Welcome to Braggsville (27 page)

Get Daron's stuff together.

He can pack himself.

This isn't summer camp.

That's my point.

Roger that. His father closed the drawer with his hip and set his mother's suitcases on the ribbed luggage stand beside the dresser. The drawer action was smooth, as quiet as the rubber clap of a refrigerator door, and he looked back to be sure it had closed. Sightsee? Treat it like a vacation? It costs as much.

May as well make a stay of it. His mother smiled wryly, as often happened when she approved of an idea but intended to put up an argument anyway. She must have changed her mind, because after a moment she agreed, This trip to El Cerrito did cost as much as a trip to El Mexico. She snorted and pointed to the trundle bed on which
Daron sat. His father had wanted to stay in Fisherman's Wharf, his mother near Union Square, but after hours online, they settled for this suburb north of Berzerkeley.

What does El Cerrito mean? mused his mother. Well? She repeated her question.

I don't know.

Then I'm not sure why we're paying for that smartphone.

Methuselah! Three days of this, thought Daron, tapping out his search. A moment later he muttered, Little hill.

Thank you, D-dear.

That evening Daron said he wanted to go for a walk and made his way to the El Cerrito del Norte BART station to catch the train to campus, sunglasses on and a hat pulled over his ears for the ten-minute ride. At every stop he regarded oncoming passengers with apprehension, and when the train reached Berzerkeley, he exited one stop before campus and walked the rest of the way. One of the blue bulletin boards on Sproul Plaza had been dedicated to Louis and was covered with photos, notes, cards, letters, candles. Daron could not bring himself to go close enough to read the notes or inspect the photos. Instead he walked to Candice's dorm, moving always with a crowd. She was not in her room. The roommate's eyes flitted about as if afraid to be seen talking to him. Are you sure? With a deliberate step, the roommate pushed into the hall before opening the door wide enough to grant full view of the posters, the books, and the folded sheets stacked on Candice's stripped bed, the bare desk. I could be mistaken. Asked when she last saw her, the roommate's voice said, The night before your trip; but her tone, her tone—the pitch and enunciation were those usually reserved for eyewitnesses in missing persons cases on shows like
CSI Miami
—her tone said, I last saw Candice when she climbed into the car with you. Those eyes again, as if calling for help. If she calls, ask her to call me, please. The way the roommate nodded, Daron knew she wouldn't keep her
promise any more than a Capulet. After the roommate's facial expression and tone gutted Daron, the familiarity of Telegraph warmed his bones with its patchouli-hawking hippies and the exotic scents of the restaurants, until he was on that strip of sidewalk lined with vendors, beggars, and gutter punks, all of whom Louis would have had a joke for. By the time he was at People's Park, he knew it was too soon, too soon.

The next morning, after a few hours of his father's horrid night sounds, Daron awoke to find his parents at the desk, his mother in the chair, his father seated next to her on the luggage stand. His mother was studying a map. She occasionally flipped it over to read the legend before marking another destination. His father took notes and read the landmark descriptions aloud, his voice dramatic when describing Muir Woods or the Golden Gate, and less enthusiastic about the Union Square Shopping District, Coit Tower, and the Mission, though there was at all times a tenderness in his tone, an affection that Daron had understood at last in tenth grade as the reason why they had two cars but so frequently drove everywhere together, his mother dropping his father off even when her Saturday
A.M
. errands ran in the opposite direction.

Daron had heard that Europeans frequently landed on these shores laboring under the enthusiasm of ignorance and impossible itineraries, unaware of the magnitude of the United States of America, into which every EU country could fit twice and still leave room for most of Mexico to rest its head, leastways those who weren't already doing so. California was no different: the Davenports in the New World. His parents eyed L.A. and the Redwood National Park with equal ardor when both were at least a day's drive away, in opposite directions. He'd expected to play the tour guide, but this morning, knowing more than his parents about anything, even regional geography, frightened him, left him feeling exposed.

You coming?

Let the boy hang out with his friends.

I have to meet a few professors.

Or that.

Want us to come?

It's college, Mom. I kinda have to go alone.

