Taft (20 page)

"Well, we couldn't tell you," Mrs. Woodmoore said. "Marion told us that there wasn't to be a word to anybody. She wanted it all to be a surprise."

"I wasn't thinking about you not telling Ruth," she said.

"There you go," Ruth said, giving a deep nod to her sister.

"Well, you didn't send a list of who to tell and who not to tell so we just didn't tell anybody. It's not like there was any harm in it."

"No," Ruth said, looking at me. "No harm done."

Under normal circumstances, I think I would have excused myself and gone into the bathroom to cut my throat, but there was Franklin. I couldn't stop looking at him, his long legs and clear eyes, the way he clapped his hands when he got excited. It didn't keep me from knowing I was in a room with two sisters I'd slept with, one who didn't know and the other who might be on the verge of telling, but it soothed my fears enough to keep me seated.

"Franklin," Mrs. Woodmoore said. "You pass your daddy the pot roast, and take some more for yourself. Both of you, thin as rails. Marion, you've got your work cut out for you, fattening this one up."

Only Ruth flinched. Me and Marion, we were used to hearing this stuff from her mother. We didn't even notice it anymore.

When it was time for me to get back to work Franklin wouldn't let me go. "I'll come over tomorrow," I told him.

"I want to go," he said, holding onto my waist. "You said I could sleep with you."

"I said if it was all right with your mother and tonight's not the night."

"Just let me go down to the bar for a little while," Franklin said. Suddenly, there were tears all over the place.

"Somebody's getting sleepy," Marion said.

"Stop the waterworks," Mrs. Woodmoore said. "You're going to have to stay here with me tonight. That's all there is to it."

I kissed him on the pink horseshoe scar near his eye. "I'll be back tomorrow," I said. "Count on that."

Franklin nodded. The storm had passed and he seemed just as happy to stay as to go. "Come on," he said to me, and took my hand to walk me out. Nobody in that house could say good night from their chair in the living room. They had to get up, all of them together and walk right out the door with me. Sometimes they would walk me to my car and lean into my rolled down window and keep on talking until I was forced to let out the clutch so the car could inch away. That night they only went as far as the porch, what with Franklin so sleepy and the air still wet and heavy from the storm. They were all waving as I walked away, calling out good-byes like I was going to war, because that was the way they did things. Maybe people come back quicker if you make them feel like you can't bear to see them go. I looked back from the middle of the street and waved. Ruth and Marion were standing together at the door underneath the dim forty-watt glow of the front porch light. The hems of their skirts were touching. If you looked quickly there would be no saying which was which and since I wanted to kiss them both I kissed neither.

"T
HAT WAS SOMETHING
," Wallace said. "What a surprise, them just showing up like that. It's not your birthday or anything?"

I shook my head. "Just a visit. I appreciate you coming down on such short notice. It's a big help."

"No problem."

"Good crowd," I said, and went under the bar to turn the music down. People were screaming at each other trying to make themselves heard.

"It's a different crowd," Wallace said.

"I was thinking that yesterday. It must be tourists. I don't seem to recognize anybody."

Carl came up to the bar looking a little out of it. "I heard your son was here," he said.

"That's right."

"Well, I'm sorry I missed him. I'd like to meet the little guy. I like kids."

"I'm sure he'll be around."

Wallace put down the box of beer he'd been unloading into the refrigerator. "I'm going to take a break," he said. He wasn't asking for permission. As soon as he said it he was gone.

"What's with him?" Carl said.

"Probably hasn't gotten out all night. You stand behind a bar long enough, you go a little stir crazy."

Carl nodded and kept an eye on the door. "I appreciate you helping me with the punching last night."

"Well, you did fill in waiting tables. It seemed like the least I could do."

"It's a good thing to know." Carl looked over his shoulder and saw that there was somebody sitting at his table by the kitchen. "That's a friend of mine," he said. "I better go say hello to him."

"Sure," I said.

"But I mean it, I want to meet your kid. I bet you're a good dad."

"Doing my best."

Carl smiled and headed off for his spot.

