Badbadbad Page 9

  After the tour, we made our way to an old F150 parked behind the garage: a supersize pickup, white with black trim, scuffed up some but no rust, with a double cab just like Shannon’s rental and fully loaded with a working air conditioner, power everything, cruise control, sliding rear window, ratchet-locking gun rack and a booming sound system with quad speakers—the answer to my prayers.

  ELEVEN

  I left Cyrus with Bebe so I could spend quality time getting to know my ride. DJ Spooky would drop the rhythm science for our maiden cruise. With a towering view from the bucket seat of the king cab, my grip tight on the leather-wrapped steering wheel, I was at the helm of an oil tanker. The engine thundered, and I’d barely opened up the throttle. While I don’t subscribe to the mainstream view that material goods make a man, I can’t deny how rolling down the highway in this monster pickup almost made me feel like I fit in, finally, in this foreign land I now called home.

  As we neared the state line, I followed Bebe into the parking lot of a fairgrounds, an unexpected detour on the long road home. A sign out front read SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY GUN, KNIFE & DOLL SHOW. Cyrus explained how it was indecent of me to be driving around with a bare gun rack in my new pickup. Bebe thought the same.

  I didn’t like guns and told them so. I believed they carried violence within them like dark clouds and acid rain. I wasn’t much for knives either. My Swiss Army knife didn’t count, being more an all-purpose utensil than a blade. Dolls . . . would that be American Girl or Barbie? Neutered? Inflatable? Either or, I never played with dolls.

  The jerry-rigged tent city was a Dirty South institution, Cyrus said. We could have burned a full day combing through half the wares. Since we arrived shortly before last call, he urged a tight formation, maneuvering us through the mob with the skills of a hardcore mosher.

  Admitted free of charge, public servants and military personnel were out in force, jostling for photo ops with celebrity merchants of Safety, Security & Self-Defense. Bebe nodded at the skinheads and militiamen, their eager eyes too close for consciousness. Cyrus pointed at the R-2 patches on many of their tactical vests. “Cranked up for the American Revolution II,” he said.

  In a spontaneous game of ID the Redneck, they scoured for telltale signs: mullets, wife beaters, cut-off flannel shirts unbuttoned to the waist and what Bebe called “them fugly moustaches.” I fingered the churchgoing folks, pink-cheeked men and women who could have been doctors, ministers, teachers, insurance brokers. In polo shirts and khaki or plaid shorts, they carted their kids, some in strollers and baby slings, from one spotlit stand to the next, as if bargain-shopping at the mall.

  The smell of fried dough fueled the carnival atmosphere. Blasts from the shooting range at the far end of the grounds evoked a war zone. On tables under awnings at the corporate booths, soft halogen lamps gave the arms an allure that blocked out all else. These were weapons one could cozy up with beneath the sheets, barrels and blades glistening like the legs of fantasy carwash girls, who just so happened to be sauntering the aisles with gifts of icy lemonade for overheated attendees. “Dolls,” Cyrus said.

  The event’s main attraction—guns and knives—came in every conceivable style, from standard rifles, shotguns, pistols and revolvers to exotic semi-automatics and M16s, the ultimate aphrodisiac for Christian militiamen. Most of the models were contemporary, though we did spot a few vintage pieces dating to the Civil War. All the major manufacturers were represented, Cyrus explained. Familiar names: Remington, Colt, Winchester, Beretta. The knives included machetes, stilettos and Harley-Davidson potato peelers. There were also niche accessories, priced to go. Our favorites: Rebel With a Cause ammunition belts, Breathe E-Z gas masks and “The Betsy Ross Cookbook,” a how-to guide for aspiring bombmakers.

  Cyrus expected we’d score with this indie dealer of “Premium Pre-owned Products” who also sold red-white-and-blue caps with slogans of civic pride: U.S.A. #1, The President Is the Commander-in-Chief, A Friend Indeed Is a Towelhead That Bleeds. “The Savage 110 7mm Magnum,” the vendor said, handing me a sleek gun from the couple dozen on display. “A fine choice for fire power on a budget.” His salt-and-pepper fugly matched his silver-blue eyes. “This here’s your basic bolt-action, long-range, precision instrument with a factory-mounted Simmons scope.”

