Welcome to Braggsville (15 page)

Daron yelled for his mom as he and Charlie helped Candice to the nearest chair, but even as her legs shook she stiffened, again because, Don't want to bleed all over it.

Charlie and Daron stood on either side of her, Charlie holding her arm, Daron the white plastic chair, insistent. Shit, Candice. It's plastic!

At last she sat, hunched head to knees with her legs pressed tight
together, her frenzied hands pawing her face as if she'd been contaminated with pepper spray, and silently wept, more shivers than sobs, her cries barely audible but her body everywhere shuddering in unmistakable grief. Daron felt the trembling in her arms traveling through the chair legs and the sand-set patio stone and into his feet with the insistence of electricity. Charlie felt it too, judging by his mournful expression. He looked on the verge of tears and was breathing steadily through his mouth to fight them back.

Candice, Candice, they whispered. Candice, tell us what happened. Can you tell us what happened?

She shook her head with a low moan and, without looking up, pointed in the direction from which she had come, the direction of the Holler. For some moments this was all she was able to communicate. Then she was still for a few minutes, during which time both Daron and Charlie tried calling Louis, but got no answer. When she did speak, it was in wet bursts between breaths. All of them . . . Barely got away . . . All of them were after me.

Louis? Where is he? Charlie looked over his shoulder toward the back fence. Is Louis back there?

Candice, where's Louis? Daron spoke slowly, nearly slow enough to spell it out. Louis? Where is Louis?

Candice shrieked and stomped. Looking at her feet Daron winced. The ankles and insteps red clay encrusted. The left little toenail ripped off. Muddy blood caulked the cuticle and the nail bed was red as a blister. They . . . took . . . him! They . . . took . . . him!

They who? They who?

Candice was sitting upright now, no longer clutching her blouse. Her bra, also tiger-striped, poked through the hole where the breast pocket would be. Charlie reached over and gingerly adjusted her shirt, but there wasn't enough fabric to cover everything.

She looked up at Daron, and her eyes, always a little sleepy in
a cute way, were inflamed, and her stare so fixed and piercing, her expression so numb, that Daron turned away, afraid that otherwise she would communicate with that gaze all that she had seen and he simply could not bear it, not in his town, not in his house. All of them, he heard her repeat, but he didn't look back, instead continuing the course he was charting through the yard away from her.

Charlie called 911 while Daron traced Candice's footsteps through the begonia bed and to the fence, on which she'd left a bit of her shins. In the distance he saw a feather of smoke—someone was burning trash. He had thought he smelled something burning. He hoisted himself up to the fence top. Footsteps in the dewy grass ran between the edge of the Davenport property and the wood line, forging a path that would cut through the Holler and into the Gully. He was thankful she had made it back. He'd heard tell of people lost to themselves in the Holler for years.

Charlie said something. Candice shrieked again, and yelled, I don't know! I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!

Daron cursed to himself. Last summer they had walked all the way from downtown Berkeley to downtown Oakland, because Candice wanted to see how black people really lived. (
Really lived,
she stressed. How they teased her. Will they have iron lungs and barometric chambers? Do they hang from the ceiling like bats?) Another time they high-stepped over every drunken cripple in the Tenderloin to see Little Saigon. She drove through Hunter's Point blasting Kreayshawn, and registered to tutor at San Quentin, where she already had a pen pal. Candice, with all her questions about where the black people lived and the Gully, had wandered off on a crusade and gotten herself raped by a nigger. Louis got hisself shanked or shot or Jehovah knew what trying to stop it. Daron was sure of it.

No wonder she was in such shock. She had come to Braggsville only to help. Candice must have felt terribly betrayed to be attacked
by the very people she so often advocated for. Daron could not imagine a deception of similar magnitude, except maybe learning much, much too late that you were adopted.

His next thought was to retrieve the shotgun in the hall closet. What if they came looking for her, chasing after her to get rid of the evidence? He had to go back for Louis, too. At the patio door he paused at Candice's side, unsure whether to touch her, unsure whether he wanted to. She twitched like she was possessed. Charlie squatted beside her, holding her hands, speaking in a soothing voice. She still refused to enter the house. Daron ran inside, calling for his mom again as he went. As he slid the patio door shut, out of habit—Were you raised by jackals, young man?—the cool, conditioned air gave him goose bumps and the smell of bacon made him want to vomit. It felt unreal. How could Candice be out there in that state, just inches away, when inside it was so safe?

