of em even had new damn teeth, and that made Darlene a li’l jealous.

Darlene told TT how good he look and he goes, It’s like the Delicious Cotillion up in here—and he wouldn’t let go her forearm until she had to turn around and excuse herself, saying that she ain’t talked to Eddie yet and they ain’t seened each other in a quite a while. TT put on a face that said
Why you hasn’t seen your son?
but she ain’t want to explain nothing, so she told him that there be more time to catch up later and she pushed past a couple people to get out the courtroom.

In the hallway I start getting tired of Miss D and I wanted to mess with her, dance her brain around a little, do a little mental foxtrot and shit. It’s darker in that hallway than inside the courtroom and her eyes gone screwy and she couldn’t tell who was who. She turnt in circles a couple time to get set, but she couldn’t see her son nowheres. Then she spot a lady looked like the woman she seen with Eddie, but she ain’t see Eddie or the kid they was with, and the woman had her back to Darlene. Darlene grabbed the lady by her upper arm and she spun around; you could tell she made a judgment on Darlene and her missing teeth on account a her face got tight and her shoulders squinched together.

At first Darlene ain’t notice that the lady kinda flipped out, ’cause she still on a mission to find Eddie, so she grip on the woman arm even more, probably too tight, and goes, Are you the woman?

The woman yank her whole torso away from Darlene hand and go, What woman? I’m
a
woman, but I don’t know if I’m
the
woman. Are you searching for a particular woman?

Darlene did not get to answer ’cause then she saw Eddie coming to em, leading the wobbly boy by the hand with his claw, and her attention gone over there immediately. Eddie looked up from the child face at Darlene and handed him off to the woman, who he called Ruth. The child climbed up on her and she balanced him on her hip.

Ma, Eddie said.

Darlene extended her arms for a hug—she feeling ready to forgive his betrayal and all that hardheadedness, ’cause she recognize how much he like her in a way. But he ain’t extended his arms. Then she seen his claws and was like,
Maybe that’s why he won’t hug me?
She thinking ’bout not hugging, but changed her mind and hugged his non-hug so that at least one motherfucker be hugging somebody.

I thought you might come, he said. You didn’t have to.

Oh my chicken-fried goodness, Ruth gasped. Mrs. Hardison! Ruth’s attitude went poof and she got all sweet. I am so sorry! she said.

You look a lot different, Ma, Eddie said.

I told Darlene I thought he pretending not to say
worse.

You mean better or worse? she asked, hoping to laugh off his comment.

Ruth broke up that weird moment by saying, Mrs. Hardison, I’m sorry, I did not recognize you.

Why would you, since we’ve never met? Darlene shot back while she still staring at Eddie so there wouldn’t be no doubt she blaming his ass for keeping his life a secret from her. I only just heard your name for the first time. Did he even tell you he had a mother?

So Ruth introduce herself as Eddie wife, and Darlene start giving Eddie a bunch of outraged grimaces behind all the shit she never heard from him ’bout Ruth and ’bout they life together. Every new piece of information be dropping like a brick on Darlene big toe. They ain’t even get to the boy for a while, and it seem like Eddie start to guess that Darlene ain’t gonna have a good reaction to meeting him, so he kinda stepped between Darlene and Ruth, who still got the child in her arms to hide him. But the kid so outgoing and everything that he lean around Eddie arm at one point and goes, I’m Nathaniel! Totally innocent of course ’bout what that name gonna mean to this lady he ain’t even know be his grandma.

Soon as Darlene heard that name she grab Eddie by the arm of his suit so hard that it done made a li’l ripping noise and some strings done popped out the shoulder. Her face be quivering, she trying so hard to stomp down the agony she experienced when Nat said Nathaniel. She screamed, Eddie, you—how could you name—! And not tell me! She grabbing his suit jacket anywhere to shake him back and forth.

Eddie said, Ma, I didn’t want you to know. The butt-naked honesty of that shit made Darlene close her mouth and flop her hands to her sides.

Ruth put Nat down and changed her stance like she gon have to escort Darlene out the building in a hot minute.

