Pew(11)

The woman spoke quickly, gesturing to the person in the baseball cap, to me, and back again. She did not seem to notice or care that neither of us was listening to her. She said the word Nelson as if it were something she had long wanted and worked hard to own.
Hello. My name is Nelson. Each word was an exertion, each word very clear.
And this is Pew, honey, like a church pew, isn’t that special? Pew’s not much of a talker but I’m sure you two will get along just perfectly. Now, honey, I think maybe you’ve forgotten to take your cap off, honey, you know we’ve talked about that before, haven’t we? About what to do when we’ve got company?
Let that boy alone, he’s got his reasons, Butch called from the other side of the room where he shook a glass full of wet ice. The woman in white who had spoken to me outside the bathroom appeared beside him, refilled Butch’s glass from a small bottle, and vanished down a hallway.
Without removing his cap or letting on that he’d heard anything, Nelson went to the refrigerator and took out a red soda can, opened it, and left the room. Kitty said something quietly for the first time since we arrived, something to Hilda and Steven, who each nodded with impressed horror. The woman in the white uniform appeared beside Kitty and said, Dinner ready, in a tiny voice, and everyone moved down another hallway, past various rooms and closed doors, flower arrangements, and hundreds of framed photographs of Kitty and Butch and these other people. Then we reached a room with a long table, huge bowls and platters of food, even more various and plentiful than the night before. Nelson was sitting at one corner of the table and I was ushered over to sit beside him. Once everyone had sat down, they all joined hands, but the chair to my left was empty and Nelson didn’t take my hand, just squinted at me with something like a smile. Everyone shut their eyes while Butch said a list of memorized words, and when he’d reached the list’s end, he added, And God bless Nelson and God bless Pew, amen, his concentration clumsy and honest, like a child gluing two pieces of paper together.
The plate before me was filled with food, soft heaps leaking oil. I had known hunger so well and for so long that fullness had been difficult to recognize, but now, faced with all this, I could hardly eat. Since I had woken up on that pew, the meals had been endless and I wished I could have reached back and given one of them to those days of hunger in the past, or that I could have moved this plate to a place—there must have been such a place—where someone else was hungry. Nelson ate as if in a contest with someone, his throat a constant swallow. How was it I could have forgotten hunger, that feeling I knew so well? Nelson stabbed the whole chunk of black meat from my plate and ate it, not looking at me.
The rest of the table spoke in overlapping voices, passing bowls and platters around. The woman in the white uniform went around refilling glasses with water or ice tea or wine.
Nelson, having cleared his plate and mine, pushed his chair from the table, stood up, and I followed him by instinct.
Don’t y’all want some dessert? the woman at the head of the table called out to us.
No, ma’am, Nelson said. No thank you.
It’s pecan pie. I didn’t think I’d ever live to see the day—
No, ma’am, Nelson said again. No thank you.
He’s taken to playing checkers on the back porch after supper, she explained to Hilda and Steven. Ronnie used to play with him, but he got tired of it I guess, so wouldn’t you know it, now poor Nelson just plays himself, just sits out there and plays checkers against himself, so I guess it’s good he has company today. I just really don’t know how he does it, with that heat, must be something about where he’s from, you know, must remind him of where he came from—and Nelson shut the back door to mute her.
At the far corner of the screened porch was a low table with a checkerboard on it. Beside it were a few cushions he’d taken from the chairs and we sat on them, on the floor. From under the table, Nelson pulled out a large plastic cup with a straw in it and took a long gulp, wincing, then passed it to me.
Whiskey, he said, and a little Coke.
I took a long sip, thought of the woman at the gas station from some time ago. Even the haziness was hazy. I took another sip and felt my shoulders fall, felt my body settle lower into the floor. I smiled at Nelson. He smiled back, took the cup, and drank from it again.
I don’t really play checkers, he said quietly, barely moving his mouth, glancing back toward the door. I have my cup back here. They leave me alone and I have my cup. Two more years, then I’m gone. I’ll go somewhere, and I’ll never come back. He took another sip, then spread the black and the red pieces around on the board, the numb action of something he’d done hundreds of times. Never, he said. He turned one of the black pieces on its side and pushed it forward and backward like a wheel that couldn’t go anywhere.
How old are you? He waited a long while for me to reply. I shook my head. I won’t tell them you said anything.
I looked out at the yard; brick pathways lit by tiny lamps wound between fountains and planes of grass and flower beds resting for the night. In the far corner of the yard a massive tree was spotlit from below, casting agonized shadows.
I don’t know.
He nodded. Where did you come from?
I shrugged.
They really found you in a church?
I was sleeping, I said.
Yeah, not much else you can do there but sleep. They take me every week. My whole family was killed in the name of God and now these people want me to sing a hymn like it was all some kind of misunderstanding. Must have been some other guy.
He used a red piece to jump diagonally over a black piece, then used that black piece to jump diagonally over the red, a game against himself.