From the kitchen, he dialed 911 for an ETA, and was quickly frustrated by the operator's request for more details, because details would only improve the possibility of a positive outcome. That's exactly how the operator said it. Positive outcome. Daron wasn't certain there could be a positive outcome after rape, but he told what he knew: she was attacked in the woods near the Gully. He tried calling Louis again. No answer.

He then retrieved the gun and walked back outside. Candice sat with her face hidden in the crook of her arm. Charlie knelt beside her, stroking her hair. His hand was large enough to cover almost half her face, and yet his every touch was gentle and controlled, like Chamber had been with children. Daron thought Candice's self-control was commendable. She didn't flinch, even though only moments ago she'd been pawed and clouted by hands much-too-much like Charlie's. Then again, soothing looked to come natural to him. When he saw the gun in Daron's hand, he turned ashen.

Are you up for this? asked Daron, pulling him to his feet and out of earshot.

What are you planning, D? I don't think you can take them all.

How many were there?

She says it was all of them, Charlie whispered. It must have been the whole town.

All of them. They were all around. In every direction. They took Louis. They were everywhere. It was like a riot, said Candice, or at least that's what Daron thought he heard. He was not sure because her face was still tucked into her arm. When he said that he couldn't hear her, asked her to tell him again, she lifted her head only enough to pull her shirt collar up to her eyebrows and declared, All of them.

All of them?

Daron waited a few moments, but all she had to say was: All of them.

Are you up for this? Daron again asked Charlie, gesturing with the gun.

Charlie's regretful expression was answer enough.

Daron stepped around him. He could do this on his own. Hunting was one thing, but Daron could do this. It had been hard not to feel a smug pride when he brought home this menagerie. It was, of course, mixed (one part anxiety—one part pride—one part concern they'd think his family nuts), but it was hard not to have considered himself urbane, sophisticated with Charlie in the front with his mom, Daron himself volunteering to ride bitch in the back so that he would be between Louis and Candice, feel her leg against his, and at the same time showcase them all, but now he felt as if he had driven through town with a fourteen-point buck strapped across his hood. Of course by nightfall everyone would be cold-nosing the back door after a slice.

M
r. Davenport drove Daron and Charlie in the white Bronco. Candice and Mrs. Davenport had gone ahead in an ambulance. County General was a squat, meagerly windowed seventies brick building that resembled a school more than a hospital, which meant that it looked like a prison. Smelled like one, too. The emergency room was fit to bust with reenactors, so many that they overflowed into the waiting area, and then the smoking lounge outside, most still wearing their heavy wool Confederate uniforms. Daron had half expected to find Louis among them, doing his version of a USO standup routine for the troops. But he wasn't. And he still wasn't answering his phone.

Daron's father led the way from the parking lot, followed by Daron, and Charlie several steps behind, out of anger or to avoid family frictions, Daron didn't know. Whenever he looked back at his friend dragging the toes on his classic high-tops, Charlie avoided his gaze.

The porter directed them to reception directed them to emergency directed them back to reception directed them to triage; all the clogs knew who, but none knew where. While his father talked to the triage supervisor, an embarrassed Daron meandered over to Charlie, who picked up a retirement magazine and busied himself
reading. They had not shared a sentence since the paramedics arrived at the Davenport home and Daron's mom informed them there was no rape (cutting her eyes at Daron), though the EMTs wanted to bring Candice in for X-rays and to let a doctor look at her feet. By that point, Candice was calm enough to explain that Louis had not been taken by Gulls but carried off by Confederate soldiers after passing out. But, when Daron thought about it, Charlie had stopped speaking before then, before the ambulance, before Daron charged into the wood only to be recalled by sirens. Charlie had stopped talking when he saw the gun. Daron extended his hand. Charlie flipped the magazine page with a snap.

I'm sorry. I just freaked out.

I know, answered Charlie. I was there.

You know I'm not . . . I just panicked.

I know, answered Charlie. I was there. I heard you.

You were there? You heard me? That's it?

Don't get hot with me, no suh. Please don't shoot me suh, no suh. I's sorry, Mr. Security Guard suh. Mr. Neighborhood Watch suh.

