Set the Night on Fire (22 page)

W
ith no money for a private sanitarium, and a six-month waiting list for the MTS, Billy began treatment at a city clinic on Division not far from the boarding house. The regimen was long, slow, and highly specific, with pills that had to be taken at precise times each day, every day. At first, Alix and Dar took Billy there.

“Hey, I’m not a baby,” he complained after a week of being chaperoned. “I can go by myself.”

“It’s only for a little while,” Dar said. “When you’re stronger, you’ll go on your own.”

Alix wasn’t counting on it, though, and said so to Dar. “Billy’s still a kid. When he starts feeling better, he’s going to think he’s cured and stop going.”

“We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t.”

“How are ‘we’ going to do that? And what if he starts to freak out? He could bolt. Or even lie about going.”

“So what do you propose?”

“I’ll keep taking him.” 

“That’s a huge responsibility.”

“There’s no other choice.” She shrugged. “The jewelry business will have to slide.” She sighed. “It’ll make a significant dent in our income.”

Dar kissed the top of her head. “I’ll pick up an extra shift at the bookstore, and see if they’ll put me on as a delivery man at the Moon Palace.”

Alix would have preferred that he help out with Billy.

* *

In September Payton and Teddy went downtown to the Chicago Seven trial. The roster of defendants had been reduced from eight to seven after Bobby Seale was separated from the others. Supporters weren’t allowed into the courtroom, but they demonstrated outside as a show of solidarity. By October 9
^th
the National Guard was called in to control the crowds. Payton and Teddy came home with stories about uptight guards and imminent brutality, but nothing ever materialized.

October also brought the “Days of Rage,” billed as a massive revolutionary anti-war action. The Weather organization expected thousands of people to gather and show their contempt for the “state,” but only about five hundred did. They stormed a few neighborhoods, caused some property damage, and fought with police.

One of the protestors was tackled by Richard Elrod, the city’s “law and order” attorney who happened to be on the street during the event. The cops said Elrod was kicked and beaten with an iron pipe; the Weathermen, including Payton and Teddy, claimed Elrod fell. Regardless of whose story you believed, Elrod broke his neck and was temporarily paralyzed. The Chicago papers gushed with sympathy for Elrod, and what little support the Weathermen had eroded. The group began to be shunned, which made them shift even farther left.

But the defining moment of late 1969 was the assassination of Fred Hampton. On December 4
^th
the Chicago police raided the Black Panther leader’s apartment on Monroe Street in the middle of the night. Hampton was killed, and several other Panthers were wounded. The cops claimed they’d been attacked by “violent” and “vicious” Panthers and offered photos showing bullet holes made by Panther fire.

But this was the Chicago police, and no one bought their story. An internal police investigation exonerated the officers involved, but most people saw it as part of an orchestrated strategy to destroy the Black Panther Party. Over five thousand people attended Hampton’s funeral, including Payton, Teddy, and Dar. Rain covered it for
The Seed
, and even Casey felt an injustice had been done.

“If they were gonna assassinate someone, he was the one to hit,” Rain said the night after the funeral.

Casey was lying on the couch, one arm flung over his forehead. “How do you figure?”

“He was smart, articulate, and charming. Tons of charisma. The Bobby Kennedy of black people . . . ”

“In other words, he was a threat.”

Rain nodded.

“The cops claim it was a fire fight.”

“At four in the morning, with everyone in bed?” Rain snorted. “How much you want to bet the cops had a little help?”

Casey propped himself up on an elbow. “The FBI?”

“Hoover had to be involved. He’s been trying to get the Panthers from the beginning.” Her eyes turned sad. “I guess he’s finally succeeding.”

Casey fought a sense of despair. He had the feeling everything was unraveling.

* *

On New Year’s Eve Alix wanted to take Billy over to Bobby’s to watch the Times Square ball drop on TV, but Bobby refused to let him in. She talked about borrowing a TV from the guy who owned the film studio and setting it up in Billy’s room, but Payton kept criticizing her for sinking to the level of the masses, so she gave up rather than argue. Instead, she ordered Chinese food from the Moon Palace and took it to Billy. Dar was making deliveries, but Casey had the night off and came with her.

While Alix set out the food on a tray in the landlady’s kitchen, Casey went up to Billy’s room. It was a small, cramped space on the third floor of an old house on Eugenie Street. Billy had tacked up a few psychedelic posters as decoration, but his mattress was threadbare, the bureau wobbled, and a sour smell hung in the air.

Billy still looked sick. His face was pale, and his breathing was labored. He’d lost so much weight that his eyes dominated his entire body. Casey put on a mask from a stack at the door. Billy had been taking his medication for over three months now—shouldn’t he be showing improvement? Casey was relieved they hadn’t taken him to Bobby’s. He tried to conceal his concern. “How you doin’, man?”

