by Matt Rass
Ray looked over his shoulder to see if the GMC had followed, but there was no sign of it. “Phewf,” he said. “I’m almost on empty.” He pointed to the gas gauge and DC looked over and nodded. Almost on empty.
They were in the basement of a dirty, slate gray, four-story cement building. The new Caddy was as conspicuous as a hard-on in a steam bath. The other cars were beat-up Fords, Chevys, rusted-out Chryslers, and a practical Toyota.
“What’re you gonna do with me?” DC asked.
“Relax,” Ray said. “We’re gonna keep the Caddy cool here till we find the club. Now tell me, for real, why you tried to stick that ol’ timer in the room? Who sent you in there?”
“You gonna hafta pay me money to ask me questions.”
“Smarten up woman, and stop tryin’ to play me for a fool or I’ll drop your ass back at that shit hotel. Now tell me about the motherfucker in the room.”
“His name’s Joe the Junkie. That’s all I know.”
“Then how come when I first saw you in the parking lot, I heard you say, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’ What couldn’t you believe you were doin’?”
“Hookin’. Whaddaya think?”
“C’mon,” Ray said. “This can’t be your first time, baby?”
“It wasn’t my first time, no. But I ain’t any good at it.”
“You think I’m any good at being a cop?”
“Everyone says I fuck bad,” she complained.
“Everyone says I cop bad, too! Maybe you just haven’t had the right teacher,” Ray said.
“You gonna teach me, daddy?”
“Hell no.”
“Then you’re just playin with me. You ain’t a real man.”
“What’s a real man to you? Someone to slap you around? Get you high and take your money at the end of the night?”
“I dunno,” she said.
“Let’s be real… Just me and you… What was it you couldn’t believe you was doing back there? Or was about to do. I heard you say it.”
“My man owes money and I was s’pose to give this Junkie a shot of his dope so he fails his drug test.”
“Drug test? The dude don’t look like he’s ready for the Olympics. And with a name like Joe the Junkie, I’m guessing there was somethin’ a little more than just dope in there. What do you think?”
“I don’t know what he does for his livin’, but I’m guessing people he works for like to test him for junkie stuff?”
“You don’t know what was in the needle?”
“No, and I don’t care. All I know is what’s gonna happen to me now that I didn’t give him the shit.”
“What if it was a hot shot? Pure fentanyl? You could’ve killed him.”
“I don’t know what was in it and he don’t mean nothing to me. Just another sonuvabitch wants to slap me around.”
Ray reached across DC’s lap and she flinched, but all he was doing was opening the glove box. He took out his badge and asked her for Sam’s picture back.
She handed it to him. “I’m sorry he’s missin’.” But then she choked up. Ray watched her lip quiver uncontrollably.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” Ray asked. “You said you don’t know him.”
“I know,” DC wiped her nose on her wrist. “I’m just fucked-up, is all.”
“Tell me about your man,” Ray said. “Who’s he into?”
“Like, who does he owe money to? White people. I don’t know their names.”
“You ever hear the last name, Silver?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Silver. They s’pose to let my man from under his debt if I gave the Junkie the needle. And now that that didn’t happen, I’m in some deep shit. I guess you just gonna let me out here?”
“I can use you in the club,” Ray said. “Lemme buy you a drink?”
“Yeah, awright. But I never got my money from that old dude’s wallet, so you could say you owe me somethin’ for takin’ me outta there before, you know, I got paid.”
“Tell you what,” Ray said. “You help me out at the club and I’ll put you up in a room at the Hilton for the night. Tomorrow we go see your old man together.”
“We don’t have no Hilton ’round here. Where you from? That Detroit badge for real?”
“I grew up here but I moved away when I joined the Army. And yeah, the badge is real.”
“There’s a Holiday Inn.”
“Okay, let’s check in there first, then head to the club.”
She nodded.