You sound like a white dude trying to do a black dude.

Daron! His father gave him the hairy eyeball.

Daron repeated himself in a hushed tone, adding, Louis does a better black voice than you.

Hopefully, that means you won't shoot me, whispered Charlie. Suh.

I never said I was going to . . . I never meant . . . You saw her. Her pants. The zipper. His hands fanned the air before his groin. Her underwear was showing through. He pressed his hands to his chest. Her shirt all out of sorts. What else could I think?

I don't know, Daron. She wasn't in the same outfit she was wearing when we dropped her off. Maybe she was dressed like a slave? Did you think about that? You stupid motherfucker. Charlie sat back and crossed his arms, head cocked to the side. Dressed like a slave. Think of that? Did you?

Daron hadn't. He had jumped to a conclusion, or as Nana always accused him of doing, jumped to a confusion. Deep shame blood-hounded him, not because he had thought Candice was raped. He still contended he had good reason to suspect that. What troubled him, though, was a moment of faint suspicion, too faint, tenuous even in hindsight, when he had doubted Charlie, when he wondered if Charlie's reluctance to enter the Holler was a twisted allegiance to his race. Daron didn't even know why he would think such a thing about his friend, and for that reason accepted Charlie's scorn as deserved. He expected Charlie to calm down in a few hours. Louis, on the other foot, was never going to let Daron live this down. Don't tell Loose, okay? Do you have to tell Loose?

Daron's father finished his conversation with the triage supervisor and came and stood near the boys, which was just as well. The crumpled magazine like a bow tie in his fist, Charlie was now sitting with his chin to his chest like a bull ready to charge, tapping his incisor with his fingernail. According to Daron's father, no Chang had been checked in, but who knew with all the chaos. Fortunately, one of the Braggsville deputies recognized them and waved them through the confusion.

Real sorry 'bout your friend there, Daron. He put a hand on Daron's shoulder. Didn't get checked in up here. He's downstairs. You want to see him?

Which way?

The order reversed. His father lagged behind while Daron and Charlie walked abreast of the deputy, nearly ahead of him, and would have run had they known the way. After taking the elevator down one floor, traveling through a wide service passage with multicolored pipes lining the wall on either side, they climbed stairs back to a ground-level hallway and found themselves facing a wooden door with a green pebbled window across which was written:
CORONER
.

Charlie patted his face with his open hands, audibly.

Confused, Daron looked at his father, and then at the deputy.

We came around to avoid the crowd up there. You didn't know what I meant by downstairs? The deputy looked distressed. Shit, Daron. I thought you knew what I meant, but just not how to get here. No one told you? The deputy looked at Mr. Davenport for help.

Mr. Davenport offered his hand. Thank you, Tom. Let me get a minute with the boys.

Of course. I'll just inform the coroner now that y'all here. The deputy opened the door a crack and whispered to someone on the other side, listened a moment. And whispered again, louder, It's his friends. That wouldn't be right. He gently closed the door, nodded to Daron's father, and leaned against the far wall.

Daron. Charlie. Mr. Davenport. All three stood facing the door. As if trying to make out the meaning of the letters etched in the glass. C-O-R-O-N-E-R. Certainly a misunderstanding, a case of mistaken identity. Certainly. No one died in Braggsville unexpectedly. Not because of a joke. Unless it was a sick joke on Louis's part. Daron'd heard the deputy, heard his father, heard the coroner, but Daron knew it was a mistake—certainly—until his father turned so that he was between Daron and Charlie and the door, turned with a certain determination, as if to shield them, turned with the resolution of the sentenced, faced Daron and Charlie, palmed their necks, squeezed once, swallowed, nodded as if he had rehearsed this speech, as if he knew beforehand what to expect, and Daron rolled his shoulder back and pulled away from his father, away from the unwelcome awareness that his father
had
rehearsed this speech, performed this speech in Iraq, oh how many times, Daron didn't know, but often enough to have an expression on his face that Daron had never before seen but knew with certainty meant this is no mistake, that meant, Son, your friend is dead. That much is certain. Now you must go
through that door there and identify his body. You invited him here and you owe him that much. That much is certain, as unthinkable as it is, that much is certain.