Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Ms. Gaines, I’m in no mood to be played the fool.” She stood and pointed to the door. “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”

  I stood and looked her square in the eye. “My son’s been playing jazz for a few months. Lord help me for saying but he’s not good—believe me, I know—but I swear to you the night I first saw your husband I came upstairs and found him playing “Good Morning Heartache,” and then again when Isaiah came to the school, Dee played the song of his life. He was Louis and Dizzy and Miles all wrapped up into one.”

  “What song did you just say?”

  “‘Good Morning Heartache.’ It’s a Billie—”

  “I know what it is.” Evangeline stared at me for a long, long time. Her arm reached out, and she steadied herself against the back of the chair. “My husband tell you about that song?”

  I shook my head no.

  Her lips pursed, and she took a deep breath before speaking again. “I’ll tell you something, Ms. Gaines, and then you’re going to leave.”

  I nodded.

  “Isaiah has a lock of my son’s hair. I don’t know where it is, and don’t you think for a minute I believe in any of this, but the point is my husband does. If you take that from him, if you destroy it where he can see you doing it, I think he’ll stop.”

  I thought back to the piece of hair that was suspending the mouthpiece inside the box. “Why haven’t you told the police about it then?”

  She shrugged, her eyes beginning to water. “It’s the last thing he has of Rondell’s. It’s the only thing he values anymore, I think. I suppose I kept hoping he would come out of it on his own, but if he’s really on to your son like you say he is, then maybe this is best.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Thurman.”

  Her jaw was tight, and she turned away from me and stared out the window without saying another word.

  Dee was gone when I got home. I had a terrible, terrible feeling about this. I waited, hoping he’d come back, but then I couldn’t take it anymore. I called the police and was on hold when a knock came at the door. I hung up immediately and found Jordan, one of Combs’s little hoodlum friends, standing there looking nervous.

  “You best come, Ms. Gaines. Dion’s in trouble.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll bring you.”

  We ran ten blocks until we came to an apartment building off Martin Luther King. We went around the back, but I could hear it before we made it to the alleyway. Someone somewhere was playing a trumpet. The sun had already set, but by the light still coming out of the west I could see Dee, ten stories up, standing on top of the building’s water tower, playing “One More for My Baby” to the New York sky. Lying on the asphalt between me and the building’s dumpsters were the shattered remains of a wooden ladder.

  We went in through a rear door that looked like it had been jimmied open. We took the stairwell quick as we could. Jordan stopped on the fourth floor, unable to keep up, but I kept going, the thought of my boy jumping off that tower playing through my mind over and over again.

  I could hardly breathe by the time I made it to the top. The service door hung open. Combs was standing there, trying to talk Dee down from the tower, but Dee was ignoring him, just standing on the edge of it, playing that song. I looked for some way up, but then I remembered the broken ladder ten stories below.

  “Dee, can you hear me?”

  The song continued, sad and lonely. Soulful.

  I sidestepped until I reached the edge of the roof, and I saw Isaiah staring up at us.

  “Combs?” I said softly.

  Combs looked between me and Dion like he couldn’t decide which one he wanted to pay attention to.

  “You strapped, Combs?”

  His gaze locked on me. “You don’t need no gun, Ms. Gaines.”

  “I want you to give it to me and then you’re going to get on out of here.”

  “Ms. Gaines...”

  “Combs, give me your God damn gun.”

  He must have seen something in me, heard something in my voice, because after one little minute he reached inside his huge coat and pulled out a Saturday night special. He handed it to me and headed for the service door.

  “Tell that crazy old man down there to come on up.”

  He nodded and left.

  “Dee, you can stop playing now. Mama says it’s all right.”

  The song came to an end and he started playing “Good Morning Heartache.” I got so cold when it began because I knew—I knew—he was going to jump when he finished that song.

  “Rondell, that you?”

  The song faltered, the first time I’d heard that happen while Rondell was inside my boy.

