Isaac Boone Davis<\/p>\n
Even before the turkey shot Mama Cooper, the party was a disaster.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t want to be there. I\u2019m not sure anyone did. Their house smelled like soup and everyone\u2019s temper seemed to bleed in razor rivers out on the paper plates. The giant picture of Ben wearing a Knicks hat and a bunny rabbit smile loomed at everyone from the kitchen. He could have been a first round draft pick in that photo. Ear-to-ear cheesing, hugging Maya in a club somewhere. The R.I.P. in the left hand corner and the We Miss You banner just above his name: Ben Cooper July 7th 1984- October 23rd 2009, \u201cSugarman.\u201d Next to the picture there\u2019s an enormous sheet of paper where all the guests can leave Ben a birthday wish. Or maybe just tell him how much he meant to them. Since I didn\u2019t know Ben, I was having some trouble deciding what to write. I got him a present. You\u2019d think that would be enough.<\/p>\n
On the back porch I help myself to a beer. Cody, the yellow Labrador retriever, noses a green tennis ball. It\u2019s my third Budweiser, but no buzz is forthcoming. Ben\u2019s little brother Rusty blabs into a cell phone on the opposite end of the porch. His voice is high and shredding like an incoming missile: \u201cYeah, I told him we can do it that way too. I said \u2018buddy, there\u2019s the three f\u2019s.\u2019\u201d He ticks them off on his short red fingers. \u201cFighting, fucking, and framing, and I do them all quite well. Nah…He changed his tune real quick.\u201d Inside, the women are cooking. Even Maya, who makes eggs that taste like spare change. \u201cYeah man,\u201d Rusty\u2019s tone lowers like he\u2019s trying to sound wiser. \u201cShe\u2019s here too.\u201d Ben\u2019s name is tattooed on Rusty\u2019s forearm. Those same dates on the banner running from his elbow to his wrist below a ghostly cross.<\/p>\n
I open the backyard gate and step into the driveway. I\u2019ve never met the Coopers before today. They don\u2019t seem to want me here. I\u2019m Ryan, Maya\u2019s new boyfriend. And I really don\u2019t like beer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe love of my life.\u201d That\u2019s how Maya described Ben. The same choice of words over and over again, his title. Not that her life has exactly given her much love to choose from. She had one of those childhoods that make you wonder if social workers aren\u2019t just frustrated serial killers. Fourteen foster families that all kept the receipt and eventually gave her back to the state. The first eighteen years were a rain slick of juvenile centers, county jails, women\u2019s shelters, and. maybe, a mental institution if she was lucky. After that she hit the road. Dancing from Detroit, to Miami, to Dallas, and finally, here, Port Trampa, the lip gloss graveyard.<\/p>\n
Ben seemed to have had a better go of things. The Coopers live in a clean, two-story house with eucalyptus trees in the yard. Maybe he was a wayward son. A middle-class kid who decided to sell dope and eventually fell in love with a stripper. They were together for four years. They lasted through a nine-month jail term (his), a fuck you affair with a Buccaneer linebacker (hers), monumental drug habits (both), and a bullet in the neck from seventeen-year-old ecstasy dealer named Goods (also his). There was also the loss of his truck detailing business; a car crash where she broke her back in two places; and the suicide-by-cop of her best friend in a CVS parking lot. There\u2019s no aphrodisiac like scar tissue. They got engaged on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
Ten months later he was dead. His heart had seized up in the back bedroom of his father\u2019s house in West Virgina. He was living with his dad at the time and that\u2019s who found him. Naked with his dick in his hand, blood still dribbling out his nose, an amateur porn on the TV playing an endless, taunting loop.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe O.D.\u2019ed on coke?\u201d I asked Maya when she told me the story. \u201cNo one O.D.\u2019s on coke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a heart condition, asshole.\u201d She spent the next two years in a blue coma. Twenty four months of oxy\u2019s, heroin, men, tears; finally she got herself Baker-Acted after she jumped off her second-story balcony. She stayed in the hospital for a week. After that, she started going to N.A. meetings. That\u2019s where she met me. And that\u2019s how I got invited to Ben\u2019s birthday. You know, closure.<\/p>\n
Of course, when she said \u201clove of my life\u201d I heard \u201cdick like a rolled up Sunday newspaper.\u201d I wasn\u2019t any kind of failed kingpin like Ben had been. Just your average recovering crackhead with torn Adidas and a suspended license. And she\u2019s starting to notice. Whatever dipped-in-shit run of luck that had brought Maya into my life seemed to be on its way out. When I walk through the kitchen and stroke her shoulder she hisses like a popped tire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Ryan?\u201d The ladle smacks the red sauce.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to see what you guys were up to.\u201d This seems reasonable, if entirely false.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust making food, babe. Why don\u2019t you go back outside?\u201d The celery she chopped are little green snowflakes, no two even vaguely resembling each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, he\u2019s just checking on his girl. Don\u2019t be so hard on him.\u201d Mama Cooper, or Marcie as she may prefer, wheels an army surplus-sized pan of some indistinguishable potato product into the oven above the still frosty turkey. There doesn\u2019t really seem to be any theme to the food today. Pasta, turkey, potatoes, some kind of casserole that resembles gravel, a big red wiggling platypus that we\u2019ve all agreed to call Jell-o.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay. Well he\u2019s done checking. Me and Mama was having a conversation. Ryan, go back outside. Go talk to Rusty. You\u2019d like Rusty.\u201d I would not like Rusty.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, he would like Rusty,\u201d Mama agrees. Maya, not creatively, refers to her as \u201cmy white mama.\u201d She\u2019s only forty-five with skin tight enough to trap a wolverine. She\u2019s a good looking woman even if the purple bandana and the crystals dangling off her neck make her look more like Janis Joplin\u2019s personal trainer than anyone you would call \u201cMama.\u201d In the dining room Alexis, Ben\u2019s sister, smiles at me while she rearranges the plates.<\/p>\n
