The Residue Years (32 page)

All righty, he says, and goes back to his business. I feel his eyes at my back as I leave.

By the time I reach my godson's marker the bouquet has leaked a rose-sized stain on my blouse. I take a knee—feeling the wet grass soak through my pants—and clear loose grass and dirt from his birth and death dates. I take out the flowers one by one and lay them around the border and when I'm done I bow and pray. Not sure how long this lasts but when I look up the overalled man is standing nearby.

Oh, I say. Didn't hear you walk up.

It's an ancient Shaolin secret, he says. Or is it Alabama? He simpers. It's the smile of an honest man. Not a church man, but
an honest man—the toughest to find. He asks if Dawn's boy is my boy.

He's my godson, I say.

He snaps the straps of his overalls. Excuse the manners, he says. My name's Henry. I'm the head groundskeeper here.

Grace, I say. Good to meet you.

Grace, he says. I got a cousin named Grace. And she's a beauty just like you.

Thank you, I say.

No thanks due, he says. I'm just a bystander is all. Miss Grace, let me guess, you're from someplace else original?

What makes you say that? I say.

Where I come from we honor the dead. But not much here, from what I can tell. Got me to thinking that it's the place, that it's the way folks are reared up north. But here you are visiting alone, paying respect, restoring my faith.

He helps me to my feet. He refits his hat on snug, checks his watch. Welp, I better get a move on, he says. My shift's about done. He asks if I can find my way out, says it's hecka easy to get turned around.

Thanks for the offer, I say. But I can find the way myself.

Hurrah for independence. Have a good day, he says, and moseys off. For as far as I can see, the man rambles between and around markers, but never over a single stone.

Mom and I are alike that way.
—Champ

The details, the details would about bore you to a three on the old Glasgow Scale.

But read on if you don't mind taking the risk.

The basics: Each week we'll meet at the bank and I'll give Jude the cash (a buck less than what they're required to report to the Feds) and he'll deposit the funds. This will go on until we reach the figure (a month or so, by my count) we need for the down payment. Jude will cut the owners a check, buy the house in his name, then post the close of escrow (who says the average white man means us new Negroes no good?) and will transfer me the deed by quitclaim. Then,
bam
, I'm making the mortgage, and me and mines are legal and rightful owners of our very own piece of terra firma, our slice of the American Dream.

Peoples, are you with me? Still awake? Cool.

You may be wondering how I'm going to raise the bread to pay Mister, raise what I'll need for a down payment on the house—and futhermore how I'll support my sweet, newborn baby girl when she arrives. Well guess what, I've been wondering too. Nah, I'm bullshitting. I got a plan. What's the plan? My plan is no plan for now. Winging it. But how about I promise (you never know when there's a vitriolic superhater afoot) to share a plan
when and if there is a plan after we (the
we
being you and I) have spent at least a jug more time together? Won't knock you specific, but we all know a nigger can't be sure about human beings in general. Add to that what's been happening to me in recent times, and forgive me for not being the most trusting brother around.

The bank is on a busy street, close by my old school, and right across (of all the branches) from the Northeast Precinct. To top it off, I got my pistol stashed (I've suffered the first and last of five-digit mishaps) in the armrest. I'm strapped and don't you know every other white sedan spooks me to the brink of mashing out the lot. Not that I'd have the nuts to lead police on a high-speed. Me, who's never pushed to triple digits a ride with 180 on the speed dial, me the same trepid dude who yields on yellows. But please don't bust me down about it too much. Admitted, most days I'm percents of a stone-cold fraud, but which one of us is authentic 24/7?

Stayed up late last night counting and recounting this first payment. All of which, to be safe, I should be using to pay Mister. The whole time I counted, Kim sat by looking pugnacious. Whole time too, I pretended not to notice and kept right on counting. Fell asleep on my
n
th recount, woke up this morning on paranoid, and called Half Man. Called the homie hoping his natural born hatetrocity would push me to scrap the plan. Surprise! But he didn't pick up. I wasn't lying what I said about dude being the CEO of the year of Never-There-When-Needed, Inc.

