Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost
R oman knocked. He could tell by the presence of the red Jeep in the driveway, the one with the blue and marigold Hawaiian luau flowers hanging from the dash-cam, that she was home.
“Mama!” he yelled out, then knocked harder. Her glockenspiel was out, per the handwritten note hanging lopsided on the door with a piece of tape.
“Is that you, Roman?”
“Now, Mama, who else would it be? You live out here in the sticks. I just texted you less than five minutes ago.” He grinned as he waited for her to let him inside. He heard her laugh from a short distance away.
“I’m comin’!”
After a few slow moments, the white side door of Mama’s long country farmhouse swung his way. The home was set on a few acres of land. Mama had chickens in a coop, and plenty of stone birdbaths that she cleaned and took great care of.
He didn’t wait for her to greet him. Rather, he wrapped his arms around her plump, soft, sweet-smelling body as soon as she appeared, then slipped past her, making his way towards the living room. The cream and pink furniture was Mama’s favorite. She would change several items every few years, but the color scheme pretty much remained the same.
As always, her couch and loveseat were covered with far too many fluffy pillows and thick, frilly blankets, but comfortable and inviting all the same. Her favorite home product magazines were spread out on shiny, oak coffee table: LTD Commodities, QVC, Winston, and Lakeside just to name a few. Behind him, he heard her lock the door. He turned to see her pull the short pink and pearl valance curtains out of the way and peek out the small door window as if she were waiting for a delivery. Her dark brown hair with natural auburn highlights was piled on her head with a bunch of gold bobby pins and floral barrettes, and she was wearing a bright red apron over her long white frilly dress—looking like a mom from the 1950’s. She also had on little red ballerina slippers.
“I need to check on the chickens soon. My youngest adult hen, Yolk, is pregnant. Cluck Gable and the Colonel Feathers are the fathers.” Mama always had funny names for her chickens. She released the curtain and turned to face him, then got close to give him another hug. Her soft, silky hair rubbed against his face, and he loved every second of the affection she showered him with. It was homegrown and real. Something money couldn’t buy.
“Now what are you doin’ here, boy?” She crossed her arms and glared at him with faux suspicion. “You don’t ever just stop by outta the blue like this, Mr. Busy Pants.” She showed off a big, pretty smile on a flawless face. Not a pimple or speck in sight. Porcelain skin with high cheekbones, rouge on her skin, or whatever women called that pinkish stuff they swiped on their cheeks. Mama’s blue eyes sparkled like rare gems.
“You look beautiful, you know that?”
Mama grimaced and rested her hand on her hip. “Beautiful? I haven’t had time to gussy myself up today. Been workin’ in the coop and cleanin’ the house all day. Yesterday I used my new curling iron. It was too hot, and I about singed half my bangs off.” They both laughed at that. “You got something on your mind, don’t you? I know this isn’t just no friendly visit.”
“What?” He threw up his hands. “A son can’t give his mother a compliment and just stop by to say hello?”
“Ya come over here all of a sudden, then say something nice. I was born at night but not last night,” she joked.
He followed her into the kitchen, then heard the scamper of little paws.
“Hey, Toby!” Toby was Mama’s little terrier. He was thirteen years old, blind out of one eye, and a little scrappy thing despite his age and disability. Music drifted from Mama’s phone that was lying on the white kitchen counter. Some old country song he couldn’t remember the name of.
“Where’s Ronald?” He sat down at the table as she picked up what looked to be tiny crumbs of bread from the stove and tossed them in the trash can.
“He’s at work.”
“I thought this was his day off?” Mama poured him a glass of Sprite Zero, then set it on the table before him.
“It is. He wanted some overtime.”
He sipped on the drink. The kitchen smelled like chocolate and fresh carrots. Maybe Mama was baking a cake and chopping vegetables.
“You okay on money?” he asked before taking another taste of the effervescent thirst-quencher.
“You ask me that way too much, Roman. Yes, honey. I’m fine.” She sighed as she opened the refrigerator door and removed a bag of celery, setting it on the counter next to her thick wooden cutting board.
“Just wanna make sure is all. Don’t want you worryin’ about anything like that.”
“I appreciate you, honey, but we’re fine. Bills paid. You’re mighty generous, but everything is good this way. I even had enough money to join that new gym they built up down the road. What’s it called? Planet Fitness.”
“Mama, I hope you’re not killing yourself trying to lose a few pounds again.”
