The woman moves snoozy against the life of the store. Carts squeak, tills open, a glass jar breaks in an aisle close by; a man calls a special that’s off special by the end of the day. I sift through my snacks, picking a choice for my one night off this week. The boy, my friend, wanders up, with his pitiful mama groping after him.
You buy Capri Sun? he says.
It hurts too much anymore — which is I why I can’t, won’t let Kenny win — to be a boy’s disappointment, overmuch. I ask his mama if she minds and she curses him and twists his arm and tells him to say sorry for asking. He apologizes. His face a face that makes me wish he was mine. I tell her it’s no trouble. That I’d love to do it, that I’ve got boys, and know how it is. Then, shit, I guess, she says, which is all the consent I need.
It’s misty when I leave the store, but we can’t let that stop us. I toss my bag in the backseat and climb in. The car clicks cold the first turn of the key — I’ve got to get this checked — but catches the next try. I drive blocks down to a roadside flower stand owned by a man who used to work at one of my old jobs. He crushed on me for years, used to offer lunches and buy flowers for no reason at all. Then one late night he saw me at the end of a binge. Since then, the few times we’ve seen one another, he talks to me soft and makes it a point to ask how I’ve been. Sometimes you have the strength to face them; sometimes you don’t. I get out and pick a bouquet. He gives it to me for discount and says he hopes I’m doing well, that it looks to him as if I am.
The ride to the cemetery takes you by the zoo. The zoo should be the next outing for the boys and I.
It’s been too long, much too long, since my last time here. There’s a new sign at the entrance, or else an old sign I’m first seeing. The first time I came, I came alone and got lost, and all these years since it’s easy to get turned around, to lose the route that leads easiest to his marker. The surest, fastest way is to find it on foot. I hike past the mausoleum — muddied patches suck at my heels — push over slopes, wend through cypress trees and mini-gardens of blooming yellow tulips. I tread the maze of markers, stepping around and between but never over a stone. The grounds crew has set up a tent, dug a new plot, laid straps across it. The man stacking chairs under the tent calls a twangish Howdy, and waves for me to stop. He wipes his hands on overalls stamped with islands of dirt, tips a checkerboard conductor’s cap, and dabs his face with a stained cloth. He asks if I need help finding a stone and I tell him I’m fine, that who I came to see should be just over the next hill.
All righty, he says, and goes back to his business. I feel his eyes at my back as I leave.
By the time I reach my godson’s marker the bouquet has leaked a rose-sized stain on my blouse. I take a knee — feeling the wet grass soak through my pants — and clear loose grass and dirt from his birth and death dates. I take out the flowers one by one and lay them around the border and when I’m done I bow and pray. Not sure how long this lasts but when I look up the overalled man is standing nearby.
Oh, I say. Didn’t hear you walk up.
It’s an ancient Shaolin secret, he says. Or is it Alabama? He simpers. It’s the smile of an honest man. Not a church man, but an honest man — the toughest to find. He asks if Dawn’s boy is my boy.
He’s my godson, I say.
He snaps the straps of his overalls. Excuse the manners, he says. My name’s Henry. I’m the head groundskeeper here.
Grace, I say. Good to meet you.
Grace, he says. I got a cousin named Grace. And she’s a beauty just like you.
Thank you, I say.
No thanks due, he says. I’m just a bystander is all. Miss Grace, let me guess, you’re from someplace else original?
What makes you say that? I say.
Where I come from we honor the dead. But not much here, from what I can tell. Got me to thinking that it’s the place, that it’s the way folks are reared up north. But here you are visiting alone, paying respect, restoring my faith.
He helps me to my feet. He refits his hat on snug, checks his watch. Welp, I better get a move on, he says. My shift’s about done. He asks if I can find my way out, says it’s hecka easy to get turned around.
Thanks for the offer, I say. But I can find the way myself.
Hurrah for independence. Have a good day, he says, and moseys off. For as far as I can see, the man rambles between and around markers, but never over a single stone.
Chapter 46
Mom and I are alike that way.
The details, the details would about bore you to a three on the old Glasgow Scale.
But read on if you don’t mind taking the risk.
The basics: Each week we’ll meet at the bank and I’ll give Jude the cash (a buck less than what they’re required to report to the Feds) and he’ll deposit the funds. This will go on until we reach the figure (a month or so, by my count) we need for the down payment. Jude will cut the owners a check, buy the house in his name, then post the close of escrow (who says the average white man means us new Negroes no good?) and will transfer me the deed by quitclaim. Then, bam, I’m making the mortgage, and me and mines are legal and rightful owners of our very own piece of terra firma, our slice of the American Dream.
Peoples, are you with me? Still awake? Cool.
You may be wondering how I’m going to raise the bread to pay Mister, raise what I’ll need for a down payment on the house — and futhermore how I’ll support my sweet, newborn baby girl when she arrives. Well guess what, I’ve been wondering too. Nah, I’m bullshitting. I got a plan. What’s the plan? My plan is no plan for now. Winging it. But how about I promise (you never know when there’s a vitriolic superhater afoot) to share a plan when and if there is a plan after we (the we being you and I) have spent at least a jug more time together? Won’t knock you specific, but we all know a nigger can’t be sure about human beings in general. Add to that what’s been happening to me in recent times, and forgive me for not being the most trusting brother around.
The bank is on a busy street, close by my old school, and right across (of all the branches) from the Northeast Precinct. To top it off, I got my pistol stashed (I’ve suffered the first and last of five-digit mishaps) in the armrest. I’m strapped and don’t you know every other white sedan spooks me to the brink of mashing out the lot. Not that I’d have the nuts to lead police on a high-speed. Me, who’s never pushed to triple digits a ride with 180 on the speed dial, me the same trepid dude who yields on yellows. But please don’t bust me down about it too much. Admitted, most days I’m percents of a stone-cold fraud, but which one of us is authentic 24/7?
Stayed up late last night counting and recounting this first payment. All of which, to be safe, I should be using to pay Mister. The whole time I counted, Kim sat by looking pugnacious. Whole time too, I pretended not to notice and kept right on counting. Fell asleep on my nth recount, woke up this morning on paranoid, and called Half Man. Called the homie hoping his natural born hatetrocity would push me to scrap the plan. Surprise! But he didn’t pick up. I wasn’t lying what I said about dude being the CEO of the year of Never-There-When-Needed, Inc.
Our meet time comes. Our meet time goes. Still no sign of Jude. Bank customers come and go. An old man waltzes out all smiles. A redhead woman winds out of the revolving door with the I’m-a-bounced-check-away-from-having-my-account-closed mug. A short line builds for the ATM.
The cash, the pistol, and no Jude. If this goes another nanotick somebody best call an EMT. Disclosure: When I’m doing even the slightest of wrongs (not that this ranks that low on the scale) I feel the intractable horron that every lawman or lawwoman in the world is scheming for my arrest, and that once in custody, no matter my crime, no less than a death penalty will do.