Sleep Don't Come Easy

by McGlothin, Victor

  “It’s me,” he said over the phone. “I need you to come down to the station as soon as possible.” He hung up before she had a chance to ask why.

  Fatema hadn’t seen Lazarus in over three years. “Emmy Man,” her colleagues used to call him because she’d been so hyped by the whole plight-of-the-homeless-in-America documentary she hosted and Lazarus in particular as her leading man, and no one could tell her she wasn’t getting an Emmy for him. Well, she didn’t get one, but that’s not to say he wasn’t the most fascinating human being she’d ever met. The man was as flaky as a pastry, but damn if he didn’t make for a good story.

  She stood next to Detective Baldwin, staring at Lazarus from the other side of the two-way mirror. He looked so old. But his eyes were still young, hard, but young, almost as if that was the only part of him not allowed the privilege of aging.

  “What makes you so sure he’ll talk to me?” she asked Baldwin.

  “Well, he sure as hell ain’t talking to me. You’re my last hope.”

  “Don’t sound so pessimistic, Detective. The man sitting in that room is the closest human being I’ve ever seen to divine. He walked away from a burning vehicle with a bad bump on the head and lived to tell about it—what little of it he can remember, anyway. Between you and me, all of our hopes could very well rest in him.”

  Baldwin followed her into the room, and stood in the corner out of the way holding a small recorder. Fatema sat on the floor across from Lazarus, but not too close. She remembered that he didn’t want anyone sitting too close to him, and with the way he smelled, that wasn’t a problem. Several minutes passed without a word being spoken between them. She’d spent a week following this man around, watching him, learning him, and knowing how and when to best interact with him. Lazarus had been like a school project, and she’d been fascinated by him because he had the gift of taking Fatema out of her all-about-Fatema zone, and it had been one of the most liberating experiences of her life.

  The first thing she needed to do was to let him know she was there, and she knew from experience that she didn’t have to say anything for that to happen. Lazarus’s brain worked on its own schedule. His neurons fired at a different rate than everyone else’s, and sometimes, it took a few minutes for them to catch up with the rest of him. Other times, they fired off too fast and left him standing still wondering what the hell happened.

  He saw her. He stared at her. Fatema smiled. “Hey, Lazarus,” she said quietly.

  There was a hint of recognition on his face, but she knew that it could pass quickly and without warning.

  “You back?” he asked simply.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Came to see you.”

  Baldwin watched with fascination, this whole beauty and the beast thing unraveling right before his eyes.

  “Why the hell did they bring me, here, Sweet Thang?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Baldwin raise an eyebrow, but Fatema ignored him. He’d called her that from the moment she’d met him no matter how many times she’d told him her real name. “You look like a Sweet Thang to me,” he’d explained, his eyes twinkling mischievously. So between them the name stuck, and honestly, she kind of liked it.

  Fatema searched her soul for the right words to say. With Lazarus, saying the wrong thing could send him soaring off into the mental unknown, and she could lose him if she wasn’t careful.

  “How’s the baby?” she asked. He’d told her bits and pieces about that little girl who’d died in the crash. Fatema was convinced it was guilt that drove him crazy more than that head injury he’d suffered. He held a special place in his guilty heart for that child, and sometimes, you’d think she was his daughter instead of someone else’s.

  “Still haunting my ass,” he laughed bitterly. “And doing a damn good job at it too. Ain’t she sweet?”

  Fatema smiled. “I thought you promised me that you were going to let her go?”

  “It ain’t me who won’t let go, Sweet Thang. It’s her and I am a slave to her will. That’s my penance.”

  Baldwin stared perplexed at the two of them, confused by the code in their conversation.

  “Believe me,” Lazarus continued, “it’s the least I can do.” He bowed his head graciously.

  “The police need your help, Lazarus,” Fatema mentioned casually.

  “Fuck the police!” he responded angrily, cutting his eyes at Baldwin.

  Fatema quickly revised her strategy. “I need your help.”

  He grinned. “Whatchu need from old Lazarus, Sweet Thang?”

