The Turnaround (19 page)

From one of the many books Monroe had read in prison, he remembered a passage about American television shows that dealt with crime. The author said that it was a “fascistic genre” because in these shows the criminals were always apprehended, and the police and prosecutors always won. The shows were warning the citizens, in effect, to stay in line. That if they dared to break the law, they would be caught and put in jail. Monroe had chuckled a little when he’d read it. People
wanted
to be reassured that their lives were safe. These television writers were just making money by feeding citizens the lies they craved.

“Hmph,” said Monroe.

“That all you got to say?”

“I’m tryin to watch this.”

“What about the other thing?”

“What thing is that?”

“What I been tellin you about. My date.”

Baker had come to tell Monroe about the lunch appointment he had made with Peter Whitten the next day. Monroe had just shaken his head a little and kept his eyes unexpressive and focused on the TV.

“Well?”

Monroe swigged from his can of beer.

“I
need
you, man,” said Baker. “Need you to come
with
me. You don’t have to say nothin; just sit there beside me and be big. Send a message to this man so that I don’t have to threaten him direct. He’ll see it. He
got
to.”

Monroe wiped something from the corner of his eye.

“Man’s got money,” said Baker. “We could get some of it. It’s
due
us, understand? I’m gonna be generous and give you a piece of it for coming along. Not half or nothing like that, but somethin. After that, I’m gonna put my finger on the other one. Just go ahead and do him the same way. You
know
they got to be carrying guilt. In the newspaper, Mr. Whitten was braggin on how he’s a great friend to the Negro. Well, I’m gonna give him an opportunity to show it. If he doesn’t, he got to know, I’m gonna burn his reputation down.”

“No,” said Monroe.

“What?”

“I don’t want any part of it.”

“You in it already.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Your handwriting’s on the original letter. How you gonna say you
not
in?”

It was true. James had marked up the first draft of the letter, composed with pen on paper, after being prodded by Charles. Because James had been drinking too much beer that night, was exercising alcohol judgment, and hadn’t thought the ramifications through. Because Charles was too stupid to write the letter, legibly, grammatically, and without spelling mistakes, himself. Because James had just wanted Charles out of his apartment and it seemed the only way to get him to leave. He never thought Baker would deliver it. He thought Baker had been talking his usual brand of shit.

He’d had a problem with saying no to Charles since the incident. It had brought him all kinds of trouble. Once, it had led him back to prison.

“I don’t want any part of it,” repeated Monroe.

“I guess you don’t want money, either.”

“I work for my money.”

“In a cold garage.”

“Wherever. I work.”

Baker got up out of his chair. He paced the room in a small arc. He grew tired of it and pointed a finger at the face of Monroe. “You owe me.”

Monroe rose and stood to his full height. His eyes narrowed, and Baker dropped his hand to his side.

“Look, man. I’m only sayin —”

“
That’s past,
” said Monroe. He paused to slow his breathing some. When he spoke again, his voice was low and controlled. “Listen. You and me, we are over fifty years old.”

“That’s what I’m talkin about. Time’s getting short.”

“It’s time we
learned
. Be thankful for this opportunity we got to start new.”

“What I got to be thankful for? My stinkin-ass job?”

“Damn right. I go to work every day and I’m glad to have it. Happy to rent this apartment that I can walk out of any time I please. Gaming people, doing dirt . . . that train left the station a long time ago, for me.”

“Not for me,” said Baker. “I can’t make it any other way.”

Monroe looked into Baker’s hard hazel eyes and saw that it was so.

“Those white boys fucked up our lives,” said Baker.

“I said no.”

“Don’t make a mistake. I still got the letter written with your hand.”

“I didn’t write a letter. I made a few marks and corrections because what you wrote was all messed up and damn near unreadable. I was just trying to teach you somethin. I
did
n’t think you were dumb enough to send it off. I was just doing you a favor.”

“I appreciate it. But still, the corrections you made are in your hand.”

“That a threat?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You wanna say something, say it plain.”

“Ain’t no hidden meaning to it.” Baker twitched a smile. “You and me, we joined at the hip. That’s all.”