“If this Silver sonuvabitch is the same one I heard was involved with my little brother then we can help each other out some more, ya dig?”
She nodded again.
“What’s your pimp’s name?”
“Andre. People call him Dre.”
“He gonna tear up this town lookin for you?”
She shook her head. “He don’t tear nothing up but credit card bills.”
“I’d tear the earth in half if I lost you,” Ray said.
She blushed. “You just playin’.”
THE HOLIDAY INN
Ray and DC entered the restaurant adjacent to the hotel’s lobby and found an empty booth behind a fake fern tree.
“Nice,” Ray said indicating the music playing in the room. “Marvin Gaye.” He escorted her to her side of the booth before taking the seat opposite her. DC strained to listen to the music. It was obvious she didn’t recognize the song.
Ray swerved to the music in his seat. “You’ve never heard this song before?” Ray was incredulous. “Let’s Get It On.”
“No,” she said.
Ray started to sing along: “We’re all sensitive people with so much to give, understand me sugar. Since we got to be here, let’s live. I love you.”
Ray slid the room’s passkey across the table to her. “I got you a room of your own,” he said.
She placed her hand over his and traced her finger along the indentation made from his wedding ring. “Your hands have so many scars, but your face doesn’t,” she said.
“I’m pretty good at ducking what’s thrown,” he said.
DC opened her small purse and took out her wallet. “Where are you stayin’?” she asked shyly.
“I’m just down the hall from you,” he said. “Don’t worry, mama.”
She fit the key in an empty card slot in her wallet and then unclipped a pink rabbit’s foot attached to the end of the wallet. The rabbit’s foot looked so worn and dirty Ray had to look at it twice to be sure of what it was. It looked as if it had been set on fire, pissed on, and crushed out in an ashtray. She hid it in her palm as the waitress approached and asked what they wanted to drink.
“You wanna glass of wine?” Ray asked DC.
She shook her head, no, and pointed at a drink card advertising a strawberry daiquiri. “Can I have that?” she asked.
“Sure sweety,” the waitress said. “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have a Jack and water, please.”
The waitress smiled and headed for the bar and DC loosened the grip on her rabbit’s foot. “Lucky charm?” Ray asked, nodding at the rabbit’s foot.
The question confused her. “What?”
“The rabbit’s foot.”
“What about it?”
“Is it your lucky charm?”
“No,” she said. “I guess so, yeah. I mean, I bought it for my baby girl.”
Can of worms, Ray thought. Can of fucking worms.
“She died when she was real little. This was the last thing I bought for her, and I didn’t even get to give it to her.”
“I’m sorry I made a joke about it.”
“Never mind. I know it’s stupid,” she laughed. “Like who buys a key chain for a baby girl? But when I saw this on the way to visiting her at the hospital, I just knew I had to get it for her. But I never got to give it to her and now it’s all I got left.”
She tried to sniff back a tear and Ray unrolled the plain white napkin from his cutlery and handed it to her to dry her eyes.
“I like to hold it and think of her,” she continued. “There she is, in Heaven.
“Beautiful place,” Ray said.
“I know she’s better off with Jesus. This ain’t no place for a little black girl to be.”
“And the world could use more angels.”
“I just feel bad she had to come down here in the first place.” She started to cry more deeply now. “No one but me wanted to keep her.”
Ray held her right hand as she used the napkin to dab at her eyes with the other. “You’re right that this ain’t no place for a baby girl, and I’m sorry all you feel you got left of yours is a rabbit foot. But believe me,” Ray said, “that love you feel for her is real, and that love is being shared between you and that little girl in Heaven right now.”
DC took her hand back from him and pushed her tears out of her eyes. “You sound like you lost someone, too.”
“I lost all kinds o’ someone's,” Ray said. “And that’s why I try and treat everyone like they’re a someone to someone else. Respect first. And that’s why I wanna try and help you get out of this mess I see you in right now.”
