by John Decure
“When you saw them together, did the vic—did Rue appear to be enjoying herself?”
“Kiss my ass, lady.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “Put your feelings aside, and think: was she enjoying herself?”
“What’s the damn difference?”
She leaned against the wall behind her. “Think about it.”
And I did. The answer was there, right in front of me. I could see it all just like it was yesterday.
“She looked like a zombie. A robot.”
“Your ex-wife is mentally ill. All her life, she’s been a victim of men who want to dominate her. Almost all her life. You were the one good guy who didn’t fuck her over. Until you did by bailing on her.” She studied my face. “Oh, why bother? You can’t even see it.”
“See what? After all that, I was supposed to stick by her side? Who the hell are you to judge me?”
“Okay. You manned up and told the truth today. Stood by her for once.”
“Damn right I did!” I sounded angry, but she’d knocked the wind out of me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize what a great accomplishment you thought this was. I’ll look into getting that medal for you.” She walked away before I could fire off another hollow protest.
Speechless, I staggered out of the place with my head down, and didn’t look up until I was back at the pay lot, the Softail gleaming in the midday sunlight like a magic carpet designed just for me.
Rue was standing ten feet away from it. All I could think was to throw my leg over the tank and key the ignition. The Harley fired up with all the power and precision of a twenty-one-gun salute; it’s a moment I always love, so filled with the promise of the open road stretched out ahead. Horns were honking and people were out walking the streets and a cool breeze was tunneling its way down through the old stone buildings, and boy, how I wished I could slide up the kick-stand and tilt those handlebars toward the curb. But Rue, she’d come closer, near enough to rest her tiny hand on mine.
I sat there on twenty-five grand worth of gurgling chrome, my ex-wife silently patting my hand. Turns out I’d asked the wrong woman for an atta-boy I didn’t really deserve anyway.
“Thanks for coming, Andy. Drive safe, and take care of yourself.” Kissed me softly on the cheek.
My eyes were hot and scratchy—lotta dust blown in them, from off those dirty downtown streets, I guess. The Softail came to life in a clean, straight shot down Fourth, right past a busy street called Los Angeles. Rue was heavy on my mind, and as I glided along, gassing it as the road tilted left near Alameda, in my mind, I was back outside Dr. Don’s office that one ugly day, but this time I played it differently and stormed inside the building, kicked down a door or two, and protected my woman from all harm. Righted a wrong still in its inception, instead of letting it fester and grow. I was so locked into this… alternate vision, that I forgot I was tooling a Harley in lanes of traffic. I snapped out of that weird sort of trance when I came up on a guy crossing Fourth, a tall, dark-haired guy with a deep tan and a… what? He was carrying, of all things, a big, old-time surfboard under his arm. A longboard. I just missed smashing him with my dual pipes blaring a Kindly get the lead out message when he caught my eye with what I can only describe as a nod of respect—like he was saying, Finally, man, but you did it. Maybe I was on the right track, at last, by taking ownership of my failure to act that day outside Dr. Don’s place.
How could a stranger in the road with a surfboard know this? You’d have to ask God or Satan, but anyway you want to look at it, I felt better. Turned my head to check behind me, over my shoulder, even though I was doing fifty. Didn’t see the guy with the surfboard anywhere—anywhere!
Ho! These old downtown streets always felt haunted to me, loaded down with the abandoned dreams of all the weak and foolhardy souls who have packed up their dreams and headed west and met only heartache and failure. Enough with the sunshine voodoo, please! I dropped down a gear and goosed the throttle.
Man, oh man, that rise onto the stone bridge over the LA River lifted me up, up so sweetly, such a carbon-blasting reawakening of the soul, it was, the Harley thundering beneath me like an apocalyptic cavalry. Moments like this usually make me feel like the king of the road, the cock of the walk. Instead, by the time I hit the 101 south, I was clinging to that Softail like it was the side of a lifeboat, the whole time thinking how wrong, how very wrong I’d been about my life. I always thought I’d been on the short end of the stick, how nothing seemed to work out in my favor. But I’d got out of it exactly what I’d put in—no more, no less—and now, I’d have to find a way to live with that forlorn, indisputable truth.
