Shaking the Sugar Tree (3 page)

“Two for the price of one, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

“I hope not, but it’s the truth. Noah’s my main man. I might be able to squeeze you in now and again for a quickie, but he’s my first priority. His mom ran off on him. I’m not about to do the same.”

“I think it’s kind of sexy dating a single dad. I’ve never done that before.”

“So we’re dating now?”

“I don’t know. Should we be?”

He put his hand on my bare knee to emphasize his point.

“A tempting proposition,” I said. “North meets South. It could get
ugly.”

“Butt ugly,” he said.

“The naked truth could be….”

“Worth seeing?” he suggested.

“Definitely,” I said. “But we’re a conservative lot down here.”

“Does that mean we can’t hold hands while we’re out in public?”

“Something like that.”

“A challenge. I like it.”

“It’s like they say: If you love Southern men, raise your glass. If you don’t, raise your standards.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard that one.”

“You need to get out more. You any good at courting?”

“There’s a first time for everything,” he said.

“I think I’m going to like you,” I said.

“If you like me now, just wait until I get you alone and in bed.”

“Promises, promises,” I said dismissively. “Takes more than a sugar mouth to shake the sugar tree, darling.”

He leaned over and put his lips against mine. His hand fell to my crotch, felt the sudden, urgent hardness there.

“We’ve got to be careful in front of the children,” I said, pulling away. “But not too careful.”

Noah was too engrossed in the whole Xbox extravaganza to notice or care.

“You remind me of Daryl on
The Walking Dead
,” Jack observed.

“The redneck with the crossbow?” I said, incredulous, and somewhat offended.

“Yeah,” he said. “He’s a hottie. Just like you.”

“A hottie?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You’re not so bad-looking yourself. A bit too clean, like a metrosexual fella. Probably got a bunch of antiaging cream in your bathroom or something, but you in Dixie now, boy. You walk around looking pretty and these Southern girls will scratch your eyes out because they’re afraid you’ll tempt their husbands into committing horrible, unnatural sins.”

“I should hope so.”

“It’s the least you could do,” I agreed. “Makes life far more interesting. At least until you get sent up the river on a morals charge and they use you as a pass-around-Patty in the prison shower. Those guys at Parchman are horny bastards, I hear. And I should know.”

“Why is that?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Can’t spill all my secrets to some Yankee carpetbagger, not without the tequila slammers.”

“The plot thickens,” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to put tequila on my shopping list.”

I got to my feet, stretched my cramped legs.

Jackson stood, a hint of a smile about his lips.

“We’d best mosey on down the river,” I said. “Got school tomorrow.”

“Can you do me a favor?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“Shut up and kiss me like you mean it.”

So I did.

After stoking my internal fires—like any more stoking was necessary at that point—the meth baby and I took our leave.

I wiped my lips as I walked to the car.

Damn, he was hot.

Noah giggled.

W
E
WERE
reduced to underpants to cope with the summer heat. I was tempted to turn on the window unit in the living room so we could bed down in there, but there was no money for such extravagance and I could not risk having the electricity shut off again for not paying the bill. Did that once already. It wasn’t pleasant.

Noah climbed into his bed.

It’s hot
, he complained.

I know
, I said.

I wiped at his face with a wet washcloth to help cool him off. I adjusted the box fan so that it wasn’t blowing directly on his face.

Did you like that man?
he asked

I nodded.

He would be a nice boyfriend
, he said
.

Did you like him?

He knows how to sign! But he’s not very good.

You can teach him.

I pushed hair out of his eyes, looked around his small room. Noah was an Iron Man fan, had a poster of
Iron Man III
on the door to his closet. Above his desk was a shelf full of pictures of the two of us, his mother conspicuous by her absence. Dirty clothes were discarded all over the floor. A wooden chest held an overflow of toys. Spider-Man curtains graced the windows, which were shut and barred because we lived on the first floor.
Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson, Huckleberry Finn, War of the Worlds
and other novels sat in a corner, unread. I added compulsively to the pile from my trips to used-book stores, hoping he would pick up my love of reading. So far, I’d had little luck on that front. Like many deaf kids, reading was difficult for him.

Does he like you?
he asked.

I don’t know.

I hope he does. I don’t want you to be sad all the time.

I’m not sad all the time. I have you.

Do you love me?

A lot.

Would you still love me if he was your boyfriend?

Of course.

Are you sure?

Yes.

You wouldn’t leave me for him?

Not a chance.

He bit at his lip as if not sure whether to believe me. Given what his mother did, it was understandable.

Do you love me a lot?
he asked.

I nodded.

As big as a house?
he asked.

Bigger.

The grocery store?

Bigger.

The mall?

Bigger.

The sky?

Bigger.

Bigger than anything?

There isn’t anything in this world bigger,
I assured him
.

There must be something,
he said, looking cross and suspicious
.

We had played out this little ritual on many a night.

If you had a boyfriend, you’d love him more than me, wouldn’t you?
he pressed.

Of course not.

Promise?

Wait. I just thought of something.

Now he looked alarmed.

There is something bigger.

What?

S-a-r-a-h P-a-l-i-n’s stupidity.

Who’s she?

Never mind. There isn’t anything in the whole universe more important to me than you are. And there isn’t anyone in the whole world I would ever love more than you. I don’t care who they are. Well, maybe if I met J-o-h-n D-e-n-v-e-r….

He’s dead!

T-a-m-m-y W-y-n-e-t-te?

She’s so old!

O-b-a-m-a?

He looked thoughtful for a moment.
You might love him more than me,
he admitted
.