  I tried using sweet words to talk him down. I tried pretending I was his mother. I screamed at him to stop playing and get off that tower. But all my words were ignored. Suddenly another thought occurred to me: this wasn’t the first boy to commit suicide like this. It couldn’t have been. Isaiah had been chasing Rondell for years. I wondered how many young men had died because that poor boy’s father had refused to let his son go.

  Isaiah came limping out onto the roof.

  I trained the gun on him. “Where is it?”

  He looked up to Dee and then back to me with a look of shock on his grimy face. “Where is what?”

  “Rondell’s hair, where is it?”

  Even by the light of the setting sun I could see him go pale. “What do you mean?”

  The song was nearly finished.

  I stepped forward, putting my entire being into my shaking fists to make him understand that I would kill him without another thought if it would save my Dee.

  “Enough have died, Isaiah! Give me the hair. Let Rondell go!”

  He looked around as if searching for something. He wrung his hands, his face on the verge of tears. Then he breathed in wetly and stood up taller. “I can’t do that,” he said. “Go on and shoot if you need to, but I can’t kill my boy.”

  The song stopped.

  My heart fell through to my stomach. I nearly threw up.

  I looked up to Dee. He let the trumpet clatter to the steel roof of the water tower and stared down.

  The gun was still trained on Isaiah. I slowly squeezed the trigger, felt the pressure of the spring as I came closer and closer to releasing the hammer. I should kill him. I should kill this man for letting my son die.

  But I couldn’t do it. I released the trigger and trained the gun on Dee instead.

  I squeezed once, the gun reared back as the air around me thundered.

  Somewhere nearby a host of pigeons took flight.

  Dee was still staring down, oblivious to my badly aimed shot.

  I squeezed again. Please, Lord, let me miss anything vital.

  The mouth of the gun roared.

  Dee screamed and fell to the roof, clutching his leg.

  “Rondell!” Isaiah screamed.

  Blood was dripping down the side of the tower. It crept hungrily along the rusted side and began to patter against the tar-patched surface of the roof.

  I went over and smeared my hand in the blood, coating my palm real good, and then I stalked over to Isaiah and held it inches from his face.

  “This is my son’s blood.” I pointed up to the tower with the gun. “That’s my son up there ready to kill himself. Your son died twenty years ago. Now give me his hair, Isaiah, or I swear I’ll shoot you now and burn your whole body up and hope it was on you when I did.”

  His eyes never left my hand. I could feel the blood trickling along my palm and dripping along my wrist.

  “Rondell...”

  “Let him go, Isaiah.”

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and then reached up and took off his stained fedora. He pulled at the back of his head, feeling around his dreadlocks, until he came to one he liked. He pulled it along the front of his face, and there, tied with several pieces of twine, was a long lock of hair. He untied it carefully and gathered all the pieces into his hand and gave them to me.
>
  I accepted them, realizing I had nothing to light them with.

  From his coat Isaiah dug out a Zippo lighter and an old scrap of newspaper.

  “You keep the lighter,” I said. I wrapped the hair into the newspaper, rolled it up tightly, and held it out for Isaiah.

  He flicked the lighter to life and touched the flame to the end of the paper. It burned slowly, lighting Isaiah’s sad face with a ruddy glow. The smell of burning hair and the sounds of sniffling, mine and his, filled the cold air—that, and the sound of Dee’s moaning.

  “I’m coming, baby. Don’t you worry. Mama’s coming.”

  A year later, I was sitting in Bryant Park, reading my paper. I could hear Dee’s trumpet playing a ways away, and if I looked up, I could see him between the trees, sitting with Isaiah. Isaiah had turned out to be a fine trumpet player, and an excellent teacher. Six months after the incident on the roof, he’d shown up at my door, telling me he’d been to therapy, courtesy of the state, and he’d just been let out. He said he’d started a job tutoring young men in the trumpet and could he please speak with my son, just for a minute.

  I didn’t hold any anger for him anymore, but I told him no. He kept coming by once every few weeks, very friendly, asking if he could just play one song for Dee, see if he wanted to learn more about it. I kept saying no, but I was worried. Dee hadn’t taken to the teacher in the outreach program, and Combs had started coming by again.

