The Dying Ground (31 page)

“Where did you go from there?”

“I went to a car Billy kept parked near my house. I wore the key on a chain around my neck. I drove to a safe house where we had clothes and money stashed. I traded the first car for another one, and then I went to see Mrs. Johnson.”

I listened, knowing that Holly had a similar plan. They all did, but few of them ever benefited from the elaborate safety nets.

“Then I started driving. I didn’t even know where I was going. I was driving blind. I ended up here in Fresno. I called Venus from a truck stop off Highway 5 and she told me to come here.” She hugged herself. I tried to move closer to her but she put her hand up to stop me. “It won’t help. Nothing helps. Nothing works anymore. Billy. My daddy. Venus. Everything’s gone. You know, Maceo. You know how it feels to live without wishing.”

She went on, not waiting for my confirmation.

“I got that finally for a little while with Billy. He made me feel safe enough to do that. I felt good enough to imagine things. I haven’t felt like that since I was a little girl. After my daddy left I stopped feeling like that altogether. It didn’t make sense after that to believe life could be good.”

She spoke what I had always believed. She was right. It didn’t make sense to imagine anything good. Calling attention
to what made you happy, trusting that feeling, was the surest way of losing it.

“I loved my father,” she continued. “My mother’s not that vivid to me, but I loved my daddy so hard. He had those hands, trustworthy, kind of like Daddy Al’s. I noticed that immediately about your grandfather. My daddy even smelled safe to me. Billy was like that too.” She tapped the steering wheel with impatience. “I should have known. I should have known by the smell he was gonna leave me.”

I dropped my open hand into the place between us in the car. I held it there, open, until she reached for it. I closed my hands tight around hers and she finally moved close enough to put her head on my shoulder. But it didn’t rest there. It was perched on the edge, her body tensed for flight. On guard.

“My family has secrets like yours, Maceo. I think that’s why we liked each other.”

I wanted to correct her simple words but it wasn’t the place or the time. It was never “like” on my part. I loved Felicia Bennett from the moment I saw her. And now I listened as she told me that my arms, the love I offered, never represented safety.

“Let me drive, Maceo.”

“What?”

“Switch places with me.” She climbed across the front seat without waiting on an answer. Once she was settled she looked up at the freeway sign that loomed above us. Whatever it took, whatever she decided in that moment of silence, gave her the strength she needed. She took only a minute to decide her next step. Then she turned on the engine.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“Oakland,” she said, as she wheeled the car onto the highway.

W
ith Felicia at the wheel we made it to Oakland in less than four hours. The sun had already gone down, and as we broke through the mountain pass I remembered, yet again, how beautiful the Bay was.

“You know,” Felicia said, “when I got here from L.A. and saw this I couldn’t believe it. Mountains. Water. San Francisco. Los Angeles could never be this beautiful, not where I grew up. I saw where the Black people lived out here, and even when it was bad I thought to myself that they could still see all this. And I thought it would mean everything was different.”

“That’s too much to ask.”

“I know that now.”

“Pull over and let me drive. You need to stay down.”

“What about you?”

“If they wanted me they had me already.”

Without asking I drove Felicia to Mountain View Cemetery, where Billy was buried. She was quiet in the car as we approached the iron gates at the entrance. I gunned the engine past a maintenance man who tried to wave us away.

I wound my way up the hill until I came to the flagpole I used as a signpost. Five yards away a lone tree sat at the top of the hill. Billy’s grave was three plots down. I stopped the car.

“It’s right there, midway down, with the fresh soil.”

She had to watch her step because of the steepness of the hill, but there was another sort of caution in her walk. I stayed by the car to keep watch.

Behind me the maintenance man screeched to a halt and jumped angrily from his truck. “The park is closed! We close at five-thirty!” he yelled.

“Five minutes, brother,” I said calmly.

“Five minutes, my ass.”

I turned and looked him in the eye. “Then you tell her that.”

He looked to where I pointed. Felicia was bent forward with her face buried in her hands. The grave was new so a marker had not yet been set.

“Alright then, man. Look, just don’t get me fired.” He returned to his truck.

Felicia sat up, dried her eyes, and pulled Billy’s ring from her finger. I’d noticed it in Fresno but hadn’t said anything about it. She kissed it and shoved it in the dirt at the foot of the grave.

“Felicia,” I said, when she got to the car, “Billy wanted you to have that ring.”

“I don’t deserve that ring, Maceo.” Her eyes told me not to question her, so I didn’t.

“Felicia.”

“Let’s go, Maceo. I’m ready.”

She climbed into the passenger seat and looked straight ahead. As we made our way to the front gate she never looked back. Not even once.

W
e killed time until well after midnight. Not talking, we sat down by the marina looking out at the water and San Francisco sparkling in the distance.

“I’ma take you to a friend’s house, then I’ma try and find Holly. As soon as I can get ahold of Clarence I’ll have him pick you up. He can keep you safe.”