Billy shrugged. His mouth and nose were covered by a mask as well.

“Alix has enough Chinese food downstairs to feed an army.”

Billy gave him a listless nod.

“And look what I got.” Casey pulled out a paper bag from under his jacket and tossed it on the bed. Billy peeked in and slid out a new R. Crumb comic and the new
Mad
magazine.

“Thanks, man.” Billy’s eyebrows smoothed out and the muscles under the mask shifted. He was smiling.

Casey smiled back, hoping it didn’t look as forced as it felt.

Billy was watching him. “Casey, I need a favor.”

“Sure, pal.”

Billy rolled off the bed and retrieved a paper bag from the floor underneath the mattress.

“This is for Alix. It’s her Christmas present.” He held up a silver chain with heavy links, like an ID bracelet. “It’s kind of like the one Teddy always wears, you know?”

Casey was surprised Billy had noticed. “But I want to work some turquoise into it,” Billy said. “I’ve got the turquoise . . . ” He fished in the bag and pulled out the turquoise pendant he used to wear—the one his mother gave him. “But, see, the thing is it needs to be reshaped. I can’t do it. I don’t have the right tools, and I can’t borrow Alix’s ’cause it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“So what do you need?”

“Go down to Jewelers Row on Wabash and talk to the guy we buy from. He can do it. I’ve got the bread. I’ve been saving up.”

“That’s all?” When Billy nodded, Casey smiled. “I thought it was something tough.”

B
ut Casey never got the turquoise reshaped for Billy. Two weeks into the new year, on a blustery, frigid evening, Alix and Casey found Billy coughing up massive amounts of blood and struggling for breath. They rushed him to the ER in a cab. The ER attendants took one look at him, slipped him onto a gurney, and raced through the double doors. Casey and Alix were sent to the waiting room. Dar met them there.

A few minutes later, a nurse gestured to them from the corridor.

“He’s not good,” the nurse said. “They’re trying to intubate him, but he’s bubbling up blood, and they’re having a hard time getting it in. They think he might have ruptured a bleb in one of his lungs.”

“What does that mean?” The waiting room was warm, even stuffy, but Alix shivered.

The nurse pretended not to have heard Alix’s question. “The doctor wants to know what drugs he’s been taking.”

Alix told her.

“Has he been taking them every day?”

“I’ve been taking him to the MTS clinic on Division for three months. Why?”

The nurse shook her head. “I have to go back. The doctor will come out when he can.”

“Please.” Alix grabbed her arm, her face a sea of grim anxiety. “You have to tell me what’s happening.”

The nurse sighed. “We could be seeing a drug-resistant form of the disease. Or maybe the medication isn’t doing its job. Sometimes the quality of the pills isn’t what it should be.”

“We’re getting them from the city health department.”

“Or,” the nurse said, “it might be that it’s just too little, too late. The type of TB he has is usually due to a flare-up of a previous infection.”

“What are you saying?”

“He’s probably had the disease since he was young. If we’d known earlier . . . if he’d gotten the right kind of help six years ago . . . even six months . . . ” She threw Alix a compassionate glance. “You need to prepare yourself.”

“No!” Alix cradled the sides of her face with her hands. “Don’t let him die.”

But an hour later, in the winter-gray period before dawn, Billy took his last breath.

* *

Dar stayed at the hospital to make arrangements and try to contact Billy’s family—or what was left of it—at Rosebud. Casey took Alix back to the apartment, where she went into her bedroom and shut the door. Dar came back an hour later, spoke to no one, and went into their room.

A minute later Alix came out and sat on the sofa. Her face was blank, her gaze vacant, but Casey could feel her grief gust in like cold air through an open window. He knew she was torturing herself with recriminations and might-have-beens. He draped a blanket around her shoulders. She made no sign she knew he was there, but for the first time since she and Dar had been a couple, Alix slept on the couch.

The memorial service was quiet and sad. Alix went through the motions with a glazed look that never quite came into focus. Bobby, the owner of Up Against the Wall, asked the man who’d married Donna and Linda to deliver a eulogy, and Rain made a surprisingly eloquent speech about the immortal life of the spirit. Payton showed up, which surprised Casey—Payton had disapproved of Billy and his relationship with Alix and Dar. But there he was, in a clean pair of jeans and a white shirt. Teddy, too. Dar was there, of course, but he didn’t talk to anyone.

For days afterwards the sound of Alix’s weeping through the bedroom walls sliced through Casey like shards of glass. When she wasn’t crying, she wandered around the apartment peering into space, as if seeing Billy’s ghost. For his part, Dar fled the apartment every morning and stayed away all day. They must have been feeling the same grief, the same remorse, the same guilt, but they avoided each other, unable to share. The silence when they were both in the apartment was heartbreaking. The core of their extended family had collapsed. The others were upset, too, although they didn’t admit it. Rain tiptoed around, and Payton and Teddy were uncharacteristically quiet.

