Half-Blood Blues (8 page)

My heart sunk into my heels as he spat all disgusted into the sandbox. ‘You a dirty liar,’ he said, his thin lips riding up on one side of his mouth. ‘You ain’t never seen me in all you life.’

‘Have
too
,’ I said.

He shook his head. But not wanting me to walk off again, he changed tack. ‘You know they named Charles Street after me?’

Now who’s the dirty liar
, I wanted to say, but I’ll admit I was kind of afraid of him. ‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘Your name Charles Street?’

‘Naw, fool, who the hell’s name Charles Street? I Charles Jones. Charles C. Jones.’

‘What the C stand for?’

‘Never you mind. Just C. Charles C. Jones. And one day I be mayor of this town.’

You keep counting them chickens
, I thought. Here was a boy with years of disappointment ahead. Best let him have his way now, at least he’d have the memories. ‘Sure you will.’ I stood there in the dead heat, my skin prickling, wishing old Hetty would hurry up and call me so I could walk away.

‘Where you goin now?’ said Charles C. Jones, smiling a little. He’d sensed I’d go away any minute, and he meant to keep me as long as possible.

‘Hetty and me – that my sister Hetty over there, in the stupid hat – we goin home now.’

‘Why don’t you ditch and come on over to my house? I gots candy, chocolate.’

To me, chocolate was the sole reason we on this earth. But to have to go over to
this
joker’s house – no thanks, jack. ‘Hetty and me got to be gettin home.’

Just when I said this, who starts jogging up to us but Hetty, her hat flapping as she flown over the dry yellow grass. She stopped at the swingset to get her breath, leaning against its stripped wooden frame. Then she started running again, holding her chest as she reached us.

‘I’m goin over to Lucia’s,’ she said, looking at me with a teasing smile. She could tell I wanted away from this boy, and she wasn’t about to make it easy. ‘Mama said we could stay out till six today, so… you go amuse yourself, lizard boy. Spittin at me like that. You two amuse yourselves and we see you at home.’

With hate in my heart I watched her jog off. Imagine spending the day with this boy, his moods and grim smiles.

Standing from the sandbox, the grit poured from his clothes like water. He punched me on the arm. ‘All right now, let’s go see Tante Cecile.’

‘Who?’ I said, marching all reluctant behind him.

‘My great aunt. She’s where all the chocolate’s at.’

Charles C. Jones lived in a big broken-down brown-stone on the corner of Mace and East 26th. The porch was covered with ratty old couches coughing out foam, and the whole place smelled of bacon. Climbing the stairs, I said, ‘Nice house, Charlie.’

I guess I meant to suggest mine was nicer. But he didn’t catch no irony or rivalry in my voice. ‘Thanks,’ he said seriously. ‘But don’t call me Charlie, no one calls me Charlie. Y’all call me Chip.’

‘Chip.’

‘You goin tell me your name, or I got to guess?’

‘Sidney. Sidney Griffiths. Y’all call me Sid.’

In the dim foyer, which reeked even worse of bacon and of sweaty leather shoes, Chip yanked me to him. ‘Now when we go up to see Tante Cecile, don’t you damn well talk. Alright?’

I stood there, more shocked by his cussing than anything.

He scowled. ‘You want chocolate or don’t you? Then quit you gawkin and come on.’

Chip pulled me past rooms so packed with stuff it was spilling out the doors. Past the kitchen stinking of bacon fat and something sweet, past the living room with its magazines all covering the floor, past a room ladies used, their garters and stockings strung up everywhere like shed skin. Finally we reached a door cracked a finger’s-width open, a stale smell drifting out. I was seized with sudden terror, disgusted at the thought of eating anything that came from the same place as that stink. Chip shoved me through.

The room was overhung with lace, the mean sun burning through, lighting up everything. Hell. On the bed by the window lay a creature so ancient I’d swore it known Cain back in the day. Its skin was so ashy it looked grey, its face so scrawny it was caving in on itself. Looked like an enormous old sea turtle.

‘Tante Cecile,’ cried Chip in a deep voice, throwing up his arms. ‘It’s us, Arnold and Theodore! We come to see you on you birthday!’

At first, seemed the old witch had died of fright. Then slowly, she began to sit up in bed, her nightdress crackling like butcher paper around her. Her ashy old face filled with wonder. ‘What a surprise! It’s my birthday?’

‘Yes! And
both
of us done come this year, both Arnold and Theodore.’

Her face lit up. ‘Arnie
and
Theo? Oh, my god, I don’t believe it!’

