Songs in Ordinary Time (106 page)

“I think we need to talk, Norm,” Omar said, opening his door, his tone, like his face, blank as stone. “And I think we need some air. And some space.”

Norm shot out of the car, and Benjy’s heart pounded as he started to follow.

“Stay there!” Omar pointed at him. “This is between your brother and me.”

“No! He can come if he wants,” Norm said. “Come on!”

“No, I said stay there! Your brother and I are going to get a few things straightened out once and for all.”

“Come on, Benjy!” Norm insisted, then flipped his hand in disgust when Benjy closed his door.

He watched them walk along the side of the road. They stopped once, and it seemed that Norm yelled something, because Omar gestured as if to calm him down. They began to walk again. They grew smaller in the distance. Staring, he felt as if he were dreaming those receding figures as they made their way, passing in and out of shade and the dappled sunlight.

There was a bend, a curve, and now they were gone. The road was empty, the only sound the rush of water from the river.

With the perfect stillness came the certainty they would be friends again.

It would be all right. Omar would calm Norm down. He would explain everything. He was the only one who could, because Benjy did not know what he had seen or if he had even seen anything that day. Whenever he tried to recall the scene, what they looked like, their words, their movements, it was always himself he was most aware of, the boy watching the boy as he peered through the slender willow branches.

He got out of the car and climbed into the front seat. He slipped the key from the slit in the visor and unlocked the glove compartment. There were two checks, each with today’s date. Each had been changed. One was for twenty-four dollars, and one for thirty-two. He put them back into the glove compartment and returned the key to the visor.

He stood by the side of the car, looking ahead. They must still be talking.

He would let them work it out. His patience would be as inexhaustible as his hope. If his father’s sins were forgivable because he was weak, then so SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 519

were Omar’s. He got back into the car and laid his head back on the warm seat and tried to sleep.

Later, when his eyes opened, he would sit perfectly still, struck by the sudden green depth around him. The river’s rush would come at him in waves, in snatches of angry voices that terrified him, and he would close his eyes, listening as hard as he could. But then he would recognize the high leafy commotion of cawing crows as they chased off a soaring red-tailed hawk.

N
orm and Omar had not gone far from the car, though it seemed so with all their stopping and starting and pacing back and forth. Nothing Omar said made sense or could satisfy Norm. Omar insisted he had not altered the checks. If this was so, Norm said, then why couldn’t he see them.

No, Omar said, because now it was a matter of principle, of trust.

“That’s the way life has to work,” Omar added, as if Norm had questioned this, too. As he spoke he snapped off the tip of a birch branch and tore off the small silvery leaves, one by one, without looking. “A man’s word. It’s his most precious currency. And believe me when I tell you I do not give mine cheaply.”

Norm had just noticed a pale-blue piece of paper sticking out of Omar’s shirt pocket.

“The choice is yours,” he said, throwing down the stripped branch. “You either believe me or you don’t.”

“I don’t,” Norm said, staring at him.

“Then there’s nothing more to say,” Omar said glumly.

“I guess not,” he agreed.

“Your mother’s not going to like this, Norm.”

“There’s a lot she’s not going to like,” he said.

“There you go again,” Omar said with a quick toss of his head, as if shaking himself dry. “Threatening me. Look, Norm, understand something here. Your mother knows everything about me, past, present, and future.

She knows everything about this business, and she knows I’d sooner die than cheat someone out of their hard-earned—” Omar’s mouth gaped open as Norm slipped the folded check from his pocket.

“Very good job, Omar.” He couldn’t help laughing. A four-dollar check was now a fourteen-dollar check. “Jesus, you can’t even tell. I’m impressed.

I really am. Same ink. Just like the old lady’s handwriting.”

A look of fatigue and sadness washed over Omar. His shoulders slumped with his deep sigh. “You shouldn’t have done that. I wish you hadn’t.”

“So that’s why we always had to sell so far from home,” he said, looking at the check again. Margaret Winstead. How many others now hated the thought of him? How many times had they described him to the police?

What did they say?
Such a clean-cut boy, I told him he reminded me of my son,
my grandson, my nephew
. “And we never went back to the same place twice, did we?”

“You don’t understand,” Omar said.