Maybe.

You would not!

You’re right. I love O., but not as much as you.

I dabbed at his face. The humidity was so thick you could use it to rinse your chickpeas. I went to the bathroom, refreshed the washcloth with cold water, returned to his room, and laid it on his forehead, my signal that it was time for sleep.

Dad?

Yes?

I love you.

I love you, too. Sweet dreams.

He took my hand into his own, and I looked at his extra pinkie. He held my hand for a few moments. Then:

Dad?

“Yes?”

Do you think Mom will remember me?

I nodded, hoping my doubt was safely hid behind a confident smile.

You sure?

Of course.

I can’t wait to see her!

Go to sleep.

I
N
MY
room, I put Patsy Cline on the record player and she told me about “Seven Lonely Nights.”
I’m the kind of uncool guy who has a record player. Don’t feel sorry for me because I can pick up LPs at the used-book store or thrift shop for a buck each. I listen to cassettes, too, and those are only ten cents a pop. Pretty cool when you make minimum wage. Makes you feel like you can actually buy something of value with it. Records are cheaper than candy bars, if you can believe that.

Ever since the time you told me our love was through

Seven lonely nights I’ve cried and I’ve cried for you….

You preach it, girl,
I thought, sitting on my bed and feeling lonely and miserable, wishing there was a man like Jackson Ledbetter in my bed, a man who would hold me and kiss me and make me feel alive again, if only one more time before the middle-aged spread took over my hips and sent me belly-flopping into dementia and adult diapers.

I was perilously close to thirty-three. Thirty-five sat like an apocalypse on the not-too-distant horizon. What kind of life could there possibly be after that?

I looked around my room, not completely immune to the shabbiness of my existence. The sheets on my bed and the curtains on my window must have been spun during the Civil War. I had clothes that I wore in high school, and still wore. My dresser was a cast-off from my brother Bill. The bottom drawers are covered with stickers that Noah put there when he was two and which I’ve kept meaning to peel off and never have. There is no denying the fact that I make minimum wage, that I work part-time because I can’t find anything else, that I have no frills or ruffles to speak of, that I am part of the reason why Mississippi is the poorest state in the Union.

The words “failure to thrive” floated through my mind. So did “dirt-poor” and “redneck, peckerwood white trash.”

No wonder Noah’s mother ran off.

Years ago, it had been suggested that I send Noah to live in Jackson at the Mississippi School for the Deaf. I couldn’t do it, and it wasn’t simply the expense. Despite the educational benefits, the constant contact with a large deaf community, all the ways it would improve his life, the lifelong friends he would make, I could not send him away. Mama and Bill had chided me endlessly about my selfishness, but I steadfastly ignored them. I was not about to punish Noah because he was deaf. It wasn’t a punishment, they countered. It was a chance at a decent life, a chance at a future. With luck he would learn to talk properly and read lips and find a place in the world of the hearing, be able to take care of himself, get a job, be a productive member of society, become independent, not lost in the world of the unhearing.

It was a chance, in other words, to teach him how not to be what he was, to not be deaf, or to find a way to pretend he wasn’t deaf and get along with “normal” people and live a “normal” life as though this fundamental fact about his existence was of no importance, as if he could somehow have a good life in spite of what he was if only he could find a way to hide his terrible infirmity.

I rejected that way of thinking. It had offended me deeply, not least because it was their exact same prescription for me as a gay man. Find a way to pretend to not be what you are. Find a way to live a heterosexual life so you can fit in and enjoy the benefits of society.

I stretched out, feeling lonely, horny, disconnected, anxious, tired but wide-awake.

It was your favorite pastime

Making me blue….

I needed a man. Sex would be nice too, but I needed someone to talk to, someone to bounce off, to make me laugh, to remind me that it’s good to be alive, someone who would make me feel young again, attractive, desirable, someone to walk through life with. I needed to put an end to this long loneliness of raising a silent boy who lived in a silent world, a Deaf World, a world I could visit but never truly be part of.

I pictured Jackson Ledbetter smiling at me with those come-hither eyes. I’d put my hands on his hips. I’d feel his belly, his chest, his nipples. I’d stare at his business, and he’d know I was hungry for it because I’ve been hungry for cock my whole life and I can’t lie.

Patsy Cline said she was
Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you….

It was a long time before I fell asleep.

T
HE
NEXT
morning was Sunday and Noah and I sat through Father Gray’s sermon on the abortion holocaust, which St. Joseph’s was publicly protesting with a display of freshly-painted white crosses out on the front lawn that could be seen by any and all driving down Gloster Street headed for the mall.

Why I went to this church, I could not say. Habit, perhaps. A chance for Noah to socialize. Each time I saw those crosses on the front yard, I rolled my eyes. I had little patience with folks who cared more about zygotes than actual human beings.

I followed Noah in the line for Communion. With a bit of Jesus to fill our empty bellies, we headed for Mama’s house in New Albany, about thirty minutes from Tupelo. The radio was filled with Sunday-morning-in-the-South programming: religious services, gospel music, sermons. The sky was clear and blue and the weatherman promised a high of ninety. A public service announcement reminded us not to leave babies left unattended in the car during this heat.
Look before you lock!

Noah wore his only suit, now about two inches short at the ankle and an inch too short at the wrist. My sister-in-law Shelly said she would bring some of Eli’s old clothes to see if they would fit. Eli was three years older than Noah and provided a convenient flow of cast-offs and hand-me-downs. God forbid Bill and Shelly should actually spend good money and buy their nephew something new.