“You know life isn’t that simple.”
“Not for everyone, no,” I say. “But for any man born free it is.”
Thompson runs his hand through his hair, adds an extra lank of greasy bang to the palate of his forehead for his effort. “Let me understand you,” he says. “Because I wasn’t born a slave, I’m not allowed to be unhappy.”
“Oh, you’re allowed. You just shouldn’t be.”
Thompson picks up the bottle from where I left it on the floor, looks at it only for a moment before putting it to his mouth. “And just why the hell not?” he says.
I hold out my hand. Thompson takes another drink then passes me the bottle. “Because it’s a sin,” I say.
Thompson looks as if he’s actually considering what I’ve said. “What about you, then?” he finally says.
“What about me?”
“Are you a sinner too?”
I push the cork back inside the bottle. “I need to take my dog home,” I say.
Thompson nods like I’ve finally said something he can agree with. “Leave the bottle,” he says.
I do what he asks—set the whiskey on the bureau—and let myself out. Thompson will make it through the night.
*
I was still young enough that physical exhaustion wasn’t anything a decent night’s sleep and a mug of strong black tea in the morning couldn’t correct. But it was the other kind of fatigue—the sort that came from having to listen to a bar-hugging bore like Meyers jabber on and on all night about his holiday to Northumberland as a small boy with his father (“the wild icy seas, the great cliffs, the willowy storm clouds racing across the winter sky”)—that wilted the will, no matter how willing. But I was learning. Learning, for instance, how to hear without listening. And learning precisely how much patience a paying customer is owed with his change. And one day I was going to have my own house to come home to—a real home—where there’d be hot water to wash away the workday with and a comfortable chair to commence the rest of the night in and wall-to-wall bookshelves spilling over their wise wares like an overripe fruit tree just drooping to be plucked. Happiness, I knew, had to be bought, just like everything else, and I was willing to pay the price.
Thompson, my last lingering patron, had finally departed, and all I had left to do was bury out back the contents of the evening’s accumulated dirty ashtrays and lock up. It was a short walk home to the mattress I’d placed on the floor of one of the empty rooms upstairs. Even though it meant having to go downstairs to Sophia’s again, I left Waldo in the backroom until I was done outside. The week before, he’d almost caught a raccoon before eventually settling on loudly treeing him, and a barking dog wasn’t the kind of word of mouth Sophia’s was looking for. I’d dug the hole and was on one knee with the bucket of ashes and dead butts when I heard, but didn’t see, Burwell.
“You need an errand boy, lad. On your knees is no place for a businessman, respectable or not.”
I finished what I was doing—tapped the bottom of the bucket to empty out the last of the debris—before standing up. It was September blustery, and a patch of tall maple trees near the rear of the property bowed in the wind, the light of the exposed moon revealing Burwell and his three-hundredpound shadow walking toward me. The wind died down and the trees stood back up and I couldn’t see either of them again until they were standing only a few feet away. I didn’t say anything. They were the ones who were where they weren’t supposed to be; let them do the talking.
“What do you say we go inside and have a drink, lad?”
“I’m closed.”
“I thought illegal saloons never closed.”
“This one does.”
Burwell grinned as if genuinely pleased, shook his head. “All business, just like me.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out something that looked like a brick. “It’s customary to seal a deal with a toast, but to be honest, I’ve never had much use for customs. Here you are.”
It was a fat stack of bills, twenties by the look of it.
“Go on, take them,” Burwell said. “They’re yours.”
“Burwell, I don’t know what—and I don’t want to know what—this money is supposed to mean, but—”
“You think too much, lad,” Burwell said, pushing the stack of bills closer, nearly jabbing me in the stomach. “That’s a sign you’ve got too much on your mind, too many irons in the fire. But that’s going to change now that you’ve got a partner to halve your worries.” He poked me, gently, in the midsection with the money. “Come on, take it, it’s your fee for cutting me in. I recognize you were the one who put up the initial capital and took the risk. You have to be compensated for that, it’s only what’s fair. And I think we both can agree that five hundred dollars is fair. More than fair.”
I looked at the money, then at Burwell and Ferguson, and instead of being frightened, felt only tired. Tired and bored.
“All right, Burwell, let’s settle this once and for all, all right?”
“My thoughts exactly, lad.”
“All right, here’s how it’s going to be. No, I’m not going to take your money, so you can put that back where it came from. And no, you’re not weaseling in on my business, it’s mine and it’s going to stay mine, and you can either start up your own place or drop the whole idea altogether, but you can put it out of your mind that I’ll allow anyone—you or anyone else—to take a piece of what’s mine. It’s never going to happen.”
Burwell was smiling again, but this time he wasn’t amused. I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed behind his spectacles through the smoke of his cigarette. “Is that the truth?”
“That’s the truth. And one more thing: if you think you can intimidate me with threats of violence against either me or Sophia’s, you’re wrong. I swear on my mother’s grave, you’re wrong. Because you know why, Burwell?” Burwell answered with a cloud of smoke. It wasn’t answer enough. “I said, do you know why, Burwell?” My slightly raised voice appeared to wake up Ferguson; I saw him slowly withdraw each of his mallet hands from the pockets of his long coat.