  That was what did it. I couldn’t let him slip back into that life.

  The next time Isaiah came around, I gave him permission. They’d practiced together once or twice a week since then, mostly at Bryant Park, and always with me watching.

  I checked my watch and seeing it was time I gathered my things and headed on over, but I stopped as I approached.

  Dee was playing “Mo’ Better Blues,” eyes closed, soulful.

  It was close to perfect, but it wasn’t Rondell or Dizzy or Wynton or Miles. This was Dee’s. He’d made the song his own.

  Lord, how my heart swelled seeing him playing there, a small crowd watching on with smiles on their faces.

  Isaiah caught my eye. Then he nodded as if to lift my spirits, to say Dee’ll be fine.

  I nodded back, wiping tears from my face, saying I know.

  I know he’ll be fine.

  My baby boy.

  Cirque Du Lumière

  Grignal stopped on a rise and leaned forward onto his huge, leathery arms. He breathed in the dry, acrid air and studied the beauty of the horizon as the troupe’s wagons continued on. Far ahead, surrounded by miles of wasteland and framed by pre-dawn clouds, the city of Alé Surçois waited. Its hemispherical shield acted as a lens, bending light like the lone remaining piece from God’s own kaleidoscope. Towers and buildings and arching bridges could be seen within, each painted with an indigo brush against a harsh yellow canvas, and to the city’s left, running northward, a slim line of white traced a curve over the blighted land.

  This was Grignal’s favorite part of their journeys through the badlands, the time when the city was alluring and full of promise. Nothing could be further from the truth—Alé Surçois was in the midst of a fierce and potentially bloody political battle—but he couldn’t help pretending at times like this.

  “Grignal!” Bayard, leader of their ragtag group, was waving his top hat from the rear of the line. His stained crew shirt and hanging suspenders warred with the jodhpurs and black boots. There was no question to his authority, and yet he always wore his top hat like a badge of leadership.

  “Keep your eyes on the line,” Bayard said as Grignal approached. He pointed to a nearby wagon, doffed his top hat, and walked toward the bulk of the train.

  “Sorry, boss.”

  The wagon—little more than a mishmash of ancient tank parts and welded scrap metal—had become stuck. Remmiau, the show’s knife thrower, stood by the front of the wagon, staring with coral-colored eyes at an ancient fusion engine. He removed his brown bowler and cleared his forehead of sweat before trying the engine again. It wouldn’t be the first time Remmiau was unwilling to accept help from a lizard.

  The engine spun its bald wheels forward and backward in quick succession, trying in vain to dislodge the wagon and the bulk of canvas in its bed. Finally, Remmiau stopped and stared with a look on his red-skinned face like it was Grignal’s fault the wagon had become stuck.

  Grignal lumbered to the wagon and cradled the rear. The musty smell of canvas struck Grignal as he lifted the wagon from the deep rut in which it had fallen and set it on even ground.

  “About time, you big ugly lizard.” Remmiau smiled, baring his sharpened teeth. The metallic bronze tattoos crossing his eyes glittered in the sun. Remmiau was always saying things like that. He mostly didn’t mean them.

  Remmiau took to the driver seat and guided the wagon toward the rear of the line. Grignal held pace, not really wanting to talk, but not really wanting to be alone either.

  “Such a sour puss,” Remmiau said. “No one would ever guess how thin that skin is, would they?” When Grignal didn’t respond, Remmiau continued. “Listen, son, I might have a deal for you if you’re nice.”

  “Not interested,” Grignal said.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. The last one went bad, am I right? But this one’s simple. Simple as pie.”

  “They’re always simple, Rem.”

  “No, I mean really simple. A pick and a pop, half now, half when we reach Balgique-en-Leurre.”

  He meant a body. He’d found someone who wanted to transport a person, most likely in a cryosleeve, to the troupe’s next port of call. Grignal didn’t care one way or another who—the troupe took on jobs like this often enough—but Remmiau seemed too eager, which could only mean trouble.

