Lookaway, Lookaway

by Barnhardt, Wilton

  “Hoo hoo hoo,” said Gaston, standing up straight, looking rumpled like he’d slept on the streets. “Twenty-four big ones. I know you didn’t get a girl in trouble.”

  Joshua smiled. “Most assuredly not.”

  Uncle Gaston fumblingly opened up his house and careened inside. “You’re not being blackmailed, are you?”

  Josh followed. “You remember Calvin Eakins, the city councilman?”

  “Charlotte’s very own race man. Big loud shakedown artist, went on to become one of the crookedest amid the crooked Raleigh Democrats—which is saying something.”

  Josh explained how he had bailed out Senator Eakins’s son and how Calvin Jr. had betaken himself to Jamaica and how he owed Berma Bigglefield the forfeit of the bond.

  “Come to the kitchen. We’ll see if we can find which room I left my checkbook in.”

  Josh, like many visitors before, was struck with how desolate the undecorated first floor of the mansion remained. He was escorted toward the kitchen-dining nook and there resided proof of residence, mail stacked in piles, manuscripts and galleys—sent for his blurb or review or goodwill—stock statements, corporate brochures, the kinds of things people with money and investments receive. Dishes in the sink, about a score of whiskey glasses abandoned in various corners of the room, catering and delivery boxes from the upscale bistros and brasseries that deliver.

  Josh felt he had better gush. “Oh thank you, Uncle Gaston! I promise never again to pay anyone’s bond.”

  Uncle Gaston chuckled. “Except if I need you to pay mine one day.”

  “You go commit all the crimes you like. I’m your bail.”

  “I doubt you’d have the money for the kind of crimes I may yet commit,” he groused, searching the cluttered tabletop. “Still have a mind to burn down the Queen City Times.”

  Josh’s heart was lightened, he felt infused with helium, needing to be affixed to something earthbound before he floated skyward.

  “Here we go!” Uncle Gaston lurched for the dining room table and bent over the surface to write the check, which also allowed him to stop swaying. “Twenty-four thou, you say.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do I make this to that bail woman or to you?”

  “To me,” said Joshua quickly, not wanting the extra six thousand to land in Berma’s lap.

  “Does Miss Berma look anything like her billboards or is it like with your sister Annie, a wholly created computer fantasy?”

  Josh laughed. “Berma looks more like the picture on her billboards than Annie resembles her billboards. Have you been down I-77? And seen the billboard for Lookaway, Dixieland?”

  “No, can’t say that I…” Uncle Gaston froze.

  “They’ve started advertising for the place. Big fuzzy shot of a Southern antebellum mansion through the mists, exclusive homes starting at five hundred thousand and above. And there’s a faded cannon imposed over the left half … Uncle Gaston?”

  There was a full thirty-second silence. “Lookaway, Dixieland?”

  “That’s the name of the gated community on the Catawba that Dad and Mr. Boatwright are developing. They’re going to keep the area around the trestle as some kind of memorial park with plaques and, one day, a monument. Though I don’t think anybody died there.”

  “Lookaway, Dixieland?”

  “Corny as hell, but they’re going for that Old South hokum theme. Dad came up with the name.”

  Uncle Gaston was still as a statue. “He did, did he?”

  Joshua saw that something was amiss. Uncle Gaston had written the check but not signed it. Now Uncle Gaston was staggering toward the kitchen counter for a new glass and in the cabinetry below was a liter bottle of Four Roses bourbon. A stop at the fridge to gather a few ice cubes, and then a healthy pour, and then he teetered toward the telephone on the kitchen wall. He swigged, he dialed, he dropped the phone, he tried to pull the receiver close to him by reeling in the tangled cord only to drop it again.

  “Can I help?” Josh asked. He stared at the unsigned check. He reached down and tore it from the checkbook. “Um, Uncle Gaston, if you could finish this out.”

  “It was just so he could stick the knife in,” his uncle mumbled. “All the friendliness, the camaraderie like old times, just so he could…”

  His uncle was unwell. “Okay,” said Josh, sounding stupidly cheery to himself, “let me get you to write your name on this and I’ll leave you to do whatever you are, um…”

  But Uncle Gaston had stormed from the kitchen to the nearly barren living room. There was a conventional phone there on a small table against a far wall, one of two pieces of furniture in the whole long chamber. Uncle Gaston began to dial, then stopped, then stumbled toward the hard-backed chair (the other item of décor) and collapsed into it, murmuring, “No … no, I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of…”

  Josh stood in the doorway with his unsigned check. He circled back to retrieve the pen from the kitchen and approached Uncle Gaston timorously.

