Big Machine

by Victor Lavalle

  Solomon said, “I knew the man who wore that suit before you.”

  I crossed my arms over the jacket as if he was going to snatch it off my back.

  “His name was Dabney Reed, and he died in those clothes.”

  “This is a copy of the one I saw in the picture,” I said. “Harold and Fayard showed me.”

  Solomon pointed at me and laughed, but it came through his stiffened lips like a hiss.

  “Those are the clothes in the picture, Ricky. They aren’t knockoffs. They’re relics.”

  I found myself undoing the belt loop in my Norfolk suit without thinking. Dabney Reed had died in this coat. And who knew how many others before him? It was like finding out you’re sleeping on your uncle’s deathbed. I got the coat off, but then I couldn’t drop it on the ground or throw it into Laguna Lake. My hand just wouldn’t release it. I didn’t want to wear it, but I didn’t want to let it go. I looked to Solomon Clay, but he wasn’t studying me.

  “This here is Martin,” Solomon Clay said, and a man stepped from behind him.

  I say man, but it was a kid, one of the homeless teenagers I’d seen all over Garland. A white kid with long, unwashed hair and tattered clothes. His skin splotched red on the cheeks and forehead. His face looked like a piece of chewed bubble gum. The boy had an enormous backpack, which he dragged on the ground, probably carried everything he owned. This child, Martin, stood in the shadow of Solomon Clay.

  “Spare anything?” Martin asked me, sounding both sad and antagonistic.

  “You’re hanging out with beggars now?” I asked.

  Solomon Clay sniffed. “I wanted a better class of people in my life.”

  “Anything?” the kid insisted.

  But I didn’t answer him, I couldn’t. I saw a brown splotch on one sleeve of my Norfolk coat and couldn’t stop staring. It was only dirt, that’s what I told myself, but another part of me became convinced it was Dabney Reed’s blood.

  Martin shook his head. Mr. Clay patted the boy.

  “Ricky here was a heroin addict for almost twenty years, and somehow he thinks he’s better than you, Martin. I told you that’s how it would be, didn’t I?”

  Martin looked at me when he answered. “Yes, you did,” he said.

  “Now you ought to get on,” Solomon said. “And do what you’re meant to do.”

  Martin looked even younger now, with that mopey frown. His adult body hadn’t grown in. Not more than fifteen, and a small fifteen at that. He lifted that backpack, swung it around, onto his shoulders, and nearly sent himself to the ground.

  “This is for you,” Solomon said, and handed the kid a folded hundred-dollar bill. He did this slowly, theatrically, so I wouldn’t miss his generosity. It was the first thing to draw my attention from my coat.

  Martin took the money. He stared at the bill in his palm. Finally Solomon Clay pushed Martin forward, and the boy stumbled off.

  “You should’ve given him a few bucks,” he said.

  “I didn’t want to.”

  Solomon Clay nodded. “I relied on that.”

  But, frankly, I wasn’t bothered about Martin. Instead I found myself watching the way sunlight reflected off Solomon Clay’s face. Or was it coming from his face? I’d never seen skin burn so brightly before.

  There are ancient paintings and sculptures that depict Moses with small rams’ horns. He wasn’t born that way, of course. It was a transformation that occurred after Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, the effect of having seen the true face of his God. But the horn imagery came about because of a mistranslation from the Hebrew to the Latin Vulgate. It wasn’t that Moses sported shofars. It’s that the word for “horns” is the same for “send out rays.” Our friend Saint Jerome made a translator’s mistake. It can be tough to go from one language to another. The Washerwomen grappled with this problem as they wrote their holy book, what to update, approximate, or delete.

  When Moses returned from the mountain, his skin glowed. It sent out rays. I remembered this as I watched Solomon Clay’s gleaming face.

  “Where have you been?” I whispered, though I didn’t even mean to ask the question, to flatter the man with my curiosity. The words just came.

  “You’ll never get there,” he said. “It’s too late. You’re already corrupted.”

  “Me and Ms. Henry are here to kill you.”

  “Is that supposed to scare me more?”