\u201cRyan come here, I want you to meet my boyfriend.\u201d She waves me over and I\u2019m shaking hands with a willowy green-eyed black guy named Kenyatta.<\/p>\n
\u201cPleasure, man,\u201d he says in a voice deeper than the Hillsborough river. Alexis Cooper is the only member of the family I\u2019ve ever met before today. She and Maya strip at the same club on Dale Mabry.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Yatta\u2019s a basketball player,\u201d Alexis beams.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, no shit?\u201d I say. \u201cMe too, in high school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019m heading up to Illinois. Got a tryout with Quad City.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo shit,\u201d I repeat. That poet laureate medal will be arriving any day now.<\/p>\n
\u201cSad occasion, you know?\u201d Kenyatta gestures with his chin, which is about as straight as an Olympic javelin.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBen. He was a cool dude, man. Real people. Maya\u2019s a great girl, man. It\u2019s like she\u2019s not just beautiful on the outside,\u201d he gives me a diagonal eyebrow. \u201cShe\u2019s beautiful on the inside too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou two been together long?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBout three months. How about you and Alexis?\u201d He laughs into his shoulder which I interpret as \u201cDude, you got better things to worry about.\u201d My eyes follow his compass of a chin to the poster.<\/p>\n
I miss you every day baby not a day goes by I don\u2019t wish I was with you — Maya<\/strong><\/p>\n and<\/p>\n Stir it up buddy!!!!!! Lol<\/strong><\/p>\n and<\/p>\n You are my angel, my life, my son, my memory and my hope. I will never give you up — Mama.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are a few more scrawlings and a valentine with an arrow through the aorta. The air conditioner makes the poster flutter like a trembling hand. The light from outside slices through the paper. We wince and we drink. This is Tampa, Florida, where the sunshine hurts your eyes.<\/strong><\/p>\n By December I was measuring myself by how little suicide I had committed the night before. Twenty bucks was nothing. If that was all I spent it was like I hadn\u2019t gotten high. Didn\u2019t count. Forty was a fuck up. A hundred and the next morning I was massaging my heart with a handgun.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not this kind of person,\u201d I\u2019d tell the gun.<\/p>\n Every day I\u2019d forget to pay a bill; lose a friend or blow somebody\u2019s trust. I slept on strangers\u2019 couches or rented a room for a month or two before ultimately getting hucked on my ass for smoking the rent.<\/p>\n \u201cHey buddy! This ain\u2019t working out.\u201d The landlord jabbing his fat fingers into my chest.<\/p>\n \u201cMan, I\u2019m just having a rough time. Trust me, I\u2019ll have it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, you\u2019ve got to be fucking kidding me!\u201d<\/p>\n On the second to last day of the year I tried to rob the Winslow convenience store on 32nd and Nebraska. I was sparked out of my mind and needed a rock more than I needed oxygen. I wandered up and down the pork rind aisle rubbing the .38\u2019s butt like a rosary. The Sikh lady behind the register with the teddy bear eyes stared at me when I put the gun on the counter.<\/p>\n \u201cI need what\u2019s in there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou what — what do you? No!\u201d My eyes cut to the door. I held my breath.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever cash you got. I just need the cash.\u201d She grabbed for the piece and only found my sleeve. I snapped my wrist back and we both go flying. The Five-Hour Energy shots on the counter-stand toppled to the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d She screamed. \u201cHelp!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease,\u201d I said and I aimed the gun at her throat. \u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n A week later, I was in a N.A. meeting. Everybody hugged and drank coffee. At the end of every session they\u2019d hand out these key tags with different colors for how much clean time you had. If you had a year or so they\u2019d let you say a little something.<\/p>\n \u201cWho are you and how did you do it?\u201d they\u2019d ask. The answer was always the same.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what did you get him?\u201d Over the last seven minutes I\u2019ve learned about Rusty\u2019s preference for Puerto Rican women, his fantasy football team (he has many hopes for Maurice Jones-Drew), the time he and his buddy Jon Loc stole an ATM from a county fair, and why he won\u2019t drink coffee. I haven\u2019t spoke. Instead I\u2019ve been picking sunflower seeds out of my teeth.<\/p>\n \u201cGet who?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor Ben. I saw y\u2019all came in with a box.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. We got him a Bigfoot doll. Maya said he used to — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBen used to fucking love those Bigfoot shows.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, that\u2019s what she told me.\u201d This had revealed a surprisingly nerdy side of Ben. Apparently somewhere in between ripping off a Piru set and trying to start his own clothing line, Ben had found great solace in the hunt for Sasquatch.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d tell him over and over again, there ain\u2019t no Bigfoot. Cause if there were,\u201d he plunges a red brick hand into the bowl of sunflower seeds, \u201csomebody would have him on tape by now. All the cell phone cameras and whatnot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t they have a video?