But then Darlene looked at me again, and she caught herself and stepped back from the three of em. She wiped her teary, mucusy face with a sleeve and covered her mouth with her fingers on either side, almost like she praying. Suddenly they was a trinity to her, some sacred folks who had managed to turn they rotten life into something got value, and she blamed herself for failing to do that shit in her own life. And when she understood that they was prepared never to let her into they life, she took a gaspy breath like she ’bout to drown.

It ain’t too often that the mother look at the child and get schooled, and that brung on a whole nother tornado of shame to Darlene. She seen how spiderwebby and delicate that connection be between any two people, even when they blood, and how bad she had fucked with it far as Eddie concerned, like it ain’t meant nothing to her. For one second she could truly see his side of things, and it be like everything inside her turnt to mud and slid from her head to her foot and she become a monster to her own self. She seen the fear and disgust and judgment in the eyes of her unknown family, this woman and child and the son she ain’t really knowed no more, and them feelings done filled up the hole where love and respect and trust oughta gone. By that point, li’l Nat don’t understand what the hell he done wrong and he start wailing.

Scotty, Darlene said to me, it’s over.

And I knowed her ass wasn’t kidding, neither. But I am a badass drug with a reputation for keeping the loyalty of my friends and lovers in a very tight grip, so I laughed at her—a long, nasty, spiteful, smoky laugh—praying that all my ridicule gonna keep her from knowing that without her, I would lose all my strength. She was in my head, too, though, and this time couldn’t nobody fool her no more, not even me.

I
was experiencing hellacious withdrawal symptoms—after so long, I couldn’t function without Scotty, and I used a few more times before I could honestly say I quit. I had no health insurance and I knew I needed to find a free clinic in order to truly detox and finally tear myself free of the drug. It turned out that the nearest place was in Shreveport. When I let Elmunda know that I had decided to get off drugs and move there, she said, Shreveport! as if she had opened her purse and a palmetto bug jumped out. Didn’t even congratulate me for kicking my habit. I chose not to argue with her about the merits of Shreveport, since it still meant a lot to me.

At the end of the trial, Sextus had received a fifteen-year sentence for selling drugs and polluting the water supply, and a fine of five thousand dollars for financial restructuring. The court banned him and his family from the agriculture business for life, and the high legal fees required the Fusiliers to sell a large portion of the farm’s acreage. I stayed out of the brouhaha to the extent that I could, because I’d finally admitted to myself that my desire for Sextus depended mostly on my perception of his power as well as my need for Scotty. The Fusiliers went through a great deal of infighting and agony as Sextus steeled himself to do hard time and Elmunda and Jed prepared to move to a smaller house with Elmunda’s great-aunt in Baton Rouge, closer to where Sextus would be incarcerated. They put the majority of their belongings in storage and cleaned up Summerton, hoping to rent it out for weddings and family reunions. Elmunda wore herself out trying to contact somebody who could make what she kept calling
a computer page
for the home and its grounds.

Though I felt no obligation to assist her, and she put up a confusing amount of resistance to my efforts, I found her a new caretaker before her move to Baton Rouge. When she said that she would miss me, I doubted her sincerity to the point where I had to stifle a laugh. On the other hand, I believed Jed when he said the same thing, and when he wept over his father’s upcoming departure, I wept as well, but maybe not for the same reasons. The withdrawal was racking my body with seizures and sweating, I was constantly anxious and paranoid—at one point I had myself convinced that I would actually die within the hour without a hit. Just about anything could make me weep.

I arranged to move my own belongings with a local guy who had a van, and when I left Summerton, I did try to turn around and take a moment to appreciate everything I had experienced there, but the thick kudzu that had grown up around the farm obscured the view. I couldn’t see the place at all.

In Shreveport, not many folks have the stamina to go running in the midafternoon even during the spring and fall, and very few—only the extreme types—can tolerate running in the triple-digit heat of midsummer, which could leave the most seasoned athlete dried out like a worm at the side of the road. But it’s possible to get in a few sweaty miles during the early-morning and late-evening hours. Once I finally got sober, I instituted a regular exercise routine for myself, one of many good habits I established in the first six months after I left Scotty behind. I also quit smoking, which I found almost more difficult than detoxing from crack cocaine.

