Queen Sugar: A Novel Read online

  “Are we there yet?”

  “Those four words,” Ralph Angel said, “I don’t want to hear them. Now sit back.” He let his eye wander across the landscape, the sloping golden foothills dotted with ponderosa, and tried again to picture them in Montana. He’d rent a small house with a yard that opened onto a meadow. Blue and his friends would build a fort in the woods or by a lake if there was one close by, and when the boys got older, they’d stay out all weekend, camping and fishing the way boys liked to. He’d go to all of Blue’s games—baseball and basketball—and sit in the bleachers with the other parents. “That’s my kid,” he’d say when Blue scored the winning basket. “That’s my kid.”

  Ralph Angel glanced at the sudden movement in the rearview mirror. Zach wagged back and forth while Blue chanted, “Are-we-there-yet-Are-we-there-yet,” like a drumbeat. He tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the road and their life in Billings, until finally he reached back, grabbed Zach, and held him out the window. He felt the sun warm his hand, smelled the clean scent of pine. “You done?” Except for the wind, the car was silent. After five long seconds he said, “Thought so,” and passed the action figure back.

  • • •

  At Tuba City, Ralph Angel took a break. He pulled off the road and into the rest stop parking lot, wedging the Impala between two semis.

  “Pop?”

  Tourists on their way to or from the Grand Canyon filed through the double doors, headed toward the restaurant. Ralph Angel imagined them bent over burgers and fries.

  “Stay in the car. I’ll be back.”

  “But I’m hungry and Zach has to pee,” Blue said.

  “Tell him to hold it. Let me see what they’ve got in there. I’ll be back in a second.” Ralph Angel tucked in his shirt and zipped his jacket halfway. He scanned for Highway Patrol, then fell in line with people entering the building.

  Inside, the air was heavy and smelled like doughnuts. There was a restaurant, a minimart, and beyond, a row of fast-food counters. His stomach seized at the thought of day-old grease, of plates smeared with ketchup, cigarette butts tucked into wadded napkins. The summer before he went off to college, he’d worked briefly as a dishwasher at the Waffle House just outside town, and had been surprised and horrified by what people did with their food. “People are animals,” Eddie the busboy said, stacking dishes on the stainless steel sink, and Ralph Angel had agreed. Now he closed his eyes as the nausea swelled, then passed. When it was gone, he watched the swirl of people moving through the lobby: women in capri pants and visors, men in cargo shorts and fanny packs, kids Blue’s age, running giddily across the tiled floor.

  Surprisingly, the minimart was empty, peaceful as a library. As Ralph Angel entered, the young woman behind the counter looked up from her magazine. She wore bright pink lipstick and her mouth reminded Ralph Angel of the wax lips he chewed as a kid. He flashed a smile.

  “Water?” he asked.

  She pointed to a bank of refrigerators on the far wall, then went back to her reading.

  Ralph Angel gave a cheerful thumbs-up, then made his way down the aisle, being sure to walk deliberately. He wanted the girl to see he had a goal, he was a man who wanted water. When he reached the back wall, he slid the glass doors open and felt the rush of cold air, like a light slap in the face, looked for the cheapest bottled water and took two. Glancing toward the front of the store, he saw that the girl’s head was down, still reading. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in the slow, unconscious way women did when they were preoccupied.

  Beside him, the refrigerators hummed steadily, and Steely Dan’s breezy hit “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” wafted in from the food court, over the echoes of families chattering, and coins jingling, and cashiers calling out people’s orders. They were the sounds of summer. For a few seconds, as Ralph Angel stood listening, it seemed to him that the day was filled with possibility, as if a yolky, glowing ball hovering over the rest stop was suddenly cracked open, spilling warmth and light down on all those inside. For a moment he felt it, like a faint pulsing: the lightness that came with a few lazy summer months, the quiet joy in being connected to people you loved and who loved you. But then it faded, and he was flooded with the awesome knowledge that he was all alone—no mother, no father, no Gwenna. Just him and Blue.