\u201d I debate another beer. The beer wins.<\/p>\n \u201cThat shit was so fake. Some guy in a Halloween suit. You got him a doll?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. Cost like twenty bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s retarded. You ever see his \u2018Bu?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHeard about it.\u201d The first night Maya and I slept together I lasted about as long as it takes to flip a coin. We talked over each other, me apologizing and her explaining how Ben had loved his 1965 Chevy Malibu hardtop more than he\u2019d loved her. It didn\u2019t really make me feel better, but since I can\u2019t drive at least it was one way I couldn\u2019t disappoint her.<\/p>\n \u201cHad that bitch on \u201828\u2019s, looked like wagon wheels. People told him you can\u2019t put no \u2018Bu on 28\u2019s. Won\u2019t work. Ben said \u2018fuck what you heard.\u2019 Stunt lights…damn, it was like, don\u2019t hurt \u2018em.\u201d He gives a little gospel hand splay.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s it at now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGot seized.\u201d Tony, the homicide detective, Mama Cooper\u2019s second husband, flips an orange frisbee to Cody. He nods to us and points at the dog.<\/p>\n \u201cHe moves slower than you, Rusty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet that dog spend sixty hours hanging drywall next week. See how fast he moves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSixty hours, huh?\u201d Tony\u2019s voice is wet soft. If he hadn\u2019t become a badge he could have been a soul singer. He gives the frisbee a last fling and glides up to join us on the porch. He\u2019s wearing a golf shirt one size too small. His dark muscles swim underneath the denim.<\/p>\n \u201cSixty hours? Rusty a working man, huh?\u201d Tony smiles at me. It\u2019s like an uppercut with toothpaste.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to call my boss?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to call nobody. I make phone calls all week. I\u2019m off today.\u201d Tony pops the imaginary lapels on his shirt as if he were wearing suspenders. Rusty takes a breath. When Tony breaks eye contact it makes a snapping sound. My own step-father is an HVAC repairman named Dave. He has a Sprite with dinner every night and goes to sleep by nine. He\u2019s the most inoffensive human being on earth and I\u2019m still not ready to forgive my mom. I like Mama Cooper, but I can\u2019t think of anything worse you could do to your son than marrying a cop when he\u2019s in the tenth grade.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, Ryan, how you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFine. Thank you for having us here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo how long you and Maya been seeing each other?\u201d There\u2019s something deceptively idle in his tone. Like the magician about to guess your card.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout three months.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell she\u2019s a great girl. It\u2019s good to see her moving on.\u201d Rusty picks up the frisbee and considers it before dropping it back to the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cY\u2019all met in N.A. right?\u201d Rusty chimes in.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah…yeah, we did.\u201d I begin to itch. The beer tastes like grease in my gut.<\/p>\n \u201cWell that\u2019s good. That\u2019s real good. She\u2019s a real nice girl, Maya. Ben was very fond of her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think Maya got that fever,\u201d Rusty cackles over Cody\u2019s barking. \u201cShe like her some white boys.\u201d Well, I suppose someone had to say it sooner or later. It is a little hard to miss, the skin braiding going on at the Cooper home today. Me and Maya; Tony and Mama Cooper; Kenyatta and Alexis; Rusty and his imaginary Puerto Rican women; all of us playing on the melanin see-saw. Tony double clutches his drink and stomps his foot with laughter.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say so, Rusty. I\u2019d say she does.\u201d I laugh too.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was only the fever when the white girl got with the black man.\u201d Apparently, Rusty is an authority on this sort of thing.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, that\u2019s true,\u201d Tony reflects.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do they call it when it\u2019s the other way around?\u201d Rusty asks.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t call that nothing. So Maya\u2019s getting high again?\u201d Inside the house I hear classic rock and oil in a skillet. Tony\u2019s face is mild marble. I read \u201cAre you going to bother lying, son?\u201d in his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not getting high anymore. Maya? You…you mean, Maya?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do mean Maya. Who did you think I meant?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUm, no, no she\u2019s good now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh?\u201d says Tony wiping away some imaginary sweat from his forehead. \u201cWell, maybe I\u2019m wrong.\u201d I want to apologize to him. Apologize for my name, my face. Tell the air I\u2019m sorry for breathing it.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I\u2019m wrong a lot,\u201d he continues. \u201cWrong so much I\u2019m starting to get good at it.\u201d He goes back to his staring contest with the sun. \u201cYou know, she just threw up in there. You do know that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaya, your girlfriend. She just threw up in the garbage can — well most of it got in the garbage can. See, I\u2019d\u2019a thought she was dopesick. But maybe that\u2019s just this crazy line of work I\u2019m in starting to cynical-ize my point of view. Is that a word? Cynical-ize?