But I had always gathered strength from this city, and even though everything else in my life had changed drastically, I still could find, tangled somewhere in its grassy blocks and stooping live oaks, the person I had once known I would be, and traces of the husband I lost. I felt this most strongly whenever I stumbled across a diner that served undercooked grits the way Nat liked, or when I stood on the sidewalk in front of the place we had once lived on Joe Louis Boulevard, where Eddie had been conceived, or if I touched the gas lamp outside the Renaissance Bed & Breakfast (which had not changed at all) and looked up to imagine our shadows still crossing the window frames. One Saturday afternoon, not long after I got to town, I took a walk over to Centenary on what turned out to be graduation day. From the far side of Dixie Road I tearfully watched all the children in their black robes and square graduation hats streaming down the stairs and out of Gold Dome, then snuck into the rapidly emptying building myself. In the foyer, as I peered at all the basketball trophies Centenary had won during Nat’s day—especially with his friend Robert Parish—I could’ve sworn that I felt Nat touch my shoulder. Once I entered the court, I heard Nat’s proud, silky voice echo over the shiny floor and up to the spectacular roof that sheltered the bleachers like a space-age quilt.

In comparison to the almost supernatural comforts that Shreveport gave me, I sometimes thought of my program as bland, but Tony, my sponsor from group, had recently reminded me, and everybody else, that party people think only self-destructive activities are pleasurable and exciting; everything else bores them. The mundane parts of my day had become vital, and so had my acceptance of the past, though the latter sometimes stunned me into silence or tears, and both—the mundane present and the sorrowful past—now had to keep me straight, each one like a rope thrown to me from a boat while I thrashed around in a cold, churning river.

When I moved here, just two months after the trial, I decided on a complete renaissance for myself. No more unhealthy living. I had to emphasize fresh food, exercise, and moderation, like it said in the natural-foods sections in gigantic supermarkets I’d only recently started paying attention to, because my life depended on it. The thought made me imagine wooden grocery-store signs above my head, painted with pictures of celery and beefsteak tomatoes with smiling faces, and the idea made me laugh—another beneficial habit, as Tony and the rest often restated at the six p.m. daily meetings downtown. I started keeping a journal. I didn’t need the book anymore either, not with so many new friends living its principles right in front of me. Where had the book gotten me anyway? Delicious, that’s where.

Every morning, I rose at five, even if I didn’t have the energy—
especially
if I didn’t—and cut apples or cantaloupe directly into a particular oversize white porcelain bowl I’d found at a thrift store. The bowl had a pleasing smoothness to it, like a good set of teeth. I’d spoon yogurt over the fruit and sprinkle it with granola, though not too much, since I don’t like the way granola sticks in my molars and would rather not spend half the time jogging with my finger stuck in the back of my mouth, trying to dislodge oats. Some days, when I wanted to reward myself, I’d squirt a little honey over the whole mixture before folding its contents together. I would always think about the people whose hands had touched those apples and that cantaloupe before I ate. Sometimes, at the supermarket, I asked questions about the growers that nobody could answer, and eventually the stock boys started to hide when they saw me coming.

I learned to smile with my mouth closed during job interviews, and in that way I managed to secure a waitressing gig on the other side of Queensborough, at a family place called Quincy’s that featured a phenomenal all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet popular with—let’s just say, the area’s largest men and women. The program required me to take a job as a way of reentering the straight world—it wasn’t a job you were supposed to like, just a means to an end, but I happened to enjoy the atmosphere. Morton the Manager, as they called him, was a doughy-faced, empathic gay man who joked around with everyone, the waitresses in particular, and created a warm feeling of community for the staff, a group of smart-mouthed, hardworking women I identified with and admired, even though I often wondered what they said about me behind my back. My acceptance of the job sometimes enabled me to see beyond the present to some latent ambition I had previously expressed only by dating men I considered leaders, and I felt I had something to offer others myself, if only my difficult cautionary tale or the suggestion that if I could survive these experiences, anybody could.