Our meet time comes. Our meet time goes. Still no sign of Jude. Bank customers come and go. An old man waltzes out all smiles. A redhead woman winds out of the revolving door with the I'm-a-bounced-check-away-from-having-my-account-closed mug. A short line builds for the ATM.

The cash, the pistol, and no Jude. If this goes another nanotick somebody best call an EMT. Disclosure: When I'm doing even the slightest of wrongs (not that this ranks that low on the scale) I feel the intractable horron that every lawman or lawwoman in the world is scheming for my arrest, and that once in custody, no matter my crime, no less than a death penalty will do.

Where the fuck is this white man?

Couldn't reach Half Man, Inc., this morning, but I did catch Mom before a shift. She and I talked about the lawyer and court, expected, but when we were done, she asked about the house. She's been asking about it as of late: if I think I can get it done, who'll live in it when I do. Asking how long, how much. Been asking, but I get the sense she's still afterall ambivalent, though what sane person could hold it against her? Hope for the best and brace for the worst, Mom and I are alike that way.

At last, Jude shows. Arrives in a car (a Taurus with a primered quarter panel and a temporary tag taped to the rear windshield) that, driven by anybody but a nonthreatening descendant of the Caucasus, is called a bucket, a stuffer, a hootride—a worthy suspect for police attention. He waves at me. He parks spaces away, spills out, tippy-toes over, and lets himself into my ride. He don't so much sit as plop the fuck in the seat. His cologne could blast a plugged nose clear. All my windows were up but after whiffs of him, all my windows go down.

Bud, do you feel as good as I feel? he says. He has a fresh haircut, the sides trimmed, over his ears.

That depends, I say.

Well, you should. This is it, he says. The president's first pitch, the Final Four tip, Indy's green flag.

He takes the money and stuffs it inside his jacket and tells me
to sit tight while he carries my scrilla into the bank. There's a bantamweight bout between me and me on whether to stalk Jude into the lobby, on whether to stalk his ass while he deposits what amounts to the lion's share of a nigger's depleted net worth. But the numbers hold me still—i.e., the distance in feet we are from the precinct. Jude pushes inside and I'm left praying against a grand mal seizure. Left feeling time as a trickle in my throat, and a boom, boom, boom behind my eyes.

Jude bursts out of the entrance beaming as wide as a bridge is long. He steps out and gazes around the lot and bops over and climbs in. All according to plan, he says. He shows me the deposit slip and asks if I'd like to grab a celebratory lunch. It's on me, he says.

He explains there's a place he's been meaning to try and offers to drive, and since I'm always looking for a reason to shirk touching a wheel, I hop out with no further prodding. Jude's spot is downtown, Northwest (did anyone expect otherwise?); you know, White Folks R Us. The man wheeled slow mo for real in his rental, but in this hootride, homeboy's a PSA for the Department of Motor Vehicles. He (even when he's in yap mode, which when is he not?) keeps his eyes on the road, inch, creep, crawls us along with, true to form, mitts glued at ten and two.

If there is such a thing as a low-speed bandit, he's it.

If you didn't know no better, you'd think
he
was the one worried about whether he's dirty or clean.

He pats the dash at a stop. Finally got the old workhorse worked on, he says. Now all we need is the green light from DEQ. He points at the odometer, asks if I've ever seen mileage this high on anything still running. We take the Fremont Bridge into downtown, and head into Northwest. Northwest, most everywhere
else our city's paved smooth. But down here make a turn and catch a cobblestone throughway. The new cafés, new boutiques, new galleries, new condos. The old warehouses, apartments, decrepit restaurants.

Look and see what the city was, see maybe what it will be, even if it resist.

Jude's restaurant pick is chocked with a bunch of working stiffs: clean-shaven faces, nonexistent sideburns, bleached teeth, a third of them with suit coats thrown over their seats. Working stiffs, AKA All-American anglos of the sort with stay-at-home wives that, soon as they're of age to suck a nipple, tote their pride and joys to Kumon and Mandarin lessons, to ballet, piano, violin, fencing, who torture their poor innocent kids (this before they hit pre-K!) with weird white-people shit like anxiety-release acupuncture and vision therapy. Peep game, I'm all for pushing posterity to strive (no way I let my Princess be a slacker) but I pray to God, Jesus, Muhammad, Yahweh, Allah, and the rest, that I got the good sense to mind limits.