I was feeling better about things already. It was like some part of myself had been gone and I'd gotten used to it being gone. But now that it was back I could see what I'd been missing. It had only been a couple of hours, but I was already thinking about all the things we were going to start doing now that he was home. I was thinking home for good. I couldn't help myself.

Fay wandered up to the bar looking like she'd come in lost and was planning to ask for directions. "Did you have a good time?"

"I'm glad that Franklin's home."

"Is he going to be here long?" She looked like she was straining to hold herself together, using everything she had to keep from crying.

"It's not for sure yet," I said. I wanted to do something, pat her hand or something, but I was worried that it might just make things worse. "Right now it's just for a visit."

"And that woman, his mother, she thinks she might stay too?"

"She might."

Fay nodded. Maybe she was going to say something else, but Wallace came back and she just sort of drifted off again. I thought maybe there'd be a chance to talk to her after closing, when things quieted down some.

Wallace was tapping two fingers on the edge of the bar sink. He looked like he was trying to figure out how it was the earth kept going around the sun. "What's up with you?" I said.

Wallace was a scary sight, big as he was. If you didn't know him, he could worry you. But I knew him.

"Come outside with me, chief," he said.

We went out the front door together. It was a nice night, finally, after all that rain. It wasn't even cold anymore.

"I don't like to be in the position of telling somebody else's business," he said. "I've been putting it off, thinking you'd notice yourself. But I see you getting fonder and fonder of this kid." He wasn't looking at me. He was keeping his eyes up, straight ahead of him. His voice was low like it always was and I had to lean in to him. There were people milling around all over the place. I could hear the band playing in the park and they didn't sound bad.

"Are we talking about Fay?"

He shook his head. "She's a good girl," he said. "I feel for her. But her brother is a scummy drug dealer."

A group of girls came up on the sidewalk and couldn't seem to decide if they wanted to pass us on the left or the right. Wallace and I stepped back, but they all started laughing and crossed the street.

"Carl?"

Of course it was possible. As soon as it was out of his mouth the pictures started going through my head. The new people at the bar, the way he sat at his little table and received them like the goddamned godfather while we all brought him Cokes and asked how it was going. The only part that didn't make sense was my not seeing it. It was true.

"The girl, she's the reason I hated to say anything. You know that it just winds up being hard on her. She's so good to that asshole."

"Jesus."

"The thing is, we're getting a reputation. I heard it when I was out last night and if I've heard it then it's only a matter of time before the cops hear it. It would be a real waste of time seeing everything go down over such a piece of white trash."

I felt a prickly rage crawling over my skin. "I don't know what I was thinking about."

"You're involved," Wallace said. "Takes ten times longer to see something once you're involved."

I was thinking about Franklin, about this place and Miami, about the whole rotten, dangerous world.

"Don't get into it with him," Wallace said. "You'll wind up killing him and that won't do anybody any good. You just want to get him out. I can get him out for you if you want."

I shook my head. "That would be my job," I said. I gave myself a minute. I breathed in the good air and looked down the street to Handy Park where I used to play. This was where I lived. Wallace and I went back inside.

There was somebody else at Carl's table, a white woman who had one of those faces you'd never remember. Could have been twenty and could have been thirty-five. She had her hands folded between her knees.

"You've never seen my office, Carl."

He looked up at me, maybe he was irritated or maybe I was just reading into it. "I'll come up in just a little while," he said.

"Time's up," I said. "You don't have a single second to spare." I leaned in between them. "If you get your butt out of this chair right now and your lady friend here makes a run for the door, then maybe I won't be so inclined to kill the both of you."

The woman was gone, tilting her chair over backwards and not stopping to pick it up. Just like I thought, the minute she wasn't in front of me anymore I couldn't remember a thing about her.

"You're being awfully rude," Carl said.

"Get up," I said. "Bring your jacket."

Carl got up and picked up his jacket. He looked over towards the door, but what he saw was Wallace so he got in front of me and headed for the kitchen.

"Hello, Carl," Rose said. "You two going upstairs?"