  “It should,” I said. “She’s no joke.”

  He waved his right hand in the air.

  “That’s your team? A dopehead and a … Before she came to the Library, that woman sold for pennies. You understand me? Twenty dollars! That’s what men paid to love her. You could love her in the mouth or right up the ass, but she’d have to pay you to go swimming up that funky tweeter. That’s your Ms. Henry. A shitstain whore.”

  “I suppose you were born in a manger?” I asked.

  Why defend her? She certainly hadn’t done much to earn it. Not from me. I guess it was an instinctive reaction. Partly about Ms. Henry, sure, but even more because Solomon Clay seemed to think I was the kind of man who could be turned so easily. Adele Henry had been a prostitute. Was that supposed to make me wretch? Come on. He’d have to do better. I remember Gayle, the last woman I’d truly loved. She’d stabbed me right through my shoulder with a shish kebab skewer, and even still we’d almost had that baby.

  Almost.

  Solomon Clay sighed. “They give you an order to kill me, and you just snap to it?”

  “I had my doubts,” I said. “But now that we’ve met, I’m hoping to cap you in the chest.”

  I wasn’t feeling brave exactly, but the way he’d spoken about Ms. Henry had sparked a tempest in my heart. I was as surprised by this reaction as Solomon Clay.

  “This is the whole problem, Ricky. Right here. When you showed up at the Washburn Library, for all your problems, you were still your own man. That’s my guess. But you spend a couple of months being coddled and you sign your soul away.”

  “My soul’s my own,” I said.

  “That’s what you think, but it isn’t so. Remember what the Voice told Judah Washburn?”

  I am the father of the despised child.

  “But let me tell you what my years with the Library taught me. Oppression doesn’t make people noble. Give any of us a little comfort, and we’ll kill to keep it. The despised become despicable. The Unlikely Scholars aren’t any different. Adele finally taught me that. I had to leave the Library to find the Voice’s children.”

  I turned around then, a snap so fast it actually hurt my neck. Where had that boy with the backpack gone? Where did you get to, Martin? Solomon Clay saw me searching, so he grabbed my shoulder and pointed.

  There were these big wet splotches, like dabs from a giant painter’s brush, along the concrete path next to Laguna Lake. Already one hundred yards away, Martin lifted his heavy bag back onto his shoulders after having taken a moment’s rest. And when he did, there was another splotch on the concrete.

  Solomon said, “What if I told you the reason Judah never heard the Voice again is because it was disappointed in him?”

  “A blind black dude got all the way across the country with two chests of gold,” I said. “I think Judah did pretty good.”

  “And that’s it? The Voice blessed Judah so he could sit on some money in the woods? Nah. The Voice stopped talking to Judah because Judah was selfish.”

  It was hard to follow Solomon Clay. My mind was on Martin over there. I meant to run in that direction, but I was bone-tired. And, I hate to admit it, I was scared.

  “Now you’ve got that mutt, the Dean, giving orders. But he wants to hoard the blessings, just like Judah. Keep the Voice his secret out there in the woods. But that’s exactly why he’s never heard it directly. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s not deciphering the Voice in those field reports. He’s only eavesdropping.”

  Martin really started moving. He’d basically retraced my steps. From the bench
es to the walking path, and now he’d reached the congregation under the colonnade.

  Martin looked at the congregation ruefully. They’d built a fire under there. It burned in a small metal barrel. Battery-powered lights weren’t going to keep those people warm. Flames rose out of the little drum. How long before they’d be forced to put it out? Not long probably, but they’d let it heat the air while they could.

  “How can you know all this?” I asked. “It was two hundred years ago.”

  Solomon Clay squeezed my arm tight. “I know because the Voice found someone it could trust. Your team is too late. The Voice already spoke. Two years ago. To me.”

  Martin dropped his head, straining forward as the heavy weight of his bag resisted.

  There were only a handful of folks under the colonnade now, the preacher in the leather coat among them. Now that Martin had started toward them, he really sped up fast. That’s momentum for you. From a walk to a trot to a jog to a run. But the congregation stayed largely unaware because the minister was speaking to them again.