“I been a gentleman and let you visit. Now it’s time for you to go.”

“I’ll get up with you later.”

“Go on. I got to get some sleep.”

After Baker closed the door behind him, James Monroe threw the dead bolt, went to the Frigidaire, and found another Pabst. He sat down in his chair and stared at the television but did not pay attention to the images on the screen.

He reached for the phone and made a call. The conversation he had was short and emotional.

Later, Monroe switched the channel on the television to a late Wizards game, broadcast from Seattle. He pulled up the tab atop the can of beer, tilted his head back, and drank deeply.

SUNSHINE HOUSE was one of the many food pits found on Georgia Avenue, both in the District and in downtown Silver Spring. The neon sign in the window advertised “Steak and Cheese, Seafood, Fried Chicken, and Chinese,” a shotgun approach that produced mediocrity and, ultimately, heartburn and diarrhea. The proprietor’s name was Mr. Sun, hence the store’s name. Sun owned three operations in D.C., Montgomery, and Prince George’s County; lived in a house off Falls Road in Potomac; drove an E-Class Mercedes; and had kids at MIT and Yale. Cody Kruger called the place Sun’s Shithouse. He and Deon ate there often.

Deon had just finished a plate of orange chicken, a side of fries, and a large Coke. His stomach hurt already. He had been driving north, seen the sign in the window of Sunshine House, and pulled into the lot. When he was stressed he tended to seek out food. The antidepressants he took were supposed to lessen his appetite, but they did not.

Deon wiped grease from his face and threw his napkin in the trash. He pushed on a glass door and walked out of the store toward his Marauder, parked in a spot facing the Armed Services Recruitment Center, a plain brick structure beside Sun’s. He got under the wheel and fitted the ignition key but did not turn it. He didn’t want to go to the apartment and listen to Cody. He didn’t want to go to the house on Peabody and see his mother’s swollen eyes.

He did not know, exactly, how he had gotten here. In elementary school, he had been an average student with limited social skills. In middle school, he had two close friends, Anthony Dunwell and Angelo Ross, but they were athletes and he was not, and in high school, they began to run with a different crowd. It was in his early high school years that he first experienced shortness of breath and nausea when he was asked to stand before the class and present his work. Meeting new people, he often stammered when he spoke. His mother took him to a shrink, who called his problem social anxiety and diagnosed him with panic disorder. Deon was prescribed Paxil, and that seemed to help. So did good weed. He became less socially retarded and, for a while, had a nice girlfriend, Jerhoma Simon, and then another with a brilliant smile who went by the name of Ugochi. For reasons he couldn’t recall or didn’t want to, those relationships did not last. After graduation there was a dry spell without girlfriends or new male friends, until he met Cody up at the shoe store. After that, there was one bad decision after another, and the entrance of Charles Baker, and here he was, nineteen, with money in his pocket and nothing ahead but more money or jail time, sitting in a parking lot.

Deon touched the key in the ignition slot but dropped his hand away.

The boxed sign over the recruitment center was brightly lit. He recalled that down in Park View, in a similar recruitment office near the old Black Hole, the sign had always been lit and the windows kept smudge free. A clean storefront in a strip of run-down businesses, a beacon for the young men in the neighborhood who were looking for a job or a way out, many of them high school dropouts, many of them running from temptation and trouble, some of their own making, some not.

The times he’d been to places like Chevy Chase and Bethesda, Deon had never seen recruitment offices of any kind. But it made sense. Why would the army, navy, or Marine Corps waste their time, money, and effort on kids who were never going to sign up and serve? Those kids were going to college.
Those kids
had parents who would pay for their tuition and room and board, and later help usher them into the job market via their network of successful friends.

Looking through the plate glass of the center, he saw two life-size cardboard cutouts of soldiers, one black, one Hispanic, in full dress. In between the cutouts, large wire racks held dozens of pamphlets. He could guess that some of the pamphlets were printed in Spanish. Behind the racks were dividers, the kind that formed cubicles in offices. Deon wondered what these folks didn’t want citizens on the street to see.

