Stones in the Road (8 page)

Oh no!

You’re a good kid, and God loves you, and I do, and so does Papa.

Did Mama love me?

I’m sure she did
.

There was a hint of doubt in his eyes as he turned away.

I want to talk to you about your school
, I said.

His face fell.

You want to tell me about it
? I asked.

He shook his head.

You’re not doing well. They want you to repeat fifth grade.

No!

I’m sorry.

But, Daddy, I tried so hard!

I know you did, sweetie.

But my friends are going to be ahead of me!

I know.

It’s not fair!

I’m sorry, sweetie.

No
!

He turned and ran from the living room and disappeared into his bedroom, slamming the door with such force that the apartment rang with the sound of it.

L
ATER
,
AS
I washed dishes in the kitchen while listening to country music on KUDZU (“No rock, no rap, and no crap!”), my phone rang, and an unfamiliar number flashed on the screen.

“May I speak to Mr. Wiley Cantrell?” a female voice asked.

“This is Wiley.”

“This is Susan North with the Mississippi Department of Human Services. How are you, Mr. Cantrell?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I need to arrange a time to see you and do a home visit. When would be a good time for you?”

Do a home visit?

DHS?

The frikkin’ DHS?

Seriously?

Noah and I were not exactly strangers to government types, given that he was on Medicaid and was a child with disabilities with special educational needs, and that we had both been on food stamps and public housing assistance for most of his life, since attracting decent-paying jobs to the state of Mississippi was little more than a pipe dream, but we had never had dealings with the DHS.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” I said, a bit thrown. “What’s this about?”

“Mr. Cantrell, there is some concern about your son, Noah. Noah lives with you, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“We’ve received a report that there may be something going on in the home. Of course, whenever we receive a report, we are required to investigate, and the first step in that process is to arrange a time when we can sit down and talk together and conduct a home visit. Would you be free tomorrow?”

“Conduct a home visit?” I said, incredulous.

“Yes, Mr. Cantrell.”

She fell silent, waiting for me to catch up.

“Conduct a home visit?” I said again after a long pause. “As in, you’re investigating me for child abuse?”

“We are required by law to respond to any report we might receive,” she explained.

“What kind of report are you talking about?”

“I can explain more fully when I see you. Would tomorrow be all right? I can come by at noon, and we can get all of this cleared up.”

“You’re welcome to come anytime,” I said in somewhat of a huff. “Are you telling me someone filed a complaint against me with the DHS?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. Should I come by tomorrow at noon?”

“Sure,” I said.

“From what I understand, there’s another man living at your place of residence….”

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re having a…
relationship
… with this man?”

I fell silent.

“Mr. Cantrell?”

“What is the point of this?” I asked.

“Mr. Cantrell, it’s my job to make sure Noah is being cared for properly. Nothing more. I’m sure we’ll be able to clear all of this up when I see you. We receive many calls, of course, and we’re obligated to respond, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything going on. Merely a concern. My job is to ascertain the well-being of the child, and that’s what we’ll do. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. As I was saying, there’s another male living at the residence?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How is he related to you and Noah?”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh. I see. His name is…?”

“Jackson Ledbetter. He’s from Boston.”

“Will Mr. Ledbetter be available for our meeting?”

“I’ll check his work schedule.”

“I would like him to be there, if at all possible.”

“Fine.”

“This is not an adversarial process, Mr. Cantrell. I hope you understand that. I need to ascertain the well-being of your child. That’s my job.”

“Okay.”

“If there’s nothing going on in the home, then you have nothing to worry about.”

“There’s nothing going on,” I assured her.

“Then we should be fine. I will see you tomorrow at noon?”

“Sure.”

“Now please be sure to keep our appointment, Mr. Cantrell. I will be bringing a translator for the hearing impaired with me, because I understand your son is hearing impaired. Is that right?”

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“Tomorrow at noon?”

“Fine.”