His mother tilted her head as if she needed to do that to take him all in. Are you okay with this memorial? Do you want to go later or earlier, after the crowd? We can go with you. Your father can go in and see if Mrs. Chang is there. Or gone yet, if we go after.

Thanks, Mom, but I don't need to go. I'll find another way.

That day there were three events honoring Louis. After the Changs' San Francisco service, the university was hosting a colloquium and poetry reading on race and liberty (
The Body Linguistic: Syntax, Sexicons and Civil Rights,
bait he wouldn't fall for under any circumstance, having learned the hard way that a sexicon was not a sexy-ass icon, but a lexicon inhabited by big-ass words, and that any course with a title such as Sexing the Victorian was about the lack thereof ). There was also a memorial remembrance sit-in at the university student center. Daron wondered what would be said at the colloquium and sit-in, what vitriol they would spray about the South. He wasn't curious enough to attend in person. He wouldn't have considered subjecting his parents to that. Not that anyone would recognize his parents, but they would be forced to witness Daron's humiliation, so those events he mentioned not at all.

As he watched his mother bite her pencil between circling Jack London Square and Alcatraz, and his father begin to memorize the major thoroughfares as he did before driving through any new city, drawing his finger along the streets while reciting street names, Daron felt an unexpected burst of respect and appreciation. They were willing to make a go of it for him, and that emotion harrowed him, provoking Daron to imagine them lost, or worse. He ignored it, but after they left, each kissing him on the head and telling him they
loved him, and all that remained was the scent of his mother's hair spray and his father's Brut, he locked himself in the bathroom and cried, overcome by the fear that he would never see them again. After drying his face, he found that they had left him two twenties and a ten beside the alarm clock, and he cried again because he felt, somehow, that he had never seen them before. What else had he missed?

When Daron was sure the tears had stopped—for good . . . finally . . . at last—he again caught the train to campus, arriving a couple hours before the colloquium. He decided against meeting with his professors and instead walked through Memorial Glade and up to the base of the Campanile to watch the waves: both the nearby students and the distant bay. Freshman year he'd often lunched here and wondered vaguely when the campus would feel like home. By the time the 4 Little Indians went to Braggsville, campus felt familiar, like a roommate who plays too many video games much too late at night but is otherwise reliable. The regional peculiarities were now badges. He knew what biodiesel was. He carried his own bag to the farmer's market. He went to the farmer's market! When it was time for the colloquium to begin, he visited Mrs. Brooks. He knocked on her open door, and she perked up at seeing him as no one had in weeks. After guiding him by the arm to a chair, she closed the door, her face as soft as Nana's.

Daron, Daron, Daron. Poor baby. How are you?

Daron picked at the seam of his pants. Mrs. Brooks sat patiently, holding the space, no fiddling with her phone or computer. When the mail alert sounded, she turned off her speaker and waited without complaint. How did she do it? After a long, long silence, he admitted, I don't know what to say. Sorry.

Don't be. Take all the time you want. All the time you need. I'm honored that you came to see me.

How long did you have to live in California before you learned to
say things like that without sounding stupid? Without sounding like you were practicing for an appearance on
Oprah
? How long did you have to live in California before you could hear things like that and believe them? Mrs. Brooks, there's an apostrophe in my name.

I know. Your name's been all over the news.

I'm sorry I lied to you, Mrs. Brooks.

Is that a lie, Daron? Can finding a personal truth ever be a lie? What if Chuck is a Chelsey inside? If a young person named Sheryl feels in her heart that she should identify as an Errol, is that a lie?

Daron rolled one shoulder. Chuck and Chelsey? Sheryl to Errol?

Or Saul to Paul. Malcolm X. George Eliot. You have the right to be who you say you are. But you also have that responsibility. You can be Da'ron, D'aron, Daron, or Chuck. But whoever you decide to be, be!

I tried being, he wanted to say. I found a like-minded group, he wanted to say. And look at what happened! he wanted to say. Daron felt his eyes welling. He stood. I have to go.

Wait a minute, Daron. Have you talked to any of your professors?

Don't matter. I'm not staying. The trip. Louis. I missed too much time.

