“Why me Jeff?” she asked. “Of all the people capable of doing this, why did you and Arnold choose me?”
“This doesn't have anything to do with Arnold.”
“Then why? Did you think I'd fall right back into your arms?”
“Because we're getting weaker every day. We've been doing this for years, and you know how much progress we've made?”
“Let me guess. None.”
“That's right. The average black family isn't any better off now than it was 20 years ago. There's no hope. That revolutionary spirit we had is gone. Nobody had it stronger than you and I did. This thing is dying, but we've still got a chance to breathe some new life into it.”
“It's dying because it's useless. It's dying because it doesn't alleviate misery, it creates it. It's dying because killing people doesn't solve problems. How can you not see that? On the way over here I figured it out. You think I'm a sellout because I love a white man. Isn't that right?”
“That's part of it. The thought of my baby and my baby's mother living with a white man is unacceptable. I'd rather they both were dead.”
“That's so sick. So if I was with a real jive-turkey, soul-brother, ghetto motherfucker that'd be cool? A drunk, a womanizer, and a junkie who slapped me and my beautiful daughter around, then you'd leave me alone. Is that it?”
He shrugged.
“You and Arnold are dinosaurs who refuse to believe that all the other dinosaurs have gone extinct. You’ve been hiding in a cave for years, and you're so blind you can't see that you're the only two left. It's pathetic. This thing is dead Jeff. Wake up and smell the fucking Folgers.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“So what do you want? This has nothing to do with my irreplaceable skills, because I don't have any. You could teach a chimp to make these things. Do you want me to blow myself up making one last bomb? Is that it? That’d be great for the cause wouldn't it? You could make me into some kind of martyr. Tell everybody that I never gave up the fight. That I believed until the bitter end. And you could rescue poor Soul from the horror of living with a kind and decent white man too. Is that it?”
“Something like that,” he said.
“You're just a lost soul fighting for a lost cause, and now you want to go out with a bang. You want that pretty girl passed out upstairs to remember you for the rest of her life. Jefferson Washington, the black Che Guevara. What a sad legacy.”
40
FOR TWO, MAYBE THREE days I stewed. I didn’t answer the phone, spent as little time in the apartment as possible, and I’d even seriously considered making an attempt to patch things up with Jasmine. I figured a sincere apology and a nice dinner was all it’d take before I had her ankles behind her ears on my bedroom floor.
Then one afternoon I got the tentative knock I'd been expecting.
“Where the hell have you been? And why haven’t you answered my calls?”
“Ballsy.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Asking where I’ve been is ballsy.”
“Why’s that.”
“You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me where you’ve been.”
“Have you been fucking following me?”
“Gee, how’d you guess?”
“How dare you.”
“You should go.”
“No fuck that. Don’t do that. Don’t push me away.”
“I saw you meeting a handsome young black guy, who I’m pretty sure is Jefferson, and after I left I called your grandmother. Know what she said? That you told her you’d be with me. Funny thing, I don’t remember your company.”
“Maybe you should learn to control your emotions.”
“Maybe you should tell the fucking truth for a change.”
La Lena pushed me aside like she owned the place and made her way to the sofa. Normally she'd have had her boots off and her feet on the coffee table, but now she sat primly with her purse on her lap.
“Something happened the other day, but before I tell you, I need you to promise you'll listen to the whole story.”
“Listen? All I really want to know is if you’re fucking him.” I figured the likelihood of getting a straight answer was nil, but I was pretty sure I’d be able to tell from her face.
“I’m not fucking anybody.”
“You’re fucking me,” I said.
“That’s right. I’m fucking you, because I happen to love you. Now do you want to hear what I have to say or are we through?”
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“A few nights ago I was walking home from work and Jefferson appeared out of nowhere. I haven't seen him since Soul was born. I asked him what he wanted. He told me he wanted to see Soul, but I told him to fuck off. It wasn't the pleasant reunion he was expecting, but before he slunk away with his tail between his legs he told me Arnold wanted to see me.”
“That motherfucker,” I said. “He promised he'd leave you alone. It couldn't have been any clearer if I'd tattooed it on his forehead.”
“So the next day Arnold showed up at the dry cleaners and said we needed to meet. So I went. I told him exactly what you just said. He said you weren't in a bargaining position, and that it didn’t matter anyway because I wasn't going to tell you that we’d talked. He said I'd be working with Jefferson again, and that we'd be making bombs just like before. I tore into him. I told him what a demented old dinosaur he was. How the organization was DOA, and he was just a sad old man, but it didn't faze him.”
“Why you? Aren’t there other people who can make bombs?”
“Plenty,” she said, “but that’s why I met Jefferson. I told my grandmother I'd be with you because I thought if you called and she told you that, then you'd know something had come up. I never thought you'd think I was seeing someone else.”
“So you made bombs, is that all?”
