And that was why Kelvin’s comment—the one about white folks eating him—really pissed Jay off.
“Man, it’s your damn fault I got in trouble with my pops.”
“Shoot,” Kelvin had said. “Nobody held no gun to your head. Nobody told you to drop that bottle and make it look like you pissed yourself with Mad Dog.” They’d been having this same argument for weeks since the event, but the part about Jay pissing was new.
“You shouldn’t have run out on me,” Jay said. “A friend wouldn’t have done that.”
“He was coming.”
“He was coming because you acted a fool and hollered crazy shit and ran out.”
“Shoot,” Kelvin said.
“If you’d have stayed cool, we’d have been sipping on that Mad Dog with Robin and one of her girls, and then ‘you-know-what.’ But you acted a fool instead.”
“Shoot,” Kelvin said again.
But Jay couldn’t imagine it, neither the “you-know-what” nor the sipping on the syrupy, caustic-smelling liquor. The smell of it had baked itself into his nose, and no matter how many times he had washed his clothes he’d still been able to smell it, and that seemed fitting, because the smell of the Mad Dog made his stomach feel the exact way the memory of that day still made him feel: sick, nauseated, alone.
The ride home in his father’s truck had been quiet and uncomfortable.
“Can’t believe you’d steal from Connie like a damn thug” was all his father had said. Instead of saying more, he’d lit a Winston Light and cracked the driver’s-side window. The only other thing he’d said was when Jay had turned the radio on, the tinny jangle of the oldies station crackling through the truck’s old speakers. “Turn that off,” his father had said. So Jay had turned it off.
The decision had been made swiftly and quietly and without Jay’s input. His mother and father had been planning a trip to North Carolina in June to see their new grandbaby for the first time, and while Jay had never been left home alone and figured he was expected to go along, he knew for certain they would not leave him home alone now after what had happened. And then, one morning a few days before school let out for the summer, Jay and his father were sitting at the breakfast table when his father closed the newspaper and looked across the table at Jay, where he sat pushing scrambled eggs around on his plate with a piece of toast that had nearly gone soft.
“Go ahead and pack you a good suitcase for when we go to Janelle’s,” his father had said.
“What’s that mean?” Jay asked.
“You’re going to be staying awhile.”
Jay looked to his mother where she stood at the counter with her back to them. She was pouring coffee into a thermos for his father’s lunch.
“Mom,” Jay said.
“Listen to your father,” she said.
Jay turned back to his father. “How long?” he asked.
“Long enough to learn not to steal,” his father had said. He sat back and crossed his legs, flicked the newspaper open again. “Or until I can find Kelvin and kill him.”
“James, it took two to tango,” Jay’s mother said. She had turned around, and she was standing with her arms folded, looking at Jay’s father. “Kelvin’s not one bit more guilty than Jay is.”
“I bet he ain’t being sent out to the country,” Jay had said.
“You probably right,” his father had said. “And that’s why you’d better thank God you ain’t Kelvin.”
“It ain’t fair,” Jay said. He tossed the toast on his plate and slammed his back against his chair.
His father closed the newspaper slowly, deliberately, as if he was putting off something he either didn’t want to do or perhaps wanted to relish. “Boy, you break that chair I’m going to break your ass.” He laid the newspaper across his knee, raised his closed fist so Jay could see it. “I’ve got three jobs when it comes to you, and ain’t none of them to be fair to you.” He unfurled his index finger. “Job number one: Keep you safe, which also means keeping you alive. Job number two.” He extended his middle finger. “Keep you healthy: Feed you. Give you a roof. Keep clothes on your back.” His ring finger slid free next. “Three: Keep you happy.” He sat back in his chair and picked up the newspaper. “And I ain’t really interested in keeping you happy anymore.”
“It still ain’t fair,” Jay said.
His father set the newspaper by his hat where it rested on the table. He stood. Jay inhaled deeply as if his body were warning him that he may need extra oxygen for flight. His father had never hurt him, but Jay had never done anything this bad. He could remember his father whacking him on the back of his legs with a belt when he was a young boy, but it had never really hurt, and even then Jay knew those punishments were designed to instill fear instead of pain. But now, if his father hit him, with either an open hand or a closed fist or a belt, pain would be the only goal.
His father loomed above him.
“Your mother and I work too hard to worry about what you think is fair. Connie Wright works too hard to think about it too. You have stolen from all of us, Jay, and we are deeply, deeply ashamed of you.” He stood there for a moment, and Jay feared he would say more. But instead of speaking he raised his hand and touched the breast pocket of his county work shirt as if making sure his packet of cigarettes was where it always was, alongside his various pens and a shiny, metal tire pressure gauge. He snatched his hat from the table and slapped it onto his head.
His father picked up his lunchbox from the counter and walked out of the kitchen, but Jay could hear the crinkling plastic of the pack of cigarettes as his father shook one loose, followed by the sound of a lighter being struck. His father opened the front door and stepped outside, leaving behind a nearly undetectable remnant of smoke. Jay heard him start his truck and back out of the driveway.
His mother was still standing with her back against the counter, arms still folded across her chest. When Jay looked into her eyes, he knew what his father had said about his being deeply ashamed was true for his mother as well.
What Jay also discovered to be true was that his parents did not care about whether or not he was happy, because the prospect of living out in the country in Southport, North Carolina, did not make him happy.
As to their visit, his parents only stayed at Rodney and Janelle’s house for a long weekend before heading back to Atlanta without him, although Jay knew his mother had wanted to stay longer to make sure Janelle and the baby were settled, but his father had never been one for vacations, which really meant that he’d never been one to allow himself to take any time off work, and by Saturday he was openly questioning whether or not he and Jay’s mother should just leave on Sunday afternoon instead of Monday morning.
“Less traffic on Sunday,” he’d said.
“No, James” was all his mother had said, not even raising her eyes from the baby’s face where he slept, cradled in her arms.
Janelle’s husband, Rodney, had sensed his father-in-law’s restlessness and the strain it was putting on Janelle and her mother, so on Sunday, Rodney borrowed a jon boat from a friend and took Jay’s father fishing. Janelle had tried taking the family to the beach on Saturday, but that had been a challenge. The baby had cried in the sticky sand and hot sun, and Jay’s father had sat on a lawn chair, reading a newspaper he had folded into a tiny square to keep it from being rattled loose from his grip and carried away by the wind coming off the ocean, his only concession to his daily wardrobe being the shorts he wore. He still wore his same black work shoes, black socks, and long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the wrists, and, of course, his cap.