Brambleman (45 page)

Charlie gazed at the white back cover, which
contained several blurbs in red ink from eminent historians, who
praised the work effusively. Charlie felt a pang of conscience for
compromising their academic integrity with his divinely inspired
literary derring-do. But everything happened according to a plan.
(That was his story, and he was sticking to it.)

Kathleen narrowed her eyes. “You got all the
money, didn’t you?” He nodded. After a moment’s pause, she said,
“Well, there was no guarantee there would be any. Everyone got what
they wanted. I’m just glad it’s done.” She grabbed the book and
kissed Thurwood’s picture, then closed it and hugged it to her
chest. “We did it, sweetheart!” She turned to Charlie. “So how do
you
feel?”

“This is one of my better days.” He gave her
a smile both weary and triumphant. “It’s all good.”

“I want to see Thurwood. Can you take
me?”

Before Charlie could answer, Betty handed him
the cordless phone.

“What are you up to?” Angela spoke in her
most demanding voice.

“I came by to see your mother. Is that
permitted?”

A pause. “I suppose, since you’re there
already. Took me by surprise. There are warrants, plural, for your
arrest. Family feud, I gather.”

“They’re BS. ‘Git offen my property,’
mainly.”

“I bet you get that a lot,” she said. “So
you’ve taken care of them?”

Silence.

“I’ll take that as a ‘No.’ You’re a train
wreck, you know. I don’t suppose I should blame you for everything,
though,” Angela said, her tone softening. “Tell me. Did they find
what they were looking for that night?”

“No, they most certainly did not.”

“Mom doesn’t remember. What were they looking
for?”

“The first time, someone took your father’s
notes. Uh, tried to, that is. The next time, they were looking for
something else I was working on.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I never
meant to put your mother in danger. Things happened fast that
day.”

“A lot of excitement, I’ll say that. She
still talks about her ‘great adventure.’ Funny. When you were
there, she was happier than she’d been since Dad died. She spent
twenty years moping around, then you come along and she thinks
she’s on a holy quest. Now, she just babbles a lot.”

“She’s not babbling now.”

“No? She’s been going downhill fast, but
maybe she’ll be on her best behavior around you. She thinks you’re
some kind of angel. She’s been asking for you. In a way, I’m glad
you came by. But you can’t have your job back.”

Charlie chuckled. “You’ll be happy to know my
replacement is very protective.”

“Good. So, congratulations on the book. How
does it look?”

“Great. Thanks.”

Kathleen tugged on his jacket sleeve. “You
need to take me to see Thurwood.”

“Kathleen wants to see Thurwood,” Charlie
told Angela. “I don’t have my van. I biked over.”

“Use her car. I’ve got a class to teach right
now. Stick around. I’ll come by later. I’ve been staying there
lately.”

“So all is forgiven?” Charlie asked.

“Most of it.”

After Charlie hung up, he announced,
“Angela’s not so bad.”

Kathleen cleared her throat and looked away.
Betty rolled her eyes.

“Ah. So it’s not just me,” Charlie said.

This time, Betty cleared her throat and
looked away, while Kathleen rolled her eyes.

“All right! All right! Let’s go see
Thurwood,” Charlie said.

He locked his bike to the porch. When
Kathleen came out in a black coat, Betty announced she was leaving
for the day. Kathleen told Charlie, “Angela sleeps here now so that
I won’t run away.”

“Good. Cause you’re hard to catch when you
build up a head of steam.”

She laughed at his tease and playfully
swatted his arm. Charlie helped her down the steps. In the
sunlight, she looked terribly pale. She paused on the way to the
car to catch her breath. In the cemetery, Charlie parked on the
grass underneath the spreading, bare-limbed oak that served as
Kathleen’s navigational marker. Thirty paces to the east lay
Thurwood’s headstone. Kathleen leaned on Charlie as they walked to
the grave. Once there, she stared at her name carved in granite
beside Thurwood’s. She leaned over and spoke as if she were waking
her husband from a nap. “Sweetheart, it’s me. I brought the young
man. Didn’t I tell you we’d get it done? Didn’t I do well? Look at
this!” She held the book over the grave so the headstone could see.
“I know it took awhile. Please forgive me. But it’s all right now.
It’s all right, sweetie. All the people who’ve read it think it’s
wonderful. This is how you live on. I am so proud of you. I hope
you’re proud of me.” She laid the book atop his grave. “You can
feel it better this way.”