These are extremely unusual circumstances. Try talking to them. Just try. Okay? We can even meet them here if you want to. But you must be willing to try.

Yes, ma'am.

Speak your piece even if your voice cracks.

Yes, ma'am. That advice appeared on many bumper stickers around town—mostly old Mercedeses converted to run on French fry grease, and Priuses. (Prii?) Daron had never shined to the saying. He always imagined a tree nut in ankle bells and tie-dye complaining faintly about global warming. Now, thinking about what it meant, he liked it even less.

And Daron, have you talked to any of the grief counselors? Any counselor?

No, ma'am. Sorry, I have to go. Now he really did.

She handed him a card for student mental health services. And hugged him. Hugged him and he tensed. And hugged him and he melted into it. And hugged him and he hoped—knew it wouldn't happen, but hoped—that maybe he could convince his parents to let him stay. What would his friends at home say? Perhaps his entire high school graduating class would jeer—Turd Nerd!—if they saw him sniveling in this black lady's office, but right now that didn't matter. Were they ever friends, or only fellow inmates?

C
OULD HE STAY
when people only knew bits and pieces of the story, sawdust really, rumors and hearsay gathered from student blogs, Tumblrs, the news, Facebook, patched together into a self-contradictory account—though every news outlet agreed on two points: (1) It was D'aron's idea; (2) D'aron had abandoned his friends. Professor Pearlstein officially said otherwise, but that didn't matter. Hirschfield had been right. Solely by virtue of being from Braggsville, Daron was assumed to be the diabolical mastermind who lured his roommate into a cruel trap. Surprised? At least one of James Byrd Jr.'s assailants knew him, and they still chained him to that truck, stated Francis Mohammed, leader of the Nubians, in one YouTube sermon.

Could he stay when part of him blamed the university for everything that had happened? Almost all of his professors offered to allow him to take incompletes, or submit work late and without penalty, except math class. They all seemed to sympathize, even the math prof, and he couldn't decide how he felt about that because he couldn't decide whether or not to leverage it, whether or not he wanted it, whether or not he deserved it; he was still in a state where solicitude only inflamed guilt.

But could he stay after he talked to the monocled history professor? After that professor suggested making his class project into an honors thesis? No. A repulsive suggestion. It was precisely the perverse type of academic thinking that caused the mess in the first place. It was as though academics thought the entire world was some kind of ant farm constructed for their pleasure and enjoyment and strained observations. He had no place in an institution that suggested personal loss be re-wrought, re-vised, re-fashioned as intellectual palaver, as a paper. Not even for honors.

W
HILE
D
ARON
WAS WITH
M
RS
. B
ROOKS
, there was no parking on the city side of the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower was closed for repairs, and the fog sabotaged the elder Davenports' afternoon Alcatraz trip. His mother proclaimed there would be no more museums, no libraries, no self-guided tours, no historical sites. When Braggsville was founded, this wasn't even a state yet. No guidebooks, no cultural stops, no on-off bus, no night tour of the bay, no zoo. No Japanese Tea Garden, no Botanical Gardens, no Cliff House. No stores that charge for bags—I didn't charge for travel to get there, nor can I deduct for trunk space utilized to transport said purchases home. (Utilized! Said purchases?) Gesturing around the room, she declared, This is not how I intended to spend this year's vacation, in a land where I can't even get saccharine—with a wink—in a city where April is too cold for capris.

So, for the last day, let's hit the bars and shops. The promise of spontaneity kicked in, and his parents' mood noticeably improved after that decision. Daron's worsened. When he was home, he'd wanted to come back to Berzerkeley. When he was on campus alone, he wanted to go back to Braggsville. When he was with his parents at the highest point in the Presidio, listening to his father whistle his appreciation for the view, Daron wanted to stay in California.
Then when he was back on campus with his father, he couldn't wait to leave. The night before they were scheduled to fly home, Daron's father drove him to the dorm to pack. The door to the room he and Louis had shared was laden with photos, cards, and dollar bills taped in the shape of a heart, but they might as well have spelled C-O-R-O-N-E-R. This time, Daron couldn't enter, couldn't open that door, nor could he be made to.