Adam Johnson - Fortune Smiles - Stories

“Just as long as you know how fucked up this is,” he says.

“Please,” she says. “I mailed this brochure to four people today — they’re sending in their deposits. One of them lives in Hollywood.”

She massages him, pulls him inside again, though he can tell she’s got the sex cordoned off, like there’s a velvet rope between her and what’s happening below. Then she’s looking at him, a narrowed, questioning gaze. It’s not an angry look — he’s just being read. He closes his eyes, sees a roadhouse he and Marnie used to go to, the place where they met, actually. It was called the Triple Crown, out on Highway 90. He recalls this one night they went out — hadn’t known each other too long — and no, Marnie said, she didn’t feel like drinking that night. That was okay with Nonc, he understood, but he had a feeling, and looking back, what seemed like an insignificant event was a major development. He wouldn’t know for a month, but that was the day Marnie knew she was pregnant. Developments can happen right in front of you like that, you don’t even see them.

—

When it’s time, they pick up Geronimo in the annex.

At the door, they pause. Through the little window, they can see the maw-maws inside, arms folded as they confer with one another. Relle says, “These ladies give me the creeps.”

“Just don’t talk to them,” Nonc tells her.

“I don’t get old ladies,” she says. “Who are they, what do they want from you?”

Nonc feels the same way. Old women look all innocent and goody-two-shoes, but then they level some all-knowing eyes on your ass. Plus, they look alike — Nonc can’t even be sure if these are the same old ladies as last week.

Inside, Geronimo is sitting in a small plastic chair. He’s wearing a smock, tied at the waist, and he’s real serious about some clay that he’s rolling out. He doesn’t even notice when they enter. Nonc stares at the boy, his round forehead and long eyelashes. When Geronimo reaches up to rub his ear, Nonc knows he’s sleepy. “Come to Nonc,” he calls out, and crouches to receive him.

But the boy doesn’t move.

The maw-maws walk to Geronimo. One takes his hand. “Such a sweet child,” she says.

“Unbearably sweet,” the other adds as she pulls the smock over his head.

When they bring him to Nonc, he can see they’ve given the boy a haircut, and they’ve applied a thick cream to his sunburned face. He’s in a hand-me-down set of coveralls from the auxiliary.

“You give him a bath?” Nonc asks.

“We cleaned him up a little,” one says, then adds, “Geronimo is such a special name.”

“Synonymous with resilience and determination.”

“In the Apache language, Geronimo means fiercely loyal .”

“One of the books we read together was The Last Palomino .”

The women go on and on about all the books they read and activities they did, enunciating everything like they’re hosting an event, like Geronimo’s a grand guest and Nonc and Relle are being introduced to him for the first time.

One of them takes a drawing of some yellow swirly lines and pins it to the boy’s coveralls. The drawing is captioned “Macaw.” “A disaster can be a trying time,” she says.

“Especially for a child,” the other adds. She holds out a brown paper bag, its top neatly rolled up. “Here are the child’s pajamas.”

Nonc can feel Relle wince. “Those aren’t pajamas,” he says. “That’s a custom tracksuit, with piping and everything. It’s tailor-made with fabric from—”

“Morocco,” Relle says.

“From Morocco.”

There is a pause. In it, the old ladies give Nonc that look.

“You were right to come here,” one of them says. “Geronimo is always welcome here. All of you are. What a perfect age he is.”

“A difficult age to be separated from a parent.”

“Such a trauma that can be.”

“Maybe I’m the boy’s parent,” Relle says. “Did you think of that? Do you know that I’m not her?”

—

Outside, it’s dark. Nonc fires up the van and heads to Relle’s halfway house. He doesn’t prowl roadhouses or cruise Charity looking for Marnie. He steps on the gas to blow out the mosquitoes, and they go.

As soon as they arrive, Dr. Gaby opens the door, which means that Nonc won’t be sleeping on clean sheets with Relle and Geronimo, that there will be no hot shower and toilet in the A.M. When Geronimo sees Dr. Gaby, he runs and leaps up onto her wheelchair, which makes Nonc cringe because Relle has told him that Dr. Gaby uses a piss bag, that you’d never know it, but it’s under her clothes.

Dr. Gaby throws Nonc a dubious look. “You cut his hair,” she says.

Relle says, “How do you know I didn’t give him a haircut?”

Dr. Gaby doesn’t respond to this. She turns the boy’s face right and left, inspecting the sunburn. “It’s better,” she says, and throws Nonc a look of true distaste. Then she goes through her routine: She takes the boy’s earlobe and peers inside. She runs a finger along his teeth. With a thumb, she pulls down his eyelid to inspect the white of the eye. She’s not a real doctor — she was a psychiatrist before she retired because of her condition.

“Haircut itch?” she asks Geronimo.

Geronimo rubs his neck. “Itchy,” he says.

Dr. Gaby blows the stubble off his neck, then wheels an about-face and rolls inside.

Nonc and Relle follow. It’s not really right to call it a halfway house. There are four residents with permanent problems, and they live here permanently. Once you come to this place, you don’t go anywhere. Relle doesn’t have any training, so her job is more like babysitting, and you can believe she has a rule for everything.

Then, in the wake of Katrina, the dream team arrived. They got off a bus from the Superdome holding hands, eight adult men. Dr. Gaby thinks they have entrenched autism, but she doesn’t know for sure — they came from an unknown facility without files, medical records, case histories or full names. Wherever they were housed, they were housed together, accustomed to staying up to ungodly hours, and damned if they don’t get their nightly video. Tonight, as Nonc and Relle pass, they are in the living room, drinking diet sodas in the blue glow of a Robin Williams movie.

“They give me the willies,” Relle says.

Nonc looks at their uncomprehending faces, at the sodas in their thick hands.

“So pathetic,” she adds. “Can you imagine being like that, stuck watching whichever TV show is played for you, living in whatever town the bus plops you in?”

In the kitchen, racks of cookies are cooling, and the smell is overpowering. The counters are custom-made for a wheelchair, so they’re just the right height for a little boy. Geronimo, on Dr. Gaby’s lap, sits before a large mixing bowl. Dr. Gaby places an egg in Geronimo’s hand, then wraps hers around his. Together, they crack an egg on the rim. Dr. Gaby then splits the egg, letting the yolk flop into the bowl. Without a word, she hands the next egg to Geronimo. He taps it on the rim, then hands it to Dr. Gaby, who splits it.

Relle grabs a cookie. “God, oatmeal,” she says with her mouth full. “Someday our kids are gonna live on cookies.”

To Relle, Dr. Gaby says, “Those are for the volunteers. And tomorrow’s list is on the fridge.” Then she turns toward Nonc. “You’ve gathered that your girlfriend’s not too touchy-feely. I must say, though: give the girl a list, and have mercy, she can procure.”

Nonc asks, “So nobody’s come forward to claim the dream team?” He knows he shouldn’t call them that. It’s Relle’s term, and she only calls them the dream team to get under Dr. Gaby’s skin.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced,” she says. “I know your famous position that the hurricane is no skin off your nose, but for the rest of us, it’s a different matter.”