The Residue Years (30 page)

What is this for? Research? I say.

You could say that, he says. But more pleasure. This is the best thing ever wrote on the twenties bubble bust.

Okay. Got it, I say. History's cool, but I'd love to hear about the house? Don't mean to be so direct with dude, but who has time for the sidebars? Shit, we all know my bind, slap a blood-pressure cuff on me right now and witness a nigger that measures close to a stroke.

The house. Oh, that old thing, he says, and laughs. Even his laugh is mellifluous.

The other day I told Half Man about Jude's dainty timbre and its comfort to me, but the homie wasn't hearing none of it: Fuck how he sound, dog. That shit could be cahoots. Here's the thing—he could be right. But here's the thing, too—the homie could be wrong. And peoples, this ain't in the least about what I stand to lose if this whiteman is playing me for a mark; it's about all
we
stand to gain, what we will achieve cause I spoken so (and what else must we need to make the universe acquiesce?) when this deal, that ain't yet a deal goes through. Oh, you don't know by now what that is? What, you ain't been tracking? What's in this for my beloved, for us few dear Thomases is this: a chance to resurrect and live. And for all the extraordinary bookie-types please, please, please tell me how much for that is too much to risk?

Jude tippy-toes to the window and twists open the blinds and brightens the office. The security company's van pulls up (I know this because even the van has signage) and a duo of stiff rent-a-cop types hop out and strut into the office next door. Jude takes his seat and checks a file. He shakes his mouse and stares into his computer. Bud, he says. I've always believed in educating my clients. So here we go. The first rule of real estate is, it's never
about buying or selling. It's always about wants and dreams. About who wants what and when.

The night the owner dreams of a condo in Phoenix or a ranch in Durham, that house is as good as yours.

Huh? I say. Is that the plan? That don't sound promising.

No, he says. That's not it. But I want you to see how this works from the inside out. We've got good news. The husband has been eyeing early retirement. Says he and his wife may sell the house and move out of state.

Thinking or doing? I say.

Buying and selling is one big narrative and you have to realize if you're at the start, rising in the action, have reached the climax, or are falling towards a denouement. That's what I told them, and the good thing is, they're listening. The trick will be convincing them that this is the perfect time in their story to sell.

How are we supposed to do that? I say.

Here's another helpful bit of intrigue, Jude says. As it turns out he has family from the town over from my hometown. You'd think that stuff wouldn't make a difference, but, bud, it all makes a difference.

My pager goes off. It's a number I don't know. A number I won't answer. A number I won't be calling back.

I'd love it if you could spell it out in plain English, I say.

There's a true opportunity, Jude says. But I have to tell you. It's hard as heck to be convincing without talking concrete figures. My question to you is, are you ready to talk numbers?

He quotes me what he thinks I'll need to make as an offer they'll accept, and shit, if my pressure was stroke-high a second ago, it's got to have shot up near cardiac arrest. The number would be beyond my means if the hustle gods blessed me with a
string of solid gold licks, but figure in what I lost and what I owe and believemewhenitellyou it may as well be the payoff for the fucking national debt. I tell Jude what I think I can raise, though in truth it's about double what I believe within reach. I ask if we can make the down payment in cash.

Cash! he says. So you're a cash guy? I love cash. Cash rules. But, bud, I'm afraid we can't very well hand the owners a bundle of hundreds and fifties. We'd have to find another way to transact, money orders or a cashier's check or some such. Let me think on it a bit. Jude don't bother to ask where the money might come from—and let's all call this benevolence.

Do we have a shot? I say. A real shot?

Of course. Of course. Don't worry, with what you quoted we should be good, and if they ask for more, it shouldn't be by much..

What about how much you want to do the deal? I say.

We can figure my fee later, he says. We'll get a deal with them in place first.

Jude says sometime soon we should check out at least a few other properties, that he'd love to show me his neighborhood, his new place. He lives in Beaverton, and why oh why am I not surprised? There can't be a swath of my fair city even a scintilla more befitting of a homogenous middle-aged white man.

You got it, I say.

