Ravens (12 page)

He grinned, and recited: “What’s the damage? What’s the cost?”

She said back, “Is there anything I haven’t lost?”

He laughed. “You know our music!”

“
Our
music?”

“I’m their road manager.”

“You’re the road manager for Drive Fast & Shut Your Eyes?”

“Uh-huh. Though Truck’s been such an asshole lately I probably can’t do it much longer.”

“You know
Truck
?”

He shrugged. “Well, I mean, we’re not
that
big.”

“You’re
huge
. I went to your concert in Savannah!”

“Really?”

“Dude! It was so fucking awesome!”

“Cool,” he said.

But then he got up and went to the counter and started leafing through
Prick
magazine, looking at the tattoos. Like he was completely done with her. She worried she’d come on too strong about her love
for the band. Had she scared him away? When he’d said “Cool,” was he mocking her somehow? This guy was friends with Truck
Martin, and she’d weirded him out! What a loser she was!

But then he came back. “Hey, you know where that line comes from? ‘What’s the damage?’ ”

She shook her head.

“From when we were in Tallahassee and we were in this, like, diner or something, and we started throwing glasses and plates
and breaking shit, oh my god, and the waitress comes in, and she’s like, oh shit! Like, it looked like a bomb had gone off
in there. And Truck was like: ‘So what’s the damage?’ ”

Clio beamed. “You were there?”

“Like if you’re alive at all, there’s
gonna
be damages.”

“True that,” she said.

They sat quietly.

Then she asked him, “What’s your name?”

“Romeo.”

She smiled.

He said, “Mama knew what a lover I’d be.” But rolled his eyes to show he knew what a cheesy line that was. She thought, no
guy in Brunswick would
ever
be named Romeo.

He said, “So will you tell me now?”

“Tell you what?”

“What tattoo you’re getting?”

“Oh,” she said. “The number thirty.”

“Why thirty?”

“ ’Cause my best friend is selling me out for like thirty pieces of silver.”

He was staring at her again. But now she didn’t mind. Now she allowed herself to look back at him, and saw that his eyes were
compassionate and forgiving. And so what if he does see me crying? And so what if I pour out my shame and my secrets to a
total stranger, why not? Got to talk to somebody.

Romeo
listened passionately and Clio told him the whole story: how Tara had abandoned her now that she was so rich, how she wouldn’t
even return Clio’s phone calls, how the bottom had fallen out of Clio’s life. It tore him up. He wanted to say something reassuring.
But since he and Shaw were the root cause of her torment, reassuring her would be kind of sick, wouldn’t it? He wound up saying
nothing, just listening.

Then some big ox came in, biker dude with braided beard and no shirt, and across his chest a mural of tattoos depicting the
Saga of Lynyrd Skynyrd. On his left shoulder, the badass eponymous gym teacher; all around his right nipple, the fiery plane
crash. It turned out this dude knew Clio, from when she’d been a waitress at Southern Soul Barbeque on the island. He started
telling her about something called Bike Week — going on and on about his misadventures, and Romeo thinking why don’t you shut
up, can’t you see what she’s going through? Why don’t you shut up and go put a fucking shirt on? But he kept rumbling on till
finally she arose and pleaded, “I gotta go. I guess I don’t want that tattoo after all.” Struggling not to cry. She said to
Romeo, “Hey call me, OK?” and wrote down her number for him, and went out to her car.

The Lynyrd Skynyrd dude watched her go, and whistled softly and said, “Mm-
mm
. Look at the shitter on that critter.”

Then he asked Romeo, “Yaw gettin a tattoo?”

What a lame-ass question, thought Romeo. Abruptly he got up and went out after Clio, but she’d already driven off.

He had her number though, and he might have called her right then. But he thought, no, too soon. Might look creepy. Would
be
creepy. My calling her. Ever. While I’m doing this to her best friend’s family? No.

He got back in the Tercel, but didn’t know where to go. The notion of patrolling seemed too crushing right now. So he went
by Blackbeard’s Motel, looking for the missionary girls. But the beady-eyed old buzzard at the desk said they’d checked out.
So then he just drove around till he found a bar: the Oleander Inn near the mall. Bland as death. The décor of an airport
lounge. Three big flatscreen TVs, with the sound killed on all of them. The customers looked like stranded travelers but were,
in fact, locals. When one of them got up to stagger out, the others said, “See ya, Lloyd,” and, “Take care, Lloyd,” and “Next
time, Lloyd.” Then they all reclaimed their comas.

