The Warmest December (29 page)

The house shook again and I turned the corner and found Hy-Lo and Malcolm wrapped around each other. Hands around throats, pulling at ears, punching at stomachs and faces. But the worst thing was the breathing, the heavy let-loose of air that sounded to me like snorting bulls. The house shook again as Hy-Lo slammed Malcolm into the front door. The glass window shattered and cut at their skin. There was more blood now, lighter in color than the blood that spilled from their noses and the sides of their mouths.
Ketchup! Ketchup!
my mind screamed again.

I was afraid to get between them. It would be as dangerous as trying to break up two mad dogs. I began screaming at the top of my lungs, but they just kept slapping and punching at each other. I stomped my feet and begged and pleaded, but the house kept shaking as their bodies bounced off the walls.

Malcolm finally got loose, leaving most of his shirt tangled in Hy-Lo’s hands. They stood there bleeding and staring at each other, breathing so hard that they sucked the air in from around me, leaving me breathless.

I guess I was still screaming because Hy-Lo told me to shut up. He didn’t turn to look at me; the words spilled from the side of his mouth with his blood while his eyes held Malcolm’s face.

My brother wiped at his nose and his hand came away bloody. He looked down at his fingers and the red that coated them and his chest heaved.

He turned and walked away. His misery moved past me before his hand even brushed against my wrist. I’m still sorry I didn’t look into his eyes; maybe I would have seen the future there and could have grabbed at his shoulder and begged him to stay.

The bedroom door of Malcolm’s room moved and Devon Fulton stepped out. His head was bent and his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his baggy jeans. He moved past Hy-Lo without looking at him. He stepped over the blood drops on the floor as if they were potholes that dotted the streets of our neighborhood.

I think he was grinning when he walked by me. I saw a glint of white beneath his nose. He was always grinning like an idiot, everything was humorous to Devon, even the hostility between father and son—the blood on the floor and walls.

I wanted to kick him in the ass as he slithered past me, following Malcolm down to the basement and out the cellar door, but instead I just stared blankly at the blue and green band of his boxer shorts where his oversized jeans slipped from his hips.

Hy-Lo walked past me and into the bathroom, he slammed the door so hard the jagged pieces of glass that remained in the doorframe shook free and shattered on the floor. The hallway looked like a battle zone and all I could think of was cleaning it up and trying to make it right before Delia got home.

I was thinking about how I was going to replace the glass. The blood was gone, but she might notice the clean streaks on the mustard-colored walls. The hall smelled like Pine-Sol and that would be odd for a Wednesday but I could make up something. The glass would be the problem.

I heard the whizzing sound of their bikes as Malcolm and Devon took off down the street. The sound echoed in my left ear, so I knew they were going to the Dip. I licked my lips and wondered where the Yellow Pages were.

I wasn’t there when it happened, but half of the kids who lived on the block were. The Dip was the place kids would drop their forties, ditch their weed, and scramble like roaches when the cops arrived. The Dip, some long-forgotten mishap by the Department of Roads and Highways. No one wrote letters in that neighborhood, not even when sanitation skipped a week or the light on the corner of Lincoln and Sutter went berserk and shone all three colors at once:
Stop. Yield. Go.

So the Dip remained and the children began to utilize it when the playground became too dangerous to play in unless you owned a bulletproof vest.

I think I’d found a company to replace the glass by the time Malcolm and Devon arrived at the Dip. Maybe my finger lingered on ABC Glass Replacement and then moved down to ACME Glass by the time they situated their bikes at the top of the Dip. I decided on ABC Glass Replacement and was probably dialing when Malcolm looked down the blacktarred thirty-foot slope. My fingers got tangled and I had to hang up and dial again when Malcolm turned to Devon and said, “See you on the other side.”

I would have wiped at the dried blood around his mouth and assured him that I would see him. But Devon was his friend and not his sister so he just gave him a pound salute and said, “Awright, dog!”

I had been placed on hold by some woman who sounded like she’d been taking orders to replace the glass broken in household disputes all day long. I tapped my finger against the thin sheets of the Yellow Pages and hummed to myself, because there was no hold music.

