The second convenience involved two women, only one of whom Eric knew about. Mike was considering moving in Doneesha, a black nursing student, once Eric had been gone two weeks and Mike was sure Barb wouldn’t phone hysterically to take him back. (Mike was certain that, for the first few days, Barb would be ridiculously strict. Then, after the fifth or sixth blow-up, she would give in and let him run wild. Not that he’d do anything terrible. Eric was a good kid — and had a brain.) Eric had liked Doneesha, the time Mike had taken them all for dinner at Applebee’s. Till then Mike could have some fun here with the other, Kelly-Ann, Jake’s new office intern. (Kelly-Ann was a chestnut-haired, green-eyed Dominican.) Even Jake didn’t know they’d made it — in the Chevy, pulled off among the trees behind a derelict window frame factory, the second time Mike had driven Kelly-Ann out to her aunt’s.
“I already started packin’—I told you when we were eatin’.”
Mike liked his kid. He’d miss Eric.
Mounting the bench, leaning back on the object somewhere between a time machine and a bicycle, Mike gripped the bar and smiled. “I don’t know why I keep rememberin’ this.”
At the change in his father’s voice, Eric looked over.
“One time or another, I’ve thought about this every day for the three years you been here. Maybe I’m tellin’ you now ’cause you’re goin’ off.”
Eric had the indulgent look of someone pretty sure what Mike was going to say. Actually Mike came out with the story regularly.
“When I got home on the bus — that time I come back from the pokey, when we was in Hugantown — the door was open, so I set my suitcase on the porch and walked in. I wasn’t even sure I had the right house. But you was standin’ in the hall, and you seen me. And your eyes got so big — I thought at first you was scared. But then you opened your arms and got this…smile! And I realized you recognized me. So I grabbed you up and hugged you, and you laughed, and laughed. You was so happy!” Eric had been five when Mike had spent fourteen months in jail — his third arrest, his single conviction (coke). Inside, Mike had done a fair amount of lifting. He’d told lots of people since, jail had knocked some sense into him. That had been when he and Barb had been in West Virginia, before he’d got to Georgia. “I started callin’ out for Barb. She was in the back and come in. I’d been afraid you wasn’t gonna know who I was. You hadn’t seen me in more’n a year. Then we’re sittin’ in the kitchen, all three of us, you on my lap. And you reached up and started pattin’ my head — ’cause, you remember, I didn’t shave it back then. At first I didn’t know what you was doin’. So I sat there — and so did Barb. You turned to your mama, and you said, ‘Daddy’s got puffy hair. Mama, I want puffy hair. Like Daddy’s. I want puffy hair, mama. Why can’t I have puffy hair?’ And we started laughin’, and I hugged you so hard.” Both Mike and Eric had neat, small heads with neat, small ears, though Mike’s features were broad, full, and black while Eric’s were sculpted and Slavic, gilded by Georgia summer. Even so, because of their shared head shape, some people, who’d never known Barbara, assumed Mike was Eric’s blood father despite the extremities in hair, in hue. It tickled Eric and — sometimes — annoyed Mike. “I mean, I’d always wondered how that was for you: a white kid with a black dad. But right then, I realized, you was my kid. I mean, completely and absolutely mine.”
“I still think black hair is more sensible and better lookin’.” Eric’s indulgence became a grin. “But it’s interestin’ to know how long I felt that way.” Three weeks ago, with the battery clippers, Mike had cut it for him again. “Nappy hair’s a lot better than the straight white…stuff I got.”
“Well, next time I see you, if you got some fool white boy dreadlocks or come in here all cornrowed or anything else stupid lookin’, I’m gonna tell you straight out you look like an asshole.” With a smile and mock gruffness, Mike returned the indulgence.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry.” Eric reached up to rub his eighth of an inch of white-blond growback. “Hey, it’s my head, ain’t it?”
Mike grunted. Then they both laughed. A year ago, Mike thought, he’d have gotten mad at me for saying that, even as a joke. (Though he better not come back here with no dreads…) Yeah, he’s growing up.
[F] THRESHOLD UNDER HIS instep, the ball of his foot pressed linoleum. His heel lifted from carpet.
In the kitchen, streaked with gray gravy, four foil trays from the Hearty-Beef Hungry-Man dinners they’d eaten earlier leaned in the sink — waiting to be rinsed before going into the trash. Beside the microwave at the counter’s back, Eric pushed through the stairwell’s blue door — his rear foot left smooth flooring. The forward one came down on cloth — while the repeating squeee-clink from what would be Mike’s last session followed him down the shabby runner, irregularly tacked to the stairs.
By the mailboxes (MICHAEL MALCOLM JEFFERS/ERIC LINDEN JEFFERS, which Eric had lettered on an index card with blue, black, and red Sharpies, then taped to the steel face), he went into the dark garage, skirted Mike’s Chevy — underfoot, the concrete was cool — pushed open the door, and loped up four wooden steps to his room — the boards were warm — digging a forefinger into his nose, scraping loose what crust his nail caught, then sucking it off his finger.
It was a habit he’d become addicted to in earliest childhood, which — at least for today — he was trying to do only when alone.
The thick-tired wheels from his mountain bike hung on the green planks. In the corner leaned the frame. Three cartons stood open around the floor in which he’d already put his Magic cards, his Phillip Pullman and horror novels, his Tuckman, his Scama, compilation volumes of The Walking Dead and the Hernandez Brothers — on top of Howard Cruse, Belasco, all the issues of Meatmen he’d been able to find with any drawings by “Mike,” half a dozen Hun volumes, the two issues of Porky, and the single (so far) Brother to Dragons. With only the street light through the leaves outside the window, Eric pushed down his gym pants — he did not shower — and collapsed on the iron daybed’s sheet and rumpled army blanket, already masturbating. Five minutes later, he gasped in a big breath, then licked the ham of his thumb and three of his fingers, his palm, his wrist. Taking another breath, he wiped the rest on his belly, and rolled to his side. The last time he’d talked to Barbara on the phone, she’d said something about a porch doing for his room in Diamond Harbor. It didn’t sound too private. But she’d also said they were off in the woods, somewhere. (Barbara, he figured, was between boyfriends, which is probably why she wanted him now. With trepidation he wondered how long that would last.) Between the bed and the wall, a brown bench was his night table. When his breathing slowed to sleep’s rhythm, his fists were between his thighs, his gym pants were on the floor, and the digital clock on the bench said nine-oh-four.
[E] WHEN IT SAID five-forty-two, Eric woke up, sat up, stood up —
Because of the street light outside, through the high window he could see none of the blue behind the leaves, nudging Atlanta toward its six-twenty sunrise. On the bench Eric moved the porn magazine, cover uppermost: CHICKS (in case Mike came in) WHO LOVE ’EM BIG & BLACK!