Romeo moved on. He went to Balm-of-Gilead Road, to visit Wynetta and old Claude. Wynetta’s truck wasn’t there though. Had
she taken her father back to the hospital?

Was he dead
already
? Shit, thought Romeo, don’t let him be dead.

Then he saw that the TV was on.

He went up to the door and knocked, and heard, “Come in.”

He opened the door. Claude was lying there naked as a soup-bone. “My daughter. Is not. Here.”

“Oh. OK. Where is she?”

Ghost of a shrug.

“You all right here, Claude?”

“Never been. Better.”

Claude’s eyes were not rigorously beholden to each other. Where one went the other would follow, but at its own stately pace.

“Come in,” he said. “What’s? Your name again?”

“Romeo.”

“Oh. How could I. Forget? I’m watching TV. Get yourself. A beer.”

Romeo got a PBR from the fridge and sat in the motel-style chair beside the bed. Claude was watching an episode of
The Honeymooners
, and Romeo watched it with him. Took him a while to focus, but once he did he thought it one of the best programs he’d ever
seen. The story concerned the purchase of a vacuum cleaner. Ralph Kramden had bought an old secondhand vacuum cleaner for
his wife Alice, and of course right away it broke down. His friend Norton offered to fix it.
Did
fixit —but it sprang to life so suddenly that it nearly pulled Ralph’s tongue out. Romeo couldn’t remember when he had laughed
so hard. The tongue part was hilarious — but the funniest thing, and the saddest, was the shame that Ralph felt for buying
his wife a secondhand vacuum cleaner.

Claude liked the show too — his laughter emerging in a slow pant. But during commercials he would lift his eyes to the pictures
of his wife on the wall.

Romeo asked, “Does that bag need changing?”

“Oh. Don’t. Trouble yourself.”

It was no trouble. Romeo had tended his father’s IV when the old man was dying from testicular cancer. To attach the new bag
of morphine took only a minute. Then together they watched the end of the show. An election at the Raccoon Lodge: Ralph was
in the running, but lost by one vote. He was certain it was Norton’s disloyalty that had sunk his candidacy, but he was wrong:
Norton had been faithful all along. When this faithfulness was revealed to Ralph, there was no laughter from Romeo and Claude.
They were both on the verge of tears. Loyalty, loyalty to a friend in the face of adversity: this was the great thing.

The credits rolled. Claude said he’d seen enough TV, and Romeo shut it off.

Sitting in silence, listening to the old man’s breathing.

Then Romeo asked, “You really dying?”

“So they. Tell me.”

“You in pain?”

His rubbery grin. “Well. Keep that bag. Full.”

“You want a beer?”

“I can’t. Swallow so well. But you. Have another.”

“Water?”

“Well. Just to. Wet. My whistle.”

Romeo filled a cup at the sink, and held it before the old man’s lips. A tongue appeared, shyly. The dragon lady bathes alone.
Romeo looked away till Claude was finished, then rinsed the cup and took his seat again.

Claude said, “You’re not. From Brunswick. Are you, son?”

“Ohio.”

“May I ask. Why you’re here?”

“Oh, just a business deal. Me and my buddy.”

“Oh.”

“Well actually, it’s
his
deal. I’m just like, here if needed.”

“I see.”

They sat a while. Then Romeo said, “Can I tell you a story?”

“Sure.”

“One time there was this dude, this grad student from OSU? And he got on my buddy’s nerves. We were working at this tech place,
my buddy and me, and one night we met this guy, and he was such an arrogant asshole, but our friend Amber really liked him.
And Shaw got pissed off at the guy, and they had a quarrel. And later Shaw asked me would I help with what he wanted to do.
And, you know, he’s my buddy, you know?”

“Yes,” said Claude.

“What he wanted to do was break into the shitstain’s apartment and put a little nest of vipers into his computer, you know?
So I did it. So then Shaw could read all his emails, and know everywhere he surfed, and fuck him in every which way possible.
You know? I mean we owned this poor guy.”

Claude nodded. He looked uncomfortable.

