Nathan
In my bedroom, it felt like déjà vu, as I kicked the Stacy Adams’ off my feet again and peeled my tie and shirt off. I fell backward onto the bed, grabbed the remote from the nightstand and tuned it to ESPN to catch the latest sports news. My mind drifted to thoughts of Lainey. It was something about her that drew me, and I felt guilty for not only enjoying my time with her, but for spending the entire ride home actually contemplating a trip to California.
“This is crazy, man. You can’t even consider this,” I’d told myself just moments before in my pickup. “What would you do with your kids…what would you tell the school? And besides, you hardly even know this woman. You’re playing with fire. You’ve been down this road before.”
I thought about the woman I’d had a brief roll in the hay with only a few years ago. The one who almost cost me my family. But just as quickly, I was engaged in thoughts of Lainey again.
The other half of me answered. “Mike Holmes could practice with the kids…get them ready for the next game. They could find a sub for your Algebra class. You have like, four weeks of vacation time built up…not to mention you haven’t taken a vacation all year. And it’s not like you’re cheating. Lainey is a friend. She’s a victim of circumstance, just like you. Separate hotel rooms…and no leisure time. Just business. Yep, it would be a business trip.”
“What if Marva wakes up? What then?” the responsible part of me asked. “Squash the thought of this trip. It’s too risky.”
I pulled myself up from our Serta mattress, the one Marva had talked me into just a few months before. She claimed that it would do wonders for my back, and it had.
I found my way to the shower.
The lighting in Marva’s room was dimmed as usual. I took my usual place in the orange leather chair in the corner. On Saturday mornings I stayed most of the day, grading papers and reading my students’ essays. Sometimes she’d open her eyes. Other times she’d appear to be crying or even laughing. But it wasn’t because she was aware that I was there, it was just par for the course.
I decided that after my visit, I would take a drive to Alabama for the weekend. The thought of Mama’s sweet potato pie made me drive a little faster to Toulminville. I seemed to have gotten there in half the time, as I walked into my parents’ house, Shaquille O’Neal running down the court on their floor model television in the living room. Only nobody was watching. I watched as Shaq dunked the ball. The television, that had been a fixture in my parents’ living room since I was seven years old, was muted as an old Al Green tune was playing loudly on Daddy’s old stereo. The smell of mustard and turnip greens floating through the air, I followed the aroma as well as the voices that I heard coming from the kitchen.
“Why’s the TV on in there, and nobody’s watching it?” I asked as all four of my parents yelled in surprise. I hadn’t shared that I was coming.
“Lord, Nate, what’re you doing here?” Mama asked, springing from her chair at the kitchen table and planting a kiss on my lips. “We weren’t expecting you today, baby.”
“Thought I’d come and see what y’all got cooking up in this kitchen.” I smiled.
“How you doing, son?” Poppa Joe asked, refreshing his plate with fried chicken and the biggest mountain of macaroni and cheese I’d ever seen.
“Doing fine, Poppa Joe,” I said, patting my father-in-law on his stomach. “Thought you were watching that diet.”
“After today, boy. After today.”
“Hush your lies, Joe,” Helen said. “You been going on a diet for twenty years now.”
“Supposed to quit smoking, too.” Mama chimed in. “But we all know he sneaks a puff when nobody’s looking.”
“Aw, here they go. You see how they team up on me, Nate?” Poppa Joe asked.
“Yep, I see.”
“How’re you, baby?” Helen asked and hugged me.
“Doin’ fine, Mother,” I said, reaching on the shelf for a plate. “I’ll be doing even better when I get some of this good food in my stomach.”
“We see that you came straight for the kitchen and grabbed a plate.” My father gave me a strong hug. “How was your drive, son?”
“Enjoyable. I popped in a jazz CD, and it was smooth sailing.”
“You sure need to eat, Nate,” Mama said. “You looking mighty puny. I don’t like you looking like that. Are you eating at all?”
“I’m eating, Mama.” I kissed my mother’s forehead and pushed past her, reaching for a golden-brown chicken wing.
“Fix me another highball, Joe,” Helen said, asking my father-in-law to refresh her glass of Rémy Martin and Coke.
He grabbed her glass and poured her another drink.
“Helen told me about the author lady you all had dinner with, Nate,” Mama said. “I can’t wait to go to her seminar. I already have my outfit picked out.”
“She was a very nice girl, Savannah. You would’ve liked her,” Helen said. “Lainey was pretty nice, too. She seemed sweet enough.”
“How’s Lainey doing with all that she’s been through?”
