The Summer That Melted Everything(18)

“How’d you know about what Lloyd did?” She pointed the fork at him.

He was silent for a long time, staring down at the meat loaf on his leg, its hot juices oozing into the thin denim of his overalls.

“I asked you a question, young man.” She continued to point the fork at him. “How do you know about Lloyd?”

He looked up at her. “I know the sins of everyone who comes to hell. That’s part of my misery. To know and feel theirs.”

“Autopsy?” Mom turned helplessly to Dad. “How does he know about Cousin Lloyd?”

Dad squinted his eyes. “I suppose he could have looked it up in a newspaper. When Lloyd was charged with the pornography, it was in the paper.”

“Oh, yes.” Mom sighed as she stabbed the meatloaf on Sal’s leg with the fork. “That must be it. You silly boy. You had me scared there for a minute.”

“But I didn’t look in any newspaper,” Sal tried to tell her, but she was already convinced as she plopped the meat down on his plate. He stared at it like it was his cross to bear.

“What about Walt Whitman?” Grand asked as Mom reprimanded him for using the tablecloth as a napkin. He apologized to her and asked Sal again about Whitman. “We’re reading him in English. ‘Song of Myself.’ Is he in hell?”

“Walt Whitman?” Sal was on his second roll. “He’s not in hell.”

“I’m surprised. I mean, he writes well enough. I celebrate myself and sing myself and all that, but I heard he was into other guys.” Grand’s voice went off to the side, like crumbs on a counter being wiped away.

“What does that have to with hell?” Sal shrugged.

“I mean, don’t all fags go to hell?” Grand asked it so casually, he might have been asking if there was any more pop.

Dad grabbed his forehead. “What is with all this language today? There is to be no more of it in this house. Do you hear?” He pounded his finger down into the table until the nearby gravy boat shook. “No more words that say something about our own ignorance. Grand, are you listening? Look at me. You are not to say that word again. Grand?”

“All right, Dad. Geez.”

“And not one of you is to use the N-word that horrid woman said tonight to Sal. I swear I wish people were forced to make a list of names and recite them every time they use that word.

“A list of the names of every black man, woman, and child hated, beaten, killed for the color of their flesh. It should be law—by God, it should be law—that if you say that word, you must then say their names.

“No one wants to say one word and then realize it means so many more.” He picked up his glass and took a long drink of water, after which he apologized to Sal for the woman’s wrong. “She was a piece of shit.”

“Autopsy.” Mom was sitting down in her own chair by then, opposite Dad’s at the table. She was smiling. She knew, as we all did, that when Dad spoke profanity, which he so rarely did, it came out funny instead of bad.

“Well, it’s true.” He propped his elbows up on the arms of the chair as he leaned back. “Sometimes this world is like red fences in the snow. There ain’t no hiding who we really are.”

Sal leaned back in his own chair, propping his elbows up like Dad. While Dad had been talking, Sal had been listening carefully. Later that night he would say to me, “I’ve never met a better man than your father. Compared to him, it’s as if all other men are homeless dogs that bed in the mud.”

“Was Walt Whitman the one to write about the road less traveled by?” Mom used her napkin to dab her sweat.

“That was Robert Frost,” Grand answered.

“And he was gay?”

“No, Mom, Walt Whitman was the”—Grand glanced at Dad and swallowed the word he was going to say—“the one who wasn’t into women. Or so they say. But if he’s not in hell, maybe he was straight. Ain’t that whatcha said, little devil?” Grand looked across the table at Sal. “That Whitman’s not in hell?”

“Homosexuality is not flammable. You can’t burn by it alone.” Sal was helping himself to another spoon of green beans.

“Well, they do say it is a sin.” Mom held her glass of ice water to her cheek. “Like my momma used to say, when you play in the thorns, you ain’t gonna get nothin’ but scratched.”

“Hmm-mmm.” Dad scrunched his brow as he buttered his roll. “I think it’s more of a psychological disease. Just something a little off in the mind. They could probably fix it with a little determination.”

“Then there’s this new sickness goin’ around.” Mom clicked her tongue in sympathy. “I feel bad for ’em, I really do, but some say it’s God punishin’ ’em for their lifestyle. Maybe He is, punishin’ ’em, that is. I mean this sickness is from that moment of ’em comin’ together. It makes ya think maybe God is tellin’ ’em to stop comin’ together. Maybe He’s tellin’ ’em to stay apart.” She patted the sides of her neck. “Lordy, this heat has a fury, don’t it?”

Grand leaned to one side, as if the chair he was sitting in was teetering on an edge and he had to shift his weight to keep from falling over. He asked me to pass the salt, though he never actually used it once I gave it to him. He just held it so tight, before setting it down.