Last of the Dixie Heroes

SEVENTEEN

Friday was his last day with Rhett. Roy knew he shouldn’t be thinking of it that way. Not the last day: flights were cheap if you booked ahead and he’d have a new job soon, all that back and forth on cheap tickets, making those jokes people made about the peanuts in the little foil packs, plus Rhett would come back for two or three weeks in the summer, Marcia had already said so, all of this adding up to not such a bad picture from a certain perspective. And in a few years Rhett would be in college somewhere, hooked to neither parent in particular, spending vacations where he wanted, and that might be good too: another not so bad perspective. So it wasn’t the last day or anything dramatic like that. It was just the last day when they’d all be living in Atlanta. The trick was finding those good perspectives and sticking to them. That was how to handle it, no question. But maybe not today, when for some reason Roy kept thinking about the night Rhett was conceived.

Rhett’s last day, or the last day they’d all be living in Atlanta, wasn’t a twenty-four-hour day, but ended at 5:45, departure time of the flight to La Guardia. Rhett was supposed to go to school until 10:30, something about saying good-bye and picking up his transcripts. The plan was for Roy to pick him up there and deliver him to the airport at 4:45. The hours in between were all theirs.

“Anything special you’d like to do?” Roy asked him on the phone.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something fun.”

Pause. “Drive the car.”

“What car?” Roy said, but even as he did, he understood what Rhett was getting at: he wanted a driving lesson from the old man. He was a little young, but why not? They could go to a parking lot at some mall and “Uncle Sonny’s car,” Rhett said.

Roy had gone wrong again. “Uncle Sonny’s car?”

“The demolition derby car. He said I could.”

Out of the question: that was Roy’s first thought. But what kind of a day was it going to be, just the two of them already separating in their minds, Roy trying to be cheerful, Rhett doing God knows what, the end of the day casting its shadow back on the hours before? What kind of a day was that?

“I’ll give him a call,” Roy said.

Roy pulled up outside the school at 10:15, just in case Rhett was early. He looked out the window at the playing fields, the swing set, all the swings hanging still, the chains gleaming gold in the sunlight against a background of green spring. A beautiful day, no doubt about it. It had been raining hard on that drive down to New Orleans the weekend Marcia decided the time for conceiving Rhett had arrived, a long drive with the windshield fogging up, Marcia leaning on his shoulder, giving him bites from her burger, the two of them holding hands while the backsplash from the eighteen-wheelers came like a monsoon. Roy didn’t want to think about it. He pressed play.

“I’m gonna tell my mother howdy, howdy, howdy,

When I get home,

Yes I’m gonna tell my mother howdy

When I get home, well, well, well.

I’m gonna shake my father’s hand

I will shake their hands that day

That’s where we walk, oh that Milky White Way

Lord one of these days.”

He listened to it a few times, more like just having it there with him, he knew it so well, and then a side door of the school opened and out came a kid, a boy, Rhett. Roy checked his watch. Ten twenty-five: good thing he’d come early. Rhett ran down the sloping lawn, his backpack bouncing along behind him, in the middle of all that sunshine and springtime green. The boy was going to be all right. That was what mattered. Roy tried to make his mind snap a lasting picture of that moment. He didn’t have the kind of mind that was good at things like that.

Rhett jumped in the car. Roy fought off the urge to pat him on the shoulder or, yes, give him a kiss, which was what he really wanted to do. “Glad to be out, huh?” he said.

“Out?” Rhett sucked on his knuckles; they were bleeding a little.

“Out of that school.”

“It’s not so bad,” Rhett said. He glanced at the school. “Let’s go.”

“What happened there?” Roy said.

“Just a scrape,” Rhett said. “Opening up my locker.”

Roy started the car, drove off.

“Do we have to listen to that?” Rhett said.

Roy switched off “Milky White Way.”

“Vroom vroom,” said Sonny Junior, raising a Bud in welcome. He sat on the back of a flatbed truck with Ducktown Salvage on the door, the demolition derby car already down on the dirt track, an abandoned course near the South Carolina line. “Any trouble finding the place?”

“Some,” said Roy.

“Did I say south on four forty-one?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Meant north. South coming from Tennessee.”

Roy’s watch felt heavy, ticking away the time.

Sonny Junior flipped the empty bottle over his shoulder, slipped down off the truck. “How’s it goin’, killer?” he said. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and his arms and shoulders were reddening in the sun.

“Pretty good,” said Rhett.

“What happened to your hair?”

“Got cut.”

“Lookin’ good,” said Sonny Junior.

“My mom made me. I’m moving to New York.”

“That’s what I hear,” said Sonny Junior. “Ready for a spin?”

They got in the demolition derby car, yellow with red flames except for the deep dents where bare metal gleamed, Sonny Junior behind the wheel, Rhett beside him. Roy watched the car circle the track. On the first go-around, Sonny Junior talked and made gestures and Rhett nodded. On the second, Rhett was on Sonny Junior’s lap, hands on the wheel, and they were both laughing. On the third, Sonny Junior was on the passenger side, his arm hanging out the window, and Rhett was driving. The car veered over to the side of the track, a little abruptly, and stopped near Roy. Sonny Junior hopped out. The car started rolling.

