Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “I just call it like I see it, ma’am.”

  “There you go, ma’aming me again.” She patted the seat next to her. “I’m Ruth.”

  “Bill,” I said, as the impulse to tell her who I was rose again. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt. “But my closest friends call me Smokey.”

  “Smokey,” she repeated, and nodded. “It suits you better than Bill. I thought the name a little too bland for you. Come. Sit.” She patted the space beside her again, and I moved.

  “How’s Saul?” I asked, knowing only because she was still sitting here that he was alive.

  The twinkle faded. She sighed. “They broke some ribs and smashed most of the bones on the left side of his face. He might lose his eye.”

  Her voice wobbled, and she had to take a deep breath before continuing.

  “He had trouble breathing. They think it was the blood, but they weren’t sure. They said they won’t know the extent of the damage until they get him into surgery.”

  “He’s there now?” I asked.

  “They don’t know how long it’ll take.” She turned toward me. “What was wrong with those boys? Why did they come into my house? Why did they want my Saul?”

  “I’m sure the police will find that out.”

  “They only have the one boy, and they nearly blamed you. Why would they do that?”

  I took her hand in mine. Her bones were fragile, her skin soft and papery. She was right; those boys would have destroyed her, maybe killed her.

  “I think you know why they did it,” I said.

  “If you’re saying they did that because you and Elaine are Negroes, then no, I don’t.” Her hand tightened on mine. “People are people, Mr. Grimshaw.”

  “Yes, they are.” In all their bigoted, narrow-minded and hate-filled glory. I wiped a tear from her cheek. “Unfortunately.”

  * * *

  I stayed at the hospital for five hours. Epstein’s surgery ended in three hours. They rebuilt part of his face and tried to save his eye, although whether that took remained to be seen. His lungs hadn’t been punctured by the broken ribs like they feared, so they taped him up. Before they finished, they removed teeth which had become lodged in the back of his throat.

  One more blow to the head, the doctor said, and he might have died.

  Elaine’s surgery took longer because they had to painstakingly clean tiny bits of glass out of each cut and scrape. She received over one hundred stitches on various places all over her body. I sat at Elaine’s side for a while, but she didn’t wake up before visiting hours ended. Neither did Epstein, which I considered a blessing.

  During the afternoon, a different set of police officers took our statements, but we didn’t have a lot of light to shed on the circumstances. The guy they’d caught wasn’t talking and the second one had eluded capture. I didn’t figure that would last.

  At one point, I excused myself to call Franklin, explaining my situation briefly so that he’d tell Althea and Jimmy why I was late. When I finished, I looked up Elaine’s phone number and tried her apartment, hoping she had a roommate who would tell me how to locate her family. But the phone rang and rang. I would have to contact the school. Mrs. Weisman had no memory of ever discussing Elaine’s next of kin.

  Then I went back to emergency and pulled aside one of the black nurses. She was heavyset and pretty. Her name tag read “Marge Evenrud.” She had been very helpful with Elaine, so I sensed I could trust her.

  I asked her to keep an eye out for any young white male admitted to the hospital in the next few days with burns along his right side, particularly on his face and shoulders. I expected the burns would be old and festering before he came in.

  I didn’t have to ask twice. She took my name and number, and promised she would.

  The hospital called Mrs. Weisman a cab and she asked me to wait with her, knowing that my car was near her house. As we rode back, I asked her if someone could stay with her. I wasn’t sure I wanted her to stay in the house.

  She patted my knee. “Mr. Grimshaw, that boy isn’t coming back, and I have good locks. Besides, my rifle’s not getting put away.”

  I wasn’t sure if that reassured me or not. What eventually did reassure me were the lights that were on in her home when we arrived. Her neighbors were there, still cleaning up the mess.

  Mrs. Weisman introduced me to all of them as the man who had saved her Saul, and all of them treated me with a warmth that surprised me. Many apologized to Mrs. Weisman for not calling the police. Most hadn’t even noticed the disturbance until they heard the sirens.

