South of Broad (42 page)

“That won’t be a problem, sir,” I said.

“He has some distant cousins living in nursing homes. Mostly in the up-country. He has made generous provisions to take care of those women until they die.”

“I can’t wait to tell my mother,” I said. “She always said Mr. Canon was a cheapskate.”

“She won’t be saying that after tonight,” Mr. Winters said with a smile.

“No one’s ever succeeded in shutting my mother up,” I said.

“I promise you that I will,” the lawyer said with a chuckle.

I looked up at him in surprise, his physical attractiveness only heightened by his certainty.

“Harrington has left you his store on King Street, Leo. He has also left you his house on Tradd Street with all the furnishings in it.”

“Great God Almighty,” I said.

“He knows you do not have the means to take care of the store or the house, so he has left you $250,000 in bonds and another $250,000 in cash to give you some start-up money when you get out of college. What school do you plan to attend?”

“The Citadel,” I said.

“That’ll be taken care of,” Mr. Winters said. “It’s in the will.”

“Jesus Christ,” I gasped. “Why? I worked at his store under court order.”

“He thought of you as the son he never had,” Mr. Winters said.

“But I wasn’t anything to him,” I said. “Nothing real.”

“Real enough to make you a fairly rich young man,” he said, reaching into his humidor to hand me a cigar. “It’s Cuban.”

“Aren’t they illegal?” I asked.

“Yep.” He nodded, lighting one of his own. “That’s what makes them taste better.”

He leaned across his desk, retrieved my cigar, and cut the tip with an elegant guillotine instrument. Then he took out a pearl-handled cigarette lighter and lit the cigar, imploring me to puff hard. The penumbra of blue smoke made my head disappear from view. Several moments later, I was vomiting in Mr. Winters’s private bathroom. When I emerged, I felt like my lungs and eyes had just endured a house fire.

“They take some getting used to,” Mr. Winters said.

“No wonder they’re illegal.”

“An acquired taste,” he said. “Like Cognac or martinis. You’ll get some money from this rather quickly, Leo. I’ll pay the estate taxes. It might take three to six months for the property to revert to you. There’s always the possibility that some woebegone fifth cousin could challenge the estate.”

Leaning across the desk, I shook Cleveland Winters’s hand. “You’re hired, Mr. Winters. If Harrington Canon trusted you, then I trust you. Sorry about your cigar.”

“Cuba’s not going anywhere,” he said.

From that night forward, I never went to Canada or Europe without bringing back a box of Cuban cigars for the humidor of my Charleston lawyer. It gave me a smuggler’s thrill at all border crossings and entry points, and nothing pleased Mr. Winters more. When he died in 1982, I inherited his humidor and the desk where I signed the papers that would change the direction of my life. I moved that desk to my office at the
News and Courier
, and I have written my columns on it ever since, always thinking of Cleveland Winters, and always sending up a prayer of thanks to Harrington Canon.

I parked my bike in front of Mr. Canon’s house on Tradd Street and tried for a moment to imagine it as mine. Looking back, I think I can figure out what that boy was trying to decipher as he stared at the mansion he now owned. Though he could not articulate or arrange his thoughts in an order that would make sense out of this unexpected night, I believe he was trying to discover some obscure figure in the carpet from the randomness of his own fate. No matter what angle he chose, this majestic house would not be his had he not refused to tell the police officers who had planted cocaine on him during the first week of his freshman year. What was a boy supposed to do with that cache of forbidden knowledge? How is that supposed to help him fashion a philosophy so he could go out to live a worthy, self-actualized life? What do you do when you learn for certain that fate can lead directly to the ownership of one of the finest residences on Tradd Street? It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous sense of humor, a dancing God who loved mischief as much as prayer, and playfulness as much as mischief. That was why Leo King stood outside the home that struck into the middle of his life with all the suddenness of a meteor. He could think of no explanation for it, no reason for it—for an ugly boy who had spent much of his childhood in mental institutions and found his brother’s self-slaughtered body in a bathtub, it seemed too much to have his direction restored and his luck changed in such an amazing fashion.

