Saving Ruby King

by Catherine Adel West

  “Well, we can’t steal from the church, from the people, from Jackson! No one deserves that.”

  “What about what I deserve!”

  She shrinks back. “Oh, Nonnie, I’m just saying I don’t know if I’m good enough to do bookkeeping. I just took a few classes at Daley. I’m not good enough for what you need. That’s all.”

  “You’ve been able to do numbers in your head since I met you, like some kind of genius and now all of a sudden you don’t know if you can move a few decimals?”

  She gets my head all full up with what-if’s and possibilities, and now she has qualms about putting some numbers on a book! Grabbing her arm, I twist. Something between a yelp and a groan escapes her mouth. “You a dream killer, that it? You wanna lift someone up, then smack them down ’cause it’s a game to you? You think this shit is funny?”

  I lose my grip on the bottle, the smooth edge slips from my fingers and shatters on the stairs. “Look what you made me do! Damn it! You’re more trouble than you’re worth! I’m asking you to do one goddamn thing for me! You can’t even do that? You’re worthless, fucking worthless.”

  Alice shakes her head, tears spill down her cheeks. “I just want to help you, Nonnie. That’s all I ever want to do.” I scared her. I’m scaring myself, too. I can’t see my face, but I know I look like Sara. I’m no better than her, but one time, long ago I wanted to be. I still want to be. The bakery, it can help me do that...be better. I just need Alice to see how much this means to me.

  I let her arm go and tilt her face to mine. Tears stream from her eyes, those big brown eyes that still hold forgiveness and love, and I feel bad. I didn’t mean to say those things or grab her, but I didn’t hit her. I haven’t done that in a while. So we’re okay. We’ll be okay. “Look, come on now. Stop crying. I just got upset. That’s all. You’re just so smart and I need you to do this for me. Can you help me? You’re the only one I got, Alice. The only one I trust. You know that, don’t you?”

  Her breath is shaky. “I know, Nonnie. I know.”

  I kiss her and I try to think about the day we got married. Smiling on those courthouse steps. Alice covering her growing belly with a bouquet of gardenias. I try opening up some place inside me where I convince myself I love her, and I find...nothing. And somehow, I’m relieved. Loving her, despite how long we’ve been together, isn’t something I’m built for. Love is a liability. It’s a way for people to control you.

  “Give me a little smile then, Alice. We’re gonna get everything you wanted. This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. You’re right. I can help you. I’m happy to do it.” A car glides past the house. From a driver’s side window, we could’ve been a couple having a nice conversation. People never look too close at the things around them.

  “Good. Now, I’m going to bed. You gonna clean up that glass?”

  Her face, those doe eyes of hers, worse than Bambi’s. “Yes.”

  “Good girl.”

  She cries behind me as I close the screen door. She’s always trying to live up to something impossible. Be what you are. Not what society expects. Not what a wife wants. Not what the preacher says. You’re a doctor, fix bodies. You’re a janitor, sweep floors. You’re a dealer, make sure you got a steady plug and a foolproof place you hide your shit. But don’t try and be something you’re not ’cause that’s how you fuck things up.

  LAYLA

  I turn my head to make sure Lebanon isn’t following me out of the house, making sure an outstretched hand isn’t trying to pull me back inside.

  “You bolted out of there pretty fast, young lady. Are you okay?” a voice comes from behind.

  Whipping around, two white men stand in front of me. One smiling and one not. “I’m fine.”

  “Oh okay, ’cause you looked scared is all I’m saying,” says the man with buzz-cut red hair.

  I’m terrified of what happened with Lebanon and what he probably did to Auntie Alice. I’m terrified by the fact I can’t find Ruby. But even though these men inquire about my welfare, they don’t make me feel any safer than if I remained in the house with Lebanon. Two white men in this neighborhood, who aren’t real estate agents or Jehovah’s Witnesses looking for their latest converts, must be cops. They’re detectives, the ones from the night of Auntie Alice’s murder. I remember the nonsmiling one. Graying hair, fat face and mean eyes.