She turned to Charlie. “Do you have anything
to say?”

He stepped forward. “It’s been an honor to
work on your book, sir. I believe it will do very well.” He thought
for a moment. “If you see John Riggins, give him my best.”

Kathleen touched Charlie’s arm and confided,
“Sometimes I think you’re my son. But I know that you’re not.” She
took a moment before she spoke again. “I never got over Gary’s
death. Thurwood’s, I could accept. His days were cut short, but he
lived a full life. But Gary. Oh, Gary.”

She walked over to her son’s grave. Charlie
gave her some space.

When she returned, she said, “Should we leave
the book with Thurwood? He might like that.”

“It would get wet,” Charlie said. “I bet he’d
like it if we gave it to Georgia State’s library.”

“Wonderful idea!” She picked up the book and
took his arm. As they walked back to the car, a crow circled
overhead. “My life is complete now,” she said. “There’s nothing
left for me to do.”

“I’m impressed. Not many people can say
that.”

“Although I wish they’d caught the man who
hit Thurwood on the head. That caused his death, you know. But that
was long ago. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” she
murmured.

Charlie was glad to see she’d finally
accepted what had happened to Thurwood. It made him feel a little
less guilty about keeping Momo’s identity a secret from her
(although he did devote a chapter in
American Monster
to
that debacle up at Varmintville on the Fourth of July).

When they returned to Bayard Terrace, Angela
was there, and she was in a surprisingly good mood. They ate dinner
at Gamille’s on North Highland, Charlie’s treat. The women drank
wine, and by the end of the evening, Charlie had purchased
Kathleen’s ancient Volvo for $1,000. He left with five copies of
Flight from Forsyth
and his bike in the trunk. A very good
day, all in all. On the way home, he drove by the Tenth Street
Station and saw, with a nod of approval, that his old bike was
gone.

* * *

Two days later, Charlie was working at the
computer when he got a phone call from Angela. “Mom died in her
sleep last night,” she said.

Charlie was stunned. “Oh God. I … that’s
terrible.” Even as he spoke, he knew that her time had come. After
all, she was eighty-three, and her life was, by her own admission,
complete. “What happened?”

“She died in her sleep. It was peaceful, I
think. She was so happy after the books came. I think she wanted to
be with Dad. Does that sound weird?” She sniffled and started to
sob.

“No, not at all.” Charlie thought of her
dreams of Thurwood and suspected she wasn’t alone when she died. “I
wish she had lived to see the book succeed, though.”

“At least she saw the book completed.”

“Yes. She finished the drill.”

“It would be nice if you said a few words at
the funeral.”

“I’d be honored.”

* * *

The service was held at the Unitarian Church
in Northeast Atlanta. A small crowd attended: a sister, nieces,
neighbors, colleagues of Thurwood. Angela sat with her current
partner, Sandra Hughes, the African-American attorney who had
drafted the current contract on
Flight from Forsyth
.

Afterward, a small procession traveled to the
cemetery. Feeling both empty and full, Charlie stood at the edge of
the crowd as the casket was lowered into the ground. When the
graveside service was over, he drifted away and sat in the Volvo.
He’d passed on the chance to eat one last meal at Bayard Terrace
because he had something else in mind.

After the other mourners had driven off, two
black men with shovels filled in the grave and tamped down the
dirt. When they left, there was just Charlie, the sunset, the
rising wind, dead folks all around, and an almost imperceptible
shadow behind the caretaker’s shed. He’d expected Trouble to show
up, but when a bus passed by on the highway without stopping,
Charlie figured the trickster wasn’t coming. That was for the best.
After all, fistfights at funerals were a varmint thing. And while
Charlie liked to think he was above that sort of behavior, he
wasn’t sure what he’d do when he saw Trouble face to face.

He exited the Volvo and tiptoed across the
grass, carrying a copy of
Flight
. He stood before their
graves: Thurwood’s carpeted with fescue, Kathleen’s covered with
the dirt of the newly dead. A patch of sod and a few chisel blows
to date her tombstone, and she’d be set for eternity. Ignoring his
own recent advice, he kneeled and placed the open book face-down
between them, so they could share again. “Goodbye, friends,” he
said. “Don’t know that I’ll be back. But you live on, both of you.”
He struck his chest with his fist as he backed away.