  “The woman who they found dead underneath the bridge where you sleep sometimes—she was my friend.” She swallowed. “She was like my sister, Lazarus, and I need to know if you might’ve seen anything or anybody—I need to know what happened to her.”

  The blank expression on his face told her that he had no idea what she was talking about. Lazarus studied Sweet Thang’s face intently, looking for clues as to what she was talking about. Funny how he could remember events that happened years ago, but couldn’t seem to grasp memories as recent as yesterday sometimes.

  “Somebody hurt your friend?” he asked, concerned. “Damn, Sweet Thang. When that happen? What did they do?”

  Fatema remained calm, controlling her breathing and holding her gaze steady with his. “Somebody killed her, Lazarus. Right there, not far from where you sleep at night. She was really pretty, Lazarus.”

  “Like you?”

  Fatema smiled. “She was prettier than me.”

  He surprised her and laughed out loud. “Naw, now . . . not too many women prettier than you, sugah! I’m a old man, but I ain’t blind. You fine as hell, girl!”

  She glanced at Baldwin, standing smirking in the corner. He nodded his acknowledgment.

  “I wish I knew who killed her. I wish I knew who hurt my friend.”

  Out of nowhere, Lazarus blurted out his response. “Mothafucka cried when he was through. Hell, I thought they was fuckin’.”

  Baldwin straightened up, and he was about to say something but Fatema stopped him with a slight wave of her hand.

  “You did see something. Didn’t you, Lazarus?”

  Small beads of sweat began to form on his forehead, and Lazarus’s frustration was starting to come through. “I’d have stopped him, but I thought they was—I’d a beat his ass down.”

  “Who, Lazarus? Who did you see?”

  “He could’ve gave me a five!” he blurted out. “Rich ass—came up off a dollar like he was really doing something!” He stared into Fatema’s eyes.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and saw a hell of a lot of people; Larue’s toothless grin, that little girl’s daddy carrying her off, rich men in fancy suits, dollar bills, and pretty, pillowy pink lips—on a white girl.

  “Damn, she had a pretty mouth,” he said with tears forming in his eyes. “Pretty, pretty lips,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I need to do something. I need to help her because . . . because . . .” He hadn’t helped any of the others.

  “Who? Lazarus? Who did you see?”

  “I saw ’em all!” he shouted. “Every last one of them bitches!”

  Baldwin started to worry that Lazarus was losing control and would hurt Fatema and started over to him. “Time’s up, Fatema.” He helped her to her feet.

  “I saw all of ’em, Sweet Thang! He gave me a goddamned dollar like it shoulda meant something and that mothafucka cried like he gave a damn about what he did to that woman! He can’t see in the dark, Sweet Thang!” Lazarus shouted after Fatema as Baldwin practically carried her out of the room. “But I can!”

  The Masses

  It never ceased to amaze him how many people came through The Broadway on a daily basis. Some came just to get a decent meal, others needed a place to sleep at night. The Broadway was a converted church sectioned off into large rooms with little privacy. Women and children were housed in one large, dorm-like room, men stayed in another. Unfortunately, he had no accommodations for families yet, but Nelson ha
d just purchased half a city block of dilapidated row homes and was desperately seeking funding for renovations. Nelson depended primarily on state and federal financial assistance to keep the main shelter operating, he leveraged what he got from them against private investors for funds to put towards making the row homes livable. It was an uphill battle to say the least, but a necessary evil in this line of work.

  There were days when he didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. His work was discouraging at best most of the time, but Nelson was like a cursed man, driven and passionate about this, the only task he’d ever had that truly fulfilled him, and that tortured him at the same time. Toni was a breath of fresh air, because she genuinely felt what he felt and she had a need to do more with her life than just to work a nine-to-five, pay some bills and get by. He never thought it possible before he met her, but soul mates existed, and he’d found his. It was only a matter of time before they joined forces in marriage. He knew it, and he suspected she did too. But it was never going to happen and knowing that emptied him of expectation he knew he’d never get back.

