I turned over Reg’s statements as we rode. I didn’t have the heart to tell him just yet, but I thought we’d all be dead by the end of this.
13
It wasn’t long before reprisal — or the threat of it — reached our doorstep.
One day, while we laid low, a four door sedan with blacked-out windows cruised by and turned left at the end of Deuce’s street. I paid it the necessary amount of attention and then returned to the present conversation.
Deuce and Reg were arguing over the Florida-Georgia rivalry. I was more of a stick-and-ball man myself, but I found myself celebrating when Georgia won, so I backed Deuce in the argument.
Inside, Deuce’s family was cooking up a storm. It wasn’t uncommon to have a feast at the Gaines house, but this was in an effort to get rid of the last of the leftovers neighbors and friends had brought over in the wake of Taj’s death
“Man, I’m telling you, them Dawgs hold no candle to the Gators in terms of national importance. When’s the last time they meant anything to anybody? They’re a first-rate team with a second-rate record.”
“You young kids have no sense of history,” Deuce said. “It’s been the last two decades your boys in the Swamp have had anything to celebrate. You were the walking joke of the SEC.”
“And yet, these last two decades have been well worth celebrating. What, three national titles with three different coaches?”
“Two different coaches. You’re no Miami, cuz, and don’t forget that.”
The car from before rolled by again, and at first I thought it was one of those lost tourist situations, but it didn’t seem likely. I was on my feet before I realized why I might need to be.
The car idled, engine running.
Tempting fate. Trying to set something in motion.
I stepped off the porch and into the front yard, slicing the SEC debate in two. My piece was handy but uncocked, and I was a little drunk. Could hit the broad side of a barn, but it’d need to be a good-sized one, I reckoned.
“You got something to say, muh’fucka,” Reg said, lifting his shirt to reveal a 9mm. It was tucked between two tattoos, protruding from his jeans. Grip taped up and ready for action. “You come and say it. Get out of that pussy-ass car.”
“Reg,” Deuce said sternly. “Not here, man. Uncle Mino’s in there. We got family. It pops off, we likely to need a hearse.”
“Yeah, for them muh’fuckas,” he said, spitting. The pistol was out of his waistband.
Deuce grabbed him, and I moved without thinking toward the passenger side door. I didn’t quite know what I’d do once I got there, but it was my plan to do something.
“Don’t even bother with them, Rol,” Reg said. “You gon’ have to yank them niggas out to get them to do anything. They waiting on somebody, then they can have somebody.”
While Reginald spun out in his own way, I approached the car. Expecting it to rev. Expecting one of the passenger side windows to come down. Expecting something.
“Do it,” I said, “or go.”
The car pulled away. Not hurrying. Rolling into the road and riding toward the horizon.
And now they knew where the house was.
Behind me, Reg kicked over a birdbath and stormed inside.
Deuce found his way into the road and watched them go. We stood and peered down the road until the car disappeared in the distance, turning left at a far-off red light.
“Come on, Rol,” he said. “They won’t come back today.”
“How do you know?”
“Hunch, old friend. Won’t be the last time they show, but it’ll be the last peaceful standoff.”
“That for sure?”
“Sure as the fact you can’t bet on Buffalo in the Super Bowl. Next time, there’ll be blood. This evening, though, we got fellowship to take part in. I hope you left room in that whiskey tank of yours for pork chops and biscuits.”
“Always,” I responded distantly. I watched traffic until dusk robbed me of my sight, and then I tripped over my feet going inside.
The atmosphere inside was infinitely calmer. Smiles etched into stone. Pretending to ignore the commotion. Serving mashed potatoes and green beans like just another Sunday dinner.
They had just finished up the blessing when I entered.
“I’m a get them motherfuckers, man,” Reg promised, after we had fixed our plates.
Deuce said, “Yeah, I hear you. Just — listen. You can’t go popping off whenever, wherever. There is a battle line, but it ain’t being drawn here.”
After digging into a plate filled with pork, beans, and collards, I made my way to a dark corner of the house. Being involved so intimately with this family had left me feeling somewhat embarrassed. They knew how to show love, and I clearly didn’t, so when I found myself overcome by their generosity, I sought out solitude.
I found Uncle Mino sopping up the remnants of his food with a piece of white bread.
“You doing all right, old man?” I asked.
Uncle Mino smiled cantankerously. “They can’t have me while I’m alive,” he said. “Then again, they done forgot where I went. Slipped in a crack and never looked out, like a mouse behind the stove. You” — he waved one knobby finger — “are still right out in the open, dangling your snout right over the cheese. One wrong move, and the trap’ll snap shut right on you, cut you right in two.”
I nodded my head. “On another side of things, I’m grateful for the hospitality y’all have shown me. I didn’t have a lot of this growing up.”
“Hard times to be had all around. A family that loses one of its own tries to make due. Although we figured that what happened to Taj would bring Darron home, it’s a wonder he’s here. Makes the family feel whole in a way it hasn’t in awhile, even if there is a hole to fill.”
“I think I see your meaning,” I said.