  As soon as I could, I left her with them and drove to Franklin’s. I was halfway there before I realized I had never gotten the photographs that Epstein had promised me. I wondered if Mrs. Weisman even knew where they were.

  * * *

  Jimmy’s worried face was pressed against the living-room window as I pulled up to Franklin’s house. It was nearly ten o’clock and I was exhausted, the adrenaline from the fight long gone. I was also cold; the police had taken my suit coat as evidence when they took Elaine’s ripped and bloody clothing.

  I hurried inside, glad for the warmth, the light, and the familiar place. Jimmy wrapped himself around me, which surprised me. Lately, he’d been trying to act grown up. But he was still ten, still a child at heart. I rubbed a hand along his small head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, but Jimmy didn’t answer. He just clung to me.

  Franklin watched from the dining room table, his law books spread before him. “The boy was all right until the last hour or so. How’re your friends?”

  “They’ll make it,” I said, letting my tone tell him how serious it all was.

  Althea came through the kitchen door. She still wore an apron over her Sunday dress. “My heavens, Smokey. No one’s tended to you, have they?”

  “Me?” I looked down. My white shirt was streaked with dried blood, and a few small shards of glass still clung to the hems of my trousers. “I’ll be all right.”

  “It’s just like you. Take care of everyone else and pay no attention to yourself. I saved some food for you. It’s warming in the oven.”

  “There’s no need, Althea.”

  She ignored me, putting a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Come on, Jim. Let’s take your father into the kitchen.”

  Reluctantly, Jimmy let me go. He shook Althea off. He whirled toward me, hands on his hips. “You nearly died, didn’t you?”

  The depth of his anger surprised me. “No, Jim,” I said. “I wasn’t the one who got hurt.”

  “That’s blood.” He stabbed my shirt with his finger.

  “Someone else’s,” I said.

  “They could’ve hurt you.”

  I suppose they could have if they had known I was coming, but I didn’t tell him that. “No, they couldn’t, Jim. It happened too fast.”

  “Your friends got hurt.”

  “Yes,” I said, “they did. They were already being hurt when I arrived. I just got them out of the situation, like I got you out of trouble in Memphis.”

  He didn’t move for a moment, then he reached out and grabbed my hand. “C’mon. I made everyone save you some gravy. It’s the best.”

  I let him pull me toward the kitchen, where everything was clean and bright and there wasn’t a spot of broken glass.

  * * *

  We stayed longer than we should have. Jimmy fell asleep at the table, head resting on his arms. I took the time to talk with Franklin about the next morning. I still hadn’t come up with anything I liked for dealing with Jimmy’s involvement with the Stones, but what I did come up with would work for a while.

  Franklin and I would take turns driving the kids to and from school. We’d walk the boys inside, even though they would probably protest, and we’d pick them up the same way.

  I took the first shift, driving Jimmy and the four youngest Grimshaw children to school the following morning. The distance was short and the kids were pretty subdued, maybe because they sensed my mood. In
the pocket of my jacket, I had Jimmy’s tam, and it felt like a lead weight.

  Before we left, I had told Jimmy what I planned to do. It made him angry.

  “I thought you said I got to fight my own battles, Smoke,” he had said.

  “I did.”

  “But now you’re doing it.”

  “Sometimes other people have to stand up for us, particularly on difficult things.”

  “I’m not gonna do it,” he said. “I’m not gonna tell them I’m afraid of you. I’m not, Smoke.”

  “Yes, you are,” I said. “When they approach you again, you have to remember to call me your father. You have to tell them you’re more afraid of me than them. Believe me, a lot of them will understand this.”

  “But it’s a lie, Smoke.” He shook his head. “Yesterday, they told us that lying was bad.”

  Church. I had forgotten about all of its rules. “Sometimes lies save lives, Jim. You know that.”

  “Then why would they tell me I can’t?”