We shake and he shows me out. I totter across the street with a math problem for a brain. Right, so oddsmakers there's a forever source of ways this deal could fail, but as I said for my family, for all of us, I can't let this dream defer, won't let it fall apart. I glance back at Jude, and his chubby mug is lit with mirth.

Do you understand?
—Grace

We meet outside of Andrew's.

Champ shows with his brothers, my babies, who I haven't seen since I went out to Kenny's place, and I don't know what they've been told. They sit and I sit and for a moment it's a schism that can't be breached. I get out of the Honda first—this is what mothers do—and gaze at my babies through the back window of Champ's car, see them from the neck up, dark caps cocked sideways and bright tops. Canaan climbs out first and then KJ. They haste over and crush me in a double hug. Meanwhile, Andrew strolls out of the house onto his porch. His potbelly presses against his shirt; gray stubble speckles his bald head. He looks like a father, that he should've been my father, that he will be if he isn't now. He slinks off the porch and over to us. Well what a surprise, he says. So I guess you were all itchin to visit old granddad, he says. Or is something else?

Something else, I say. A family outing. We're going out to Multnomah Falls. Where we haven't been since God knows.

Now, there's a great day in the works, he says. He straightens the boys' hats and asks what's new, if they've been misbehaving, and the boys answer in voices too low to be believed, the pitch of my speech when the truth isn't holding it up. Champ pops out
and says hello to Andrew over the roof. Andrew mentions something to me about court, says we need to talk later.

Guess I should let you all get going, he says. If memory serves me correct, it's crowded up there this time of year. You guys have a blast and be safe up there near the water, he says, and backs onto the lawn.

We load up. I give KJ the front seat so I can sit in the back with my baby. Andrew stands in the grass and waves good-bye.

Champ takes the busy streets to the eastbound on-ramp. We pass 33rd, 42nd, 82nd, 102nd, 122nd … farther, he lowers the music to white noise and tells the boys that when we get where we're going, they best act like they got some sense. For a time after that, there either isn't enough to say or is too much to say, as we ride with the wind no more than a hum through the sunroof's angled slit.

This feels as if we could ride to the next morning, ride right on until we reach the next coming. We cruise easy along 84 East. We get out to where for stretches and stretches they raise the posted speed limit. Out where semis think they own the road, where a camper hogs two lanes. We wheel by a four-by-four tugging a winched boat, blow past a long trailer hauling a manufactured home, past roadkill and a fat tire blown to shreds, past a car stranded on the side of the road with a man kneeling near a fender. We go farther, through the Gorge, highway flanked by the river on one side, woods on the other. I reach over the seat and touch KJ to see if he's asleep. I snug next to my youngest, see a car float past with a bumper sticker that says BLESSED TO BE ALIVE. There's a tiny stretch on this trip that's a place between places. Canaan, mouth hung, nods on my shoulder and catches himself and rights. You gonna be there, right? he says.

Be where, baby? I say.

There, he says. In court.

KJ twists around. Yeah, dummy, he says.

No one in this car is a dummy, I say.

Mom, do you know what will happen? Canaan says. What they gone have us do?

Nothing you don't want to, I say. I promise you that.

The car goes quiet and I close my eyes and drift. When I open them, there's a sign ahead that says the falls is next exit.

Out front there's a welcome sign and a paved lot and today must be the day. Trucks and buses and cars and vans and SUVs—all colors. License plates from Oregon and across the bridge, California tags, states farther east. We hunt lanes and luck upon a van pulling out to leave. My boys, awakening, slink behind me through the maze of cars to where you can first see the lodge. There's a crowd gathered, and we huddle a good distance away while a guide trumpets instructions. The space clears, and I make the boys read the sign that list facts about the falls. That it's the second tallest year-round falls in the country, that it's fed by underground springs, that this time of year it flows its highest, that millions visit each year, that it's such and such feet to the falls' peak.

Before we start, I announce the rules: No horseplay, no hiking off alone. If one makes it up, we all do. And your mama's making it, I say. So we all will. Champ takes the lead when we get on the trail, complains within steps of scuffing his new tan boots. My youngest boys fight the incline in matching black tenny shoes, while I caboose it in the flattest flats I own. In flats I hope are flat enough. Farther up my knees and back are signing pay back, and this mist is turning my hair to shriveled knots. My
boys and me among a trickle climbing as singles and couples, the smart ones trekking wary of the slick spots hard to see until it's too late.