  “Um, I’m going to go catch my train, you gentlemen have a good day.”

  “Listen, I’m not sure you remember us, but I recognize you from the night Mrs. King was murdered. I’m Detective Cantor and this is Detective Jurgensen. We just want to ask you some questions.”

  He still smiles when he says the word murdered. I take a step back. “Look, I have to go. My family is waiting for me. I just came by to pay my condolences again to the family.”

  Jurgensen steps forward, dwarfing his partner by his girth. If I ran right now, he’d have a heart attack before catching me, but if he grabbed me, he could do serious damage.

  It doesn’t matter I’m educated, that I volunteer at church. It doesn’t matter I have a family that loves me, or that I don’t have so much as a speeding ticket to my name, I’m black. That’s what matters. Cops cover for cops. Blue covers blue. Blue doesn’t cover black. And there’d be no one to speak for me. I have a bullet in my pocket right now and that’d probably be enough for them to take me into a police station where they could keep me for however long they want. My education doesn’t protect me. My father can’t protect me. In this moment, I question if even God can.

  I scan the street and find not a soul around. If the Rapture just happened, this was the most inconvenient moment.

  “You’re the pastor’s daughter, Layla, right?” asks Jurgensen.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, we just have a few more questions about that night.”

  “I’m not sure I can help you and like I said I have to go home.”

  Jurgensen steps closer to me and I step back again.

  “A woman was murdered, and you’re fine to let the guy roam these streets and call us when he inevitably kills again. I don’t understand you people.”

  My left fist balls up and I wonder how much bail money I’d need if I punch him square in his face. Instead of stepping back, I step forward and am face-to-face with my second bully in less than five minutes. “Really, you’re going to ‘you people’ me? It must be nice to look down your nose on a race of people you can shoot down in the street with no consequence.”

  “Hey, hey, let’s all calm down.” Cantor squeezes himself between me and Jurgensen. “We’re just trying to get some answers, and we’re sure your friend’s dad has something to hide. We need you to help us out.” He places his hand on my arm and I jerk back without thought.

  They do a better version of good cop–bad cop on Law & Order.

  “Do you want us to protect your friend? She might be living with a murderer—you know that don’t you? Do you want something bad to happen to her? We don’t. Me and my partner want to save her. Just tell us what’s going on. Nothing bad will happen to you or your friend,” Cantor promises.

  I have a hard time believing he wants to protect her, to actually protect Ruby. She’s a number, a case file and Lebanon would be another black man in jail. If it makes sense for them to somehow blame Ruby, say that she was involved, then they’d back that up, and Ruby would truly be lost.

  Bad things already happened to her and Auntie Alice. Where were they then? Where were my parents or the church? Where was I? What could I have done? What should I do now?

  Go!

  “Well, I’m so glad we have you here to protect us from bad things happening,” I say dryly.

  The smile melts from Cantor’s face. I turn from him and his partner and walk away. I half expect hands to pull me back and shove me in a car. I walk calmly toward the bus stop on 79th Street
that’ll take me to the Red Line Station a couple of miles away.

  On the train, I see very few bodies, except those of the homeless who make this their temporary apartment during much of the weekend. I dig in my pocket and touch the bullet. Sharp edges of paper poke my sensitive skin. I pull it out and unwrap the scrap paper I wrote on. The bus number. Ruby is going to Tennessee. Naomi, her grandmother, lived there before she died. Ruby was happy there.

  So is she going to Tennessee to escape Lebanon or to take her life? It would be just like Ruby to want some kind of closure with her mom and grandma before doing something she can never, ever take back.

  What do you think happens when you die?

  It’s too late for new beginnings.

  We’re all just a collection of scars.

  Ruby said all of this at the coffee shop. Ending it in the place she was happiest instead of the place she was miserable. Leaving Lebanon alone. That has its own vengeance. Would she really do that? Take her life? Is she that desperate? Or is she going to start over in a new place? Disappear into a city where Lebanon doesn’t have a strong foothold? Auntie Alice may have shielded her from most of Lebanon’s blows, but she also kept Ruby captive.