CHAPTER 22
Number 55

A
fter practice for our semifinal against Gaffney, we showered, dressed, and walked over to Coach Jefferson’s house for the oyster roast he had promised at the beginning of the year if we made the playoffs. The owners of Bowens Island were catering the affair, and my parents had raised me thinking that Bowens Island fixed the best steamed oysters in the land. The backyard filled up with my football team and their girlfriends and parents. I waved to Starla Whitehead, who was dating Dave Bridges, a starting defensive end.

Since her operation, Starla had attracted the attention of scores of young men, including me. I had called to see if she wanted to be my date for the party but discovered I was the fourth player on the team to ask her. She seemed perplexed and self-conscious at finding herself so sought after.

“What do you think they want with me?” she asked, perfectly honest.

I wasn’t about to give a straight answer to such a loaded question, nor would I lie. “Ask Sheba,” I told her, making her laugh unexpectedly, a lovely sound not so frequently heard before her operation.

I took a turn at the oyster table, wearing a heavy glove on my left hand, and prying the oyster loose from its shells with the blunt-nosed knife. Soon, Niles and Ike were on either side of me. Betty walked up to be beside Ike, which made me wonder why Fraser wasn’t standing beside her boyfriend. “Why haven’t I seen Fraser?”

“Said she couldn’t come,” Niles said.

I loped over to where Molly was sitting at a table full of cheerleaders. Since reuniting with Chad last month, she had studiously avoided me, even in class, where we sat across the aisle from each other. I had gradually come to accept that she was part and parcel of a life that I would never be part of, but even in my disappointment, I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. She was too vulnerable and too basically decent, in spite of what she’d done to me, for me to work up any great fury against her. My voice was more patient than accusing when I asked: “Where are Chad and Fraser? They get sick or something?”

For the first time since that night at the Piggy Park, she met my eyes and lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know, Leo. I don’t think their father wanted them to come.”

“You think, or you know?” I demanded.

Looking guilty, she said, “I know.”

“Why?” I knew the answer before I asked.

“Mr. Rutledge put his foot down when he heard there was a party at a colored family’s home,” she said with another shrug.

“What about your family?”

“I told them the cheerleaders were having a special practice,” Molly said, meeting my eyes levelly. Her gaze seemed to be asking for a return of the close friendship we’d once had.

Flustered, I turned quickly and went to the kitchen, where Mrs. Jefferson was preparing huge bowls of coleslaw and baked beans. I asked her permission to use the phone.

She said, “Sweetie, there’s one in the back bedroom where you’ll have a little privacy.”

I dialed Chad’s number. As I was expecting, his father answered.

“May I speak to Chad, Mr. Rutledge?” I asked, my anger veering off past courtesy.

“May I inquire about the subject of this call?” Mr. Rutledge asked. I realized that I had never recovered from my visceral hatred of him after that first meeting at the yacht club.

“It’s sort of personal.”

“So are all phone calls. But I am screening Chad’s and Fraser’s phone calls tonight. It’s a father’s prerogative. You’ll understand someday when you have your own kids.”

“I’m sure I will. But can you leave Chad a message for me?”

“I’ll tell him you called, Leo,” Mr. Rutledge said.

“No, I want you to deliver a message.”

“Go ahead; I’ve got pen and paper ready.”

“Tell him he won’t be playing in the state semifinal this Saturday,” I said. “He can turn in his uniform tomorrow. Would you like me to repeat that?”

“No, you little bastard. I got down every word,” he said. “You know I can make a couple of phone calls tonight and get your mama and daddy and that nigger coach fired.”

“Make those phone calls,” I said. “But your son isn’t playing in that game against Gaffney.”

“You don’t have that kind of power, Toad.” Mr. Rutledge added my nickname sarcastically.

“I’m cocaptain of this team,” I said. “If my other cocaptain agrees that Chad is bad for the team’s spirit, we can go to the coach and have that kid kicked off the team.”

“My son doesn’t socialize with niggers.”

“Then he doesn’t play football with them, either,” I said.

“You don’t need to have me as your enemy in this town, Leo.”

“We’ve been enemies since the day we met,” I said as I hung up the phone.

