The Fortunate Ones

by Ed Tarkington

  “He’s an asshole, Arch,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Arch said. “But sometimes you need someone to shovel the shit so you can keep your own shirt clean.”

  Later that afternoon, between appointments, I dropped in on Vanessa at the house on the Boulevard. She knew what was on my mind.

  “Don’t say it,” she said.

  I couldn’t help myself. “‘Liberal Trojan horse’?”

  “He’s my husband,” she said. “Would you have said no if you were me? Would you have said no if he’d asked you?”

  “Here’s a better question,” I said. “Would you have asked him?”

  “We’ve put a lot into this,” she said. “And it’s not just for Arch. It’s for all of us. You too.”

  “I just didn’t think—I mean, is this the spirit of Nashville?”

  “Maybe it’s not the same Nashville you knew before you left,” she said.

  “Or maybe it is,” I said. “Maybe it always was.”

  “Thanks for the lecture. Don’t you have something to paint?”

  Rather than feeling affronted, I felt chastened. Who was I to question her? She was guilty of nothing but loyalty. I’d made more than my share of compromises for love, after all.

  Two weeks before the runoff, Arch called me into his office.

  “I want you to reach out to your buddy Terrence,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I have a proposition for him.”

  The way he said it sounded wrong to me. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “I need a little help in North Nashville,” he said.

  I reached for my cigarettes but remembered Arch didn’t allow smoking in the office.

  “I don’t know, Arch,” I said. “That would feel a little weird.”

  “I’m just asking you to make a phone call,” he said. “I’ll take it from there.”

  “All right,” I said.

  Terrence picked up on the third ring. “Charlie,” he said.

  “How’d you know it was me?” I asked.

  “Caller ID,” he said. “Got you in my contacts.”

  “I just got one of these things,” I said. “I’m still learning my way around it. So what are you up to?”

  “Gettin’ swole,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Working out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right. Look, is this a bad time?”

  “No, I’m good,” he said. “You got me between sets.”

  “Okay.”

  Arch signaled to me to get on with it.

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m calling you for a favor. You know who Arch Creigh is, right?”

  “Seen him on the TV. Spirit of Nashville.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, he’s an old friend of mine, remember?”

  “I remember,” he said. “What do you need?”

  “Arch wants to meet you.”

  I heard muffled voices in the background. It sounded like Terrence had placed his hand over the receiver.

  “Terrence?” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he replied. “He with you now?”

  “He is,” I said.

  “Let me talk to him.”

  I handed Arch the phone.

  “Terrence,” he said. “Arch Creigh.”

  Arch motioned for me to leave the room.

  I walked out of the office and sat down next to Nick Averett.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Averett shrugged.

  A few minutes later, Arch emerged, slipping his suit jacket over his shoulders. He handed me my BlackBerry.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” Averett asked.

  “Bordeaux.”

  We met Terrence at his gym, an old warehouse filled with aging workout equipment, in front of a lot with a miniature football field chalk-lined into the grass, where every weekday afternoon and for a few hours a day during summers and holidays Terrence ran skills drills and calisthenics and organized touch games for some three to four dozen boys from the neighborhood. At the end of each practice, they took a knee and listened to Terrence give motivational speeches on the importance of hard work, staying clean, paying attention in school, going to church, and giving their lives up to God, etc. He called the program Forward Progress.

  We found Terrence inside, finishing up a set of shoulder shrugs, two enormous men in workout clothes spotting, a fourth in a white shirt and tie leaning up against the wall behind him. Terrence had the bar so loaded with forty-five-pound plates on both sides that it bent and rocked with each repetition. His trapezius muscles had become enormous, sinewy ridges of flesh. I felt certain he’d timed the set for the moment we came through the door.

  “Damn, son,” Arch said, putting on the homespun-everyman act he pulled off so well at American Legion halls and church socials. “What’s that you got on there, five fifty?”

  “Six seventy-five,” said one of the two men beside Terrence, sliding the weights off the ends of the bar.

  Terrence rounded the rack and opened his arms to embrace me. “Good to see you, Charlie,” he said.

  “You too.”

  “Terrence,” Arch said, “thanks for letting us come over.”

  “Thank you for coming all the way out here,” Terrence said. “Haven’t seen much sign of you or your people in Bordeaux.”

  “I’ve been around a few times,” Arch said.

  “Guess I missed you,” Terrence said.

  Arch feigned interest in Forward Progress. Terrence humored him, walking us around the warehouse, pointing out its modest features, lamenting the lack of a suitable indoor facility, praising the kids he worked with and the good he felt the program was doing, both for them and himself.

  “When you’ve been down and you get back up,” he said, “you want to keep as many of those kids like you from following that dark path too, you feel me?”

  “I sure do,” Arch said. “You’re doing good work here, Terrence. This is exactly what this city needs more of. We could use something like Forward Progress in your old neighborhood too. And in Madison, and Edgehill, and Antioch.”

  “That’s where we’re heading,” Terrence said. “God willing.”

  “I’d like to help you along.”

