Stones in the Road (11 page)

“I don’t take that kind of crap from anyone, and I don’t care who they are.”

“Even me?”

“That’s one of the things you like about me.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I said.

“I wonder,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “while you’re
wondering
, you might want to suggest what we’re going to do about the DHS visit tomorrow.”

He frowned suddenly, stopped pacing. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been reported to the DHS.”

“You’ve been what?”

“I’ve been reported. That should make
you
happy, great follower of the rules that you are.”

“Wiley, what the hell?”

“Someone reported me to the DHS, and they’re going to conduct a home visit tomorrow, and they would very much like it if you were present. And oh, they’re going to bring a translator so they can get the dirt straight from Noah. Oh, and they wanted to know about the ‘other male’ living in the household.”

“Seriously?”

I nodded.

“When did you hear about this?” he asked.

“They called me earlier today.”

“You could have told me!”

“And give you one more thing to rag my ass about?”

“This is serious!”

“No kidding.”

“I don’t know what they think they’re going to find.”

“Me neither.”

“And you’re not mad about it?”

“Any bastard with a gripe can call the frikkin’ Nazis at the DHS.”

“Oh, shit,” he exclaimed, sitting on the bed beside me.

Indeed.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?” he demanded suddenly.

“I believe I just did,” I said.

“Before!”

“It’s not exactly a highlight of my life,” I offered.

“But we’re in this together, Wiley.”

“Are we?”

“Of course we are. We’re a team, big guy! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“The same number of times that I have to tell you I don’t like being called ‘big guy’?”

“Would you rather I called you ‘Bubba’? Or ‘Clarence’?”

“I see your point.”

“This is serious, Wiley.”

“I know. ‘Big guy’ is
so
… butch. Really makes me uncomfortable.”

“The DHS visit, you butt muncher!”

“Butt muncher?”

“Your niece says that all the time.”

“Mary?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s a hoot. Butt munching is actually a lot of fun.”

“Wiley!”

He whipped out his phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“My mom’s lawyer. You can thank me later.”

“This late at night?”

“That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.”

W
HEN
THE
NOAA weather radio went off at just after five the next morning, Jackson jumped out of bed and shouted for me to get up. As I reached over to hit the panic button on the radio to silence it, I saw that Noah had snuck into our bed again and now lay between us, blissfully dead to the world.

“Is it a tornado?” Jackson demanded, throwing on his bathrobe.

“
… Lee, Monroe, Pontotoc, and Union counties until 5:00 p.m. Repeat: A tornado watch has been issued for the following counties in Northeast Mississippi
….”

“How many times do I have to tell you the difference between a watch and a warning?” I asked. “And you call yourself a Southerner.”

“I do not! Should we wake him up?”

He glanced down at Noah.

“A tornado watch means ‘conditions are good’ and all that,” I said. “We get a lot of watches, but they don’t mean much, and the best thing you can do right now is get your butt back in bed and let me do some loving on you.”

“Is it safe?”

“If you use a condom, yeah, pretty much.”

“I mean the tornado!”

“No, they’re not safe at all.”

The announcer on the radio reminded us that, “When thunder roars, stay indoors!”

“Are we going to have a tornado or not?” Jackson asked.

“Conditions are good. Blah, blah, blah. Cold weather front meets hot weather front. Funnels form. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Sorry about those trailers. We’re smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley. What you gonna do?”

“So it’s safe?”

“We can sneak into the bathroom. He’s deaf, you know. He won’t hear a thing.”

“We have to get ready for the DHS visit!” he snapped. “Don’t you ever think about anything except having sex?”

“Not unless I have to,” I admitted, lying back in bed and sighing.

“Why is
he
in our bed again?”

“Do you have to bust my balls about everything?”

“I feel like there’s three people in this marriage,” Jackson retorted.

“You just now figured that out?”

“I’m serious, Wiley!”

“Don’t tell me I didn’t make it perfectly clear to you that Noah was always going to be number one on my list of priorities. We’re a package deal, Ledbetter.”

“I didn’t know he was going to be sleeping in our bed!”

“He doesn’t sleep in our bed. Well, not all the time. Okay, so he’s been kind of sleeping in our bed a lot lately. He’s acting weird. Cut him some slack.”

“We need to talk about this visit,” he said distractedly. “The house needs to be clean, and everything needs to be safe and child friendly. You’re going to have to help him clean up his room. I know you’re trying to get him to do it by himself, but you’re going to have to make an exception today. That’s the kind of stuff they look for—messy rooms, people not taking care of things, evidence of neglect.”

I listened in silence.

“If they’re coming to visit, that means they have reason to believe that Noah might be in eminent danger from something or someone. If we’re lucky, they’ll find out otherwise and go on about their business. I don’t know what they hope to find, but they have to act on their reports. That’s why they’re there.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“I work with kids,” he said, glancing at me. “I’ve called the DHS a few times myself. That’s my job. If I see something that doesn’t look right—unexplained injuries, or weird marks, or even if the child makes weird comments—”

“Like what?”

“Like if some kid asks me if I want to see his pee pee.”

“Excuse me?”

“Children don’t do that kind of stuff, not unless they’ve been intro
duced to it. And then they think they’re being cheeky, and they say stuff like that. Showing off.”

“You’ve had children say stuff like that to you?”

“I saw a little girl a few weeks ago. When I went into the exam room to take her blood pressure, she asked me if I wanted her to take her panties off so we could play. I asked her why she said that. She said her daddy is always asking her that.”

