They're Calling You Home

Chapter Two

Chapter Two The drive to the Pleasant hills group home is short but filled with flora. My headlights cut dirty ocher swaths down the country road, illuminating the edges of the long-leaf pine forests, reflecting little beady eyes of raccoons and possums clinging to the bases of massive cypress trunks; mounds of moss turn iridescent then fade to black as the truck rolls along. I coast over the spot that scares me the most, a weak guardrail of flimsy two-by-fours the only thing keeping my old Datsun from careening into a murky swamp, probably the same water that the alligators at my apartment complex were hatched in. Pascal senses my fear and laps the side of my face, then uses his tongue to lick all around his own muzzle. once over the scary part of the trip, I apply more gas, and before I know it, we’re sitting in front of the group home. I cut the headlights quickly so I don’t disturb the six men living here. There will be one man awake though, a friend of mine named ely, who prefers to be called Browder, his last name. It’s midnight on the dot as I try to quietly open the front door. Pascal is as careful as I am, sort of crouching, staying tight to my leg. Cindy—the person I’m relieving—comes out the door. We whisper on the stoop, a kind of rushed and hushed system of updates we’ve conjured after working together for the last year. Cindy rubs Pascal’s ears and speaks softly, “your man is waiting up for you. he’s got a new movie for y’all to watch. Something about the Mafia.” I nod, and Pascal licks Cindy’s hand as she brushes past me and waves goodbye over her shoulder. She’s married and has six kids, all of them boys, looking every bit like genetic stair steps. She’s kind and religious, and we’ve only disagreed once, when she couldn’t help herself from saying anybody who voted for a liberal needed to have their heads checked. But to her credit, she added, “Man, that was stupid. I shouldn’t have said that here at work. Sorry.” The living room is lit by a floor lamp, and its yellow light gives the space a homey feel, the walls a warm honey glow. The television playing low reminds me of when my daughter was little, and her mother and I tried to keep from making any noise at all, lest Wendy wake up screaming, her little face red and round. I put my book bag on the sofa just as Browder comes hoofing into the living room, one side of him lagging. he’s got a huge grin on his face, his head turned to the side, as Pascal finds his usual spot near the fake fireplace, turning circles before lying down and nuzzling his own tail. “I got one for you,” says Browder, his mild lisp reminiscent of some kind of foreign accent, maybe British; I’ve never been able to describe it. he’s holding a DVD, his slender thumb through the hole in the center to keep from smudging the surface. Browder has long fingers, big feet, and brown hair that seems to never get messed up. he’s a movie buff, especially movies that have blood. Browder is referred to as mildly developmentally disabled , which sounds like how a meteorologist might describe a weakening storm front. “What movie you got there, Browder?” he looks at me with his blinking doe eyes, kind of crab walking in my direction, a slue-footed sidle that gives him the air of a skittish performer. “It’s about the Mauve-e-uh. Capone and his gang.” “great. let’s pop that baby in and eat some barbecue chips, ely Browder.” Browder drags himself to the kitchen counter, then comes back with an extralarge bag of laura lynn–brand barbecue chips in his weak hand, the same side of his body where the leg tags along. he’s smiling so much his missing molar is exposed, a dark empty space at the corner of his red mouth. his parents left him in the hospital shortly after he was born. They were poor pecan farmers with five kids already, and the news that he would need extra help learning didn’t figure into their itinerant work; at least that’s what his chart...