Unreliable

by Lee Irby

  Unless Lola can figure out a way for me to move forward. She’s got a devious mind and knows how to work an angle…so to the Chicory I must now go, for a consultation with the queen of the quick fix, who routinely forced her professors to change her grade, and who never paid a traffic or parking ticket in her life. I have to admit that I’m running out of energy. I can picture myself reclining on a brick-hard hotel bed, with my head nestled in Lola’s warm lap, her long fingers caressing my hair, while listening to her concoct a foolproof plan to elude the pursuit of my tormentor, the relentless Detective Voss, who seeks nothing more than my total destruction. In the background the TV will be on, at a low volume, because Lola finds the chatter to be soothing, a habit of hers I’d love to break. She hates silence, and being alone is hell for her.

  River Road winds me back toward Richmond, and when I reach the sprawling River Road Baptist Church, I decide to let my mother know of my plans. I want to relieve her of worry on the eve of her wedding, but instead, when she doesn’t answer the phone, my own concern for her grows exponentially. I leave a harried and half-baked message, promising I’ll return after I run a few more errands. But what’s going on back at Traylor Estates? I picture several scenarios: the SWAT team surrounding the house in full riot gear or else the Russian weapons dealer and a gang of marauding Slavs with vengeance on their vodka-smelling breaths, out for a pound of Mead’s flesh. Panic seizes me around the throat and begins choking the life out of me. Driving becomes impossible and so I pull over into the driveway of an older and stately home, built back when River Road slithered into the countryside. I call my mother again and get kicked to voice mail, and I yell at the phone for being so stupidly obtuse at this perilous moment in my life. What hath I wrought? Not even Lola can help me now if the situation has devolved to that point…Lola…I can’t even bring myself to call her! I want her, I need her, I love her—and yet I can’t tell her what I’ve done. She’ll laugh in my face, and rightly so. She has her whole life in front of her, and what of me? Will conjugal visits to prison sate her?

  I can’t go back to Leigh Rose’s house, either. All avenues of escape have been cut off. Defeat is something that Richmonders know well, but if General Lee could lay down his sword with grace, I can, too. I fish out Detective Voss’s phone number, ready to join the ranks of the dead who haunt our city. I can’t allow my mother to suffer due to my own perfidy. You break it, you own it.

  I dial with my hands trembling in fear, nerves shot, brain fried…I’ll confess to everything they want me to. I killed Kennedy and I killed Jim Morrison. I sold heroin to John Belushi. Let’s get this over with.

  “This is Voss.”

  I almost hang up, but I’ve crossed the Rubicon now and there’s no turning back. “Hi, this is Edwin Stith returning your call.”

  “Edwin Stith, yes, thanks for calling me back. I was hoping you could help me with something. I got a call from a colleague in the Ithaca PD and they’re looking for a missing girl, by the name of, let’s see, it’s here somewhere, Lola LaSalle? Have you had any contact with her?”

  “I have, as a matter of fact.”

  “You have?”

  “She’s called me a few times today but left messages. I haven’t spoken to her directly because it’s been a little crazy here, with my mother’s wedding. Her father called me as well. She’s missing?” I have to admit to these contacts because her cell phone records are easily obtained. Anyway, I’ve got no reason to lie about her whereabouts.

  “No one’s heard from her in a few days, which I understand isn’t that unusual from what they tell me, but her parents are worried. But you’ve heard from her today? Did she say where she was?”

  “No, she just told me about some guy she was trying to find that she met online. She’s a very adventurous young woman, one of my favorite students, but if her parents are worried, that is a different story.”

  “But you never spoke to her in person? She just left you messages, but didn’t say where she was?”

  “No.”

  “Here’s the confusing part, Professor Stith. When the Ithaca PD checked her cell phone records, it turns out she’s making calls from Richmond.”

  “From Richmond? Are you serious?”

  “She never said she was in Richmond?”

