Cashed Out

by Michael Rubin

  Kirk/Kuo was Vietnamese, not Chinese, but I knew that Washington spoke the truth.

  “You don’t have to say nothin’, you understand,” he said, “but if you want to talk, that’s OK. Listenin’s a thing I can do.”

  Washington’s chair creaked again, and the cicadas in the grass answered.

  “You know, Neighbor, listenin’s an art of sorts. Listen too hard and people get suspicious. ‘Why’s that fellow so peculiar?’ they say. They can’t put their finger on it.

  They think maybe it has to do with the way someone looks at ‘em, but I don’t think that’s the reason. I’ve spent a lot of time listenin’ and watchin’. A hard listener’s lookin’ for somethin’ that may not be there. Lookin’ for an openin’, rather than for a meanin’. Maybe that’s why people don’t like lawyers as a rule. Lawyers tend to be hard listeners. On the other hand, listen too soft and you get all the words but none of the sense. There’s an art to that too. Got to be lots of men who listen to their wives too soft, hearin’ the words but missin’ entirely what’s goin’ on. Seen that lots of time. Wife says somethin’, you answer, and you got no idea what the question really was about. Did that sometimes when I was young; Durnella sure cured me of that. That woman can’t stand no soft listenin’. She’s right, of course.”

  “The art of good listenin’s in the balance,” he continued. “Got to hear the words and the feelin’. Got to catch the meanin’ and the sense. You’re full of worries and troubles, that’s clear. And yet you haven’t spoken about what’s really botherin’ you.”

  We sat there in the dark. Downtown had long since emptied out. Traffic had ceased. Luther strolled over and curled up at Washington’s feet.

  Overhead in the night sky, wisps of low-lying clouds softly glowed, reflecting the millions of yellow halogen lights of the chemical plants that were just north of the state capitol building.

  All the questions Micelli said I had to answer swirled around. G.G. and Taylor, G.G. and Camellia Industries, Herrington and DEH permitting, Carter and Taylor, Trey and Taylor.

  But how would Taylor’s sleeping with Catch, G.G., Herrington, Trey and who- knows-who-else add up to permits for the plant or the money in the suitcase? When I told Taylor what had happened on the boat, she said that she knew where “all” the money must have come from. All? The more than four million that G.G. had left with me? How could she know that? And if it didn’t come from Camellia Industries’ accounts, what was its source?

  The only other thing that Micelli had said was to “find out about old college days and the boy.” Old college days, I realized, might be the string that could lead to unraveling of all these interlocking relationships.

  I reached out for the empty beer can and tapped it on the table’s edge.

  “I’m not asleep. Don’t need no alarm clock,” Washington responded. “Got anythin’ you want to talk about at this point?”

  “Yes,” I said. “A question.”

  Washington waited patiently. “Whenever you’re ready, Neighbor, ask away.” “Can I borrow your truck?”

  Chapter 60

  The main LSU library, a 1960s structure sheathed in metal and glass, squatted as a heavy anchor to a courtyard filled with elegant archways, graceful buildings, and red- tiled roofs.

  As originally envisioned, the campus was to consist of hacienda-influenced architecture reflecting Louisiana’s Spanish heritage. But, over the years, it had grown into a pastiche of architectural styles.

  I parked the truck and went directly to the library, passing a scattering of late- night summer students. Frankie and Ribeye had taken my laptop and tablet computer, and I needed a place to do a little quick research.

  Quick but useless was what it turned out to be. A few short minutes of Googling revealed that, although what I wanted had been digitized, it was all contained behind paywalls requiring a credit card. My credit cards had been maxed out long ago, but what I needed could be gotten for free another way, which was why I was here.

  The pimply student at the front desk, astonished that anyone would want what I was looking for, handed me a card with a map of the library and showed me where to go.

  Down to the first basement. Past the long rows of metal bookshelves jammed with old journals. Past the high stacks of thick books that hadn’t been opened in years. Past the water fountain on the wall, slowly leaking a dribble of water onto the vinyl tile and into the drain on the floor. Past empty desks over which fluorescent fixtures cast too bright a light.

