When Men Betray (11 page)

“Ben's on Pine Avenue?” He looked at me with new respect. “You been there?”

“About a hundred times. I used to call Ben, and he'd say, ‘Jack's Special and a big cup to go. Be about five minutes.'”

Clovis laughed. “Jack's Special, huh?”

“Yeah, it was a chopped pork sandwich on white bread with extra barbeque sauce and extra slaw. It was so wet I had to eat it outside or over a sink. ‘Big cup' meant a tall Pabst in a paper sack, so I could leave without drawing attention.”

Ten minutes later, we pulled up to a weathered shack that looked the same as it had decades ago. The parking lot was dirt and loose gravel. The hickory smoke pouring out of the back kitchen's exhaust chimney brought tears of joy to my eyes. We entered through the screen door on the side, and I stepped back into my history. It hadn't changed a bit. Ben still didn't take credit cards, and the old jukebox
was still in place. Ben had fifty years of family pictures tacked to the walls, along with a few pointed political posters—he was a Democrat to the bone and didn't care who knew. The tables were filled with folks eating barbecue and drinking beer. I left my coat and tie in the car, but I was still way overdressed. The two of us turned a few heads, but not for long. People were there to eat, drink, and shoot the breeze. Nobody was there to rubberneck.

A teenage girl sauntered up to our table. “What'll y'all have?”

Clovis ordered a short rack and a Coke. I decided to push my luck. “Ever heard of a Jack's Special?”

She didn't have a clue. “I'll ask, but in case we don't, what else?”

“A chopped pork sandwich and a Pabst, please.”

She left the table, and I heard a loud voice coming from the kitchen. “Who wants a Jack's Special?” Out strode a short black man with a bald head and chest and arms to match Popeye's.

Ben had been raised on a farm outside Little Rock and drafted into the Army during Vietnam. When he came home, he moved into town and started selling barbecue at construction sites out of the back of his truck. After making some decent money, he opened Ben's, and the place hadn't moved or changed since.

I barely had time to stand up before he threw his arms around me like I was his long lost son, which in some ways, I was. Clovis had risen as well.

“Clovis, where in the hell you been? You gotten too big for your britches to come visit?”

Clovis grinned and said, “Good to see you too, Ben.”

The waitress had followed Ben out of the kitchen, and he turned to her. “Jack's Special—chopped pork on white bread—extra slaw, extra sauce, and bring me a tall Bud.”

He sat heavily on the extra chair at our table. “It's good to see you all growed up, man. Your buddies kept me up, but damn if it ain't good to see you in the flesh. Heard you was in town to defend Woody. He's gonna need a good lawyer, that's for sure. I imagine Sheriff Barnes'll have to bust a few heads before things cool down. I used to see Woody now and then—he'd come in with Sam, but then they had that falling out. Marshall still comes in, but nothin' like the old days.”

I asked him how he was doing, how business was, and caught up on the old waitresses and cooks. He still opened and closed the restaurant six days a week. Sunday was for church or fishing, depending on whether the fish were biting. His kids were grown, but that was about the only change in his life. Ben had been asked to bottle his sauce, franchise his restaurant, open branches in the better parts of Little Rock, but he'd declined all offers. Long ago, he'd told me he made enough money to pay the mortgage, keep his wife in church clothes, and buy all the fish bait he needed. If he expanded his business he'd start to want things, and his wife would want things, and then more things, and soon his life would be about wanting instead of enjoying. Life was good the way it was. To my delight, he had not changed one iota.

While we finished our lunch, Ben told me about Clovis and his exploits on the gridiron, and he told Clovis about my pitching days.

“Blind people used to come to the ballpark just to listen to him pitch,” he claimed, laying it on thick and grinning. “So how'd you two hook up?”

Clovis told him he had taken on the job of providing security for Beth and me.

“Security, huh. You know who you're guarding? Why Jack took on the whole football team by himself one night.” Seeing me grimace, Ben quickly said, “Sorry, Jack, I wasn't thinkin'.”

Clovis shrugged and put up both hands. “I know enough about what happened that night to do my job. The rest is none of my business.”

Ben quickly changed the subject. “I'll keep my ears open, but both of y'all better be careful, that's all I got to say. Nothin'll happen until after the funeral, but this city's wound tight as a drum. Everybody's upset, angry, and might be lookin' for a little vengeance. People won't remember you were a towheaded kid who used to pitch for the Stafford State Cardinals. They think you're some Yankee lawyer here to work your magic and free the killer of their star quarterback. Right now, Russell is everybody's favorite son, and Woody is Cain who murdered his brother. They ain't interested in justice or mercy. … They want blood.

“I'm sure you're one fine lawyer, Jack, and coming back to help Woody shows you're a damn good friend. But you want my advice? Walk away. Woody shot Russell. There ain't no magic in this bottle.”

We stood and wrapped our arms around each other awkwardly. Men still haven't quite learned to hug except on a ball field. Now folks were starting to stare, but I didn't much care. We let go and stepped back.

Ben gave me a gentle punch on the arm. “I can't afford to lose you as a customer again. Profits are down.” He turned to Clovis. “I'll keep my ears open, but take care of him as best you can.”

Clovis smiled. “You don't think he's leaving any time soon, do you?”

“Never listened to me back then …” Ben headed back to the kitchen, laughing.