“Why, lad? Why is that?”
“Because now I know what freedom tastes like. And once a slave gets a taste of freedom, he never goes back. Ever.”
Burwell took a slow drag on his cigarette, exhaled a mouthful of smoke just as slowly. “I’m surprised at you, lad, truly surprised. You would think by now you would know my methods. Why would I resort to crude acts of physical aggression when all I need to do is ask you for what I want?”
“Because I already said no. And now you’re just talking in circles. And do you know what else? I’m tired, and I’ve said all I have to say. So unless you or—” After all these years, I still wasn’t comfortable talking about Ferguson like he wasn’t standing right there. “—you or your help plan on killing me right here and now, I’m going to bed.” I didn’t really think either of them would do anything, at least not right now, but I picked up the empty ash bucket anyway.
“Answer me just one question before you retire, lad.”
I switched the bucket from my left hand to my right, from holding it by its handle to gripping it tightly underneath its inside lip. “What?”
“Where were you on the date of August 7?”
“Who cares?”
“So you can’t account for your activities on the date in question?”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Burwell?”
“It’s a simple question, lad, the kind that gets asked in a court of law every day. Where were you on the date of August 7?”
“I don’t know, Burwell. And what’s more, I don’t care.”
“That is not an attitude I would recommend you adopt when you’re standing before judge and jury, lad. It’s damning enough that three respected members of Chatham saw you—you, David King—at the scene of the recent act of dynamiting that has shook up our formerly sleepy little town, but without being even able to remember where you were on the nights in quest
ion, well . . .”
The maple trees bowed again, like they were praying to the wind, while I took in what Burwell said. “Bullshit,” I said. “There aren’t three people who saw me there, because I wasn’t there, and you know it.”
“Naturally I believe you, lad. But unfortunately, three separate individuals all claim to have witnessed a Negro—that Negro being you—at the scene of the heinous act in quite compromising circumstances. And not only are all three men willing to swear under oath they saw you, but all three are also quite prominent members of our community. From what I understand, one of them is even a member of city council.”
The moon went away with the wind, but my eyes were used to Burwell and Ferguson by now, I could see both of them just fine. “And how is it that you have access to this information?” I said.
“Coincidentally enough, all three gentlemen have taken advantage of my lending services in the recent past. Quite heavy borrowers, all three of them, in fact. But I’m pleased to say that their debts might soon be wiped from the ledgers in their entirety.”
“If they lie for you.”
“If they provide a service for me, yes.”
I thought for a moment. I took another moment.
“Oh, and I would forgo any idea of claiming you were here, serving illegal drinks to a bunch of law-breaking degenerates who are your witnesses. Not unless, of course, you want your establishment to be closed down for good, not to mention raising the no doubt substantial ire of these same lawbreaking degenerates. No one likes a tattletale, you know.”
I took a deep breath. I relaxed my grip on the bucket. There wasn’t any other way out, I didn’t have any choice. “Let’s go inside,” I said. “Let’s straighten this out over a drink.”
“Exactly what I had in mind,” Burwell said. “After you.”
“Always the gentleman,” I said.
I took the lantern from where I’d left it hanging on the wall just inside the upstairs door. Because I’d been almost ready to go home, I hadn’t left any lights burning in Sophia’s. Before taking the first step downstairs, I locked the door behind us from the inside. Ferguson pointed at the lock and shook his head rapidly.
Addressing Burwell, “We don’t want any unexpected visitors,” I said.
Burwell considered this.
“I’m leaving the key in the lock,” I said.
Burwell nodded at Ferguson, and I led the way downstairs.
“Tell me how you see the profits being split,” I said.
“Why, fifty-fifty, of course, lad.”
“But if I’m working here every night, I should get a wage too, shouldn’t I?” I picked a number I knew Burwell wouldn’t agree to. “How about fifty dollars a week, plus my fifty percent take?” We’d reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Light a lamp or two, lad, it’s as dark as a dungeon down here. And of course you’re entitled to a wage, but how about something that won’t insult your partner’s intelligence? Let’s say ten dollars to start, and we’ll go from there.”
“Let me put the lantern down and I’ll get our drinks.” I was the lead elephant, with Burwell and then Ferguson following close behind. I led us to the bar, where I set down the lantern and palmed three shot glasses from underneath. “Come in the back, I’ll show you where I keep the good whiskey. And forty dollars would be a little fairer. Remember, I won’t just be swinging drinks here, I’ll be keeping an eye on our investment. That’s not something you can expect from a ten-dollar-a-week hired hand.”
“By all means let’s have the best you’ve got, lad—we’ve got, I mean—but bring the bottle out here. You can serve Ferguson and me as a proper bartender should. And I see your point about you being our eyes and ears. Let’s say twenty dollars a week.”
Hand on the door handle to the backroom, “Whatever you say,” I said, “but I thought I’d show you where the safe is while we were at it. Another time, I guess. And I think thirty dollars would make me happy.”
Burwell followed the light, came around the front of the bar after all, Ferguson, of course, trailing right behind. “Oh, well,” he said. “Procrastination is the thief of time.”