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen was this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, a few minutes ago. You might want to check on her. I\u2019m sure she\u2019s fine and all, but you may want to go and make sure.\u201d<\/p>\n In recovery they talk about the pink cloud. The big, soft, cotton candy colored wave of emotion that overcomes you with good vibes after your first few weeks off the dope. I think it\u2019s mostly bullshit. Unless you got health insurance, getting clean hurts. But then I met Maya. And I realized I don\u2019t know anything. In the middle of the sad-eyed tragic concrete, she was human graffiti. All that merciless beauty; the black girl with the blonde hair and the giant, store-bought titties. A sharper than life image broken in all the right places. During the meetings she\u2019d clap when people would share; she\u2019d cry when they would pray. She was an oncoming train with the cost of shattered things in her eyes. I was healed. I was fucked.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really scared to be here,\u201d she told me the first night I met her.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got nothing to be afraid of,\u201d I lied.<\/p>\n In the hallway behind us a woman with a treble clef tattoo on her neck and one painted eyebrow gnawed into her phone. \u201cBullshit,\u201d she said. \u201cI told them \u2018Hell no, I\u2019m not ready.\u2019 They said thirty days and I was like \u2018Hell, no.\u2019 The shit I was doing? Give me ninety days and I\u2019ll piss for them. Hell, I\u2019ll piss all over the judge and it\u2019ll be clean piss too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSee,\u201d I said. \u201cEverybody got troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n In the kitchen Maya\u2019s plopped out on a stool shivering and sweating like a spent fighter. Mama Cooper fans her with a spatula inadvertently roiling the meat fumes with the air conditioning.<\/p>\n \u201cMaya\u2019s not feeling good,\u201d Mama explains.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d She knee knocks, one eye rolling sideways. \u201cI don\u2019t need to lay down.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNobody said anything about laying down. Let\u2019s get you a little water.\u201d Mama\u2019s voice slides through my skin while she applies a washcloth to the back of Maya\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n \u201cBaby, you\u2019re sick.\u201d I try to wipe away the bilious crust off her mouth but she flashes her hands at me, knuckles first.<\/p>\n \u201cGet away please. Can you do that Ryan? Can you please leave me alone for a second?\u201d Kenyatta nudges past. He unravels a paper towel next to the sink and begins to clean the sides of the garbage can.<\/p>\n \u201cMaya, go on up to Ben\u2019s room and lay down for a minute.\u201d Marcie takes the butter from the fridge. She was a nurse for years in a hospital in St. Pete. There\u2019s a scalpel just underneath all of her hippie costume jewelry.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Mama,\u201d says Maya. \u201cI\u2019m gonna lay down now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe last time I saw her, she was doing fine.\u201d Marcie sprays air freshener above my head. I reline the garbage can. \u201cBut that was about a year ago. I guess a lot can change in a year.\u201d Her calves are steel drums. If I bit them right now, would they break my jaw?<\/p>\n \u201cDo you need me to take out the recycling?\u201d I ask. There is nothing to recycle. I am not a good person.<\/p>\n \u201cDid Maya even grate the cheese?\u201d Alexis\u2019 voice honks in reproach.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, honey. No, she didn\u2019t.\u201d Marcie considers the air freshener for a minute. She doesn\u2019t seem to like it very much. \u201cThe turkey is going to take a while. I\u2019m going to drink now, Ryan.\u201d She takes a long clear bottle off the shelf. She looks into the liquor like she\u2019s about to bless it.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess this can\u2019t be easy for you,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fine. Easy enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou must think we\u2019re crazy, having a birthday party for Ben.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe doesn\u2019t think that, Mama.\u201d Alexis rushes to my theoretical defense.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, it\u2019s alright. I\u2019d think we were crazy too. You have any kids Ryan?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. My daughter\u2019s name is Lisa. She lives up in Pennsylvania with her grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot your parents though, right?\u201d Ice rainfall jangles in her glass.<\/p>\n \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen you wouldn\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexis positions herself by the sink. She slips her hand over my wrist. She smells like the last good day of Winter. \u201cI think Maya\u2019s getting high again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, Christ honey,\u201d Marcie tilts her glass and shivers. \u201cI think he knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n I want to take the beer bottle and smash it against my windpipe. I want to take my dick and drive it into Alexis\u2019s spine. I want to carry Maya out of here on my back like a soldier in an earthquake firefight. I would like to go home now, please.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, um…I don\u2019t think she is. She\u2019s really committed to the program. I think she\u2019s even gonna get a sponsor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, she needs one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh fuck, Alexis! Do you have something to say or not?\u201d Marcie cannonballs the question at her daughter. Alexis looks like a little girl about to perform in her first school play.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got high last night, Maya and me.\u201d She delivers the line with a soap opera tremelo.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that\u2019s just fucking great. On your brother\u2019s birthday you decide to go out and do this. Then you bring, you bring that<\/em>, you bring her back here.