  The door opened. A group of men in suits and ties entered. I recognized the one in front; it was Rev Joseph, the preacher from Louella’s funeral.

  Terrence smiled. “Right on time, Rev,” he said.

  “God willing,” Rev Joseph said.

  “Reverend,” Arch said. “Thank you for coming over.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Rev said. “So what can we do you for, Mr. Arch?”

  “Is there someplace we can talk alone?” Arch said.

  Terrence tilted his head toward an open door that led to a windowless box of a room.

  “Step into my office,” he said.

  Arch and Averett went in first, followed by Terrence and Rev Joseph. Once they were all in that small, cramped space, they shut the door behind them, leaving me and Rev Joseph’s entourage with Terrence’s enormous companions. One wore a red bandanna as a headband and a cutoff Tennessee Oilers sweatshirt. The other wore a T-shirt with a giant Warner Brothers wb emblem on the front, surrounded by the words if you see the police . . . warn a brother!” Both had on those hideous baggy patterned bodybuilding pants worn by the sort of people who sell steroids in the locker room at Gold’s Gym.

  “You guys work out a lot?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said the one in the bandanna.

  “Cool,” I said. “I think I’ll have a smoke. Should I step outside?”

  “The body is a temple, cuz,” said the Warn a Brother guy.

  “Right,” I said.

  By the time I went back in, the four who’d been meeting privately were coming out of the office. Arch and Terrence grinned and laughed as if it were Arch and not I whom Terrence had known almost all of his life. Rev Joseph was laughing as well. Nick Averett
had the look of a man who had picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport by accident and arrived home to open it up and find it full of stacks of cash.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Mayor,” Terrence said.

  “Let’s win first,” Arch said. “But thank you, Terrence. We’ll see you Sunday.”

  Arch and Averett started toward the car. Rev Joseph and Arch’s workout companions headed back inside. For a moment, Terrence and I were alone.

  “What the hell happened in there?” I asked.

  “Politics,” Terrence said.

  He laughed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You be careful, you hear me?”

  “Careful of what?”

  “Nothing,” he repeated.

  The same sadness I’d felt at Louella’s funeral crept up again.

  “I gotta go,” I said.

  Terrence nodded.

  “I’ll pray for you,” he said.

  The next Sunday, at last, I made good on my promise to return to the Lighthouse Church. I came in behind Arch, alongside Averett and Walsh and Lonnie, Arch’s assistant. We were led up to a reserved pew right in front of the pulpit. The church was packed; people stood in the rear and along the side aisles. My shirt was already stained with sweat before Rev Joseph and Terrence entered from behind the altar.

  The service began with a series of hymns and a raucous performance by the choir, backed both by the organ and a full band, with drums, bass, electric guitar, and a horn section. The dislocation I’d felt years before at Louella’s funeral came flooding back to me.

  Terrence spoke first. His skills had matured over the years. In terms of charisma, he was every bit Arch’s equal. The words seemed almost irrelevant. I was keenly aware even then of the irony: how, if you stripped away race and economics, style and culture, Arch and Terrence could easily have traded places.

  “Jesus tells us,” Terrence said, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. We know what matters in the kingdom of heaven, don’t we?”

  Amens cascaded from all around.

  “But sometimes, we got to do God’s work in the voting booth, you feel me?”

  There were nods and murmurs of assent. Everyone there knew where Terrence was going.

  “We got a choice to make, and we got to pray about it,” he said. “We got two folks who can lead us. I’ve only seen one of them up in Bordeaux. He’s right here today. Him and me, we go way back. I know his heart. Y’all listen to what he has to say, hear me?”

  The crowd grew still and quiet. Arch stood, and Terrence embraced him as if they were the best of friends. Arch took the microphone.

  “Thank you, Terrence,” he said, “for allowing me to be here today and share a few words with you all about my vision for the future of our city.”

  He paid appropriate homage to the history of the civil rights movement in Nashville, from the early years of Fisk, the legacy of W. E. B. DuBois and James Weldon Johnson and Aaron Douglas. If anyone took offense or even felt cynical about the blatant pandering, they didn’t let on. It was a dance with which all present were familiar.

  “But let me get to what really matters to all of us here,” Arch said. “There’s been so much talk in recent years about how Nashville is booming, and how that’s good for us all. I want you to ask yourself: Has it been good for you? There has been so much growth. How have you felt that growth? Are your kids’ schools better than they were five years ago? Are your opportunities increasing as quickly as your taxes? Do you recognize your neighborhoods? Do you feel like we’re moving in the right direction?”

  The crowd was restless. No one seemed to disagree. There was the usual talking-point bullshit. Then Arch did something Terrence and Rev Joseph were expecting, but which came to me as a complete surprise.

  “I don’t think many of you know this,” he said, “but I’ve been to the Lighthouse before, many years ago. The occasion was the funeral of Mrs. Louella Robie, Terrence’s grandmother, one of the most loyal and faithful members of this congregation, for many years.”

  I felt the pulse of the room quicken. I watched the faces of the parishioners, so as to avoid making eye contact with Arch. I could not help but look at Terrence, who met my gaze but did not break character. Perhaps he thought I knew this was coming.