Charlie returned to the car weighed down by
the knowledge of how fleeting and few his friendships had been. He
decided to reestablish contact with Minerva. It was wrong to be on
the outs with her. Eventually, she’d understand that what he’d done
was necessary—though he hoped she hadn’t yet found out what exactly
that had entailed.

It turned out to be an awkward meeting. When
he came to her house that evening, Minerva stood at the door and
didn’t invite him in. She shook her head when he asked about Takira
and Demetrious. Either she was unwilling to talk about them or
reluctant to speak to him. Maybe both. But Charlie figured
Demetrious hadn’t told her about the blood test. Otherwise, she
would have slammed the door in his face. He handed her an
autographed copy of
Flight
, then told her he had finished
American Monster
. “
Flight from Forsyth
is going on
sale on MLK Day,” Charlie said.

“There’s something wrong with trying to make
money that way,” Minerva declared.

He turned and left without saying another
word.

Charlie woke early on MLK Day and checked
Amazon.com.
Still no sales. None
! What was wrong with
people? Or maybe it was him. Bad karma. Or bad marketing? He needed
to get busy and generate some buzz—line up signings, schedule
interviews, get media coverage. At least he’d managed to sell an
article about Forsyth County’s inglorious history to
Atlanta
Week
. Now to plot his next move. Maybe he’d finally write that
Brimmer article, the one that had been so rudely interrupted by his
eviction from Thornbriar. But how could he be both a celebrity
and
elusive, even invisible?

He slipped on his duster and walked to the
end of the hall, clomped down two flights of stairs, and stepped
out onto the sidewalk. He lingered for a moment to savor the winter
air, gazing northward at downtown Atlanta’s looming skyline. Even
though it was slate gray overhead, Charlie slipped on his shades,
being a wanted man with no book sales to his credit. He turned and
walked toward the bakery with his hands in his pockets. A loud
noise drew his attention. He turned to see a southbound MARTA bus
speeding down Castlegate toward him, engine roaring, going airborne
for an instant when it hit a bump. “Whoa dude, slow down,” he
muttered.

Meanwhile, a white Chevy pickup pulled from a
parking space on the south side of the bakery and rolled slowly
toward him from the other direction. Charlie passed the garage
entrance and heard someone shout, “Hey, nigger lover!” He looked up
as a blue Toyota pulled from a parking space in front of the
bakery, moving directly into the truck’s path. As the pickup
swerved into the opposing lane to avoid the car, Charlie faced a
man in a ski mask pointing a shotgun out the truck window at
him.

Then, mayhem and carnage: In an instant, the
gun fired, the speeding bus plowed into the truck, and the shooter
hurtled through the windshield. All this was accompanied by an
ear-splitting cacophony of gunshot, shattering glass, and crashing
metal. Wounded, Charlie stumbled backward into the void that had
once been the bakery’s front window. Flailing his arms, he crashed
into a display case, landing atop a German chocolate cake and
smashing it flat. He thrashed wildly in the mixture of broken glass
and baked goods. Meanwhile, terror-stricken customers screamed and
dove under tables.

Bolts of pain shot through Charlie’s jaw,
giving him a terrible, ear-splitting headache. Dazed, bewildered,
and bleeding—his face seemed afire—he struggled to comprehend what
had happened. An automobile door slammed, and he thought:
They’re coming to finish me off
.

Struggling to his feet, he pulled himself
through the broken window onto the sidewalk, slashing his right
hand in the process. “FUCK!” he screamed as he whirled around,
looking for an attacker who wasn’t there. His mouth tasted—and
felt—like hell. There was a bloody hole in his left cheek near his
jaw, the exit wound from the buckshot pellet that had shattered a
molar just above the gum line. He’d been hit by two other pellets.
One had glanced off his left cheekbone and ripped off a chunk from
the bottom of his earlobe; the other had grazed him above the left
shoulder blade. The gashes on his right palm, right thigh, and
right forearm he’d received from the window glass were bleeding
more heavily than the gunshot wounds.