David John holds the football on his lap. He’s quiet for the first mile. Jessup is quiet, too. Processing. He’s driving the van, but he feels like he isn’t going anywhere.
Finally, David John speaks. “He’s my brother. I had to tell him.”
Jessup feels like he’s supposed to answer, but David John didn’t ask him a question. Wants to tell his stepfather what it was like having Earl in the house while David John was gone. The same flat, dead eyes on his mother. Never said anything, did anything that Jessup could put his finger on. But still. His mother didn’t have a problem with her brother-in-law, and Jewel was always happy to see Uncle Earl, but there was something about the man that set Jessup on edge.
“You can use the van today and tomorrow.”
“I still think this was a bad idea. Getting rid of it just calls attention to things,” Jessup says.
“If anybody asks, tell them your truck broke down.” Which isn’t much of a stretch. It’s not much of an answer, either. “We’ll figure out the week later,” David John says, “see what happens with the cops.”
Jessup keeps the van steady. White lines cutting the blacktop, leading them into town.
“Hell, Jessup, why did you have to . . .” His voice is the voice of somebody who hasn’t slept in years, and it trails off into nothing, the tires thrumming against the road.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jessup says. “It was an accident.” He knows that he’s whining, that he sounds like a little kid trying to pass the blame.
And now David John sounds like what he is: a father comforting a child. “I know,” he says. “I know. But there are things we can’t change, and we’ve got what we’ve got. There’s a dead kid and he’s black and you’re white, and if this goes south, people will string you up. Ricky didn’t do anything wrong, either. They attacked him. He was just protecting himself. And I’ll be an old man by the time he gets out.” He doesn’t say anything about the four years of his own life gone by.
“I don’t want Brandon Rogers involved in this,” Jessup says. “I don’t trust him. Don’t like him.”
David John lifts the football up, spins it. “Game ball.” He puts it back in his lap. “I don’t know, Jessup. I think Earl has the right idea. Maybe it would have been different if we were rich. If I could have hired some smart New York City lawyer for me and Ricky.”
By which Jessup knows that David John means some smart Jew.
David John hesitates, says, “Or maybe if I raised you all some different way. A different church.”
It’s still not a question, so Jessup still doesn’t answer.
David John shakes his head. “Lawyers could have made a difference with your brother. Good lawyers. Expensive lawyers.” He says it again: “Maybe if we were rich . . .”
But they weren’t. They aren’t.