Southbound 101, you will kindly save my life now by carrying me home, posted speed limits be damned.
Air smashing me in the face and still I can’t catch a breath. Softail sailing, RPM dreaming…
I loved you, Rue, I truly did, just not the right way, not like you needed. And not enough. No, not near enough, my poor mistreated darling. I know that now…
19
DESHAUN FELLOWS
My first problem with testifying had to do with walking into the state building downtown. Soon as I get in there I see two brothers in police outfits working security, a line of folks waiting to scoot through a metal scanner. Sign says ABSOLUTELY NO WEAPONS ALLOWED, and I know, it’s a crime to even come through here with one. I’m like: Damn, forgot all about this government building security! That means I gotta go all the way back to my car, three blocks, lock my piece in the glove, and hope some hopped up ’baser making his nut around here slinging purple caps doesn’t spy me parking the piece, and doesn’t go pulling a smash-n’-grab with a crowbar while I’m gone, leave me without a strap when Bulldog comes for me.
Yeah, that’s right, Bulldog. Word on the street is he knows I’m the one got his little lady Sadie on a plane out of LA—which is true, so it’s not like I can hide from the truth. I know he’ll be along soon enough to even the score, it’s how a bad boy like Bulldog keeps score, it’s how a young man with an eye-for-an-eye, street hoodlum’s code would be thinking. Damn sad how you jus’ know he’s gonna wind up dead or in prison, that Bulldog. One more thing I know, though, is I don’t want to be a clay pigeon.
But I can’t get into court carryin,’ not even with a license, can’t slip in through a back door or climb up a fire escape, so I guess a clay pigeon I am. Jus’ two blocks up, and two back, that’s all I gotta worry about. Knowing jus’ that same I must be suicidal to do this, Bulldog waiting out there somewhere and me not carryin,’ but here goes nothing.
Light foot traffic on the street and I’m practically running down the sidewalk. No Bulldog yet. Then it hits me: I’m in no danger for now. If he’s watching me, gettin’ ready to move, he’s smart enough to let me stash the piece first before confronting me.
Not that I can take any credit for showing up—it was Ida Mae who set me on my current course of personal responsibility. Ever since that lady lawyer came around with her subpoena, I’ve been making plans to leave with Ida Mae and Sadie, close up shop, look into the licensing regs for a state of Louisiana PI, concealed weapon applications, and assorted whatnot. Then once I get there, I’ll look around for a quiet little parish needs an experienced PI, work something on a part-time basis, that’s all I want to do. But I’ve been noticing little things? Tell’s me something inside ain’t right. Like, I’m losing my energy for doing tasks, simple jobs. Got roses to tend outside the kitchen window, bag of mulch needs spreadin’, but all last weekend, I couldn’t drag my butt out of my chair and out the door to do it. Eating less, too, because food jus’ don’t seem to taste as good, even a pulled pork sandwich from Meat n’ Taters, a very fine southern barbecue place down the block. Can’t hardly sleep either, not without waking up, every dog barking or car backfiring doin’ a drumbeat right on the back of my skull. Haven’t even looked at Ida Mae ’tween the sheets, meantime—and that’s enough said about that. We talked about the situation plenty, me doing most of the tal
kin’, giving the wife every good reason I can think of for us to get on outta town. You know, we can start fresh too, I say, jus’ like Sadie.
Ida Mae, she listened quietly, thinking hard. Last night, she says: “I know, I know, honey, that’s all fine, lover, you’re making good sense.”
“But what?” I say. “Go ahead, out with it.”
“But you’re leaving out a reason, the most important one, in fact.”
“For staying put.”
“Yes. You left out the main reason you gotta stay,” she said.
Ida Mae told me straight, and I listened. Woman know me better than I know myself.
I got to my car, stashed the hardware, got back up the block to court in one piece, made it past the uniformed brothers easy enough.
