T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

“Mom, come on.”

“I don’t expect you to stay home. I’m serious, Achilles. She’s a keeper.” She gripped him tighter when he tried to pull back. “I’m telling you this right now, while everyone is looking and you can’t walk away.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“He wrote me often. He said he was glad you were there. He said he wouldn’t have made it without you.” She hummed a few bars. “What was his tattoo?”

“Mom inside a heart.”

The mood lightened when someone fired up Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition” on the jukebox. The bar erupted in song. Voices washed in from the parking lot, passing drivers honked their horns, and even kids yawned the chorus, sucking on pencils and straws as if they were cigarettes, acting out the song as if it was a dress rehearsal, and he remembered those kids dressed as superheroes yelling, “Fly school shit!”

They arrived home long after midnight. As the limousine climbed the driveway, his mother said, “I wish we had done this for your father.”

“Had a limousine?” asked Achilles.

Ines shook her head knowingly.

“Had everyone together like this.” His mother burped, grinning shyly. “Excuse me.”

She had been rocking back and forth with the motions of the car, but only now did he realize that his mother was drunk, a first. Tipsy as she was, she refused his help up the porch stairs, extending her arm to Ines instead. “Men think we can’t do anything without them, but we have to let them think that. They have such frail egos, it would be cruel to tell them otherwise.”

Achilles stepped aside to let them pass, and as his mom went by, she pinched his cheeks. “That doesn’t apply to you of course. You’re a good boy. I always knew that. You were always different. Always sensitive.”

The cars that had followed them from the VFW parked. Janice and Dale were there, and his aunt on his father’s side. Achilles held the door for them all, delaying his entry, hoping his mom’s mood would pass, a wish he knew was hopeless when he heard, “Who’s cooking breakfast? Not me!” followed by the crash of pots and pans and the banging of drawers. A shiver went up his spine when he heard what sounded like the silverware drawer being dumped into the sink.

“She’s a keeper, that Ines,” whispered his aunt as she nudged Achilles with her elbow.

At the VFW, he saw Janice talking to Ines. It seemed like a friendly conversation, which surprised him. No cursing from Janice and no sneering from Ines. Janice was chunkier these days, but in all the right places. He had expected her to look pale and insignificant next to Ines, to appear mumbly and shy, but there in the kitchen she was bright and cheery and whatever she was whispering had Ines in stitches. For a moment they both looked at him, and he turned away. Someone clapped him on the shoulder. Dale. They shook hands.

“I’m so-so-sorry a-a-a-about your brother,” said Dale. “He was a good guy.” He rushed the last part out without a stutter.

“Thank you, Dale,” said Achilles. “And congratulations.”

Dale turned to where Ines and Janice were talking. Achilles hadn’t noticed the papoose Janice wore. “That’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Dale with a wink, patting his stomach. “Little D got me off the g-g-g beer. But fuck, he cries.”

Even at that late hour the crowd continued to grow, more people stopping by to eat or bring food, including Janice’s brothers. They were bigger than Achilles remembered. Burly, bearded men with full-sleeve tattoos and chain wallets. Although only a few years older than him, they looked ancient. They brought a braided dog collar with them as a gift. Achilles placed it on the mantel next to the urns. When they learned that Ines was from New Orleans, they expressed their condolences. “It’s a tore-up business they’re doing you.”

There hadn’t been that many people in the house since his eighth birthday party. People were spread across the kitchen and the living room. Someone turned on the news, and the first story was about New Orleans. In fits and spurts they return, from Houston and DC and Atlanta, by car and boat and taxi and on foot, the native New Orleanians are coming home, but many say not fast enough. A hush fell over the living room.

Achilles’s mom apologized and offered to turn it off, but Ines was glad to see it, to know that it was news, and even more, “I’m glad they’re evacuees now, not refugees.” The screen door banging behind her, Janice went out front to smoke a cigarette. At the VFW, she and Dale had looked so content, so happy. She had slipped out her breast to feed the baby like it was the most natural thing in the world. (It was enormous, and he wished Merri or Wages or someone else was there to gawk for him.) And when Dale whispered in her ear, she smiled that big smile of hers and looked so beautiful, as she did right then in the front yard smoking that cigarette in the moonlight, her dress just short enough that if the light were right he could have seen her little hearts. Achilles followed her outside. They smoked one in silence. She offered him another and he accepted.

“Ines seems nice,” said Janice.

“I guess you want those letters back?”

“Those are yours,” she said.

“Good. I wasn’t going to give them to you.”

“She seems real nice,” said Janice.

“She’s smart too.”

“All that matters is that she treats you well after all you’ve been through. And that you treat her well too.”

Achilles felt as if he was seeing her for the first time tonight, as if he’d been happy with her but hadn’t known it. “You like being a mother?”

“Best thing ever happened to me.”

He thought for a minute that he loved her. “I ‘preciate them letters.”

She coughed and glanced around to see if anyone was listening. “Don’t start that now.”

He handed her his locket, but she refused it. “I want to give you something to remember me by.”

“A thank-you would be enough.”

“Thank you,” said Achilles.

“Finally! You’re welcome,” she said, blushing. “I’m going back inside.”

“You sure about the locket?” asked Achilles.

Janice gently kissed him on the cheek. “You never forget the ones who break your heart,” she said, and slipped back into the house.

Dawn was breaking as everyone left. Ines and his mother sat on the back porch, their chairs so close their knees touched. Janice and his aunt had cleaned up before they left. The only thing that remained on the table was the funeral program. Troy’s funeral program said “The Word Is Your Salvation.” Wages’s program said “Trust in the Word.” His father’s program said “The Word is Life.” Everyone had their party line, the manner of speaking in which they invested themselves, became real, and set themselves apart. He’d witnessed it with Bryant who, within a few days, went from moaning to saying stuff like, “Where’s Darkwater when you need them?” Ines was the same, professing what she couldn’t actually live because she didn’t look it, saying at every turn, I’m black, no really, listen. I am. That’s all it was, words spoken like an incantation, the power in not caring, or trying not to care. There is no God but M16, and I am his messenger. Had Hausman asked about Goddamnistan six months ago, Achilles would have quoted Merri, saying, “Suit up and put some fucker on the maggot diet.”

He went outside to see what his mom and Ines were talking about. From the looks on their faces, it was something private. His mom asked, “Is it okay if Ines hears this?” She studied his face. “You opened it, didn’t you?”

Achilles nodded his agreement. “I already opened it and everything.”