520 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Yes, I do. Really.” He turned and started to walk away.

“Norm!” Omar called. “You know I did this all for your mother. You know that. It was because of her. My God, why else would I do it?”

“Probably for the same reason you did it before with those Negroes. For the money!” he said, exaggerating each word.

“No! No, that’s what gave me the idea, when I read that in the paper, I swear.”

“Jesus, if that’s the best you can do, I gotta go. I’m not that stupid. You can either give us a ride or we’ll thumb.” He walked on a few more feet.

“All right, Norm, all right.” Omar ran up beside him. “I didn’t want to have to tell you, but your mother’s involved in this. She knows all about it.”

“You liar, you no-good—” He spun around.

“She does! I swear! In fact, she was the one! She begged me to do it! You know how she got the money for the business? She was so desperate she forged your uncle Renie’s name on the loan documents. I couldn’t believe she’d done that, Norm. She came out of the bank and told me, and I was shocked. I said, ‘Marie, you can go to jail for less than that.’ But it was done.

It was too late. All we can do now is get that loan paid off as fast as possible before anyone discovers the fraud she has perpetrated. You’ve got to help me, Norm. Please. All I’m trying to do here is help your mother. I love her.

I’d do anything for her. Anything…”

The rest of what he said was lost in the squawking of the crows that circled overhead and the rasping surge of the river.

“You no-good son of a bitch,” Norm cried, lunging so suddenly that Omar lost his footing and the two of them grappled and fell, skidding down the steep stony embankment until they were only a few feet from the fast-moving river. “Don’t say another word about her, you hear me? Not another goddamn word, you no-good—”

Norm was on top of him now. Omar grunted and struggled, his eyes bulging with terror as Norm slapped his face so hard and relentlessly that it came as a great relief to see him bleed. He could stop this. He was strong.

He did have power. He did! More power and guts than any of the rest of them—his mother, his sister, brother, father. The blood splattered from Omar’s nose with every blow. Never again would he be made a fool of.

Never again by anyone. Never again! Never again! Never!

“Norm! Norm! Norm!” came a high-pitched scream. Thinking it was her, his mother, he would not turn around. Good, let her see it. Let her see what she’d failed to do. Let her see what he had to do because he loved them all too damn much. Pebbles skittered down the hillside. It was Benjy trying to get down to him. Poor, scared Benjy. Well, there was nothing to be scared of anymore.

“N
orm!” Benjy cried as Omar managed to push Norm far enough away so that he could get to his hands and knees; then, rising to his feet, he scrambled to stand up. Norm lurched forward just as Omar SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 521

swung. The blow of his forearm hurtled Norm in a backward stagger down to the river’s stony edge.

Omar kept walking toward Norm. Though Omar’s back was to him, Benjy could see the sudden glint in Omar’s right hand, the blade at that instant released.

“Norm! Norm! Norm!” he was screaming as he ran down the hill; falling twice, he continued to skid down on his bottom, advancing himself with digging heels and clawing fingertips. They were in the water now. Norm had lost his footing on the wet rocks and was down on one knee. Omar stood over him, gesturing as if unaware of the knife in his hand. Even as Benjy got closer, they still seemed to be a great distance away. Though he knew exactly who they were, he kept expecting to see the others, Earlie and the watching boy. He crept closer. He looked around for the boy, but there was no one to keep him safe now that he had come this close, close enough to see the streaks of mud on Omar’s wet shirt, the darker wet cuffs of his pants, so close he could hear the hideous wheeze of his labored breathing.

Norm lunged again and this time grabbed Omar’s arm, and the two of them locked arms in the same struggle, the same grunting struggle he had seen before. Omar was grappling with Earlie. Omar was choking Norm.

Omar had killed Earlie, just as he would kill Norm. “My brother, my brother, my brother,” he panted. They were knee-deep in the running water.

Omar’s face was red with smeared blood. There was blood on Norm’s arm and chin. Omar was behind Norm with one arm around his neck while he held the knife edge at Norm’s throat, backing him deeper into the river.

“No!” Benjy screamed. “Don’t, Omar! Please don’t hurt him! Stop! Wait, just wait!” The minute he stepped into the river the icy water stiffened his ankles. Omar continued to back away. “If you don’t stop, I’ll get the police!

