I didn’t look at her during that dinner. Mostly paid attention to my steak. I didn’t know the next time I was getting a meal like that—hell, I didn’t know the next time I was putting food in my belly. She felt bad after she did things. I knew that, but gifts didn’t take away from what she did and it didn’t never stop her from losing her temper and hurting me again. But it was all she knew. It’s what I know now. I guess she and I got the same type of anger.
You sacrifice a part of yourself when you hurt someone and maybe you barter your way back if you show someone you didn’t want to do what you did. You can’t take back that hit or slap, punch or kick. The bruise or blackened eye or broken bone still taunts you, still lingers for a time.
A gift if you mean it, really mean it, can heal that wound, take over that memory, make you feel generous if only for a moment. Just one moment.
A toy. A steak dinner. A pearl necklace. A bakery.
One time I had this dream and Alice said I was crying, crying for her, for Sara. Couldn’t have been true. Alice probably just said it to give my dream some meaning. She always wanted everything to have a purpose to it. A logic behind why something happens. I think it gave her peace or at least a reason to not try and end it all in the bathroom like that selfish little girl did years ago.
Took me forever to clean that blood off the bathroom floor. Blood’s fickle. Sometimes it stains, wants you to know it was there. Other times that shit will wipe away as if the world’s willing to forget you in the blink of an eye.
If I can get the girl to see the potential, what I’m trying to build, she can see what her Mom never got a chance to witness. A success. Me as a success. This family not biting or scratching or clawing to survive. Jackson and his meddling daughter have never known hunger or despair. Not like I have. I just need them to stay out of my way. I just need to find the clues and she left them. Yes, she did. She almost spelled it out by bringing up her Grandma. Tennessee. The girl is going to Tennessee. But first things first, I’m going to talk to Jackson about his daughter. Then, I’m going to bring my girl back. And if she doesn’t want to come, well, I’ll make her see where she belongs.
RUBY
When I was nine years old, Mom and Lebanon bought me a pink-and-white bike. It also had pink-and-white streamers and a pink basket in the front. I wanted this bike for months, so my parents scrimped and saved. And, the morning of my birthday, at the edge of my bed stood my new bike. Oh, I was so happy. I rode it all day. When I thought my parents were asleep, I rode it in the alley behind my house that night. But, when I tried to do this really cool trick, I fell off and broke my left arm. Lebanon found me and my parents took me to the hospital. When Lebanon went back to the alley to retrieve the bike later that evening, it was gone, stolen. I wore a cast for six weeks.
I’ve told this story dozens of times to Grandma Naomi, teachers, adults at church, my mom’s friends. The story of my youthful exuberance, eventual disobedience and my punishment: the fall, my arm, the stolen bike.
That was about the time when I started losing faith in God. People, losing faith in them, happened before that. I knew way before most kids there was no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. I wasn’t a jerk. I didn’t ruin the make-believe for the other kids. I just thought they were stupid to believe in those things. I had bigger issues living in the house with the apple blossom tree in the front yard.
He would come in drunk, after working at the bakery or after Bible study where he pretended being some pious believer. You gotta admire the dysfunctional hypocrisy in that kind of act. Mom would always try to calm him down by being as perfect as possible: a neat house, his favorite foods cooked to his liking. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. So they would go down to the basement and that’s when I’d hear the thumps, the breaking of glass or, if he was in a particularly foul mood, a piece of furniture. Mom learned to cry softly, to not wail or scream. She didn’t want the police at the house. How would that look to others? Someone at the church could find out. What would people think about her, that she wasn’t a good enough wife for her husband not to beat her?
I learned the consequences of calling for help that day with my bike. If you ask for help, you’ll be hurt by the person who’s supposed to protect you. If you call for help, your Mom can’t help you because two of her ribs are cracked and no matter how much she begs and pleads, she can’t do anything. But you need a way to explain away the broken bone, the scrapes and bruises, so we blamed it on my bike, which never existed. Because the truth was far uglier.
Lebanon was beating Mom. I tried to stop him, and he threw me against a wall, breaking my arm. But we couldn’t tell that story. So, in an emergency room sitting next to Mom, she made up one to tell the doctor and we told that story to Grandma Naomi and people at church. If you repeat something untrue over and over, you can start to believe it.
That’s where Mom found her comfort. That’s where Lebanon discovered his power.
If Mom couldn’t tell the truth, if not acknowledging it made her feel better, how could she stand up to the man who hurt her child? If she couldn’t see a way out, how could I raise my voice? I did what I was taught. I lied about my pain. To cover Lebanon’s abuse. To maintain my family’s image. And I sat with a broken arm in a noisy hospital, collateral damage of shame and shadow.
Save yourself, baby.
I make it a point never to come to this neighborhood. If you’re not known by others, you’re not safe, but someone here has what I need. Night rushes to consume the pale blue-gray light of the fading afternoon. The two or three boarded-up homes on this block aren’t abandoned. They look that way for the sole purpose of avoiding attention. I walk around the back. The overgrown shrubs and weeds would make Mom itch. The white back door bares black scuff marks, different sizes and shapes. The dents mark the edges. I knock twice, wait five seconds and knock three more times.
