Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery (20 page)

Deuce placed one hand on my shoulder. "Rol, that's enough."

"Ayuh. There’s others," Castellaw said, and his smile broadened. A trickle of blood slid down the side of his face. "Somebody special you lookin’ for?"

The pressure on my shoulder increased. I tried to put it in the back of my mind. "Is anybody talking about me? Can you see anyone else?"

"Rolson?" he said. He cringed, and his eyes went distant. "Can’t you tell?" He tried to laugh, but the gesture only seemed to happen inside of his mind.

"Stay with me," I said. "Tell me if there's anybody in there named Emmitt. Emmitt Laveau. Has he tried to talk to you? Have you dreamed about him?"

Before he could respond, Deuce looped one arm around my stomach and dragged me backward. My hands reached for anything to grasp, but the molding only tore away as I was flung to the floor of the dirty single-wide.

"The hell's wrong with you, Rolson? Have you completely lost it?"

I tried to get something intelligible out, but “uh” was all that occurred to me.

"He's
hallucinating
. He's on the verge of death. He's not psychic. Every answer he gives you saps a little more energy from him."

"But what if he's not hallucinating."

The look in Deuce's eyes was hateful. "You've lost your mind, man. Go wait out in the car. I’ll be out there in a goddamn minute."

*  *  *

I waited in the passenger seat until the ambulance took Castellaw away. Deuce followed them out and got into the car. "He might live," he said, turning the key and slipping the transmission into reverse. We didn't talk on the way back to town. I wasn't going to bother trying to explain myself to him. Not that he'd be obliged to listen to me at this point.

While involved in my own thoughts, I must have drifted off to some other place, because I didn’t even see the little boy scamper up and knock on the window.

“I was about to come looking for you,” I lied, smiling.

“I bet y’all done forgot ‘bout me,” he replied. Smiling draped his father’s face over the boy’s features. It was a mask of ignorance, one he’d be wearing the rest of his life, even without his messy heap of a father.

I started to lie to the boy, but I said, “I’ve had things on my mind, and lots of important stuff has been slipping by me. Like keeping you safe and sound.”

“I’m safe,” he said, holding up the snake. “Look at this. I ain’t even got to fear what crawls with no legs. God punished snakes by makin’ ‘em slide on their bellies, and I ain’t a-feared of them.”

Well, it’s dead.

That’s what I wanted to say but didn’t. I glanced from the house and then back at the kid. “I see that. What’s your name?”

“Nod,” he said. “Ain’t my real name but nobody’s called me by anything but Nod since I can remember. Teachers don’t even say my real name anymore. Didn’t take ‘em long to figure out I don’t like it.”

“Where’s that come from, the nickname?”

He had been looking at his snake, kind of staring down at his feet and the other things surrounding them, so when he looked up at me, he had to squint. I kind of half leaned out of the car to give him the impression that I wasn't hiding in the squad car.

“Daddy. One time he said something ‘bout me being the one to make him live out here, like a bunch of nobodies.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I also used to shake my head when I was a baby. Didn’t never stop moving my head, even when I slept, so I been called Nod ever since.”

He shrugged, and it seemed like an automatic gesture, one he ended up giving every time he had to explain himself and the origin of his name, so it didn’t appear to bother him all that much.

Before I could tell him he was a smart kid, he said, “My daddy ain’t havin’ a spell, is he? I can’t take him when he gets to grinding his teeth, clickin’ ‘em together and rubbin’ ‘em so they make that sound. It ain’t a sound even a crazy man could abide.”

“I didn’t see him grinding his teeth.”

The kid looked worried.

“You know,” I said, “my daddy died a long time ago, and so I haven’t had him around in a long time.”

“That’s sad.” He said it perfunctorily, the way people are supposed to say something whenever they hear bad news. There was no emotion behind it. The kid was starting to stare at his daddy’s trailer.

“Even though he’s gone, he’s taught me an important lesson.”

The boy just stared.

“See, he was a hard man to get to know. Stony. Harsh. Kind of like your old man. Did what he wanted to, and he didn’t care much for people telling him how to live. He lived his own way, and he never really took anybody’s advice on what to do, no matter who it hurt.”

“What’d he teach you?”

“He taught me that you don’t have to end up like your daddy. And he taught me that you can’t worry for him the way he worries for you. He should be worried about
you
, not the other way around.

“I’d just as soon live in the woods by myself than live without my daddy,” he replied. The idea of loss was the only thing he’d taken from that whole bit. Oh well. He’d learn, I supposed, and he’d probably have to learn the hard way.

I was about to invite him to play in the yard until Deuce came out, but that was about the time some DFCS people showed up and tried to explain to that boy they’d be taking him somewhere else. Far away from here, probably.

*  *  *

When Deuce dropped me off at my car, I couldn't abide the thought of going home yet, so I ended up stopping by a place called Nana's Kitchen.

Other than a Dairy Queen and two gas stations serving food from behind the counter, Nana's was one of the only restaurants in town. It served comfort food, cooked mostly by the owner herself. Truth be told, I wasn’t even that hungry, but something about being out among people (and not at a bar) was enticing. I still hadn’t recovered from the bout of sickness I had suffered the last time I’d drank.

As usual, the place was overly crowded but there was no line so I was able to order immediately. I felt eyes all over me, but eventually I got over it. I settled for the fried pork chops with a side of mashed potatoes and creamed corn. I waited by the counter as the food was scooped onto a plate and handed to me by one of the black women who worked with Nana.

A handful of seats were available, and not a single one seemed inviting.