“Hey,” Roy said, stepping forward.

Sonny Junior put a hand on Roy’s arm. “Can’t hurt himself, cousin. He knows not to go over twenty and I got him all strapped in-it’s like a cage in there.”

Roy watched Rhett drive off, just tall enough to see over the wheel. For a moment, he strained a bit against Sonny’s hand, and Sonny strained back. Then Rhett came to the first turn, appeared to have no trouble with it, continued slowly around the oval, dead center in the track. Roy relaxed a little. Was he going to ruin this treat, act like an old woman on Rhett’s last day, leave Rhett with that memory to fly off with?

Sonny Junior went over to the truck, opened another beer. “Cold one?” he said.

Roy shook his head, watched Rhett driving sedately up the backstretch.

“New York,” Sonny Junior said.

“Correct.”

“A lip doctor, what’s that?”

“Some kind of plastic surgeon.”

“You couldn’t do anything about it?”

“Like what?”

Sonny Junior came over, put a beer in his hand. “I get you, Roy. If you could of done the kind of something that would of worked, it wouldn’t of happened in the first place.”

Roy turned to him. “Meaning?”

Sonny Junior raised his hands in surprise, reacting to some expression that must have been on Roy’s face. “No offense, cuz. I’m just talking about a quick one upside the head-another one of those no-nos in this society we got goin’.”

“That sort of happened,” Roy said.

“You hit her?” said Sonny Junior. “Wouldn’t have thought it of you, what with how smooth you are, Roy, in control.”

Is that the way he appeared to Sonny Junior? “Not her,” Roy said. “Him.”

“The lip doctor? You popped him?”

Rhett came out of the number four turn, drove up the track their way at about ten miles an hour. He didn’t look at them, just went by, both hands on the wheel, face glowing. He must have spotted some weeds growing up through the track, weeds with flowers on the end, because he swerved to run them over, crunch, under his left front wheel. Roy didn’t answer.

“Popped him a good one, I hope,” said Sonny Junior.

“What difference does it make?”

“Makes me feel better, anyway.”

“You?”

“For what they done,” said Sonny Junior. “Just when I’m gettin’ to know him, takin’ him away like this. What I’d fuckin’ do to-” He went silent, tilted the bottle to his mouth. They watched Rhett rounding the number two turn; was that his arm hanging out the window? A skinny arm, but in its nonchalant pose an exact duplicate of Sonny Junior’s. Sonny Junior patted Roy on the back. “So I know what you must be going through.”

“What I’m going through?” said Roy.

“Yeah. Like the separation thing.”

All at once, Roy found his eyes tearing up again, a crazy thing to happen in front of Sonny Junior. For cover, more than anything else, he took a drink from the bottle, unexpectedly found himself wanting more, drank more, chugging down the whole bottle in the end. His vision cleared.

“Wee-ooo,” said Sonny Junior, his eyebrows-so fair they were almost invisible-rising in surprise. He chugged his beer too. “That’s more like it, Roy. What’s family all about anyways?” He hurled the empty bottle all the way across the track, smashing against the rusted stands on the other side. “This fuckin’ society,” he said.

Rhett was on the backstretch again, maybe going a little faster now. A strange question popped into Roy’s mind and he said it aloud; this was his cousin, after all. “Was that the rebel yell, Sonny?”

“Huh?”

“That yell you just did.”

“Wee-ooo. Like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Hell if I know. Why, Roy? What’s up?”

Roy looked at the sky, a deep blue sky that got deeper and deeper the longer he looked, like he could fall up into it and fall and fall forever. He tried that rebel yell.

Not too good. His air supply failed and the volume got nowhere near Sonny Junior’s, besides which his voice cracked in the middle, the rest of it quavering off to nothing. That fucking night- don’t say fucking — in the Hotel de whatever it was in the French Quarter where Rhett was conceived, and where afterward in the dim bathroom Roy had pissed in the bidet thing, not knowing any better: suddenly Roy’s lungs folded up and he was out of air, but completely. He dug in his pockets; no inhaler. He glanced around, maybe a little wildly, drowning for air in all that blue sky.

“ ’Nother frostie?” said Sonny Junior.

Everything started to fade, and in that fading, Roy heard a roar and saw the demolition derby car, yellow with red flames, zooming down the backstretch, barreling into the number three turn, fishtailing, fishtailing, wider and wider, then starting to spin, spinning in clouds of dust, Rhett’s face thumb-sized with a black O in the middle, and of course it rolled, the yellow red-flaming thing rolled and kept rolling, rolling across the infield right at Sonny Junior and him, flipping, flipping again, and once more before landing upright, and stopping just like that, quivering ten yards away.

Roy wasn’t aware of his lungs reopening, of running across the infield, of ripping open the door, grappling with the harness, of nothing until he had Rhett out of the car and in his arms.

“Put me down,” said Rhett, struggling free, dropping to the ground.