On the window itself were numerous posters touting service. A picture of an aircraft carrier loaded with planes, troops, and equipment, ready for action, below the words “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of All Who Threaten It.” A photograph of a black woman, beautiful and proud eyed, a beret cocked jauntily on her head, the caption reading “There’s Strong. And Then There’s
Army
Strong.” Other posters mentioned enlistment bonuses of up to $20,000, thirty days’ vacation pay per year, 100 percent tuition assistance, and full health and dental benefits. Guaranteed training in a chosen career. The chance to travel.

Yellowish light bled out from beneath the padded dividers. Someone, some officer, was in there, burning the oil, alone and ready to talk.

Deon had nowhere special to go. He had the need to talk to someone, too.

He got out of the Mercury, passed under the bright, inviting light of the big sign hung over the recruitment office, and tried the handle of the front door. The door was unlocked. But Deon did not step inside.

Sixteen

R
AYMOND MONROE stepped out of the therapy room a little after noon, intending to call Kendall and have lunch with her down in the cafeteria. As he pulled his cell from his pocket, he passed a young man, blinded in one eye, shrapnel wounds forming crescent scars around the socket, his head shaved and stitched on the side.

“Pop,” said the young man.

“How’s it going?” said Monroe.

“Awesome,” said the young man without sarcasm or irony, and he walked on in a square-shouldered stride.

At the elevator bank, Monroe waited for the down car beside a man his age who stood with his hands on the grips of a wheelchair. A young woman of about twenty sat in the chair, her hospital gown worn over a T-shirt. She had short black hair, blue eyes, and a bit of a mustache, most likely a growth spurred by steroids she had been taking postinjury. Both of her legs had been amputated high in the femur, not far below the trunk. One stump was badly burned and scarred with “dots,” small bits of shrapnel still embedded close to the skin surface. The other stump did not appear to have been burned but was twitching wildly.

“Hey,” said the young woman, looking at Monroe.

“Afternoon,” said Monroe. “How’s everybody doing on this fine day?”

“How am I doin, Daddy?” said the young woman.

“She just got fitted for her new legs,” said her father. His eyes were the same shade of brilliant blue as his daughter’s. “Won’t be long before Ashley’s walkin again.”

Both Ashley and her father had deep southern accents. Both of them smelled strongly of cigarettes.

“And after that,” said Ashley, “I’m gonna swim from one shore to the other and back again.”

“She wants to swim in the old lake,” said the father. “We got a nice clean one down by our home.”

“I will, too,” she said.

“Next summer, maybe,” said the father, as he reached down and touched her cheek. He smiled, his lip quivering with melancholy pride.

“Maybe you and I will get a chance to work together in the pool,” said Monroe.

“I’ll make
you
tired,” said Ashley.

“My little girl is game,” said the father.

“No doubt,” said Monroe. As the elevator doors opened, Monroe’s cell phone chimed in his hand, indicating that he had a message.

Outside the main building, he checked his messages. Alex Pappas’s voice told him he’d like to meet. Monroe hit auto-return and got Alex on the line.

“Pappas and Sons.” He sounded stressed amid the considerable noise in the background.

“It’s Ray Monroe.”

“Mr. Monroe, you got me in the middle of my lunch rush.”

“Call me Ray. Look, I didn’t know —”

“If you’d like to talk again, I’m stopping by Fisher House after work. Same time as the other night.”

“Okay. I was thinking we’d take a drive, go visit my brother.”

“I can’t talk now. I’ll see you then.” Pappas abruptly cut the connection. Monroe stood looking at the phone for a moment, then dropped the cell back into his pocket.

He went into building 2 and took the elevator up to Kendall’s floor. When he knocked on the open door to her office, he could already see that she was not there. Gretta Siebentritt, the outpatient therapist who shared the office with Kendall, swiveled her chair to face him.

“What’s up, Ray?”

“Lookin for my girlfriend. Is she hiding from me?”

“Hardly. She’s in conference with Private Collins. He’s been occupying a bit of her time.”

“The soldier about to do the voluntary amputation?”