Mama was infamous for trying new supplements that hit the market and follow get-thin-quick-diets and exercise routines to keep her weight in check. Her weight fluctuated frequently, and her new doctor told her that all of that up and down stuff over the years had caused her metabolism to slow down even more. She had been looking into Ozempic, too, but got scared after reading about some patients having chronic, irreversible diarrhea. Mama said it was menopause and natural spread. Maybe it was both. He just wanted her to be healthy and content, whatever that looked like.
“Not killin’ myself, just doing the right thing. You know slow thyroids run in my family. And I’m older now.” She sighed. “Harder to get the pounds off. If I even look at a piece of pie, I gain ten pounds.” She giggled. “I baked Mildred a chocolate cake for her birthday this mornin’, and didn’t touch that frosting not one time,” she said proudly. “I’m doing what needs to be done. Not tryna be a stick, only eat better.” She grabbed the celery out of the plastic grocery sack and ran it under the tap water from the sink.
“I understand. That’s good. As long as you’re not hurtin’ yourself, I’m fine with it. Any man should be proud to have you on his arm, but I hope you’re doing it for yourself.”
“I sure am. For the first time in a long time, Roman, I am focusing on me .” She pointed to herself then transferred the celery onto the cutting board, and grabbed a sharp, long knife. “Besides, I like doing that elliptical. It’s fun.” She began chopping the vegetable into thick chunks.
“Well, as long as you’re enjoying it, I suppose there is no harm in it. Mama, I wanna ask you something.”
Pausing from cutting her vegetables, she pulled open the dishwasher and began removing glasses and plates, placing them in the cabinets while Toby lapped noisily from his water bowl.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“When I came back to you from foster care, did I tell you that you were a terrible mother and that I hated you?”
Mama’s movements slowed, but she kept working on her chores. Her fingers wrapped around a large white platter, squeezing, then stopped moving altogether. Silence. She started up again at last, moving around, this time opening a high cabinet and stretching on her tippy toes to place some little green and blue striped teacups away. Getting up from his chair, he took the teacups out of her hands and placed them on the shelf for her. When he closed the cabinet, they stood side by side, neither looking at one another.
“Who told you that?” Her voice was soft and sweet, but a tinge of worry licked the syllables.
“Does it matter?” He turned to her and leaned against the counter.
She sighed, walked around him, and grabbed a fistful of spoons and forks from the dishwasher.
“Yes.”
“Yes, it matters, or yes, I said that to you at one point in time?”
“Yes, you said it,” she muttered before slipping open a drawer and placing the utensils inside. One by one. Slowly.
“I’m sorry.”
“You were just a kid.” She waved him off, one spoon left in her hand. She placed it inside the drawer with the others, then slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table. “It’s water under the bridge.”
“No, it’s not water under the bridge, and me being a kid is no excuse. For some reason I don’t remember sayin’ it. But I believe I did. I mean, I had to have said it.”
“You were angry.”
“Sounds to me like I had a temper tantrum. One of many. That was wrong of me to speak to my mother that way. Being angry ain’t a good enough excuse.”
“It wasn’t no temper tantrum, Roman.” She closed her eyes and reached in the front pocket of her apron, removing a tissue to blow her nose. She seemed suddenly exhausted. “You were hurtin’. It was a bad time for us as a family, Roman. You were never one to not speak your mind, is all.” She laughed but it seemed forced. “You and I had been close before y’all were taken away. I had a good relationship with all my children before that happened. Me and my three crazy boys.”
She reached for his drink that she’d poured him earlier and took a sip—she probably needed it right then far more than him. Mama didn’t drink alcohol, and she didn’t smoke, either. “Things changed between you and me after that,” she said.
“I didn’t mean it, Mama.”
“You meant it,” she stated sharply. She didn’t appear angry—but she did appear like something. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “And it’s okay that you meant it. Because lies don’t help nobody, even if they come from wrathful children, or we don’t want to hear the truth. You didn’t sass me. You let me know where you stood.”
They were quiet for a spell.
“Mama, Grandpa wants me to work for him.”
“That man can go straight to hell.” She took another sip of their now shared drink, then set it down.
“He will. Unfortunately, though, that trip won’t happen right this second. My prayers are never answered that fast.” He laughed mirthlessly.
“I’m not in the business of tellin’ my adult children what to do, but I beg you, please don’t throw away your good job ’nd such for the likes of him, just to get him off your back. Or even think you can do his dirty deeds while living your dreams, too. Wilde is where dreams go to die.”
He looked over at the half-cut-up celery on the board. The knife lying beside it, glistening.
“He’d have you doin’ somethin’ dishonest as soon as the next sunset come around, and five business days later you’d be locked up like your father. The key thrown away. Your grandfather might own a lot of people, but he can’t pay off everyone. Not everybody in Houston is willin’ to sell their soul.”
