Stones in the Road (29 page)

You don’t love him anymore?

I love him. But he did something wrong.

What?

I can’t explain. Don’t worry about it, sweetie. It will be all right.

But are we going to see him again?

I hope so
.

I got out of the car, dug around in the plastic bags in the back looking for one of my uniform shirts. I changed into it—awkwardly, with my cast and all—as customers pushed carts to their cars and looked at me.

Caleb was the shift supervisor that day.

“Is it ‘take your child to work day’ again?” he asked, smiling his supercilious smile.

“Something like that.”

“You know Mr. Owen doesn’t like having kids hanging around the registers. Tell him not to get in the way. Why don’t you go on three? Jalisa needs her break.”

Wordless, I marched over to checkout stand three with Noah on my heels.

“Hey boo,” Jalisa said, catching sight of me.

Jalisa was a black woman, rail thin, who acted like a man and talked like one too.

“Hey,” I replied.

“You brought the little man today?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s summer for sure.” She looked me over. “You all right, Wiley?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t know how you can work with that cast, but I reckon you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Ain’t it the truth?”

Noah and I bagged her current customer’s purchases.

Be careful
, I warned.
Don’t drop any of their stuff.

I won’t
, he promised.

“He’s deaf?” the customer, an older woman using an EBT card, asked, looking at Noah as if she could not believe a deaf child would have the audacity to manhandle her box of kitty litter.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “The poor thing.”

“He’s the Little Man!” Jalisa said brightly. “He got a smile that won’t quit. Don’t you, sweetheart?” She reached over to touch his arm, drew a smile on her lips.

He obliged, showing his awful teeth.

Jalisa beamed at him.

“He’s the man!” Jalisa said, going back to the scanner. “He’s a sweet boy. He don’t say much—and that’s the kind of man I like! Just keep all your crap to yourself, thank you very much, and praise the Lord.”

The customer chuckled.

“You have a blessed day, ma’am,” Jalisa said, handing the lady her receipt. “Tell her bye,” she added, looking at Noah. She waved to give him a clue.

“Bye!” Noah exclaimed loudly.

“Bye,” the lady said, frowning uncertainly.

“No babysitter today?” Jalisa asked as she signed off the terminal and I signed in. I could tell from the way she asked the question that she was asking about a whole lot more.

“Something like that,” I said, being evasive.

“Let me know if you need something, baby,” she said, wandering off to the break room.

We dealt with a steady stream of customers. Noah stood at the end of my line, helping the different baggers who came and went. Most of the baggers were high school students, most of them boys but a few of them girls. Just the same, most of the cashiers were older women, but a few—like me—were older men. It was generally agreed that I did not have the cojones for management, or I would have been made a department head or at least an assistant manager of something or other long ago. Truth was, my schedule was not very flexible, given Noah and his needs, and I could not accept such a position, as it would require working all kinds of hours and shifts, and I was not willing to commit myself to that. I had discovered what many single moms with kids had discovered. It’s not that there was a glass ceiling, but more that your kids came first, which very often involved painful sacrifices.

After a couple of hours, I gave Noah a dollar and told him to get a Coke from the machine and take a break. He shook his head, though, unwilling to desert me.

My break isn’t for another hour
, I said.
Aren’t you tired?

No.

If you get tired, that’s okay. Go get a soda, if you want.

All right
.

But he went nowhere.

As noon approached, the lunch crowd swelled.

“Hah!” I heard Noah exclaim. “Daddy!”

I turned to see his Aunt Shelly standing there, her hands on his shoulders rather possessively, looking at me with skeptical eyes.

As we bagged my current customer’s things, Shelly said, “Jack called. He was worried.”

I frowned.

“I’ll take Noah home with me,” she said. “Come to the house when you’re finished.”

“No,” I said, not really understanding why.

“You can’t keep him here all day, Wiley. Let me take him. He’ll be fine.”

“I’m not asking you and Billy for help,” I whispered, hoping my coworkers did not hear.

“I can watch my nephew for one afternoon,” she said crossly. “I’m finished with my sales calls for the day anyway. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You guys have never helped me, and you’re not starting now,” I said, surprised at how angry I was. “Besides, you don’t even know how to talk to him.”

Bill and Shelly, for all their bluster about how Noah needed a mommy and a daddy, a “real” family, a “real” home, for all their pious Baptist claptrap, they had never done much of anything to help me with Noah. They’d grown a little more accepting over the past couple of years since Jackson Ledbetter had come along, but they still kept their distance. God only knew what they’d say when they found out Jackson was a drug addict and we’d been reported to the DHS. A gleeful “I told you so” would undoubtedly be right at the top of the list.

“We’ll be fine,” she promised.

“I appreciate it, but no,” I said.

“Wiley!”

“I can’t talk to you right now. I’ve got customers.”

“At least let me take him to get lunch. He must be hungry.”

“Fine,” I said.

She led him away.

I
T
WAS
almost four hours into my shift before I got my break. The cast on my arm felt like it weighed eight hundred pounds at that point, and the bones inside the cast ached like a mother-scratcher.

Shelly had not returned with Noah. I wasn’t worried about his safety but furious that she felt she had the right to make decisions about my son without consulting me. I’d like to see her face if I picked up one of her children and absconded. She’d probably call the FBI and tell them to bring a rape kit.

I went out to the parking lot, got my phone out of the glove compartment of my car, was surprised to see so many voice mails and missed calls. I ignored them, punched in Shelly’s number, in what can only be described as a good old gosh darn mood.

“Wiley,” she said when she picked up.

“Where’s Noah?” I demanded.

“I brought him home with me. Don’t be mad.”

“You bring him back,” I said. “I ain’t playing. You had no right.”

“Wiley, listen to me.”

“No, you listen to me. You bring him back!”