“I didn’t make bombs or anything else, and if you’d have kept up your surveillance you’d have seen that I was out the door 20 minutes later. But do you want to hear what I figured out?”
“Ya, I wanna hear.”
“First of all, please lose the attitude Dutch. You want me to go I’ll go. No problem.”
Somehow she’d convinced me that she was telling the truth. It’d happened without me noticing it, but now I was pretty damn sure she was on the up and up.
“I’m sorry. Let’s hear it. Please.”
“First off he can’t bear seeing his daughter, his own flesh and blood with a white man.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“Wait, it gets better,” she continued. “I think he and Arnold have some bizarre notion that what the organization needs is a martyr, and I think they’re planning on killing me and making it look like I died for the cause while doing my duty.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Remember, I know him,” she said. “He's an egomaniac. He can't stand being a nobody. He and I were the movement’s power couple back in the day, but now he’s nothing. If I become a martyr he could use it to make his triumphant return, and in his fucked up mind bring the organization back to its former glory.”
“So you've betrayed them by being involved with a white man, and now they want you dead.”
“Yes, that's it.”
“If you die what happens to Soul? Who gets custody? This Jefferson asshole or your grandmother?”
“Jefferson, because he’s listed as her father on the birth certificate.”
“I need a meeting with Arnold, and you need to set it up.”
“I'll get a hold of him tomorrow.”
“Tell him it's important.”
“OK.”
Then without fair warning La Lena peeled off her shirt exposing her perfect, braless breasts.
“We need to fuck. Now,” she said.
Ya, we do,” I said, working on the buttons on her jeans. “But there’s something I need to tell you first.”
“What is it?”<
br />
“We're going to kill the mayor.”
41
LA LENA SAW HIM THROUGH the window as she turned the corner. His empty eyes fixed on a nonexistent point. The thousand-yard-stare. She'd heard it was common among vets. Arnold had told her all about his war days on more than one occasion. She couldn't remember whether it was Korea or Vietnam, but it didn't matter. She felt sorry for him, nothing more. Sorry in a way that only the young can feel for the old. She wondered what was keeping him alive. His booth at the diner? His coffee and cigarettes? His desperate clinging to a dead dream? When she slid in across from him he looked up lethargically.
“If anyone ever wants to kill you, they'd know exactly where to find you.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just an observation.”
“Not a very good one,” he said, taking a long, slow pull on his unfiltered cigarette. The tobacco sizzled.
“Dutch needs to see you soon. When can you meet?”
“You told him about our meeting didn’t ya?” He was trying to sound sinister. He just sounded tired.
“I didn't tell him anything. I’m not about to put my baby in danger.”
“You might’ve been right the other day,” he said. “Maybe I am too old for this shit. Part of me wouldn't even care if you did tell him. Hell, I might even be happy for you.”
When their eyes met she wondered if he really was too tired to keep up the charade. Maybe he'd had all he could take. Maybe he'd finally figured out it'd all been for naught. Maybe he would be happy to see the three of them together and free.
Nope. The sly old fox didn't get to be his age by being soft and sentimental. He was playing the only cards he had left. Age. Infirmity. Grandfatherly charm. Pity.
“Has it ever occurred to you that I'm using him? Don't you think it's strange that I've fallen in love with a white man? A white man who's in a position to give me and my daughter the one thing we want more than anything? I'm surprised at you.”
42
I'D JUST FINISHED READING an article in The Sun about Chessie, the mysterious, serpentine creature that supposedly lived in the depths of the Chesapeake Bay. It must've spent some of its time near the surface too, because there were a few lousy photos and some interesting testimony from Maryland and Virginia watermen who'd claimed to have seen it. They said it was between 25 and 40 feet long, eight to ten inches in diameter, and had a head like a deflated football. Sounded like an emaciated anaconda that'd taken a wrong turn out of the Amazon River and just kept going.
When the phone rang I figured I'd use my newly acquired expertise in Maryland folklore and cryptozoology to get a laugh out of La Lena, who I was pretty sure was on the other end.
“Baltimore Chessie Hotline, officer Dutch speaking.”
“Dutch, Soul didn't come home after school!” I'd picked a bad day to be class clown.
“Just relax. What time does she usually get home?”
“Four, maybe four-fifteen.”
“Does she walk or ride the bus?”
“She takes the bus. The bus stop is at the corner. Lots of kids live in these apartments.”
“I'm coming over. Meet me downstairs. Is your grandmother there?”
“She's here.”
“Tell her to stay there. Tell her to call the school and the police, but not to leave your apartment.”
La Lena was waiting by the curb smoking a cigarette, and her eyes were horrifically swollen. It was 20 after five and already dark. I needed to take control.
“First things first. Have you checked her friend's apartments? Maybe she went to play and lost track of time.”
She'd done that.
“Did you check the playground? Did you check under her bed for Christ’s sake?”
“Yes, dammit. I did. I did,” she said. “I don't know where else she could be.”