I put the phone down on the table and stared at it for long moments, feeling like I’d just been sucker punched.

The DHS?

What the hell?

W
HY
ARE
there so many forks
? Noah asked, staring with apprehension at the elegantly laid table in front of us.

I don’t know
, I admitted.
I think you’re supposed to put the napkin on your lap. Just try to do what Papa does
.

He frowned unhappily. Since I’d given him the news about repeating fifth grade, his mood was black as night.

A waiter pulled a chilled bottle of wine—or champagne, or whatever it was—out of a bucket of ice, and for a moment I thought I was on the set of
Downton Abbey
. It was not Downton Abbey, of course, but much worse: it was Frenelli’s in downtown Tupelo on a Friday evening with summer kicking up its heels as a raft of severe weather prepared to move into the area.

“It’s so lovely. You must come here often,” Mrs. Ledbetter said to Jackson.

“Well, no,” Jackson said.

“You
are
what you eat,” she pointed out.

“Which makes me a gigantic cheese grit,” I said.

Mrs. Ledbetter looked at me sharply, offering an uncertain smile. “When you don’t know where you’re going, Willis, any road will take you there.”

“Are you suggesting my life has no direction?” I asked.

“So you’re not completely stupid,” she said, peering above her menu. “But don’t worry. If jellyfish can survive for six hundred and fifty million years without brains, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

“Mom!” Jackson said angrily.

“Well, Jackie, the only way he’s going to get any smarter is if he dies and comes back as a tomato plant. When I asked him to spell Mississippi, he wanted to know whether I was referring to the river or the state. Then he wanted to know if it took eighteen months to have twins, or just nine.”

“I did not!” I said indignantly, taking her bait. If there had been a polite way to slap the shit out of an old woman in public, I would have done it.

“The fastest way to wipe out illiteracy would be to set all these Southerners on fire,” she added.

“He’s not stupid, Mom!” Jackson said.

“He can’t defend himself?” she inquired.

Their eyes turned to me.

Mrs. Ledbetter took a long drag on her vape pen, eyeing me coyly.
Come and get it
, her eyes were saying.
Hit me with your best shot, Mr. Man
!

“You know,” I said, “there
is
one aspect about conservative Christianity that I quite agree with. A woman, according to St. Paul in the Bible, is supposed to keep her mouth shut. Unless, of course, a man needs somewhere to put his dick.”

This was greeted with a tense, rather uncomfortable silence. Mr. Ledbetter’s eyes went wide. Jackson looked mortified. The waiter pouring the wine paused rather dramatically. But Mrs. Ledbetter burst into a hearty bout of laughter.

“Very good, Willy,” she said, nodding and pointing her vape pen at me. “Well done! I like a man who has balls. It’s so refreshing, especially in the present company.”

She turned her attention to the waiter, an impatient look on her heavily made-up features. “May I confess something to you, dear?” she asked him with an upturn of her chin. “This menu you’ve got here… all of it looks like absolute rubbish. I mean, honestly, how many pairs of shoes did you have to scrape to come up with this nonsense?”

The waiter, a young man with prematurely thinning hair, looked rather flummoxed.

“Will you do a lady a favor and just pick something for me? Will you, dear? Anything you would recommend? And hopefully it will be something that doesn’t require a trip to the emergency room. Not to mention spending the whole night sitting in a water closet. And I don’t want it fried in twenty-seven inches of lard, if you please. And nothing that’s been dead for more than three years. I
do
like things that are fresh. The food here is reasonably fresh, isn’t it? Nothing that’s been imported from Mongolia, I should think? Nothing’s that been ordered on eBay and sent through the US Mail? And nothing that was pulled out of a ditch? And please, no squirrels. No possum pâté or anything else along those lines. Is that too much to ask, darling?”

“Not at all,” the waiter said nervously, jotting something down on his pad. “Perhaps a salad?”

“Yes, I think that would be wise.”