\u201d She slams the spatula against the lip of the sink and it does a wooden cartwheel to the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cMama, please. It\u2019s not that simple. You don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know?\u201d Marcie\u2019s face is under her daughter\u2019s chin. She\u2019s cutting off the ring. \u201cHere\u2019s what I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know why you allowed that dopesick piece of the sewer into our home. I don\u2019t know what happened to the fifty dollars that was laying on the coffee table last month. I don\u2019t know what your brother ever saw — oh I am so fucking over this. Somebody else stir the noodles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t take the fifty dollars.\u201d But Marcie\u2019s already marching outside. The door slam is pretty much an afterthought. Alexis wilts in front of me heaving sexy, wet tears into the red sauce.<\/p>\n \u201cMaya\u2019s upstairs?\u201d I ask her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like I\u2019m just nothing.\u201d Her left nipple is slicing through the fabric of her shirt. You could hang a coat on it.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay.\u201d I answer myself. \u201cSo I\u2019m just going to go upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n On the hallway leading to Ben\u2019s room there are pictures of him, Rusty and Alexis in Halloween costumes. At Christmas opening up what looks like a fishing rod. And at his First Communion looking as graceful as the early evening. Even then you could see the dark, handsome features that were growing in his face. Maya had always wanted to be taken in by an Italian family. She\u2019d lie in bed and tell me how \u201cnone of this would have happened if just one foster family had been Italian. They take care of each other. Plus, the men are fucking gorgeous.\u201d Cooper doesn\u2019t sound like an Italian name to me, but there\u2019s a portrait of a saint on the hallway wall. And above Ben\u2019s bedroom there\u2019s a crucifix covered in paint chips. I\u2019m about to knock when Rusty pours himself through the door.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, hey buddy. I was just in there checking on her.\u201d He scratches a tar stain from his wrist. His gold chain plops against his heart.<\/p>\n \u201cShe doing okay?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSick, bro.\u201d He says knowingly. \u201cMan, she ain\u2019t feeling well. I think dinner might be a little later than it was gonna be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow long were you in there for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know Maya\u2019s like a sister to me. I just hope you can take care of all that.\u201d He claps my clavicle and bulls past. I can smell beer and cement grit. Every passing minute feels like it doesn\u2019t belong to me. Even when I enter Ben\u2019s room it seems like I\u2019m stealing something. My own shadow doesn\u2019t think I could pay for it.<\/p>\n \u201cBaby.\u201d Maya\u2019s face is puddled with eye bags and runaway mascara. All that pretty nightskin looking flat and crushed under the withdrawal. Ben\u2019s room isn\u2019t a shrine. The Derek Brooks jersey and the Ed Hardy T-shirts are unfolded violently near the bed. There\u2019s a book titled Mysteries of The Pacific Northwest<\/em> and a dreamcatcher on the desk. The walls have pictures and punctures. Someone has been slamming their fist through the plaster.<\/p>\n \u201cHe loved that car.\u201d Maya\u2019s trying to point at a photo of Ben standing next to his 2005 Navigator. The rims are the size of my legs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt get seized too?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat one. That one.\u201d I try to wipe her mouth with the side of my sleeve.<\/p>\n \u201cBaby, we\u2019re gonna get you some help.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh shut the fuck up.\u201d Well, it was worth a shot. \u201cHe made me feel something. I never had — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t make you feel anything?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh baby, don\u2019t do that to yourself.\u201d Her voice is low and raw. She\u2019s singing me a lullaby. \u201cI like you. Sometimes I love you, but you don\u2019t make me…you don\u2019t validate me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here aren\u2019t I? I came to your dead ex-boyfriend\u2019s birthday party because I\u2019m — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not my ex.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh for Christ\u2019s sake Maya. You know those people downstairs? Those people you think are your family? You want to hear what they are saying about you behind your back?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t care. I had fourteen families growing up. Fourteen different sets of people who talked shit. Think I can\u2019t take one more?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re making excuses Maya. That\u2019s what addicts do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t care. Do you know what it\u2019s like never thinking anyone will ever really understand you, and then finally finding the one person who does?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I say evenly. \u201cI know exactly what that\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n We go on like that for a few minutes. Me trying to bully her into loving me and her looking for another blanket to stop the shivers. I suppose if life was more like an independent student film, this would have all ended with me fucking the shit out of Maya underneath Ben\u2019s 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneer Super Bowl poster. But life\u2019s not like the movies. Even the good ones.<\/p>\n \u201cThey know, huh?\u201d She points her eyes downstairs.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course. Why\u2019d you do it? Why baby?