J. Osborne: Black Gum

At a certain point, days later, Charlie woke me up and handed me a cup of cranberry juice and vodka and sat across from me and asked me what I was planning to do.

I told him I didn’t know.

He told me that they were fixing to shut his water off, and that I better figure out what I planned on doing real soon.

I looked around. I picked up applications. I filled them out on paper or in those little kiosk things.

Right around the college campus, there was this restaurant that was just opening up. I saw the ‘help wanted’ sign and walked in and filled out an application. They pointed me to a table and told me to talk to the owner.

He sat at a table at the far end of the restaurant. Chair pushed out. Big belly heaving under a Looney Tunes t-shirt. Grease stains and barbecue sauce on it.

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.

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.

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?”