Where the Line Bleeds (34 page)

He would tinker around in the shed, and then he would disappear. She
would not know when he came home, and in the morning, he would be
up and gone before she woke. Paul had told her he had heard Christophe
was hanging around at Javon's house, and everyone knew what Javon did.
She wanted him to be still, to be safe, to stop running from what was
chasing him.

"I got work to do."

"Christophe!" Cille exclaimed. "I was talking to you."

Ma-mee bounded upright in her chair, felt her way to Christophe,
surprised herself with how fast she moved. She gripped his arm. He could
not move with her holding him.

"Stop it, Chris." His body was tight, turgid as a pine curving against
a stormwind. She gripped harder. "Go take a shower. Help me take care
of your brother." She felt him sag. "For me."

"Yes, Ma-mee." He nodded.

While Cille ignored them and wrapped thin leaves of her hair around
rollers, Ma-mee worked in a tight, worried orbit around the kitchen:
wiping the countertops, stirring the pot, kneading dough, washing dishes.
She could not help herself. She dropped one of the pot lids to the floor
and picked it up to hear Joshua mumbling into the telephone.

"I'll see you tomorrow, I promise. Love you too. Bye."

Ma-mee had not known that he was telling Laila he loved her, even
though she felt she should have recognized the sentiment in the way he
hovered over her, big and wide, his body bent to hers like a spoon. She had
wanted to slap Cille for treating the girl the way she had. She had been
ashamed of her daughter, of her sharp, self-assured, demanding beauty.
Outside, the sun had finally set and it was dark, and Christophe sat next
to his brother on the sofa. Crickets cried through the open window, and
she heard a car go by on the street. The crepe myrtle outside the kitchen
window rustled. Cille said she was tired and went to her room without
eating. Christophe shoveled food into his mouth, and Joshua fumbled
with his spoon, dropping it into the beans. Each time, his brother would
pick up the utensil and wedge it between the wrapping on his fingers.
Joshua laughed at it, shallowly, the first time, but then he was quiet. Mamee wanted to talk to them, to say something that would make her feel
like she wasn't chewing and swallowing small pebbles, but she could not
think of anything.

Joshua slept with his arms over his head, propped against the wall. The
air tugged at him like warps of cotton against his skin. He felt exposed.
He dreamed he was falling and jerked awake to the dark, quiet house: a
rooster called in the distance. He walked into the kitchen to find that the
clock on the microwave read 2:22. Light shone, etched along the cracks
of the shed. He walked piecemeal from the house. The grass was turgid
and wet with dew. When he reached the door, he knocked softly with his
elbow. Christophe was kneeling amidst rust-laced steel drums, corroded
engine parts, and steel toolboxes, surrounded by a nest of tiny, greenish
brown bags of weed. He was counting them and dropping them into a
larger bag. Joshua had not known that he was selling that much. He said
what he had not expected to say.

"How you got that cut on your tongue?"

Christophe looked up, dazed, and let his arms fall slack to his sides.
Joshua's hands felt as if they were going to burst from their wrappings.
"What you talking about?"

"You had a cut down the middle of your tongue. Look like it hurt."

"A razor."

"In your mouth?"

Christophe resumed shoving the baggies into the larger brown
paper bag that was wet on the bottom. It was the kind of bag clerks slid
forties into.

"I was fucking off at Javon's house. I just wanted to see if I could
do it."

Christophe rolled up the bag and stood. He switched off the barebulb light affixed to a shelf and it was so dark that Joshua could not see
his brother. He felt Christophe passing him. In the house, Christophe
locked the doors, and Joshua turned to tiptoe to the bedroom and found
him sitting on the sofa, staring at the television.

"I'm going to stay up and watch some TV."

Joshua saw the muscles in Christophe's jaw jump as he clenched his
teeth. Christophe turned the television on and a televangelist in a powder
blue suit strode across the screen, his hands raised to the air as if he were
waiting for Mardi Gras beads to rain down on him from a parade float, a
false providence. His eyes were shocked wide and as the camera zoomed
in for a close-up, Joshua saw that they were as blue as his suit. His face
broke as if he were about to cry. Christophe sat slumped into the sofa,
barely blinking. Joshua could not move, stood standing and looking at
Christophe, thinking of razors, of bags of white powder before they were
cooked to crack, of Javon's supply. His slashed hands ached, and he left
Christophe to fall asleep.