Hy-Lo was still in the bathroom and I heard him curse to himself over the sound of the medicine cabinet opening and closing.

The woman came back on and told me she would be with me in another minute.

The street that bottoms out at the Dip is a quiet one that’s rarely used because it’s broken and crumbling. It tears away at car bottoms and snaps axles like shinbones. No one expected a semi to come barreling down the street.

They said Malcolm didn’t even see it coming. His arms were outstretched like the wings of an eagle when the shiny silver grill of the truck struck him. He was sent flying just like an eagle over the pavement, but his heart stopped in midair and he lost the gracefulness of flight and landed fifty yards away in a crumpled heap on his side.

I had heard the bellowing howl of the horn right as the driver laid a too-late-hand on its rubber blackness. The sound grabbed my attention, just for a moment, before the woman came back on the line: “I’m so sorry for the wait—this day has been murder with a capital M! Now, how can I help you?”

They wouldn’t be able to come before tomorrow. I would have to make up a lie or hope Delia wouldn’t notice the missing glass. I thought again about the horn and another sounded off in the distance. Semis traveled Linden Boulevard at all hours of the day and honked their horns at the small cars that got in their way. It was a familiar sound, like crickets on a summer night.

Hy-Lo was in his room. The house was quiet except for the flapping sound of Malcolm’s light green windbreaker as it swayed lazily back and forth on the clothesline. It was spring and it was one of those days where the chill in the air came in shreds and slithers between the gliding warmth of the season. It was one of those days.

The bell rang and broke the silence. I looked at the clock; it was almost seven and Delia had still not arrived. Two police officers stood outside our door. I noticed their nightsticks first and then the nine millimeters at their waists.

They removed their hats and their eyes moved between my face and the broken step of the stoop.

“Yes,” I said and leaned my head on the wooden frame of the door. I was tired and thought someone had called them to report the disturbance.

They shifted their weight between their feet and chanced a glance at my bare legs and the faded denim shorts I wore. “Mrs. Lowe?” they asked solemnly.

I didn’t hear the Mrs. or maybe I was too used to taking care of everything to think of myself as anything other than Mrs., but I said yes anyway and waited.

“Um …” the one with the freckles and harelip started, but a car backfired, causing both men to grip their guns.

“Yes,” I said again, annoyed now.

“You have a son … um …” The black leather book, flipping pages, flipping pages. Our information always seemed to be in the back. “Malcolm Lowe?”

“Uh-huh,” I said and noticed the police cruiser for the first time. Was that Devon sitting in the backseat?

“May we come in?” the officer with the curly brown hair and thick eyebrows asked.

“No … What happened … where’s Malcolm?” I said, straining my neck to make sure it was Devon. What had they done? Where was Malcolm?

They weren’t giving me any answers, just looking at my legs and my bare feet as I stepped out of the doorway and onto the cold concrete of the stoop. My hands were on my hips and I tippy-toed to look over their shoulders to make sure it was Devon, and it was, but he wasn’t grinning. Something was wrong.

I looked into the faces of the officers and I knew this was something I couldn’t fix before Delia got home.

“Malcolm was struck down by a tractor trailer today on Jenkins Avenue—”

“What hospital is he in?” I asked as I turned around to run back into the house to get some money, my sneakers, and Malcolm’s light green windbreaker.

“Well, he …”

I didn’t even hear the officer’s words, I just heard Malcolm’s picture slip lopsided against the wall and I knew.

We go to court every day; even Glenna takes a leave of absence from her job to sit between Delia and me. She holds our hands through the proceedings and lets Delia cry on her shoulder. I don’t cry. I can’t cry. All I am is stone and stone sheds no tears.

On the long wooden bench there is a space where Mable and Sam should be. I touch the mellow-colored wood and think of them every day before the judge bangs his gavel and court begins. They’re not there because they don’t know Malcolm’s been in the ground for three weeks and will have been in the ground for ten before Delia finally tells them.