“Reckon you’re part of the package deal. Darron picked you up — where — Savannah?”
“That’s right.”
“People won’t ask questions, because they figure it’s for a reason. You know where you’re staying, don’t you?”
“I do,” I said.
“This house can’t become a crypt. It’s enough to lose a child, but to know that room’s going to be empty — it’s too much. And the spirits.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you daft, boy, or just drunk?”
“Little of both,” I replied.
“Well, this house has its own spirit, which is made up of all the spirits living here. It ain’t something the straight world sees, but then again, you don’t strike me as a member of the buttoned-down world.”
“I see what you’re getting at.”
“Only people with a certain sort of upbringing, a certain kind of, ah, family heritage has the unnatural vision. Dollars to donuts you got a touch.”
“Just a touch, I s’pose,” I said.
He chuckled. “Your family from the swamp?”
I shook my head. “Middle Georgia.”
“Little Darron, he ain’t got it,” Uncle Mino said.
He obviously wasn’t aware of our situation in the swamp.
When he’d popped another bite of white bread in his mouth, he continued. “His mama’s got it, and Taj, poor kid, he had it, too. Maybe it just skips around. But Taj, he had a mean streak a mile wide. Sweet kid, but something turned him. I figure it had to do with how he could walk into a room and shiver under the weight of that gift.”
I leaned forward, interlocking my fingers. “You know where it comes from?”
A shake of the head. “Taj, he was troubled. Maybe it was just a touch of the” — the old man tapped his temple with one index finger — “but there’s a lot of bad history here. Death and plagues and violence. Human misery was not birthed here, but it had a hell of an adolescence in the Everglades.”
“You think it’s environmental and personal?”
“I mean, hell. If it’s hot, people tend to kill people. Uh, yeah. So why woul
dn’t it be true for people when they…”
His hand flittered in the air, as though sprinkling glitter above his knees.
“Do you have it?”
He patted his chest, pulled a pack of Winstons free and said, “Follow me.”
We ventured out front to the porch, where the old man fell heavily into a rocking chair and lit up. “Won’t let me smoke in the house no more, ever since the grandbabies and little ones came along. Used to, I could go a whole day without leaving my recliner. Now, I got to work these old knees, while them kids bounce around and flaunt their youth.”
“Sounds tough.”
“Then I come out here, and then the kids come out here, and their mommas start in on me. ‘Why you smoking around them young ‘uns? You’ll give them the lung cancer.’ And I’m just sitting here, trying to squeeze the last bit of freshness out of my dried old bones. Can’t get no kind of satisfaction.”
“So,” I said, leaning against one of the wrought iron columns, “do you?”
He took a long, slow drag on his cig. Coughed once. “No. Don’t know anybody inside the family’s truly got it. Maybe a touch. It’s not like — you ever see them TV shows?”
“Which ones?”
“Ones where people claim to talk with the dead?”
“No, but I get the general sense.”
“Cold reading. That’s it. Make guesses. Think on your feet. That’s what them people are doing. Maybe it’s the same with people in my family, too. Could be a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, all dressed up to look supernatural.”
“Might be,” I said.
The future potential struck me: How many people could I run into with it the ability?
“Taj, though, he had something. Might not have been able to communicate, but he had…dreams. Terrorized him for most of his childhood. They say, abusing a little kid can bring on certain kinds of” — again, he tapped his temple — “so maybe that’s what troubled little Taj. He had it rough. God bless his mama, she’s a good woman. But she had a rough go of it back when them kids was young. Darron, he played daddy a lot. He wasn’t aware of the significance of the dreams, but could see there was something different when it came to his brother. Maybe why he’s always looking over you.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s what he does, ain’t it?” the old man asked.
“More or less.”
Mino squinted off into the distance. “Them violent shootings up in the north side,” he said, trailing off.
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “Seemed real violent.”
“Jacksonville ain’t a city of brotherly love, for sure, but it also isn’t a Mexican border town, either. Young McKane, you don’t happen to have any knowledge on them shenanigans, do you?”
“Don’t reckon I do,” I said, half-clenching my teeth.
He leaned back, smacked his gums together. “You two hombres waltz into town, and it becomes a John Ford picture.”
“Coincidence,” I replied.
“Is it also a coincidence that the hair on my neck stands up every time you and and my nephew step in a room, hunching like y’all’ve been hiding dark business out in the swamp?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
“Now, don’t go and split the truth on me like it’s an old piece of driftwood. It ain’t a surprise to me that y’all come down here the minute that boy turned up dead. Darron is plenty of things, but he is loyal, above all else. He’s like one-a-them, what’s it called, Knights of the Round Table. He’ll fight and fight and fight until what he’s struggling for is brought to justice. You standing with him reveals your character, too, young man, even if the world thinks you might be some kind of, I don’t know, terrorist or something.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said.
“The hell it is,” Uncle Mino responded. “Revenge ain’t never complicated. I applaud you, Rolson McKane, but you’ve got to know it ain’t just your lives you’re playing around with here. It’s mine and his mother’s and everybody else’s. Darron, he’s spent his whole life treating the world around him like a game, as if there are rules.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad philosophy on life.”