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh fuck off, Ryan. Please. Why? I\u2019m a dope fiend. I got high last night and Alexis was supposed to cop before we got here. But her lazy ass missed the phone call. So, I fucked up and got sick. I\u2019ve been getting high. I just haven\u2019t been telling you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought we were in this thing together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are baby. You know how it is. It\u2019s not the end of the world. I didn\u2019t kill anybody. I got high last night. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d I say. \u201cI know. I got high too.\u201d Downstairs I can hear the plates slapping against the dishwasher rack. Feet getting stomped. Other people\u2019s lives are like a pulse.<\/p>\n \u201cI know you did, baby. I can always tell when you\u2019ve been getting high,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to tell. You\u2019re so fucking mean to me the next day. Plus, you never shave. I like you better when you shave.\u201d She kicks herself up on the bed and hands me a goofy look. We both shake our heads at the same time.<\/p>\n \u201cRyan, you know I love you, but you understand I can\u2019t have you in my life, right? Not if you\u2019re getting high again. I can\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll stop. You\u2019re getting — I\u2019ll stop. I can stop, just don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNobody stops, baby. Nobody can stop this shit. I love you, but nobody stops.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI understand, baby.\u201d I\u2019ve always heard about people who can never bring themselves to say \u201clove.\u201d Bullshit. Seems pretty easy to me.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know one time we went to Spain together?\u201d She\u2019s looking at the picture again.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you told me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI tell you about getting stuck in that elevator? I\u2019ve never been anywhere before and we\u2019re in this crazy place where nobody speaks English. And I\u2019m just holding on to him everywhere we go. And we get on this raggedy-ass elevator. And there\u2019s an American family on it too. Just us and them and it gets stuck. I was freaking out. I think I have closet-phobia or whatever you call it. But he\u2019s so out there, so calm. Like it was nothing. He just talks to them. Waiting for the repair guy. I\u2019m pissing myself and he\u2019s just chatting with this fat family from Arkansas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did he talk about?\u201d I put my hand on her thigh and she flushes it away. Just another rain drop falling to the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cWal-Mart.\u201d Maya giggles. \u201cThey talked about Wal-Mart for like three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n I was in the bathroom thinking about how I hadn\u2019t bought a CD in years. About how much I used to love music and how it used to be so fucking important to me. About how in high school I wanted to start a music criticism club and actually got a teacher to sponsor it. But nobody ever came to our meetings. I was thinking about that, when I heard the shot.<\/p>\n Turkeys are no longer harvested by blunderbuss. Farmer Brown doesn\u2019t wander around his acreage with a shotgun firing at the fattest fowl he can find. Instead, the process is more antiseptic. It involves the laser removal of beaks and claws. The birds are thrown in a grinder like chipped wood. Which is why, all things considered, the occasion of a deceased hen opening fire on Mama Cooper seems a little unlikely. Yet, when the paramedics arrived they didn\u2019t seem too surprised. After all, this is Tampa, where we need six policemen in every public library. So birds, even dead ones, may very well pack a clip.<\/p>\n \u201cA stray bullet from an earlier harvest,\u201d Jared the sandy-haired paramedic explained as they were loading Mama Cooper into the ambulance. Kenyatta and I must have had the same perplexed city-boy scowls on our faces, because he bothered to keep talking.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes these big companies like Butterball or Hormel contract out to smaller family farms. Guess somebody was shooting around the house and one of the turkeys took one. Or more likely, he ate a bullet that was lying around. Thought it was feed. They\u2019ll gobble up anything.\u201d Jared\u2019s voice had just the right amount of blood and drawl to make me think he may have grown up slaughtering and milking his way through adolescence.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are the odds on that shit?\u201d Kenyatta asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNot good.\u201d Jared said as he latched the back of the ambulance. The idea that somewhere on a rural stretch of Indiana farmland there had been a gangsta turkey with a teardrop tattoo and a felony warrant wandering around carrying a burning slug in his wing was both stupid and appropriate. Just like it had for Ben, the harvest had come early. In the end, it\u2019s always the end.<\/p>\n As I had run down the stairs after hearing the shot, my first thought was that Rusty or Tony finally decided it was time for a little step-father to step-son hollow point heart-to-heart. Or, maybe one of Ben\u2019s old gangland enemies had heard about the party and needed some drive-by closure of his own. What I hadn\u2019t expected was the human arena that had formed in the Cooper\u2019s kitchen. A semi-circle of ten or so gaping, gasping, very confused mourners. In the middle was Mama Marcie Cooper riding the floor like a bucking mule. Glass and blood and turkey meat were spraying from every corner. Marcie had a hand on her hip in what resembled a side-plank pose. If it hadn\u2019t been for all the gore I would have thought she was getting a little work in on her obliques before the meal. She was screaming a steady stream of consonants that almost sounded like the glass itself spitting against the oven\u2019s walls.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly shit, fuck man. Mama are you — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStay back, Rusty.