“I mean, I can’t tell you I didn’t have fun, because it was OK, because I was doing this with Shaw. We intercepted the emails
the guy sent out and changed them just a little to make them sort of insulting. We got him fired from his job, and we made
the dean of his college think he was like a psycho child molester, and we made Amber come to hate the sucker. And I said to
Shaw, ‘This is enough, right?’ But Shaw said, ‘Are you with me or not? We’re going all the way.’ So we did. We went all the
way with that shitstain.”

The old man said, “How far. Was that?”

“Oh God,” said Romeo. “I mean
all
the fuckin way. And now Shaw’s got me on a similar ride. And I’m scared. I don’t want to do this shit.”

But Claude’s distress was evident, which made Romeo feel awful. He wished he’d never started this story.

The silence grew oppressive.

Romeo said, “Tell me again what your grandfather said. OK? About the old rooster?”

But Claude had fallen asleep.

Romeo settled the blanket around the old man’s shoulders, and patted his head like an infant, and went outside. He leaned
against the hood of the Tercel. He thought he could still hear the rhythm of Claude’s breathing, and he listened to that for
a while, comforted — until he realized that all he was hearing was the heave of the a.c. condenser.

Then his alarm buzzed: it was time to make his check-in call.

Shaw
took the call outside, on the deck. He murmured, “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Good,” said Romeo.

“There’s a press conference in the morning. Eleven o’clock, at the Plantation House Inn. That pimped-out sleazy dump on Gloucester?
You know the one I’m talking about? Right off 17?”

“Wait. A press conference?”

Shaw could hear his fear. “Uh-huh. You win the jackpot, you have to do a press conference.”

“With cameras and shit? And you’re going?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“Why not?”
Romeo sounded stunned.

Shaw softened his voice, brought it down close to a purr, and said, “It’ll be good for us.” That was how you had to talk to
Romeo. You had to cosset and coddle him, and tell him you understood his fearfulness, and never let him see how much it pissed
you off. “This is the way we’ve got to do this, Romeo. Everything out in the open. No secrets, no skulking around. You know?”

“I think it’s insane,” said Romeo. “Who’s going?”

“Everybody.”

“The whole family?”

“So I’m told.”

“Cousin Alfred? Vanessa and Henry?”

“I guess.”

“Shelby and Miriam and the kids?”

“So I’m told.”

“What about their friends? They’re coming too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then who’ve I got?” said Romeo. “If everybody’s at that press conference and the place is filled with pork, I can’t touch
any of ’em. Who’s our hostage? Who’ve I got?”

“You’ve got Nell. Nell doesn’t care for crowds, so she won’t be coming.”

“Just Nell?”

“That’s all we need.”

“Shaw, they’ll fuck us!” Sounding panicky.

“No they won’t,” Shaw murmured. “We’re fine. The Boatwrights are fine. They’re making their adjustments. They don’t want trouble,
Romeo. And I’ve got a little surprise planned for this event which’ll be beautiful. You need to trust me on this one.”

“What am
I
supposed to do?”

“Just keep close to Nell. And don’t worry so much. Have some faith.”

Romeo,
early in the morning, went to Trudy’s Café and got himself a fried-egg sandwich.

The place was brimful of pork. One big booth against the wall was nothing but bacon. Even that paunchy old cop was here —
the one who had confronted him yesterday about the burial. Looking kind of hangdog though. Sitting there all by himself, while
the cops at the big booth were joking and laughing with each other. Romeo thought of going over and joining the poor guy,
but didn’t. Talk to a cop? Shaw would have a fit.

Instead he got his egg sandwich to go and drove to Nell’s house. He parked a hundred yards down Egmont Street, tilted his
seat back, and tuned to WICK 103.9. Hoping for news of the upcoming press conference. What he got was a steady stream of treacle:
“Ebony and Ivory.” “You Light Up My Life.”
“Sometimes when we touch, the honesty’s too much.”
And the egg sandwich was just as greasy and unpalatable as the music: he ate three bites and put it aside.

Thinking, if I start driving now, I could be five hundred miles from this town before dark.

Back in Piqua before morning. Mom’ll make me breakfast. Eggs and hash browns. No more scum-colored grits for as long as I
live. Call Carla, tell her I’m really sorry for what I said, how would she like to spend the weekend at Lake Loramie? Borrow
Burchie’s cabin. We’re pretending it’s Trinidad and dancing calypso by the lake, under the moon which is so fat it looks pregnant.
Carla, laughing at my two left feet. God, look at that moon!