  “No. Never. She is crazy, I swear. Maybe she wants to surprise me.” I laugh like an amused uncle who gets a gag gift on Christmas. But Lola has screwed up royally now. Voss doesn’t believe my genial lies—he’s no fool, he knows she came down to see me but that I can’t admit to that, given today’s policies against amorous relations on campus.

  “Why would she want to surprise you?”

  “That’s how she is. A merry prankster.”

  “You two are close, I take it?”

  “I work at a small college. I’m close to many of my current and former students.”

  “Well, Professor Stith, thanks for clearing that up for me. I’ll let everyone up in Ithaca know what you’ve just told me. This is your cell number? I can reach you on this in case there are follow-up questions?”

  Of which there’ll be a million, because now the entire world knows about Lola and me! Oh, happiness! The end is nigh! Edwin Stith, kaput. The king is dead, long live the king. Her little escapade, her telling of Dahlia…these are trifles, sure, except in the world of academia, where she’s accused me of high treason. The nymphs aren’t to be touched. No touching! It’s worse than kindergarten. Yet many want to be touched by a mature man…Here’s a fun fact about Lola. No one but me has ever brought her to orgasm. Yes, all those prodigiously endowed stallions have swung and missed, because they know nothing about how to make love, how to reach a woman’s innermost parts, which don’t reside between the legs. Only I, the eternally flaccid, can make Lola climax because I’m patient and attentive and focused on her enjoyment. Does Detective Voss, or my fussy dean, or any of our moralizers in cap-and-gown, understand what true love even is?

  I put the car in drive, resigned to my fate. One last trip to the Chicory, where Lola will greet me with a smile, but it’s the smile of the Cheshire cat. Her claw marks are all over my career. Poor kid! Her desire to be rebellious has led to my undoing…I should’ve seen it coming.

  As I continue on down River Road, I scan the radio stations of Richmond to find news, any news, of the destruction of the Lee statue. A part of me still wonders when the names of my stepfather and stepbrother will get mentioned, but on the AM dial, a sedate DJ intones that no arrests have been made, no suspects have been identified—and no group has taken responsibility. I might have expected that the Bastard Sons would have owned it by now, by issuing a proclamation of some kind. Usually that’s how such shadowy groups operate, not that I’m a domestic terrorism expert or any kind of expert.

  As I reach the River Road Shopping Center, anchored by Ukrop’s Supermarket, famous in Richmond for clean-cut baggers and never being open on Sunday, I debate whether to call Lola. I don’t know that I’m composed enough to speak with her, but I also want to alert her of my impending arrival so that she doesn’t fly the coop again. I have the phone in my hand as I wait at a red light where River Road merges with Cary Street. But then it rings, the tone jarring me from a Lola-induced reverie of conciliation. The caller ID reads Gibson.

  Whoa. This can’t be good news.

  “Hello?” I answer cautiously.

  “Hey, it’s me, Gibson. Where are you?”

  “Um, just heading up Cary Street. Why?”

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Graves is in trouble and he needs our help. I’m at this dive bar in Oregon Hill, and you have to come get me and then we’ll go get him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He won’t tell me.”

  “Then how are we supposed to get him?”

  Gibson sighs at my lack of imagination. “Just get over here and pick me up. He’s really in trouble. I’m at Bazooka Joe’s on Pine Street. Hurry, ok
ay? I’m serious.”

  The other shoe has dropped, as it usually does. Though Gibson didn’t say, I’m pretty sure I know the cause of the trouble Graves finds himself in. Just when I thought I’d never need a gun again! But on such a restive night, with legends tumbling and the dead dying again, it’s a good thing to have a very heavy sidearm. Will it actually discharge a bullet? We’ll see…

  What of Lola? She has summoned me and yet again we appear destined to miss each other. She can’t stand being alone, I get that, but maybe this once she can curl up on the bed and watch one of her stupid TV shows until I get there. As I speed along Cary and approach the front edge of Windsor Farms I call her, and what do you know? She doesn’t answer. This is getting annoying. We live in an age of advanced technology and global communication, and I can’t even complete a simple phone call with my beloved. I leave a message informing her that an unexpected family emergency has detained me, but that I badly want to see her and that we have much, so much, to discuss. I’d rate my performance as acceptable. I don’t think I came across as panicked or angry, just efficient and concerned. Lola doesn’t react well to stress, and if she thinks I’m upset with her or in trouble, she can fly off the handle. It’s already an open question why she won’t pick up her phone.