We smell like gardenias, the three of us. The smell clings to our skin and hair, and even though we shower twice a day, the scent remains. It would have been lilies if we had a choice. If we had money to make a choice. But we didn’t and someone had sent gardenias to the funeral home by mistake. The deliveryman wouldn’t take them back, even though the name on the delivery slip said
Mike’s Auto Body
and not
Cane’s
Funeral Home.

“De address—it’s de right one, yes?” the man with skin the color of night and teeth bright as day kept saying over and over to the receptionist.

“Yes, but this is a funeral home, not an auto body shop,” she repeated for the fourth time in exasperation.

“I leave here, yes? You settle with dem later, yes?” he said and pushed the delivery slip into his pocket. He tipped his yellow, green, and black baseball cap that said
AFRICA
across the top in large black letters and then jumped into his beat-up station wagon and sped away.

That’s how we got the gardenias, us and everybody else who had a family member laid out in one of the six rooms.

To me hate always smelled like vodka and cigarettes, but now hate also smelled like gardenias and sounded like a million mothers weeping and was the color and texture of a green silk scarf with black polka dots.

Hy-Lo doesn’t come. Not once. Not to the funeral home, graveyard, or courtroom. I think he tried to, almost every day, but before he could shower the bottle called him. And after he combed and patted his hair into place, the bottle called to him again, and when he ran his thumb over the scuff on the end of his shiny black shoe the bottle called him again.

Better he just stays and finishes the bottle and not have to deal with the pain at all. So Hy-Lo doesn’t come.

I think he tried. I’m sure he tried.

Every day I sat there trying to listen to what was being said, but my hearing was clouded by the vision of Malcolm laid out on a slab of steel, a white sheet thrown over his body, covering the naked and bruised parts but allowing us to see his face. On that day I think he looks more like Delia than at any other time in his life.

Half the time I can’t see the judge or the people around us because I can’t stop the movie that’s playing in my head. Over and over again I see Delia’s legs giving way at the sight of her dead son. I see her head hitting the wall and spewing blood everywhere. I hear her moaning and crying and I see the blood running into her eyes and her shaking hands and they remind me of how Hy-Lo’s hands shake on Sunday afternoon when the liquor stores are closed and he has nothing left over from Saturday.

On the last day when the judge bangs his gavel down hard, my hearing comes back and I feel like I’m floating near the ceiling looking down on me. People are moving out of the courtroom. Some come over and say things. Their words sound garbled, but I can tell from the way their lips move and the dewiness of their eyes that their words are sweet and sometimes pitiful. Others lightly touch my hand and Delia’s; many grab hold of our shoulders and squeeze. I just nod my head and say thank you.

“Where’s your dad at, Kenzie?” “Delia, where Hy-Lo at?” they ask after they make sure they sweep the courtroom good with their eyes. Make sure they don’t miss him sitting at the back or by the window.

No one cares if he’s there or not because they know how Hy-Lo is and they’ve already figured out that he had something to do with it, but they’re not sure how and what exactly.

They don’t care but they put that emotion aside for the moment and ask anyway because it’s polite to inquire, and besides, they need something juicy to discuss over their meat loaf and mashed potato dinner that evening.

“He’s home,” we reply in unison like some off-key duet.

They didn’t need to hear any more, their imagination would take it from there. They’d shake their heads and maybe offer a sympathetic “tsk, tsk” and move on.

The driver of the truck is the last to approach; he is a small man like my father, but Mexican. He has written my family six letters, each more apologetic than the last. Delia unclasps her hands and spreads her arms out at her sides, like a bird protecting her nestling, as if his closeness alone could take the life of her remaining child.

His hands are cuffed behind him and there is a court officer on either side of him. His eyes are brimmed red and there is scarlet present beneath his bronze skin. I am familiar with those brimming eyes and the tint in his skin. Even without reading the police report, I knew that this man shared many things with my father.

“I’m sorry,” he says. I’ve read it twenty times in his letters, in between the names of his children and the description of his sod house in the small fishing village of Tulum where he was born and raised. The village where his aging parents remain, eating and surviving on the small amounts of money he is able to send them after he feeds and clothes his family here in the States.