Which meant that the time had arrived for me to speak like a licensed investigator with years of experience in commercial, professional, and domestic matters.
It’s just how it is. When white people pony up a big retainer to a black man, have him look into an important issue, clean up an untimely mess, this is how they expect a black man to conduct himself when he reports back with his findings.
Anyhow, what I was building up to saying was the reason I showed up here today. You see, I try not to get involved in the personal business of my clients or their loved ones; seems to me a good investigator can’t do his job right—can’t maintain the objectivity necessary to make sound decisions—without keeping an emotional distance. But talking to Ida Mae, I discovered something right under the surface of all the work I’d done for Andrew Loberg. I really hated what that Dr. Don did to Mr. Loberg’s wife, and his family. In my eyes, Dr. Don was just like Bulldog: a bully, an exploiter of the weak. Only real difference is Bulldog, a black man, carries large bore hardware, while Dr. Don, a white man, travels with a team of lawyers.
Sixth floor, some empty hallways with nice carpet, not a sound, not a soul… where’s the rock and where’s the roll? Guess I’ll find that out soon enough. I take my time, follow the signs to the courtroom, look through the little glass window cut into the door, and see a judge in there, talking to a court reporter, a nicely dressed woman in the middle of changing the paper roll in her little black reporting machine. Kick around the idea, one more time, that maybe I should just leave, scoot, get on outta here before anyone sees me.
Ida Mae’s with me in spirit, just like she said she’d be.
Ready to go inside, Deshaun?
Yeah, Ida Mae, I’m here, guess I might as well—and then, I get a surprise tap on the shoulder! I swing around, ready to rumble, all right, thinking: How in hell did Bulldog found a way to get through security down below? How in hell—
“Hello, Mister Fellows.”
Oh, man, relief—not Bulldog. Instead, it’s the possum-faced Mr. Leyes. I could’ve hugged him for not being Bulldog, but my dislike for him rushed in just as quick as my relief that I wasn’t facing a killer unarmed. By the time Mr. Leyes reached out his little white hand to shake mine, I’d recovered.
“What’re you doing here?” I said.
Mr. Leyes was in another nice suit, this one black like the other one he wore, but double-breasted. Smiling, but I could tell he was nervous, could smell the sweat and cologne and antiperspirant under his lapels. Last time I caught that scent that strong was in the tunnel at the Coliseum for an SC football game, Trojans losing their homecoming game against Arizona, a team they should’ve been putting a whipping on. Lotta nervous wealthy white men in attendance. Same smell.
Mr. Leyes, he looked at me like he noticed I had no pulse during our handshake.
“Interesting question,” he said, “because I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
I unfolded the subpoena from the pocket of my sport coat, showed it to him. He read it, shaking his head. Gave me a so-what kind of look.
“As you can see, it’s what I’ve got to do,” I say.
“Deshaun, please be reasonable. When I came to your office, I felt certain we’d worked out a mutually beneficial arrangement. Had a meeting of the minds, so to speak.”
“I don’t see any contract.”
“A valid contract can be oral, Deshaun.”
“I’m guessing you learned that in law school, am I right?”
“This is not a game.”
“Yeah, well, here I am. The subpoena wasn’t my idea, sir. You know that.”
He frowned. Put his hand under his chin and propped up his elbow with the other hand, like he was the principal thinking about sending the upstart black boy home for the day. Or the week.
“We struck a bargain.”
“So you’re now saying.’”
“You do know this causes complications—”
Whatever complications he was coming to, I didn’t care as I reached into the other side of my jacket. Leyes cringed when I did, and I felt just a tingle of pleasure at his expense, slowly pulling out my hand, which I shaped like a gun.
“Bang,” I said, the man tilting back like he wanted to avoid the kick from my loaded index finger.
“Now you listen to me, Mr. Fellows—”
“I don’t know what you take me for,” I said, puffing up my chest as best I could.
“We had a deal.”
“No, you just thought you had a deal. Now, I may not have looked exactly overjoyed to see you here today, but I am truly glad you came. You saved me a trip down Wilshire to see you.”
