Last of the Dixie Heroes

TWO

Rhett lay on the couch in the school nurse’s office, holding a bloody tissue over his nose. One eye, swollen and purpling, was closed; his open eye stared at the ceiling. The nurse was on the phone, laughing softly at whatever she was being told.

Roy stepped in front of Ms. Steinwasser and walked over to him. The nurse got off the phone.

Roy didn’t know what to say. “Hey.” That was what he said, the word coming out a little deeper than he’d intended, and a little ragged.

Rhett’s good eye moved, found him. Roy saw a lot of emotion in that eye, far more than he wanted to, far more than he could read. “I got in a fight, Dad.” Rhett’s lower lip trembled and so did his voice, but he didn’t cry.

“I can see that,” Roy said. Maybe he should have said something else.

Rhett cried then, just one sob before he got a grip.

Roy put his hand on Rhett’s shoulder, so bony. “Hey,” he said again.

“Take me home, Dad.”

That meant Marcia’s. “Now you’re talking,” he said.

The nurse was on her feet. “I’ll just check on that nosebleed one last time.”

Roy turned to Ms. Steinwasser. “I’m still not clear on what happened exactly.”

“As I mentioned, Mr. Hill, there was a fight at recess. The fields are very well supervised here at Buckhead, but unfortunately the boys got behind the big magnolia by the wall and no one saw them right away.”

“How many were in it?” Roy said.

“In it?” said Ms. Steinwasser.

“The fight.”

“Just two,” said Ms. Steinwasser. “Which was quite enough, as you can see.”

As you can see: Roy didn’t quite get that part. Was she saying that Rhett’s face was convenient proof of some theory of hers? “Where’s the other kid?” Roy said.

“We sent him home.”

“Who started it?”

Ms. Steinwasser’s tone changed slightly, but enough to bring back memories of his own schooling. “We haven’t really found it productive to dwell on issues of that sort,” she said. “The rule is that fighting for any reason is forbidden.”

“Cody started it,” Rhett said, raising his head; a tiny drop of blood appeared at the opening of one nostril. Roy’s mind made a weird connection to Gordo’s and P.J.’s shaving cuts. “He hit me for no reason.”

“Better lay back down now,” said the nurse.

Rhett lay back down.

“In this case,” said Ms. Steinwasser, “both boys claim the other was the instigator. That’s not uncommon. The policy mandates a minimum level-two sanction of three after-school detentions. Given that it’s a first offense in each case, I’m going to forgo anything more severe, such as suspensions, on this occasion.”

It all sounded sensible and crazy at the same time. Roy felt like objecting, but he didn’t know where to start. He was back in school, all right. Roy went over to the table. “Let’s go, son.” He fought an urge to just lift the boy up and carry him away, instead watched Rhett struggle up to a sitting position, swing his legs out, stand up.

“Bleeding’s pretty much stopped is one good thing,” the nurse said. “Not dizzy, are you, Reed?”

“I’m fine,” said Rhett, but the color drained from his face.

“It’s Rhett,” Roy said. He took the boy’s arm and walked him out.

They waited in front of the school for a taxi. Buckhead-type cars went by-Benzes, Audis, Lexuses, big SUVs-but no taxis. Rhett withdrew his arm.

A little farther up the street, a Jaguar convertible pulled over to the curb, top down. A boy jumped off a swing in the play area and trotted to the car; a broad-faced boy about Rhett’s age, but a lot bigger. As he was getting into the Jag, the boy noticed Rhett and gave him a big, smirking smile. Rhett recoiled.

“That the one?” Roy said.

Rhett didn’t answer. The boy turned to them as the car passed by. Roy got a good look at his face: not a mark on it. The boy made a hitchhiking gesture with his thumb. Then he said something to the driver, who looked like a grown-up version of himself. The driver tousled the boy’s hair as they disappeared around the corner. Roy thought he saw a cigar stub spinning through the air.

“I want to punch his fucking face in,” Rhett said.

“Shouldn’t say fucking,” Roy said, and felt like an idiot.

Rhett said no more. He had both hands squeezed into tight fists, little cubes incapable of doing much damage. Roy saw a taxi, good thing, because by now he’d proved even to himself that he had no idea how to make this better with words. He raised his hand.

