Give Us a Kiss: A Novel (17 page)

Could life be better?

The phone blatted. Niagra answered it, said “Huh?” a few times, each “Huh?” a testimonial to the quality of our
gardening results, then handed the receiver off to Smoke. He stood by the fridge, said, “Hey, how’re you?” and, “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

He hung up, grinned a li’l sickly grin.

“The folks are in town.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“They want a pow-wow, lickety-split, over at Panda’s.”

“Whatta you think, big bro?”

“Aw, shit—I owe it to ’em, I guess. They’ve stood up pretty good, all this time.” He shook his dreadlocks loose, took a big long suck on a joint the size of a carrot. “It’s just, I
know
what they’ll have to say.”

“Oh, you bet,” I said. “I can hear it all twice, here and now.”

Mom’s a stalwart sweetheart and slow to anger. She stands near five ten, a giant, practically, amongst her own generation, and has come to weigh near one eighty, beef to the heels, honestly, but affects a coquettish manner. She colors her hair chestnut, smiles to acknowledge or avoid, and flushes pink when she tells dirty jokes. Men who aren’t scared by her healthy stature have always flocked about her, responding to her macabre “I’m just a frail li’l blossom in a mighty high breeze” act, a scene I’d often witnessed, if never totally comprehended its success.

She spread a dinner for the pack of us as the hot edge faded from the afternoon. Fried baloney sandwiches with thick tomato slices, slathered in mayo. A plain meal that makes its point, and one of my favorites. It’s a sandwich that in therapy
I learned was among my “comfort foods”—deep knowledge that failed to ruin it for me.

When I was younger and hard-hearted, with hot, hostile artistic ambitions I yearned to charge at the aloof, faceless “thems” of our world until they said Uncle, I believed the scariest words ever spoken to be “The apple never falls far from the tree.” That whole concept inspired clinging fears in the wee hours, and a halting miserable shyness in the presence of those who seemed to be the anointed. If I fell not far from the tree, was I then fated to be, not, say, a college prof of English, but inmate 2679785? A parolee who spends seventeen years on the night shift with Custodial Services at KU Med Center in K.C., instead of a Prize-Winning Novelist with a saltbox on the Cape? An unwholesome artsy freak, and not an esteemed citizen whose voting privileges have never been revoked?

I went through those pitiful, hangdog years being ashamed of my roots and origins, referring to home as “our place in the country,” and to my father as a “self-made man.” I hung my head and eenie-meenie-minie-moed when confronted at dinner tables by too many forks. I tried to give the impression that slapping an uppity snotnose silly was not the sort of act contained in my portfolio.

It must surely have been noticeable and insufferable to my folks, so obvious were my feelings, until, I don’t know why, the shame passed. My attitude shifted, the twang twanged once more into my speaking voice. Maybe it was all the Faulkner, or Algren, or Whitman. Anyway, I quickly came back down to the raising I had gotten above, and let every
nuance of my sartorial style and social preferences and personal anecdotes cop to it right up front—I yam what I yam, and beg your pardon, sir, but go fuck yourself if you don’t like it.

On this evening, there Panda sat, as ever at the head of the table, battered and imperial, and I couldn’t watch Mom’s big hands halving those sandwiches without wondering: When their eyes met, were those goo-goo eyes?

A bottle each of Johnnie Red and Cutty Sark sat on the table, glass tributes to a petty argument General Jo and Panda have kept going for a decade or more; to wit, which is better?

I drank some of each, conflicted loyalties at work on me, ate a sandwich, and said, “This is just wonderful.”

“Ain’t it just?” Mom said.

“I love it when we’re flocked this way,” General Jo said. “A family.” He showed his opinion of the Cutty by keeping it flowing, each new pour registering on Panda’s face like yet another pointed insult to his overall taste and scotch whisky expertise. General Jo is more my height than Smoke’s, though he weighs twenty pounds less. He’s got a lovely head of gray curly hair that many a toupeed millionaire might like to bid on or steal. There’s a dipshit jail tattoo of a Confederate flag on his right forearm, but the whole thing is in a faded blue color and not worth a damn. When he smiles, these very appealing dimples appear in his cheeks, and he smiles a lot for a career janitor whose done such hard time in Jeff City and Korea and, I imagine, his very own head.