“You crazy you know that, doing all that coded knockin’ shit. I got a peephole. I can see it’s you.”
“I try to be careful, LeTrell.”
His chestnut-tinged skin looks even darker in the stingy evening light. His head barely clears the top of the door frame. “What happened this morning? I waited outside of church like you asked.”
I rub my left wrist. “Sorry about that. Change of plans. I got caught up. Family situation, you know.”
“Yeah, heard about your mom. Grandma Anne told me when I came by to see her yesterday. Sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks.”
LeTrell moves into the living room, the glow from the streetlamps and a television guide his way. The wideness of his shoulders and his height smother the remaining light in the hall. He cranes his neck back at me and says, “It’s cool though. I caught up with a few people from the block. You know I saw your friend today, Layla, and your dad. Offered me a job in his bakery. Seems like a cool dude.”
I let my silence speak for itself.
“Oh so you ain’t close with your pops? It’s cool. I ain’t close with mine either. Don’t even know if he’s dead or alive or what.”
“Better off not knowing,” I respond.
“Guess so.” He flops down on his couch and lights a cigarette, taking a long slow drag. He places a dog-eared copy of Moby Dick on the table in front of him, a tattoo on his left hand spelling his grandmother’s name, Anne, is etched in evergreen-colored ink.
“You have it?”
“Yeah.” LeTrell exhales the smoke billowing out of his broad nostrils like some lazy dragon. He bends down. His fingers pry open a small slat of wood in the floor. Before he hands me the purse, black leather with a gold buckle on the front, he asks, “You sure you want this?”
I snatch the purse from his hand, stuff two hundred dollars in its place and leave the house. I quickly walk north two blocks then one block east. The corner is deserted except for me and an old man waiting for the last bus headed east to
the Lakefront. The purse is pretty. I could take this on a date or to church if I ever bothered to go anymore. My fingers trace the slightly raised pattern of the purse and when I open it, I’m hopeful again.
I know what needs to be done.
JACKSON
Joanna hasn’t said more than a few words to me since we drove down Garfield Boulevard, barely acknowledged my existence since we left Roscoe Alman’s church an hour ago. Layla’s car is in front of the house, but she’s not here. I can’t find my pipe wrench. I know where the gun is though. The pipe under the kitchen faucet is leaking. Joanna asked me to fix it three weeks ago. Now is as good a time as any. A good time to get my mind off other pressing matters like murder and the disintegration of my family and jail time.
I really need to clean the basement, too. You can’t find anything down here; I can’t find my damn pipe wrench anywhere. It’s not in my tool box. I think I might have placed it upstairs, so I go back into the kitchen, and then the living room and Mom patiently waits.
Footsteps and a voice behind me. I hear Joanna say, “Violet, thank you so much for being here. I know it wasn’t the kind of trip you had in mind, but at least you’re here for another few days. We can do something nice. I can make you breakfast tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“Fine, baby, fine. Right now, I’m gonna sit here and talk to my son for a bit.”
Joanna hugs my mother. She turns to me. “I’m tired.” She leaves the living room.
That’s about four words now. Maybe five.
Mom turns to me. “Sit down, Jackson.”
The damn wrench has got to be up here, because I was supposed to fix something else, but Sister Austen called about her husband in the hospital, so I had to go to them and I didn’t get a chance to finish whatever it was I was doing.
I need to paint soon, too. I don’t like this brown color on the walls. Where is the damn wrench?
“Jackson! Sit down! You’re restless.”
“No, I’m not.”
My mom’s face is calm and not tense with argument because, as always, she knows she’s right. She needs no one else’s affirmation of what she knows to be true.
“Whenever you’re doing everything else but what you’re supposed to be doing, you have no peace.”
I just need to find my wrench. I need to fix that faucet. Joanna just needs me to do one thing. I just need to do this one thing.
Her hands, warm and firm, grip my wrist and barely encircle it. I see the difference in our tones, hers the color of ocean-kissed sand, and mine, darker like my father’s. She always said one of the things she liked most about Daddy was his color. She complained she was too light and though it was more popular and attractive, she believed the opposite—that her skin color dictated how black she really was.
I want to tell Mom everything, share with her who I thought I was and who I should be, but am not. I can’t speak and tears sting the backs of my pupils, their wet weight pressing forward and I try to take a deep breath. I try to think about something happy and there is only hot, blank white space where something happy should be.
“I’m fine.”
Chuckling, she replies, “You’re no more fine than I am white and rich and hell, that’s always been the best thing to be.”
My mom can see. She can see I’m hiding. She can’t see what it is, but she can see the pressure of it is breaking me. God, help me. I need to close these doors. I need to be free of secrets. I need to be free of guilt. I need to be free of Lebanon King, our hatred and my regret.
“Look, you’re not gonna get anything done like this. Take me to see Sara. I wanna sit with her for a bit.”