They sat in the back of the cab, Rhett with his fists on his knees. Roy had to make an effort to keep his own hands relaxed. After five or ten minutes, Rhett’s hands relaxed a little too.

Roy tried again. “What was it all about?”

“I already told you. He hit me for no reason.”

“Just out of the blue.”

“I said I scored a touchdown in Pop Warner last season.”

“And then?”

Rhett’s voice rose. “I told you-then he punched me in the eye. Are you retarded or something?”

The driver’s eyes shifted in the mirror.

Roy tried silence again. They went over a hill. The houses got bigger, brick mansions set farther and farther back from the street. It turned out that living in Buckhead had always been one of Marcia’s dreams: the word itself was magic to her. The house she and Roy had bought in Virginia-Highland, a fixer-upper but a house she’d wanted very badly, had been, in her mind, it also turned out, the first step in a series of moves that would end on a street like this; like landing on Boardwalk at last. The street Marcia now lived on wasn’t quite as nice as this-the houses not so old, not so big, not set so far back-but it was Buckhead. The driver turned onto it.

Roy glanced at Rhett. He was sitting very still, looking straight ahead. Roy could see only one half of his face, the swollen half. The closed eye was puffier now, more purple; the long lashes hung limp and damp from the rim of the lid. Roy had one more thought.

“I was a skinny kid too,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

Bad idea. Either Rhett hadn’t got the part that was meant to be comforting-that Roy had grown up to be big and strong, at least big and strong enough to have suited up on the Bulldog special teams in his freshman, and only, year over in Athens-or it hadn’t been comforting, period. Maybe the opposite. Was it possible Rhett didn’t see him as big and strong? Roy made third team all-state as a tight end his senior year in high school, even though he hadn’t weighed what tight ends should weigh. He caught the reflection of his face in the side window, realized he was closer to tight end level now, the added pounds being of the wrong kind and years too late. The reflection of Rhett’s swollen face loomed behind his. Roy had no idea how the boy saw him. The taxi stopped in front of Marcia’s house.

Marcia’s house, with its three-story central section and two-story wings, wasn’t big by neighborhood standards, but it was a lot bigger than the house she’d left behind. Was it as nice? Not in Roy’s opinion, but he knew nothing about architecture. And why did he think of it as Marcia’s house? It was the boyfriend’s house and would be until she married him.

“Where’s your mom today?” Roy said.

“At work.”

Not true, but Roy didn’t say anything. Rhett took out his key and opened the door.

Roy had never been inside the house. The Saturday passing back and forth of Rhett always took place on the front steps. Brenda, Gordo’s wife, had once asked Roy what the house was like inside. Gordo had given her a look. Roy didn’t know, didn’t want to know. He followed Rhett into the house.

First came a big square entrance hall, with a high ceiling and a polished hardwood floor. Roy could see that it was a stylish kind of room, but there was nothing in it except a chandelier tilted against the wall in one corner, some of the crystals loose on the floor. They went through another high-ceilinged empty room, possibly a dining room, and into the kitchen.

The kitchen had built-in appliances, three chairs and a card table piled with unopened mail, and a phone blinking its red message light.

“Hungry?” Roy said.

Rhett was staring out the back window. A pile of dirt lay by a hole in the backyard. Roy opened the fridge.

A big fridge, the biggest he’d ever seen. There was a bottle of Absolut on one shelf, two containers of mocha yogurt on another, and three lemons in the fruit drawer. Roy closed the door.

He went over and stood by Rhett. “What’s the hole all about?”

“Who cares?” Rhett said. He left the room.

Roy stood in Marcia’s kitchen. He found himself staring out the window as Rhett had, his gaze on the dirt pile. A strange feeling overcame him, a sense of being cut off from his own life, completely disconnected. At the same time, he started having problems with his air supply. Roy turned from the window, eyed the mail on the table: bills, almost all of it. The disconnected feeling didn’t go away. He took a deep breath, or tried to, and went to find Rhett.

Roy walked back through some more rooms-one had a big-screen TV and a futon, the others were empty-and up a broad, winding staircase. At the top was a long corridor with four or five doors off it, all ajar. Roy glanced in the first two rooms, both bare, and then the third.