I feel I’m his sequel. I feel I inherited my storytelling
instincts from him, though I’ve somewhat refined them. General Jo tends to be snockered when he starts a story, and he’ll get to telling one, a memory of some interest, a local tragedy, say, and you’ll be listening tight, then he’ll get thoroughly bogged down in the inconsequential details, such as just what
was
the name of the fourth fella on the porch when the runaway timber truck hit the house, and pretty soon you’re not listening tight anymore, or even at all, until finally a silence butts in and you or I say, “Well, General Jo, the name don’t matter—it’s the truck that counts.”

General Jo reached across the table, poured a triple slug of Cutty into my glass, and smiled a great one.

“How’s my boy?” he asked.

Man, did Imaru hear that!

No argument could sway Smoke. He dismissed them all as being so puny the hens wouldn’t peck them.

“When I get this money I’m fixin’ to get, I’ll come up and set things right with the tired-ass law.”

“And this’ll be when?” Mom asked.

“Not long.”

“And the money, I mean, darlin’, I don’t aim to
pry,
but where’s it comin’ from?”

“This’n that.”

“I see.” She smiled and fanned her face with a copy of the
Scroll,
her big forearms flexin’ like gator tails. Panda sat in the other room to watch the Cardinals, so it was just our li’l nuclear unit locked in debate. “Wouldn’t be anything
criminal,
would it?”

“Not very, really,” Smoke said. He flapped a hand at me, an appeal for support.

“It depends who you ask,” I said. “There’s various philosophies afield.”

Boy howdy, did General Jo start to perk up at the mention of crime! The ol’ hound, God bless him, heard the bugle, smelled that smell. He popped up from the rocker he’d been in silently for ten minutes or so, drink in hand, and began to pace. The fingers on his free hand started to rub together, over and over. It was touching, and I couldn’t have loved him more. There was an appetite in him that hadn’t been satisfied, I don’t guess, since he made parole and squared up so long ago. When I’d passed through K.C. in Lizbeth’s Volvo, and we’d worked together, spray painting it, and ripping off local plates outside a pizza joint, he’d beamed and worked with an air of unleashed pleasure.

The wall of dead, he needed their nods, too, as much as all of us.

“What sort of crime is it?” he asked.

“There’s various philosophies afield,” I said.

“Plain spoken,” he said. “In English.”

“Dope,” Smoke said. “Smokin’ dope.”

“Ah,” General Jo responded, and you could see his hopes deflating. I mean, he was an armed robber by nature, see, not the breed of miscreant who sneaks around, growing shit in the woods and peddlin’ it by the Baggie.
“Farmers.”

“There’s money in it,” Smoke said. He walked over to General Jo and slapped a bear hug on him, raised him aloft, a sign of affection that has always made our dad, the ex-convict,
giggle and wiggle and turn red in the face. When Smoke set him down, he said, “I was plannin’ to gift you two or three bricks, there, General Jo, but if it’s too chickenshitted for you, then the hell with it.”

“What weight to the brick?” Mom asked. “And what do the kids pay for it these days?”

“A couple of pounds to the brick,” I said. “General Jo, all those janitors you know, you could, maybe…”

He waggled his head, then nodded.

“But I’m a juicer.”

“He don’t know the prices,” Mom said. “We’d need to know the prices of the different assortments, sizes, whatnot.”

“Sell it for two hundred per fat ounce,” Smoke said, “and your janitor crew’ll think you’re Santa Claus.”

So there we were, in the ancestral parlor, the eyes from the wall of dead taking us in, watching, making Imaru feel eternal, every dead head on our tree itching to nod.

Mom’s and General Jo’s eyes met. I could practically hear their brain cells crunching the numbers, until Mom said, “Sixteen, ain’t it? Ounces to the pound?”

“Times two hundred,” Smoke said.

The folks acted cool until the numbers tallied. The promising math totals caused Mom to smile and begin to flush, and General Jo held his arms spread and said, “Give us a kiss.” Then they gave it up, guffawed and hugged and kissed each other, their old feet dancing, bodies whirling, making our house rock, and I looked at the hanging pictures, and, oh, yeah, I saw what I looked for.

25

TUFFY JUST BRISTLES UP AT THAT COLOR MOON

THERE WAS A reddish rut, carved into the earth in sinuous curls and dips and pinched curves, leading up to Anglin’s cabin. We’d had to shove open a metal gate suspended between oak-stump posts when we turned from where the red rut met the rock road. The cabin sat on the backside of Anglin’s three hundred acres, across a ridge from his main house, and on a different road altogether.

I rode in the truck bed, lollygagging atop our stack of harvested bricks. The bricks were all wrapped in black plastic, and they felt good in my hands, substantial and potent, and were pretty to look at. The smell of dope, that scent of exotic hay, a magical barn aroma, rose from the bricks and lay heavy and sweet on the wind.