  I looked at Cyrus.

  “Just see how it feels,” he said.

  “As ya can see,” the vendor went on, “it’s got a sturdy fiberglass stock, state-of-the-art, a twenty-four-inch barrel and blue-steeled finish that’ll keep it rust-free.” He took off his Commander-in-Chief cap, wiping his brow and thinning hair with a red bandana as I pinned the gun against my shoulder, cocked my head to the side, shut one eye, peered through the scope. I saw the ex in the crosshairs.

  She’d been stonewalling on our mediation meeting, one excuse after another. The latest: she refused to talk until the charges of trespassing and disturbing the peace were resolved. This could take months, my attorney told me, but we were in a weak position to negotiate. He said he would try to work a plea with the D.A. for anger-management classes or short-term community service, something with a limited time commitment, but we would have to fall in line behind any number of other cases and there were no guarantees the prosecutor would cooperate, given what he called my “past transgressions.” It didn’t matter that until recently I hadn’t been in trouble for years. “Your record sticks to ya,” he said, “like stink in a hen house.”

  Cyrus repositioned my left hand on the slate-blue stock as I hooked my finger on the trigger. I tugged but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Ya gotta unlock the safety, JAG.”

  “Safety first,” Bebe said, smiling at the vendor.

  “That’s right, lil girl,” he said. “What are ya aimin for, son?”

  “Whitetail for serious, varmints for fun,” Cyrus said.

  “The seven mill’s kinda overkill for deer. As for the vermin, you’ll pop them critters clear into the Carolinas.”

  “That’s the idea.” Cyrus sounded like a no-bones killer. He later told me he was just playing. “Varmint huntin’s chicken shit,” he said, “like killin for sport. But I got no truck with game huntin to put meat on the grill. Hell, a ten-point buck’ll feed a family uh four for half a year.”

  “What’s the range?” Bebe asked.

  “Y’all could bag a black bear from five hundred yards,” the vendor said, as if he’d done so himself.

  “A badass sniper rifle,” Cyrus said. “We’ll take it.”

  I pulled him aside by his shirt collar.

  “Chill, yo.” He snatched the gun from my hands. “Three hundred’s a steal.”

  Bebe wedged between us. “Talk him down to two,” she told Cyrus. “I’ll front ya the cash,” she said to me. “Shootin’s a healthy outlet for all that pent-up angst ya got.”

  “Huh?” My response, unconvincing even to myself. “What about the background check?” I whispered.

  “Ya got somethin to hide, brotherman?” Cyrus smirked. Bebe went bug-eyed. “Relax. This ole boy’s what they call a private seller. Unlicensed. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Cash ‘n’ carry, baby.” He instructed me to go with Bebe to a portable ATM while he made the deal.

  “Easy as a hand job from a priest,” he said when we returned.

  I slugged him in the arm.

  He dug into his own wallet to pay for cartridges. We had a half-hour until closing, more than enough time, he argued, for me to get acquainted with my Savage.

  The vanilla shooting range was situated a short distance beyond the far end of the big top on a mild plateau overlooking wasteland. We lucked into an open lane right away. While Bebe raced off to rent an AK on the Extreme Action! front, Cyrus plucked a cartoon deer for us from among the cardboard targets. He gave Bambi to an attendant, who passed her on to a doll, who sited her a football field away. A black flag meant the line was cold. We couldn’t touch the gun, already placed with its action open on a small plywood table. Cyrus set me up with earplugs and
goggles that made me feel fishy. With the chaos of the outside world muffled, I could hear my insides roar like raging white water.

  A baby-oiled doll with yellow sunhat, Hollywood shades, silicone breasts and a sunny two-piece soon waved a red flag, squealing into a bullhorn: “Go hot!” This was our cue to lock, load and rip, Cyrus said, giving me a few final pointers. His last hint was to think of the rifle as an extension of my soul.

  He stepped back as I approached the firing line. Despite all the shooting and hollering and the backing of my best friend who was right there behind me, I felt alone. I futzed around for some time, adjusting my shoulders, positioning and repositioning my grip on the smoky stock. I felt weak, good for nothing.