  “You were going to sign this, Uncle Gaston.”

  Uncle Gaston stared into the far wall, his face drained of color. “Who do I make this out to?”

  Josh realized he thought he was at a book signing. “Just a signature will do … right here, on the line…”

  Uncle Gaston mumbled, “I’m not … This signing is over. Norma!” he called out.

  Josh backed away. Josh wasn’t good with mental health episodes. He would bring back the check another time, perhaps.

  He let himself out. Josh stood near his Toyota and looked up at the empty, lightless two-story mansion surrounded by giant oaks. They could be a hundred miles out in the country except for the nightglow of the metropolitan sky. The turret at the end, the mansard roof … this may have only been built in the 1990s but it was a good candidate for being a haunted house on a Hollywood back lot. Just then the trees took up a breeze, swaying and rustling, an impermeable wall of shifting darkness surrounding the creepy old house.

  Josh reflected that he didn’t deserve his uncle’s money. He abused his uncle’s overblown neo-Confederate novels, privately judged him, hated his politics, and mocked him about his sex life from a tidbit of information which might have been untrue, but he and Dorrie continued with the libel anyway, and, what’s more, whispered it to anyone in Charlotte whom they wished to entertain and scandalize. And yet, here he was, shamelessly begging for the man’s money which he generously gave—almost.

  He felt bad about his uncle’s sad life and he felt bad about his own disloyalty, but he didn’t feel bad about the check. Josh was still holding the pen. He had seen his uncle sign a million books. He had his uncle’s autograph back at the house on some book on some shelf, he was fairly sure. Yes, he was going to forge this and cash it and if his uncle accused him, he would thank him profusely as if nothing were amiss, or protest and remind him how drunk he was.

  * * *

  A few weeks later in May.

  Dorrie had a key but she had never come into his apartment alone without it being an emergency before.

  “Hey,” said Josh, entering his apartment, clutching a bag from Pier 1. “What’s up?”

  “Nonso.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s coming to America and you’re bringing him, right?”

  Dorrie was good on the surprise attack; Josh couldn’t lie well under pressure. “Well. Heh-heh. You see, he got into a program for African nationals at Johnson C. Smith. So yes, he’s coming. How did you know?”

  “Back at Chapel Hill, you wrote that final World Lit paper on Things Fall Apart and then I borrowed it to write my final English paper … and then a few months ago you were over at the house going through disks and boxes of papers trying to find ‘something’ and I wanted to know just what you were hunting for, and you finally tell me it’s that ten-year-old term paper and I ask myself, I say ‘Dorrie, why would Josh need an old term paper about a Nigerian novel unless he was applying for grad school or something,’ and then it cl
icked. You were applying for our little smiling friend.”

  “Um, it worked. They accepted him.”

  “And you filled out his application and wrote him an essay about his hopes and dreams. You’ve seen the guy’s English. What? You’re gonna write all his term papers for him so he won’t flunk out?”

  Josh thought a minute. “Once he’s here they’ll work with him. Even Carolina had all kinds of lame foreign students who could barely speak English. They have tutorial services—”

  “And so he lives here, with you? And you run him down to J. C. Smith every day? You feed him, you clothe him, like a pet, a little Nigerian boy-doll. And he’s totally dependent on you?”

  “There are other African students there. He’ll make new friends—”

  “And you’ll sleep with him and … it’ll be just like slave times. Thank you, Massa, for bringin’ my jet-black ass over from the Dark Continent so I can better m’self among allllll da white people. Would Massa like me to warm his bed tonight?”

  “Aw come on, that’s … that’s a little harsh. I’m trying to help him out.”

  “Uh-uh. That’s not what you’re doing. Have you thought for two minutes how this affects me? Aside from dealing with his backward African dumb ass all the time, you won’t have any money for vacations, for film festivals, for our going to New York. All our beautiful world will be sacrificed so you can…” She didn’t finish because she didn’t want to have a friendship-ending fight with Josh. She fished around for something neutral to say. “What’s in the bag?”