The only smiling face to meet my own belonged to an older lady in a flower print dress and thick glasses. "Mrs. Sidley, how are you?" I said.

She put down her Dean Koontz paperback and raised a wrinkled, arthritic hand for me to shake. "Have a seat, Rolson. I'm about getting tired of sitting by myself anyway."

"I appreciate it. How have you been?"

"A whole sight better than you, I suppose. Didn't I teach you better than to go out and drive when you were drunk?"

I stabbed one pork chop with my fork and knifed into it. It was tender and juicy and fried to perfection. I chewed with relish, trying not to think of my run-in with the Castellaws. "Of course you did, but adversity's a sweet milk.”

She smiled. "You should have studied English. Instead, you became a truck driver or a wannabe soldier or some such thing."

"Don't forget cop."

I poured a touch of A1 on my plated and sopped it up with a fatty bite of pork. The batter mixed well with the tang of the steak sauce.

"And yet you had potential to be the first college graduate in your family. Your mother should have gone to college. I taught her too, you know."

"Really?" It wasn’t surprise I was actually experiencing - Mrs. Sidley had taught nearly every LJHS graduate in the last several decades - but rather I felt like she wanted to tell me something so I pretended not to know it.

Mrs. Sidley drank from her sweet tea and took care to place the base of the glass back on the water ring on the table. She said, "Real smart girl. Loved to read. And articulate as all get out. Back in those days, it was like pulling teeth to get my girls to talk about books in class. They would always preface what they were saying by implying they were probably wrong. But not your mother. She would come right out and say what she thought. She was an absolute delight, and you were just like her. Not afraid to speak your mind. Very brave for a boy in an English class."

"Thank you. I only wish I could have seen that side of her."

She smiled wistfully. "I know you do. My mother died when I was young, too, and every day the picture of her in my mind grows fuzzier. Only a few pictures remain, and with time her features have grown indistinct. It’s like somebody is deliberately distorting them in my memory."

"I think that’s a shame."

"Well, yes, I suppose so. But it isn't the memory of the way she looks that sticks with me. Something binds a mother to her children, and all these years, I have never lost my link with her. I think about her all the time, and it's never anything specific. I just think about her, and that speaks to a part of my, well, soul, that nothing else can satisfy. That's what you should try to take with you, Rolson."

I mixed a spoonful of potatoes and corn and lifted them to my mouth. I chewed and swallowed and said, "I've been looking for that feeling my whole life, ever since she died, but it's not there."

"Maybe there's something interfering with it."

"Maybe," I said. I imagined the kind of static that might keep someone’s life force - or soul or whatever - from communicating with someone in the living world.

She sat there for a moment. "Well, reckon I better be heading on. This novel won't finish itself."

As she packed up her book, something occurred to me. "When did you retire, Mrs. Sidley?"

"Last year," she said, smiling. "They had to drag me, kicking and screaming, out of that school building. I suppose it was the right thing, though I still have a mind like a sharp weapon."

"Do you ever remember going to a dinner at the Brickmeyer place?"

"Several. Couldn't quite stand them myself, but they
do
know how to throw a party."

"How about one-"

"Where Emmitt Laveau went? Yeah, there was a banquet for teachers that year, but Emmitt probably shouldn't have been invited."

"Why not?" I asked. I started cutting into my second pork chop.

Mrs. Sidley paused, choosing her words carefully. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but Emmitt wasn't exactly the best teacher. He loved the kids, and he tried very hard, but I think he was a drug user. Sometimes I could smell it on him."

"Are you sure?"

"Honey, I was a teacher for nearly forty-five years. I can smell marijuana when the kids even
think
about smoking it. Besides, he was an artisty type. Teaching was his fall-back profession. He didn't see himself doing it for the rest of his life. He didn't think the kids could tell the difference, but they could. They always can."

"What else do you remember about that night?"

"I remember Mr. Laveau and someone else talking quite a bit. In fact, they stood around and chatted the whole night away."

"Do you remember who it was?"

"Gosh, no. Not for the life of me. There was white wine there that night, and I only drink once or twice a year. When I do let it rip, however, I can never remember much the next day. Is that all, Rolson?"

"I think so, but if you can remember anything else from that night, please don't hesitate to call me. It seems as though I’m trying to recapture some of the courage you saw in me in high school."

She leaned forward, sliding the strap of her purse over her shoulder, and said in a low tone, "Other people around this town may look down on you for what you're doing, but I'm personally thrilled. Your mother would be proud of you. Please continue to do what you think is right."

"Thank you, Mrs. Sidley."

She was beaming. "And be careful about that lawyer of yours. Clements. I never did care for him. He's done a lot of good for the black community here recently, but something tells me it's to make up for being such a horse's ass about race relations years ago."

"I will."

"He defended your daddy. Do you remember that?"

"I do."

"Something about the way he operated in that case struck me the wrong way. The man deserved his conviction, no doubt about that, but I don't think he got a fair defense from that old snake. Clements, I think, made some major mistakes in the courtroom. Anyway, nice to see you, Rolson."

"Yes, ma'am."

With that, she got up, patted me on the shoulder, and walked out. You couldn't tell that she was a day over fifty-five, even if she was pushing seventy. I returned to my food and ate in silence.

By the time I got to the end of the meal, the steak sauce, corn, and what remained of the mashed potatoes had bled into one another, and I ate it as if it were a single dish. It was starchy, sweet, and tangy, and I couldn't believe how full I was afterward. All that remained on the plate were the pork chop bones. I asked for a to-go cup of sweet tea and drank it on the way home.