“I don’t know about the visiting hours.”
“Boy, I know you don’t like Sara, but we both know the visiting hours at that place. So just take me ’cause I’m not asking you again.”
I put on my coat and help Mom into hers. In the car, as I turn the ignition, I remember what is still in the trunk. I don’t turn to look Mom in her eyes. “I forgot my wallet,” I lie.
I pop the trunk and exit the car. Her stare burns a hole in my back. “I’ll be right back.”
Jogging to the trunk, I open it and dig behind the boring contents. My fingers find the paper bag tucked in the crevice behind the spare wheel hidden by the twenty-four pack of bottled water Joanna’s asked me three times now to bring into the house.
Mom rolls down the window and yells, “You forgot your wallet in the trunk, son?”
“I’ll be right back,” I repeat.
Grimly clutching the bag to my side, I walk to the garage. I worry about fingerprints, mine and Lebanon’s. Did he find out Alice wanted to leave him? That she was willing to put him in jail and possibly go to prison herself to be rid of him? Her eyes were wide when she begged me to help her, when she confessed her sins. And I did what I always did. I protected him to protect me, saved myself instead of someone else.
Scanning the shelves above my worktable, a large cookie jar sporting the title #1 Dad (And Cookie Eater) is the best temporary spot to hide this sin. I’m again covering for Lebanon like he did for me all those years go. Will this finally repay my debt to him? I send up a silent prayer that Joanna or J.P. or Layla don’t find this weapon.
Damn. There’s the wrench! Sitting plain as day on the work table. I grab it and move toward the car.
Before I take a few steps, I see Lebanon standing on my walkway in front me and he says, “We need to talk about Layla.”
CHAPTER 12
CALVARY
September 27, 1963
Sara sits in the same pew she did a few years ago, when she begged God to not carry the life now sitting beside her. Her prayers weren’t answered then and she doubts they’ll be answered now. The little boy with her squirms. He doesn’t want to be held, and she doesn’t want to hold him, but he makes too much noise when he roams free. Making noise that strips away the last of her patience. All the little boy is good for is getting on her few good nerves and noise. Then he looks at her and smiles, and for the briefest moment, she smiles back. Then she remembers how he came to be and she stops smiling. Happiness isn’t normal for her. Pain is normal, heartache is normal. A black hole of regret and loss is normal.
Not happy.
Sara found it once, found happy, in the last place she thought it’d be—Tennessee. Sara hated Memphis at first and then she met Jonas and he was good and kind, but good and kind people always die before their time.
It was true for her Mom. It was true for Jonas.
She ached for him. Jonas made her see love was possible, to be free was a choice and to love her son was so much easier than she believed. Sara found the things she suffered in Chicago floated away. She cooked at Ms. Lennie Mae’s boardinghouse, and people loved her pineapple upside-down cake! She found her laugh was high-pitched and she would snort if Jonas did a silly little dance. Her boy would mimic Jonas and try to dance too, and she’d double over in laughter, so happy. Jonas said her laugh was contagious.
And in the deep black of the Tennessee night where the moon hung in the sky big and wide with alabaster glow, and the stars shimmered, she and Jonas would sit on the porch. He’d speak on all the injustices he saw blacks suffer not just in the South, but all over, and how he would help with the latest voting drive, how education would be the key equal to treatment in the world. Sara would listen, but she knew suffering, and being on a quiet porch with someone she loved was the furthest thing from suffering she knew.
But happy doesn’t last, and good and kind people die before their time. First her mother. Then Jonas.
Not Sara.
She wasn’t good or kind. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a bottle of cheap whiskey and takes two strong sips, and she holds the boy tight, but he’s stopped squirming. He’s asleep.
Sara knows she isn’t worth loving. People who love her die. She wo
n’t let that happen to the boy. She’ll make sure he doesn’t love her. Her love is poison. She’ll make him hate her. That’s the only way she knows how to love him, to prepare him for the life he’ll lead which will be hard and bad and if they’re both lucky, brief.
LEBANON
Jackson rummages in his garage looking lost on his own property. Turning off the light, he moves toward the driveway with a wrench in his hand and freezes soon as he sees me.
“We need to talk about Layla.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Layla was at my house.”
Jackson’s face is blank. The grip on the pipe wrench tightens. “Where is my daughter?”
“Why was she at my house?”
He searches my face for clues, my clothes, my nice suit for blood.
“Where is she?”
“I can’t be responsible for every little thing. If something happened to Layla, I’m not—”
His hand firms around the wrench and he swings it at my head. I duck low and swing my fist and miss him.
We’re both too old for this shit, but it doesn’t stop us from trying to fight like we’re twenty years younger than our bodies perform. He manages to grab the right lapel of my suit, raising the wrench.
“Where the hell is Layla? If you hurt her I’ll kill—”
“Calm the hell down! I didn’t do anything to her. She was fine when she left my house. Kinda fine,” I manage to choke out.
Saving Ruby King Page 18