  Josh sighed and reached into the crumpled Pier 1 bag and slowly brought out one of the contents: a long elegant blue candle. There were five blue candles in the bag of various widths and scents.

  Dorrie looked askance. “Thought I smelled bayberry.”

  “Look, I’ve talked with him on Skype, with the camera, he’s … He’s so sweet. I’m just trying to give him a chance to be gay in a country that doesn’t persecute him for it.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re a regular Peace Corps. So how much was the ticket? Presumably, you’ve booked him a ticket.”

  “No,” Josh said with fervor, like his buying a ticket would truly be a step too far. “His older brother is going to pay for that. The deal was if he got into an American school, his brother would buy him a plane ticket. I offered but he said no.”

  Dorrie cocked her head sideways, squinted, almost said something, then pursed her lips, shook her head.

  “What, Dorrie?”

  “Oh my darling innocent boy…”

  “What?”

  “It’s a scam. A romance scam. The internet is full of them and Africa is the capital of them, usually Nigeria.”

  Josh thought he knew what she was referring to. “No. I’ve talked to him with a webcam. He’s not just a photo some con man put up online.”

  “I wonder how many old queens, sitting with their lapdogs, nursing a G and T, around the country are online with this boy, agreeing to help him out. You haven’t sent him money yet?” There was enough hesitation that Dorrie pounced: “So you have. He wouldn’t take an airline ticket from you because he couldn’t get cash out of that. So what was it? Money to bribe an official?”

  Josh sat down, setting his candles gently on the table. “Nonso said to get a passport in Nigeria there’s nothing more to it than handing some government guy a bribe.”

  “How much?”

  “Twelve hundred dollars.”

  “Jesus Christ. Okay, these guys start small and then get you committed and you keep sending because you’ve already sent so much. This official will need more money, so Nonso will be back in tears begging for another installment.”

  Josh blankly stared at the bookcase. Nonso had already asked for some more money. “It’s hard to think that…”

  “These guys are good. They prey on lonely queers and desperate straight women, sometimes church philanthropy types who think they’re helping someone. No shit, it’s a billion-dollar industry; the biggest home-based industry in Nigeria. Cheating softhearted Westerners. C’mon, Josh, this is the home of the Nigerian prince who writes you by e-mail to share his immense fortune if only you’ll send him some money first.”

  Josh breathed heavily. “Can you go now?”

  Dorrie, correctly, heard no anger or resentment in the request, just defeat. “Yeah, baby. I’ll go. Call me later, okay?”

  She let herself out.

  Immediately, Josh turned on his laptop, waited for the endless assault of windows asking him to upgrade and renew programs he never used or didn’t know he had … the interminable wait until the wireless signal was captured and connection to the internet was achieved. Josh went to charlottedownlow.com and logged on.

  Some guys sent him a smile, a flirt, stupid little emoticons popped up that some men hoped would lead to an online chat, a hookup.

  An hour went by, then another. Josh stared at Nonso’s profile, that ludicrous smile, waiting for the green dot to glow in the corner, showing that he too had come online.

  Another hour went by; it was getting dark in the room. An overweight older guy, bigblk4white, sent him a message telling him he “was lookin fyne.” A previous lackluster hookup, hoodstar, sent him a “wasup?” It would be after midnight in Lagos, but that’s when they often talked so Josh continued to sit and stare at his screen.

  Finally, Nonso was online. Within a minute, a message arrived in Josh’s mailbox.

  Nonso: hello my love it is nt long for we be toghter in Charlote

  After they moved over to Skype, after an hour of accusations and tears (Josh’s and Nonso’s), and after some very complicated explanations, Josh and Nonso understood each other perfectly. As the blue candles burned down, as the webcam images got darker and fuzzier, Josh said good night and immediately went to his online banking site and transferred into Nonso’s account another eight hundred American dollars of Uncle Gaston’s check money.

  Dillard

  She lived on Elderflower Drive. At first she found mockery in the name, some bloom turned ancient, something for the potpourri basket, wilted, desiccate … but then she came to like the name. Elderflower: a flowering in old age, a late and splendid blossoming that the world would find unlikely. Dillard understood that no elderflowers bloomed in North Carolina or anywhere nearer than England. Once she had a friend very much a bore about tea and tea-making who brought her some dried elderflowers and prepared a tisane. It was divine, she recalled, but how precisely was it divine? She remembered a sweetness, some sugary floral taste without citrus or sharpness, a weak perfume, gentle.