“Someone I used to know always used to say that,” I said, turning the handle.
“He was a wise man,” Burwell said. “And let’s say twenty dollars. I wouldn’t want to—”
As soon as the door was open far enough for him to squeeze through, Waldo leapt at Burwell and I jumped aside and knocked the lantern off the top of the bar; Waldo didn’t need to see what he wanted. I knew Ferguson was somewhere in the screaming, roaring dark behind me and that he’d be going for his knife, so I put my head down and charged as hard as I could, hoping to hit anything but blade. Burwell’s screams became cries, like the sound of a woman wailing over the body of her dead child.
Given its size, Ferguson’s stomach was surprisingly hard and unyielding, and he managed to wrap me in a headlock, but I got the bearing I needed and smashed the three shot glasses into his genitals. Ferguson’s hands fell away from my head and I dived past and behind him across the floor. I looked for something to use on him while he was bent over with his hands covering his balls, but without the lantern I could only see the ghostliest of outlines of tables and chairs. Before I could grab a chair to bring down on his head, Ferguson straightened up and whipped his knife out of its sheath.
I ran.
I ran for the stairs and found them and tore to the top, figuring my speed advantage would give me time to unlock the door before Ferguson stumbled to the top after me. Which I did, but only barely, Ferguson’s fleetness of foot as unexpected as his firm fat. By the time our feet touched the back lot, it was a race too close to call.
I ran in a straight line, in the direction of the rear of the lot, and didn’t look back, somehow remembering what the Reverend King always told the children on race day, on the last day of school. Of course, there’d been a life lesson to learn too: “Pick a goal in life, children, and do not deviate from it and do not look back. Never look backward.”
I only looked back once, when I couldn’t hear Ferguson’s feet pounding behind me anymore. Then I looked again, and again, until I stopped running. I walked back to the middle of the lot and Ferguson’s face-down, beached body.
The black man pushed Ferguson over onto his side as far as he could in order to retrieve his knife; slid it out and let the great dead weight fall back to earth.
“Why?” I said, catching my breath.
The black man stayed squatting, dragged his knife back and forth across a clump of dewy weeds. “Saw a white man with a knife chasing a Negro.”
“How did you know it was the Negro who needed help?”
“Didn’t,” he said. “Suppose I just never seen it the other way around before.”
Satisfied his blade was clean, the man stood up. He was old, maybe as old as sixty.
“My name is David,” I said.
“Tom,” the old Negro said, putting out his hand for me to shake.
19
Clichés when you’re ten tend to become eternal verities once you’re approaching forty. Particularly when you have two dead bodies to dispose of, preferably before sunrise. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, for instance, suddenly made a whole hell of a lot of sense.
Tom helped me haul Ferguson’s body into the back of my wagon, but I left him outside to keep an eye on things so I could assemble what was left of Burwell. Waldo was lying on the floor only a few feet away from the body, panting, watching over his kill. He looked like he could have just come inside from a particularly spirited game of fetch. When he saw me at the bottom of the stairs, he wagged his tail.
“Good boy,” I said, carefully making my way toward the bar. But I didn’t have to worry; what had to be done was done. I led Waldo into the backroom and patted his rug and he immediately lay down, head resting between his paws as he watched me close the door on him. Waldo had done his job. Now it was time for me to do mine.
Burwell’s
throat was torn out and a chunk was missing from his right cheek and both sleeves of his coat were tattered from wrist to elbow, but otherwise he was intact, if bloodied. Actually, most of the blood, the source of which was where Burwell’s neck used to be, was pooled around the outline of the body, but it was now slowly flooding across the floor. I’d worry about that later. I placed a burlap potato sack over Burwell’s head and tied it in place with a long piece of string, Tom not needing to know anything more than here was another white man who had to vanish. I tossed Burwell over my shoulder like a bag of flour. I’d never noticed before how small he was.
Tom was silent until I’d laid out Burwell on the ground beside the wagon. “I’ll take the feet,” he said. And so I took the head and we placed him in the wagon beside Ferguson.
“I’ll ride in the back, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“You don’t have to come. I’ll take care of it.” Even if I didn’t have any idea how.
“If it’s all the same, I’d like to see this through.”
To see with his own eyes that it got done. “I understand.”
Tom looked up at the beginning-to-bruise sky. “Best we get a move on, then. Sun-up not long now.”
As if on cue, a bird twittered awake in one of the trees, and we climbed in the wagon and were off.
*
Knowing we had to leave town was the easy part; deciding where to go after that was the problem. I didn’t have any clearer idea who Burwell was today than I’d had the day twelve years before when he’d hired me, but even if no one was going to miss him, he and Ferguson had to disappear for good. No one was going to miss Ferguson.
I kept driving deeper and deeper into the country, the only thing I could think to do being to bury them both in the woods. It wasn’t the bodies being discovered that concerned me; rather, now that it was becoming light, someone seeing us digging the graves. After a decade without incident removing countless corpses from the ground, I wasn’t about to go to jail or worse for planting two last ones.
BUXTON TWO MILES, the sign said.
It wasn’t Damascus, but it would do.
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