Black Gum Read online

  The owner shook my hand. “What the fuck happened to your face?”

  “I tripped and fell on a railing.”

  He blinked slowly. “What did you do before this?”

  “I traveled.”

  “I mean, job-wise. I’m looking at this application,” he picked up the sheet of paper in front of him, “and I don’t see any prior work experience.”

  “I worked at an Arby’s when I got out of college.”

  “You went to college?”

  “Yep. Just up the road at Pierce.”

  “No shit. Graduate?”

  I shook my head.

  “Be glad you got out. My sons racked up some bills.”

  “I don’t like bills.”

  “Me neither.” The owner sighed. “Listen, your face is fucking weird. Looks like someone knocked the hell out of you. I need a dish guy, but your face is too weird.”

  I sat there with my hands in my lap.

  “You can go now,” the owner said.

  THE SCAR

  ON MY LEG

  I went out to dinner with my mother. We met at a Chili’s. I brought her a plastic bag full of Reese’s peanut butter cups. She looked in the bag and her face lit up and that made me happy.

  She told me about her work, about how the kids were driving her crazy, about trying to teach them multiplication, about how the mothers came in for conferences still tweaking. We talked about my father and how he was good for nothing. Any time I thought of my father I became deeply afraid.

  My mother ordered a daiquiri and she started talking a lot and I’d never seen her drink before.

  I asked how my step-father was and Mom said, “He fishes a lot.”

  We talked about the past.

  Mom said, “I remember you and your little brother, you shared a room. You’d set up laundry baskets between the two beds and you’d jump on them and pretend the floor was hot lava. Do you remember that?”

  I said, “Yes.”

  She said, “I remember I told you not to do that. I told you that it was dangerous. But you didn’t listen. And one day, you jumped on a laundry basket and you went right through it. And the laundry basket got sharp and cut you.”

  “Pretty deep. I still have the scar on my leg.”

  “You’re kidding! It didn’t go away?”

  I said, “No.”

  We ate some food.

  I told her, “I remember you cleaning up the cut in the bathroom, and I was crying, and you said, ‘You never listen.’”

  She laughed. “That’s what I said.”

  After the meal, she started eating the candy I’d brought her. That made me happy again.

  JUGGALO PARTY

  Shane had just rolled back into town. Charlie fixed us parachutes. We ate them and drank and dipped to a party.

  The Juggalos cracked their beers and freestyled in a circle. Charlie waved his hands about, big hatchet man necklace bouncing against his wife beater. He rapped about stabbing women and raping their corpses over ICP rapping about stabbing women and raping their corpses. The Juggalos put their fists to their mouths and snapped their fingers.

  The apartment was small. A tiny Chihuahua weaved between their legs. It jumped in my lap and I picked it up and held it over my head. Shane had shown up earlier that day, and he sat next to me and wiggled his fingers at the dog.

  The freestyle circle dispersed. Bass still thumping.

  Charlie poured shots of 151 and handed one to his cousin. Shane took the shot and growled. Charlie shouted to the mass of Twiztid shirts and baggy jeans and labret piercings and soul patches, “My nigga failed a job interview today.”

  The Juggalos golf clapped. I bowed.

  “You’re my blood,” he said and punched me in the shoulder.

  Shane clasped his hands in his lap and looked off to the side.

  A short, heavyset kid placed a small baggie on the foldout dinner table. Charlie opened it and poured a bit onto the vinyl. “You can see the crystals.”

  We got high and Charlie told stories to the group.

  “I remember when Shane went to jail, like sixteen or something. He was running around outside of Walmart just smashing niggas and taking their bags. Run up behind them and pop, knock their ass out. Just tossed that shit into the trash, man.”

  Shane sat quietly.

  The heavyset kid laughed. “Word.”

  “There was the time he tried to set his moms on fire.”

  Shane flinched.

  The kid said, “Like, the house?”

  “Nah. Like, his actual moms. Just came in the house with some lighter fluid. It was the wildest shit I’d ever seen.”

  The kid held out a fist. Shane slowly tapped it.

  I put the Chihuahua down.

  “Or the time with that girl. That was the most brutal shit I’d seen since--”

  Shane addressed the heavyset kid. “Studio?”

  The Juggalo’s eyes lit up. “Yep.”

  “Let’s look at that.”

  The kid brought him into his room. Jack Skellington curtains and pumpkin bedsheets and a rail thin girl staring at the ceiling holding her chest. He leaned over her. “You alright, baby?”

  She smiled. “I’m higher than fuck.”

  He opened his closet. Cut up egg cartons lined the walls. A mic hung from the ceiling with a sock over it. “This is where I write my masterpieces.” Turned on his PC. Brought up some beats. “Let’s drop something.” Out in the living room, the Juggalos howled. A big girl lifted her shirt up.

  Charlie cut out a few more lines. Shane grimaced and grinded his teeth. “I’ve got shit to do.”

  His cousin glared at him. “‘Shit to do.’ Jesus. Put it in your fucking face.”

  “Charlie.”

  “Put it in your fucking face.”

  Shane railed the line.

  I didn’t need convincing.