Roy just stood there, breathing. Sonny Junior came running up. “He okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Rhett. He looked it, eyes wide, mouth open, not a mark on him. “That’s the most fun I ever had in my whole life.”

Sonny Junior took off his belt. “Want this, Roy?”

“For what?”

“The whippin’ you’re gonna give him-I told him no more than twenty miles an hour. Must have hit eighty.”

“There’s going to be no whipping. Let an eleven-year-old kid drive a car, whatever happens is on you.”

“On me?” said Sonny Junior, turning to Roy, the belt in his hand. Roy had a memory of that barn up in Tennessee, Sonny’s barn now but the way it was long ago, with those shafts of light crisscrossing over two little boys, way below, and blood on the straw.

“Correct,” said Roy. “On you.”

Roy and Sonny Junior faced each other.

“Sorry, Uncle Sonny,” Rhett said. “Didn’t mean to hurt your car.”

Sonny Junior gazed down at the boy. He started to smile, a smile that got bigger and bigger. “Hell, boy, can’t hurt a demolition derby car-it’s already demolished, that’s the whole deal.” He started laughing. Then Rhett was laughing too, and finally Roy. Sonny Junior reached down, cuffed Rhett on the back of the head, not too hard. “Liked your hair better the old way, killer,” he said. “Don’t be forgettin’ your uncle Sonny.”

“Never,” said Rhett.

Down below, Roy drove in an unending line of cars along the airport feeder. Up above, planes rose into the sky one after the other, higher and higher until they disappeared into that blue sky. It was like some automatic system, some immense machine-present-day life itself, was how Lee would see it, Roy knew that-all set up for taking Rhett away from him.

“We’ll just make it,” Roy said.

“I don’t care,” said Rhett. “You think I want to go?”

“Everything’s going to be all right. Call home-call me anytime you like.”

No reply.

“You know the number?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

Rhett said the number.

“You have to dial one and then the area code first. Do you know the area code?”

“No.”

“Four-oh-four. Think you can remember, or want me to write it down?”

Rhett didn’t answer. Roy glanced over and saw Rhett writing 404 on his hand in ink.

Marcia was where she’d said she’d be, standing on the curb by the American Airlines sign, checking her watch. No sign of Dr. Grant Nordman, probably waiting inside. Pulling over, Roy tried to think of the last words he should say to Rhett. I love you, probably, or maybe just Love you. Didn’t want to burden the boy with too much emotion, but at the same time Everything happened quickly.

Rhett got out of the car before Roy had a chance to say anything.

Roy got out too, but a cop hurried over immediately: “Can’t park here.”

And Marcia was dressed like he’d never seen, could have been some high-society lady.

She said: “Okay, then,” or something like that. And then to Rhett, “Why, you’re filthy.”

The cop repeated what he’d said, but Roy moved around the car anyway, up on the curb, turned Rhett around, gave him a kiss on the top of his head, a kiss meant for his forehead, the middle of his forehead, that was what he’d had in mind, but off-target in all the confusion.

Marcia took Rhett’s hand. “The flight’s on time.” She looked at Roy. “I left the phone number and address on your machine.”

Roy didn’t know what she was talking about. Rhett stood beside her, eyes on Roy.

“Bye, son,” Roy said.

Rhett nodded.

Marcia took him inside.

The cop said what he had to say one last time.

At home, Roy listened to Marcia’s message on the machine, wrote down the New York address and phone number, stuck them on the fridge. There were two other messages, both from Ms. Steinwasser, asking him to call the school. Roy had just finished listening to them when the phone rang. Roy picked it up, thinking, Rhett, trying out one of those plane phones.

But it was some man he’d never heard of. “Are you aware of what happened at the school today? That little scumbag of yours ambushed my son. Cody’s in bed right now-practically knocked unconscious.”

“With what?” Roy said.

“What the hell kind of question is that? Your son walked up to my son and punched him right in the face.”

“I’m sure you know there’s been provocation,” Roy said; at the same time remembering Rhett running out of the school five minutes early, his skinned knuckles, and the boxing lesson in the barn before that. All made sense, but much too late, maybe the only way things made sense to him.

“Now I see where it comes from,” the man said. “It may interest you to know I’ve got an office full of lawyers just waiting to take a bite out of the likes of you.”

“Are they licensed to practice in New York?” Roy said, and hung up.

Roy didn’t have beer, didn’t have anything to drink. Didn’t want beer anyway, wanted Old Grand-Dad, so he went out and got some. Never even tasted Old Grand-Dad, but that was what he wanted. Drank a bit, then a little bit more. Much later, late at night, sitting in the darkened kitchen with the gun on his lap again, he decided to take another crack at the rebel yell. He rose, laid the gun on the table, took a deep breath-had no trouble taking it, for some reason, filling himself with air like never before-then yelled that rebel yell at the top of his lungs. At the top of his lungs, his throat free and open, all his strength turned into sound. His body went cold from it. The house shook from it. And after, in the silence, he pictured his little house from high above, a tiny square in an endless grid of tiny squares, the rebel yell escaping through the roof, rising into the night.