“I’m not taking him back, Wiley. He’ll be right here and he’ll be fine. Billy wants to talk to you—”

“I am not going to listen any of your Baptist bullshit! You bring my son back!”

“Wiley, I know you’re upset.”

“I’m a little bit more than upset!”

“I know you are. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your goddamn help! I want you to bring my son back and stop fucking with me.”

“Billy wants to—”

“I don’t give a fuck. You hear me? I don’t give a flying fuck what Billy wants, what you want, what anybody else in this goddamn world wants!
I
want my son back!”

“I’m just thinking about Noah’s best interests. You can’t keep him—”

“You think you can do this kind of shit to me because I’m gay? Is that it?”

“Wiley, stop it!”

“I want my son back!”

“Every time we try to help, you push us away.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You’ve got nowhere to stay.”

“That ain’t your problem. You bring my son back or I’ll call the sheriff’s office. He’s all I’ve got left, and I’ll be goddamned if you’re going to take him away from me.”

“Wiley, would you listen to yourself? Jeeze!”

“If he’s not back here by the time I get off work, I’m calling the sheriff’s office.”

I hung up, threw the phone back in my car, and slammed the door.

B
Y
THE
time my shift was over, I was decidedly unwell. And not just physically unwell, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually—I had quite gone off the deep end. I went to the parking lot. Shelly had not come back. I had figured as much—we both knew I wasn’t going to call the sheriff’s office. We were rednecks, but we’re not
that
red necked. I started my car, turned on the air conditioner, which struggled vainly to blow away some of the day’s heat. For a long time I sat there, numb, utterly silent. On the seat beside me, though, my phone kept beeping, desperately wanting me to know I had voice mails I hadn’t listened to, missed calls I hadn’t responded to. I switched the phone off. As they say on Facebook, look at all the fucks I’m not giving.

I drove down Main Street, headed to Fairpark, only a few blocks away in the downtown area. There were kids playing on the water fountain, moms pushing babies in strollers, trees with their branches thrown upward to heaven, soaking up the last warm rays of the sun. I made the pilgrimage to Elvis, stood there before his awesomeness, looked up into his eyes. As a Catholic, I would be well within my rights to pray to him. We prayed to everyone else.

Dear Elvis. Please send me a Cadillac and a million dollars so I can get out of this shithole and live a real life. Oh, and may all of Jackson Ledbetter’s teeth fall out except the one that needs a root canal. In thy holy name. Amen
!

Rather than pray, I went to a bench and sat, resting my injured arm against my chest. It was aching and fit to be tied after six hours of scanning and number punching. I needed a pain pill, but I couldn’t remember whether I had thought to pack them.

I felt like a fool.

I was embarrassed. And not just embarrassed, but ashamed. The shame was a deeply bruising, ugly thing, and I could not shake it. I thought I had found a partner to walk through life with, to build a future with, someone who would never hurt me or hurt my child, but what I’d found was an addict—and if there was one thing I could not stand, it was an addict.

I did not know how I would face Billy, Shelly, Miss Ora, Tonya, Mama. My balls weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. I was almost thirty-five years old and didn’t have a pot to piss in, not even enough money for a lousy suitcase.

I
T
WAS
dark when someone rapped on the driver side window of my car.

My eyes flew open.

I had returned to the Food World parking lot, positioning myself in a corner, facing away, hoping no one would notice me. I figured the police would eventually send me on my way. It was all right to be homeless, but by Christ, don’t let anyone see you. Not in Tupelo, Mississippi.

But it was not the police.

“Open the window, bro,” Billy called.

I got out of my car. I felt cramped, tired, out of sorts. My ribs and my arm ached, the pain a dull throb inside the bones.

“What the hell are you doing, Wiley?”

I was surprised by the look of concern on his face. He seemed frantic.

The lot was sparsely populated. Had to be midnight or later.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“We’ve been looking all over for you.”

I did not answer.

“Jack saw your car in the lot here, reckoned you’d be here since you didn’t have anywhere else to go. What are you doing?”

I wasn’t in the mood for a dressing-down by my bigger brother. I clutched my arm to my chest.

“Did you eat yet?” he asked.

“What do you want, Billy?”

“Did you eat?”

“Yeah! I had steak and potatoes and a bottle of frikkin’ chardonnay.”

“You gon’ spend the night here?”

“If I have to.”

“I’ll take you home.”

“I’d rather be alone.”

“There’s a little boy at my house who’s half out of his mind because he doesn’t know where his daddy is, and oh, by the way, he almost lost his daddy in a tornado last week, and now his two daddies are breaking up, so he’s a little bit upset, but don’t worry about it, Wiley. It’s all good!”

“Is he all right?”

“How would I know? I’ve been driving all over Tupelo half the fucking night looking for you.”

I looked down at my shoes, said nothing. Billy always made me feel about two inches tall.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do I need to call the guys with the butterfly nets?”

“Maybe.”

“Seriously?”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“You can take your ass down there to your First Baptist judge pal and have me declared an unfit parent.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Wiley!”

A police patrol car pulled into the parking lot to make a sweep. I opened the back of my car, pretended I was stowing away groceries. They drove slowly, saw my Food World shirt, waved.

I waved back.

“You’re scaring me now, bro,” Billy said softly. “You can’t spend the night out here. It’s not safe. Couple of weeks ago, somebody got stabbed in this parking lot. After everything Mama’s been through, don’t put her through this. You can stay with us for a while until you find a place.”

“I don’t want your help, Billy.”

“Why?” He seemed genuinely mystified.

“Last thing I need right now is to listen to your bullcrap.”

“I’m taking you home and that’s that, so get whatever you need and let’s go, because it’s late and I’m tired and I have to work tomorrow and I ain’t in no mood.”

“I’m not going with you.”

“You’re not staying here.”