  If she’s on this bus, she’ll be in Tennessee soon enough and I have to be there. I don’t know what she’s planning. I just need Ruby to know she’s not alone, that someone cares for her, loves her. I care for her. I love her.

  Go!

  The only problem is I have no idea exactly where Ms. Naomi’s house is and of the people who can tell me: one is dead, one probably wants to kill me and the other is on a bus bound for the same state. I’m giving myself two minutes to panic, then I must figure out a solution. I’ll let my fear drown me only for a little bit.

  My body jars, jolts and stops, and I realize the train is already at 95th Street, the end of the line. I rise and step off and climb the stairs. Standing in the T-shaped corridor of the terminal, I know getting home requires one bus, the one to my left. I turn right. There’s only one person to whom I can turn, one person who can help that I can trust. One person. A soldier.

  Go!

  * * *

  The thirty minutes it took to get here seemed like thirty years. More than I hear it, I feel the vibration of the doorbell through my index finger as I ring the doorbell. Static-filled, barely audible words come through the cheap intercom and I assume make up the phrase “Come in.” As there is a hissing buzz that signals the unlocking of the main door, I walk past the threshold. Even with the rude electronic interference, hearing Timothy’s voice is soothing, and I feel better.

  Nestled on a tree-lined block, with an occasional empty lot giving the appearance of much larger plots of land, the other two apartment buildings, like Tim’s, rest near the end of Green Street right off the busy street of 117th. These blocks are known, for better or worse, as the “Wild Hundreds”—as much a call of pride as it is a warning. Rows of houses and apartments are clustered with small mom-and-pop barbershops, urban boutiques, fast food restaurants and liquor stores.

  As I walk into the carpeted vestibule, I hear his shoes galloping down the stairs. I can go to Tim for help, not just because he’s my boyfriend, not because I know he’ll agree to whatever I ask him. I go to him because he’s tactical, he can see a way out sometimes when I can’t. I know his courage. I know his loyalty. I know that deep wisdom, which I’m sometimes jealous of, but yearn for when I have no answers of my own. Most of all, I know he can keep a secret, and I don’t know if I can trust Christy to keep a secret like this.

  From the first-floor apartment, comforting smells of chicken and greens and God knows what other savory goodness waft throughout the narrow hallway.

  Normally smooth as chocolate brown marble, Tim’s brow is furrowed with concern and I let go of it all. I unburden. I tell him about the phone call, Ruby and our talk in the coffee shop, my argument with Lebanon, my run-in with the detectives.

  I don’t remember walking up the stairs. I’m just somehow magically transported to his place and there I sit in his favorite chair with a cup of strong coffee in my hands. The part about Lebanon got to Tim more than he’d care to show. He keeps clenching and unclenching his fists. The rigid stance of his figure above mine gives him an oddly menacing look. Perhaps he’s imaging his hands around Lebanon’s neck. And I can’t help but wonder if this is how he was on his tour of duty? Has he killed people? I wonder what kinds of violence he witnessed or participated in.

  Bending down to investigate any possible bruising, Tim gently turns my face left, then right. His fingers are soft, and with apprehension in his eyes, he says, “We gotta go and talk to your dad.”

  “No, the hell we don’t!”

  I stand up and gulp down the last bit of coffee like a shot of whiskey. I burn my tongue.

  He replies, “We need to find Ruby. We need to figure out what Lebanon is up to. If he killed Alice, he’s going to want to keep that secret. If he thinks Ruby is an obstacle to that, he’ll kill her, too.”

  I hesitate to show him the small piece of lead in my pocket, but I do and set the bullet down on his table. “He might also kill me.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I found it in Lebanon’s room. It was near his bed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell those detectives?”

  “Those men could twist anything. They’d probably try to say I murdered Auntie Alice. Besides, those cops just want to close a case. And the bullet now has my prints on it. I can’t believe I just picked it up. That was so stupid of me. They like Lebanon for Auntie Alice’s murder, but a bullet with my prints on it might make me a suspect. Everyone with our skin is a suspect to them. You know that.”