“If you told your grandmother to call the school, friends, and the police, then all we can do is look for her.”
I was maintaining a façade of confidence, but my insides were in knots.
We drove around the apartment building in ever widening loops before I spotted a city police cruiser. I pulled to the opposite curb and walked over. Inside there were two officers, but the window was rolled up and they didn’t acknowledge my existence. In fact they kept right on talking though I was sure they saw me. Probably on their two hour, union-mandated evening coffee break I guessed. I imagined one of them saying: Oh, your child is missing? Sorry pal, we're on break. Come back in 20 minutes.
My blood was boiling when I rapped on the window with as much restraint as I could muster. The fat one in the driver’s seat rolled the window down slowly, still chuckling from something his partner had said. I was nanoseconds away from smacking the grin off his jowly face and spending the next few years in Jessup.
“What's up buddy?”
“We've got a little girl who didn't come home after school. She's eight-years-old. She should've been home hours ago. Her mother’s hysterical.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Shit, I don't know. Hold on, I'll go find out.” When I turned toward the Jeep La Lena was gone, then in an instant the one-two-punches of piercing sirens and flashing lights startled me back to reality. The cruiser lurched violently and did a reckless U-turn in the middle of the street.
Fat cop had the courtesy to tell me there was an armed robbery in progress before speeding away.
I wondered if he'd made the whole thing up.
I yelled La Lena’s name over and over before walking back to the Jeep to regroup.
I checked the rearview mirror and was about to drive away to look for her when I saw them walking toward me hand in hand. The hood of Soul’s puffy red coat covered her head, and a bright yellow lunch box hung from her right hand. La Lena’s strides were sharp and mechanical, and Soul was being pulled along in short, powerful jerks. They marched right past me as if I didn't exist, then La Lena yanked the back door open and pushed Soul in so roughly I thought she might break an arm.
“Stay there! And don't move goddammit. Don't you ever move again! Do you hear me?” She slammed the door so hard I was sure it’d never open again. Then she walked to me and collapsed into my arms, and if I hadn’t grabbed her tight she’d have fallen to the ground.
“I thought she was gone. I thought I'd never see her again.”
“I know. It's OK now,” I said. I let her stay like that until I sensed her calming, then sat her on the curb and told her to get a hold of herself.
When I went to check on Soul she was sobbing with her cute little lunch box on her lap.
“Hi Soul,” I said calmly. “Everything is OK. Please stop crying for me OK? Your momma was scared that something bad happened to you, but she's better now. We're going to go home now, so please stop crying.” I reached my arm across, pulled her toward me and wiped away her tears with the sleeve of my jacket.
“Your mother and I love you more than anything,” I said.
La Lena was still on the curb, but it looked like she’d regained her composure.
“It's time to go,” I said. “Tell your daughter that you love her and that you’re sorry.”
Back at their building I walked them up the stairs and to their apartment door.
“Thank you,” La Lena said. “I don't know what we'd do without you.”
I told her to call me later. That it didn't matter what time it was, I'd be up. She promised she would, and I left without saying goodbye to Soul. I’m not sure why, but it just felt like the right thing to do.
As La Lena's door latched shut behind me, two young black men emerged from the stairwell at the end of the hall. They were drinking beers from brown paper bags and having a laugh. Their flannel shirts, dirty jeans, and grime-caked boots told me they were a couple of stiffs who'd put in an honest day's work on some city construction site.
I straightened my shoulders, locked my eyes onto theirs and walked. In the millionth of
a second it took for our eyes to connect I determined we were on a collision course, both physically and metaphorically. Something was going to happen, I just didn't know how bad it'd be.
“You the repo man, or did you just come to get some ghetto pussy?” the one on the right asked. They were blocking my path.
“Neither,” I said, “but you picked a hell of a night for a fight.”
I don't understand what happened next. Maybe they weren't bad guys. Maybe they were just having a little harmless fun at my expense. Maybe they saw something in me that convinced them that I was a powder keg with a smoldering fuse. Whatever it was, they stepped aside and I walked right through. I'd always suspected something like that would happen if I hung around La Lena's place long enough. Generally speaking, white guys with new Jeeps and waterfront condos in Canton weren't welcome in the Cherry Hill projects.
WHEN SHE CALLED AT ten I was in my natural state. Mentally exhausted.
“So, where was she?” I asked.
“With Jefferson eating ice cream.”
“Motherfucker! I knew it,” I said. My suspicions had been right on the money. They'd just sent a great big message. You're vulnerable. Soul is vulnerable. Do exactly what we tell you or next time it won't be a trip to the ice cream shop.
She said she'd already talked to her boss and that it was OK if she went in a little late and left a little early. That way should could walk Soul to the bus stop in the morning, and pick her up there in the afternoon. She could make up the time on the weekends. Other than that Soul wouldn't be out of her sight.
Shakedown on Hate St Page 14