Black Alley (22 page)

CB gives Richard a ferocious look. Richard stuffs his hands into his pockets and is suddenly still. CB gets up, goes over to the window, and spends a long time observing what's going on outside: two boys decked out in Canadiens jerseys that are much too big for them are lazily playing hockey in the driveway in front of the building, one is the goalie, the other playing offence.

“You're not leaving me much choice,” he says to Teta, without looking at him. “Richard is dying to punch your face in. If you don't want to help, I'm going to have to give him the green light.”

He comes back over to Teta, kneels down in front of him, and makes an effort to speak to him in a persuasive voice, closing his eyes when he pauses: “You understand what I mean, Teta? Personally, I'm on your side. They're the ones that want to hurt you. I just want you to answer my question. Where are the coats, Teta?”

A grimace of disgust has settled onto Teta's lips, and, he's so full of boiling rage that his ears are twitching. CB goes back to the window and, without a trace of hesitation in his voice, he shouts to Richard:
va zi!
Now, he's examining his fingernails, humming a popular song and, from time to time, glancing furtively at Teta.
Delighted, Richard positions himself opposite Teta, he spits in his hands and rubs them together jubilantly. With a criminal look on his face, he makes a fist, bites it, then gets some momentum. But just at the second he's about to hit Teta, he stops his arm, his breath is short. He looks around, showing off a wide smile, as if he's overexcited. Stupefied, Max is watching his movements, while Ketcia, her head turned away, is staring at the rug. As for Teta's he's got his eyes shut; countless wrinkles appear all around his long lashes. Richard gets back into position, rocks his arm back and forth a few times, and building up momentum like girls do, he punches Teta in the ear.
¡Ayyyyy!
CB continues to clean under his fingernails, keeps whistling the same song. And as if he's conquered his fear, Richard deals the hostage two more punches in quick succession: one in the cheek, the other in the nose. In tears, his face scarlet, Teta has a long coughing attack, as if he's ready to cough up his lungs. A thread of blood dribbles from his nose and, in a reflex action, he cranes his neck forward to avoid staining his T-shirt.

“Check it out, CB.” Richard points. “He's getting your rug dirty.”

CB comes back over to Teta and, with the tips of his fingers, repositions Teta's head so his blood falls on his own T-shirt.

“You going to talk now?”

Although tears are running down his cheeks, Teta grits his teeth and shakes his head no.

“I think you broke his nose,” CB says, as though commenting on the weather.

The Latino is shaken by pitiful sobs.

“Okay, that's enough playing around,” CB continues. “If you're not going to open your trap, it doesn't really matter in the end.”

CB goes over to his desk, dominated by a tangled mass of dirty clothes, loose-leaf paper and books. He opens the bottom drawer.

“This guy's not going to talk, I can feel it,” CB says in Creole. “He's stubborn as a mule. We have no choice. I'm going to call Flaco and tell him his little friend's face is all bloody. We'll see how happy that makes him.”

He takes out a small black pad, leafs through it quickly and turns over the corner of one page. Then, with long strides, he goes out of the room and, after a few seconds, he comes back with a phone in his hand. He plugs it in and dials a number.

“Hello. May I please speak with Flaco? . . . This is CB, I'm a friend of your son's . . . Okay, I'll call back tonight. Just a moment, please, can I leave a message? . . . Ask him to call CB . . . Yes, he has my number . . . Tell him it's urgent. Goodbye.”

He hangs up.

He asks Ketcia to be the lookout by the window and Max to bring him some toilet paper. Ketcia doesn't understand what she's supposed to be looking out for, but doesn't dare ask. She sits on CB's desk in order to have the best possible view.

“You afraid your father will come home, CB?” she asks.

“On weekends, he stays at his girlfriend's. There's no danger of that.”

“What – he has a steady girlfriend now?” Richard marvels.

“One of his girlfriends, I mean.”

Max reappears in the doorway, a pack of toilet paper in his hand, and CB gestures with his chin for him to clean up the blood on the rug. Then, with his hands on his hips, CB takes a few steps, runs a hand through his hair and decides to stretch out on the bed. Richard drops down into the old armchair in the back of the room, while Max, once he's done, throws the bloody paper in the garbage and, hesitating, comes back towards CB.

“Couldn't we take Teta off the chair, so I could sit down?”

