When they entered the backyard, his mom gesturing as though announcing dignitaries to the royal court, a cheer sounded across the crowd. Daron cringed when he heard Jungle Boogie playing. His family was dangerously drunk when they started playing soul, and it was only eight P.M. Almost thirty people danced, sang, chatted, smoked, or swapped stories in various corners of the yard, all waiting to ambush him with embarrassment. His fifty-seven-year-old aunt Boo would soon be dropping it like it was hot, his uncle Lance would soon be doing the funky chicken clogging routine, and his seven-year-old cousin Ashley would soon be doing her Beyoncé Single Ladies impersonation, complete with a body suit, stockings, and high heels.
Then there were his older female cousins—the stripper, the trucker, and the elementary school teacher—referred to as no-count because they’d never married. The stripper and teacher were twins, and rumor had it they occasionally played switcheroo. At most gatherings, one started a fire and the other a fight. But there was no telling who because they switched roles for each party.
Of course there was Uncle Roy, who resembled Don Knotts and chanted nigger like it would cure his pancreatic cancer. His wife, Aunt Chester, never knew where to put the needle down in the conversation and couldn’t meet people without making fun of their names, if she liked them. Daron couldn’t blame her. Her Christian name was Anna, but Uncle Roy always introduced her as his wife, Chester, and often added, nodding at her bosom, You’ll never guess how she got that nickname or why I married her. Quint, more a brother than a cousin, had the Confederate flag tattooed on his left forearm, in case you didn’t see the one on his right, Balance, his only explanation.
Daron led his friends around the yard, introducing them to everybody more for his own benefit than for theirs, wondering what he would do and whom he would talk to when the niceties were over. Since college started, these get-togethers felt more stressful. His young cousin’s dancing was evidence of the media’s deleterious influence on her definition of beauty and her self-image. (He had written a paper proudly entitled The Story of Oh: Hypersexualization and Young Girls, and e-mailed it to one cousin, who e-mailed it to another cousin, who e-mailed it to another, who posted it on Facebook with a request for help interpreting the, Journalism of my little cousin who I always knew was going to be a genius. Another cousin had it bound and shelved.) She would never look like Beyoncé; even most black women didn’t look like Beyoncé. Though when young he had admired their sarcasm and sharp wit, his older female cousins—the misanthrope, the pyromaniac, and the exhibitionist—all obviously hated their lives, lives that would never recover the hope of their youth, lives now defined by their status as old maids, though barely thirty. They were stuck here, and the finality of that sentence pained him. It was impossible to have a conversation with one of them and not feel like he was addressing a ghost. He should have warned his friends it would be BYOC—Bring Your Own Conversation.
Yet, every few encounters one of the Indians fell happy captive. Charlie was the first to go. Uncle Roy asked if he had folks ’round the way in the Gully. When Charlie shook his head, No, Roy offered to tell him about it. A few minutes later, the crazy cousins, avoiding Daron’s eyes, sheepishly asked Candice about medical marijuana, and the four of them huddled like old friends under the umbrella his mother had borrowed from Lou’s for the occasion.
And Quint waited at the end of the circuit the entire time, grinning, stroking his thin chin, sharp elbow propped, pinned to a stumpy forearm thick as a pig’s knee; he’d recently spent another thirty days on chopping down a tree to steal a bike. (He blew time like he had it to spare, like it grew on clocks instead of died there.) His favorite top, when he wore one, was any T-shirt with writing because, It’s like you can say something without saying anything. Today’s slogan: I MAKE IT LOOK EASY.
Quint hugged Daron so tightly pain passed immediately into nostalgia. Six years older, Quint was forever bigger and stronger, and always squeezing or thumping or noodling Daron, as he did now, slipping Daron into an arm-bar and a full nelson and then a headlock to give him a noogie. Their entangled limbs did not resemble those of wrestlers at work so much as modern dancers in choreographed chaos. Daron had long since stopped resisting and accepted that Quint had to thump his chest at least once in front of all new folks. There were two types of people, as Daron learned in Anthro 101: tree climbers and tree pissers. His older, stronger, and quicker cousin Quint, unfortunately, was of the latter variety. (And no Twitter rants would suffice; Q was analog as a motherfucker.) On the other hand, at least he was a cousin. Threat of Quint was enough to limit the high school bullying to name-calling (Donut Black Hole beat big black eye). No one wanted Quint on their back, the very position in which Daron now found himself.
Louis raised his hands in surrender. I’d help, but I’d only end up in the same position as you.
Don’t worry ’bout him none. Quint tightened his grip. Ya’tta know by now. Oysters up under pressure, but he’ll come back later and deliver a pearl. Quint plucked him on the head one last time before releasing him, Won’t ya?
Daron stretched his neck, rotated his head in one direction, then the other. Quint, this is Louis, my roommate. Louis, Quint, first cousin.
Loose Chang. Louis extended his hand. Friends call me Loose.
He never told me you was so cute. Y’all live together?
Not by choice, not by choice. After a moment of silence, Louis added, For one thing he’s messy.
Just fuckin’ with ya. You eat? He pointed to the folding table against the house where the awning would protect the food from the sun. That there is the best potato salad, cold cut dip, and cobbler you’re going to find.
Cold cut dip, repeated Louis haltingly.
Quint wrapped a massive arm around Louis’s neck and steered him away, winking over his shoulder at Daron, who wondered if he was supposed to know what that meant.
Smoke wafted over to him and his mouth watered, even though he hadn’t eaten meat for five years. Berkeley and its gas grills, expensive gas grills, expensive shiny stainless steel gas grills, with casters and more attachments than Inspector Gadget and price tags that made him gag, yielded a result no better than poking a coat hanger through a hot dog and holding it over the range, as he did when a kid. Fire isn’t flavor, but the Big Green Egg, that ingenious ceramic capsule of goodness, that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of cookout equipment, both grill and smoker—God bless!—was guaranteed to give even the veggie burgers and tofu dogs a cheek-smacking hickory finish, except there weren’t any veggie burgers in the coolers, nor were any in the backyard refrigerator.
He found his mother in the kitchen, which betrayed no evidence she was hosting a party for more than thirty two-fisted, high-livered Davenports, McCormicks, and their miscellaneous miscellanies. It was a spotless white room, surgically so, the only color coming from the piglets. Pink piglets on dish towels, placemats, plaques: all from Daron and his father, her little piglets. She was leaning over the sink, scraping a nonstick baking sheet with a red rubber spatula. When he asked her about the vegetarian items, she stood, groaned and slapped the sink. I knew I forgot something.
It was typical that she was so busy cleaning she’d forgotten the most important items. She couldn’t forget meat because there was always a year’s supply in the freezer. Shit, Mom, that was the most important thing, Daron’s voice went high.
Is something the matter?
Everything’s the matter. You know they have dietary restrictions. Candice and Charlie don’t eat red meat. If you weren’t being all extra nice and going out of your way like, you know, to be like, all, you know …
Saccharine?
Yeah, saccharine.
I was going to wait until later, but since you’re bringing this up now. I assume you mean artificial. I am not artificial, and I’m right appalled and embarrassed that you