Paul Too cleared his throat.
“I know, I know,” said Paul. “I was going to give you credit, you grumpy old man.”
John looked from Paul to Paul Too.
“You see, John,” said Paul. “Old Paul Too told me that. He said every man needs a good meal, a big blanket, and some peace and quiet. He said it. I’m just paraphrasing.”
Paul Too loudly turned a page, newsprint crinkling like a little bit of thunder.
“Okay, okay,” Paul said. “So it was Bessie Smith who said it first. I was just paraphrasing Paul Too’s paraphrase of Ms. Smith. Are you happy now, old man?”
John finished his donut, drank the last of his coffee. Paul swept them away and wiped the counter clean, leaving the rag for John to inspect. It was blue. John knew the blue rags were sterilized.
“So,” said Paul. “How’s your folks?”
John felt a little heat in his belly. Olivia and Daniel often came to the donut shop searching for John. Sometimes, they found him there. Other times, they just ate donuts and waited for John to arrive. John did not know if the donuts here were the best in Seattle, but his parents thought they were.
“I haven’t seen them for a bit,” Paul said. “I was just wondering.” Then to change the subject: “Do you know who Bessie Smith was?”
John shook his head.
“She was a singer, a fine black woman, back in the twenties and thirties, sang like nobody can sing. Sang good enough to make you crazy, John. Just like what you hear in your head, except everybody could hear it. How’s that for crazy? Drove the whole world insane and then she bled to death because they wouldn’t let her in a white hospital.”
Paul Too looked up at Paul.
“Yeah,” said Paul to Paul Too, “I know you think it was murder. But you think everything is a conspiracy.” Then to John. “Paul Too here thinks that Richard Nixon killed both Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X.”
Paul Too wagged a finger at Paul.
“And,” added Paul, “he thinks Mr. Nixon designed Pintos. You know what I’m saying? Those ugly little cars that looked like insects? You remember how they used to blow up? One little tap on the bumper and boom!”
Paul slapped his hands together loudly. John jumped up from his seat.
“Hey,” Paul said. “I’m sorry there, John. Please, have a seat.”
John sat down. Paul Too smoothed his pants and shirt, smoothed his hair with his left hand, picked up the local news section, and exhaled slowly.
“They found a white man’s body,” said Paul Too, reading from his newspaper.
“What man?” asked Paul.
“A dead man. They found his body in some empty house near Fremont. Houses all around there and nobody saw nothing. He was all messed up. What do they say here? Multiple stab wounds.”
Paul whistled.
“How many is multiple?” asked Paul Too. “How do they say things like that? What do they do? Count them up and measure them? Well, this is a bunch of stab wounds, and this is a lot. But Jesus, this is multiple. I don’t much care for it, you hear?”
“I hear,” Paul said.
“What was his name?” John asked, surprising both Pauls. He rarely talked in the donut shop.
“Well,” Paul said. “Tell the man what his name was.”
“It says here his name was Justin Summers. Now, if that ain’t the whitest white-guy name of all time, then I don’t know what. It’s just a damn shame.”
John started to cry.
“What is it?” asked both Pauls, bracing for the worst. Olivia and Daniel’s phone number was on a list near the telephone.
John covered his face with his hands.
“Did you know him?” asked Paul Too.
John shook his head furiously.
“Are you okay?” Paul asked. “Do you need anything?”
John put his face down on the counter, his shoulders and back heaving, loud sobs. No. Now he was laughing, deep belly laughs, his eyes still wet with tears. He laughed until he felt sick. Paul and Paul Too watched him. He might have laughed until he passed out, he had done it before, but another customer walked in the door and broke the spell.
“Well, hello there, Mr. Ruffatto,” Paul said to the regular.
Paul Too placed a hand on John’s shoulder. John stared at the hand, black skin, long fingers, wrinkled knuckles, a huge hand, callused and old. John eased out from under that hand, backed out of the shop, and started walking. He walked downtown and sat outside the building site. He stared up at the last skyscraper in Seattle. It was small, even by Seattle standards, and pointless. Why were they finishing this tall building when most of the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle were already in financial trouble? So many vacant spaces, so many failed businesses. None of the buildings in downtown Seattle were owned by the people who had originally financed their construction. Nothing was original. John watched his building. A few night people passed by, but John ignored them. He sat alone and quiet, wondering what would happen to him after the construction was complete.
13. Indian Gambling
DAVID ROGERS HAD NEVER been to an Indian gambling casino before that night. He’d never been on an Indian reservation for that matter, despite the fact that there were at least a dozen in and around the Seattle area, and five within a few hours’ drive from his family’s farm. In fact, the city of Spokane was named after a local tribe, but David had never visited their reservation. He knew that Marie Polatkin was Spokane, but she had refused his offer to accompany him to the Tulalip Casino. He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to go to the casino. He wanted to see Indians, he knew, but he didn’t know what he would do after that.
His brother, Aaron, and his other housemates, Barry Church and Sean Ward, hadn’t wanted to come with him.
“I’m not going on some reservation,” Aaron had said. “You don’t know what those Indians might do. Hell, they already killed one white guy. And you better not go either. What would Dad say if he knew you were going up there?”
So, with neither his brother’s help nor his father’s permission, David found himself alone and more than a little jumpy as he walked into the Tulalip Tribal Casino, just forty miles north of Seattle. David had expected to find something more illicit and foreign inside. From all the newspaper editorials, the public outcry, and his father’s rantings, David had assumed the casino would be filled with drunk Indian men, half-naked Indian women, and Italian mobsters. Instead, on this weeknight, David saw a couple dozen white farmers losing money at the poker and blackjack tables while the farmers’ wives dropped buckets of quarters into the slot machines. He was probably the youngest man in the casino, but he certainly wasn’t the only white one. He looked like most of the other gamblers. All of the Indians, dressed formally in tuxedos and evening gowns, were working as dealers, cashiers, and waiters. David was vaguely disappointed. He’d come for some cheap, rebellious thrills, a white boy slumming it among the Indians, but he soon discovered that the most dangerous thing in the casino was the thick cloud of cigarette smoke.
Still, once he realized he was safe, David proceeded to have a great time. He’d brought only forty dollars with him and he intended to gamble until he was broke. He lost twenty bucks at blackjack, five at poker, spent five on a hamburger and french fries, and was down to his last ten when he decided to have a spin on the slot machines. There must have been a hundred machines lined up in a far corner of the casino. Most machines took quarters, but a few took silver dollars. Bright lights, flashing bulbs, sirens announcing wins. The whirr-whirr-whirr of the slots spinning, the thuk-thuk-thuk of the jackpot-jackpot-apple, a loser, falling into place. The housewives, with white buckets of quarters balanced in their laps, pumped money into the slots. It was all so loud, irritating, and irresistible. A few minutes before midnight, David sat at a one-dollar baseball-themed slot machine, beside a housewife who briefly glanced at him before turning back, with a loud sigh, to her own efforts. Her luck had been bad that night. With his no better, David soon lost nine dollars with nine spins of the slots.