  Finding Lazarus was starting to become an obsession with Nelson. Ever since Fatema told him about the man and that she suspected that he might’ve seen something the night Toni was killed, Nelson had been looking for him to come through the doors of The Broadway. He slowly strolled up and down the aisles between rows of tables while people ate. Lois and her staff of volunteers had outdone themselves again tonight, the way they did most nights when they could afford it. The woman had a way with stretching a dollar, that’s for sure. Stretched it so thin sometimes he swore he could see through it. Baked ham, green beans, cornbread, and butter beans were on the menu tonight. And for dessert, a local bakery had donated fresh baked cookies.

  “Hey,” he heard a woman shout. Nelson turned around to see Miss Larue waving at him. Of course, he had to say hello. She was one of his regulars.

  “How you doing, Miss Larue?” He smiled graciously.

  “I’m doing good now that I got me some of this good food. You know, I used to cook like this a long time ago back when I had a family.” She sprayed bits of food as she spoke, and Miss Larue never bothered to cover her mouth. Nelson stood back at a safe distance.

  “I’ll bet you were a hell of a cook.”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “I sho was. ’Specially on Sundays. My Sunday dinners was too much.” She laughed out loud. “Folks couldn’t eat fast enough. And they loved my red velvet cake. You ever had a red velvet?”

  “I haven’t had a good one in years, Miss Larue.”

  “Boy! Mine was so good it melted in your mouth. You didn’t even have to chew it, just let it melt, then swallow it down!”

  “Well, maybe you could be so kind as to give Miss Lois the recipe one of these days,” he asked hopefully.

  Miss Larue looked shocked. “Oh, no. No recipe,” she said emphatically, then pointed to her head. “It’s all up here in my head. And I can’t tell nobody how to make it. I just have to make it myself. Maybe one of these days I can come in and bake it for everybody.”

  Nelson knew she’d never show up, so he nodded. “Of course. Just let us know what you need and we’ll make sure you have all the ingredients.”

  Miss Larue took a big bite of ham and chewed like she had teeth.

  “By the way, Miss Larue, where’s your friend? The man you brought with you a few weeks back?”

  She stared at him blankly for a moment, honestly not remembering who he could’ve been referring to.

  “Tall fella. Long hair like mine.”

  Somebody turned on the light. “Oh! You mean Lazarus.”

  Nelson’s heart dropped down into his stomach.

  “That’s his name?”

  She chomped down on some cornbread. “He ain’t here,” she said with her mouth full. “I ain’t seen him since that day when he acted a fool all up in here. Lazarus is crazy,” she rambled on, volunteering more information than she needed to. “He all right sometimes, but he flip out on you in a minute, and when he do, he act like he don’t even know who you are. Me and him was sitting and smoking one day, and . . .”

  The sound of Larue’s voice trailed off as Nelson pretended to listen, nodding appropriately. But his mind strayed away from the conversation as soon as she said the man’s name. He had no idea of how long she’d been talking before he interrupted her.

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  She stopped eating and cut her eyes at him. “Lazarus?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why you wanna find Lazarus?” All of a sudden, Miss Larue appeared suspicious of Nelson. He’d crossed an invisible line, and he knew it. The people he served were welcome in his world, but he wasn’t necessarily welcome in theirs. They were paranoid like that, defensive and guarded of what little they possessed, even if it was junk or a warm, safe place to sleep at night.

  “I just need to ask him some questions, that’s all.”

  “Like the police?”

  “The police?”

  “They hauled him off and asked him questions already about that woman who got killed under that bridge. That cute one who used to work in here. Remember her?”

  “Yes,” he said patiently. “I want to know if he saw anything. She was a friend of mine.”

  “Oh, I know she was,” the woman said flippantly. “I saw y’all all the time making them lovey eyes at each other cross the room. I ain’t no dummy.”

  “Then you understand why I need to find him. If he saw anything, Miss Larue . . .”

  “Lazarus don’t know nothing,” she snapped.