  I head toward Oregon Hill, a working-class neighborhood located near where the state penitentiary used to be. Like much of downtown Richmond, it has experienced a revival of sorts. I took Bev to a Vietnamese place there on our last visit home, and the signs of gentrification were evident even then. The little row houses were being renovated and painted bright colors, and the state pen had become a chemical plant. Some might call this progress, compared to the drug-infested blight of the area when I was in high school.

  For what seems like the hundredth time today, I cruise down Cary Street, through the fashionable districts of the Fan, until fifteen anxious minutes later I reach the sprawling urban campus of VCU. I know I’m getting close to the turnoff for Oregon Hill, and for some reason Laurel Street rings a bell. I hang a quick right and pass over the Downtown Expressway. It takes me a few minutes to realize that I’m just minutes away from Tredegar Iron Works, where tomorrow my mother will be married and today a group threatened to blow it up. Is that the next target tonight?

  And if Graves has committed criminal acts, and I were to help him evade capture, then I’d be an accomplice after the fact and guilty of obstruction of justice. In the larger scheme of things, these charges are more akin to mosquito bites than real wounds. Still, I hope Gibson understands that we can’t harbor a fugitive.

  The streets of Oregon Hill narrow considerably, and I can tell that parking is a real challenge in this congested little plot nestled against the river. At a stop sign I quickly consult my phone to get a grip on where Bazooka Joe’s is. Pine Street is a block over, and so I turn left and then slowly glide a few blocks south, on the lookout for an open space. In addition to Bazooka Joe’s, there are other small, eclectic establishments that doubtlessly Lola would love, as she delights in frequenting cramped retail spaces and packed cafés where the tables are pressed together and the menus are handed out on clipboards…this is her kind of mojo, very Ithaca in feel. Bev too liked off-the-beaten-path curiosities, but not even Oregon Hill made her warm up to Richmond.

  A parking spot! In front of a record store. I deftly swing the Honda into position, showing off my unsurpassed parallel-parking skills. Now, onward. But my legs have suddenly grown wobbly, just as I’ve reached the home stretch. If I were a jockey, I’d be lashing my flanks with a riding crop. To little avail. My body has begun to cramp up in weird ways, indicating that I need water. This night is starting to take its toll on me. My head literally starts to spin as I step down the brick sidewalk, uneven in places, causing my balance to be thrown off. Another metaphor! The ground is shifting beneath my feet, and nausea creeps into my upper GI tract.

  Bazooka Joe’s, dead ahead. I forge on, hoping I can make it. I’d sometimes experience these strange blackout episodes during a two-year trial of painkiller addiction, which more or less has ended, at Lola’s urging…yet another way she cares for me! It’s been a month since my last “poppage,” as I came to term my pill usage. I bought them from my neighbor, a woman who’d been in four car accidents in four years, and whose spinal fluid leaked everywhere, or something, and her pain management consisted of selling her prescriptions so she could buy food and bourbon. In a sense, I was conducting civic engagement, building bridges between academia and the surrounding community…without me, she would have starved. Without her, I would’ve actually felt the pain of Bev leaving me.

  Bazooka Joe’s is crowded, and I don’t have the body strength to seek out Gibson. Instead, I slump into an empty bar stool that became vacated right as I was going to crumple to the floor. I hold up my hand and feebly wave it. The bartender, a raven-haired waif adorned with fierce tattoos, comes over.

  “Water,” I croak. “Thank you.”

  Wordlessly she fulfills my request and within seconds I have a big Solo cup of ice water to chug down. If only guilt could be quenched like thirst! There needs to be an elixir that can wash away the lingering pangs of regret that only your hometown can elicit. I need to be with Lola now, right this second, but yet again affairs of state interfere. I check my phone; no call back from her. She’s in Richmond, that much we know. How this will play out is anyone’s guess.

