Congo and: Things Needed for a Journey and: How Far Would You Get without the Devil and: Odysseus

Abstract

Congo and: Things Needed for a Journey and: How Far Would You Get without the Devil and: Odysseus Bruce Alford (bio) Congo Disappearances, torture and killings. This is your namesake. Who would love you, brother? You are a burden to us all. In the country you are named for an army major broadcasts a message: People must bring a machete, a spear, an arrow, a hoe, spades, rakes, nails, truncheons, electric irons, barbed wire, stones, in order, dear listeners, to kill. I had not seen him in a year. Like a diplomat, I hoped things had changed. They call my brother Congo because he is as black as the tar street. He doesn’t see how I lace my fingers when he steps forward. Brother, he says and opens and opens the bloody webs in his eyes. He is dead to me, a crackhead, blew five thousand dollars in one week. He sleeps outdoors on a metal table. He is conflict. I do not care for him. I do not love him. You know I love you, I say to him, touching his shoulder. My mother, who never touches him, calls him good-for-nothing black bastard and keeps his gold and silver trophies from high-school football games on the living room mantel. [End Page 493] Things Needed for a Journey the memory of my brother lying in his own filth his narrow bed my own helplessness stretched out in darkness because now our mother was dead the wetness on my face his needles his pipes the paraphernalia of his addiction In the middle of the floor pasteboard boxes his painting of our mother’s face clothes my mother’s shoes my mother’s poetry my parent’s wedding picture pennies broken mirrors the bodies of cockroaches my mother’s whole life He had built a bonfire without fire This is what was left in the darkened kitchen cigarette butts in dishes in the sink smashed on the counter food stuck to plates pots on the stove sausage dried to a pan no furniture because he’d sold it all for crack a pickle jar full of piss because he was too lazy to walk [End Page 494] to the bathroom his scent left like a rotten potato How Far Would You Get without the Devil . . . but his faceDeep scars of Thunder had intrencht, and careSat on his faded cheek —Paradise Lost I appear in the bathroom mirror, strange to myself. Nothing but a towel hangs from my waist. My brother comes screaming: a winged dragon colliding, collapsing into space. His eyes are red—I mean they’re red. Thou think’st he weeps? His tears are unfelt. He cries as one you might meet on a winter day. The tones are false, the sighs and silent strings, despite his yelling, loud, because he’s drunk. He wears a baseball cap as black as his face. Nappy hair sticks out under edges. Bozo. I should listen. His loose face swirls. Man, I would die for Mama. You hear me, man. He puts four calloused fingers against his shirt, over his heart, over an illustration of Curious George. Can’t I have something for myself? Man, she pulled a gun on me—her son, Her own flesh and blood! Said I’ll kill your motherfucking ass. Man, she did this to her flesh and blood. What’s wrong with Mama, man? Let me tell you what she did. I gave her 400 dollars. I had just given her 400 dollars, and I’m back there in that room, and the phone rings and I hear her: ‘He got his lazy black ass back there. He ain’t done nothing for me’— When I heard that, man, I broke down and cried. I cried just like a baby. In the bathroom mirror, I am receding. [End Page 495] My brother’s hand reaches. I hear voices over long distances. Ghosts come forth from their tombs: Two brothers watch Road Runner and Bugs Bunny. A pillow fight: goose quill sticking out between stitching. He used to be a ladies’ man, too. Cool Congo, smooth black skin, beautiful brother. What’s...