“What? What is it?” Val asked. In the months they’d been together, she’d memorized about six of his expressions. One was fear—she’d seen it when she’d told him she was pregnant. She was seeing it right now.
Jamison said nothing.
“What’s going on?” Val pressed.
Jamison got up from the bed and started for the door. He grabbed a black hoodie from a chair beside the bed.
It was then that she noticed he’d never taken off his shoes or opened his jacket.
“Jamison?” Val called to his back. “Jamison?” But he kept walking after mumbling something about being home later.
Val turned to the television in time to see the same man who was walking out of her bedroom, walking out of the county jail downtown, in the same suit.
Lairs. Caves. Cabins. Clubhouses. Tree houses. Bars. And boats. Places where men’s worlds collide in a mishmash of bad ideas and testosterone-laced dreams come to life. Sometimes this meant a good time. Beer pong and toga parties. Game night. Truth telling. Sometimes this meant a bad time. Fights to the death. War. Rape. Rebellion. The Rainforest had seen both. Sometimes all in one night. Men called brothers would start the night smiling, shoulder to shoulder congratulating one another, toasting to a life that exceeded their parents’ dreams. Hours later and a few drinks in, these same brothers could be tussling over a wife, a car, a drug deal or a loan gone bad. By sun-up, there could be blood on the floor. But then, someone would mop it up and start it all again.
When Jamison got to the Rainforest, he knew not to expect the early-night feeling. The sun was just going down, but he knew none of his brothers inside were hugging or toasting. There would be the late-night feeling. The bad time.
As Jamison walked up the driveway in a hooded black sweat suit he’d purchased on his way to the Rainforest, he noticed Emmit and Scoot’s cars parked beside each other. A silver Maserati was behind Scoot’s car. The lights upstairs in the house were dark and Jamison realized he hadn’t seen the old woman who lived upstairs in months, maybe years. Aside from what people told him, he couldn’t really confirm that anyone lived upstairs.
Inside the basement, the only person in the front room was a boy in a fraternity shirt standing guard over the liquor and set to eye heavily anyone who dared walk in. When he saw Jamison’s black hood, the frail, inexperienced thing, whose first sexual encounter had been right there in that bar room, stepped out from behind the bar with intention.
His heart thumped in pitiful fear of the possibility of action. He heard his mother’s voice: “I didn’t send you down there to Atlanta to be running the streets with no fraternity.” He could hear those words but not feel them. His heart was with his big brothers then. Mother’s love and direction would have to wait. So, the boy was about to scream out for his big brothers when Jamison pulled his hood down and shined familiar eyes on him.
“Oh,” the boy uttered with his fear dissipating so quickly he suddenly had to urinate. “Brother—everyone’s in the back.” He pointed to the back room. He knew not to say Jamison’s name. Not that night.
Jamison nodded and returned the hood to his head before padding slowly across the sticky bar room floor toward the hallway to the back room. Brother Renaldo’s old papier-mâché palm tree had dust balls dripping from its fading green leaves, making them appear heavy and sleepy like the Spanish moss growing on a swamp cypress tree.
Emmit was standing in the hallway talking to another brother, Sampson Davis. They were speaking in low voices, and were also dressed in black.
Emmit stopped talking when he saw Jamison. He reached out to him like he was a father or a priest about to bless someone.
“Brother, you’re here,” he said.
“Yeah,” Jamison answered. He hugged Emmit and then Sampson, who was saying something about the water being turned off. “What’s going on? Did your guy speak to Dax?”
“Yeah, he’s here,” Emmit said.
“Who?”
“Dax.”
“Dax is here?”
“Well, some things happened and—”
“What things happened?” Jamison cut Emmit off with his eyes broadening and his voice louder. “Why is Dax here?”
“Calm down.” Emmit held his hands up to stop Jamison this time.
Jamison noticed that his sleeves were rolled up.
“Why is he here? That doesn’t make any sense,” Jamison said.
“Brother Sampson, give us a minute,” Emmit said.
“Fine, but ya’ll need to decide what to do about getting this water back on. Ya’ll will need to clean things up tonight before you leave,” Sampson said before walking off.
“Clean up?” Jamison repeated to Emmit. “What’s going on?”