Returning to the party, I suddenly doubted the wisdom and hotheadedness of what I had just done, and gathered Coach Jefferson, Ike, and Niles to tell them about it. I tried to replicate the entire conversation I’d had with Worth Rutledge, then awaited Coach Jefferson’s wrath, which could be intimidating in both its ferocity and its suddenness. But none came. Ike and Niles looked troubled but not offended.

Then Coach Jefferson surprised me: he looked at his watch and said, “I bet that Chad gets here in less than five minutes. I know boys and I know dads. All boys and all dads want to play in championship games. Do you know what is hilarious about this? You know who’s having the most fun at this party?”

We looked around, and I heard Ike laughing, then Niles. And they both said the same name together: “Wormy Ledbetter!”

In less than ten minutes, Chad’s car pulled onto Coach Jefferson’s street. Chad and Fraser were both running as they came through the back gate. Chad walked up to Coach Jefferson, gave me an executioner’s look, then said, “Sorry I’m late, Coach. Had a little car trouble.”

“Can happen to anyone, Chad,” he said. “You and your sister, get yourself some oysters.” He then turned and winked at the three of us. “Boys,” he said, “what you just saw was good coaching. Mighty fine coaching. We need Chad for this Gaffney game.”

A
nd need him we did. The Gaffney fullback and linebacker whom we had studied on film all week looked five times bigger in real life. He was wild-eyed, possessed, and stacked with muscles in places it didn’t look like muscles were supposed to grow. He scored four touchdowns in the first half, and Gaffney led 28-0 when we went into the locker room. On the blackboard, Coach Jefferson made the necessary adjustments, inventing five misdirection plays that would offset the overaggressiveness of the Gaffney linebacker. His number was 55, and his satanic, all-seeing eyes would enter my personal country of nightmare for months. He ran over me like I was a toddler in his driveway. When I tackled him—a rare event that night—it felt like I had slammed into the side of a mountain. We scored three times by air in the second half, and Wormy broke loose for two long touchdowns, but we lost the game, 42-35. It was, by far, the worst game of my career.

I would repress number 55’s name and trained myself not to think of him, even after he became a star at Georgia and in the pros. But I would eventually recognize those flame-throwing eyes when I encountered them once again twenty years later, in an alley in San Francisco when I met Macklin Tijuana Jones for a second time.

•   •   •

O
n the first Saturday in my final January of high school, I drove my car over to St. Jude’s Orphanage and parked in the gravel lot next to Sister Polycarp’s Chevy station wagon. I signed the guest registry and jotted down my time of arrival, then ran the stairs two at a time to the recreation room. Ike and Betty were shooting a game of eight ball when I walked in. Starla was reading
The Cat in the Hat
to a young girl I had never seen before.

“Pick up a cue, white one,” Ike said, grinning at me. “And I’ll show you how to use it.”

I hated the game of pool because it was manly and supercharged and carried an aura of tough-guy danger. Plus, I couldn’t play it worth a damn. But Ike looked like he was practicing an art form when he applied blue chalk to his cue stick and lined up his shot. Then Betty ran the table on him, while he watched with a connoisseur’s admiration for her game.

“Where’s this place Sheba and Trevor are the star attractions tonight?” Betty asked.

“Big John’s,” Ike said. “It’s on East Bay.”

“You going?” I asked.

“You seem to have trouble with this concept, so listen up, Toad. I am a soul brother. Great rhythm, great style, great looks, great moves. I mean, I’m the whole package, just like Betty here. But we got one big hang-up. We live in the South, where our people have had a tad of trouble with your people. Your people seem to like to hang our people from trees. So my people have gotten into the habit of not going near yours. You follow me? Big John’s is a white bar. We aren’t going to hear Sheba and Trevor play shit.”

“I know Big John. He’s an ex-pro football player. A great guy. I’ve been in his bar, and black guys come in. My father and I were in there one night when three of his teammates came in, all black. It’ll hurt the twins’ feelings if we don’t go.”

“Are you and Niles going?” I asked Starla.

“Niles is taking Fraser,” she said.

“So, can I take you?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Is he suave,” Ike said, “or what?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” Starla looked at me in surprise. When I’d asked her out before, she seemed to think it was out of friendship.

“No, I’m a taxi service.”