A man carries his son on his shoulders. A woman totes a baby in a sling. A pack of boys stomp with fanny packs strapped on their waists. There's a sparse trail floating down from the top, flashing faces of pity—or pride. Meanwhile, I keep my arms and legs pumping and my chin held high.

Champ, in the lead, stops and turns to us. Ya'll cool? he says. If one make it, we all make it, right? That's the deal.

His timing is spot on. We are past the point of turning back being easier than pushing ahead. We reach the feeble swaying bridge. People lined up for pictures with a wood statue. From here the falls gush from above and below. From here the river, blue, a deep blue, funnels between steep slopes. Come, I say, and bring my boys into a circle. We take up hands, and I look each one of them in the eye. I want you to hear me, I say, straining against the spill of the falls. There's nothing for you to be afraid of. All you have to do is tell the truth, I say. Today's truth. The next seconds stretch; my God do they stretch. Remember this, I say. You, me, us—we can't ever get trapped by who we were. Who we were is not who we are. Who we are is right here, I say. And right now. The truth of us is on this bridge. Do you know what I mean? This, I say, is us.

That's all well and good, Mom, Champ says. But here's a truth: We're beat. How about we hike back down? The boys snicker and our circle breaks apart.

Oh no, I say. This is a good hurt. An earned hurt. We can't come this far and stop short.

Don't matter?
—Champ

From my biddy ball days all the way through my senior year, this place was a home, which is how (they skimp on the light bill and keep the heat so low winters a nigger could catch frostbite) the people who run the joint treat it. To top it off, it's funky—or worse we're talking reektastic.

But ask anybody and they'll tell you this gym attracts the A–1 ballers, hosts the top runs in the city. You ain't got a name if you didn't earn that name breaking ankles and sinking game points when it's game point apiece both teams.

The dudes balling now, though, ain't exactly the best index of the lore. A crew of old heads and has-beens running a game the short way, sideline to sideline, shooting bricks, hobbling into the key, and talking old school smack: In your face! Swish! Money! I watch till, by what must be magic, one of them sinks a bank shot for game point. A guy with the next game asks if I'm down to run and I tell him not today, that I'm helping my bros practice, which is today's truth, but not the whole truth, which at present I'll keep to myself for fear it might sound malicious.

The other side of the gym is empty. KJ pokes the ball from me, dribbles over, and jacks a janky lefty jumper that falls short of the rim. Canaan jogs off alone, scoops another ball from a
corner, and pounds it. He goes between his legs and around his back and crosses over, moves he mastered that year and change we lived across from a half-court, those days when he'd burn hours (in particular when Mom was out on missions) practicing, heaving his rubber indoor/outdoor rock at a rim with no net (sometimes kicking it on a missed chip shot), those months he'd spend a whole day seeing how close he could come to touching the rim. Practice that paid off. Already baby bro is the owner of a mean floor game (cut him slack on last season's fiasco) and a crossover that could send one of these has-beens to the ICU.

Let me see it, I say, and clap at Canaan for the rock. He tosses it at me, and with no bounces I sink a jumper from out-of-bounds. It's one-quarter luck but I say, See? What good is all that fancy dribbling if you can't put the ball in the hole?

I can, Canaan says, and takes a shot that smacks the side of the rim.

That don't look like you can, I say, shaking my head. I hope that ain't what you're calling a jimmy.

At the other end, the old heads yawp until one of them snatches their ball, tucks it under his arm, and stomps towards the door.

We (me and my bros) decide on a game of crunch and I toss the ball to Canaan for him to check it up top. He rubs the ball and he sizes us both as if he really believes he can win. If I was more magnanimous, right now I'd go lace these dudes with keen secondhand coach encouragements: Ain't nobody giving you shit. Always outwork the next man. The only thing to fear is not having practiced enough. But that's if I was more magnanimous, key word: if!