“Jesus.”

“That’s how kids are. They don’t know how to talk about it, and they blurt out something. Then there’s the kids who don’t say anything at all, like they’re terrified. Those are the ones with their parents standing right there watching and listening to every single word. I try not to be paranoid, but sometimes you just know… you can just tell by looking at a child, looking in their eyes, that something’s going on. Maybe you don’t know what. Maybe the physical exam doesn’t turn up a single thing. But you just know. You can just tell they want to say something, but they don’t know how to say it, or explain it, or tell you. That’s the stuff the DHS looks for. Anything out of the ordinary. Any weird little comment. Something that doesn’t add up. They look at the child, but they also look at the adults in the house. Maybe there’s somebody with an anger issue. Or a drinking problem. Someone who’s abusive or mean or mentally ill. They’ll go through your whole house looking for anything they can use against you. That’s why you’ve got to clean up his room. And the fridge—we’ve got to clean up the fridge.”

“The fridge is fine!”

“There’s leftover pizza in there that’s probably two weeks old. It’s unsanitary. If Noah ate it, he could get food poisoning.”

“Oh, please.”

“We have to check the expiration dates on everything, even the canned food, make sure nothing is spoiled. Household chemicals should be out of a child’s reach.”

“We already do that.”

“But double-check anyway. And don’t be surprised if they interview the neighbors, or your mom, or your coworkers, and God knows who else.”

“They’re going to talk to my mother?” I asked, incredulous.

“Probably,” he said, nodding.

“So Mama has to vouch for my child-raising skills? She’s still hoping I’ll dump you and get married so Noah can have a mommy and a daddy.”

“Just be glad they’re not going to talk to my parents.”

I got out of bed, put on boxers.

“Talk to him,” he said, pointing at Noah. “Tell him to keep his mouth shut.”

“What could he possibly say?”

“That he sleeps with his two daddies? That he sometimes walks in on us while we’re having sex because you refuse to lock the door because he gets scared sometimes? That his dad likes to walk around the house naked?”

“Oh, please!”

“Just tell him to keep his mouth shut.”

“We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“They can twist things, Wiley. That’s the point. You might find yourself standing in front of a judge trying to explain why your son knows you have a tattoo on your ass. Trust me. You do not want to go down that road.”

“I don’t have a tattoo on my ass!”

“We have to head this off at the pass so they have nothing to report.”

“Well, there
is
nothing to report, so what’s the big deal?”

“Have you considered what being reported to the DHS might do to our chances of one day adopting children?”

Actually, I had not.

“I love you, Wiley,” he said earnestly. “And I love Noah like he’s my own child. He
is
my child now, and I don’t care what happens between us. I’m always going to be his papa whether you like it or not. And I don’t care if we don’t adopt other children, because you guys are my family and you’re plenty. But I know you want to adopt, so I’m trying to protect what’s mine, and I’m not going to let some people from the government walk into our home and screw us over. ’Cause they will. Give them an inch and they’ll be shoving a telephone pole up our asses. So talk to him and tell him to keep his mouth shut so he doesn’t get his two daddies in trouble. If they don’t like what they see, they can remove him from his home. They could take him away today and put him in foster care until they complete their investigation and take it before a judge. It could be months before you get him back.”

“They’re not going to take my son away from me!”

“You wouldn’t be the first parent who believed that.”

“They have to have evidence.”

“That’s right. And if there’s a ‘preponderance’ of evidence in their favor—in some states, it’s fifty-one percent of the total consideration—they can immediately take him into custody.”

“What possible evidence could they have?”

“Don’t be naïve, Wiley. Honest to God! You wrote a book, and you went out there and told the whole goddamn world that you were smoking meth when Noah was conceived and that you might be the reason he’s handicapped. You also told them you were gay. And not just gay, but Super Gay, as in having sex in public places, or skinny-dipping with your boyfriends, or having anal sex at the swimming hole, or having sex in the bathroom at the mall. What do you think a Baptist judge down here in Jesusland is going to make of all that? You told them about taking Noah to gay rights marches and protests. You told them about family dinners and how you sit there and talk about your penis. You told them how his mother rejected him and ran off with her meth-head boyfriend like a piece of white trash! Jesus! Get a clue!”

“You were the one who told me I needed to write my story!”

“I didn’t know you were going to put all that crap in there. Then you told the whole world that your boyfriend was a drug addict! I’m lucky I haven’t been fired because of your goddamned book!”

I fell into an embarrassed silence, wishing to God I had never written
Crack Baby
and knowing I would never again write about myself or my family that way.

Jackson issued a heavy, exasperated sigh.

“Point is,” he said, “I’m trying to help you here, Wiley. I’m trying to make you see. This is serious business. Keep your mouth shut. I don’t want to hear anything about Hillary Clinton’s uterus or Mitt Romney’s anus or gay rights or the joy of fisting or anything else. No politics. No jokes. No Southern bullcrap. As far as the DHS is concerned, we’re boring dads who go to church on Sunday and thump our Bibles like everybody else. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Indeed he had.

N
OAH
AND
I cleaned up his room, and it was not long before he was asking questions.

What’s wrong, Daddy?

We’re going to have some visitors today. I want the house to look nice.

Okay.

It’s important.

Why?

Because they’re from the government.

What do they want?

They’re worried about you.

Why?

They just are. They want to make sure you’re okay.

Did I do something wrong?

No.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Am I in trouble?

No.

Are you sure?