  “Like I said, we need to talk to your dad.”

  “Talking to my father is going to make it worse.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it always does, Tim. I came to you. I need your help to find Ruby and protect her. Not his.”

  Tim clenches and unclenches his fists again and takes a deep breath.

  The stress. Damn it. Asking him to help me and he’s still adjusting to civilian life and trying to find his own way and I have to drag him into this mess.

  “What’s your plan then, Layla?”

  “She’s going to Tennessee. I don’t know if it’s to start over or do something...more drastic. She might want to—”

  I can’t bring myself to finish my sentence. My tongue has a numbing, tingling sensation and my eyes are watering. I’m going to cry. I don’t want to in front of Timothy, but I’m going to break down and probably blubber like a baby. I just have no more strength or pride or ideas.

  I’m empty. I’m empty. I’m empty.

  Tim hugs me. I’m not a pretty crier. I want to fold into myself until I’m nothing, and, while Tim holds me, I wonder if this is how Ruby feels every day of her life.

  “We’ll figure all this out. We’re gonna find Ruby and it’ll be okay,” Tim tells me.

  “You can’t promise that.”

  “I know whatever it is we find, whatever happens, we’ll learn to live with it. And, by learning to live with things, even the bad things of this world, we’ll be okay. That’s what I can promise, Layla.”

  I look at Timothy and his calming smile and locate whatever goodness, whatever trust is still left in my spirit, and I make my way toward the door.

  Go!

  “Let’s talk to my dad.”

  CHAPTER 11

  LEBANON

  Dear Lebanon,

  I hope I’m long gone by the time you read this, because it’s a goodbye letter and you don’t deserve a goodbye, but Mom would want me to say something to you. So I have a request, and seeing as how I never asked you for anything, I figured you can give me this one thing: let me go. I just want to be left alone, with my thoughts of Mom and Grandma and be in a place where I am happy. I don�
��t want to see you or hear from you. You live your life. I’ll live mine. Goodbye.

  Ruby

  I read the letter again and search for clues because people always leave them, even when they don’t want to. I knew Layla was reaching for something but didn’t get a chance to grab it before I found her. That girl was speaking on things when she didn’t have any idea of what’s going on, of what I’ve done for her family. And for mine, too! If anyone is scared, it’s her daddy. Not me. Never me. I have courage.

  I might’ve even made a good cop when I was younger. I always wanted to help people, even though they didn’t help me. But then I went to jail. My body took more pain than I thought possible, and in those moments where darkness swallowed me and fists beat me, I thanked Sara.

  She bred me to this and for this. I survived prison because she gifted me pain while Jackson was gifted with love by his parents. Desolation ruled my life and hope ruled his. We grew, two sides to a coin always landing in Jackson’s favor.

  So, I make my luck and find my opportunities and search out my clues. And the girl is part of that. It’s nothing to do with love between us. There is none. It’s about legacy.

  A man’s legacy is a difficult thing to build, but very easy to destroy. When building a legacy, don’t start off big. Don’t think you’re going be president of the United States, a billionaire, a movie star. Start off small. If you want to create a legacy, just stay alive.

  Go from there.

  I learned this walking around yards built of concrete and circled by barbed wire, in cells so small your hands touch both sides without stretching them far.

  Now, the problem with having a legacy is you need someone to hand it down to, even if they hate you. Sara would sometimes give me something after she was really bad to me. She made me pineapple upside-down cake once. It was damn good. Maybe that’s why I’m good at baking. This other time, she bought me a fire truck with a working siren. Couldn’t play with it much on account my left arm was broke thanks to her. Soon enough, the noise got on her nerves and she eventually threw it out the window. It broke into pieces of sharp red-and-white plastic on the street. Another time, she took me out to a nice restaurant. It had linen tablecloths and a lotta white people. One of them was our server, and he didn’t seem too thrilled about tending to us, but brought our food just the same.