I knew his address, but still I had to tread cautiously. He’d done the robbery already; that job was over. So why was he still so scarce? The only answer was that he’d gotten into some other business upon his return. And whatever that business was, it was probably dangerous. I was Raymond’s best friend, but he didn’t want me sticking my nose in his affairs.
“. . . right, Easy?” Jackson was asking.
“What?”
“Ain’t it true what I said to Jean-Paul? That most white men in America don’t know how beautiful a black woman is.”
I could almost see Mouse turning toward me in anger. I felt the thrill of fear right there in the car.
“That’s right,” I agreed.
“Why is that, Easy?” Villard asked.
I resented him using my name without knowing why. He was a nice enough guy. He was a philanderer and a murderer and maybe a trafficker in slaves, but none of that had anything to do with me.
“Because they know what would happen if they let themselves love our women,” I said from some unconscious, resentful, frightened place.
“What do you mean?”
“If they loved our women, then they would become our men,” I said. “And once that happened, they’d lose their advantage. Their children would be dark skinned. Their history would be our history, and their crimes would be shown for what they are.”
Jean-Paul frowned, truly contemplative for the first time since I’d met him. I gazed up in the rearview mirror and saw that Jackson was looking at my reflection in a rare show of intellectual respect.
I drifted back into thinking about my problems.
How was I going to give the money to Meredith Tarr? She didn’t look all that stable from where I sat. She might, given the right (or maybe wrong) circumstances, start blaming me for killing her husband. She wouldn’t have to look too deeply to find out that Ray and I were friends. Maybe I was part of a plot to pay her off.
I decided that I’d have to read the letter.
There’s never a scarcity of problems for people like me. As soon as I’d come to a conclusion about Meredith’s money, I started thinking about Bonnie’s wedding. It came up in my mind stealthily, as if I had already allowed it into my consciousness without any resistance.
I had spent the night with Faith. I was on my way to a relationship with Tourmaline. The kids had accepted Bonnie’s marriage.
“You ever been in love?” I asked the gabbling men.
“You know I love Jewelle more than my whole family,” Jackson said. “You know that.”
“What if you found out that she was seein’ another man on the side?”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Jackson averred.
“Course she would, man,” I said. “When she was livin’ with Mofass she got you that house on Ozone. She was out there with you two nights a week.”
“That was different.”
“I don’t see how,” I claimed. “She loved Mofass more than a baby love her mama. And he died for her.”
We were in my roomy Ford, but it felt as if I were alone, communicating with men in other worlds. Jackson was in my mirror like an image on a small TV. I could see him responding to my statements. I could tell by his distant gaze that Jackson had not considered the depth of Mofass’s love. It was possible, very possible that the old man had loved Jewelle more deeply than Jackson ever could.
Jean-Paul was sitting next to me, wondering about the gravity of the conversation. He was right there, but to me he was no more than a cartoon. He lived in a world that I could never fit into. I lived in a world where he didn’t belong no matter what kind of shoes he wore.
“But,” Villard said, “if a man can love more than one woman, why cannot women love more than one man?”
“You really believe that?” I asked the cartoon.
“I do not want to smell him,” Jean-Paul said. “I do not want him fathering my children. But love, it is like the weather. It is wonderful or it is terrible and then it changes. But you can never change it.”
I was in a vulnerable emotional state at that time. That’s the only reason Jean-Paul’s words seemed so deep. He was telling me something that I already knew but that I never really believed.
“You tryin’ to say sumpin’ ’bout Jewelle?” Jackson asked.
“Naw, man,” I said. “Bonnie’s marrying Joguye Cham.”
“The prince?” Jean-Paul asked.
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Oh, yes, very well. We have conducted business with him over the years. Investments and some insurance.”
“What’s he like?”
“He comes from a long line of headmen of his people. He was educated at Oxford and was active in revolutionary movements. He’s a . . . what you say . . . a good guy.”
A good guy. He was more than that. He saved my daughter’s life and then took my lover in payment.
39
I rented a room at a motel called Ariba on Centinela. I didn’t know if the military men had enough grunts left to stake out my house, but safe was definitely better than sorry. Not that sorry had left me unscathed. I lamented almost everything, even those things that I hadn’t and couldn’t have done.
I lay down on the bed with the pillowcase containing thirty thousand dollars at my side. I never once thought of keeping the money. It wasn’t mine, and I would have paid for that theft. One day I’d meet Leafa after she’d lived in the street for ten years. I’d see the pain in her eyes, and whatever money I’d stolen would be gone.
After thirty minutes of trying to sleep, I reached into the bag and pulled out Pericles’ letter. The envelope was made from cheap gray paper. It had been sealed and also taped. I used my razor-sharp pocketknife to sever the seam. The Dear Meredith letter was written on white paper of a higher quality than the envelope.
Dear Meredith:
I’m so sorry honey to tell you like this but I just couldn’t face you now. I’m going away. I can’t take it any more. I sit up in the house every night listening to them kids making sounds like wild animals and you in the bed next to me like Sonny Liston done knocked you dead.
It was the last straw when Hanley threw up on my newspaper and then Lola cried because she couldn’t read the funnies. Ten minutes later they were both laughing and I wanted to kill them. Then you says that I needed to get a new job to pay for all that. It came into my head right then like God talking to Moses. I needed something new all right. And I’m doing that.
Don’t get me wrong baby — this hurts. I came by the house just two days ago. I watched you guys from the alley across the street. I saw Leafa out there in a nice new green raincoat. She helping Lana learn how to ride a two-wheeler, and you were sitting there watching them. I almost went to you but then the whole brood came out of that house like pestilence and I ran away.
I am giving you this money. This $30,000.00. You can pay rent and feed the kids for a few years with that, maybe more. I will send more money when I can get it.
I am sorry baby.
Pericles Tarr
I read the letter three times, wondering what Meredith would think when she read it. It was the truth, but how could she know that? Pericles’ leaving her had nothing to do with Pretty Smart. He just couldn’t take it anymore. It was a house filled with noise and ugliness that only a mother could love. It’s a wonder that she didn’t understand what her man was going through. But then I thought, what would understanding have done for her? He would still have left. She would still have been set adrift with a dozen kids in a paper boat.
But none of that was my concern. I’d bring Meredith her money, and she would make it into their life preserver.
We all just make up life as we go along. At some point Pericles must have loved Meredith. He wanted a big family, or at least he wanted what she wanted and believed that she understood the consequences. And when the life he’d made turned out not to be the life he was making, Perry made up Pretty, robbed a payroll in Washington state, and bought two tickets for New York.