Authors: Kiese Laymon
Octavia Whittington was the light-skinned girl at Hamer with ashy elbows and the bad self-esteem. Octavia almost transferred from Hamer after her adopted parents said, “Fannie Lou Hamer doesn’t provide an environment conducive to Octavia’s depressive condition.” At one of those parent-teacher-student meetings, I remember LaVander Peeler Sr. saying that he was offended that another parent would try to bring that “doggone language of depression” into our school. He didn’t say it as plain as he wanted, because a decent number of students were at the meeting, but I do remember him saying loud and clear, “Those other folks might do it that way, but how are we any better than them if we start drugging the doggone feelings out of our kids.”
I remember the standing ovation he got, even from Mama, who was usually too busy to come to those meetings. I don’t know why, but I always felt sorry for Octavia after that. Yeah, she always stayed alone, and her eyes
looked crazy as hell because she only blinked once every minute, but if there was any kind of pill or drank that could make Octavia love living, I really think she should have been allowed to take it at school, especially if other folks at school were chasing the blue away by getting nice with themselves in the bathroom and dissing the hell out of each other with long sentences.
I pulled out a pen from my pocket and finished writing my will on the last page I’d read in
Long Division
.
11. I leave my favorite pen to this white man in the shed because he needs to write an apology to Grandma and maybe even to Baize. That would make him not feel so sad
.
12. I leave this copy of
Long Division
to LaVander Peeler
.
13. I leave the other copy to share between Grandma, Shay, Baize, and this white man in the shed if he decides to apologize
.
14. I don’t want to die yet but I don’t want to feel this kind of blue ever again. So sad ain’t no joke
.
I was two hours and twenty minutes from my baptism and Grandma was already at work on Monday morning. She planned on meeting Uncle Relle and me at the church on her lunch break. To tell you the truth, Grandma left the house heated. First, she hated that she had agreed to make me wear this dashiki that my mama had left in her closet. I hated it, too. It was bright yellow with brown half moons and full red sun splotches all over it. She said that Mama had always wanted me baptized in the thing, but she was
pissed when Mama called her and told her she wouldn’t be able to make it to Melahatchie. I could tell the dashiki was too big when Grandma handed it to me. When I put it on, the damn thing came all the way down past my navel, all the way past my thighs, and damn near touched my kneecaps. Plus, the neck part was too wide, so you could see the suit coat, vest, and tie underneath. I needed a shape-up, too, and there wasn’t one wave in my head since that white dude had taken my brush.
Uncle Relle came out on the porch while I was stewing in shame. He had a crazy smile on his face. “Anything you want to say to people before your big day?” he asked with one of his little phones in my face.
“Naw, not really. I’m good. I just hate my outfit.”
He laughed and said, “That shit looks real fucked up, but you good! Anyone you wish could be here to see you go through this day?”
I just looked at him. Couldn’t believe Uncle Relle was using the word “wish.” Wasn’t his style. “Naw, Uncle Relle. I’m good.”
“I’ll be right back in like ten minutes.”
I asked him where he was going, but he ignored me and jumped in his van.
Ten minutes later, Uncle Relle was pulling back into the driveway and someone else was in the passenger seat with him. Uncle Relle got out, walked around the passenger side, and opened the door. In what felt like slow motion, a patent leather blue-black Adidas hit the gravel.
I knew those Adidas.
Uncle Relle focused his camera phone on LaVander Peeler’s face as he got out of the van. As soon as I saw him, I thought about how stupid I looked in that damn dashiki. The LaVander Peeler I knew before the contest would have ethered me in one epic sentence for that outfit, but I wasn’t sure how much of that LaVander Peeler was left since he’d gone through that hell at the Coliseum. Plus, I hated that MyMy and Shay couldn’t meet him.
“What up, LaVander?” I tried to be real cool when he walked up on the porch. “What you doing here?”
He looked at my hands. “Where’s your brush?”
“Oh.” I used my left hand to go over my hair. “Long story.”
“You straight up wearing blouses now?” he asked me.