  All the way back to the rear stacks, near the concrete wall. That’s where I found the dusty remnants of hours of work by students trying to provide themselves with instant history. Years and years of purple-bound Gumbos, the old LSU yearbooks. If there was something about ‘old college days’ that involved G.G. and Herrington, this would be the place to start.

  The volumes took up four shelves. Thin ones from the 1920s. Slightly thicker ones in the 30s. From the 50s on the volumes bulged, inflated first with postwar success, then the baby boom years, then the 60s Vietnam era, which had seemed to pass by the campus in a haze of booze and football that drove out most political thoughts, and on into the heady 80s.

  The books from the 60s were what I wanted. I pulled down the 1960 Gumbo. Black-and-white photos, crisp and sharp. Freshmen, heads shaved from mandatory ROTC, lounging in pressed shirts and narrow ties. Girls in wide skirts, holding books and purses, beamed from balconies and stairways and walked through what were then large, open parade grounds.

  Team sports. A two-page spread for each of the season’s games, with action photographs, scores, and play-by-play highlights lovingly detailed.

  Fraternity houses, many now worn and faded, were all new and full of promise in these photos. Homecoming night on fraternity row. All the frat houses were decorated with paper-mâché players and figures.

  More pages venerating the power of LSU’s Greek system. Only the privileged were invited in to share its secrets, to endure its hazings, and to become campus royalty. The rest of the students were clearly peons. If they weren’t playing a sport or in a fraternity, they were relegated to small pictures bulldozed to the back of the yearbook.

  Clubs? Jammed four or five to a page with merely a listing of the members under each photograph. Boys in sports coats and ties. Girls in dresses hemmed demurely below the knees.

  But fraternities and sororities? They got the biggest spreads after the football, baseball, and basketball teams. Pictures of the brothers and sisters. Pictures of each house. Prom night; white formal coats and black satin bowties escorting silk and satin encased filigree. Pictures of the pledge class. Pictures of the Greek rituals – ‘South Sea Night’ with large logs bound together with thick ropes in front of each fraternity house as walkways, entryways, sets too garish to be used in a stage production but which had a magical quality on one special campus evening.

  It was all there. Acclaim and recognition that was so sought after at the moment, yet so ephemeral, except as encased in these paper time capsules.

  I flipped to the back of the yearbook. The editors had carefully indexed the name of each student and the pages on which their corresponding pictures appeared. No Carter H. Herrington, IV listed in the index of the 1960 volume. No Gaynell G. Guidry either.

  I started on the 1961 Gumbo and marveled at what it didn’t show. An island of white faces in photographs. No pictures of the hundreds of students from India and Pakistan who had come to the Agricultural and Engineering schools, who had been treated as “Negroes” because of their skin color. Although one black student had been grudgingly admitted to LSU as early as 1953 as the result of a lawsuit, blacks were invisible and unwelcome in 1961.

  Nothing of Herrington or Guidry in that index either.

  I worked my way through the rest of 1962, ‘63, and ‘64. Nothing there I needed. Worked my way through 1970. Nothing. Started working backward from 1980. Finally, the indices from the 1973 Gumbo contained plenty about Carter Herrington, IV.

 
I looked at each page where his picture appeared. 1973 apparently was the year of Herrington’s graduation. Here he was. President of the Student Government Association. Participant in intramural sports. Active on the Greek Council. Involved in fraternity life.

  The 1972 Gumbo. Herrington as a junior. Student Government Speaker Pro Tem. ROTC Outstanding Young Officer. Fraternity officer. No Gaynell G. Guidry in the index, however.

  The 1971 Gumbo. Herrington, a sophomore clearly on the move. Herrington, the joiner of clubs. The Language Club. The Spring Social committee. The Pre-Law Society. Herrington was in each one, often in the back row, but unmistakable in these small photographs.

  And Herrington as a second-year fraternity man. No longer a pledge but a true member of the inner sanctum. In one picture, there he was, threatening an incoming pledge class with a huge paddle, and in the next he was surrounded by the admiring pledgees, his arms around two of them, the paddle broken in half at their feet.