  And so, as he walked up the aisle toward the register, Ralph Angel plucked items off the shelf: Tiger’s Milk bars, Snickers, Slim Jims—whatever he touched—and dropped them into his sweatpants, because he had to feed his boy, because raising his son was the only thing he was good at, and he would do whatever it took. The wrappers crackled as they slid down his leg and came to rest above the ankle elastic. The urge to take inventory, like a trick-or-treater, surged within him.

  At the counter, his heart pounding, Ralph Angel managed to hold up the bottles of water. “You got a bathroom in here?” he asked, tossing two crumpled dollars on the counter.

  The girl’s mangy blond hair was swept up in a giant butterfly clip. She was like the young, fast white girls in Phoenix who hung out at the park; girls who laughed in his face, cussed him out just for fun.

  “Down the hall next to Roasters.” She scanned the bottles, dropped them into a plastic bag, and held it out to him.

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  As Ralph Angel turned to leave, the corner of the Tiger Milk bar slipped out of his pants leg, dragged on the floor with a sushing sound.

  “What’s that?” the girl asked, pointing. She leaned across the counter.

  Ralph Angel glanced down at the triangle of shimmery gold foil. He looked at the girl.

  “Dude,” she said, her face darkening, “are you fucking boosting?” She looked right at him, not through him or past him the way so many people did, but right into his eyes, her gaze direct, searing.

  Ralph Angel opened his mouth, but before any words could come, the girl stepped backward, felt for the phone mounted on the wall.

  “It was an accident,” Ralph Angel managed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” He approached the counter, his hands out where she could see them, then reached in his pocket and pulled out a small roll of bills. “Jesus, just give me a minute.” His hand trembled as he unfolded a twenty and a wad of singles. “This is all I’ve got. I swear.”

  The girl stared at the money.

  “I was saving it for gas,” he continued. “I’ve got my kid with me, see? Just let me pay. I got my kid. He’s in the car.”

  The girl eyed him, then glanced up at the video equipment mounted on the ceiling.

  Ralph Angel saw his pixilated self on the monitor. “I swear it’s true.” He pointed at the big picture window behind her, to one of the minivans at the edge of the lot rather than the Impala. “There, that green van. The one with the kid behind the wheel.”

  A couple walked in. Matching shirts, matching sneakers. Ralph Angel heard the woman say, in a nasally midwestern tone, “We should buy some of these garlic chips for the kids.”

  Ralph Angel let his hands fall to his sides. “What’s gonna happen to him if I get hauled off to jail? His mama’s dead. Just let me pay up. You won’t ever see me again.”

  He knew the girl was weighing her choices, marked the moment, by the blink of her eyes, when she decided against him.

  And in that next moment, Ralph Angel made his own decision. No use trying to convince some thick-necked security guard he actually had enough cash to buy the food he stole, that his kid really was in the car, even if it wasn’t the car he pointed out to the girl. And what about the car? How would he explain that he rented it for a couple days, just to get around town, but that somehow those couple days had turned into a couple weeks? That the rental place had sent a dozen demand letters threatening to alert the police if he didn’t bring the car back? That his grace period expired today, and that by this time tomorrow he’d be wanted for grand theft auto?

  Ralph Angel
lunged forward. He swept the money off the counter, bolted from the store, back through the crowded lobby, the plastic bag with the water bottles in it swinging at his side, the stolen food shaking up and down against his leg, the girl’s cry “Stop that guy” echoing behind him. He pushed through the glass doors, stumbled out into the heat and the blinding sunlight. At the Impala, he dived behind the wheel, jammed the key into the ignition, and tore out of the lot.

  “Pop!” Blue squeezed himself into the front seat. Christ, he thought it was a game.

  “Sit back. Get down. Be quiet.”

  Ralph Angel was back on the highway before he drew a breath, the clean, hard desert all around him, the rest stop shrinking to miniature in his rearview mirror.

  The Colorado Plateau.

  Juniper and ponderosa.

  The unfurling road.

  A tap on his shoulder.

  “I’m still hungry, Pop,” Blue said. “And Zach really, really, really has to pee.”

