The Dying Ground (22 page)

“Telling stories. That’s exactly what everybody doing.” I shook my hand in the air. “Don’t even worry about it.”

“Of course not. Blue got too many of his own problems. But from what I hear, you determined to get killed behind that little gal I met last time out.”

Flea had taken an immediate liking to Blue and he’d nearly charmed her into leaving Billy and going on the road with him, though she couldn’t hold a note.

“It’s not that deep.”

“That’s the way you see it?”

“That’s the way it is.”

“Y’all have a funeral out here?”

“Yep. Yesterday.”

“And somebody tried to jump you?”

“Tried but I was too quick.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded to Glenn as he segued into an easier Kool and the Gang song. Glenn nodded back, slinging anxious sweat halfway across the room. Blue wiped his own brow. “That boy there was killing my song. You have to know a woman like Delilah to be able to sing about her.”

“Delilah? No woman like that exists.” The joke fell flat before I even said it.

He shook his head. “Is that right?” He turned away from my dishonesty. Blue couldn’t stand fools and liars. I guess at that moment he thought I was both.

The entrance of the Wise Men and Daddy Al allowed me a gracious exit.

“See ya, Blue.”

“Uh-huh.” He lit a cigar and went back to watching the band.

As I passed Daddy Al he put a hand on my shoulder. “You holdin’ up, son?”

“What choice do I have?” I let the doors swing shut behind me as I stalked into the dimming sunlight. Daddy Al followed me out.

“Blue talk to you about going down South with him?”

“No.”

“You been thinking about it?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should.”

He and I both knew I had no intention of going out to Red Fields, but I told him what he wanted to hear. “I’ll think about it.”

As he walked back through the swinging doors I had a quick flash of my last encounter with Billy. He’d walked through those same doors the night of the murder. The last time I ever saw him alive.

I’d been working a fill-in shift for Paulie, who had to attend a premarital counseling class at St. Ambrose Cathedral. He was engaged to another day-shift bartender and we all tried to accommodate them as best we could.

I was sleepily flipping through the midafternoon talk shows and soap operas, stopping longer on
Guiding Light
than I would admit to anybody. Thankfully, the show had gone to a commercial when Billy walked in. It took me a minute to place him, he was so out of context in my life and in the bar since Felicia quit.

“Hey, man.” He slid onto a stool, waved to Daddy Al, and offered his hand for a shake. “Wassup?”

“You, big-time. What’s going on with you?”

“Living, dog. Living. Can I get a Hennessy?”

I poured heavy, happier to see Billy than I would admit. Our run-ins were few and far between, where they’d once been every day.

“How’s baseball?”

“Swinging.”

“Heard you dropped.” He took a long sip. “That true?”

“For now. What about you? How’s it going?”

“Can’t complain. ’bout ready to make some moves.” He grinned, a slow, wide grin that I had missed.

“What you grinning about, fool?”

“My girl, man, my girl.” He searched my face, to make sure his reference to Felicia wouldn’t stall the conversation. I showed nothing in my face though my heart beat a mile a minute.

“Wassup?”

He reached in his pocket and retrieved an unmistakable black velvet box. All I could do was stare. She was gone, yet again, and I didn’t have the strength to feel the loss a second time.

“That what I think it is?” I picked up the box and filled my voice with what I knew he needed to hear.

“That’s it, baby. No reason to sleep,
know-what-I’m-saying?”

“I hear ya.” I opened the box and looked at a ring I remembered seeing on his mother’s hand. She wore that wedding ring from Billy’s father well into her second marriage.

“It’s my mama’s. I went by there and got it today. I’ma see my girl tonight and hopefully, couple of months from now, you’ll stand up for your old boy.”

I gave him the ring back and shook his hand. “You know it, brother. Wouldn’t do nothing less.”

He held my hand tight, a bridge to the missing years. “I’d do the same for you, man. Ain’t nothing ever came close to me, you, and Holly back in the day.”

“You gonna talk to Holly? He’ll wanna be there too.”

He shrugged. “Don’t wanna cause the man no distress.”

“Can’t be me and you without Holly.”

“I got ya.” He downed his drink, then looked into the empty glass.

“Maceo, man, if it wasn’t like it is I woulda never stepped to
her. Felicia.” I recognized the look in his eye. “Felicia is mine.” He said it in truth, not to provoke me but to convey that there was no one else for him. Too bad I felt the exact same way.

I reached under the counter and felt around for a cracked wineglass that housed the butterfly anklet I’d given her. She’d lost it here last week in the bar and had come back several times, hoping to find it. I’d found it the same night—I’d seen it slip from her ankle as she moved around the bar—but each time I’d told her I hadn’t seen it. It was my last link to her, and I didn’t want to give it up.

While Billy waited I closed it in my fist and placed it on top of the counter. “Give this to Felicia.” I tried to joke. “It’s not the same as that big ol’ ring, but she might want it back.”

It disappeared into his pocket. “Thanks, man.” He stood to go. “Alright then. I gotta hit it.” He gave me a heartfelt pound then nodded to Daddy Al, who looked up absently from his card game with Tully. “Time for shit to unfold.”

“Keep in touch, man.”

“Without a doubt.” He smiled and headed for the door.