“Well, Mama, count your blessings. He didn’t go after Jordan or Dakota. It could be all three of us.”
“Or none at all! I’d much prefer that.” She sucked her teeth, crossed her arms, and rocked back in the chair. “It’s bad enough I’m tryna help Jordan keep his head afloat. This family has been through too much, and some of it is that sickening, horrible rotten man’s fault.” She slapped the table, her brows bunched, and the frown around her lips dipped deep into her skin.
“I have no intention of doing it. Just wanted you to be aware of it… in case something happens to me.”
Their gazes hooked. Her eyes sheened over. She looked away, then down at the floor.
“Mama, don’t worry about me, okay?”
She didn’t respond. Seconds turned to minutes. For the longest time, nothing but ‘Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, could be heard.
“I remember dancin’ to this song with your father a long, long, long time ago in a bar. We listened to music together quite a bit. He’d smoke a joint while we snuggled together in the back of his Buick. Just listenin’ to all kinds of tunes on his cassettes and CDs. Your daddy and I met at a movie theater.” She smiled sadly.
He wasn’t sure why she brought that up, but he imagined she needed to, somehow.
“I know. Tell me the story again, though.”
“He come in there with that long, crazy black hair of his, and a torn black shirt. Black Sabbath. He was tall, tan, and well built, Roman. Oh, my word, I swooned when I laid eyes on him. And that smile of his… made me weak at the knees. I wasn’t smart or wise enough back then to look beyond the physical. Anyway, I was there with my friends in line to get drinks and popcorn. He come up to me and said, ‘Howdy, my name’s Reeves. I saw you from way over yonder. You’re the prettiest girl in here.’”
“I said to him, ‘I am.’”
They both laughed at that.
“Your father said to me, well, since you understand that, you need to know that that means you’re gonna be my woman.’ People started laughin’ and carryin’ on at him saying that to me. I didn’t take him seriously, and no one else did, either. Two years later, we were married. I should have realized it was one of the few times your father told me the truth. He was right. Swept me right off my feet. Funny, that night I met your father, my friends told me who he was. Said he was a Wilde boy.”
“A Wilde boy,” Roman repeated, then smirked. “Sounds funny when you say it that way.”
“I’d heard of the Wildes. Lots of children that father had. A bunch of wives. Divorces. Mistresses. The Wildes were dangerous, they said. Stinkin’ rich, too. The daddy owned important things, and people. I was told to be careful. Things like that.” Mama pressed her perfectly painted, short dark pink fingernails into a soft, linen napkin, as if wiping crumbs away. “I didn’t pay the rumors much mind. I was a lil’ na?ve back then. Didn’t believe in the Boogeyman. I eventually met your grandfather, and he came across as a God-fearin’ man. Seemed like a nice businessman, too, and he welcomed me with open arms. You know my father was a cold, mean man that I barely have a relationship with nowadays, so I didn’t know any better I suppose.” She laughed nervously as the memories played in her mind.
“You bein’ poor and all probably made you impressionable with him, too. Grandpa is magnetic. At first,” he scoffed as he reached for the cup and took a sip of the drink they shared.
“Magnetic he is. Had a big ol’ house that looked like a castle and would kiss my hand and be extra attentive when Reeves would swing by with me in tow. Tell me how pretty and demure I was. I could sense the tension between them though. See through the facade. Finally made him tell me what was goin’ on. He said his father didn’t like him much. I was young and thought that relationship could be mended. Me and my fairy-tales.” She rolled her big blue eyes, then huffed. “Well, wasn’t long after the wedding before I started havin’ babies. Then, things got strange.” Mama took another taste of the bubbly beverage. “I had Dakota. That was a big deal. Family was overjoyed, and I was over the moon, too. I was a new mom. It was your father’s first child, and it was one of the few times I’d ever seen him cry. That grandaddy of yours was right there at the hospital. Your daddy told me he hadn’t even called and told anyone yet. Somehow, your grandfather just showed up. Like some premonition.”
Roman cracked his knuckles and leaned back in the chair. It was interesting hearing Mama give her perspective on Grandpa after all these years. She seemed to remember it like it was yesterday. Maybe in some ways, it was so beautiful, so ugly, and so traumatic, she still felt the wet blood of an omen dripping down the walls of her heart.
“Daddy said Grandpa Wilde has a soft spot for children.”
