Mitchell Jackson - The Residue Years

Taking them for Christmas? I say. You asking or telling?

Which? he says. Would you prefer?

What, you got some big old plan? You taking them to see your brother?

Both, he says.

Taking my boys to see a man who still call himself a pimp? I say.

He’s a preacher now, Kenny says. Ordained and all. Matter-fact, he’s doing the ceremony.

Ceremony? I say.

Yes, wedding, Kenny says. His smile, it steel. A brotha held out as long as he could, he says. Anyhow, thought I’d give you a heads-up in case you want to do something with the boys before we leave.

Once during a trip to Vegas Kenny and me meandered near the end of the strip. We were steps from a chapel with a bright fluorescent-light sign outside. We saw a groom carrying his bride out across the threshold, and I mentioned to him about how beautiful it was. Kenny screwed his face and crossed his arms. That depend on who’s doing the seeing, he said, and neither he nor I broached the subject again.

Oh, I say.

You know it ain’t like me to show up at person’s place of employment, he says. But I tried your crib a few times and I couldn’t reach you. He taps the table a finger at a time, his nails clipped to slivers of clean white.

Been working, I say.

Say, if you don’t mind me asking, how much you making here? he says.

Is that important? I say.

Is it important that I know, or is it important how much you make? he asks.

My take-home is less than my old state checks, but I’d never give him the pleasure.

You might’ve run out ahead of me, I say. But I’ll catch up.

Bet you will, he says.

Yes, I will, I say. God provides.

He puts on his glasses and gets up. Figured you say something of the sort, he says. The boys told me you mentioned to them about going to church, which is a good thing for sure, Grace, a real good thing. And you probably right about the Lord providing, he says. He fixes his tie and sweeps his hand over his slacks and shoulders. But I’ll tell you this: Fordamnsure I can’t speak for no one else, but for me, he says, for me, I ain’t cashed check the first from the Father, the Son, nor the Holy Ghost.

There’s new construction at the bowling lanes. Long tarps make temporary walls. The whole place fumes wet paint and paint thinner. The boys break up stairs splattered with dried putty and wait on the floor above the lanes, the arcade floor. They sprint for the games while I exchange bills for quarters from a girl with purple hair and piercings in her lip and nose. When I get down to where the boys are, I count them out equal sums. When it’s gone, it’s gone, I say.

Champ is nowhere to be found.

I find a seat and watch them play. This goes on for games and still no sight of my eldest. I tell the boys to keep an eye out while I head for the restroom to fix — I’m always fixing my face. All I have is my face — my eyes and lips. There’s a woman in a stall who isn’t smelling womanish, so I take less time than I would. When I walk out Champ calls me from the steps.

Did you forget what time we said? I say.

He taps the face of his watch. You know me, he says. I might be late, but I never miss the show.

We mosey to the games and catch the boys standing toe to toe and woofing at one another, a gauzy light glowing from a screen behind them. Cut it, Champ says, and the boys break apart. Damn, can’t take ya’ll nowhere.

Champ rents shoes and picks a lane and types our names in the machine: CHAMPion, BROLOSS 1, BROLOSS 2, THE MOMS. He points to the board, asks us if we see it, tell us it’s prophetic.

Champ must’ve watched one too many pro bowling tourneys or else my brother Pat in his day at the lanes. He picks a cobalt-blue ball and you should see his ritual. Before every turn he glances back at us, does a shuffle, twists his cap backwards, strolls to the dots, waits a movie pause, and rolls, leaving his wrist cocked till the ball strikes a pin. He don’t bowl many strikes, but he rarely misses a spare, but on the occasion he does he falls to his knees. The boy competes at everything, has done it since he was young. I asked him why once and he said he’d taken enough losses for his life. Who was I to argue?

He leaves pins on his next frame and I ask if it’s the best he can do.

If that’s the best you can do, I say, you best pray.

We play out the games Champ bought, Canaan pitching gutter after gutter and KJ leaving half his pins. We play out the games and my strikes and spares won’t stop. One strike I do a victory dance and ask Champ for a critique.

Funny, Champ says. Real funny. But a little sunshine don’t make a summer.

What the boys don’t know is there was a time when summers ran forever, when I bowled every week, a time when weekends Dawn and me would meet and pair off and play. Would roll until they called last game. What the boys don’t know is there was a time when I carried my own pink ball, years I bowled not a point below 180.

Champ begs a rematch, but I’m too tired, so he bowls alone, tells me he’s aiming at my high game. The boys and I eat chili dogs and chips and drink frigid Cokes. They tease Champ with a chant: Mom’s the champ, Champ’s not the champ.

This is a charm, but these wins will cost. These wins have cost, and I feel the price in my back and feet. Canaan helps me slip out of my rented shoes and I prop my socked feet in an empty chair and wait for Champ to tire of falling short.

We leave out together, Canaan and KJ — my babies — flitting up ahead and Champ slugging behind me with an honest frown. The garage is bright and empty, a car here, a truck there, the Honda. We stop outside of my car.

That was luck, Champ says. You know that was luck. Next time.

You still salty? I say. Look, if I win, you win, I say. If one wins, we all win. Besides, that was a blast.

Kaboom, he says.

He waits while I find my key, while the boys and I climb in, while I start the engine. I give it gas and it growls.

My son says he’s suffered a life’s worth of losses, but how many losses have I?

Here’s my wish — let the world see me now, a conqueror, high above my sorrows, a flagpole pushed through the pile.

Do you want to know what kind of guy I am? Do you really want to know what kind of guy I am? I’m the type of dude who takes hellafied relational risks in hopes the fallout (often a result that features acute physical pain) coerces me to some decisive act. Take my girl: She’s a good woman, one of the best I’ve been with (and we know we’re not talking no short list neither), but sometimes, no lie, I wish instead of always accusing me, always threatening me, instead of doing that, I wish sometimes that she’d just leave. I mean, how many times does she have to discover a random number or an empty condom wrapper in my pocket, how many times does she have to suffer an acidic message from some scallywag (she breaks my codes like a federal agent!), how many 9/10 true rumors of me banging some chick with an ass that’s a small planet does she have to endure before she splits? Not threatens to bounce, but sashays right out of my life for good, those lustrous tresses waving good-bye, so long; have a cursed life. But since it don’t, as I said, seem like she’s making no definitive plans to break, I revert to my assbackwards tactic of inviting atomic consequence. Only here’s the thing, it hasn’t worked; matterfact, the most it’s done is flame already tense situations — e.g., she won’t leave and I can’t leave a woman who loves this hard and hurts this true, so I figured I’d go raw a few times in hopes I’d knock her up and she’d stay for good or, postconception, she’d realize I was not the one, visit the clinic, and flee for all time, though all the while, in the deep recesses where my purest sense exists, hoping my little spermatozoa would swim right past the target, cause truth be told, I’m about as ready for fatherhood as any old young punk you see on these streets with his pants hung low and a permanent sneer. In fact, in most of the ways that matter, I might be the paragon, the one who’s aborted (admitted wrong word choice here) by logic at the most inopportune times, then left to feel ambivalent about decisions that affect not only my well-being, but somebody else’s baseline joy. Real talk, if making tough decisions is part of being a man, then I might wind up a Geritol-popping juvenile, which is fait accompli for guys like me who screw up our lives one lousy judgment at a time.