  “Aw, shit,” Ralph Angel said, remembering his promise. “Use this.” He dropped a dented foam cup over the seat. “And here,” he said, tossing back the Tiger’s Milk bar and Slim Jims. “Those should hold you till we can stop again.”

  Blue whimpered as he struggled with the cup. After a minute he said, “Now what?”

  “Now what, what?”

  “The cup. It’s full.”

  “Well, throw it out, for Christ’s sake.” Ralph Angel pressed the button for Blue’s window and felt the tug on his headrest as Blue pulled himself forward. In his mirror, he saw his son blinking as he held the cup up to the wind.

  “Oh, no,” Blue cried. “Aw, Pop.”

  Ralph Angel glanced quickly behind him. Blue’s shirt and pants were drenched, the cup overturned. Urine streamed down the door, a dark spot the shape of some distant continent, spreading over the burgundy upholstery. “Goddamnit!”

  “It was an accident!” Blue said, his small voice quaking.

  “Goddamn, Blue!”

  “Pop, I’m wet.”

  “Motherfuck!” Ralph Angel said. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? I’m driving. Can’t you see I’m trying to drive?” The whole world seemed to be spinning, the road ahead all zigzaggy and wavy in the mid-morning light.

  Silence again from the backseat, followed by muffled sobbing.

  Ralph Angel thought of the father and son in the canoe and knew that man would react differently. He would be patient. He would be kind. And then there was the memory of himself as a kid: the envelope of deep sleep, the vague awareness of liquid warmth flowing from him, and the shame as he stripped the reeking sheets off the bed. Ralph Angel glanced in the mirror. Why did it seem like the kid always got the brunt of whatever he was feeling? “Hey, look, sorry I yelled,” Ralph Angel said. “I didn’t mean it.” He unzipped his jacket. “Take off those clothes and throw them up here. You can wear this till I find a place to rinse them.”

  Blue handed his wet clothes over the seat, the sweat jacket he wore now draped like a tent from his shoulders to his knees. He sat back, peeled the Slim Jim from its plastic wrapper, and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed hard, then reached for the Tiger’s Milk bar.

  “Go easy, there, buddy, slow down,” Ralph Angel said. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  • • •

  Almost an hour since he ran from the rest stop. Ralph Angel pinched a minidoughnut from the wrapper and took a bite, the chocolate coating, waxy and flavorless, stuck to his teeth. He fixed his gaze on the horizon and thought about Miss Honey. If she hadn’t called, if she’d just stayed out of his business, he could have gotten by on the money in his pocket, made due till Gwenna’s next social security check. But she had called, with news that Charley was coming down, and not just visiting but coming down for good, to work some sugarcane land their father left her.

  “How much land?” he’d asked. The last time he saw his kid sister, she was twelve or thirteen. It was hard to imagine her being old enough to run anything.

  “Plenty,” Miss Honey had said. “Come home.”

  But by then, things had turned around for him and Blue. They weren’t sleeping in the car anymore—he’d sold it. They had a room. Blue was back in school. He hadn’t found a job yet, but he was optimistic, he had prospects. “There’s nothing for me in Saint Josephine,” he’d said. He knew it and she knew it too. Besides, the last time he was home, things hadn’t gone so well.

  But Miss Honey was like a dog with a bone. “Why not?” she’d pressed. “I know Charley would love to see you. You could help her with the farm. It would have made your daddy happy to know his children were close.”

  “If my daddy was so concerned with my welfare, why didn’t he leave half the farm to me?” He hadn’t expected to get much, maybe a few thousand dollars. He couldn’t believe Charley got everything.

  “Well, if you’d paid him back like I told you, maybe you would have gotten more.”

  “Jesus, ’Da. Get off my case. What happened between my daddy and me wasn’t only my fault.”

  “Just think about it,” Miss Honey had said.

  Blue nudged Ralph Angel’s shoulder with Zach’s feet. “I’m tired of being in this car. It’s not fun anymore.”

  “Your pop’s got a lot on his mind.” Ralph Angel turned on the radio, tuned it to a rap station. “You know this song, don’t you? You can sing along if you want.”