  I closed the book and put it on the table and yawned. I was tired and losing focus.

  I started to pick up the 1970 Gumbo, but then I remembered I hadn’t looked up G.G.’s name in the index of the 1971 volume. I ran my finger down the page to keep my eyes from skipping lines. I found “Gaynell G. Guidry” in the index and flipped to the one page where he was listed – 241.

  Page 241 was part of a two-page spread of a single fraternity. On the left, page 240 was titled “A Year in the Life of a Pledge” – a picture of potential pledgees getting a tour of the fraternity house. A section labeled “Rites of Passage” – photos of fraternity members examining the pledge class, and one of the brothers and pledges gathered around a table piled high with cookies and a large punch bowl, the House Mother looking on with approving eyes from the end of the table, ladle in hand.

  Page 241 was captioned “The Privilege of Passage.” There were the two pictures of Herrington I had just seen before I put the book down. Herrington, with the paddle raised above his head. Herrington, with the broken paddle and the unbroken pledge class. I read the captions of both photographs.

  I bent down close to the page. There was Guidry’s name on the photo with the broken paddle. I hadn’t recognized G.G. the first time I had looked at the picture, but there he was. Skinny. With tousled hair and wrinkled shirt and tie askew, with Herrington’s arm around him and the broken paddle at their feet.

  But what did I really know after having seen this picture? I guess anyone old enough could have told me that Herrington and G.G. were in college together, but why was it such a big deal that Micelli went out of his way to mention “old college days”?

  I looked again through the indices in the yearbooks from 1965 through 1980. I hadn’t been mistaken. I hadn’t missed Guidry’s name. He wasn’t in any of the yearbooks other than 1971. Perhaps he didn’t graduate. Was Guidry the “boy” that Micelli had mentioned when he spoke about “old college days”?

  I couldn’t figure it out.

  I took out my cellphone and snapped a picture of the page. As a precaution, I took the book over to the photocopy machine and made several pictures of page 241 and tucked them under my shirt.

  Now what?

  I looked at my watch. It was after two in the morning. I called my house and checked the electronic answering machine. Maybe Kirk/Kuo had left a message after I had left Washington’s to come here.

  Beep. A click as a phone hung up as the message started to record.

  Beep. Another bit of dead air.

  Beep. A loud voice thick with anger. “Gonna get you, fucker. No second chances. The next thing you jump off of . . . if your shitty little heart is beating at all when you jump again, it won’t be when you land.” Click.

  Nothing more. No mistaking Frankie’s voice. There was no going home tonight.

  Despite the hour, I quickly dialed Washington. The old man picked up the phone after two rings. “Hello,” he said warily.

  “Washington, it’s me. Schex. You keep that shotgun loaded and close by. And don’t go wandering over to my house. Understand?”

  “Neighbor, what kind of trouble are you really in?”

  “You just keep your and Durnella’s door locked. I’ll be in touch. And don’t worry about your truck. I’ll get it back to you.”

  Chapter 61

  MONDAY

  “Offer that boy some cream, W.T. You want him to ruin his stomach and burn his tongue like you, drinking that stuff black?”

  I sat in Durnella and Washington Eby’s kitchen. It was old but immaculate, the woodwork neatly painted, the linoleum floor freshly scrubbed. The curved edges of the appliances revealed their lineage; late 1950s or early 60s, but they were spotless. A pile of clean laundry was in a basket on the counter, and the ironing board and iron had been in use, as evidenced by a neat stack of crisply pressed clothes on a nearby chair.

  “You want cream, Neighbor?”

  “'Course he wants cream,” Durnella said.

  I really didn’t, but it would do no good to disagree with Durnella.

  Durnella sat down at the table and gave a motherly appraisal of my wrinkled clothes, unshaven face, unbrushed and matted hair, and soiled and sweaty bandages on my arm. “Slept in the truck, didn’t you.”

  “Now Durnella, you and I have talked 'bout this before. Not appropriate to ask

  questions. What the boy done did is his own business.”

