Then out of nowhere she stood up and said it was time to bring out little brother dick.
Christ. Mine? To prove I was unfit for being adopted?
She didn’t say another thing, just went out and left me with Abraham Lincoln on my lap. In a few minutes she came back pushing a wheelchair with a little man in it.
Oh kay. Little brother Dick.
He was the size of a kid, but old and gray like her. With the same Melungeon look as her, the light eyes and dark, dark skin. These had to be my people. But in all the ways that she was tall and sturdy, he was little and crooked and pigeon-boned. It almost hurt to look at him, his little feet both turned to one side, not even reaching the footrests of his wheelchair. Shoulders hunched one way, head cocked the other. They had the exact same eyes though, the color of pond algae, hers with the thick glasses and his bare-naked, staring at me like a little child would. I sat still, letting those four green eyes go all over me.
“This is your great-nephew,” she told him. “Damon’s child.”
His eyes got wider, and mine probably did too. I’d never known my name was from my father. The little man’s mouth opened. It seemed like he was laughing, but nothing came out.
“A boy,” she said. “Not much to be done about that, is there?”
Brother Dick’s head shook sideways on its crooked track, agreeing with her, but he was looking at me with a kind of twinkle. Almost like, We’re in this boat together, my man.
“What should we do with him?” she asked.
He did the silent laugh again, nodding his head. His eyes crinkled up and he worked his mouth until sounds finally came out. It sounded like “Wortheemup.”
She nodded. “All right. That’s a good idea, I’ll run him a bath. And then what?”
Brother Dick looked me right in the eyes, reading me like a book. I wanted to look away but he didn’t let me. Then he looked the rest of me over like he could read that too. Every place I’d been, every damn thing I’d lost, the full shame and the pity of me. He seemed interested especially in my shoe that was wrapped in a bread bag. The nodding and working his mouth started again, like pumping a well handle until sounds came out: “Henees noothoos.”
“Oh, for the love of Pete. He does. I’ll ask Jane Ellen if she can hunt up some shoes to fit him. You have a sharp eye, little brother.”
She marched me upstairs to a bathroom with a tub. Yes. Goddamn son of a bitch. No shower, and not just your average tub, this sucker was big enough for boiling a hog. She showed me how to turn the taps and said I’d better take a good long soak while this Jane Ellen person rounded up some things for me to wear. Supposedly she had brothers in all the sizes. I sat on the toilet thinking about the Devil’s Bathtub that took out my dad, a hushed-up tale that had run rogue on my brain for all my days. I didn’t know what that place looked like and never would, but probably nothing like this long white china bowl. I stared the thing down, thinking: Okay devil, it’s you or me.
In the end I figured I’d probably live and be the better for a good soak, given the days of shit I needed to get off my skin. I ran the water, I held my breath, I stepped in. Eased my butt down into the deepest water I’d ever got into. Sat there, naked and not dead, letting a boatload of new info soak into my brain. My whole lifetime of having nobody, claiming a pretend mammaw, getting kicked to the back of every line while people with kin looked after their own: that was all a lie. I had my own. It’s a lot to turn over all at once. I had no idea what came next. Maybe nothing more for my trouble than some hand-me-down shoes, but still. I had my father’s name. These people looked like me. And had money, you had to think. I mean, that house. Parlors and washrooms, downstairs, upstairs, every room full of furniture. Chairs with goddamn feet. The bathtub I was sitting in had feet, that looked like scary bird claws. This is not a lie. If the devil had a bathtub, that would be the one.
Somebody had laid out so many clothes on the bed, it looked like an outlet store in there. I put on the most normal ones that fit and went downstairs to a big dinner cooked by my grandmother and this Jane Ellen individual, a heavyset girl with long, twisty black hair and a gap between her front teeth that she stuck her tongue in whenever she smiled, which was every time you looked at her. There was so much food. I was set to founder and die happy.
Jane Ellen was number eleven of the girls my grandmother had raised up and educated. She was in high school, worked part-time in the doctor’s office, and had lived at this house since she was eight. No discussion of where she came from before that, a mystery given the brothers around someplace not far away, with clothes evidently to spare. Not a pure orphan like me. She acted like living with my grandmother was the happiest life imaginable. They both treated Brother Dick like their pet, asking his opinions on things, leaning over to wipe off his chin. Our dinner was chicken, sweet potatoes, and green beans. His was this green milkshake thing they brought him in a big glass with a straw because one of his problems was with swallowing.
Before we ate, my grandmother asked me, “Do you return the blessing?”
No idea how to pass that test. I froze. Fork stuck in a piece of chicken, heart in my gullet.
“We don’t!” she said in her gruff voice. Jane Ellen and Brother Dick laughed, and we all dug in. She asked more questions, such as why Mom took up with such a bad apple after my father died. I could think of a few answers, starting with Mom having shit for brains, but due to politeness I just said lonesome I guess.
“Lonesome! Nothing lonesomer than getting shackled to a bully-man in his house of spite.” My grandmother looked at Jane Ellen, and for once there was no smile there. I got the idea they’d both done time in the spite house. My grandmother with her snake-handling husband, and as far as Jane Ellen went, who knew. I wanted to tell them it’s not just girls that end up inside four walls of hate and knuckles for breakfast, it can be anybody. Hate comes along and lays out the damn doormat and there you are. But I kept my mouth shut. It’s safer knowing more about people than they know about you.
After dinner my grandmother and Brother Dick smoked cigarettes. His legs and the rest of him weren’t much count, but his hands were amazing. Tiny and clean, the fingernails rounded off, holding the cigarette like a little white bird perched in his hand, singing its song of pretty blue smoke. I tried not to stare. The brother was more like a sister, and vice versa.
They put me up that night in the room with all the clothes, now folded and put away so I could sleep in the bed, which was the size of a ship, with tall wooden posts in all four corners, for what reason I have no idea. Like you might need to run up a flag in the night. The room smelled the same as the rest of the house, like dust and old people, and their doors had the old-fashioned keyholes like in the Peggot house. Maggot and I used to play around with those long iron keys because nobody at all cared if we buried them in the yard for treasure, tried melting them in a fire, or what. Not so here. My grandmother came and looked in on me after I was in bed. Then the door closed, and I heard the key turn and click. I was her prisoner.
But if I could run, where would I even go? Being locked in a room, or living my life in general, no difference. The only roads I knew were full of people that would sooner run me over than help me out. I could end up as dead as my mom and baby brother on any given day. I settled on being glad this was not the day. I had a full belly and wasn’t getting rained on. Tomorrow, another story. Probably the story of getting kicked out due to being a boy.
But this Dick person she doted on, asking for his advice and even taking it. That one I turned over and over. Then remembered what she’d said about people making their water. How he did that exactly, I couldn’t picture. But for sure, not standing up.
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