“She’s getting along.” I said, and then stuffed a cornbread muffin into my mouth. Changed the subject. “Daddy, you and Poppa Joe been out on the course today?”
“First thing this morning.” Daddy stuck his chest out, started cheesing. “Now ask him who won.”
“Oh, here we go.” Poppa Joe stood, threw his empty Budweiser bottle into the trash can and grabbed another one from the refrigerator. “I admit my game was a little off this morning.”
“This morning?” my father asked.
“Nate, tell your daddy to go jump in a lake, would you?”
Laughter filled the kitchen.
“Speaking of a lake, can we go fishing in the morning?” I asked.
“Sure thang,” Poppa Joe said.
“But early. Before the birds get to chirping,” Daddy said, reminding me that he and Poppa Joe were usually up at the crack of dawn. “I’ll wake you up.”
“What about church?” Mama asked. “I’ve got to show Nate off at church in the morning, now. He don’t come here that often and some of the old sisters at church sure would like to see him. They remember when he was knee-high to a chipmunk. And they just so proud of him, moving to Atlanta and all.”
“We’ll have the fish caught and cleaned by the time church starts, Savannah,” Daddy said. “Besides, I don’t think Nate is looking forward to seeing all those old sisters at church.”
“Especially that skinny one who wears that big old hat and plops herself on the front row every Sunday,” Poppa Joe added.
“And the big round one with the big knockers.” Daddy made hand motions to describe Sister Allen’s generous breasts.
“Behave, both of you,” Mama told Daddy and Poppa Joe. “You both ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
Daddy’s entire frame shook when he laughed, and tears were falling from Poppa Joe’s eyes.
“I’ll be back in time for church, Mama. I promise,” I said, laughing and taking in a forkful of greens.
Just being in the room with my parents let me know just how much I’d missed adult conversation. It was lonely at home without Marva, which is why I’d found myself on the highway bound for Alabama in the first place.
When Daddy tapped on my door the next morning, I opened one eye just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It was him all right, dressed in his fishing garb, baseball cap and those same black boots that he wore fishing when I was a child. I looked at the clock on the night table. Five o’clock, and the only thing moving was a cricket outside my bedroom window, chirping like he’d lost his mind.
“Get on up and wash your face, son,” Daddy said. “Joe got the truck warming up.”
Daddy was completely dressed and ready to go. Poppa Joe had the truck running, which meant he was also completely dressed. The two of them had drank Budweisers and argued until well past midnight. Al Green, BB King and James Brown had sung at least a dozen songs each. I’d pressed the pillow against my face just to drown them out, and here they were, both up at the crack of dawn, Poppa Joe’s pickup blowing fumes down the block, fishing poles and live worms in the back of the truck.
I pulled myself out of bed, washed my face and made my way through the quiet house and into the kitchen.
“Mornin’, son.” Poppa Joe looked up from his plastic cup filled with Maxwell House, a tan fishing hat on his head with a catfish embroidered across the front of it.
“Mornin’, Poppa Joe,” I said, and poured myself a cup of coffee.
It was much too early for conversation and we were all quiet as we crept outside and piled into the cab of Poppa Joe’s pickup.
Church wasn’t as quiet as the choir sang about how Jesus will fix it. They swayed to the music in unison as the old wooden floor creaked with every movement. I slid into the pew with Mama on one side of me and Helen on the other. They took great pride in showing me off to their friends at church. They were proud that Marva and I had escaped Toulminville, a place that held no promise of a future for either of us. Proud that their children had gone to college and were now living in the big city—Atlanta. Educators. Successful, with a big beautiful house in a nice subdivision. Drove nice cars and successfully reared a child who was now in college. We were the epitome of success, while many of the other church members’ daughters and sons had found meaningless lives of drugs and crime.
Just as I’d stopped at the gas station on the way into the city, Minnie Williams was the one who’d rang up my gas and bottle of Coke. She’d landed a job there right after our high school graduation, and I was shocked to discover that she still worked there.
“Hey, Nate,” she’d said, and had picked up about twenty extra pounds since high school. “When did you get home?”
“Just got here,” I’d told her. “Literally just got off the highway.”
“How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good,” I’d said. “You still work at the Chevron, huh?”
“I’m a manager now.” She’d smiled, proud of her recent promotion.
“How’ve you been, Minnie?” I asked.
“Been all right. Just had surgery.”
“Oh, really?” I’d asked in my concerned voice.
“Had them bunions removed off my feet,” she’d said, and made a movement like she might show me. “They feel so much better now.”
“O-oh, I’m glad,” I’d said, referring to the fact that she didn’t show me.