I
didn’t believe it either. Chip avoided my gaze. ‘Yes, Arnie and Theo, Arnie and Theo!’ he said. ‘We done come to see you on you birthday!’

The old gal’s teeth nearly dropped out of her head, she was smiling so hard. ‘Well, we better have ourselves a lil’ old party,’ she said, her muddy Baltimore accent suddenly going all Mississippi. Leaning forward, she reached under her pillow and pulled out a beautifully carved wooden box. Setting it on her lap, she sprung it open and took out a Baby Ruth and some Chuckles.

‘Both Arnie
and
Theo is here today, Tante Cecile,’ said Chip, winking at me.

‘Oh, yes, I forgot!’ She reached back into the box and pulled out some Necco wafers and Hershey’s Kisses. ‘Both boys done come today. What a surprise!’

No sooner had Tante Cecile put the candy on her lap than Chip snatched it all up, tossing me the wafers and the Baby Ruth. He tore his wrappers quickly, stuffing everything into his mouth at the same time, chewing wildly. I stood there holding mine, astonished. Still smacking his lips, he made a crazy face at me, as if he didn’t understand why I wasn’t eating.

I was fetching to leave when Chip held my arm. In the same deep voice, he said, ‘Both Arnie
and
Theo is here today, Tante Cecile.’

‘Oh, yes, I forgot! Both boys done come today. What a surprise!’ Tante Cecile reached into her cedar box and pulled out four more candies. Chip snatched these up faster than pulling money out of a fire. Again, he tossed me two, gobbled the rest down.

‘We got to leave now, Tante Cecile. We come back some other day.’ Grabbing my arm, he hauled me from the room, shutting the door hard behind us.

‘What on earth was
that
?’ I hissed.

‘Shhh, keep your pipes down,’ he whispered. ‘Tante Cecile done lost her wits ages ago. Memory like a pigeon. Only she don’t know it, cause we not allowed to tell her.’

‘Who is Arnie and Theo?’

Chip chuckled. ‘Those be her sons. They both dead now. She won’t share her candy otherwise. I figured I go in with you, she give out twice as much.’

I stood there staring at him in the dark hallway. Here he was, cheating his own blood and grinning about it.

He give me a look. ‘You goin to eat that?’

I stuffed the candy into my mouth. It tasted like chalk.

I don’t known how long I walked. My damn hands wouldn’t stop shaking with the fury of it. Goddamn Chip. Chip son of a bitch Jones. I left that awful theatre and just turned up the nearest street, passed the hundreds of parked cars, followed the new lamps away.

I come to a rest in a small treeless park. Trudging over the trim grass, I sat down on a cold bench. Lord my knees ached. A cold wind was cutting through the park. All these changes. Construction cranes hung like broken bridges, silhouetted in the distance against the glow of the Berlin skyline. I reached down, rubbed my smarting legs. I could feel that old damn pressure on my bladder. I needed a toilet. I got back to my feet.

Ain’t no good getting old. And this night, of all nights, brother, I got old.

Chip Jones was a bastard. Sure he was. But he ain’t never been malicious like that before. Petty, mean, a bit on the wrong side of crazy – but they ain’t the same thing. This, this was like a scald that don’t give you no peace. It burned and burned and burned. Something my mother used to say come to mind, something I ain’t thought of in a dog’s age. Ma used to say to me, she said, ‘Sid, that Jones boy ain’t got no light to his eyes.’ He ain’t got no light to his eyes. That used to tear me up, cause I always reckoned Ma was calling him stupid. Now, shuffling through a dark Berlin park seventy years later, I finally come to understand what she’d meant.

The café I found smelled of dishwater and cabbages, the varnished wood cheap and the seats sticky with fake leather. I didn’t care none. I come in through its brass doors grimacing. There wasn’t but two diners inside, a fellow and a lady, sitting together at a shaded table by the wall. I nodded at the barmaid, a thin woman with hair like dead grass, and took a seat at the bar. I opened the menu. I wasn’t hungry.

The barmaid come up, and I ordered some wurst, sauerkraut and boiled potatoes.

‘Where’s your bathroom?’ I said.

She tapped her ballpoint pen against her teeth, as if thinking. She tilted it lazily toward the far end of the bar.

Ain’t no sooner had I got back than the café chain rattled, and the seat beside mine was being pulled out by big, grey hands.

‘You goddamned bastard,’ I said, not even looking up.