  Blue sat back. He recited the lyrics—girl trouble, police searches, paparazzi—and bobbed his head to the beat.

  “There you go. Nice, buddy. Now sit tight while I work things out.”

  • • •

  Evening was rising. Ralph Angel unplugged the GPS tracking device and stuffed it under his seat. He looked down at Blue, sitting crossed-legged on the passenger seat now, unbelted and still wearing his sweat jacket. Gwenna would chew him out for letting Blue eat all that junk. She’d give him hell for not bringing extra clothes.

  “You figure things out yet, Pop?” Blue scooted forward and locked Zach in the glove box.

  If he took the back roads, he’d avoid the highway patrol; he wouldn’t have to worry about them punching in his license plate and seeing that the car was stolen. It would be a slower drive, but he could be there in a week, ten days tops. Ralph Angel looked through his side window. He’d liked being out west, wished things had turned out different. Phoenix, Billings—maybe someday he’d come back and give them another go. He hadn’t wanted to show up in Saint Josephine till he was back on his feet, hadn’t wanted to show up till he had something to brag about. But ’Da’s call had been like holding a flame to a pilot light.

  “Pop, you going to answer me? Have you worked things out?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Seven days of driving. Ten tops. By all rights, half that farm was his. And even if he’d fucked things up and couldn’t get it for himself, he’d get it for Blue. “Buckle up,” Ralph Angel said, and he squeezed Blue’s shoulder, thinking of the man and the boy in the canoe. He made a U-turn in the road, eased the car up to eighty, set the cruise control.

  “Are we going back?”

  The sun had sunk below the horizon, the last of its crown blazing fiery gold above the pine. “I got a better idea,” Ralph Angel said, and flipped on his high beams. “We’re going to Saint Josephine, buddy. We’re going home.”

  3

  At the sound of Charley’s car, two dogs lounging under the screened porch dragged themselves into the sunlight, and the smaller dog, a scruffy terrier mix with fur like pipe cleaner bristles, barked and ran toward her. Charley greeted him cheerfully but gave him a wide berth as she pocketed her key and crossed the unfenced yard.

  Like so many country houses she’d seen in the last few days, this one sat on brick pillars a few feet off the ground, surrounded by a collar of packed red dirt, and beyond, a wall of neatl
y groomed sugarcane. It was a tidy little house with stepping-stones, a screened porch, and window boxes overflowing with glossy yellow daylilies and deep purple irises. Finding that the porch door was locked, Charley cupped her hands, pressed her nose to the screen. In the late-morning sun, she could just make out two rocking chairs angled toward each other, as though the people who lived there preferred talking to each other rather than watching for cars or passersby.

  “Hello?” Charley called, then she walked around the side of the house where bamboo trellises sagged under the weight of okra and tomatoes. An old Ford pickup sat parked on the grass. “Hello?” Charley called again. “Anybody?”

  The bigger dog loped toward her just then, his long whip of a tail swinging. He was the color of raw sugar and slobber hung from his black muzzle in long, foamy ropes. Charley froze as he circled her, but when he whined and galloped back toward the front door, she followed.

  Behind the screened porch a door creaked open. “Who’s there?”

  “I’m looking for Prosper Denton,” Charley said, climbing the steps again. It was exactly what Miss Honey had warned her not to do. “You don’t just drop in on Prosper,” Miss Honey had said as they drove from the disastrous meeting with Frasier, heat rising off the fields and making the road undulate. According to Miss Honey, Prosper Denton ran the farms of the biggest white farmers around before he retired.

  “If he’s retired why should I see him?” Charley had asked.

  “You don’t see him,” Miss Honey had said, ominously. “You call him. Tell him what happened.” She had his number in her book. “But I’m telling you, if he agrees to meet with you, you can’t go over there forgetting yourself. You can’t come apart like a ball of twine that’s hit the floor.”

  “My name is Charley Bordelon,” Charley said now. “I’m Miss Honey’s granddaughter.” She waited for the man to respond, to throw the door open at the mention of Miss Honey’s name, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t move at all. “I’m sorry to drop in unannounced. I tried calling yesterday but your phone just rang.”