B
ACK IN THE
Tahoe, we sat quietly for a minute. Eventually, I said, “The night I left town was the last time I talked to Ben, until today, but it certainly wasn't the last time I thought about him. Thanks.”

“Hey, you can direct me to Ben's anytime. You aren't the only wayward son Ben ever sold a beer and barbecue.”

“You got a deal.”

We drove by my old high school, Westside High, nestled among towering pines but showing decades of neglect. Where the parking lot had once housed a good number of sixteenth-birthday cars, it now consisted of row after row of temporary buildings that had become permanent classrooms. These days, it seems that school boards grudgingly agree to build temporary structures and trailer classrooms to meet the demand for space, but rarely muster the money to invest in permanent additions. Communities used to take pride in the structures that raised and educated their children; now the buildings are increasingly representative of our negligent attitude toward public education.

Clovis and I drove by my old home, which seemed much smaller than I recalled. In fact, it was just a small, red-brick tract house, but it was the first house that had actually belonged to my mother, and it represented a new beginning … a life where good things were supposed to happen and, except for my stepfather, mostly did.

Next on the tour came the American Legion Baseball Field adjoining the Butler Boy's Club.

Clovis whistled. “Your old ball field has seen better days.”

No kidding. The Boy's Club was boarded up, its brick walls marred with graffiti, and the door's hardware wrapped in chains to prevent break-ins. The cracked concrete sidewalks had been overrun with knee-high weeds. Every outdoor light was broken, and beer cans and broken bottles littered the entire area. The ball field was in no better shape.

Stepping out of the car, I glanced at the sky. The weather had turned warm and muggy. A storm was rolling in from the southwest, and the wind was starting to kick up. It brought back memories of searching the skies, waiting for the wail of tornado sirens.

Kudzu covered collapsing chain-link fences. I climbed over a low spot and walked the base paths in silence with Clovis a few steps behind. The infield, once raked to perfection, was full of trash. The rubber on the pitcher's mound was curled up on both ends, and an old bottle of A&W root beer sat in the middle. I stood on the pitcher's mound facing home plate. The backstop was full of holes, the concrete bleachers had cracked, and the white paint was peeling everywhere. Butler Field, where two Hall of Fame baseball players had played as teenagers, and the site of many of my pitching triumphs, wasn't fit for rats, much less a pick-up game.

Clovis kicked at an old beer can. “About fifteen years ago, the Boy's Club Board of Directors built a new facility in the west with a swimming pool, gym, and a new baseball field. They planned to keep Butler open for the city kids to use, but their folks caught on pretty quick. Inner-city parents drove their kids to the new Boy's Club or put them on the bus. The new facility was overwhelmed, and Butler went unused. The Boy's Club tried to sell Butler, but nobody wanted an old building and a ballpark in central Little Rock. You see the result.”

It was starting to spit rain. I walked off the mound, and we trudged across the diamond toward the Tahoe. My eyes were fixed on the ground, trying to avoid broken glass, or worse. When I reached the curb, I heard the roar of an oncoming car and a vibrating drum beat—
thumpa, thumpa, thumpa
—from the radio, turned up as loud as it could go. I turned and looked up, expecting to see a car bouncing up and down like I see in DC.

What I saw was a car barreling straight toward me, already halfway up on the curb. Before I could react, I felt an impact on my right like I had been tackled by a linebacker. The next instant, my face was in the dirt, and I felt someone fall on top of me—hopefully the linebacker was Clovis.

The car was gone, but Clovis stayed put, his gun arm fully extended. I tried to lift my head, but couldn't because Clovis's left hand was holding it down.

“Stay down!” Clovis started to move forward, still in a full squat, still holding the gun, but now rotating three hundred and sixty degrees and rising slowly as he searched for any sign of movement or danger. After what seemed a very long time, he stood upright, holstered his weapon, and turned back to me.

“Clovis, for Christ's sake put the gun away. It was just a car that went out of control. Probably a bunch of kids.”

“Stay still, Jack. Let me check you out.”

I ignored his instructions and put my hands in a push-up position, trying to get up. Only then did I feel a sharp pain shoot out from my upper leg. I saw that the bottom half of a beer bottle was embedded in my thigh, a growing patch of blood soaking my pant leg. Clovis pushed me over so I was sitting on my butt with my knees bent, repeating “shit-shit-shit” as fast as I could, as if that would ease the pain. Clovis was talking into his cell phone, and between my expletives, I understood he was ordering an ambulance to the site.

I looked down again and saw that my leg was bleeding—a lot. Feeling a little woozy, I tried not to look. I'd never been good with blood, mine or anyone else's.

Clovis looked at my leg and frowned. “Sorry, Jack, this is going to hurt.” He took off his belt and wrapped it around my upper thigh. The pain was excruciating as he tightened the tourniquet. I heard him say, “Ambulance is on its way. I'll handle the police and meet you at the ER. Sorry I threw you on top of that bottle, but that car had you in its sights.”

“Well, all in all, I'd rather be alive.” I grimaced, regretting the energy wasted on dark humor.

Clovis shook his head grimly. “I fucked up. We'll talk about it after the docs check you out.”

I couldn't believe what he was saying. “Look, nobody can anticipate a random, wild driver losing control of his car.”

Sirens were blaring—I was dimly aware of police cars and an ambulance pulling up.

“That was no wild driver, and there was nothing random about it. You were the target, and the driver was a professional—I got a pretty good look at him. Now, will you please keep quiet till they get you to the hospital?”