  The beat came on, lots of snare rolls and bass and organ keys.

  The Juggalo said, “Grimy shit.”

  “Ugly.”

  “You got something for me?”

  Charlie cocked his thumb at Shane. “The homie has bars for days.”

  I peeked out of the room. A few kids wrapped themselves in Christmas lights and turned on a Kurosawa film. One of them just kept talking, going on about what a master this dude was, look at this shot, that shot, perfectly framed. No one else paid him any mind. Shane said, “That looks like fun.”

  Charlie said, “Drop some science.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Drop knowledge. You’re a clumsy librarian.”

  “I might. I don’t know.”

  “Either do or don’t. Weigh your pros and cons. Do it.”

  Shane tapped his head. “There is no simple math in this dark thing.”

  The Juggalo let the beat ride out.

  Shane thrashed wildly. The Juggalo tagged him twice in his eye. He stumbled back. The heavyset kid moved in. Got him twice more on the chin. Shane landed on his ass in the dirt and the group cheered. Charlie stepped in. “He’s done. Enough.”

  Shane scrambled to his feet. He stalked around the back of his house and came back carrying a giant branch. The bony ends of it scraping against the streetlights.

  The Juggalos roared. Charlie held out his hand. “What are you gonna do with that?”

  Something left from behind Shane’s dilated eyes. He suddenly looked confused. “I’m gonna kill him with this branch.”

  Charlie picked the tree limb from his cousin’s grip. “Go home.”

  Shane hesitated.

  I wrapped my arm around his shoulder. “Come on,” I said.

  We stumbled down the street.

  Charlie turned to the Juggalos. “Normally I’d say come on home with us and smoke something. But when he gets like this…”

  Shane howled and I wrapped him up in my arms and carried him.

  Charlie shrugged. “I better get on.”

  PIRATE SHIP

  The next morning I woke up
and Shane looked over at me from where he sat and said, “I’m hungry.”

  We walked to the Corner Store and waved hello the man behind the counter. Shane poured himself a slushie and bought some chips and talked to the clerk a bit and we went out front and sat on a picnic table off to the side and he ate his chips. Watched passersby slip on the ice.

  A man in a leather jacket came out of the dark and sat between us. He had a pirate ship tattooed across his face.

  He pointed at the tattoo under Shane’s eye. “What’s this dagger mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  He pointed at the “580” across Shane’s chin. “What’s this mean?”

  “It’s the area code.”

  “Where am I?”

  Shane told him.

  “Do you have a videogame system?”

  “Yeah.”

  The man rummaged through his bags. Pulled out a loaf of white bread. “I got this bread. Can I come over and play?”

  Shane motioned with the bag of chips. “No.”

  The man was quiet for a bit. “What’s these teardrops mean?”

  “Means I’m super sad.”

  “What’s this on your neck?”

  “It’s a Buddha.”

  “It’s a Buddha!” the man yelled. He pointed at the giant tattoo on his face. “You know what this pirate ship means?”

  “What?”

  The man in the leather jacket hopped up and put his hands on his knees and leaned into Shane’s face. “It means I’m a motherfucking PIRATE.”

  After that the man sat down, put some sunglasses on, ate his bread, and said not one more word to Shane Tilden. He got up and left.

  The snow picked up again.

  The clerk came out and lit a cigarette. Offered the pack to Shane.

  “No, thanks. I only smoke when I drink.”

  The clerk nodded. “Me, too.”

  Cars hissed past on the wet road. I took a cigarette.

  The clerk said, “You attract them.”

  “I seem to.”

  “All that shit on your face.”

  “Yeah.”

  We smoked and sat and after a time we went back to Charlie’s. Shane gathered his things and left without saying a word.

  GO BE NORMAL

  I signed up for an online dating site. I spent a lot of time picking the right profile picture.

  I couldn’t figure what to write in the “About Me” section.

  Charlie saw me on the computer and came up and looked over my shoulder.

  “OkCupid.”

  “Yeah.”

  He took a sip of beer. “They make those for queers, too, you know.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You have a kind of sad need for pussy, don’t you?”

  “I just like it.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “I’m not gay.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  I turned back to the computer. “I got a message already.”

  “Have fun fucking weird internet people. I’m gonna go be normal and not get laid until I see something I actually like.”

  I waited fifteen minutes before I responded to this message. The woman’s name was Hanna.

  IF I’D MET YOU WHEN I WAS YOUNG,

  I WOULD HAVE KILLED YOU

  That Sunday, Charlie told me we needed to go to church.

  I told him I’d pass. He told me they paid $50 just to show up.

  I said, “Okay.”

  The preacher paced at the podium. He raised his arm above his head. “If I’d met you when I was young, I would have killed you.”

  Dropped his hand on “killed.”

  The church was cramped. Christmas tree in the corner. Someone coughed.

  The preacher smiled. One gold tooth. “If I’d met you when I was young, I would have killed you.”

  Someone said, “I don’t blame you.”

  He paced faster. Windpants swishing. Despite the cold in the room, he began to sweat. That mantra, repeated as he ran his fingers through wet curly hair: “If I’d met you when I was young, I would have killed you.”