T
wenty minutes later I was searching the West Oakland neighborhood for Holly’s car. I wanted to tell him what I remembered about Billy’s last visit. I wanted to tell him that they were going to get married and that Billy and I had reached a certain peace.

I was surprised to spot his car parked recklessly close to his house. It brought dread back into residence but I proceeded anyway. The sun was going down, and commuter traffic clogged the streets around the BART station. In the distance the big construction dinosaurs of West Oakland loomed against a burnt-red sky. Local lore had it that Marin filmmaker George Lucas used them as inspiration for the Walkers in the
Star Wars
movies.

The gate was cracked open alongside the warehouse, another testament to Holly’s uncharacteristic carelessness. I backed up. Then I made a decision, a decision that put me farther over the fence, but I knew Holly wouldn’t hesitate if I were in danger.

In the car I pulled on a batting glove and reached for the gun underneath the passenger seat. I’d forgotten since my encounter with Smokey to dispose of it, and now I was grateful.

The steel felt alien to my hand, hands used to the grip of a bat or the roundness of a baseball, but I stilled my fears and held the gun low at my side.

Alongside the warehouse I kept to the shadows, grateful that the opposite side was lined with a tall hedge.

Before rounding the corner, I stopped abruptly at an alien sound, a sound that didn’t fit the circumstance.

A woman’s laugh.

A familiar laugh.

For a moment I thought it was Felicia.

Holly and I had never kept secrets between us until her arrival, and I didn’t want to know why he kept them now. But my feet kept moving me forward until I could see the silhouette of two people near the clay wheel.

The girl was stretched backward and fully dressed, with her legs open wide to give him access. He leaned over her with his shirt off and his face buried in the side of her neck. Kissing was not Holly’s style. He’d said more than once that he didn’t see the point of it. It was more intimate to him than fucking, as he put it, so I was surprised to see him rise up and cover the woman’s mouth with his own. She responded, and I watched with my heart beating as they tried to devour each other. That’s what it seemed like to me, desperation fueled by something other than desire.

Secrets.

When they came up for air I looked straight into the face of my Aunt Cissy. She didn’t see me and neither did Holly, so I moved back into the shade. I went toward the front gate, careful not to make a sound. I stopped again when I heard them
laugh together. I bent to leave the gun in the center of the walkway, clearly visible. A message.

Let him wonder.

Secrets between brothers?

At the car I realized my body was clammy with sweat, from exhaustion, like I’d just run a race I had no chance of winning.

I
drove aimlessly through the streets, not sure of my destination until I stopped at a phone booth and dialed local information.

“What city, please?”

“Oakland. Can I get a number for Alixe Hunter?”

A recording came on and recited the seven digits. Moments later Alixe came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Wassup, girl?”

She paused to clear the sleep from her head, maybe to decide who I was. “Maceo?”

“Yeah. You ’sleep?”

“Not too. Just tired, mostly. Sounds like you’re out on the street. Where are you?”

“I don’t know.” I looked around and realized I wasn’t too far from Chantal’s house. “Not far from your sister’s.”

“You alright?”

I thought of Holly and Cissy entwined in the yard of his house. “Been better.”

“Want me to meet you?”

“Not if you already asleep.”

“It’s okay. I’m dressed. Just need my shoes. Why don’t you meet me at Chantal’s. I’ll call and tell her you’re on your way. Okay?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if Chantal was the antidote to my black mood. “I can’t take your sister right now.”

“I’ll warn her. See you in a minute, okay? Give me twenty minutes.” The line went dead before I could talk her or myself out of the meeting.

I redialed but her answering machine picked up on the third ring. “You know who you called. Leave a message.”

Five minutes later Chantal opened the door of her apartment dressed in a black-and-white Adidas sweat suit and pink high-heeled slippers. Her hair was pinned into sections and loaded down with white globs of straightening perm. Behind her Donna Summer blared from the speakers while Scottie played Pac-Man with a friend. I put on a game face before walking inside.

“Donna Summer, Chantal? You trying to bring disco back?”

“Donna Summer found the Lord, fool. What you about? You trying to be a heathen till you die?” She kicked the door closed with the heel of her shoe and walked away. “Come on if you’re coming,” she shot back over her shoulder.

The small living room was funky with the pungent smell of hair relaxer. I recognized the odor from growing up in a houseful of women.

“What’s up, waterhead?” I flicked the bill of Scottie’s cap and took a seat.

He looked perplexed. “You here to see my mama?”

“Your auntie.”

“For real?” He smiled, pleased at the possibility of a new union.

“Why you up so late?”

“It ain’t late. I go to bed at eleven.”

“Oh, you grown?”

“Don’t mess up my game.” I watched him concentrate on the screen figures as I tried to get the image of Holly and Cissy out of my mind.

Chantal returned with an ancient hood hair dryer in her hands.

“Damn, you dig that out of a time capsule?” I hadn’t seen a contraption like hers since blow dryers hit the market.

“You got money to buy something else? How you gonna come up in my house trying to talk shit?”

“I was just kidding.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me started on you”—she pointed her brush and raised an eyebrow—“ ’cause you living kinda foul your damn self.”

I knew immediately that she meant Alixe. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, punk, but if you want me to break your business down, come on in the kitchen.”

I followed her into the cramped cooking space, where one rickety table was shoved against a far corner. She set the dryer on top of the counter, opened it, and put her hands on her hips. She gestured for me to take a seat.