“It is when you don’t know how to play dirty, and y’all two are stepping into the dirtiest of games. These are people who spend their whole lives in the mud, and you’re gon’ go and wrestle on the ground with them. You can do that all you like, but don’t be surprised when that gator gets your hand in its maw and twists. Liable to drag you both down with it.”
At that point, the old man withdrew his attention and started nodding off. He didn’t even acknowledge my existence when I left him there to sleep.
The TV news attributed the shootout at Renia’s to a recently-inflamed war over territory between two gangs. Surprisingly, no one talked, though, and we were forced to live with a shadow following us regarding an ongoing investigation.
In the end, the heat died down, as it usually does, as the town’s attention was drawn away by a confluence of coverage regarding sports and world news and local controversies.
In the interim, Deuce did his own thing. The way he wasn’t watching SportsCenter was different from the way he usually didn’t watch it. I felt the old themes of mishandled money rearing their ugly heads and nudging back into his life. I worried about him.
As if to put a finer point on it, he returned home one day, sweaty and distracted, and went directly back to his room. He opened the door some minutes later and peeked out.
“Rol, you got a minute?”
When I ambled back to meet him, I was bereft as to what was waiting for me.
Deuce had begun to mutate in the preceding days. He was no longer the confident, optimistic head-basher he had been his whole life. He was now quiet and reserved, moving furtively around the house. He was always sweating, despite the cold, and had picked up the habit of losing himself in the middle of conversations, when he talked at all. His eyes lost their focus, and he would just...stare. It was unsettling.
Of course, the only explanation I could come up with had to do with the Red-Eyed Stranger. When Deuce was in one of his moods, it was obvious. The tension surrounding him was palpable, and I could feel something more directly wicked on top of that. It was akin to the way I could almost sense a supernatural vision moments before it overtook me, but then again, the old cabesa had short-circuited on me back in the swamp.
He got carried away in his thoughts sometimes, and it was then I thought he’d spill his insecurities concerning his role as a Tesla coil for the undead, but he kept to himself. I was afraid, of course, that he’d end up exploding in some grand star-going-bad kind of way, but he kept his cool.
Mostly. I’d heard tales of a big dude kicking the shit out of stray gang members around town, but I wasn’t going to confront him.
Maybe that’s what he wanted to discuss in private.
However, I wasn’t optimistic when I saw the sweaty, crow-eyed version of my friend sitting on his bed.
He said, “Rol, I want you to check this out.”
I almost didn’t have time to react, because he was up and removing something from underneath the bed.
As soon as I saw the size and shape, I knew. I just knew.
“Deuce—” I began, but he ignored me.
It was a bag full of cash. Hundreds wrapped in bands from the bank. There was at least twenty-five grand in there, but who was counting?
“That’s quite the pile of money.”
I expected a thorough, coherent, and logical explanation for how he had come into this disconcertingly large stash. My mind was drawn back to the stories of gang members getting knocked sideways.
Instead, what I got was, “Yeah.”
We hovered over it for a moment. Then, I said, “That all you got to explain it? ‘Yeah?’”
“It’s hard to explain, Rol.”
“Looking at this, seems pretty easy to explain.”
I picked up the bag and dumped the contents onto
the bed.
It was just. So. Much. Money.
I turned my attention to the mound of cash on Deuce’s bed. My friend’s gaze followed my own.
“How’d you come across it, Deuce? This is important. I need to know.”
He exhaled, flipped over a band of twenties. “I felt as though my brother deserved some — what is it called? — remuneration for his recent business interests.”
“So you went and kicked the shit out of some gangbangers?”
“That’s the long and the short of it.”
I tried to consider things from his perspective. No matter how I spun it, nothing came out quite right. “Your brother didn’t die to pay your debts.”
A sharp look, the eyes a bit darker than usual. “Rol—”
“What’re you going to do with all that money?”
“Keep it,” Deuce said, matter-of-factly. “I’m not going to let the evil my brother did go to waste. He fucked up, but this can be put to good use.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Deuce I used to know.”
“Fuck. You.”
“I wasn’t trying—”
“To offend me. I get it. But look at yourself, man. Do you think I approve of the man you became? You think I was always happy to run into burning buildings or the bullets of madmen for you?”
“Now, wait a second—”
“I am your guardian angel, Rol. At some point I came to grips with the fact that my life is irrevocably tied to yours. Something tells me that, even if we didn’t meet, somehow I would be in the gravitational pull of your constant sorrows.”
“Deuce—”
“One of my life’s purposes is to keep you safe. I don’t yet know how that is — or, more importantly, why — but what I do know is the truth of it.”
“How? How did you come to this?”
“Dreams, old friend. I came to these conclusions through dreams.”
The Red-Eyed Stranger, I thought.
“I never asked for any of this,” I said.
“Neither did I,” Deuce said.
“I’m sorry, Deuce,” I said. “I can’t go along with this.”
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