It was Casey who went through Billy’s things at the boarding house. He took the bracelet Billy had been making for Alix, as well as the turquoise pendant his mother had given him and gave them both to her. At first she clasped them to her chest, but then she handed them back. “I can’t handle these. You keep them.”

* *

One night Dar didn’t come back to the apartment until dawn. Alix was still in bed but wasn’t asleep—she rarely slept more than an hour or two at a time. She lay staring at the ceiling, as usual, waiting for her nausea to subside. It had started about a month ago, mostly in the mornings. She figured it was the stress of taking care of Billy. She looked towards the door as it opened.

“Alix?” Dar whispered. He stood in the doorframe silhouetted by the light from the hall. “Are you awake?”

She nodded.

He walked in, closed the door, and came to the edge of the bed.

Alix gazed at him. He looked tired and thin and sad. He needed a shower. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. She got out of bed.

“No. Don’t.” His hands shot up as if he was warding off danger. “We need to talk.”

She shushed him with a finger against his lips, and then pulled him close. At first he tried to pull away, but she slipped her hand under the waistband of his bell bottoms and kissed him, teasing his lips with her tongue. He relaxed then, and kissed her back, his fingers tangling in her hair. She leaned closer, and his tongue moved down to her throat, her neck, her collarbone. He knew her body so well. She arched her back.

She helped him take off his sweatshirt and tossed it on the floor. She saw the longing in his eyes. She watched as he took off his pants. He was ready for her, but she pushed him onto the bed and slowly unbuttoned the shirt she wore at night. His breath came faster. She slipped off her panties and straddled him, guiding him in. She rocked back and forth, riding him hard. When she came, a shudder wracked her body. Then he took over.

Afterwards she lay beside him listening to his breathing. She'd seduced him. But he'd made all the right moves, whispered all the right things. Still, a seed of doubt had sprouted during their love-making. It wasn't anything obvious, just a slight hesitation, a subtle shift from passion to awareness. The problem was she didn’t know if it was coming from him or from her.

* *

Dar was putting on his clothes when Alix woke a few hours later. “Alix, we need to talk.”

She stretched and gave him a smile. “Good morning.”

“Alix, I’m leaving. Payton and Teddy are moving out, too.”

Alix’s stomach twisted. A dull pain gathered at her temples. “Why?”

“I tried so hard to make it work,” he said softly. “You. Billy. Everything.”

She got out of bed and went to him. “We both did.” She started to brush her hand across his forehead. “It wasn’t your . . . ”

“No.” He pushed her hand away. She froze. Dar had never rejected her before. She didn’t know what to do with her hand.

“At first I thought it was my fault,” he said. “That I’d failed you. That if I could have done more, been more attentive, made more money, Billy wouldn’t have died.”

She let her hand drop. “I feel the same way, Dar. I . . . ”

He held up his hand. “No. Listen to me Alix. The thing is, it wasn’t me. Or you. It was the system that failed Billy. He was fucked from the beginning.”

“The system?”

“The first screw-up at the ER. The fact that we couldn’t get him the right treatment until it was too late. There should have been procedures in place to protect Billy. Months before he got so sick. There weren’t.” He sighed. “Alix, I’ve decided Payton is right.”

A sudden memory of Billy grinning when he mastered the chessboard flew into Alix’s mind. “About what?”

“We need to change society. Deep-seated, radical change. What happened to Billy should never happen again.”

“But you said the Movement had spent itself. Too many factions. Foolish tactics. Divide and conquer.”

“I know,” he admitted. “But I’ve been rethinking it. I’ll be an even bigger failure unless I try again.”

Alix began to shiver, the way she had in the ER the night Billy died. “Try what?”

“It’s better that you don’t know.” He paused. “Rain was right, you know. We’re . . . very different.”

“That’s not true. Dar, I need you.”

“I’ll tell you what the truth is,” he said slowly. “The truth is that you loved Billy more than me.”

“You’re wrong. I loved Billy because he reminded me of you. And then when we were caring for him together, I felt like we were . . . ”

“A family?”  He turned an anguished face to her. “What kind of family? Alix, you told your father you’d go back to Indiana if he gave you money for Billy.”

“What else could I do? I had no other options.”

“Options.” He paused. “Yes. That’s a good word. Then you understand why I have to go. I have no other options.”

“No!” Her eyes filled. “At least, tell me where you’re going. I can’t bear the thought of not being in touch with you.”

He cupped her chin in his hand, gazing at her as if recording her features. Then he kissed her softly and walked out of the room.

She was suddenly cold. Achingly cold. She hugged herself. Maybe he was still on the other side of the door. Waiting for her to beg him to stay.

“Dar?”

There was no reply.