Christophe woke to morning cartoons at five. It felt as if someone
had poured sand in his mouth while he slept. He was hungry. He cooked
grits. He washed dishes. Soft white light diffused through the curtain and
he looked at the phone, wondered briefly if someone would ever call him
about a job, and if he really cared anymore. Javon would be expecting
him today. He picked through the clothes in the dryer and tried not to
wake Cille or Ma-mee or his brother, who he believed would want to
come with him, boredom and bad feelings bedamned. He did not want
Joshua to come with him. He did not know why he could not sleep, only
that every time he felt himself falling like a feather, rocking on currents
of drowsiness, he would see the baggies blossoming in rows around him,
his pockets bottomless with them as if they were BB pellets, see the razor, see the powder on it and Javon's face, both white. When he woke, these
were the first things he thought about. He did not want to eat unless he
was starving, and he did not see the sense in taking a bath when he was
living so grimily, when he was only waking and bathing and eating and
getting dressed to go to Javon's and make money. Joshua's accident had
scared him: what if his brother's hands had been crushed? What if he had
to support the family?

Christophe thought he had time to spare, but Joshua woke at his
normal time. He sat down at the kitchen table as Christophe pulled on
his socks and stood.

"What we doing today?" Joshua asked. Christophe felt the fight flare
and fall to ash in his chest.

Fuck it, he thought.

They left midmorning, after Cille had left the house without saying
goodbye to any of them, and afterward they'd watched Hollywood Squares
with Ma-mee: she'd snorted at the jokes the personalities told, but seemed
too tired to laugh. They were silent on the short ride there. Out of habit,
Christophe parked their car in Javon's backyard. He knocked once, a short,
hard knock that was more of a punch, and walked into the house. Javon
was sprawled on the couch with one leg hooked over the armrest, and he
didn't bother sitting up when Christophe walked in the door. A black and
mild cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, and he was wrestling with
the videogame controller in his hand. He was playing Doom. Christophe
sat on the sofa next to him, and saw Joshua hesitate in front of the closed
door.

"Sit down," Christophe said.

Javon removed his foot from the arm of the sofa. Joshua folded his
arms across each other and let his hands hang limply.

"Your hands alright?" Javon asked. "You could get paid for that shit,
you know?"

Joshua shrugged noncommittally. Javon threw the controller in
frustration, and Christophe saw his brother almost flinch: he could read
it in the way his eyelashes flickered shut, the way his mouth twitched. He
picked up the other controller from the floor.

"I bet you could whip Javon's ass in this one." Christophe looked past
his brother to Javon. "He was always better than me."

"Everybody's better than you," Javon said.

"Shut the fuck up," Christophe said.

Javon beat Christophe in the game. Christophe let the controller
fall to the floor when the first knock sounded at the door. He rose, let
the knocker into the room, and Javon walked to the kitchen and left
Christophe to shut the door. Christophe hesitated, and then waved Tilda
into the kitchen. Everyone knew their places. Javon served Tilda, and she
shuffled out the curve of the door with a shy waggle of her fingers.

Joshua had flinched. He tried to deny it, tried to reason with himself:
he was only a few inches shorter than Javon, and after all his work on the
pier, was probably as strong, yet he had flinched when Javon had thrown
the controller with those pale, corded arms: they moved like snakes. He
wanted to leave. If Laila weren't busy, he could pick her up and drive up
in the country, down the hidden dirt road, narrow as a path, to the river.
They would emerge from the tunnel of trees, thin as a snake hole, to the
beach, the sun, the winding water. He closed his eyes and saw himself
wading into the deep. Perhaps he could convince Christophe to come,
convince his brother to swing from the rope in the top of the trees and
fall to the deep, dark water. He opened his eyes to another knock on the
door, to Christophe muttering and shrugging as he continued to paw at the
controller, and to Javon walking past him, sinewy and lean. This was what
Christophe did with his day: the crackheads came in a steady procession,
Javon passed back and forth in front of the television like white static,
Christophe pulled sacks of weed from his pockets like loose change.