“How’s Marva? I heard she ain’t doing too well,” she’d said. “Somebody said she in a deep sleep and can’t get herself out.”
“Something like that,” I’d said, “but we’re praying for her.”
“Well I’m praying for her, too.”
“You take care, Minnie. It was good seeing you,” I’d said, and darted out the door.
I felt sorry for Minnie.
After the Jesus Will Fix It song, it was offering time. I peeled a twenty dollar bill out of my pocket and placed it in the offering tray. When my cell phone began to loudly play a little tune, every eye in the house stared my way. Mama frowned. I pulled it out of my pocket and silenced it. Checked the number. Lainey. I wondered if something was wrong. She’d been pretty distraught on Friday night when we had dinner. I found myself suddenly worried. Part of me wanted to rush into the basement of the church and call her back. I became fidgety.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mama whispered.
“Nothing,” I whispered back, and started tapping my size twelve Florsheim’s against the wooden floor and clapping to the beat of the next song.
At my in-law’s house, my brother Henry Junior had piled his plate with fresh-cut green beans and barbecue ribs that Poppa Joe had finished cooking on the old charcoal grill while Helen was at church. A baseball cap turned backward on his head, Junior was putting food away so fast, it seemed that he hadn’t eaten in days.
“That my little knuckleheaded brother?” he asked as I walked through the door.
“In the flesh,” I said, and gave him the handshake that’s only shared among black men.
“When you get here?” he asked.
“Yesterday,” I said.
“You mean you been in town two days and this the first I heard of it?” He kept putting food away. “Mama, why didn’t you tell me that the star was in town?”
My mama looked at Junior, and then snatched his cap off of his head.
“How many times I gotta tell you to take your hat off in the house, Junior?” Mama asked.
“Sorry, Ma,” he said and kissed her cheek.
“Where’s Ebony?” I asked about the young lady he’d introduced to the family at Christmastime. Said they were thinking about getting married.
“History.”
“You are pitiful,” I said.
“I need to come down there to the ATL and find me one of them fine women they got. They say if I move there, I’d have about twelve women jocking me all at one time.” He smiled and looked just like my mother. “That true, Nate?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m a married man,” I said. “And if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have twelve women at once. A brother would have to be out of his mind to do that.”
“I wouldn’t mind one bit.” Junior stood and refreshed his plate.
He was my older brother, and you could tell by looking at us. But once he opened his mouth, you couldn’t tell. When it came to maturity, I had him by a few years. I was the levelheaded one. Junior did what felt good at the moment, never planned anything, and didn’t care about much. He changed women about as often as he changed underwear, and changed jobs just as often. He stopped caring about things after he injured his leg in college and ended his football career.
The whole time we were growing up and all through high school, everyone knew that Junior Sullivan would be the next O.J. Simpson. He had the size and the skills to go pro. Had scouts watching him in college. But when he injured his leg, and tore parts of it that would never heal, his career came to a screeching halt. He went into a depression so deep, my parents had to seek counseling for him. He gave up on everything. Dropped out of college and went to work at a local plant. That was the beginning of his downward plunge.
“How’s my sister-in-law?” he asked.
“About the same,” I said, and fixed a plate.
“You know I would’ve been there to see her, Nate, but you know…I got this new job and everything,” he said.
“It’s cool, man.”
“Plus, I really don’t wanna see my sister like that, you know?” He said, “That kinda stuff messes with my head.”
“Don’t even sweat it, Junior.”
“Is that Nathan Earl Sullivan?” Someone tackled me from behind as if we were on the football field, slammed me into the kitchen counter.
I immediately put Marva’s brother, Rick, in a headlock.
“What do you have to say now, Richard?” I asked, calling him by his birth name, which he hated.
“Watch it, boy. The name is Rick,” he said, and we shook hands. “What’s going on with you, man?”
“Same old, same old.”
Rick was more of a brother to me than Junior had ever been. We were closer than brothers growing up; more like best friends. We played together, fought sometimes, and chased down some of the same girls back in the day. Went away to college around the same time. I went to Alabama State, while he went away to Grambling on a full scholarship. He ended up moving back to Toulmanville and working for a local law firm. Married his high school sweetheart and they were living happily ever after. He was the spitting image of Poppa Joe. And he thought the world of my wife, his little sister, and was ready to kill anybody who looked like they might hurt her.
“If you ever cheat on my sister, I’ll kill you, Nate,” he told me once; serious, his face like stone. “I mean that.”