  Durnella ignored him. “Don’t understand it. You got a nice house and a nice car, and you borrow W.T.’s truck. You’re a professional man, Attorney Schexnaydre, and you sneak out at night. You, a single man, havin’ to sneak out? Come the Judgment Day we’re all gonna have to answer. Don’t you want to get your life right and get back to church? Too much fast livin’s not the way to get right in His sight.”

  “Woman. Please leave that boy alone. What he’s been doin’ or what he’s got to do is none of our business.”

  “W.T., you can go on all you want, but it don’t change things. What’s right is right. And I can tell by lookin’ at this boy that things are mighty wrong.”

  Washington gave me a look of resignation that told me he was not going to try to derail her.

  “The devil works in mysterious ways,” Durnella continued. “He tempts you mightily. He makes you think that what’s goin’ to give you lasting pain is pleasure. And the devil makes men look at women in a way that’s the devil’s own doin’. Those single women can be full of foolishness. They can lead you astray. You look at them and you don’t see the devil in the temptation. You go dancin’ with them and you don’t feel the devil in your arms. You chase them and catch them and don’t see the devil in your hands. The devil – he makes you ignore the signs. But those signs are there. Glory is just around the corner if you just raise your eyes up and look. The Lord can lift you up. He can. I’ve seen it and I know. What you need is to be raised up to glory and stop your foolishness.”

  I didn’t dare interrupt her. Let her misconstrue what was going on. There was no harm. I raised the coffee cup to my lips, but the papers under my shirt crinkled audibly.

  Durnella gave me a stare with her head tilted back, arms folded across her bosom. “Come on, now, that’s not the starch in your shirt. Fact is, it doesn’t appear that shirt has ever been starched. 'Course, that don’t matter, when a person needs starch in their backbone more than in their clothes.”

  She put an arm out, palm up, demanding what was inside my shirt.

  I looked across the table to Washington, who was deliberately avoiding me and gazing out the window.

  “Don’t go lookin’ for W.T. to give you a way out, boy. He’s seen the Lord too, or so he’s told me, and he knows that I got the power of the Lord behind me. The Lord can help you stop sinnin’ if you turn to the Lord.”

  I reached inside my shirt and handed her the photocopies of page 241 of the Gumbo, the one with the picture of Herrington and Guidry.

  Durnella examined the pages and a look of puzzlement came to her face. Then consternation. Then a
nger. She turned to Washington, waving the papers in the air. “Old pictures. That’s what this is. Some kind of pictures from some book, but not the kind I thought.”

  She handed the papers back to me and started in on her husband.

  “W.T., you and me have been married too long for you to go misleadin’ me like you’ve done. Here I’ve been thinkin’ for some time this boy’s been out sinnin’ and you’ve done nothin’ to say contrariwise. That’s what I thought he was doin’ in New Orleans! Thought for sure those pages were salacious things, the devil’s things, things a man hides away, and I was all set to start some serious preachin’. Just knew for sure his papers must have been those kinds of pictures. And I was gonna save this boy’s soul. I was just gettin’ up a wind, and you knew where I was headed.”

  But she wasn’t finished. She turned to me, taking my hands in hers. “You knew

  too. 'Course, you couldn’t say nothin’, I see that. Deny what I was talkin’ about and I’d have thought you were just evadin’ me and runnin’ straight into the wicked clutches of the devil.”

  She patted my hands and then gave Washington a not-so-gentle slap on the arm. “But W.T., you’ve let me run on here and don’t stop me? But this isn’t about sinnin’, now, is it?”

  “Durnella . . .” I stopped. Calling Washington by his first name seemed entirely appropriate, but for some reason I couldn’t call this lady, who was old enough to be my grandmother, by her first name.

  I started again with the proper degree of respect. “Miz’ Durnella, there was nothing Washington here was doing other than trying to protect me. And to protect you.”

  “Protect me? W.T., what’s this boy talkin’ about?”

  “Miz’ Durnella, you’ve got to trust me on this. It has to do with the fact that I can’t be sure it’s safe for me to use my car or to stay in my house at night right now. It has to do with some business outside of Baton Rouge. You don’t want to know more, and