Still, I had life issues to concentrate on before I could think too far ahead. First, I saved up to get my dental implants. Then, after several weeks of rice-and-ketchup suppers, I had put aside enough, if I stretched it, to move out of the program’s quarters and rent an upstairs apartment at the Villa del Lago, opposite Cross Lake. The advertising for the place—
Surrounded by beautiful landscaping and all the comforts and luxuries you desire
—looked a lot better than the place itself, but this time I hadn’t expected anything much. The brown-and-tan two-story complex resembled a neglected Spanish-style motel from the days when Nat and I first came to Shreveport, but that didn’t bother me, considering the kinds of places I’d lived in the recent past. In the courtyard, though, many of the apartments looked out over the small pool, with a good portion of the oblong lake shimmering just beyond it. Mine had a view of one of the wooded interior courtyards, but I could easily visit the pool, with its lakeside view. To me this felt like the kind of place that Jackie had promised they were taking me the night I got in that stupid van.

The Villa del Lago somehow made humility seem elegant. I felt a kinship with the place—we’d both seen better days, I knew, we could use some sprucing up, but something essential and beautiful about our inner construction would never disappear. I didn’t much like the clattering racket and loud horns of the freight trains that passed only a few yards away even late at night, but they were part of what made the apartment cheap, and I got used to them. I thought I might start to find them romantic after a while, those resounding whistles floating over the land in the earliest hours of the morning, like the howling of lonely animals.

On the particular morning I’m remembering, once I finished my breakfast, I slid into a pair of shorts and tugged a sports bra over my head, the first one I’d ever bought. I liked how tightly the Lycra blend hugged my upper body. I adjusted the underseam against my sternum, pulling it forward and making a thwap sound on my skin, then pulled my shorts above my underwear. I swung open my front door to a humid blast of morning air and descended the stairs to cross the parking lot.

As inviting as everybody found the water, Shreveport was a fish-in-the-lake city, not a jog-around-the-lake city, and they hadn’t put in a path for running along the shore—you might try dancing up the wooden ties, football player–style, on the stretch of railroad that kissed the east side of Cross Lake on its way to Mount Pleasant or Dallas, but that did not seem realistic. Instead I crossed Milam Street and made a loop east of the lake, on an old path partially submerged in dirt and dandelions.

That day I had decided to be ambitious and take a more challenging route farther away from the lake, four miles in total, as opposed to my usual three. As I passed the local high school, a hint of dizziness entered my head. That didn’t bother me at first. The beginning of any run always made me short of breath, and I became conscious of my heart jiggling against my rib cage like a water balloon. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and spat and breathed in through my nose and told myself,
Keep going.
My tongue seemed to swell in my mouth, though, and my left arm tingled uncomfortably.

I looped around the high school, turned back in the direction of the lake, and ran toward a bowl-shaped embankment with a group of trees and a telephone pole. A huge convention of grackles had gathered there, as usual for that time of day, chittering and squawking in their peculiar way. The tingle in my arm became a throb. With all I have been through, I laughed to myself, one morning jog is not that much to bear. I gathered strength by thinking of Eddie and Ruth and little Nathaniel, how they would someday see me at my best and bring me back into the family. I was curious to know what my best even looked like! My heart wobbled and my head felt light as I thought of the joys ahead. Thanksgivings and Christmases together. Thoughtful gifts, homemade potato salad, loving embraces.

At the same moment I reached the point where Ford Street parted ways with Route 173 and the sidewalk abruptly ended in a lawn, a semi barreled around from the left and nearly blindsided me. The truck sounded its implausibly loud horn, startling not just me but hundreds of those birds, who collectively fluttered into the orange sky like flecks of charcoal rising from a campfire, as if the deafening noise had broken some invisible force that had bound them to the trees. I leapt back from the street almost involuntarily and jogged in place for a second, regaining my composure. I looked both ways down the street twice before crossing. Shaken, winded, I took a deep breath and found it shallower than I’d expected.
Keep going,
I told myself,
no matter what.
I set my jaw and swallowed the trembling surge that rushed from my chest into my head, inflating the veins in my temples, stealing my breath. My windpipe constricted, and a sharp pain spiraled up my left arm, but I didn’t consider stopping.
Can’t give up now,
I said to myself. My eyes narrowed as I peered down the street to where the asphalt seemed to come together.
I’m almost there,
I thought.
Almost home.