Marva never revealed my affair to our families. It was a secret that we kept between each other, and never even talked about it again. After I’d confessed and begged for her forgiveness, it was long forgotten. I was grateful for that, as I didn’t want her family or mine knowing that I had ever been unfaithful. Particularly Rick. I wasn’t afraid of him, but didn’t want anything to ever jeopardize our lifelong friendship. He might not have been as forgiving as my wife.
“How ’bout some one-on-one, man? Out back,” Rick said as I dug into my plate. “Wrap your plate up and let’s see what you got.”
“Rick, fix you something to eat first,” Helen said.
“I will, Mother. I just wanna take this old man outside and rough him up a bit,” he said.
“Not right now,” I said, and kept eating.
“What, you scared?”
“Not hardly,” I said. “I’m trying to get my grub on right now.”
“Food’ll be here when you come back.”
“You don’t let up, do you?”
“Not usually,” he said. “Let’s see what you been teaching them students of yours about basketball. See what kinda game you got.”
“Let’s go,” I said, wrapping my plate in aluminum foil and heading out the back door.
“Nate, you still have on your Sunday clothes,” Mama said as the screen door slammed. “And it’s cold out there.”
“Plus you have to get on the road soon, baby,” Helen added.
“That’s okay, it won’t take me long to whip this chump.”
“Now see, there you go talking junk,” Rick said, and followed me to the basketball goal in his parents’ backyard; the one with no net, just a rusted rim. The same backyard court where we’d played a million basketball games over the years. The same goal where I’d dunked my first basket. The exact place where I broke my ankle and wore a cast for several months. The same place where I kissed Marva for the first time. That backyard held many memories for me.
“You take it out first,” Rick said, throwing the ball straight at my chest.
I began to dribble the ball with my right hand, loosened my tie with my left hand, and prayed I didn’t scuff my Florsheim’s while trying to be seventeen again.
I popped the ball into the basket and then took it out again.
“Lucky shot,” Rick mumbled.
“Don’t hate, my brother.” I smiled. “You asked for this spanking.”
The ball popped into the basket again, and I roared with laughter. My brother-in-law didn’t even crack a smile. Instead he stole the ball and took it to the basket; slammed it in. Did some sort of chicken-like dance around me.
“Take that!” he said.
“I’ll give you that. But you won’t be getting any more.”
We talked junk, and wore each other out for at least thirty minutes on that old court. My shirt was soaked from the sweat that was also popping off of my forehead; the toes of my shoes were scuffed. But I had long stopped caring about the shoes. It had been a while since I just played a nice game of one-on-one. And it gave me great pleasure, putting a whipping on my junk-talking brother-in-law. Somebody had to shut him up.
We retired to the family room; caught the end of the Hawks game. It seemed like old times as Daddy and Poppa Joe’s voices rang out from the kitchen. They laughed heartily, and every now and then Mama and Helen would giggle at their foolish talk. They were listening to some old Lou Rawls tune where he was telling a story in his baritone. I dreaded the drive back to Atlanta, but knew I needed to head home soon. I stole a quick snooze, until Mama shook me and told me it was getting late.
Headed down I-20 east toward home, I popped in Simply Red’s newest CD. Simply Red had been one of my favorite groups since they’d released “Holding Back the Years” in the late eighties. What did a country boy from a small town in Alabama know or like about a redheaded British guy?
A lot.
“Holding Back the Years” had been a song I danced to with Marva. Senior prom. She wore lavender and lace, her head filled with curls. I think that was the night we’d both fallen in love with each other. It was the night we both fell in love with Simply Red, too. They’d become our favorite group, and we’d bought every album they ever made. I smiled about the time that we’d driven my dull green Buick Century all the way to Atlanta for the concert when they performed at the Civic Center.
The funny thing about the CD that I listened to now, was that Marva had given it to me for Christmas. But the truth of it is, it had spent more time in her car’s CD player than it did mine. It was the CD that she’d played on her way home from Braselton that night of the accident. I’d heard it in the background as I talked to her on the phone. Simply Red’s remake of Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes’ “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” blared through the phone right about the time she’d pulled off the highway bound for the Chevron to fill her tank.
“I’ll call you back in a minute, Nate,” she’d said. “I’m stopping for gas, and you know what they say about talking on a cell phone and pumping gas.”
“You call me right back,” I told her. “As soon as you get done.”
“I will, baby.” She laughed. “You worry too much.”
“It’s because I love you.”
“How much?” she asked. Always asked that when I told her that I loved her.
“More than you know,” was always my response.
Tears filled my eyes as I remembered that those were the last words we shared. The last time I heard my wife’s voice.