Niagra drove, slow-footed on the clutch but safely, while Big Annie occupied Smoke’s lap. She sat with her back to the passenger window, one arm extended around the cab, and she made several attempts to yank my ponytail. I could detect the fumes of scotch exhalations from both the cab and my own mouth. The gang of us had our hopes up high. Smoke and Big Annie had smooched and giggled since about
Gum Creek, and funny things were apparently being said outside my earshot since so much laughter leaked from the cab and rippled back to me.

The cabin came into view when we topped a swale, a li’l hillock bald of trees but thick with tall horseweed and the like.

I smacked a hand against the rear glass of the cab.

“Hold it a sec,” I said as Niagra slowed. “Let’s scope it out some.”

The truck came to a complete halt, and the headlights were doused. The gang got out, walked to the front, stood by the grill, and stared down at the cabin.

A dog barked, and you could hear a chain snapping as the hound strained. Peepers peeped, and lightning bugs were fanned out across the meadow, flickering by the dozens.

Big Annie seemed to shiver, and she crossed her arms.

“Is this in tune?” she asked.

“Tune? What tune, darlin’?” Smoke said.

“The right tune.”

I imagine it was ten o’clock, give or take. The moon was low in the sky and fat, nearly full, and floated like a bobber in the sky. It had that yellow color, the hue of cheese gone bad, and the yellow light it cast seemed to tint objects as well as illuminate them. The cabin wasn’t much: an old woodsman’s shack, with a rough plank porch and rails made of seasoned saplings. Lanterns burned inside, throwing light out two big front windows. A stone chimney showed. Strangler vines grew up the porch and the porch rails and the chimney, too, and were inching toward the door. A new pickup truck sat near the porch steps.

The howling dog was chained to the porch rail, and I could see silhouettes of a small barn and a toolshed on down the slope beyond the cabin.

“Does this feel in tune?” Big Annie said again. Her hinky mood was infectious and encouraged flinches and second thoughts. “I’m not sure we’re in tune here.”

The dog was barking his throat raw, and that didn’t soothe our intuitions any.

“There ain’t no tune,” Smoke said. “There ain’t no goddamn tune at all.” He slapped the fender. “Let’s just go on down’n get rich.”

Niagra pushed next to me, and I draped an arm over her shoulders.

She whispered, “Your big brother is almost looney, know it? I mean, you’re
both
almost looney, but Smoke’s more almost.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, but she didn’t answer.

“Hop in,” she said. “Ride.”

Loose in my own bones again, I hopped from the truck bed, waggling a select black brick. Anglin had come onto the plank wood porch, holding a bottle of beer, nodding. He’d missed a button on his blue, sleeveless work shirt, and his flab stretched the opening to showcase a hairy belly button.

“Golly, yes,” he said. “Let’s
do
have a taste.”

The light cast through the cabin windows was irregular in shape but bright enough. The dog howled and whimpered and howled.

Niagra backed the truck in to the steps, then Smoke and
Big Annie spilled from the cab. I made my way up the steps, but the strangler vines were in shadow and I stepped into them, boots trapped in the tangle, until I kicked my way free.

On the porch Anglin reached for the brick, took it, then leaned in close to me and said, “Shit, budso, I figured it to be only just you and your brother, there. Didn’t figure you’d haul the girls along on a weed deal.”

“They’re full partners.”

“You got that right.” Anglin inhaled deeply, then released the air and expansively claimed, “That truck sure smells like money.” Then, he spun to the side. “Tuffy! Tuffy! Goddamnit—hush!”

“What
is
with that dog?” Big Annie asked.

“The moon,” Anglin offered. “Tuffy just bristles up at that color moon.” He glanced up at the yellow moon trolling across the sky like stinky-cheese bait for bottom feeders. He stepped aside then and waved the brick toward the cabin door. “Mi casa su casa, folks. We’ll twist a stick and do bizness—hey?”

In the cabin, by lanterns’ glow, Big Annie bent over a barrel-top table to roll a joint. The barrel had bullet holes in the body and knife gouges on the top. Big Annie frowned some as she twisted the stick, the white skin between her brows bunching up. I observed her technique with the same variety of pleasure I might derive from close scrutiny of a manicurist or a fine mechanic. She pinched the weed out, minced it between fingertips onto a single Tops paper. The dog noises prompted her eyes to wander, but she rolled a perfect joint, then licked it into a moist and splendid symmetrical beauty.