“I haven’t seen that man in many years, but at the time, it sure seemed that way. The way he was after all three of y’all were born was somethin’ strange. I ain’t never seen no man so invested in his grandbabies like that. More than a woman. He looked at Dakota and was sendin’ expensive gifts ’nd such. Had his Bible in his right hand, and a big envelope of money in another. Passed out cash to everyone in that hospital room, right along with cigars. A big party. Then when Dakota hit about age ten, that man was still nice to my boy, but less interested. The calls died down. The visits, too.
“By that time, you were here. Two years younger. He paid close attention to you, as well. But with you, the attention never stopped. In fact, it grew. He’d show up at the house. All of a sudden, our electric bill would be paid. Groceries delivered. Grocery deliveries back then were far less common. Jordan come, and he watched him, too, but like Dakota, he seemed to lose interest after a while. He still gave presents and nudges on the head, hugs ’nd what not, plenty of presents come Christmas time, but it wasn’t the same as how he doted on you. That’s when your father come tellin’ me that you had the mark of the beast on you.”
Roman reached across the table and took a gulp of the soda. Wasn’t much left. He wished it were stronger. Something that burned your soul going down.
“I figured your father was sayin’ that because you were precocious. Naw, your father said it wasn’t that at all. He told me, ‘My father is the beast, honey, and he’s marked our boy. We gotta watch Roman closely. He’s gonna come for him when he’s of age.’ Sure ’nough, that’s what happened.”
“Grandpa has a lot of money. He can make things go wrong with a snap of his fingers. I’m preparing for war, Mama.”
She turned abruptly to him, her blue eyes dim slits. “I thought that was the end of it, when you got yourself that good job, but I see now, I was wrong. He wants you all the same. They say whatever Grandpa Wilde wants, Grandpa Wilde gets.”
“Well, Mama, they say the same thing about me.” They stared at one another for a long while. He patted the gun that rested on his hip. “I ain’t met a motherfucker, pardon my French, who can whoop me yet. And by whoop, I ain’t just talking about a beat down. Now, I have to get going.”
He slowly got to his feet, and she followed suit. They wrapped their arms around one another and squeezed tight.
“Mama, before I go, I have one more question.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Tell me the truth. Do you think I’m like Daddy when it comes to women?”
She looked at him curiously, then her tulip-shaped lips bowed into a pretty smile.
“I’d love to lie to you, Roman, and I’d hate to tell you the truth. But as I said earlier today, lies don’t help nobody. There’s a thin line between love and hate, as they say, too.”
“Yes ma’am, I reckon there is. See, I was told by two people, one of ’em being a close friend of mine from my Marine days, that I don’t trust women.” He paused to gauge her reaction. She remained stone-faced. “I never thought about that before it was said to me.”
“Honey,” she placed her hand along his cheek and looked into his eyes, “you’re a philanderer.” She said it like it was a shameful, pitiful thing, but she loved him anyway. “I’ve met so many women in your life, I can’t recall all their names. They say boys should sow their wild oats. Well, you’ve sewn enough oats to own a hundred percent of Quaker.” He chuckled. She smiled back at him. “You’re a looker… always been pretty. They say not to call boys pretty, but you were, and you are . Used to get mistaken for Cherokee as a lil’ boy. Even as a baby, people would talk about how beautiful you were. Those big ol’ light cinnamon eyes… the dimples… cleft chin… the dark, raven hair.”
He smiled sadly for her words didn’t feel like a compliment… more like a curse that he abused and misused. “And you’ve got a pretty brain, too. Just as smart as you wanna be,” she added.
“But some say I was the black sheep. That ain’t pretty at all, now is it?”
“Depends on who you ask, I imagine. You don’t like rules, but you pretend to follow them until you get what you want. I’ve told you more than once that you were a difficult child—and some of that was my and ya daddy’s fault. That’s why I never held it against you when you told me that you hated me, son, and that I was an awful mother. Yeah, it hurt me when you said it, and I cried for days, but afterwards, I understood that you were coming from a place of hurt, too. Disappointment. You were troubled. All my children are troubled.” She dropped her gaze and shook her head.
“Am I still troubled, Mama? Or, am I just trouble?”
“I’d say you’re both, like two sides of a coin. I just want you to be happy, Roman, troubled black sheep or not. That’s all I want for all my boys, honey. And it’s a shame, ’cause none of y’all truly happy. Jordan and Dakota got their woes and problems, and here you are, lookin’ like you’re sitting on top of the world, but it’s lonely up there at the top all by yourself, huh?”
“Mama, you didn’t directly answer my question, but you did answer it in your own way.” He took her hand and kissed it before he left out the door, just as Grandpa Wilde used to do…