  Staring through the scope at the other targets, I was startled to see pictures of Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. “BYOT,” Cyrus later told me. “Bring your own target.”

  Whether you think it’s sick or not, you have to admit the other pics I saw down range—of the president’s rivals for the oval office—made sense. Politics is blood sport, red-state voters pit bulls. But what could justify blasting holes in the faces of civil rights leaders? Was it the color of their character? Maybe I hadn’t been living in the real world, or I’d been blinded by the privilege of passing with little effort for much of my life. Still, in the twenty-first-century Land of the Free, I found it hard to believe such hatred still existed.

  “Yo yo yo!” Cyrus shouted. “Yank that trigger, rockstar!”

  I glimpsed what appeared to be a half-torn, blown-up wedding portrait. Some poor sap’s ex-spouse. I trained the Savage and fired. The kickback slammed my sensitive shoulder. I hit nothing. I tried again. Nothing but noise and ache. Once more. Sound, fury. With a clear motive in mind now, I could at least feel the power in setting my sight a hundred yards out, aiming for dead meat.

  Cyrus called me over to tell how I wasn’t steadying myself, jerking the gun every which way. “You have to be still,” he said, “at peace. Breathe into the path of the bullet.” He put on the safety gear, showed me what he meant. Bye-bye, Bambi. “This how we do it in da Southlands,” he said. “Give it a shot.” He laughed out loud at his own lame pun.

  I tried my best but I never hit a damn thing. “Next time,” Cyrus said when the black flag went up. “There’s a couple decent ranges back home. We’ll have some fun.”

  When we found Bebe, flush from playing soldier girl, she handed each of us a flyer for a Ku Klux Klan jam in our God-blessed city the following Saturday, Fourth of July weekend. “It’s gonna be insane,” she said.

  I held the notice at arm’s length, as if it were contagious, feeling like I’d tumbled into another era. I did not belong here.

  “Chill, brotherman.” Cyrus slung his arm around my shoulders. “We flex our First Amendment rights from the sidelines, raggin on the white sheets as they trot by on their lil ponies. It’s a time. You’ll see. Precursor to Gay Pride—time and a half.”

  “So ya know,” Bebe said, now up in my face. “I don’t believe in violence or the ‘Initiative for Peace.’” She was on the tiptoes of her combat boots, poking her punctuation into my skull. “But I get wet like ya wouldn’t believe, emptyin a full clip from an automatic weapon.”

  While I hate to admit it, I could see the turn-on.

  TWELVE

  By the time I got home it was late and I was beat. But I wouldn’t disappoint Philomela. I needed to see if I could be the healer Shannon said I was.

  We planned to meet at her place, a squat rancher among the crabgrass not far from Bliss U. She said come over anytime after dusk. Her kids would be asleep, her mean old man out of town until tomorrow evening. I was to let myself in the basement around back.

  I turned the doorknob without a sound, peeked inside. Dull lights, quiet music, the whirr of a fan. I whispered her name. No response. I stepped across the threshold, peeped the layout. The room was small—it smelled of must and apple-cinnamon—the carpet plush, walls alternately wood-paneled or papered with a paisley pattern that had to be from the seventies. A pair of loveseats, upholstered in corduroy, a floor lamp between them, made a vee around a coffee table in front of a TV, muted on the Cartoon Network.

  To the left near the staircase, a Holy Bible shone from the top shelf of a cabinet, below which were video games, DVDs or CDs, too many magazines. There was a half-full tumbler on a wet bar across from where I stood. Finger smudges on the glass, ice nearly melted. “Philomela?” I said again.

  Footsteps overhead made their way to an upstairs door. As it cracked open, I thought on Cyrus’ warnings: D-R-A-M-A . . . trouble. For a beat, I considered bailing. But I held my ground. This was a test I wouldn’t allow myself to fail.

  I watched the slow descent of a fallenangel down the stairs. She came into view as such: barefoot in a flipflop, calf like a piano leg, chafed bent knee, shadow of a strong line to mid-thigh, dark athletic shorts, corporate logo up the side, round ass, long nails, short fingers, small hand and forearm, frilly sleeve to the elbow, sheer blouse, full black bra, bare shoulder, bra strap, choker, shy smile, wide raccoon eyes, tired and wary, hopeful, thick makeup, hair piled high on top of her head, eighties-style, the Bangles. She walked like an Egyptian. Her nervousness gave me confidence.

