James Hannaham - Delicious Foods

While we listening, Darlene had to plant her feet to keep from shouting with joy, even with all that dried blood caked up in her nose and gums and them scratched-up knees. Sound like this lady had a job they wanna give her, without no interview or nothing, hard work but good work, no more tryna sell her body and getting stabbed or having to watch no shame-loving Cajun get busy with no melon.

Jackie said, The company’s associates do agricultural work, harvesting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and legumes. She actually said them actual phrases, like it’s out a book she ain’t never finished reading herself.

Darlene grown up doing that shit in the first place, so she got lonely for her childhood. On this job she gon be picking fruits and vegetables, like she a innocent little girl again. Jackie also made the farm sound like the kinda place where Darlene and I could go together and wouldn’t nobody stop us from hanging out and doing our thing, and that seemed so perfect that we wondered if we mighta made it up ourself.

A image come up in Darlene mind, of a bodacious-ass horn of plenty that had all kinda green and red peppers and shit spilling out, and bananas and carrots and grapes and whatnot, and everything be cold, crispy, fresh, and wet with morning dew on account a being just picked. In her head, somebody snapped a carrot and it sprayed a li’l bit of mist up into the air.

Darlene said to me, See, Scotty. The book works. I put positivity and love out on my antenna and the universe sent it back to bless me.

Jackie said, Three-star accommodations. She said, Olympic-size swimming pool. Said, Recreation activities. Competitive salary. Vacation. Then she showed Darlene a picture of some condo-type complex with a motherfucking kidney-shaped pool smack-dab in the center. Then Jackie top it off with benefits, health care. We got a dentist that could help out with any problems you might have, Jackie said, looking at Darlene mouth, as well as day care. To be honest, she said, the pay ain’t super-high, but we offer our workers a salary above minimum wage, the competitive rate in the field.

Darlene appreciated the honesty. Even better than getting a high salary was the feeling that you working with people you could respect, who told your ass the truth, motherfuckers you could communicate with. This here felt like the first luck Darlene had touched in the whole six years since she lost Nat. Above minimum wage? She thought she could reach up to that luck and stroke it and the luck would go purr .

Now Jackie talked a long stream, you couldn’t dip in your damn toe. Girl had heart-shaped lips with brick-color lip gloss slathered on em, and the edges was shining. Sexy red plums. Her tongue always going somewheres when she talked. Sometimes she licked the corner of her mouth to keep it from getting dried out from all that talking.

Jackie. Jackie? Jackie, Darlene said every so often, trying to butt in, to let her know how much on board with it she already was.

Jackie eyes still ain’t said nothing — they could only say The deal, the great deal, the wonderfulness of the deal. She acting jittery — and I knew why. I recognized her as a old friend. Finally I had to introduce the two of em. Jackie stopped the hard sell for a hot minute.

May I call my son? Darlene asked.

Sometime Eddie say that Darlene didn’t never care about him, especially when it come to the particular moment we talking ’bout now, but she ain’t never stopped tryna make sure she could get in touch. Eddie probably thought his mom loved his dad more than him, and that mighta been true, but she thought ’bout Eddie all the time. Love’s a mother to start with, so when sonofabitches start fighting over who love who more, and tryna say that this action you done today gotta line up with that verbal statement from yesterday ’bout how much you loved somebody, and they pull out they love-o-meters and start measuring shit out to infinity, I get pissed. Me, I think people could love me, or somebody like me, and still show they obligations to the other people in they life as number 2 and 3 and 4 and so on down the line and it ain’t no thang.

When Darlene asked about calling her son, Jackie got activated again. Course you could call your son, she said. We’ll let you use the phone when we get there. Free of charge!

Jackie be showing off the open door of the minibus with her hand like she on The Price Is Right, and Darlene thinking she could hear the sucking of pipes and the popping of rocks in there. The darkness and the tinted windows had kept her from seeing much, and in them days, she always hearing rocks in the background of everything anyhow.

I said to Darlene, I know these folks. I approve. Honey, get the fuck in before the people out in them bushes behind the Party Fool who be listening to everything we say find out ’bout this terrific opportunity and try to come with us. Darlene said yes and jumped over to the minibus without no reservations whatsoever. And when she done that, she noticed a plush carpet on the minibus floor, a carpet laid out in front of us on the road to prosperity.

Darlene hesitated on account a she ain’t know if she could get up into the van. Her eyes rolled into her head and she swooned, almost ’bout to fall. She gripped the footrest to get a balance and flopped onto the floor of the van, next to the center seat. Her hand went swoosh over the beige shag and she remembered being a child and petting a sheep her father had named Luther.

At the wheel, with just the front-seat overhead light on, a red-eyed brother be sucking the last from a juice box, making a racket. When he got done, he pushed the box through the slit in the window out to the road, and a breeze blew it into the center lane and a passing semi done crushed that shit flat.

Jackie laughed, and the driver looked around and gave a broad smile without opening his mouth. Four others sitting in the rest of them seats, all of em hunched-over shadows made by the headlights coming from the opposite side the road. Red Eye turnt the ignition, the door closed, and they was on they way.

Darlene found herself a seat and look at Jackie. I grew up on a farm, Darlene said.

Did you now? That’s sure gonna come in handy.

What time is it? I need to call my son, okay?

Okeydokey.

How far is it from Houston?

Just up the road here, an hour or so.

That close? Okay! Darlene seen a bunch of dark shapes, three in the very backseat and one in the seat in front of that, passing round a little red light. The one in front took it in his palm, and she bugged out when she saw that pipe. The man put it up to his face, and the light be getting brighter as he sucked it in and the pipe start fizzing that fizz that gave Darlene a orgasm of hope. She love the sound of my voice.

You feel like lighting up, go on ahead now. This ain’t company time! Jackie said, and giggled.

Darlene nearly had a conniption. You don’t mind? she asked.

Jackie talked all calm and businessy. This company really takes care of their workers! We don’t judge.

Seriously? she asked Jackie. Seemed to Darlene someone should nominate them for Best Employer the World Has Ever Known.

Seriously, Jackie said.

Word, said one the brothers in the back.

What’s the hitch? Darlene asked.

The hitch is that there ain’t no hitch.

Jackpot! One the brothers passed the pipe up front and Darlene sucked it like it’s a pacifier. She thinking how we could spend time together, but she also gonna have real, honest-to-God work at a place where they understand our relationship and ain’t try to stop it or make her stay away from me. Too good.

This is an incredible opportunity, Darlene gushed. She felt like Miss America taking her first walk with that motherfucking tiara on, carrying them roses in her arms and waving and crying.