"We won't be a minute," I said. Carl kept quiet.

I took him into my office and closed the door. I didn't bother to lock it. The room was small and there were twenty different ways to stop him if he decided to make a run for it. "Empty out your pockets," I said.

"I'm not going to empty out anything."

"Carl, you've got to gauge the situation here. You've got to know that I'm an inch away from breaking your neck, and if I decide to do that there's not going to be a single goddamned thing you can do to stop me. You empty out your pockets and you're buying yourself some time. And I may still want to kill you anyway."

Carl looked sullen. He looked like a boy who'd just been told to turn down his stereo and pick up his room. He reached into the pockets of his jeans. There was roll of Certs, three keys, less than half a buck in loose change.

"Jacket pockets."

"Would you like to watch me take my clothes off?"

"Empty out your fucking pockets."

Two balled up Kleenex, a movie stub, a folded up piece of paper. I was tired of waiting. I took the jacket and patted around until I found the pocket in the lining. There was a bottle of Quaaludes, three dime bags and a heavy paper wallet with pictures of butterflies on it. "This is pretty," I said.

"It's not your property."

"It sure the hell is." Carl had six hundred and fifty dollars in cash and eleven bits of glossy magazine paper, neatly cut and folded. Eleven little envelopes. "You're not very smart, carrying this much stuff on you. This is dealing. This isn't personal possession." I moved my hand over in a straight line and made it into a neat pile, the Certs and cocaine and change, all of it.

Carl put both of his hands out on my desk, those same little pink and white hands. "Look," he said quietly. "Things have gotten really bad. I needed to make a lot of money. It was for Fay, too, so we could get out of here. That's what she wants."

"Don't talk to me about your sister."

"You got to give it back to me. That stuff's not paid for. Don't you understand? I don't own that, I just borrow it. The people who own it, you don't want to mess with them."

"I will never be messing with them."

"I wouldn't have done this," he said, his voice getting higher. "My father died. Nothing's gone right since then. I didn't know what I was doing."

I turned and looked at him. His nose was running. His thin shoulders were bending forward. "Tell me what your father says now, Carl."

He stood up. "Fuck you," he said. The thin hand rolled itself into a fist, but he was way too slow. He hit right into my hand, which was up in front of my throat by the time he got there. I held his hand inside my hand.

"You're changing too much," I said. "You've got to pick a tune and stick with it. You've got to decide right from the first if you're going to play tough or pathetic and then you can't ever change. You go back and forth this way, you just look sloppy."

"What are you going to do?" I couldn't stand to look at him. He was a little rabbit in a trap.

"I'm going to do you a huge favor," I said. "I'm not going to turn your sorry ass in."

"But what are you going to do with all of that?"

"I'm keeping it," I said. "I'm keeping the goddamned Certs."

"You can't do that."

"Let's not go around about this. The drugs are gone. The money I'll decide about later."

Carl started to say something, but I squeezed his hand a little and made him stop. Whatever it was, I didn't want to hear it. "You're just going to make it worse," I said. "Believe me when I tell you it can get worse."

Fay comes in right on time. The digital clock clicks over to twelve and there's the door, open, shut, then quiet steps disappearing into the carpet. Taft can hear the difference between Fay coming in and Carl. Carl fumbles with his keys. He has to pull on the handle to get the lock to work. He whistles a little outside, hums inside. It's soft, but Taft hears it and in his mind he checks him off. With Fay it's all quiet. There's only the sound any door would make when opened. He wonders how long she's been on the front porch, saying good night to somebody or other. For a minute he wonders what she does, what she lets them do, but as soon as a picture comes into his head he stops it. She promised she would be in the house at twelve o'clock and so she is. The rest he doesn't need to know.

Taft rolls over on his side, folds his pillow in half and pushes his hand into the fold. There is light from the full moon coming in through the window and he can see his wife sleeping on her back. Every time she exhales her lips part and then close, like she's blowing something off her face. Taft watches her with real interest for a while, then he looks out the window and waits for Carl to get home so he can sleep.