  Martin’s face lost all expression as he rushed toward the congregation. He looked blank, empty, void. I reached out with my right hand, clutching at the air.

  I felt a cold touch across my heart.

  “But those people are on your side,” I whispered.

  “Being sympathetic doesn’t spare them. I’m here to sweep the board clean! Then the despised will inherit the earth.”

  The boy reached the barrel, and, as he did, he flipped the backpack off. He found a new strength. When he’d stood in front of me, he’d been a frail boy but he’d aged.

  Martin lifted the soaking backpack and dropped it inside the barrel.

  The congregation had no time to run or even shout.

  Their fire ignited the explosives inside.

  Martin just stood over the little barrel. He didn’t try to escape. Martin used his last moment to wipe his moist hands on the front of his jeans. I saw him do this.

  Then there was a blast so loud it rocked everyone in the park. Children and adults went flat on the ground. Laid out and dazed. I went down. No one screamed, that’s the amazing thing. Kids didn’t cry. A row of ducks watched solemnly from the shore.

  The roof of the colonnade went up directly, like a gentleman lifting his hat. Flames shot out from between the columns, and the congregation cooked in the blaze. I smelled it. Clouds of black smoke blotted out the sky, and the roof finally crashed down again, landing at an angle.

  Mr. Clay stooped over me. “Do you want to know the order the Voice gave me? Just three words.”

  I could move my body, but the shock of the blast paralyzed my mind. I couldn’t meld thoughts with actions. When I tried to hit him, grab him, I only found myself slapping the ground. My back stung sharply, between the shoulder blades, like I’d fallen on a stone.

  Solomon said, “Vengeance is mine.”

  46

  ROSE FINISHED HER LAST CIGARETTE and left me alone in the bathroom. I might’ve stayed until sunset if Karen, the middle sister, hadn’t come to the door. She twisted the knob a few times, lightly, so I’d know someone was there, and then waited patiently until I unlocked the door and opened it. She was in the hallway, kneeling, pretending to sweep crumbs from the clean floor.

  “Did you think we wouldn’t miss you, Ricky?”

  Because of her illness Karen had gone down to about a hundred pounds. She’d been nearly two hundred once. There were deep lines on either side of her mouth, and her eyebrows were falling out. They were only two black pecks above each eye.

  “You can’t come in here,” I whispered.

  “Why’s that?”

  “It smells.”

  “Did you have a BM?” she asked.

  “No!” I shouted. Not only out of embarrassment, but because BM was a term reserved for three-year-olds. I was ten.

  Karen leaned backward, resting her butt on her feet, and moved her head left to right trying to see inside, around me.

  “It smells like cigarettes,” I explained.

  Karen put her hand over her mouth and nose.

  “How many did Rose smoke?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “A lot.”

  Karen tapped the door with her pointer finger. “Let me in.”

  So I opened the door, and she lifted herself into a crouch and walked inside. Then she stood, sniffed, and smiled at me, for me.

  “Can’t hardly tell,” she said.

  Then she coughed like hell for more than a minute.

  Her beige pantsuit flapped, loose around the legs and midsection, though they’d been snug only a year before. When she recovered, Karen said, “I don’t want you telling Gina about Rose’s smoking, okay? Even if she asks.”

  “That’s lying.”

  “Yes it is, Ricky. I’m telling you to lie to my sister.”

  A kid is always confused by straight answers from adults. He’s not taught to expect them. But, after thinking her answer through, I thought I understood so I said, “Okay.”

  Karen Robins, feeblest of the Washerwomen, but the one who actually kept our community’s pulse. She touched the sink. Rubbed at water spots on the faucet.

  “We’re going,” she whispered. “You’ve heard?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Now Karen held my cheek. “And are you ready?”

  I didn’t know the answer, so I didn’t speak.

  “I’m very tired,” she said.

  I put her hand on my shoulder, led Karen out into the living room.

  It was a large space, as cold as a meat locker, chilly in the winter because the windows never sat evenly in their frames. We strove toward spiritual triumph, but we still lived in a tenement.

