shuttered, condemned community. He thought often of his time in Lafon, a highlight for him. The school was open and airy and so much fun. He recalled scenes of him and his buddies playing tag during recess, racing up and down the long curving ramp and climbing all over the large sculpture in the front yard which a teacher told them represented family. He loved that time in his life even with the hard lessons he learned along the way. His mother passed away when he was six. He didn’t have many memories of her but his gammy would tell him that momma was a good soul now gone to be among other good souls. She died of cancer at twenty-eight, very young and not the expected end in a place like Magnolia. She struggled to keep her family together and tried to buffer the influence around them but a barrier inside a barrier is very hard to maintain. His father was nameless and not the same nameless as those of his older brother or younger sister. They were 3-ply. Three layers on top of his mom. Three coats, three cloaks, passed on to his gammy when she died. Neither of his siblings knew their father either, three nameless progenitors, three different cloaks of different fabric with the only binding threads being color and station.
Shittin didn’t read much. He could, at least the basics, but he didn’t like to read because focusing was always so difficult for him. He remembers looking at his birth certificate once. Mother: Clarisse Evelyn Fanning. Father: FNU LNU. He actually thought that was his dad’s name, FNU LNU and sorta liked the sound of it. He asked his gammy once years back and she laughed and laughed calling him a fool but never explained why. He was still confused even though Slaw told him it was an acronym and meant unknown. Why didn’t they just leave it blank? Any letters would get a kid’s hopes up and for a good while he imagined that his dad with the cool name would ride into his world and carry him away.
His older brother, half-brother, dead half-brother originated his nickname. He was cruel and always smacking little Shelton teasing “You Shittin me; you Shittin me!” He got a big kick out of it. Gammy said he was born bad and beating on his kin was just a sad extension of his tragic life. Gammys always have a way of extenuating shit, God Bless them all, but everybody aint a gammy and Shittin sure wasn’t, and being the receiver of Jackson’s extensions, he didn’t share his grandmother’s understanding. This was before Slaw though, before school as far as he could recollect and a part of his memory he didn’t like visiting so much. But when he did he called it the “in-between time.” Jackson was seven years older than Shittin and angry. He was his mother’s teen mistake with nameless number one. The Nolia swallowed him up whole, eager to add to the ranks of mayhem rather than despondency. The Wild Magnolia along with Calliope and Melph thrived on raw anger and resentment, so much more stimulating than woe and hopelessness and perhaps an underlying goal of social containment. And that’s what it is, containment. And although older denizens grudgingly accept their standing, the youth never will.
Railing against this sub-rank by vying with one another for higher status, disenfranchised youth engage in self-destruction and mutual annihilation by feeding on each other for supremacy but of course— as long as this is done in the cages they were born into, so what! Such is the warped reality of so many young in these communities, killing each other for position inside of boxes rather than seeking higher ground and better opportunity outside of boxes.
Well, Jackson fed internally and in turn was fed on. He was shot dead execution style with two others when he was fifteen. It was drug related and didn’t make much news at the time for Magnolia as a national capital for violent crime was the news. Murders, assaults, rapes regardless of the age of the victims or perpetrators were neatly bundled up into another “whatever crime” in the Nolia, exampled briefly if at all in an ongoing statement against those damned projects. Lost on the greater society and never reported for the specific tragedy, daily violent incidents like Jackson’s death were simply consequences of the overall problem. His gammy cried and cried even though she apparently knew based on her grandma intuition that he was doomed. He didn’t mourn neither did his sister Clara, not one tear trickled down either stone face. She was five at the time and only knew Jackson as that asshole who came home occasionally and beat her brother. They were close, Shittin and Clara and she beat the Magnolia. And in a twisted way, maybe Katrina, at least for those perpetuating in those fucked up projects was a way out. And even if the reality was they were forced to vacate, the boxes were broken and horizons were seen and for Shittin’s family, one out of three aint that bad.