“But will he?” she asked, knowing that there was probably a price on her head.

“More than the others. All he wanted to know was that you didn’t kill Billy yourself.”

She winced at the absurdity of that as I rolled to a stop in front of Chantal’s. It was after two o’clock in the morning, but the lights of her apartment blazed out into the night.

As we walked up the front steps I heard loud, animated voices through the door. Female voices. I had to knock with my foot to make myself heard over the party. Chantal opened the door, drink in hand and attitude at the ready.

“What—!” She stopped short when she saw Felicia. “Oh,
girl. Oh, girl. Turn the music off!” She yelled the command back over her shoulder. It ended abruptly.

We entered a room full of astonished eyes. The silence was deafening. Everyone stared at Felicia, who must have looked to most of them like a ghost.

“Chantal, I need a favor,” I said.

“What you need?”

“Felicia needs to stay here for about an hour until I can get somebody to pick her up.” I looked at the gaping faces, trying to spot a Judas in the crowd.

Chantal read my mind. “Ain’t none of these bitches gonna say nuthin’. I’ll kick ass myself.”

I believed her, and I believed their faces. I knew that many of them had lost boyfriends, friends, relatives, to the same drama that took Billy.

“Hey, y’all.” Felicia tried to muster a little personality, but it failed her.

“Wassup, girl.” Patrice, the nasty baseball fan, made her way forward. She had to bypass two racks of clothing and three card tables to greet us. “I’m sorry about Billy.”

“Thank you.” Felicia said it to close the subject, and Patrice took the hint.

“You want some Tanqueray? We got plenty. Chantal’s ass was too cheap for anything else.”

“Ya drank it up, didn’t ya?” Chantal shot back.

“Can’t get my buzz on wit’ water. Of course I drank it.”

They gave each other a pound. “That’s what I’m saying.” Chantal laughed.

“What’s going on?” I raised my chin to indicate the party.

She lowered her voice. “I supplement my income every once in a while with a little poker and shopping.”

I would have laughed if life wasn’t the way it was. Leave it to Chantal to be up on the latest trend. I’d heard about a circle
of ghetto-fabulous Oakland women who threw elaborate allfemale parties filled with racks of boosted designer clothes. All top-notch labels. The women lost their money by shopping off the rack, gangsta style, or by playing high-stakes poker.

Shopping bags were lined up against the wall with each woman’s name written in black marker. Patrice had a total of five bags.

“You ain’t nothing nice, Chantal.” I meant it as a compliment and she smiled.

“Felicia, why don’t you pick out something, and if you tired we can clear out the room.”

“Y’all go ’head, I’m fine,” she answered.

“Chantal, can I use your phone?” I asked.

“It’s in the bedroom”—she paused a minute—“with the stripper. We had entertainment too.”

“Maceo!” Big Slippery, Phine and Nelia’s star act, was getting dressed in the cramped bedroom. “I thought this was a women-only party.” He looked me eagerly up and down and licked his lips. “Unless you done switched teams?”

I shook my head. “I’m just here to drop off a friend.”

“Well, don’t tell your aunties I’m moonlighting. I couldn’t resist. These little Hot Clothes Hot Body parties pay a nice piece of change.”

I laughed at the greedy giant. Big Slippery was famous among Oakland’s male strippers, a tough circuit to crack. Most of them were cliquish, competitive as hell, and straight. Big Slippery was everything but the last, which made his success so ironic. The twins knew he was gay and so did his clients, but he brought in the most money.

“I won’t tell ’em,” I said.

“Good.”

“I thought you moved to New York anyway.” Phine and Nelia had been mad as hornets when Big Slippery announced his plans to dance on Broadway. Far as I knew, he had gone to New York around the same time as Billy’s murder.

“New York. Puh-lease! Made a punk out of me, and I’ll be the first one to tell it. It was too buck-wild for me. My first day there, the cabdriver took me to Ho Stroll. Motherfucker, the hookers was ass-naked in broad daylight! Ass and titties and shit, just
out
flesh-and-blood to the world.

“I got my behind back on the plane, okay? I’m staying right here in Oakland. Oakland’s the only place for me in 1989. California, North Oakland, Fifty-first Avenue. Corner house on the left. Third bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs.”

The door opened and one of the partyers slid in to retrieve her purse. Price tags hung from her collar. Big Slippery didn’t miss a thing. “No, mommy, the Gucci you had on before was fierce. Black girls got to let go of Ann Taylor, she don’t mean y’all nothing but harm.”

The girl nodded and left the room.

“I saw your boy Holly today. He like to run me over in front of Flint’s Barbeque on East Fourteenth.”

“Holly? You sure?” It was too much to hope for. I hadn’t known where to start in my search for him.

“Yeah, it was him. That nigga looked like he was on his way to kill somebody or had just come from doing it.”

I walked out of the bedroom intent on searching the Kill Zone for Holly. Holly’s silence when I paged him made me nervous. He always answered his pages; I’d even used the emergency code of 911 twice.