  There were state maps on the walls and little red lines drawn over various routes. This was how we tracked the movements of our parents, the pilgrims. I felt I knew the back roads and highways of the United States intimately because of all the time I spent staring at the pathways of our folks. We’d get letters from them with detailed driving directions or bus routes, read them aloud on Saturdays and then draw the lines onto the maps with red pens. When our mother couldn’t send letters, she’d mail me and Daphne local newspapers and we’d pore over them closely to guess at the routes between this town and the last. In this way Carolyn Rice educated us even from a thousand miles away.

  I entered the living room to find the other kids already sitting on the floor. The state maps covered all four walls. America wrapped itself around us.

  Gina and Rose sat on a yellow sofa pressed against one wall. Karen joined them while Rose gave me a suspicious eye. Gina poured iced tea from a green plastic pitcher into tall cups for herself and her sisters. I refused to look back at Rose and tried to find an open spot on the cut pile carpet.

  There were a few spaces, one right beside Daphne, for instance, but forget that. I spent enough time with her. I went farther back, toward the windows, but not because I hoped to peek outside. That’s just where I’d find Miss Annabelle Cuddy.

  Annabelle Cuddy, I still remember you! With your mouth of crowded teeth and your enormous Puerto Rican Afro. You bit your nails until your fingers bled. We danced to Ohio Players’ “Fire” at a party in your living room.

  But despite what I might’ve wished, she was not my little girlfriend. She hadn’t decided between me and Wilfred, my play-cousin. I wonder if everyone, everywhere, used that term, play-cousin. It means that we weren’t related, but always close. Best of friends. Real road dogs. Right up until Annabelle Cuddy became beautiful.

  So, my dawdling in the bathroom meant that Wilfred had enjoyed many minutes alone with Annabelle, and apparently he’d used them correctly. When I got there, she was leaning close as he spoke into her ear, and when she tipped over too far, she threw her arm around his shoulder.

  And the thing about Wilfred is that he actually had shoulders to grab. Same age as me, but he looked twenty. How is that possible? He’d skipped six grades of puberty. What ten-year-old is
big enough to dunk? This was happening in 1975, don’t forget, not the modern era, when sixth graders look ready for the NBA.

  But I had two things over Wilfred. The first is that he was big, but lumpy, and self-conscious about it. When Annabelle put her arm around him, I watched him shift, afraid she’d drop her hand and graze his gut.

  The second thing I had over Wilfred Tanner? The boy had no game.

  Wilfred thought “Pssst!” was how you woo a woman.

  I sat down on the other side of Annabelle quick, trying to think of something funny, but before I could speak, the oven bell rang in the kitchen and Gina left the room. We’d been going through this ceremony for years, so it was natural, nearly automatic, for all the kids to stop shifting or flirting and sit straight until Gina returned to the living room. We’d lived with the ritual too long to do otherwise.

  The Washerwomen only brought three things with them from Florida: their guns, their love of college football, and any number of outstanding Southern recipes. Gina carried a plate of hot biscuits, a bowl of butter, a bowl of sugar, and a stack of napkins all on a tray. Combine the biscuits, butter, and sugar to make yourself some sugar bread. In the desert the Jews received manna. In Queens we were also blessed.

  This might seem crazy, feeding so many young bodies that much sugar and then tucking them indoors until nighttime, but really we only bounced around for about half an hour, and after the rush we settled into a daze that lasted well past lunchtime, ready to listen quietly for hours. A truly prostrate audience. The Washerwomen weren’t fools, not on their worst day. They knew how to hold on to our crowd.

  “Before we eat,” Gina said, covering the biscuits with a napkin.

  The first thing, always, was to pray.

  Karen stood slowly. Rose and Gina followed. Then all the children stood and bowed our heads and recited the Lord’s Prayer in the traditional words. They didn’t try to revise, improve, or modernize everything in the Bible. Some things were ideal already. We prayed for Veronica’s safe return. We were thankful to find all our parents back with us. We asked for protection while our community moved.