They weren’t headed to no shelter now; not him or Slaw or his family. After the government got their collective heads out of indecision’s ass, large numbers of New Orleans’ displaced were relocated to Texas. Clara and his grandmother left to Houston with hope and a government promise for a bright future. By then he and Slaw were in a motel outside of Central City and had already begun their own bright future. He argued with his gamms about staying in New Orleans with Slaw. She was very insistent and used words like abandonment and selfishness that hurt Shittin deeply. Clara wanted him to come with them too, but she wasn’t as demanding and she knew he would be safe with Slaw. Shittin’s struggle with his grandmother’s will was taxing. He didn’t want her to think he was leaving them for his own good; rather, he wanted to convince her that staying was for their good. He knew Slaw was onto something and he would be making a lot of money and this would help his family. But even more important it will give him a sense of accomplishment, something lacking up till then. The argument continued up until the day they departed and it was never really settled, although the result was that Shittin stayed in New Orleans. Slaw spoke with his grandma before they left and said they had an understanding but Shittin knew that she was bitter and resentful and wasn’t built to really understand his reasons or even believe he had any of substance. They sent her money every week and whether she appreciated it he never knew but he felt like he was taking care of them and it was a huge responsibility and he was very proud.
They pulled up to their current motel. It was a rundown sixty-four unit dump owned and operated by a Pakistani family. If one of the owners was around Slaw would mutter ‘American Dream’ under his breath and chuckle to himself. Slaw was like that, sardonic and shit. But Shittin got it, the reference— where is the American dream for Americans? Can’t we run a cheap motel? He got it all right, better than most, just because a man is irregular in appearance and herky-jerky, it don’t mean he’s dumb.
Sure he looked strange, walked strange and even talked strange, but he wasn’t so strange, he was unique. Other than his physical peculiarities, his only real disadvantage was his lack of focus and his mental wanderings. Gammy said it was the tap water, but he knew it was the paint. He never told but he would peel off the flaking paint near his bed and eat it. Metallic and chewy he consumed strips of it when he was younger. He didn’t need to eat it, not like he was starving, but he liked his late night comfort food. He knows it fucked him up. Maybe not physically, that was genetic, but it did impact his mental and emotional development. He suffered from severe ADHD, like ADHD on crack, like a locomotive with ADHD. He quickly lost himself in a thought and would sometimes need to be throttled back, literally. Slaw knew how to focus him. Slaw kept him steady. But he lost it often and he knew it and then he forgot again. It was difficult for those around him he supposed but it made his life simple and he loved day dreaming.
“How thick my stacks Slaw?” He asked as they walked toward their room.
“Thick,” said Slaw.
“Thick like a slab of money?”
“It is a slab of money.”
“Thick like a slab of money with a tight red rubber band?” Shittin asked eagerly, starting to roil.
“You know it,” said Slaw.
“Yes Sah, I know it Slaw, yes Sah!” Shittin howled excitedly, hopping around in a tight circle.
“Shush now!” Slaw barked. “We don’t want to advertise do we?”
Shittin shook his big loggerhead vigorously looking around fearful that his antics drew
notice. He immediately hoped with all his might that his voice hadn’t carried too far. His mind reeled; it would be disastrous all over again if they lost what they gained after all their hard work. They entered the room and Slaw turned on the television and plopped down on his bed. Shittin thoroughly spooked went straight to the window and peeked out scanning the parking lot. He would do this all night. This was how Slaw managed Shittin’s behavior. When Shittin went into overload, Slaw would remind him by curt and stern admonishment what was mutually important. This method had an eighty percent success rate. Shittin would quickly decelerate, cutting short his excitement once faced with the horror of his darker imagination. He wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t verbalize his irrational concern, rather he would fret silently, fully absorbed in his own creations of impending doom. By observation, patience and long practice, Slaw developed the right responses to steer Shittin’s reactions. He knew that Shittin would worry incessantly over the thought that they would be robbed but he wouldn’t act out or panic. Years ago, Shittin would’ve deteriorated into a meltdown, his overactive