‘Hell, Sid,’ said Chip, holding his chest from the long walk over. ‘That ain’t right, what he did.’

‘You sitting down? Here? Get the hell away from me.’

He opened his hands, closed them. ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say all that. I swear.’

I glanced up at his face, at its perplexed look. Like he known he should be sorry but wasn’t sure just what for. ‘Chip, I mean it. You get the hell away from here. We done, brother. You hear me? We done.’

‘Sid, I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know that all was in there.’

‘You
murdered
me. You flew me out here and you
murdered
me.’

The barmaid was looking at us uneasily.

‘Aw, Sid.’ Chip’s eyes was all glassy as he blinked at me.

And then he started to cry. The skin of his neck welled up under his chin like he’d tied a black kerchief there, his shoulders shaking with it all.

I swore, looked away.

‘Aw, Sid,’ he mumbled, ‘aw, hell, Sid.’

I sat in silence. I ain’t going to say nothing more to him, I thought. But then I could hear my old damned creaky voice starting up. ‘I thought, ain’t no way he could do something like this,’ it was saying. ‘I thought, he brought me ties from his tours. He’s a friend. He ain’t that kind of mean.’

‘Sid.’ He was wiping his eyes with his big thumbs. He looked so old, so old. ‘Sid, you know how they edit these things. Hell, I ain’t said half of that. You know how these things get cut.’

‘Get cut is right.’

‘Sid. Come on.’

‘What you think? You just come in here and it all go away? I should tear your goddamned head off. Jesus.’

But something was already going out in me. Hell. Chip just look so damned small sitting there, his little shoulders rolled forward in that suit, his big veined knuckles raw on the counter.

‘I know I did,’ he said quietly. ‘I know I got carried away. But I ain’t meant it like he put it together. I swear. Caspars, he just kept asking and asking. Just kept on me. I said a lot more, all sorts of things that was real nice about you. They just wasn’t in it. He known what he wanted, Sid. And that’s what he took.’

We was silent for a time. The barmaid come over and Chip shrugged at her and she just stood there looking at us. After a minute I blown out my cheeks, told her to get him the same as me. Chip’s German wasn’t half so good as mine.

‘You’re a bastard,’ I said, but without force.

He nodded miserably. ‘I am. I am. I feel damned awful.’

‘You going to feel worse, too. I’m flying back first flight I can get.’

He looked at me.

‘Aw, don’t give me that look,’ I scowled. ‘You
surprised
? You honestly
surprised
?’

‘I guess I ain’t. I guess it makes sense. I mean, I understand.’

‘Do I look like a man gives a damn?’

‘You’ll miss Poland, I guess.’

I hissed bitter air through my teeth, not saying nothing.

‘I ain’t sore about it,’ he said, lifting up his eyes and looking at me hopefully. ‘If you change you mind, well. I already rented the car.’

‘You ain’t serious.’

He looked confused, unsure how to respond. I got down from my chair, slapped some money on the counter. ‘Eat,’ I said. ‘Eat my damned plate too. Finish it. Ain’t no good leaving a thing unfinished.’ And I pushed on out of his life for good.

Or what I figured was for good.

I blown off the rest of the festival. Yes sir. And since I figured Caspars owed me something, I spent Saturday getting massages and eating rich, indigestible meals on his dime. On Sunday I bought ties in the Westin Grand shops, chocolates, wine I didn’t even like, charging everything to, you bet, The Kurt. My only regret was not being there to see his damned face when he got that bill. Chip come to my door twice that first day but I ain’t answered it. Then he stopped coming by.

I saw the old Judas at last on the Monday morning. I woke up to find my battered suitcase set just outside the door. Ain’t even needed to unpack it. I was following my porter through the lobby to the taxi stand for the airport when the young fellow turned his head, stopped short. To the right a small crowd had gathered on Behrenstrasse. A fish-grey Mercedes was shuddering and inching forward, shuddering and inching back, trying to pull out from the curb. As it rolled back, it damn near hit a taxi pulling out behind it. As it rolled forward, it near hit a parking sign.

And, hell, crouched over the wheel, looking crazily back and forth, face all squinched up, was Charles C. Jones. Damn jack look frightened as a child.

‘Hold up, jack,’ I said to the porter, who gave me a confused look. I switched to proper
Hochdeutsch
. ‘Could you wait one second, please?’

I left him curbside as I strode up to Chip’s car, rapping with my knuckles on the window. Chip whipped his head around, real nervous, his face hardening when he seen it was me. He rolled down the window.