Irayda says, “They appreciate what you’ve done for Felix, but they would like you to stop now. If it was only them, it would be different, but they must consider the welfare of others — their families, their neighbors, their children. They know whose house it is. Things are hard enough already, the way things have been lately. You understand?”
I wish I didn’t, but I do, so I don’t give her any argument. I shake hands all around. She leaves when I do, driving to a more affluent part of town. Probably here legally, well-educated, from a prosperous family back home in Mexico or Guatemala — maybe she knew Felix, or maybe she just wanted to help.
I miss my turn, or something inside me refuses to take it, and I head for the house of the man promising on the radio to keep America safe for Americans or some such gibberish. I twist and turn through streets all named with a bit of the lord-and-manor about them. Once you get anywhere close to the river-fronting properties, the roads are all private. If I hadn’t pored over the Google photo, I don’t think I would’ve known which one to take. I roll right up front. I’m surprised there’s not a fence or something. Maybe there’s a virtual fence, like the one in Arizona. The lights are on. Someone’s home.
And quite a home it is, stretched to make room for windows on one side and plenty of pavement on the other. Several cars much nicer than my Civic are parked here. They’re all wearing the host’s bumper sticker on their ass. Sounds like a party going on, people talking and laughing over Cuban jazz. Campaigning must make for some late nights, or maybe he just can’t sleep. The air is heavy with the smell of charred wood. Must put a damper on the festivities.
I button up my shirt and tuck it in, ring the bell, and smile into the camera. General Lee calling. The candidate himself opens the door, and I tell him I’m a constituent wanting to discuss the issues. He has to shake my offered hand, an old white man, and I hang on, pumping his hand, so honored don’t you know, herding him inside. He can’t stop me. It’s not nice to body block the elderly. There are a dozen or so folks, still all dressed up for a fund-raiser, standing around having a nightcap with the candidate. He has to make nice with an audience present. Virginia politicians know all too well a cell phone can bring down a senator.
A couple of big-chested fellows are eyeing me. Security obviously. Can’t have too much of that. Everyone else is watching to see if I’ll be amusing. There’s a black lab sitting at the end of a long empty sofa. It’s porcelain. Behind it is a wall of windows. “Would you look at the view?” I say. It’s a dark night. The room is lit up bright. All there is to see is a bunch of white people reflected in the glass against a black backdrop, like a painting on black velvet of white-faced dogs playing poker.
“You can’t really see anything with all the lights on, I’m afraid,” says my host, chuckling amiably, professionally.
“It’s always something, isn’t it? Trees. Lives. Bright lights. I just came by to tell you I’m not voting for you. I don’t like your stand on the issues — immigrant labor and watershed management in particular.”
The two security guys have been moving in until they’re standing on either side of us like we’re about to huddle. One reaches inside his jacket and keeps his hand there. His right.
The candidate turns off his bright smile, so I can see inside, where he’s actually a good deal meaner than he might first appear to be. But I already knew that. “I’m afraid it’s late Mr....?”
“Lee.”
“Mr. Lee. Perhaps if you’d come by my office we could discuss the matter further.”
I have to let it go. I have to consider the welfare of others. “I’d rather not.” I give it one last look, and they all follow my gaze, all of us glancing back. Mr. Whiskers looks like a faux full moon in the foyer. “Killer view.”
He’s standing right beside me. He makes a little grunt like I hit him in the gut. Nothing like the sound he’d make if I actually hit him. Nothing like the sound Felix must’ve made when several tons of tree came crashing down on him. But something.
I show myself out. The security guys watch me drive away, back to the public roads on the other side of a virtual fence, keeping the borders secure.
When the key turns in the lock, I still expect to hear dog struggling to her feet. Before she died I thought this silence would be better than listening to her gradual decline. Not so. Not yet, a little over a week now.
My wife’s up, watching a muted television. Wal-Mart is cutting prices.
“How you doing?” she asks.
“Better, I think. What about you?”
“Someone asked at work today how my dog was doing.”
“What did you say?”
“I said she had a good life.”
“That’s what I said too.”
“Did you find out anything about the dead man?”
“His name was Felix.”
I sit down beside her, and we hold each other in the silence and manage not to cry.
Part II
Numbers
It was a town of the cavalier, not the cracker.
The Battle of Belle Isle
by Clay McLeod Chapman
Belle Isle
They dumped Benny by the river, wearing nothing but a green paper gown. Ambulance must’ve pulled over, rear doors fanning open. Bet the driver didn’t even step out to help her. Just kept the engine running when they left Benny by the side of the road, all disoriented, shivering from the cold. No clothes, no shoes, no idea where she was anymore. Started making her way toward the water, all sixty-three years of herself crawling down the craggy rocks, bare feet slipping over the algae. Rested just next to the James for lord knows how long. All numb now.
There’d been rain out west, so it wasn’t long before the river swelled. Couple of hours and the surface probably rose right up to her, currents taking her away. Carrying her downstream for half a mile. Two miles. Maybe more — I don’t know. Depends on where they ditched her in the first place, doesn’t it? Can’t shake this image of her floating over the rocks, half naked, whisked off into the whitewater. The rapids dragging her body along before bringing her back to Belle Isle.
This island had been our home.
After they shut down the Freedom House on Belvidere, you either had to migrate up to Monroe Park or toward the Lee Bridge, where the nearest mission was nestled into this neglected valley on the south side of Chesterfield County, about a mile’s walk beyond the city limits. It had been home to some battlefield long forgotten by now. Perfect for a skirmish during the Civil War — not much else. Only neighbors now were a couple of dilapidated factories, the soil all soaked with arsenic. Just about the only thing you could build on top of that poisoned property was a homeless shelter. And this mission — their doors didn’t open unless it was below thirty-five degrees. Come 6 a.m., you were woken up and tossed right back into the street no matter how cold it was. Locked their doors until the thermometer reached the right temperature again.