Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley (37 page)

It was Uncle David, of course, who said it. Uncle David, who only came twice a year,
at most
, twice a year,
if that
. And now he was saying it again, in a string of words Mish couldn't reverse and unscramble.

“Steve is thirty-eight years old, Mom. Thirty-eight years old. And has never held a job longer than, what? Three months?”

“Well, he looks better than he has in years. And just happier than he's ever been—”

“Looks better than he has in years with his two front teeth rotted out.”

Through Mish, a coldness was unrolling. Starting in his chest, uncurling even into his arms and his legs.

“You know what I mean. Good color in his face. And not all skinny like he has been.”

Mish hunched back over the sink, his mouth moving. Rescue Hatchet hacked at Spiderman now.

“. . . don't understand why nothing's come of what happened last summer.”

“Well, I'll tell you, David, the court system in this county, it's unbelievable how busy they are. At the magistrate's, I heard they're backed up for six months . . .”

Mish made his murmur louder.

“Did you and Dad really press those charges? Or did you just say you did?”

“He's doing better than he has in so, so long. Why, he walked in here yesterday morning with a wrapped present in his hand—”

“Mom, did you press those charges?” Uncle David asked.

Mish threw open the bathroom door and leapt into the kitchen. “Boo!” He landed with a smack on both feet. Uncle David's and Gran's faces snapped towards him like they were fixed on the same pivot. “Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Mish bellowed his best villain laugh. After a couple seconds, Uncle David laughed, too.

“C'mere, Matthew. C'mon. Give me a hug. I'm leaving this afternoon.”

“Don't pay any attention to Uncle David,” Daddy tells him every time. “He thinks he's better than us.”

Mish grinned, shook his head, and ran.

DOWNSTAIRS, THE PHONE
rings. Mish freezes. The insides of his ears stand up like a dog's. He lowers himself closer to the floor hole, head tilted. Hears only a wordless rumble spiked here and there by a snicker. He tiptoes to the top of the stairs, but he can tell nothing from there, either. He waits.

“Hey, Mish,” Daddy calls. “Get down here get your coat on. We gotta take a quick ride.”

Mish's chest clenches. He backs up a few steps and leans into the dark wall, the plaster cold against his cheek.

“It's not a big deal. You can sleep while we're there. And Tater should be around.”

Mish breathes deep and blows it loud enough for Daddy to hear, his lips flapping like a horse's.

“C'mon, Mish, it's not a big deal. I'm not gonna stay long.”

“Can I sleep in da car?”

“No, it's too cold for you to sleep in the car.”

“Daaa-deee.”

“Listen, it'll be a nice ride. We'll listen to Bob. And afterwards, we'll stop at Burger King to get you that new toy.”

“Wha new toy?”

“I can't remember, I saw it on TV at Gran's. Some kind of man. Now come on down.”

“I din see it on teebee at Mommysh.”

“Well, I saw it. Get your coat on.”

Mish stops on each step, brings his feet together, sighs. When he shuffles into the front room, he sees that Daddy has already swapped the threadbare Stihl cap for the newer one with the Nike swoosh. He's pulling on the canvas coat he got when the Salvation Army came in for the flood victims over in Maddox last year. His usual coat, the one with the tape over the holes to hold in the stuffing, lies on the floor, worryingly close to the men. When Daddy tugs Mish to him, Mish droops, his arms limp, head sagging, and while Daddy threads him into the Dallas Cowboys sleeves, Mish wrinkles his nose against the reek of spilled kerosene in Daddy's coat. Then Daddy is dueling with the zipper, hands buzzing, the cussing a steady grit, but over his shoulder, Mish notices Bob, heater-lit on the wall. Daddy glares at his own hands, stiffens and shakes them. Tries the zipper again. Mish watches Bob, tall and easy on his wall, the smoke from his smile, Mish knows—happiness. Bob can make the feeling seen. The star on Mish's back starts to heat, then to ray, and finally the anticipation of Bob in the car overrides what waits at the end. “Your zipper's broke,” Daddy says. Mish stoops quick, snatches the two nearest men, and stuffs one in each pocket.