  “I think of Miss Louella often,” Arch said. “She worked hard all her life, took care of the people she loved, raised her kids alongside her husband, Carl, and then raised Terrence on her own after Carl passed. And she might as well have been a mother to the children of the families she served, and they loved her.”

  Everything he said was true. Arch had been to the Lighthouse on the occasion of Lou’s funeral—to pick me up in the parking lot. He had, in fact, met Terrence then, and so neither of them could be accused of outright falsehood. Arch never knew Louella, but his description of her life was accurate, down to the name of her deceased husband and the basic narrative of Terrence’s childhood and the families for whom Lou had worked as a maid. If anyone remembered that funeral, they might recall seeing a white boy there who was a friend of Terrence’s, but would anyone remember that the white boy they saw was me and not Arch?

  If they did, they weren’t going to say anything about it.

  I tried not to glare as Arch finished up his little charade with a pitch about preserving neighborhoods and holding down the cost of housing and the usual talking points about the spirit of Nashville. When he was finished, he handed the microphone to Rev Joseph and sat back down. I leaned up from my seat behind him and whispered in his ear.

  “You might have told me you were going to do that,” I said.

  Arch glanced over his shoulder, bemused.

  “Do what?” he said.

  Rev Joseph finished off the act by offering a prayer for Arch’s candidacy and informing the congregation that the church bus would be making the rounds on Election Day to make sure anyone who wished to cast a vote would be able to get to the polls.

  Arch spent the better part of an hour on the sidewalk outside the church, flanked by Terrence and Rev Joseph. Two local television news crews were on hand. Arch, Terrence, and the reverend gave interviews both together and individually. I stood off to the side with Nick Averett.

  “Your idea, I presume?” I said.

  “That’s why I get paid the big bucks, Charlie-boy,” he said.

  I could only shake my head.

  “If you don’t like the way the sausage gets made,” he said, “stay out of the fucking kitchen.”

  Arch hosted a viewing party for the five o’clock news in his campaign office. The act looked even better on television than in person. Terrence played his part perfectly. Arch came off looking like a white savior, sent down from heaven to save black Nashville.

  “Fucking brilliant,” Averett crowed. “Just perfect.”

  Arch opened a bottle of good bourbon, splashed a healthy shot into a half dozen Styrofoam coffee cups, and passed them out. We emptied the cups, and Arch poured another round. I tried to act happier than I felt. The only answer at the moment seemed to be another shot of bourbon—and another, and another. I wanted to drink the whole bottle, and might well have done so if not for the news that came when there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, I found Lonnie standing there, her face ashen.

  “What’s wrong, Lonnie?” Arch asked.

  “Your wife,” she said.

  twelve

  Arch reached the hospital in time to see the baby born. They had planned to name her Hope, after Arch’s grandmother. Vanessa held her and kissed her tiny head and touched her little fingers and toes before the life went out of her. Afterward, they took Vanessa into surgery.

  I sat with Arch outside the room where his child had been born and died. There were loud voices on the other side of the door at the end of the hall—Jamie, trying to talk his way in. Arch lifted his head and rubbed his eyes.

  “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
/>   Through the windows in the door, I could see Jamie upbraiding a stone-faced nurse. I pushed through and grasped him by the shoulders and led him away.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Come here, brother,” he said.

  He pulled me into a tight embrace, burying his face in my shoulder and weeping.

  “Have you seen her yet?” he asked.

  “She’s in surgery.”

  “Holy shit,” he said. “What for?”

  “I don’t really know. Something’s wrong. She was bleeding a lot.”

  “Is she gonna die?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They won’t say much. I don’t think they know what’s going on.”

  “Oh Christ,” Jamie moaned.

  “Calm down,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’s under control.”

  “But the baby,” Jamie said.

  I couldn’t summon a response.

  “Come here, man,” he said, and again I was in his arms, and I felt grateful for Jamie, who, for all of his flaws, had no facades.

  “How’s Arch?” he asked.

  “Not great. And your dad’s a mess.”

  “Dad’s here?”

  “Do you want to talk to him?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  “All right,” I said. “Why don’t we go downstairs and get a cup of coffee? God knows, I could use one.”

  This was how Arch had first made use of me all those years ago, after all: serving as a distraction for Jamie.

  We sat at a small table near a window facing out onto a parking lot a few floors below. I watched the small bodies passing in and out of the light from the lampposts as people came and went, some coming to work, going home, some carrying flowers or balloons. Beyond the reflection: darkness. Inside it: tepid coffee, dirty windows, the loneliness of scattered cars, the shadows of distant trees.

  We went back upstairs. Vanessa was still in surgery. Jim stood by the window, perhaps looking out at the same view I’d had in the cafeteria—the same darkness from a different angle. Jamie went to Arch and wrapped his arms around him. Jim left his post, gently pried Jamie away, and led him down the hallway. Arch leaned against the wall, his eyes fixed on the floor, hands stuffed into his pockets.

  “What happened?” I said.