And feel free to apply my theory anyplace.

Where there's All-American white men, trust and believe there are All-American white women. These apples of the universe wear either skirt suits or designer workout gear, sports 'do's with highlights, and makeup so subtle you can't be sure if they're wearing any at all. The maître d' leads us to seats in a illlit section. Jude don't waste a second splaying open his menu, but I, on the flip side, begin with my test, lifting the cutlery (the heavier the fork, spoon, knife, the better the chef) to judge my chances of catching tasty grub. A woman (her jet-black bob cut don't fit) strides over to our table.

Juuuuuude, Jude, how are you? she says.

Oh, hey, Jude says. I'm well. Doing quite well. How are you?

Excellent, she says. Didn't know you came here, she says.

My first time, Jude says. But I've heard such good things.

Jude introduces me, tells her that I'm his new favorite client. Her handshake grip is hella-firm. She flaunts a smile made of moonglow—that white.

Don't mean to keep you two, she says. But can I say how much we love our new place? How much we absolutely love it.

Awesome, Jude says.

She looks at me and says Jude's an angel. She turns to Jude. You really are, for what you did for us, and we can't thank you enough. Well I should be getting along, she says. She suggests an entrée to die for, and saunters off into brighter light.

Our waiter must be on protest. Or maybe our wait time is racial. (We're post what? Only a silly nigger's insensate to racial slights.) The room. You can see inside the kitchen. A chef (white jacket and toque blanche hat) tossing chopped bits out of a pan, a dude in a black suit glaring at a mannequin-stiff busboy, a bartender slapping shot glasses on the counter. Jude reminds me it's open season on the menu, says his motto is to spend what he can before his evil ex claims it. Our past due server slugs over. He quotes the special of the day, segues into a cheerless spiel on menu favorites, asks if we'd like drinks. We pick starters and main courses. Jude, too, orders champagne by the glass, and while our waiter flits off (right now, all of a sudden he's in a hurry) for them, Jude smears hunks of butter on the gourmet bread and gets to work. No wonder! No wonder! No BS, homeboy's chomped through almost the whole basket by the time the
waiter comes back with our drinks on a silver tray. Jude lifts his flute for a toast and waits for me to join.

Here's to us, he says. May the best day of our lives be worse than our worst to come.

That was a proper, I say. Did you make that up? I might hafta steal it.

Bud, feel free, he says.

He slops another glob of butter on his bread and swallows the shit whole. Next week, no carbs, he says, his mouth full. But this week … He taps his pocket, takes out a low-ringing cell, puzzles his eyebrows at the number, answers. Hello, he says. Yes, this is he. Jude frowns. He covers his phone, says excuse me, and bustles out. You can see him pacing, see him snatch his cell away from his face and ogle it in disbelief. He's out there whooping long enough for his main course to arrive and cool, for his drink to arrive and go warm. He slugs back inside. His face is flushed, and his eyes have gone a darker blue.

Bad news? I say.

The ex's vulture lawyer specializes in bad news, Jude says. That woman's the blight of my life. Wants more, more, more. Whether there's more or not. Bud, when it comes to getting married, be sure or for God sakes be against it.

The part of my brain that makes sounds decisions says it's best not to prod him further, and this time, I heed the wiser me.

God knows what I should say.
—Grace

First you make yourself a believer and then if need be you can say it to someone else and mean it. This is the last pack, I say. This one and no more! I can't subject (when they come home, and they will come home!) my boys, my babies, to this poison. This one last time, I say, and slip on the clothes I wore earlier and my heels and tear out of the apartment. You could walk, but I drive down to Big Charles's market. He's stranded behind the counter, dumping a grab bag of chips in his mouth. Let me guess. Let me guess, he says, and crushes bites.

No guessing, I say. But this is the last pack. I'm done.

Then it look like you shoulda made the last pack the last one, he says. I'm all out, Less you puffing nonfiltered.

Oh no, I say. Who's open and close by that might have my brand?

Hate to break it to you, smokella, he says. But they robbed the truck that delivers this zone. Your best bet's out by the airport.