They hurtle past the
NO HUNTING
sign. They hairpin back up Bonehaul Ridge. With each yard of asphalt collapsing behind, Quickshiver inside Daddy lies a little more down, the safety of being between place and place, Mish knows this without knowing whose knowing it is. They chute through trees, the house static receding, then burst out into a star-gray field, closer, closer, closer drawing to Bob,
and when Mish pulls out the men and sees they are Luke Skywalker and Dash Incredible, he smiles. The Cavalier cuts loose on the first of the road's few straights, and Mish can't help but bounce in his seat; this is where Daddy always asks. And then Daddy does, he calls over his shoulder, Quickshiver nothing but a black puddle at his bottom, “What do you want to listen to, Mish?”

And Mish says, “Bob!”

And Daddy says, “Me, too!”

And Daddy steers with his thigh while he respools the cassette on his pinky, the men warming up in acrobatic leaps, until, finally, Daddy jabs the tape in the deck. And instantly, they are swallowed—Mish, men, Daddy—in the belly of Bob.

Rhythm of reggae, happy heartbeat and a half, Mish reeling it into the cave of his ribs, his pulse recalibrated, the soothe, the joy. The throb patterning, echoing, the loops of the curves, the hills' nods and lifts, Mish swaying, the men flying, the car, Mish knows, if seen from outside, red green and yellow glow, colors of Bob. The Cavalier dances the bends, the banks, and Daddy stringy-sings,
This is my message to you-ou-ou
. And Mish's happiness rides on a pillar of memory, sedimented, three years old. Last week, last month, yes, but down, back, further than that, to when Mish stayed at Daddy's half the week, further back still to when Daddy lived at Mommy's house. So much in those layers dark, dangly, shivery, loud, but all that vanishes in the happiness of Bob. The Bob memory constant, soaking up through the sediment and richening each level—memory, memory, memory—whenever Mish was fussy or inconsolable or too tired to sleep, Daddy strapping him in the car, punching the cassette, and they ride in the cradle car to Rockabye Bob.

And three weeks ago, on Christmas night, Carlin stretched out on the bottom bunk with his iPod in his ears, his eyes as blank as if he lay
in his coffin, Mish standing behind him, Mish straining with marvel, straining with want, all that glorybig music held in a wafer no thicker than ten Pokémon cards. “Wet me wissen,” Mish outright begged, too desperate even to calculate, manipulate. “Wet me wissen,” while Carlin paid him no more mind than he did the fluffs of crud under the bed. “Pweeeese, Caw-win, wet me wissen.” Mish peering now directly into his face, poking him gently on the shoulder. Until Carlin, his eyes still dead, reached out, planted a hand on Mish's chest, and pushed. Once.

Mish staggered backwards, the tears geysering behind his face. He grabbed the nearest object, a Transformers sticker book, and swung at Carlin. As he did, he yelled, “Me and
my
daddy wissen to Bob Maw-wee.” And the tears weren't anymore.

Daddy turns the volume halfway down. “Now, Mish.”

“Yeah?”

“Don't say anything to anybody about us taking this ride, okay?”

“Okay.”

“It'll just be between you and me.”

“Okay.”

“Don't say anything to Mommy. Or Gran. Even if they ask.”

“Yeah.”

Daddy cranks the music back up, even louder than before. It is the Bob beat that propels Mish's blood through his veins. Bob is heart. The car tremors, Mish feels the speaker thrumming against his legs, his hips—beat; beat; beat, beat-beat—and he settles back in his seat, the men catching their breaths in his lap,
everything's gonna be
, music carrying rhythm carry, the car a rocker. Lullaby Bob.

The loss of motion wakes him. He flexes his fingers. One man is still there. One he has dropped. Daddy's unstrapping him—Mish tucks the man in his pocket—lifting him out, and Mish buries his face for a second in Daddy's jacket against the cold, which has shocked
him full awake, immediate and blunt. The cold has blacked the night darker, crisped the stars whiter, but over Daddy's shoulder, Mish can see clouds like a dirty blanket pulling over distant sky. They are parked just off the hardtop in the mouth of a dirt road leading into a broad field, and Daddy sets him on his feet on the hood of the car. Mish can feel its heat through his tennis shoes. “See the house, Mish?”

Mish looks past the winter grass, bowed and brittle-humped in the three-quarter moon. The house is the only thing rising off the flat of the field until the mountains start again. Mish nods.

“Can you see cars around it?”