“Maybe I should go back to my family in Atlanta,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doin’ in this stupid town in the first place. You still have friends and family here?”
“Dead or in jail,” he said. “But soon as I lift the rock my baby brother is hiding under, I’ll put you on a Greyhound back to your own myself.”
“Thanks, Ray. You’re nice to me. No one’s ever been nice to me.”
“I wasn’t always the nicest person,” he said. “Believe me, there’s a lotta regrets in me.”
“About your brother?”
“And then some.”
“Like what?”
Ray sat back. “You got all night?”
DC reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. “I’m just gonna listen,” she said.
Ray felt his eye twitch and the corner of his mouth curl. He was getting emotional. The feels, as the kids say. He was a smooth talker, sure, but it had always been just that: talk. And now here he was feeling the heaviness of emotions in the room. Hers. His. Maybe it was Marvin Gaye, or being back home? He hadn’t realized just how many different feelings he would have on returning: growing up here in Benson Bridge, escaping to the army, and then to Detroit. His career, his wife—soon to be ex-wife. How would he reconcile not having been part of his baby brother’s life until now? Ray felt as if his past, present, and future was all balled-up together in this moment in time and getting ready to blow. Perhaps Sam’s disappearance was the match to set it off.
He cleared his throat as the waitress approached with their drinks. “Would you like me to start a tab?” she asked.
“No, this is fine,” Ray said. “How much for these two?
“Seven, even,” she said.
Ray handed her a ten dollar bill and said, “That’s fine, thanks.”
“Thank you,” she said, impressed with the tip, and walked off to check on the arrival of two other customers.
Ray held his glass up to cheers with DC. “To health and happiness,” he said.
“To finding your brother,” she said and clinked glasses with him.
Ray hit half the drink in one gulp and set it down. “Sam was about twelve years old when he came home with a brand-new video game this one time,” he began. “He said his friend lent it to him, but the thing still had the plastic on it. And, of course, when his momma saw it, she doesn’t believe it’s a gift. She thought he stole it. ‘Who lends out a brand-new game with the plastic still onnit?’ she says. But he swears to Jesus and every angel in Heaven that he didn’t, but she’s still not buying it.
“So, my old man makes me escort Sam to the kid’s house to see if the kid really gave it to him.”
“How old were you?”
“Like sixteen, seventeen. So I follow him down the lane to his friend’s house. But the whole way I can see he’s squirming inside his own skin. I can almost hear the squeaky wheels turning in his head, like, ‘How am I gonna get outta this shit?’”
“He stole it?”
“That’s what I think, but I’m not sayin’ anything, right. I’m curious to see how he’s gonna get outta this. But he looks like he’s gonna piss his pants. I mean, the kid’s hoping he gets hit by a truck so he doesn’t have to bring me to this other kid’s door.
“Finally, I say, ‘Tell me the truth, Sam. Did you steal it or not?’ But he’s like, ‘No, no, I didn’t.’
“‘It’s okay if you stole it,’ I said. ‘But you shouldn’t have brought it home, and you sure as shit shouldn’t have let your mom see it.’
“But he’s stickin’ to his story. And as we get closer to his friend’s house—I can see him peek over—he’s like, laying the groundwork for why we won’t find his friend there. First, he says the kid’s dad is sleeping ’cos he works the night shift and if we ring the bell we’re gonna get in shit, right. And the whole time I’m like, ‘We’ll knock softly.’ But then when we walk alongside the house he says he doesn’t see the kid’s bike, so he’s prolly not even home and no one knows he gave the game to Sam.”
DC laughed. “You’re torturing him.”
“Oh yeah. ’Cos I think he stole the game, too. I wanna teach him a lesson.”
“Big brother move.”
“I make him walk up the steps to the door. And when he gets there, he just freezes, his hand up like he’s gonna knock. ‘What’s up, Sam?’ I say, thinking he’s about ready to spill it to me. And he turns and I see he’s about to burst into tears. The poor kid’s eyes are like big, wet lollipops. He runs down the stairs and right past me. I finally catch up to him halfway down the lane and he’s bawling his eyes out...”