  I leave the bartender a dollar tip and begin my search for Gibson, which takes only a minute because Bazooka Joe’s is very small. And loud. And smelly. My stomach is barely hanging on. Gibson, thankfully, is ready to leave at once.

  “We have to go,” she says, pulling me by the arm. I enjoy it when women take over. Only then can I truly relax. Nothing about manhood pleases me anymore. I could have made an excellent court eunuch in ancient China and given my verbal skills risen to a high rank, having won the confidence of the emperor that his concubines were safe around me.

  “Where is he?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Condense it.”

  “What?”

  “Make it short and sweet. I don’t have time to go on a wild-goose chase.”

  She ignores me, pushing through the bar. Outside, she wheels to face me, deadly serious in her kittenish way. “Graves is like freaking out,” she intones, rubbing her temples with her hands like a long-suffering housewife confronting a doltish husband. “He texted me that he was going to die unless someone could get him out of there.”

  “Hold on. Where is he right now?”

  She consults her phone with expert dexterity. “St. John’s Church. Never heard of it. Do you think it’s a bar?”

  I stifle a laugh, long ago having learned that the young might lack certain knowledge but still possess a purity that ignorance only emboldens. “No, it’s not a bar. St. John’s? Really? It’s like the oldest church in Richmond. It’s where Patrick Henry delivered his ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ speech during the Revolutionary War.”

  “Oh, that makes sense. Graves is always rattling on about that.”

  “It’s not far. Should we go get him?”

  “No. Let’s stand here like a pair of morons.”

  For some reason I snap at her. “I don’t have to do this, you know. Stop acting like I’m the hired help.”

  “Fine. Get the fuck out of here then!” Gibson never backs down, always stays in attack mode.

  “I don’t mind helping, but don’t get in my face.”

  “Grow a pair. Graves is probably dead by now anyway. Those jerk-offs he’s been hanging with, they’re nuts.”

  “I’m parked over here.”

  She still walks in front of me, the indomitable one, eighteen going on thirty, exuding a raw energy that can bend metal. At least she trusted me enough to call me in her time of need, a marked improvement from her running out of the 7-Eleven this morning…was it this morning that I first met Gibson? It seems like a lifetime ago. We’ve managed to pack in quite an a
ssortment of excitement during our brief relationship—hitchhiking, a sexual romp that nearly got us both killed, a killer set at the Dungeon, and now this, a rescue mission of sorts, that will take us to the ideological birthplace of our nation.

  “You heard about the Lee statue, right?” I ask after we both get into the Honda.

  “Yeah.” Her shoes come off, and bare feet go to the dash.

  “Do you think Graves had anything to do with it?”

  She inhales sharply and shakes her head almost in disgust. “I hope not. But you shouldn’t even talk about it. Never. You could jinx him.”

  “Come on, that’s ridiculous.” I start the sickly sounding engine, noticing that I need gas. “We need to stop for gas. There’s got to be a station on Broad Street, don’t you think?”

  “Can we stop after we get him?”

  I quickly calculate the distance involved with the amount of gas in my tank. “Sure. As long as we find a station right after. Get on your phone and sleuth out a place near St. John’s Church.”

  She begins the assigned task at once, and the glow from her touch screen casts an angelic light on her face. But my heart sinks, thinking of Lola…she’s at that fleabag hotel, waiting for me. Now that we’ve been outed, there’s no reason for us to hide…I can take her to the wedding tomorrow and proclaim my love for her in public. No more lies, no more hiding! Give me liberty or give me death!

  But traffic in Oregon Hill is snarled and we crawl along Pine Street. Gibson bounces in her seat, yelling at the cars ahead of us to move. I share in her frustration, because the longer this takes, the longer my reunification with Lola will be delayed. They say good things come to those who wait, but not when you’re dealing with an impetuous young woman with a bottomless appetite for the macabre.