Mish nods. Quickshiver is taut on his toes, his hands splayed, head cocked. Mish pulls his coat sleeve against his side, a muted crackle. Daddy is standing on the ground right next to Mish on the hood, one arm around his waist, and Mish thinks of the apples. “Can you start this for me, buddy?” Mish, bearing down with his small front teeth, breaking the peel and gnawing around in the white to give Daddy a good opening.

Daddy takes a finger and stretches the corner of his eye, his lip lifting. “Do you see Tater's truck?”

Mish squints. “Yeah.” Tater's truck is easy. A big white Ford extended cab. “Okay, good.” Daddy pulls the corner of his eye again. “Now this is important. This is important, Mish. Look at all of them.”

Mish is looking.

“Do you see a blue Toyota Four-Runner?”

Mish wiggles out of the arm around his waist and lifts onto his toes. A heaviness has come into him. One that makes him bigger and tireder. He knew his cars before he knew his colors, that's what Daddy always says, and Mish squints again, drawing on the stingy moon, to untangle the snarl of vehicles around the house. He can't tell blue in the dark, but the shape of a Four-Runner he can.

“Nuh-uh,” he says.

“You're sure?”

Mish nods sharp, twice. “Only Toyoda's a Tacoma.”

Daddy slaps the star on his back. “Okay. Good. Good job, Mish.”

They roll through the field, the house swelling in the windshield. Bob is gone. Daddy drives to the right to straddle the road ruts, the wash of grass against metal, the car cold now because Daddy left the door open while they were looking for the Four-Runner. As the house grows larger, clearer, the heaviness drains out of Mish, leaving something worse. When it's summer, Daddy lets him sleep in the car seat, he leaves the door open for air, and sometimes Mish doesn't even wake up. But in the winter, he has to go inside. The car pitches into a deep hole, and Mish is thrown forward, and he thinks to reach behind him, to the star, but the car seat straps bind him. Then Daddy's carrying him, crunching through frozen mud to planks across cinderblocks that climb to the front door, and when the planks wobble, Daddy stumbles to the side, Mish scissors his legs around Daddy's waist, Daddy finds his balance, and the door opens.

The party explodes in Mish's face. Laughter without fun, heat without warmth, smoke without smile, every party he's ever entered, and the grown-up bodies packed upright and reeling, an October cornfield, rattle and wind. “Hey, Steve!” somebody yells, then somebody else calls it, too, and Daddy grins and yells back. The top half of Tater swims out of the crowd, him brandishing a quart-sized Sheetz cup. “Mish! How you doing?” He strips Mish from Daddy and squashes him to his soft chest, Tater in a T-shirt odored of cigarettes and mildew, and the cup's straw pokes Mish's head and whatever is in it splashes a little on Mish. “Ricky's got it,” Tater says, and Daddy says, “Where's he at?” and Tater says, “He'll be here.” Past Tater, Mish sees a silver
Christmas tree on a table, listing to one side, drooped with brassy, teardrop ornaments, each exactly the same.

He is set on his feet into the cornfield of legs. No, not corn. Brush, thicket, thorn, briar, the legs pressing, posting, buckling, shifting, and Mish clings to Daddy's jeans pocket to avoid being swept down. “Who's this?” The lady stoops to Mish, and her face reminds Mish of the file Daddy uses to sharpen the chainsaw.

“This is my son, Mish.”

“Mish?” This is what they always say.

“That's what I call him. He's named after me, my initials smashed together.”

“Oh, isn't he handsome?” They always say that, too, unless they say “cute.”

“Yeah, looks just like me when I was little.”

“What did Santa Claus bring you, Mish?”

“He can't talk very good. I'm the only one who understands him.” Daddy ruffles Mish's hair. Mish ducks. “You got someplace he can sleep?”

Then Daddy is steering him by his shoulders through more legs. There's not even room enough for Daddy to pick him back up. Mish stumbles around mud-splattered work boots, plasticky high heels, tennis shoes with mismatched shoestrings, Christmas gift clogs. He watches the feet, his head lowered, to save him from belts and butts, zippers and belly fat. Hands reach down to pet him—“Ahhh, cute!”—Mish fighting the urge to bite Daddy's fingers, until they're in a skinny hall, passing a vibrating washing machine, and finally entering a back room where Daddy swings Mish onto a coat-heaped bed. He pulls Mish out of the Dallas Cowboys coat and wraps the coat around him like a blanket. Then he sheds his own coat and spreads that over Mish, too.