  Instead of arguing, which would only serve to prolong the ordeal, Grignal stopped and waited for the wagon to continue on.

  “Right, you be that way, but lizards need dosh just like the rest of us. You remember that.”

  When the wagon had moved far enough that Grignal could have some peace, he followed. Grignal knew Remmiau was right. He paid well enough, and he was one of the few people that would actually work with him. But his deals, no matter how simple they seemed, always managed to develop complications.

  The troupe pushed hard to reach the city’s entrance by dusk—no one wanted to be in the open when the badwinds struck. When they were only a few hundred meters from the entrance, a tram flew toward the city on its quicksilver track. It slowed and entered the city’s outer dock, where it would be purified before being allowed to slip into the affluent upper reaches of the city.

  Grignal smiled as he stared up at the glimmering shield. He didn’t much believe in signs, but sometimes they were too powerful to ignore. They were entering the same time as a tram, which could only mean good things—for him, for the show, he didn’t know which, but something good...

  Several days later, Grignal stood backstage, watching Ijia ply her trade among the three rigid poles in the center of the big top. It was the beginning of Act III, the point at which her character was lamenting her decision to leave her homeland. She dove between the poles, catching herself and spinning about before climbing to the top with the graceful ease of a desert lynx. The diaphanous blue trailers attached to her upper arms and thighs accentuated her otherwise naked body. Nearly every seat was filled, and the audience marveled at her. Grignal was no different; he’d been with the troupe nearly seven years, and he could watch Ijia for another hundred before tiring of her.

  The city had embraced the show for the most part, largely because Grignal’s character suffered so much misfortune. No surprise there since Alé Surçois was one of the cities hardest hit during the war and had suffered several years of Kyngani rule. Grignal hadn’t even been synthesized by that point, but it didn’t stop the human race from holding it against him.

  “Hey... Big boy...”

  Grignal rolled his eyes.

  Remmiau climbed the stairs leading
up from the dressing area. Thick braids of bright purple leather and aubergine rope and eggplant cloth wrapped his body, stark against his red-tinged skin. He was due onstage in a few minutes to punish Ijia for leaving his side. He pulled himself up as tall as he could—still only coming up to Grignal’s sternum—and grinned, baring his pointed teeth and accentuating the wrinkles among the bronze tattoos crossing his eyes. “Found yourself a job, have ya?”

  Grignal continued to stare. The trouble in Alé Surçois was beginning to boil over. The première of the city, Jaubert Rousseau, was locked in battle with the city senate over his own post. Grignal didn’t follow such things as a rule, but he heard enough gossip from the troupe to get the gist. The Senate claimed Rousseau was mentally unstable. They were trying to rally enough voter support to recall him. It was the main reason Bayard had decided on coming here as opposed to a half-dozen other cities—political upheaval almost always led to more work. But, as was typical, Grignal had trouble finding work of his own; like most of the cities on Altarus, Alé Surçois didn’t exactly open its arms to members of his race.

  “The meet’s tonight,” Remmiau continued, eyeing Ijia now. “Bring you right proper cred you lend me a hand.”

  “Get some of your goons,” Grignal replied.

  “Don’t get me wrong, son. The boys are good, but a giant lizard like you”—he stepped closer and looked up into Grignal’s eyes—“strikes a certain note of fear in a man’s heart. Makes things go smooth.”

  Ijia descended from the darkened heights of the tent, igniting a chorus of gasps from the crowd. She collapsed the moment she reached the stage, unconscious from her self-inflicted frenzy. The stage lights dimmed, and when it was nearly pitch-black, Ijia’s body lit from within, blinding the crowd.

  Cheers washed over the darkened stage.

  “That’s my cue. What’d’you say?”

  Grignal nodded. “When?”

  “Ah, that’s my boy.” Remmiau patted Grignal’s arm, which Grignal jerked away. “Right after the show, son. Right after the show.”