I reached into my jacket again, this time pulling out the envelope with the money. I’d been carrying it around, on my person, ever since he’d first handed it to me that day he came to my office.
He acted like I’d hit him with a stun gun, Rodney King style. There had to be something witty and wise I could say, but the truth is, I wasn’t prepared to part with all that money, not up until that minute. So many things I could do with that cash, for myself and my family. I’d been hoping there was some other way I hadn’t thought of, some way to justify my keeping it. But I was stumped. Truth is, it hurt like hell to part with all that cabbage, even though I’d thought about it plenty before now. But I let it go, slapping the envelope against the man’s lapel.
“Mr. Fellows. Your commitment to civic duty is inspirational, but actions do have consequences.”
“Nothing left to talk about,” I said as I turned to grab the knob on the courtroom’s door.
“Did you hear me?” Leyes hissed like a snake who’d just been stepped on. “This isn’t over.”
I may be a little longer in the tooth these days, but my temper still fires up strong, under the right conditions; and this little man in the fine suit, with three little words, just kicked off a major storm inside me. His eyes got bigger as I stepped back to where he stood, the cords in my arm tightening like when I hit the bench press in my garage.
“I heard you fine, Mister Leyes. Now I’m gonna tell you something you need to hear. Anybody messes with my family, I’m coming right back to you and you alone. Understood?”
His breathing was tight, as if he was squeezing air through a straw, but he nodded.
“I told you before, I’m a former military policeman. But I don’t think you listened, I don’t think you understand what that means. No, that day you were too busy talking sports and barbecue and other shit you know nothin’ about, Mr. Leyes.”
“Now, Deshaun,” he muttered, but I ignored him.
“When I was an MP, I used to go after AWOL Marines, badasses who were trained to use guns, trained in hand-to-hand combat and weaponry. Think that was an easy job?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Damn right it wasn’t. Now, that was a long time ago, but let me update you to the present, so listen carefully. I still carry a concealed weapon, Mr. Leyes. And make no mistake, I know how to use it. To you, that means if you send someone to do your dirty work for you, they’ll wind up dead. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”
His “no” was barely a whisper, but it was good enough.
&n
bsp; “And then I’ll come back to deal with you. You do understand that.”
The man’s forehead was getting sweaty and the wisps of hair on his head had gone a little sideways, blowing like tiny frayed curtains when he exhaled.
“I don’t take kindly to this treatment,” he said.
“It’s the hand you’ve been dealt. In time you’ll come to accept it.”
Man, my back hurt just from pumping myself up and my head hurt from thinking up all that tough-guy shit I just laid on him. Seemed to have the effect I was after, though. Mr. Leyes teetered back like the thought of making a run for it was making some sense.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said.
Maybe the whole Bulldog thing was making me cranky, maybe the fear was chewing on my insides to the point where I was too ready to fight, just mix it up at the drop of a hat. But I couldn’t resist messing with Mr. Leyes one more time, and as he backed away, checking to see if I was following him, I raised my big black hand, my thumb and forefinger at ninety-degree angles, just like a pistol, pointing right at him as he backed his ass down the hall.
* * *
Man, I’d kill a nun for a drink right now, I was thinking when I walked in. Three men in fine dark suits, looking like they buy their clothes where Mr. Leyes shops, were sitting next to a nervous-looking Dr. Don at a table on the left, and that state prosecutor who looks like she popped right out of a music video sat at a table opposite theirs. The prosecutor got up to shake my hand, smiled and thanked me for coming, but she was no-nonsense and before I could offer any chitchat, she pointed me right to the witness stand. The judge welcomed me, said he hoped the traffic and parking down here wasn’t too much trouble for me.
No, judge, I wanted to say, the parking and traffic were okay. Staying alive?—now that might be a problem.
The man in the black robe, he took his time swearing me in, like he was making sure I could follow the concept of telling the truth. Well, yes, sir, I do know what is at stake here, I wanted to pop back, but I just nodded the way a man making a living in the service of others is expected to nod.