  Over and over. The room churning a bit. Behind us, someone spoke in tongues.

  The congregation said it with him, everyone shouting “killed” with the holy man, his hand chopping the air.

  He stopped and so did the crowd.

  Took a breath. “My friend Harold was bad. He was bad. If Harold and I met you, back when we were young, we would have killed you.”

  Leaned on the podium. “Harold had a stomach, he could never keep it down. Anything he ate was gonna tear him up. Changed with the seasons. In the summer he couldn’t eat hardly anything without getting sick. In the winter, when it got cold like it is, he could eat everything. Never seen someone eat as much. But just in the winter. Didn’t eat more than a sandwich in the summer. He drank a lot of coffee. On top of everything else. His favorite mug had a snake on it. He liked robots and we were roommates and he had to be home to watch his TV with the lasers and I liked them okay, too. I sometimes called him Terminator because he was so tall. In the summer he’d hold his stomach and watch robots. We didn’t go out because it was only a matter of time before someone said something. You know how it is. I know you know how it is.”

  The congregation nodded. Men with small eyes. Women in surplus jackets.

  “When we were younger, we killed a man just down the road from here. In the bar talking about his new shoes. Got drunk and we followed him out there and took what was in his wallet, but Harold hit him too hard. We killed people who deserved it and we’d watch robots and wonder on it.”

  The man behind me amped up the tongues.

  The preacher pointed. “That sound, we would have killed you.”

  The man behind me scaled back the tongues.

  “I ate dinner at Harold’s house as a child. His father was a good man and his mother was good, too. He had brothers and sisters that had children. He couldn’t be that, though. Neither of us could. We were in and out of jail but when we were both out, we were together. I loved Harold. After a time we grew up. I kept a steady job and he did, too. We met women and we moved on and we calmed down. We became men. I had a son. He’s a grown man now himself. Harold had a daughter and we’d joke about them getting married but they never did. He once asked me over the phone if I thought it was wrong, how we were, and I said of course it was. No way you could figure it to not be wrong. We were heathens. Godless heathens.”

  Someone said, “Praise Jesus.”

  The preacher pushed off the pulpit and put his hands in his pockets. “His guts were gonna take him. Never went to the doctor. At first he couldn’t because of money but after a while you just don’t think about it. I wonder would it have gotten him. I wonder would he have been watching his stories. I don’t know. When he came to my house we went fishing down by the pond and got into an argument about god knows what and god knows we argued all the time, all our lives. But I hadn’t seen him in a while and it was the dry heat of summer and that stomach was killing him and the tones of his voice sounded wrong to me and so I hit him. He fell back and landed wrong and he was gone, just like that. I miss him.”

  The congregation didn’t move but for the few folks now recording the sermon on their cell phones.

  He scratched the corner of his mouth.

  “If I’d met you when I was young, I would have killed you. But then I got old, and I killed Harold.”

  The preacher closed his eyes and held up a hand. He said, “Let us pray.”

  We collected our checks from a disinterested secretary and stepped out into the ice and the cold.

  Charlie said, “I liked the thing he did with his hand.”

  “The—” I made a chopping motion.

  “Yeah.”

  “I fucking hate going to church.”

  “Next time we’ll just donate plasma.”

  IDEAS

  Charlie and I went to the Corner Store. He picked out a thirty
-pack of Keystone and took it up to the counter.

  The clerk said, “You got your ID?”

  Charlie nodded and took out his wallet and showed him.

  The clerk rang up the beer. He said, “You got any weed?”

  Charlie shook his head and paid for the Keystone and left.

  YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY

  I’ve never been good face-to-face, never been quick on it. There’s a term, something about the spirit of the staircase, that thing you might have said, but now there’s a delay and we all live on those stairs, waiting for our shoe to drop.

  When I met Hanna at the Cellar Bar we were quiet around each other, though we’d written to each other a lot. Then the beer came and we talked and we learned what was real and what was not.

  She was in a blue knit cap and a t-shirt.

  “Aren’t you cold?”

  “It’s cold out there. But not in here.”

  She took a paper bag out of her purse and rolled an apple out of it onto the table and started eating it.

  “You know what they say,” I said.

  “Apples are delicious,” she said.

  I laughed. “I’m not sure that’s what they say.”

  “That’s what I say.”

  “You know what they say: it’s really fucking cold outside.”

  “You know what they say: it’s not so cold in here.”

  A table of old women were celebrating their friend’s birthday party. They cheered and sipped margaritas.

  “They’re into it,” Hanna said.

  “Having a time,” I said.

  “I can’t get that way anymore.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She kind of focused on the space behind my head. “I got too drunk a year ago and threatened to rip my sister’s cunt out with barb wire.”

  At that point, most sensible men might go in a different direction. But at that point, I just needed someone to be close to me. I needed to breathe in the smell of her hair and hold on to her and wake up next to her and brush my teeth with her there in the next room. I felt all of these things and I don’t know why because I didn’t know this person just the same as I didn’t know any of the people I spent my time around. I felt like I’d died and someone new was in my place. I was still coming down off the relationship with my wife and I was thirsty.