\u201d Marcie — even from the floor with a shard of steel in her high, stair-mill crafted ass — commanded the kitchen as mama\u2019s always have and always will. Later, we would learn that it was not the actual slug but just the casing that had exploded into Mama\u2019s body. She had gone to plunge her meat thermometer into the eagle at precisely the wrong time. The bullet, a .45, would never have been able to pass the oven\u2019s steel. In fact the propulsion from a turkey isn\u2019t anything like a handgun. If Marcie had kept the oven door closed the slug would never have seen the light of day. Perhaps it was that God-given divinity of all southern women to flood their kitchen with no less than fifty smells at once. Possibly, it was just bad luck. But all that was later. For the time being, Mama had been shot by the turkey.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly shit, fuck man,\u201d Rusty repeated. Apparently, this was his new favorite superhero.<\/p>\n \u201cGet back!\u201d Tony swept into the room flailing at the small fire that had begun on the stove with a suit jacket. It wasn\u2019t clear who he was talking to. No one was getting very close.<\/p>\n \u201cMama, Mama, Mama.\u201d Alexis sobbed into the floor. Her voice muffled inside Kenyatta\u2019s arms as he wrapped her up on the ground. I was stunned by how protective he was. And immediately, I had the rather racist thought that this may not have been the first party Kenyatta attended that ended in gunfire.<\/p>\n \u201cI called them, baby. They are on their way. Just hang on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh Christ, Tony! Just call them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did call them.\u201d And he had. Because a few minutes later the Coopers\u2019 home was swarmed with personnel from TPD, the fire department, and Jared, the knowledgeable paramedic. I have heard that if you call 9-11 and hang up, they will send a representative from each sector. Maybe that was what happened or maybe they were just extending Tony a professional courtesy. Regardless, it was hard to miss the message. This is what emergencies look like. Emergencies go bang.<\/p>\n Dear Ben,<\/strong><\/p>\n Keep your dick up.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ryan Di Mateo<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I set the highlighter back on the coffee table. The sulfur smell of bullet and bird has dimmed a little by now. The family: Rusty, Angela, Tony, and Maya followed the ambulance to the Town and Country hospital just off Hillsborough Avenue. Six months ago I had met Maya in that same hospital. Her beautiful Baker-Acted ass crumbled in the metal folding chair. Somehow, the image of her pressing doctors for information and holding hands with the Coopers comforts me. Dope fiends are no different than little kids that way: we love playing grown-up.<\/p>\n Kenyatta and I and a few of the other guests stay to clean. I keep rubbing the table with a wet rag well after I should have been done. We find out the hard way that you can\u2019t vacuum glass. On my knees filling my hands with gizzard and patches from Marcie\u2019s Juicy Couture sweatpants I hear the trilling tones from my pocket.<\/p>\n \u201cBaby,\u201d I say into the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cShe gonna be okay. They already talking to the lawyer.\u201d Maya clips her words when she gets excited. I had forgotten that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re cleaning up here. Me and Kenyatta are straightening everything up — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh good, baby. You do that. Kenyatta\u2019s a good guy. You need people like that to be around. He\u2019s focused.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a basketball player.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey are gonna get so paid<\/em>. A bullet in the turkey. She could have been killed.\u201d It\u2019s impossible to tell, but she sounds like she\u2019s jumping when she speaks.<\/p>\n \u201cBaby,\u201d I say dumping another round of paper plates. \u201cI don\u2019t want to lose you. I can\u2019t lose you yet. Can you — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to lose me Ryan. I\u2019ll only be just a phone call away. You call me any time you need to call me and — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBaby, I got to go. The doctor is coming back. Try the potato salad, it\u2019s in the red container. She made it with barbecue sauce. You\u2019ll like it.\u201d<\/p>\n The potato salad isn\u2019t bad. Even though it was made in that Tampa style where the butter is trying to prove that Florida really is the south. Kenyatta has found a bottle of Johnny Walker Black which we sip while sitting on the back of the Coopers\u2019 porch.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d he tells me. \u201cTony ain\u2019t gonna miss this shit. And if he says a word about it, fuck him. They let you drink in that N.A. thing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNope. But I\u2019m over that. My habit wasn\u2019t all that bad anyway.\u201d Kenyatta looks around for a place to kick his feet up, settling on a pine cone.<\/p>\n \u201cFuck man. I\u2019m gonna be up in Quad City tomorrow, so this here,\u201d he waddles the brown liquor in the glass, \u201cthis gonna be my last hurray. You talk to Maya?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe called from the hospital. Seemed excited about suing them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHell, she should be. We all should be. How else she sound?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot sick anymore. Like she already copped.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlexis get that way too. Like she\u2019ll be sick as hell, but if she knows she\u2019s gonna get good, then the sickness goes away. I tell her that about herself, too. That just proves all that shit is in your head, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d I sip and decide that I can definitely afford to part with thirty bucks tonight. Maybe forty.<\/p>\n \u201cSo is Maya your first?\u201d Kenyatta scratches his neck and leans in to his glass.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFirst dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh.