James Hannaham - Delicious Foods

Ma, Eddie said.

Darlene extended her arms for a hug — she feeling ready to forgive his betrayal and all that hardheadedness, ’cause she recognize how much he like her in a way. But he ain’t extended his arms. Then she seen his claws and was like, Maybe that’s why he won’t hug me? She thinking ’bout not hugging, but changed her mind and hugged his non-hug so that at least one motherfucker be hugging somebody.

I thought you might come, he said. You didn’t have to.

Oh my chicken-fried goodness, Ruth gasped. Mrs. Hardison! Ruth’s attitude went poof and she got all sweet. I am so sorry! she said.

You look a lot different, Ma, Eddie said.

I told Darlene I thought he pretending not to say worse.

You mean better or worse? she asked, hoping to laugh off his comment.

Ruth broke up that weird moment by saying, Mrs. Hardison, I’m sorry, I did not recognize you.

Why would you, since we’ve never met? Darlene shot back while she still staring at Eddie so there wouldn’t be no doubt she blaming his ass for keeping his life a secret from her. I only just heard your name for the first time. Did he even tell you he had a mother?

So Ruth introduce herself as Eddie wife, and Darlene start giving Eddie a bunch of outraged grimaces behind all the shit she never heard from him ’bout Ruth and ’bout they life together. Every new piece of information be dropping like a brick on Darlene big toe. They ain’t even get to the boy for a while, and it seem like Eddie start to guess that Darlene ain’t gonna have a good reaction to meeting him, so he kinda stepped between Darlene and Ruth, who still got the child in her arms to hide him. But the kid so outgoing and everything that he lean around Eddie arm at one point and goes, I’m Nathaniel! Totally innocent of course ’bout what that name gonna mean to this lady he ain’t even know be his grandma.

Soon as Darlene heard that name she grab Eddie by the arm of his suit so hard that it done made a li’l ripping noise and some strings done popped out the shoulder. Her face be quivering, she trying so hard to stomp down the agony she experienced when Nat said Nathaniel. She screamed, Eddie, you — how could you name—! And not tell me! She grabbing his suit jacket anywhere to shake him back and forth.

Eddie said, Ma, I didn’t want you to know. The butt-naked honesty of that shit made Darlene close her mouth and flop her hands to her sides.

Ruth put Nat down and changed her stance like she gon have to escort Darlene out the building in a hot minute.

But then Darlene looked at me again, and she caught herself and stepped back from the three of em. She wiped her teary, mucusy face with a sleeve and covered her mouth with her fingers on either side, almost like she praying. Suddenly they was a trinity to her, some sacred folks who had managed to turn they rotten life into something got value, and she blamed herself for failing to do that shit in her own life. And when she understood that they was prepared never to let her into they life, she took a gaspy breath like she ’bout to drown.

It ain’t too often that the mother look at the child and get schooled, and that brung on a whole nother tornado of shame to Darlene. She seen how spiderwebby and delicate that connection be between any two people, even when they blood, and how bad she had fucked with it far as Eddie concerned, like it ain’t meant nothing to her. For one second she could truly see his side of things, and it be like everything inside her turnt to mud and slid from her head to her foot and she become a monster to her own self. She seen the fear and disgust and judgment in the eyes of her unknown family, this woman and child and the son she ain’t really knowed no more, and them feelings done filled up the hole where love and respect and trust oughta gone. By that point, li’l Nat don’t understand what the hell he done wrong and he start wailing.

Scotty, Darlene said to me, it’s over.

And I knowed her ass wasn’t kidding, neither. But I am a badass drug with a reputation for keeping the loyalty of my friends and lovers in a very tight grip, so I laughed at her — a long, nasty, spiteful, smoky laugh — praying that all my ridicule gonna keep her from knowing that without her, I would lose all my strength. She was in my head, too, though, and this time couldn’t nobody fool her no more, not even me.

I was experiencing hellacious withdrawal symptoms — after so long, I couldn’t function without Scotty, and I used a few more times before I could honestly say I quit. I had no health insurance and I knew I needed to find a free clinic in order to truly detox and finally tear myself free of the drug. It turned out that the nearest place was in Shreveport. When I let Elmunda know that I had decided to get off drugs and move there, she said, Shreveport! as if she had opened her purse and a palmetto bug jumped out. Didn’t even congratulate me for kicking my habit. I chose not to argue with her about the merits of Shreveport, since it still meant a lot to me.

At the end of the trial, Sextus had received a fifteen-year sentence for selling drugs and polluting the water supply, and a fine of five thousand dollars for financial restructuring. The court banned him and his family from the agriculture business for life, and the high legal fees required the Fusiliers to sell a large portion of the farm’s acreage. I stayed out of the brouhaha to the extent that I could, because I’d finally admitted to myself that my desire for Sextus depended mostly on my perception of his power as well as my need for Scotty. The Fusiliers went through a great deal of infighting and agony as Sextus steeled himself to do hard time and Elmunda and Jed prepared to move to a smaller house with Elmunda’s great-aunt in Baton Rouge, closer to where Sextus would be incarcerated. They put the majority of their belongings in storage and cleaned up Summerton, hoping to rent it out for weddings and family reunions. Elmunda wore herself out trying to contact somebody who could make what she kept calling a computer page for the home and its grounds.

Though I felt no obligation to assist her, and she put up a confusing amount of resistance to my efforts, I found her a new caretaker before her move to Baton Rouge. When she said that she would miss me, I doubted her sincerity to the point where I had to stifle a laugh. On the other hand, I believed Jed when he said the same thing, and when he wept over his father’s upcoming departure, I wept as well, but maybe not for the same reasons. The withdrawal was racking my body with seizures and sweating, I was constantly anxious and paranoid — at one point I had myself convinced that I would actually die within the hour without a hit. Just about anything could make me weep.

I arranged to move my own belongings with a local guy who had a van, and when I left Summerton, I did try to turn around and take a moment to appreciate everything I had experienced there, but the thick kudzu that had grown up around the farm obscured the view. I couldn’t see the place at all.

In Shreveport, not many folks have the stamina to go running in the midafternoon even during the spring and fall, and very few — only the extreme types — can tolerate running in the triple-digit heat of midsummer, which could leave the most seasoned athlete dried out like a worm at the side of the road. But it’s possible to get in a few sweaty miles during the early-morning and late-evening hours. Once I finally got sober, I instituted a regular exercise routine for myself, one of many good habits I established in the first six months after I left Scotty behind. I also quit smoking, which I found almost more difficult than detoxing from crack cocaine.