I’ll get them right now!” he warned, turning as if to go, but Omar kept backing Norm in, deeper and deeper. The water was at their thighs. With Omar’s forearm bracing his chin, Norm could not speak. He stared wildly back at Benjy, who had picked up a rock and was wading deeper into the water that was suddenly at his crotch. He thrashed toward them, slowed now by the strong current. When he reached them, the water was over his waist. Omar and Norm were both grunting. He got behind Omar and began to pound the rock into Omar’s back, but he didn’t seem to feel it. Stepping away, he hurled the rock at Omar’s head, but it missed and sank into the water. Omar wrenched himself and Norm around. Omar was sobbing.

Norm’s eyes were huge with shock and fear. Seeing Benjy now, he stopped struggling.

“Help me, Benjy,” Omar sobbed. “Help me. I just want your mother to be happy. You know that. That’s all you want, too, right? I did what you wanted. I tried to keep this from happening. You asked me, and I promised I would. Right?”

“Let go of him!” Benjy said, his eye on a short thick branch that was bobbing toward them.

“I can’t!” Omar said. “He’ll ruin everything for us. You know he will.”

522 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Let go of him!” Benjy panted, stepping into the path of the floating branch.

“I have this wonderful plan,” Omar said. “Your mother would be the happiest woman in the world, but I need your help.”

Benjy took another step. He tripped and water bubbled at his nose and mouth, choking him. He rose, gasping and flailing his arms.

“Be careful!” Omar was shouting. “Don’t move, Benjy. It’s deep here. It’s over your head and you’ll drown. You know you will.”

The branch was coming. He reached out, but it was going to be too far wide of him. Omar must have thought he was trying to save himself with the branch, because just then he pushed it closer, and Benjy caught it with both hands. He kept stumbling and going under as he tried to get closer to them.

“Careful, Benjy,” Omar pleaded. “Get back!”

“Let go of him!” Benjy screamed as he swung the clublike branch right into Omar’s face. He staggered, and Norm pulled free, but now Omar jumped at him. They were fighting in the deeper water. Omar raised the knife and Benjy brought the club back again, this time smashing it into his elbow. The knife flew into the air and in its brief trajectory from hand to water he knew without doubt it was the same knife he had seen protruding from Earlie’s bloated chest. The water churned with thrashing arms as Norm pummeled Omar, who was trying to get away. Benjy waded closer, and he swung the club at Omar’s back. Omar had managed to get into the shallow water. With one last surge he pushed Norm away, then was out of the river and scrambling up the hill with both brothers after him.

“You bastard! You no-good son of a bitch! You better run, you no-good bastard,” they screamed. “You asshole!”

When they got to the top of the embankment they saw him running down the road. They chased after him, but he had made it to the car. He got inside, and they picked up rocks and hurled them one after another, banging off the roof and the hood, and then the powerful engine roared on. As Omar sped past them they were still throwing rocks and cursing.

“Look at that!” Norm yelled. “The no-good bastard’s laughing.”

It wasn’t laughter, Benjy saw, but Omar looking right at him and sobbing.

They trudged down the road dripping wet, their own breathlessness sounding at times like crying. Exhausted, they carried their heavy wet sneakers and their shirts, their raw red eyes stinging in the hot sun.

“The crazy bastard was going to kill us both,” Norm said, hobbling over the sharp stones in the road.

Benjy limped alongside. “Yah,” he said, though he did not yet mean it, because in such acuteness, such aliveness as this, there was no death or possibility of it.

T
here was not any pain in Howard Menka’s leg as he carried the bucket across the church lawn. The only time he ever limped now was in Jozia’s presence. He set the bucket in the grass at the base of the Virgin Mary. He SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 523

squeezed his rag in the soapy water and began to scrub the pale marble, gently working the rag into the grimy crevices of her eyes and lips until they gleamed. Her chest was hardest to clean because of the gown’s shirred folds. So accustomed was Howard to this chore that he gave her round breasts and hips little thought at all. In fact there was so much on his mind today that he as easily might have been scrubbing the mailbox as the Holy Mother of God.