\u201d I pause to try and convey a sense of Maya just being one in a series of countless other women whose lives have been shamed and wrecked on the shores of my dick. \u201cWho knows?\u201d is the lie I finally settle on.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah well then you probably know. With them girls every day is Halloween.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean even with Ben. I don\u2019t want to talk bad about the — \u201d He stands up. He starts to move to the end of the porch, his eyes beginning to laser their way around the yard. \u201cShit, man.\u201d He turns without spilling a drip. \u201cWhere\u2019s Cody?\u201d The gate on the back fence is open. Nudged just enough so that it could fit a retriever. Possibly he was terrified at the sirens or the shot. Maybe he was just seeking adventure. Either way Cody\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n \u201cFucking Rusty,\u201d Kenyatta groans. \u201cI know he would leave the back gate open. They couldn\u2019t fit more stupid in that boy if they hollowed out his leg.\u201d But it wasn\u2019t Rusty. It was me. I can remember it now: the memory of my forgetting. My walking out into the Coopers\u2019 driveway with my beer in hand, wondering how long before I could run and hide and smoke. I had left the gate ajar because paying attention was just too much trouble. So busy planning my own escape I hadn\u2019t noticed I had created someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I agree. \u201cRusty is a total fucking dumbass.\u201d<\/p>\n Kenyatta and I arch our way into the street. He takes Webb road heading to Hillsborough, while I make a tender gallop down Jackson Springs behind the apartments. Both of us sharing the silent understanding that while it may be acceptable to drink a man\u2019s liquor, you just can\u2019t lose his dog. No matter how much settlement money may be coming his way.<\/p>\n \u201cCody, Cody, here Cody!\u201d I yell out. The houses are slouched and slanted. A hobo\u2019s mouth every bit as cracked and gritty as the sidewalks. The rooftops are uneven and the windowsills are marked by the tar droppings. In Town and Country, the places where people live are like the short man at the bar — hunched, angry, ready to fight.<\/p>\n \u201cHoney, are you looking for Cody?\u201d A thick woman in a purple sweatshirt is loading plywood on to the back of her truck. Her face is red and joyful.<\/p>\n \u201cYes… yes I am. Have you seen him?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course I\u2019ve seen him,\u201d she says. \u201cCody is my son.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d I\u2019m embarrassed how much I\u2019m panting. When was the last time I ran? \u201cNo, I\u2019m looking for a dog. Have you seen a dog?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA dog named Cody?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike my son?\u201d I notice her truck\u2019s bumper sticker: My Child is an Honor Student at Webb Elementary.<\/p>\n \u201cI suppose so. Have you seen him, the dog?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d her round cheeks crease with the memory. \u201cThere was a dog. I didn\u2019t know what his name was, though. Yellow dog — \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s him,\u201d I almost collapse from joy. \u201cA retriever.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was heading up to Waters. That was a while ago. You better hurry. That\u2019s a busy road.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you, Ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know Cody is also my son\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n The first time Maya saw where I was living she laughed at the black sheets I had pinned over the windows. \u201cOh baby, that\u2019s some straight dope fiend shit. You\u2019re in recovery now. Those need to come down.\u201d So maybe it\u2019s justice that today she\u2019s left me and I can\u2019t find any darkness to run towards. It\u2019s seven o\u2019clock and the sunshine isn\u2019t even thinking about retreat. \u201cI own this town, bitch,\u201d it says. \u201cI\u2019m everywhere.\u201d It\u2019s reflecting from the bodegas and the ice cream joints; it\u2019s in my mouth when I call Cody\u2019s name. I can even feel it in my cavities and my hairline.<\/p>\n \u201cCody, Cody!\u201d There\u2019s no sign of a mangled puppy on Waters. But, what would that even look like? Who would stop?<\/p>\n \u201cCody!\u201d I turn back and try to remember if I took Woodbridge or Murray Hill. I run but the air in my lungs moves like a fat man trying to get off a bus. I taste blood and beer in my throat. Maya told me once that the sunshine just expected a little too much out of you. Seemed to think you were better than you are.<\/p>\n \u201cCody, Cody!\u201d I yell at the gang tags on the fences.<\/p>\n \u201cCody, where are you, buddy?\u201d I holler at the pink houses with the gray people inside. Cody, you can\u2019t outrun the sunshine. I\u2019m going to find you. No matter how far you get, it\u2019s really not that far. Nobody gets that far.<\/p>\n \u201cCody, Cody, Cody!\u201d Did you hide in that place where I used to care about music? Are you hurt, Cody? Did you make it all the way back home? You\u2019re a retriever motherfucker, so retrieve. Where did you go, stupid?<\/p>\n \u201cCody, Cody. Here, Cody.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ll find you. You\u2019re here. You didn\u2019t go anywhere. It just seems like you\u2019ve run to the end of the world, but you know what? Like they say in the meetings, you\u2019re right where you left yourself. Well so am I, Cody. So be a good boy and just come your little doggy-ass back here to me.<\/p>\n ISAAC BOONE DAVIS<\/strong> lives and works on the road. His work has been published by Writethis.com<\/em>, Smokelong Quarterly<\/em>, Fiction 365<\/em>, P.I.F. Efiction<\/em>, and The Blue Lake Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Isaac Boone Davis Even before the turkey shot Mama Cooper, the party was a disaster. I didn\u2019t want to be there. I\u2019m not sure anyone did. Their house smelled like soup and everyone\u2019s temper seemed to bleed in razor rivers … Continue reading