Joshua's hands pulsed with the same pain as the headache slurring like
a muddy, overfilled ditch at his temples. He was surprised to see Laila at
the door, instead of Tilda again with another portion of Mudda Ma'am's
Social Security check. Laila wore a ruffled white tank top and flip-flops,
and the light from the open door blurred her edges.

"You letting out all my air," Javon said as he spit the black from his
mouth.

"Sorry," she said, and scooted into the doorway.

She tried to squeeze between Joshua and Christophe on the sofa, but
instead fell into Joshua's lap, awkwardly. He wished he could touch her
with his hands, but he only grazed her shoulders with his fingertips.

"What you doing here?"

"I went over by your house and Ma-mee told me she thought y'all
was here."

"What time is it?"

"It's starting to get dark."

Christophe moved from the sofa to the floor. Another crackhead
rapped on the door, and Christophe pulled the knob.

"How's your hands?"

She pulled them toward her. They looked bulky and stiff as crawfish
claws. She touched them and he could not feel it. He wrapped his arms
around her as the crackhead passed over the television and eclipsed the
glare of the game.

"Go home," he whispered.

"Why don't you come with me?" she whispered back, her lips touching
his ear.

"Later, okay?"

Laila moved across his lap as Javon raised his voice in the kitchen.
Joshua hooked her hand in one claw and pulled it up to his mouth; he
kissed the smooth skin near her wrist. Her eyes were almost black in the
gloom of the room; she leaned into him, and he knew she wanted to
stay. Joshua glanced past the leaving crackhead. Christophe was watching
them with his knees in his chest, openmouthed. An image of Christophe
flashed in Joshua's mind: tracing his finger along plastic bags of Now and
Laters back when they were kids going on bike-riding candy missions to
the country store. Laila leaned in to kiss Joshua and he stopped her by
speaking against her cheek.

"Go."

Laila closed the door so softly Joshua did not hear the latch click.

Christophe had been surprised when his brother had sent Laila away;
he had expected her to stay, had sat on the floor in anticipation of it. He
had hoped Joshua would leave with her; for once, he had wanted her to
take his brother away. Christophe watched Joshua doze, watched him jerk awake and open his eyes and close them and his head fall again and again.
It was dark. The volume on the television was low, but the crickets were
so loud outside they buzzed louder than the game. He threw down the
joystick. He was tired of playing. He kept dying. Perhaps it was time for
them to go home.

A knocking sounded from the kitchen. No crackheads ever came
through the kitchen; they knew it was safer to come through the front
door because it was obscured by trees and a long row of bushes as tall as
Javon. Besides, Javon hated for addicts to come through the kitchen door.
It felt too personal.

"Who the fuck is that?" Javon said.

Christophe shrugged to no one and leaned around the living room
wall and peered into the kitchen. Javon bent to part the curtains over the
small window at the top of the door, and he swayed side to side, surveying
the carport.

"Aw, fuck," he said, and switched the outdoor light on. The window
lit like a television screen, and Javon opened the door and perched at the
opening, leaving it ajar behind him.

"Sandman," Javon said. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I got that plywood you wanted for the windows." Sandman's voice
was thin and reedy. It sounded like a whistle over Javon's shoulder. The
sound of Sandman's voice kept Christophe leaning against the wood
paneling. "You got a dime?"

"You don't get paid for work you ain't did yet, mothafucka. I told you
I ain't fucking with you like that no more. I gave you a dub to clean my
yard on the fourth, and you left it half done. I don't fuck with credit. Take
that shit somewhere else."

Sandman looked skinnier than when Christophe had last seen him.
His sternum had shrunk into his chest; his top was a shallow ditch. Joshua
no longer resembled him in the least. He expected Sandman to duck his
head, to leave, but he didn't. Sandman had lost his hat, and his hair was
spiky and tufted as branches, his skin as weathered and knotted as pecan
tree bark. He listed like a naked tree in winter.