  “Too cute,” I said, extending my hand. She patted my shoulder, averting her eyes, motioned toward the bar.

  We sat across from each other on the loveseats as she repeated to me what she’d previously conveyed in her online profile and our chats, about how she felt trapped and needed release, if only for a few hours. I suggested yoga or Pilates. This made her laugh. Mostly I listened. I couldn’t tell her anything she didn’t know.

  There were long pauses in our conversation as we sipped our drinks and stared at the silent cartoons. The music in the background mixed pop and classical standards—the Beatles, Brahms, Irving Berlin—but the kicker was the instrument: solo mandolin. While I can’t recall the name of the artist, I remember how on the CD front he wore a black tux, with a baby-blue bowtie and cummerbund, and a gray cowboy hat. With a heavy sigh she said the songs made her feel light and airy like fairy dust. “If I could disappear into the stars . . .” She closed her eyes, leaned her head back.

  I could see how she longed for flight, weighed down with guilt and remorse, blaming herself for the suffering she felt she had to endure. I was drawn to her sorrow. As she lay there with her little fingers around the tumbler on her lap, I noticed how the rust color on her eyelids was a precise passing tone between the rouge on her cheeks and the shade of her hair. I pictured her carefully selecting this cosmetic among the infinite choices at the mall’s boutiques and chain department stores, escaping in the enchantment of acquisition from the moment she decided on the purchase until reaching the head of the line. Once the register spit out her receipt, the feeling slipped away. Yet whenever she made up this face, reserved for special occasions, she would flash on the joy of the original purchase, pray that it might last.

  Philomela wasn’t skinny, but she was by no means a fat hoe. While she may have been a few pounds above fighting weight, she wasn’t obese or, from what I could tell, in any way grotesque or at risk for diabetes or heart disease. At first glance, by conventional measures, she wasn’t pretty. But that’s what made her beautiful.

  Gazing at her on the loveseat, I thought about how easy it is to pick apart the imperfections in everyone. But who am I to judge? What gives me the right to assess the aesthetic value of another human being? Yet this is what passes for shits and giggles in One Nation Under God. While I don’t identify as Christian, it occurred to me, looking at Philomela’s outsized breasts, undersized hands, overdone face paint, roadworn eyes, uneven eyebrows . . . such judgment contradicts the predominant belief that we’re all created in the image of the Creator.

  Explain to me the hierarchy of fat to skinny, short to tall, hairy, hairless, large to small, dark, light, weak, strong, rich to poor to old to young to greater than, less than, straight to not so, just so, per
haps, maybe? and if so, or if not, is that in whole or in part? and if either or, then which parts? and so on. Who’s to say who’s extraordinary, average or subpar? The overlords on American Dream Gods? Who’s to say you’re right or wrong for being who you are? Who’s really large, medium or small? Are we no more, no less than our car, house or shoe size?

  Granted, these thoughts came to me under the influence of two full glasses of bathtub gin. But as I try to reconstruct the path to where I now find myself, and from which there’s no retreat, I realize embracing imperfection as perfection brings us closer to God, and to each other. Which of course scares the hell out of most everyone.

  After a third drink I crept up behind Philomela. She had just described happier days when she’d first moved in with her man. Journey was on the stereo. I asked if there was anything I could do for her, anything at all she needed. She said letting her talk without telling her what to do was more than she could have hoped for. “I’m a listener,” I said, caressing her bare shoulders.

  She arched her back to look up at me. Upside-down, her face was animated, cat-like, feral. Through parted lips I could see her tongue, pink and inviting. As I pressed my mouth to hers, she pulled me down on top of her. At once she pushed me off, then she grabbed me again with both hands. Philomela didn’t kiss to give herself over, but to retreat and return, to withdraw and advance on her own terms, of her own free will. There was desperation in how she sought to control her body’s response to mine. She seemed to want to be consumed but was unwilling to lose herself. “It’s dangerous,” I said, “to let someone in your house you barely know.”