  “Well, I need to ask him myself. He might know something. He might have seen something that night.”

  “Even if he did, Lazarus’s crazy ass probably don’t even remember what he saw. His mind come and go. It’s like turning on and off a light switch. One minute the light might be on, then somebody come along and flick the switch and it’s off and pitch black in the room. That’s how he is.”

  “If you could just tell me where to find him, Miss Larue,” he insisted, “I’d like to see for myself if he remembers seeing anything.”

  Miss Larue never said another word after that. Nelson stood there trying to get her to tell him where Lazarus was, but she finished her meal, gathered her bags and her coat and left.

  The guilt he felt over her death consumed him. She’d left the shelter that night at her usual time of eight-thirty.

  “You go straight home now.” He kissed the tip of her nose, and held her close in his arms.

  “Promise to be at my place no later than nine, Nelson,” Toni said, draping her arms over his shoulders. “Any later than that, and you’re not getting in.”

  He chuckled. “You said that last time.”

  “But this time I mean it. Pinky promise.” She held out her pinky to him.

  “Baby, I’m a grown-ass man and we don’t do pinky nothing.”

  She looked at him like he should know better, so he reluctantly wrapped his pinky around hers.

  She smiled. “See you at nine.” And then she kissed him, and left.

  “Hey, boss,” one of his volunteers had said, patting him on the back. “The kitchen’s cleaned and we’re out of here.”

  Good people, he thought fondly. “Get home safely,” he said solemnly.

  Toni should’ve gone home that night. She should’ve gone straight home and been safe.

  Said the Spider

  It was after two in the morning and Lucas noticed the light coming from underneath the door of the study. Lisa was sitting curled up on the cream suede chaise reading.

  “Kind of late for you to still be awake, isn’t it?” he asked, standing in the doorway.

  She looked up from her book, looking fresh and beautiful as ever. “The same goes for you, husband of mine. Bet you thought I’d be comatose by now from one of those pesky little sleeping pills I take way too many of. Didn’t you?”

  “Your hands are trembling, baby. I th
ink many experts would agree that cold turkey isn’t the way to kick a bad habit, pesky or otherwise.” His sarcasm came through loud and clear as intended.

  Tit for Tat. She was good at this game. “Speaking of bad habits, how’ve you been since the untimely death of your little plaything?” All expression washed from his face as he stared stunned at her. Lisa smirked.”Oh, do give me some credit, Lucas. I’m not just another pretty face, and I must say, you seem to have bounced back pretty damn well for a man who’s just lost his lover. Not nearly as broken up as I thought you’d be, but then, that poker face of yours is flawless—except for now, that is. Careful, dear. I can see what you’re holding.”

  “So you know.” He quickly tried to compose himself. “What does that mean? You want to divorce me and take everything I own?”

  She laughed. “Oh, for goodness sake, no! Besides, baby, what you own is spare change compared to what I came into this marriage with, so don’t insult yourself. This relationship works for both of us, believe it or not. But I felt it was time for you to know that Momma’s no fool, baby. And I know so much more about you than you know about yourself. Scary, isn’t it?”

  “You think you know me.” He clenched his jaw without meaning to. “Be glad you don’t.”

  “Or else what? I’ll end up dead under a bridge too?” Lisa got up to leave. “Honestly, Lucas, I think it’s the other way around. You think you know me, but you have no idea. Don’t fuck with me.” She brushed her shoulder against his passing by him. “And don’t you dare embarrass me, Luke. You’re getting careless with your little escapades with girls young enough to be your own daughters. You haven’t crossed the line yet, but you’re beginning to get mighty close to it, and I won’t suffer the embarrassment of a scandal. Either nip that shit in the bud—soon—”

  “Or else what?” He turned to watch her leave.

  “Or else, I’ll have to nip you. Somebody killed that woman, sweetheart. And I can’t think of anyone with a better motive and more to lose than you, Mr. Mayor slash Senator slash President of the fucking United States of America. And what comes after that? Oh, yeah.” She turned and smiled at him one last time before leaving. “God.”