  “Because they’re luckier than we are,” I said. “They have the luxury to make hard and fast rules. We don’t.”

  He had frowned at me then, but hadn’t said any more. In fact, he had barely managed a hello when the Grimshaw children got in the car.

  I pulled into the school parking lot and turned off the engine. The school was smaller and shabbier than I remembered, the brick walls covered with graffiti that someone had tried in vain to clean off. The windows on the first floor had burglar bars, and a rusted chain-link fence enclosed the brown yard. Children crowded the swing set area, and among the knit caps and fur hats, I saw dabs of red.

  I sighed and got out with the kids. A number of parents had pulled into the parking lot and they were eyeing the yard with the same suspicion I was. They had their children by the hand and walked them toward a side entrance in the building.

  I let the kids lead the way. Lacey walked ahead of us, head bowed, as if she weren’t part of the group. She was in her last year of grade school and already considered herself a woman. She was beginning to look like one, too. The make-up she had worn on Saturday night was in her tiny purse; lipstick and eye-shadow had spilled out when she opened it inside the car.

  The little girls held my hands, happy to be with their Uncle Bill. They wanted to show me off like a new toy, but I promised they could do that some other time. Jim and Keith walked close to me because I had told them to, but they wanted to hurry. They were embarrassed by my presence.

  We reached the back door. The faint odors of chalk and processed air flowed out with the heat. A teacher stood there, monitoring the children as they came in. She smiled at Lacey, who smiled back, then said a friendly hello to the little girls. The boys hung back.

  “Go on, Keith,” I said, after a moment.

  “Jim asked me to stay.”

  I hadn’t heard that, but it didn’t surprise me. “And I’m telling you to go into the school.”

  Keith looked at Jimmy, then shrugged and went in. Jimmy didn’t move.

  I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the playground. “Who gave you the tam?”

  “I don’t like this, Smoke.”

  “Dad,” I said, correcting him. “And I don’t care that you don’t like it. We’re doing it.”

  He nodded toward a group of boys who stood just outside the fence. They were older, in the early stages of puberty, and much bigger than Jimmy. But not bigger than me.

  “Come on, then.”

  “Smoke, can’t I stay here?”

  “No,” I said. “But you don’t speak a word and you don’t make eye contact. Look down, like I gave you a good talking-to.”

  “You did.”

  Not as good as my father would have given me. Or even my adopted father, for that matter. I sometimes wondered if their harshness was better than this logical approach I tried to take with Jim.

  I kept my hand on his shoulder, propelling him forward. We walked around the fence to the clump of boys. A cloud of smoke rose from the center of the group, and the stench of cheap cigarettes filled the air.

  “Hey, Pops,” one of the boys said. He was the largest, about half a foot shorter than I was. “Come to join our little group?”

  They had stepped forward, hands at their sides. At least one boy was palming a switchblade. A few had on thick coats a size too big, coats that could have hidden anything.

  “I came to return something you gave to my son by mistake,” I said.

  “Ooo,” said the leader. “Tough guy. Should we be impressed, Pops?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tam, holding it between my thumb and forefinger as if it smelled bad. “We don’t want filth like this in our home.”

  The teasing looks faded. The boys’ mood changed as if they were all one person. They glared at me. Jimmy flinched.

  “So even though my son appreciates the offer to join your cozy little group, he’s turning you down. And I’d thank you to leave him alone.”

  “What you think of that, kid?” the leader asked Jimmy. A shiver ran through Jimmy, but he didn’t move.

  “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. All that matters in our house is what I think.” I dropped the tam on the ground.

  The group murmured and I heard the snick of a blade. Jimmy twitched ever so slightly, but I ignored it.

  “If I find out you boys have been harassing my son, I will come after you personally.”

  “You think you can take us on, Pops?”

  “No.” I paused, and Jimmy glanced up at me in surprise. “I don’t think I can. I know I can.”

  “You don’t scare me, old man,” the leader said.

