Blacktop Wasteland(32)

“We should take a picture of it before your Mama makes him wash it off,” Beauregard said. The detail in the drawing was uncanny. Javon had even added the iconic “Snikt!” in a thought bubble above Wolverine’s head.

“No, I’m never washing it off,” Darren wailed. Beauregard scooped him up with one arm and slung him over his shoulder.

“You gonna have to take a bath someday. You can’t walk around with a shitty butthole,” he said. Darren exploded with laughter. Javon walked past them carrying his backpack and Darren’s bag of crayons, coloring books and action figures. He climbed in the truck and put in his ear buds.

“Hey Beau,” Jean said. She had appeared at the door like a wraith.

“Hey Jean. How ya doing?” Beauregard said. His sister-in-law crossed her arms. She and Kia had similar features, but Jean had a video model’s shape. Full in the hips and the chest with a figure like a Coke bottle.

“Oh, I’m doing alright. You are looking good, though. Being your own boss agrees with you.”

“Well, you should know all about that.”

“Yeah. I’m used to doing things my own way by myself. When you do it that way, you never get disappointed. At the end of the day, you’re always satisfied,” Jean said.

Beauregard felt his face get hot. “Well, I’m gonna get on down the road,” he said. Jean smiled and faded back into the house. Beauregard carried a still giggling Darren to the truck and put him next to his brother. They backed out of the driveway and headed home.

“Is Aunt Jean lonely doing everything by herself?” Darren asked. He had his hand out the window waving it up and down in the wind.

“I think Aunt Jean is just fine,” Beauregard said.

They pulled into their own driveway and Darren was out and running to the house before Beauregard had put the truck into gear. Javon didn’t move. During the ride, Darren had fished his Iron Man action figure out of his bag. He was now pitting Iron Man against the geranium Kia kept on the porch.

“Are we gonna be okay?” Javon asked.

Beauregard sat back against the bench seat of the truck. “Why you asking me that?”

“I’ve heard you and Mama talking,” Javon said. He had pulled his ear buds down around his neck.

“We gonna be fine. We might have hit a rough patch, but you ain’t gotta worry about that. All you need to do is get ready for the eighth grade,” Beauregard said.

“Mama was on the phone the other night saying she might have to get another job because that Precision place opened up,” Javon said.

“Listen. Don’t you worry about Precision or your mom getting another job. All you gotta worry about is hitting them books and getting through high school,” Beauregard said.

“I wish I could just go to work too. I could get a job helping Uncle Boonie. I hate school. It’s boring. The only thing I like is art class and I can do that on my own,” Javon said. Beauregard drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He knew Javon was struggling in math. Beauregard had tried to help him. He tried his best to unravel the Pythagorean theorem or scientific notation for Javon but he knew he was a piss-poor teacher. He couldn’t seem to explain angles and variables to Javon in a way that made sense to his son. Beauregard just seemed to get it and it was hard to articulate how he got it to someone else. He figured Javon felt the same way about drawing. His son was smart and talented, just in a different way. His Daddy used to say you didn’t call a fish dumb because it couldn’t climb a tree.

Beauregard held his hand up in front of his son’s face.

“You see this grease on my hands? I’ve washed them five times today and it still won’t come all the way off. Don’t get me wrong, there is no shame working with your hands for a living. But for me, it was the only choice I had. It don’t have to be that way for you. You wanna go to Auto and Diesel school and get a job working on race cars, that’s fine. You wanna go to VCU, take art classes and be a graphic designer, hey that’s fine too. You wanna be a lawyer or a doctor or a writer, ain’t nothing wrong with that either. Education gives you those choices.”

Beauregard sat back against the driver’s seat.

“Listen, when you’re a black man in America you live with the weight of people’s low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you right down to the goddamn ground. Think about it like it’s a race. Everybody else has a head start and you dragging those low expectations behind you. Choices give you freedom from those expectations. Allows you to cut ’em loose. Because that’s what freedom is. Being able to let things go. And nothing is more important than freedom. Nothing. You hear me, boy?” Beauregard said.

Javon nodded his head.

“Alright then. All I want you to worry about is keeping your head in them books. I’ll take care of everything else. Now help me get your brother in the house. We don’t watch him he’ll be out here all night fighting with that damn plant,” Beauregard said.

Beauregard got the boys inside and made them their favorite daddy dinner. Cheeseburger casserole with a pitcher of lemon-lime Kool-Aid. Later, after he had put them to bed, he waited up for Kia to get home. A little after eleven, she came stumbling into the house.

“What did you feed the boys?”

“Their favorite,” he said.

She collapsed next to him on the couch. In less than five minutes she was asleep. Beauregard got up and carried her to bed. Her lithe body wrapped around him like a snake. He laid her down in the bed and went back out to the living room to cut off the lights. He pulled his key ring out of his pocket. As he was hanging it on the key hook the key to the Duster slipped from the ring. The 8-ball at the end of the chain clattered across the floor. He bent over and picked it up. The letters ATM were scratched into the surface of the plastic resin on the miniature 8-ball. Tomorrow he would start working on the Buick. He’d have to go back up to Cutter County and check the route a few more times. He needed to go over the plan with Ronnie and that Quan character again and again. Boonie was right about Ronnie. He was playing some angle that only he could see. That was his way. It was like he was addicted to being duplicitous. Quan was a wannabe gangsta playing with a grown man’s gun. He didn’t trust either one of them, not even a little bit. His father had trusted his partners and they had tried to kill him in front of his only son. He had no intention of letting that happen to him.