“Oh,” I tried to get my lie straight. “This is the new thing they wearing down here. But it’s not a blouse.”
“What is it then?” he asked, and just stood there reminding me of the old LaVander Peeler. I was deep into thinking of all the ways I could blame LaVander Peeler when one of those crazy things happened where we both looked up at Uncle Relle hoping he would turn that camera off so we could say what we really needed to say.
Surprisingly, he told us we’d be leaving soon and walked in the house.
“Why are you at my grandma’s house?” I asked him again.
“My father told me I had to come.”
“But why?”
“You doing that show your uncle told me about?” he asked me. “That seems like something you would wanna do. They say we could make over a million dollars each if we do it. All things considered, only a fool could turn down that money.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” I said. “But I feel different after being here for a few days. That contest or that show ain’t nothing compared to what I been through this weekend.”
He just looked at my feet, shook his head, and said, “…”
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing, City. It’s just, you always think you’ve been through something harder than somebody else.”
“Follow me,” I told him and walked behind the house. I pointed to the work shed. “Be quiet, okay? Just listen.”
We were still as could be. Then there was thump from the shed. Then another one.
“What’s that noise?” LaVander Peeler asked.
“A white man and this book. You heard of a book called
Long Division
?”
“No. Should I?”
“It’s the realest book I’ve ever read in my life, man.”
“The most real?”
“It’s the most real book ever, man. For real, it’s about tomorrow and yesterday and the magic of love. I’m serious. A version of me is in the book and Baize Shephard is in there, too. You might be in there, too. I haven’t finished it so I don’t know.”
“All things considered,” he said. “I believe you.”
We started walking back to the porch. I was leading the way. I realized it was the first time that LaVander Peeler had ever followed me anywhere. When we were under Grandma’s cottonwood tree, LaVander Peeler tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around with my fists balled up.
“City, why’d they do that to us?” he asked me. “My father just told me that the difference between me and President Obama is that President Obama never took his eyes off the prize. President Obama was clutch when they did things to him they’d never done to another president. He didn’t cry or cause a scene. He was always perfect when it was most important.”
“But you were perfect,” I told him. “You know what I mean? You were better than them. You were better than me. You coulda won that whole thing. For real.” He just looked at me. “I mean, if they gave you a real chance, you coulda won. You know that.” He started tearing up again so I put my hand on the top of his back. “You know I hate you, right?”
“I know that,” he said.
“But I can’t even lie to you, man. You’re the smartest person I ever met in my life, other than my grandma.”
“But I didn’t win, City.” He was grimacing and gritting his teeth like someone was giving him a shot in his neck. “All things considered, the point was to win, to beat them.”
“You weren’t running for president,” I told him. “Look, I’ma show you this white man after church, okay? It’ll make you feel better about yourself when we free him. Say something.”
LaVander Peeler wouldn’t say a word.
“You gotta promise that you won’t let me drown at this baptism, though. I have a weird feeling about it. Wait. Can I ask you a question?”
“If you want to.”
“What did you see before the contest that made your eyes water up? It’s like you knew what was gonna happen before it happened.”
LaVander started scratching his chin and looking at my chappy lips. “I don’t want to say.”
“Why not? It’s over now. Just tell me.”
He looked up and over at Grandma’s chinaberry tree. “I heard the woman who ran everything tell someone on her headset…” He started trailing off.
“Tell someone what?”
“She told someone to change the final order and let the tall one beat the Mexican girl because the fat one was going to be difficult.”
“Wait.” I thought about what LaVander Peeler said. “So does that mean that they were—”
“City, all things considered,” he interrupted me and wiped his nose. “If you don’t know what that mean, you really are dumbest, fattest homosexual on earth.”
Uncle Relle, LaVander Peeler, and I met Grandma two blocks from the church. The sun was beaming and the grills of Cadillacs, Impalas, and Bonnevilles made the usually dusty Ryle Boulevard look like a conveyor belt of cubic zirconia. Grandma commenced to rubbing gobs of Vaseline all over my forehead. She said I didn’t need to look tired and ashy on the most important Monday of my life. Then she kept saying not to be scared, that Jesus would make sure everything would be okay if I just believed.