Ray finished the rest of his drink in one more gulp. He wasn’t much of a drinker since getting a job at the Detroit PD, but he had been when he first returned from the war.
“Do you have any other family in town?” DC asked.
“No. My mother passed when I was young. My older brother died when he was a teenager, and my old man drank himself to death about ten years ago.”
“How did you hear that your brother was missing?”
“An old, high school girlfriend of mine started a Facebook group to find him.”
“You wanna finish your story? You said you caught up to him in the laneway and he’s crying.”
“Yeah,” Ray said, “his eyes were like waterfalls. He’s blubbering and I can’t understand a word he’s saying. I grab him by his two arms and I start shaking him. Finally, he tells me there’s an old guy who lives over on First Avenue, lets the kids come over to his place and play video games, and orders pizza…”
“A pervert?”
“I asked him the same thing. ‘He ever try to touch you?’ He’s like, ‘No way, that’s gross.’ I ask him straight if the old guy’s ever shown him his penis. And again, he’s like, ‘No way.’”
“White dude or a black dude?”
“That’s the thing, the dude was black. If it was a white guy, I know I woulda walked right over to the motherfucker’s house and Pow, dropped him. But when he said it was a black dude, I just played it off, like there’s no way a black man is gonna molest any kids. I gave him some dumbass warning like, ‘Don’t go back, and don’t tell Pops or he’ll kill the guy.’ I didn’t know back then that black folk could be child molesters.”
“What happened then?”
“He said he wouldn’t go back and I was stupid enough to believe him. He was more worried I would tell his mom he lied about where the game actually came from.”
“And then what happened?”
“Less than a year later, the sonuvabitch molested him and a couple of other boys. I had the fuckin’ chance to do somethin’ and I never did.”
“Did they catch the molester?”
“Yeah, he was put in jail. I can’t remember for how long, or if he’s out on the streets now or what. I’ve felt guilty and
embarrassed I didn’t do anything about it my whole life”—Ray wiped a tear from his eye—“It’s like it’s my fault he got molested.”
DC stroked his arm up and down. “We’ll find Sam,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
It was the first time she used his name, and for the first time, Ray felt the weight of the situation. What if he couldn’t find him, he thought. “Thanks for listening to my story,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” DC said.
Ray rubbed his eyes dry again and turned to see a white man in his sixties with the tight, glossy face from a fresh chemical peel staring at him from his seat at the bar.
“Drink up,” Ray said to DC, “and let’s get over to the club and see if we can find this Dominique chick. Ask her what she knows.”
DC sucked loudly through her straw and Ray again checked the man seated at the bar to see what was up. The man was still staring at him.
“What?” Ray hollered.
The man turned to face the bar. DC narrowed her eyes at the man and then said to Ray, “He’s tryin’ to pick you up.”
“What?”
“Look ‘round,” DC said, “this place is for homos.”
Ray turned in his seat and noticed for the first time that most of the couples seated at tables were older men.
“Let’s get,” Ray said.
THE STRIPCLUB
Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me” was piping through the exterior speakers of the stripclub, Fillies as Ray looked directly into the camera and held the door open for DC.
Narrow stairs went straight up to the second-floor club. Strips of pink glow-in-the-dark stickers marked the edge of each step and a plastic railing was illuminated with beads of LED lights. It was real classy.
The black bouncer stood at the top of the stairs, half in the club and half out, his foot propped up on the top landing like a cowboy guarding the gate to his stable. The bouncer puffed up his chest and turned full frontal as soon as he saw Ray.
When Ray got to the landing and was lit by the fluorescent bulb above, the bouncer let out a great big “Goddamn,” took Ray’s hand, and pumped it up and down with both of his. “Ray Price. It’s Dwight Himes, you remember me?”