“You’re much too picky,” Mr. Ledbetter said.

“I don’t pay good money to eat rubbish,” she said sharply.

“And I suppose the food tastes better when it’s seasoned with the waiter’s tears,” I said.

“He’s a man,” she said dismissively. “And the only man I’ve ever known who had an actual feeling about something besides baseball and Angelina Jolie’s tits recently had a sex change and is now known as Dorothy.”

“Castrated another male, I see,” Mr. Ledbetter offered.

“The world is full of men who don’t know what to do with their balls,” she replied.

“Would you guys please not do this now?” Jackson asked.

“Do what, dear?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked. “Oh, I forgot. Any discussion that involves testicles is bound to make
you
nervous, isn’t it, dear?”

Jackson frowned.

“Of course,” Mrs. Ledbetter went on, “a man with testicles would have stuck it out at med school and become a doctor. But you’re a
nurse
. How wonderful! I’ll never forget my great happiness when my only son came home one day and told me he wanted to be a nurse. I was so,
so
proud! My son, the
nurse
!”

“Mom, please,” Jackson said desperately.

“Being a doctor was what
you
wanted,” Mr. Ledbetter pointed out. “It was never what he wanted.”

“Doctors make ever so much more money.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Mr. Ledbetter said.

“But it can buy everything,” she countered. “Isn’t that right, Willis?”

“My name is Wiley!” I snapped.

“You say that like it matters.”

“It
does
matter.”

“Actually, I use nicknames for all my friends. Haven’t quite decided what yours will be yet. Willy is an obvious choice, if only because it’s a euphemism for penis, which seems to be all you have going for you from what I can see. And it must be a very large penis. I understand Jackson is fond of those.”

“Excuse me?”

“I would prefer something more colorful for you,” she went on. “Of course, I’ve already decided on a nickname for
it
.”

“It?” I said.

“Your spawn,” she said, throwing her eyes sideways to look at Noah. “I think I’ll just call him Bob.”

“Bob?”

“As in Bob Marley, dear. You know. The dead man with dreadlocks. Did a lot of dope back in the day.”

“I like his hair,” I said, glancing at Noah’s cornrows.

“It’s perhaps the only interesting thing about him,” she observed.

“You don’t even know him!”

“Isn’t that why we’re having dinner?” she countered. “Meet and greet? Press the flesh? Getting to know you? Should we play party games? Will that help?”

“By the way, my son is not retarded,” I blurted out, surprised at how angry I still was about that little comment.

“You really are very sensitive, aren’t you?” She took a long drag on her vape pen. “Words are just words. People put too much emphasis on words. Everyone has to be so politically correct. How boring.”

“I’m sure there’s a nicer word for people who pick on children with disabilities,” I said, “but I’ll settle for
bitch
.”

“But I
am
a bitch, dear. Haven’t you figured that out? God knows I have my reasons.”

“Well, then I guess
that’s
okay,” I snapped.

Jackson gasped a little bit.

“You’ll have to forgive my wife,” Mr. Ledbetter with a smile. “Since they upped her dosage, she just hasn’t been the same. But tell us about your book, Wiley.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Ledbetter said, “tell us all about your book, Wilfred. After all, it’s not every day one goes out in public and blurts out all one’s transgressions for the whole world to see. I hope you made some money off it. Most prostitutes do.”

“Give it a rest,” Mr. Ledbetter said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. “I applaud his honesty.”

“Do you really want your son hanging out with crack whores and rednecks and trailer trash? Not to speak of all these human-like creatures with bad teeth. Not to speak of the tornadoes and crocodiles and goodness knows what else.”

“My wife exaggerates,” Stephen said easily. “Are you selling many books?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s only been a few months.”

“Did you tell our little Bob that he’s deaf because you were a meth head?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked.

“I was
not
a meth head,” I replied rather angrily. I’d been saying that a lot since the book came out.