  “I’m not trying to,” I said. “I’m just telling you how it will be.”

  “You be doing a mighty stupid thing, taking us on, Pops,” said the leader.

  “Let’s be clear.” I kept my hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. He felt like he was going to bolt. “I’m not taking you on. I think your organization serves a purpose. I’m not threatening that purpose, nor am I saying that I will. I’m simply establishing my boundaries. Think of me as a gang of one. My son is my turf. Cross into my turf and we’ll have conflict. Stay away from my turf, and we’ll ignore each other forever. Is that clear?”

  “What do we get if we respect your turf?” he asked.

  “It’s what you don’t get,” I said. “You don’t get me in your face every minute of every day.”

  “We should be afraid of that? Hell, man. Cops can’t do nothing to us, why you think you can?”

  I smiled slowly, let him see the menace in my eyes. “Because cops have rules they have to follow. I don’t.”

  The leader stared at me. His skin was acne-scarred, and a few scraggly whiskers grew on his chin. He was still too young to grow a beard.

  “Pops,” he said, “you be one strange motherfucker.”

  As he spoke, he made a small swirling motion with his right hand. The rest of the group backed away. The leader reached into his pocket and Jimmy stiffened. I didn’t move at all.

  The leader pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped it, and slid one forward. I hadn’t smoked in almost twenty years, but I remembered the drill.

  I took the cigarette. “Got a light?”

  Jimmy looked at me in astonishment. The leader tossed me a book of matches. I opened it with one hand, isolated a single match, and lit it with my thumbnail, a trick I’d learned in Korea. Then I put the cigarette in my mouth and lit it, shaking out the match.

  “Thanks,” I said. My lungs strained to cough out the nicotine, but I wouldn’t let them. I gave the group a nod, then steered Jimmy back toward the school.

  As soon as we were out of earshot, he said, “You don’t smoke.”

  I let out a lungful of smoke. My eyes burned. I’d forgotten what this felt like. “No, I don’t, and I don’t plan to start.”

  “Then what—?”

  “You never refuse a peace offering, Jim, no matter what you think of it.”


  He frowned at me. Inside the school, a bell rang. “That’s the warning.”

  The kids on the playground looked up. Some ran toward the door. Others took their time. I led Jim to the back door where I’d brought the other children. I held the cigarette in my hand, letting it burn down without putting it out.

  “You remember what to do if you have problems,” I said.

  He was developing the most elaborate array of frowns. This was a new one. “I ain’t tattling to no one.”

  “You’re going to the principal if you have trouble.” I spoke firmly. “He’ll call me or Franklin.”

  “Everyone’ll call me a baby.”

  “If that’s the worst that happens, I’ll be pleased,” I said. “We can live with that.”

  “I can’t,” Jimmy said.

  I took a fake puff off the cigarette in case we were still being watched. Then I tossed it on the pavement and ground it out with my foot. “Last year, Jim, you came to me because you didn’t like the group your brother Joe was hanging out with.”

  “That’s different,” Jimmy said.

  I nodded. “Yes, it is. That group wasn’t nearly as tough or mean as this one. And you saw what happened to Joe.”

  Jimmy’s eyes filled with tears. He wiped at them angrily.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” I said. “You’re all I’ve got.”

  “I can take care of myself,” he said, but the words held no conviction.

  “Humor me,” I said. “Go to the principal if there’s trouble. And wait here at the door after school. One of us will be here to pick you and the others up.”

  The last of the children were trailing inside. The teacher at the door met my gaze. Hurry up, she mouthed.

  “How come it got to be so hard, Smoke?”

  “I don’t know, Jim,” I said, touching his cheek lightly. “Sometimes it just is.”

  TEN

  I WENT BACK to my car and stuck my keys in the ignition, waiting for the school doors to close. As they did, the gang of kids outside the fence tossed their cigarettes and headed for Woodlawn. The dismal building looked even smaller and dingier in the gray light.