“What do you think happened to her?” Lincoln asked.
“You know what happened.”
“I don’t mean the drugs,” Lincoln said. “Something was always off with that girl, always walking around with those feathers in her hair, disappearing for days.” He paused. “You dated her for two years. What was really up with her and those mood swings?”
“Just tell me what you found out.”
Lincoln turned away, started walking down the hill. “Let’s get that pizza first,” he said over his shoulder.
Colesbery watched him disappear around the corner. He turned and looked at the redbrick school once more, and began thinking about the library. He’d had girlfriends before Chelsea, but none like her. She wasn’t that glow-in-the-dark pretty, but her eyes were open whenever Colesbery asked for something in the library, like she actually heard him, like she wanted to help him. She cried right there between the shelves in that back room when Colesbery told her about how he’d walked in on his parents doing drugs so often as a child that when he walked in that last time, he just thought they were asleep. She’d taken his hand in hers, leaned her head on his chest, and cried.
By the time Colesbery entered the restaurant, Lincoln was already in a corner booth with a pizza, a pitcher of beer, and two mugs. He filled them both as Colesbery slid into the booth across from him.
“Thought you might want a beer.”
“I didn’t come here to drink beer.”
Lincoln took a sip from his mug. He bit a slice of pizza. Colesbery stared, not touching either.
“Did you call that number I texted you?”
“I don’t need to talk to anybody.”
They stared at one another. Colesbery waited, watched Lincoln’s face until it fell away, the public one full of pleasantries and vague language, and then Colesbery saw the face of Lincoln that he knew, a brown angular face with a narrowed heaviness in the eyes that only truth could render.
“He’s still here,” said Lincoln. “He moved out of the house in Ensley Highlands.” He plucked a piece of pineapple off the pizza and tossed it in his mouth. “But he still has that tire company down on Avenue F, and yes, he still walks around the block at lunchtime.”
The information at first swirled around Colesbery’s head, then he felt that twitch in his stomach that always came before a mission. The plan materialized in his brain — how he would do it, when he would do it, where he would do it. He rubbed his eyes and then stretched his fingers wide, balled them tight, stretched them again, and settled back into the moment.
“You sure about this?” Lincoln asked. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
Colesbery focused his eyes, picked up a slice of pizza but didn’t take a bite. There were too many ingredients, too much going on on the pizza. He put it on the plate. “Yes, I do,” he said. He didn’t say any more, just looked at Lincoln, his eyes steeling themselves as if seeing beyond his friend to a target.
“Well, I guess that’s that.” Lincoln refreshed his beer. “You don’t drink anymore.”
Colesbery took a gulp from his mug. The coolness felt calming on his throat, in his stomach. “How’s your business?”
“You don’t care about that, but I got a job for you when you’re ready.” Lincoln motioned for the waitress. “Remember Mrs. Gordon? She passed away last month.”
Colesbery knew Lincoln was worried, was trying to get him to back down. But it got to him anyway. Mrs. Gordon had been one of those teachers attracted to strays. And there was no more a stray than Colesbery when he entered her sophomore literature class. Dead parents, a halfway-locked-up alcoholic uncle he lived with, clothes that were ill-fitted and seldom clean — Colesbery became her cause. She lived in Bush Hills too, a few blocks away on the boulevard, and she often gave him rides to school, even invited him over for dinner sometimes. But he didn’t respond, didn’t accept her attention, until she put a book on his desk one day in class and walked away. He left it on the desk when class was dismissed, but she placed it on his desk again the next day, so he took it. At that time he was a skinny kid who only wanted to avoid attention, and confrontation. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was the first book he ever really read. He read it and reread it, especially the chapter where Douglass fights Mr. Covey.
“What happened to her?” asked Colesbery.
“Old, as far as I know. I just figured you’d want to know.” Then he asked, “What did you do with all those books she gave you?”
After he read the Douglass book, Colesbery had put it back on her desk one day before class. She’d asked if he’d read it, he’d answered yes, and that led to her bringing book after book after book. Every time he put one back on her desk, she reached into the top drawer and withdrew another one. He read them all.
“My uncle burned most of them when he set the apartment on fire.”
“She was good people.”
It was Mrs. Gordon who’d lost her copy of Invisible Man and told him to check it out of the library. He’d made the mistake in thinking she’d meant the Wells version (even though he also read it later). Mrs. Gordon had been a stout brown-skinned woman, widowed and childless, who always seemed so much taller when she stood in front of the class and peered over her glasses at each student, calling on them, cajoling them, encouraging them, correcting them, explaining things to them day after day through the semester.
“And Mr. Foster finally retired.” Lincoln drank from his glass. “Remember when he caught us with that beer behind the school?”
Colesbery was glad not to keep talking about Mrs. Gordon, but he also knew Lincoln was working him, trying to get to the real reason for his plans. Lincoln had always had a knack for getting people comfortable, getting them talking, and then getting them to reveal more than they intended.
“I need to go,” Colesbery said.
“Is it happening again?”
Lincoln had stopped by the apartment one day when things weren’t going well. There had been a smell, an odor like fried onions mixed with stale mayonnaise, which had triggered something, transported Colesbery, made him see things: jagged faces, torn limbs, trails of blood. Colesbery had heard the knock, yanked open the door to the courtyard, and tried to hit Lincoln, but Lincoln was strong enough to grab and hold Colesbery till he calmed, till he convinced Colesbery that what he thought he was seeing was not real.
“I’m good,” Colesbery said. “Thanks for the information.”
That night Colesbery couldn’t sleep. His bed always felt too big, too something, so he often couldn’t sleep there. Around midnight, after staring at the ceiling for an hour, he got up and went into the den. He watched TV for a while, tried to sleep on the couch. No luck. Again he got up, and then went out into the tiny courtyard. He didn’t have any chairs, but the courtyard made him feel more secure.
The square footprint of his apartment was evenly divided into four quadrants: the bedroom, the den, the courtyard, and the galley kitchen and bathroom split the last quadrant. Both the den and the bedroom had sliding glass doors that opened up onto the courtyard. The first week, Colesbery sat staring from the bedroom, then from the den, at the outside door in the far corner of the courtyard. He checked the lock five times a night.