CB is staring at the cracks in the ceiling, his hands behind his head. Max sighs, wipes his hands on his pants and then sits on the rug, his back against the wall.

It's like, after so much emotion, Ketcia thinks, he needs a little quiet, a little rest. Personally, I never would have thought we would have ended up here. She always thinks it's too bad to have to resort to violence, but, sometimes, it's true, and CB has said so, they have no choice. The image of Mixon pops back into her head, he got out of the hospital yesterday. Since his parents want him to rest up over the weekend, they're not letting him go out. She again thinks of the strange evening they spent yesterday at Mixon's, when his mother invited all the members of the gang to come to dinner, along with their parents. Everyone came, except CB of course, he doesn't go out of his way for that kind of occasion. After they'd eaten, when they were all sitting in the living room, Mixon's mother got up, crossed her hands and spoke to them solemnly, having apparently prepared a speech: what happened is serious and we wanted to talk to you about it. Especially with you, the other parents. There followed a long, unbearably boring tirade about the decadent morals in modern cities. In conclusion, the woman spent a great deal of time lamenting the decline of faith in the Sweet Lord Jesus.

Seething, Ketcia's mother coughed and said what was on her mind. Was she finished now? Ketcia smiled, her mother had never been one to hold her tongue. Mixon's mother looked distraught, then hurt, then she finally got angry. Yes, now that she thought of it, it's as if Mixon's mother wanted her revenge: there was something else. Our children are on drugs. Their mouths hanging open, every member of the gang turned towards Mixon. Shit, Ketcia had suddenly thought, what could he possibly have told her? Later, visibly ashamed of his lack of courage, Mixon explained that, under his parents' pressure, he'd had to admit certain things, or else he'd have been held prisoner in his own house for a month. Keep an eye on your children, Mixon's mother had added, proud of having regained control of the situation. At home, as soon as she'd hung her raincoat on the hook, Ketcia's mother took her aside: what's all this about drugs?
Ketcia avoided her eyes, weighed the available choices and lied as naturally as anything: no, no, Mom, that woman was just making things up. You said it yourself, she's crazy! Having dropped down into his armchair in the living room, from a distance, her father called: Ketcia, you're telling us the truth, aren't you? And she felt a tickling in her stomach, then she quickly replied: maybe Mixon had been smoking, but not us. When the words left her mouth, she immediately felt bad, CB always says, the worst thing is ratting on other people. Her mother took her by the shoulders and shook her: don't ever let me catch you doing anything that stupid!

Ketcia turns back towards the others: CB and Max seem to have fallen asleep, while, in the dark corner, Richard is struggling to stay awake. Teta is looking at her with sad, sleepy, begging eyes. You're really barking up the wrong tree, she thinks, if you believe that just because I'm a girl, you can soften me up. It's true he looks pitiful, though: a clot of bloody snot has dried under his nose and his T-shirt is covered with scarlet red spots. She forces herself to think of Mixon, his arm, his bandage, his haggard face. Outside, things are pretty quiet, the two boys who were playing hockey went home quite a while ago. She looks at her watch: an hour has passed, she can't believe how time flies. She rotates her head so she doesn't get a stiff neck. Now, the breathing and different-sounding snores tell her that all of them, including Teta, are asleep. How come she's not sleep? When she sees the police car quietly park in front of Teta's building she suddenly understands why CB asked her to keep an eye on what was happening outside. She claps her hands: they all jump, swear and get up staggering.

“The cops are here!” she shouts, forgetting to speak Créole.

“I knew it,” CB says, rushing towards the window.

Teta starts screaming his lungs out and, for a long moment, panic stricken, they all freeze, their eyes staring. CB finally jumps towards him, goes behind the chair, covers his mouth with one
hand and squeezes his stomach with his arm, like he's trying to empty it. The Latino chokes, coughs and stops shouting. CB orders Max to bring him a dirty T-shirt, which he puts on Teta's mouth, before knotting it energetically. Then he comes back to the window.

“What are we going to do?” Max asks in a trembling voice. “Shit, this is getting fucking serious.”

CB doesn't answer, he's watching the police officers walk towards Teta's building.

“You think we should let him go?” Max goes on. “Have we waited long enough? . . . It's getting heavy, man.”

“No way,” CB orders in a loud voice, without looking at him. “We have to finish what we started.”

“Buddy,” Max insists, “the cops are outside. This isn't funny. What if they decide to do a complete search of all the neighbouring buildings?”