When we got to the church, Grandma took me to a special room and told me to change. Hanging on the back of the door were three plush maroon robes. I’m talking about long fluffy towel-type robes, with the plushest belts imaginable. One had a piece of masking tape on the chest part with “City” written on it in black marker. The other two had pieces of tape that said “Ren” and “Reygord.” I figured those roguish jokers had found some way to skip out on this whole baptism thing.
My dashiki, shirt, and slacks were off when all of a sudden the door opened. In walked the rogues, Ren and Reygord, eating thick slices of cucumbers.
I was glad that I was out of my dashiki before seeing them. Not only because I looked straight crazy in the outfit Mama made me wear, but also because those jokers were wearing dirty camouflage shorts and yellow V-necks that had their names airbrushed on them.
“Y’all ready?” I asked them, and covered my thighs and skin-sacks with my robe.
They just kept eating on those thick slices of cucumber.
“Y’all ready for this dunking?”
They both looked at each other and started taking off their clothes. It was like they were having a contest to see who could take his clothes off the fastest.
“Y’all know about the white man behind my house?”
They both laughed. I liked that they were laughing, but it pissed me off that they wouldn’t talk to me.
“Hey, y’all. Hey.” Still no answer. “Hey. You know how we can get out of this, don’t you?” They looked at me and kept taking their clothes off. Both of them were down to their drawers. A heavy dose of Mama Troll’s organ slid under the door. The twins looked at me, looked at each other, and took off out of the room and out of the church.
I was all by myself.
Deacon Big Shank knocked on our door. When I opened it, he said that when Reverend Cherry said, “Let us have our young candidates for baptism,” I would walk out with my head down and my fists couldn’t be balled up.
While Big Shank was talking, I faded out, still thinking about
Long Division
and all that had happened over the past few days. I tried to think about it all as if it had unfolded like slow-motion scenes in a movie or soap opera, but it didn’t work. Then, I tried to think of another kind of movie music that would cover the slow-motion scenes, something like grainy guitar strums or light toe-taps.
That didn’t work either.
The only music that fit the scene was Big K.R.I.T.’s single, “Something,” or the whiny stuff being spat out by Troll’s organ.
Then something else happened in that hallway. Deacon Big Shank kept talking, telling me how much he liked watching
Family Feud
with Steve Harvey on his new flat-screen TV. Deacon Big Shank was always talking about TV. That was one of the best things about him.
“Your granddaddy would’ve been some kind of proud of you, Citizen. I’m telling you what I know. He would have. Don’t believe what no one else tells you. Your granddaddy knew some thangs that no one else ever knew.
It’s like he grew out and everybody else grew up…” Big Shank kept talking and my head kept nodding, but my mind was zoning out of his speech.
For the first time since all this mess started, I thought about what it really meant to die and what my granddaddy might have felt before and after he drowned.
I realized, standing there in that hall watching Big Shank’s mouth move in slow motion, that stories—sentences, really—were all I had of my granddaddy. He died when I was two and I couldn’t remember one thing about him. I heard that he took me everywhere, dressed me up in little suits. Made me a pimped-out leather brim when I was thirteen months. He never went to church a day in his life, but somehow took the church with him. He was the best bootlegger in Melahatchie and the second best in Scott County since it went dry. He loved all the old black sitcoms like
Sanford and Son
and
Good Times
. He wasn’t scared of hardly anything and when anybody touched him or his family the wrong way, even if it was white folks, he damn near beat the walk out of them. I heard that after he beat the walk out of someone he’d apologize and say, “I’m sho’ sorry about that. I reckon I reacts like a demon when anybody touch me or mines.” I heard he had a son named Ralph with a jump-off named Ms. Kyla Pace, and that Ralph had a number of children that my granddaddy never claimed. I heard that he hated to bathe and loved to eat and fight, like me, and that he loved thick, curvy women with big ankles and bigger mouths who liked Newports.