  Dillard of Dilworth, went the family singsong, like Tess of the d’Urbervilles or Catherine of Aragon (to name two other women disappointed in love). Dilworth was a venerable neighborhood, one of the most respectable in Charlotte, though it had never been particularly monied, or rather, the old families within it had not been conspicuous with their money. A mix of two-story Victorian frame houses, brick bungalows of the 1920s and 1930s with a hint of Asian influence in the roof tiles, properties politely separated by magnolias and clusters of azalea, ill-considered modern apartment blocks of the 1950s, brick ranch homes of the 1960s with big yards to be mown, each sweltering summer abuzz with mowers and teenage boys doing their expected chore or making a little pocket change in the yard of the nice old lady next door. Her own Christopher, shirtless, gleaming like a Nordic god, used to mow her entire cul-de-sac; the hustler in him had cornered the market.

  Dillard owned one of the 1930s bungalows with a large bay window facing the sloping front yard down to the street, as well as a large bay window looking to the backyard and the small strip of woods behind. The living room received light throughout the day. One could sit in Dillard’s living room and face either of the two views, one capacious—the suburban street with the Bank of America Tower jutting above the neighborhood poplars—and the other cloistered—the cozy backyard against a small bank and its grouping of trees that, when the shadows lengthened, seemed like the edge of a gre
ater forest.

  That theoretical guest in the living room could also face north, to the portrait of her paternal grandmother, or south, to the fireplace and the mantel which at one time was a shrine to her son, Christopher. No other room in her house had so much to delight or sadden or provoke Dillard, but there were not many days when she didn’t come for a brief sit-down to be with her thoughts, or to empty her mind into the passing view, the bird feeders, the neighborhood children in the street growing up with tricycles, then bicycles, then skateboards, the prowling of an orange tabby in her backyard, the chattering chase of squirrels in the lower branches … these were the visual accompaniments to the sharp ticking of the chestnut cabinet clock on the mantel. There was no need to turn on the television, she often thought—right here was all the stimulation she required.

  Dillard’s entire social landscape had changed since Christopher died. At times she felt a pang of loss for it, felt some last lifeline had been coiled and stowed out of reach. There was an annual gathering of Salem College alumnae in Charlotte, a springtime get-together, lots of gossip, shopping, dining, an en masse escape from families and husbands, which she had in the past looked forward to until this year when the day implacably arrived and Dillard found herself contacting the ringleader and begging off appearing, crediting “an unspeakable efflorescence of my fibromyalgia,” from which she suffered.

  She had quietly withdrawn from the Sunday school class at Sedgewood Presbyterian; the sermon was sufficient and the gauntlet of greetings and well-wishing to and from the sanctuary was social whirl enough.

  And there was her sporadic employment at Parminter’s, of course, but she had cut back her hours there. Lily Parminter herself called the house once, asking if she was all right, why they hadn’t seen her at the store in ages. Why, the new girls don’t know the first thing about pre-war china, and regular customers—wedding planners, caterers, old-family matrons maintaining a Smithsonian Museum’s number of china sets, always looking for rare, matching gravy boats or tureen ladles—they were all asking after her: “Lily, where is our Dillard?” But it was never as if the china shop paid her a living wage; she only had dwelled so long among the glass cases and cabinets for the social aspect, the antiquated spinsterish element that suited her. The all-female preserve of china, replacements, no-longer-made things, fragile things, beautiful things with hairline, barely detectable cracks, small flaws of art that eluded even the finest German or Asian porcelainist and yet there they were. And the little stories of loss, or how someone’s two-year-old pulled at the tablecloth and sent the priceless Sèvres cup and saucer to the floor, told and retold as if an epic tragedy had occurred, accompanied by female keening fit for Greek drama (“Oh you poor darling—and you just watched as it happened!”) and the final show of sympathy, Lily Parminter removing her chained glasses, pressing her delicate aged hands to the hands of the sufferer, with her assurances that a salad plate, a cream urn, could be found to match just perfectly, just you wait. That must have been the appeal of the place, the idea that losses could be met with restoration, not easily, but eventually. And there was esteem there for Dillard, a deference, an acknowledgment of her expertise. She, who had been so useless in the important matters of life.