“Shut the hell up, you coward! . . . I'm ashamed of you!”

CB looks at Max in disgust, glances at his watch and, in an authoritative tone says: “We have no choice but to wait for Flaco to call.”

 

“Completely naked?” you asked.

“No, no,” Carmen replied, “don't be silly, it's just a figure of speech. She was wearing a bathrobe, of course, it is the month of April. What were you thinking?”

“You should know,” Roberto pointed out, “that your mother is incapable of telling anything without feeling like she has to add something. With her, everything is possible, a tiny spider can suddenly be the size of Godzilla.”

“You stay out of this, please!” Carmen said. “To the best of my knowledge, I'm not talking to you! Anyway, you didn't see it. You were snoring when it happened.”

“She came out onto the balcony in her wheelchair,” you said, “and then what?”

“Well, I was getting dressed before I came to make breakfast,” she continued, “when I hear shouting. No, wait, it wasn't really shouting, it was like screaming. I go over to the window, I open it and that's when I saw her on the balcony. After that, it was like she was talking to herself, she was saying things in Creole, I think, I didn't understand what she was saying.”

“Okay!” Roberto interrupted her. “Now your story doesn't make sense anymore.”

“She didn't fall out of her chair, she was just there near the balcony railing, but she kept waving her arms around like this . . . It was like she had a stomach ache or something. People were stopping on the sidewalk, but then they'd just move on again. One man just kept on walking, without even looking at her, like nothing was going on. I couldn't believe it. . . .”

“You should have called the ambulance right away,” Roberto said. “You don't let something like that wait. It could explode.”

“That's what I was going to do, Roberto, I told you. But once I was in the living room, when I picked up the phone, I saw the ambulance pull up. Someone else in the area must have called. And there is another reason why I didn't call sooner, I was waiting for Cléo to come out onto the balcony.”

“He's probably not even home,” you said. “On weekends, he always sleeps over at one of his friends'. But what do you think was wrong with his mom?”

“It's hard to say. I don't know any details about her private life. All I know is what you tell me. You're in a better position than I am to explain things. Although, I did bump into her two or three times this week.”

“You did?” remarked Roberto. “You didn't tell me that. . . .”

“Yes. She works in a factory on Boulevard Saint Laurent too. She told me that in the beginning it was okay, but now she was suffocating from all the dust at work. If I remember right, she said she didn't have the strength to keep working. The last time she even said she was thinking about going back to Haiti.”

“Marcelo, maybe you should call Cléo before your cousins get here,” Roberto suggested. “He could probably use some company right now, with his mother being in the hospital and all, it can't be easy for him.”

“It's just that we don't see each other much anymore,” you explained. “We're not such good friends anymore.”

“Really?” Roberto asked in surprise. “Did you have a fight?”

“No, I don't know. Sometimes I even have a hard time explaining to myself what happened.”

“For once,” Carmen offered, “I agree with your father. You should call him.”

“You think so? You really think so?”

“Of course! The least you can do is call someone when they need it. It can also give you a chance to start over again.”

“He's probably not even home.”

“Don't make me ask again,” Carmen insisted. “Go on, do it.”

Remember, Marcelo: you'd gone into the living room, you'd picked up the receiver and you'd dialled his number without much hope. When you heard his “hello,” you said to yourself: is that Cléo? Since you hardly spoke to each other anymore, his voice seemed to have changed. You hesitated and, fearing a refusal or a bad mood, you simply said: how are you? It took him a little while to answer, as if he hadn't yet decided whether or not to talk to you. Yeah, he was okay. And is your mother getting better? In an apathetic yet intrigued voice, he asked: did you see her on the balcony? My mother's the one who saw her. And he said, she's okay, she's going to be all right. Remember his little devil-may-care smile, Marcelo. Why? Then, just to make a little conversation with you, he added that he'd been at Carl's when everything happened, that his Haitian friends were the ones who'd told him. She'd taken too many tranquilizers, that's all. A heavy silence followed, during which you thought you heard confusing conversations over the in-and-out sounds of his breathing. I'm telling you, he added, there's nothing seriously wrong with
her. You sure you don't need anything, Cléo? No, it'll be okay, thanks. It's not the first time she's done something like that. Okay, I just wanted to know if you needed anything. No problem, Marcelo. Bye, bye.