The third room was furnished. It had a rug, a king-size bed, unmade and rumpled, another big-screen TV, and a desktop computer. A man sat at the computer, his back to the door. The man, who might once have been in shape but wasn’t now, was in his underwear. This was Barry. Roy had met him only once, in the course of one of those front steps exchanges. No shaking hands or anything: just a nod back and forth. Barry had been dressed for golf that time, in a silk polo shirt and a big straw hat. Seeing him like this, with his pudgy pale back and a little crack showing above the band of his briefs, was a lot different. Roy rapped his knuckles on the inside of the door.

Barry spun around. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“I knocked.”

“Anyway you’re late. It was supposed to be ten.”

Roy remembered that Barry was from Boston or somewhere. He had a way of talking that Roy didn’t like.

“You’re the electric guy, right?” said Barry.

Roy put a few things together: Ms. Steinwasser’s calls from the school, the blinking message light, Barry here the whole time, not picking up. Barry says I can call him Daddy too.

“I’m Rhett’s father,” Roy said.

Barry squinted at him. “So you are.” He hunched forward a little; his hands crossed over his groin. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Where’s Marcia?”

“Momentito there, amigo. I asked the first question.” He rose, a flabby guy but big, much bigger than Roy, and confident even in his underwear. “Or maybe you’re forgetting this is my house you barged into.”

“I’m not forgetting anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barry came closer.

Roy said an ugly thing. It just popped out, popped out of some pit of weird and angry confusion inside him. “Your tits are bigger than hers,” he said. He regretted it at once. To cheapen Marcia like that, to mix her up with this guy in a physical way, was sickening.

Barry reddened, but just from the neck up. The rest of him went even paler. Roy knew this was crazy, two grown men moving toward violence. He knew that, but deep inside him a voice that sounded like his, but rawer, was saying: Take a swing at me. His lungs suddenly filled with oxygen, rich and potent.

Moving toward violence, with Rhett in the house. Wouldn’t there be something very wrong with a father like that? Inside him, the raw voice went silent.

At the same time Barry’s computer beeped. “You’re going to regret this very much,” said Barry. “Trust me. Do I have to tell you what Marcia will say when she gets home from the hospital?”

“Hospital?”

Barry turned back to the computer.

“What’s she doing in the hospital?”

On the computer screen, something happened that Barry didn’t like. He banged his fist on the desk.

“Is something wrong with her?” Roy said.

“Time’s up,” said Barry.

“What are you talking about?”

Barry’s eyes were on the screen. “Can’t you see I’ve got a play going here?”

“Play?”

Barry shot him a glance, so brief Roy almost missed the strange look on his face, almost triumphant. “I’m shorting Yahoo,” he said. “There’s a freebie you don’t deserve.”

Roy backed out of the room. The last thing he saw was the king-size bed. Mixing Marcia with this guy in a physical way: maybe the dumbest thought he’d ever had. How much more mixed could they be? They fucked in that bed every night. Shouldn’t say fucking. And Barry didn’t even bother getting dressed in the morning.

Roy went down the hall, tried the next room. Rhett was inside, lying on the bed, face to the wall, hand between his knees. It was a bigger bedroom than his old one, and had things his old one didn’t-a TV, compact stereo system, video game console. The little tuft of hair was sticking up at the back of Rhett’s head.

“I thought Barry owned a mortgage company,” Roy said.

There was a long silence. Roy heard Barry banging his fist on the desk again. “He did,” Rhett said. “Now he trades online.”

“Is that a step up?” Roy said.

Rhett laughed, soft and quickly ended, but a laugh.

“Let’s go home,” Roy said.

Rhett turned over, head at a funny angle to get Roy in view with his good eye. “Home?”

“Just for the night.” The counselor had advised that Rhett not sleep in his old bedroom: We like to smooth the transition. “I’ll get you to school in the morning.”

“I’m not going back to school.”

“Got to go to school, Rhett.”

“Why?”

“If kids don’t go, the whole system falls apart. Then where would we be?”

“Is that meant to be funny?”

“Guess not, if you have to ask.”

Rhett smiled, not much of one and quickly erased, but a smile. He got off the bed. Roy walked him down the hall.

“We’ll be at my place,” Roy said as they passed the master bedroom.

Hunched over his computer, Barry made no reply. Roy was getting plenty of air now, his lungs working effortlessly. Maybe the Buckhead atmosphere agreed with him.