Black Gum Read Free

restaurant. Chair pushed out. Big belly heaving under a Looney Tunes t-shirt. Grease stains and barbecue sauce on it.
    The owner shook my hand. “What the fuck happened to your face?”
    “I tripped and fell on a railing.”
    He blinked slowly. “What did you do before this?”
    “I traveled.”
    “I mean, job-wise. I’m looking at this application,” he picked up the sheet of paper in front of him, “and I don’t see any prior work experience.”
    “I worked at an Arby’s when I got out of college.”
    “You went to college?”
    “Yep. Just up the road at Pierce.”
    “No shit. Graduate?”
    I shook my head.
    “Be glad you got out. My sons racked up some bills.”
    “I don’t like bills.”
    “Me neither.” The owner sighed. “Listen, your face is fucking weird. Looks like someone knocked the hell out of you. I need a dish guy, but your face is too weird.”
    I sat there with my hands in my lap.
    “You can go now,” the owner said.

 

    THE SCAR
    ON MY LEG

    I went out to dinner with my mother. We met at a Chili’s. I brought her a plastic bag full of Reese’s peanut butter cups. She looked in the bag and her face lit up and that made me happy.
    She told me about her work, about how the kids were driving her crazy, about trying to teach them multiplication, about how the mothers came in for conferences still tweaking. We talked about my father and how he was good for nothing. Any time I thought of my father I became deeply afraid.
    My mother ordered a daiquiri and she started talking a lot and I’d never seen her drink before.
    I asked how my step-father was and Mom said, “He fishes a lot.”
    We talked about the past.
    Mom said, “I remember you and your little brother, you shared a room. You’d set up laundry baskets between the two beds and you’d jump on them and pretend the floor was hot lava. Do you remember that?”
    I said, “Yes.”
    She said, “I remember I told you not to do that. I told you that it was dangerous. But you didn’t listen. And one day, you jumped on a laundry basket and you went right through it. And the laundry basket got sharp and cut you.”
    “Pretty deep. I still have the scar on my leg.”
    “You’re kidding! It didn’t go away?”
    I said, “No.”
    We ate some food.
    I told her, “I remember you cleaning up the cut in the bathroom, and I was crying, and you said, ‘You never listen.’”
    She laughed. “That’s what I said.”
    After the meal, she started eating the candy I’d brought her. That made me happy again.

 

    JUGGALO PARTY

    Shane had just rolled back into town. Charlie fixed us parachutes. We ate them and drank and dipped to a party.
    The Juggalos cracked their beers and freestyled in a circle. Charlie waved his hands about, big hatchet man necklace bouncing against his wife beater. He rapped about stabbing women and raping their corpses over ICP rapping about stabbing women and raping their corpses. The Juggalos put their fists to their mouths and snapped their fingers.
    The apartment was small. A tiny Chihuahua weaved between their legs. It jumped in my lap and I picked it up and held it over my head. Shane had shown up earlier that day, and he sat next to me and wiggled his fingers at the dog.
    The freestyle circle dispersed. Bass still thumping.
    Charlie poured shots of 151 and handed one to his cousin. Shane took the shot and growled. Charlie shouted to the mass of Twiztid shirts and baggy jeans and labret piercings and soul patches, “My nigga failed a job interview today.”
    The Juggalos golf clapped. I bowed.
    “You’re my blood,” he said and punched me in the shoulder.
    Shane clasped his hands in his lap and looked off to the side.
    A short, heavyset kid placed a small baggie on the foldout dinner table. Charlie opened it and poured a bit onto the vinyl. “You can see the crystals.”
    We got high and Charlie told stories to the group.
    “I remember when Shane went to jail, like sixteen or something. He was running