“Tell her you’re asking her out on a date, Toad,” Betty demanded with a sigh.

“I’m asking you out on a date,” I said. I had found myself thinking about Starla a lot lately, since Molly had drifted back to society’s herd. Quite a lot.

“A date,” she said. “It sounds so normal, doesn’t it? Why, yes, Toad, I’d love to. Thank you,” she said. “Do you know they’re tossing me and Niles out, right after graduation? Sister Polycarp just gave us the big news. The second we get our diploma, we’re on the streets. She keeps bugging us about how old we are, and we don’t know. We can’t even guess. Hell, I might be forty. No one’s ever found our birth certificates. The only thing I know is that Niles has always been around. He’s always been there.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He’s been tight as a tick with Chad ever since we got back from the senior trip,” Ike inserted from the pool table.

Betty snorted. “And I don’t like it. I don’t trust Chad. He’s got that white-boy chip on his shoulder. Even when he smiles, I can feel that mean streak.”

“You two want to double-date with me and Starla?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” Ike said. “I’ll pick you up at seven. You sure about Big John’s?”

“I’ll have Father call Big John,” I said. “We’ll make sure.” “My parents will be pissed if they have to identify me at the morgue,” Ike said.

“Mine won’t,” Betty and Starla said at the same time, and it cracked up all the orphans in earshot.

A bell rang. We joined the procession of orphans down the dark stairwell that led to a large, slatternly garden, though it was elegantly designed and must have once been a showcase. The brickwork was harmonious and pleasing and had been laid with expertise and a gift for order. St.

Jude’s garden made Mother crazy and distressed, but she knew the cost and hard labor involved in revising a garden of such stature. The garden was now used as a venue for exercise where the orphans stretched their legs by walking the brick pathways every day as one of the younger nuns stood guard at the library window. At the first sign of carnality or hand-holding, she would blow hard on a referee’s whistle, its piercing voice putting an instant stop to any scrimmage of hormones disturbing the peace in the garden below.

Ike and Betty walked about ten feet behind as the eagle-eyed nun watched over us. At first, Starla and I walked in silence in the out-of-season, hibernating garden. Because of Mother’s passion for flowers, I understood that we were passing over a blind world of roots and bulbs and seeds that would burst into the bright fire of spring. The earth was sleeping beneath us, but waiting with the infinite patience of taproots and stems for their April run to the light. Now we moved through paths where nothing was green and the city paid homage to the necessity of withering. In silence, we passed over a nation of ferns and stalks.

“I need to talk to you about Niles,” Starla said as we turned down the pathway that bisected the garden.

“What about him?”

“Something’s wrong,” she said, in obvious distress. “He’s hanging around too much with Chad. Betty’s right: it’s creepy.”

“He’s nuts over Fraser,” I said. “No mystery in that.”

“It’s something else,” Starla said, shaking her head. “Niles has always told me everything. He’s got secrets now. Things he’s keeping from me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know it as well as I know how to write my name in blood on that wall,” she said, pointing to the mud-red brick chapel attached to St. Jude’s.

“Niles can take care of himself,” I said. “You know that better than anyone.”

“He goes out every weekend. He and Fraser double-date with Chad and Molly. You know that Chad and Molly are back together, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I said. “They walk so close together at school that you couldn’t separate them with a piece of cigarette paper.”

“I never trust it when couples are that affectionate in public,” she said. “It’s like they’re hiding something. A cover-up for something else.”

“I wouldn’t know. Me and Molly—we never got to that stage. We never got anywhere.”

She nodded, her brown eyes unreadable. Before I could ask what she was thinking, Starla took me by surprise. She reached over, lifted my chin, and kissed me on the mouth. It was not a sisterly kiss. It was a kiss I felt all the way down to my toes.

She drew back and asked, “You’ve been wanting to kiss me, haven’t you, Leo? Did you like it?”

I couldn’t speak so I nodded, dumbfounded.

She laughed, her hands on my shoulders. “Then why don’t we fall in love with each other? Like Niles and Fraser? Ike and Betty? Bet we could be happy like them too. Look at them.” I turned to see Ike and Betty in a passionate embrace, locked into a full, lip-smacking kiss that seemed just right.