by S. A. Cosby
“Two dudes? Was one of them a big-ass hoss of a Black dude?” Grayson said.
“Yeah, you know him?”
“Me and him got unfinished business. Adam’s Road, right?” Grayson said.
“Yeah. Let’s make that meet happen next week,” Slice said.
“Yeah, I gotcha on that. Hey, the Black, he a friend of yours? Cuz he gonna get that work,” Grayson said.
Slice let a few seconds tick by. “Nah. Do what you gotta do.”
THIRTY-ONE
Ike pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the old Route 207 that would take them to the Powhite Parkway that cut through Richmond, then to 301.
Buddy Lee lay his head against the window as they rode through the rolling hills of Route 301. Acres of lush farmland that were dotted with miles of white fencing interrupted here and there by homes older than Ike and Buddy Lee combined. Where the land hadn’t been claimed for grazing or growing, dogwoods competed with pine trees and maples for the attentions of their mutual lover, the sun.
Buddy Lee flicked on the radio, and Merle Haggard’s rumbling baritone came warbling through the speakers singing “Mama Tried.”
“Mama tried but Daddy didn’t give a damn,” Buddy Lee said.
“I thought you said your daddy taught you all that travelers’ shit. Tells and all that,” Ike said. Buddy Lee closed his eyes.
“He did. He was also a nasty drunk who like to smack my mama around if the macaroni and cheese was too dry. He came and went so often he was like a friend who looked you up when he was in town. He had a bunch of outside children. Chet is one of them. So was Deak. I got a half Indian sister in Mattaponi. Shit, I always said I wasn’t gonna be like him if I had kids. Well, I kept that promise. I was worse,” Buddy Lee said.
“My mama and daddy died when I was nine. Hit a slick patch on Route17 and went flying off the side of the Coleman Bridge. Me and my sister moved in with my daddy’s parents. I put my grandparents through hell, and all they ever did was try and love me. I was so angry. I used to walk around waiting for an excuse to go off. Angry at God for taking my parents, angry at my parents for dying, angry at my grandparents for trying to pretend everything was gonna be alright. I was so messed up. Fell in with Luther and his crew. He let me use all that anger. Pointed me at a target like a gun and let me go off,” Ike said. He passed a truck pulling a horse trailer.
“I love Isiah, I really do, but there are days I think I shouldn’t have had a son. I was too messed up in the head to be a good father,” Ike said.
“I think if you loved him and did the best you could, you was a good daddy. That’s what I tell myself anyway,” Buddy Lee said.
“You really believe that?” Ike asked.
“Most days I do.”
“I got so mad when he came out,” Ike said. He eased the truck through a sharp curve that took them past a couple of horses lazily grazing in an expansive pasture.
“You didn’t know before? I caught Derek kissing another boy, but I knew way before that,” Buddy Lee said.
“I knew. I think deep down inside I always knew but I didn’t want to accept it. I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, ya know? Like what did that mean? It was like he’d told me he was an alien. Shit just seemed unnatural to me,” Ike said.
“But you still loved him. You never stopped loving him, right?” Buddy Lee asked. Seconds went by before Ike answered.
“I tried to stop loving him. For a while I couldn’t even look at him. All I could see was him doing shit with some guy. I’m sorry. Derek wasn’t some guy.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I mean, I get what you saying, but I never wanted to stop loving Derek. I just wanted him to be normal. I guess it took me a long time to get it.”
“Get what?”
“Get that what’s normal ain’t up to me. That it don’t fucking matter who he wanted to wake up next to as long as he was waking up,” Buddy Lee said. Ike drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.
“I went up for manslaughter. My homie got taken out, so I went and found the boy who gave the go-ahead and I beat him to death in his mama’s backyard. Stomped that boy right into the ground. I thought I was standing up for my crew. But they didn’t stand up for me. I got inside and found out I was on my fucking own. So when four brothers tried to jump me and make me their cell-block bitch, I had to get on with a new crew,” Ike said. He flexed his hand.
“I did some foul-ass shit to get this tat. But I needed the backup. The boy I killed was hooked up with the East Side Crips. That’s why I joined the Black Gods. I was scared. A lot of what I did back then was because I was scared. But all those things I had to do fucked me up in the head,” Ike said.
“I saw things inside, too. I get what you saying. In there you can’t be soft or they knock out your front teeth and make you put your hair in pigtails and sell you for a box of smokes. But everything about prison is all the way fucked up, man. People ain’t supposed to live like that,” Buddy Lee said.
“I never could shake it, ya know? It’s like it made me look at everything through convict eyes. He came out the day he and Derek graduated from college. We had a cookout at the house. Had a lot of people over there. My sister Sylvia was there with her husband. People from work. I was at the grill burning it up, ya know? And he brought Derek over. I remember he took his hand. And I pretended like I didn’t see it, and Isiah starts saying ‘Dad, I have to tell you something,’ and I just keep flipping them goddamn burgers because I know what he is gonna say and I don’t want to hear, and he says ‘Dad, Derek isn’t just my friend. He’s my boyfriend. Dad, I’m gay. I’m gay and I love him,’” Ike said. He took a deep breath.
“I fucking lost it. I went crazy. I flipped the grill over. Food and charcoal went everywhere. A piece of charcoal landed on Isiah’s arm, burned him pretty bad. I said … I said some terrible shit. To him and Derek. Mya was crying and yelling at me. People was staring at me like I was an animal. I was mad as hell. Embarrassed. I went inside and slammed the door so hard the glass broke,” Ike said.
“And all I kept thinking was why did he have to tell me? Why that day? Why couldn’t he have kept that to himself? I didn’t need to know that shit, right? I kept making it all about me. Took me years to understand he told me because even though we didn’t get along, he wanted me to know he was happy. He wanted to share that with me, and I fucked it up. I let him down,” Ike said. The lump in his throat felt like he had swallowed a brick. Buddy Lee cleared his throat.
“Neither one of us was Howard Cunningham. And still the boys made something of themselves. They were good to their friends, good to each other, good to that little girl. Even with daddies like us they grew up to be good men. No matter how many times we let them down, they came out alright,” Buddy Lee said.
Ike shook his head. “We gonna find Tangerine. We gonna find who did this. We’re done letting them down.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later they passed a large black wooden sign with bright-green letters that spelled out BOWLING GREEN. The truck began to lose, then gain, power. Ike put the pedal to the floor. The engine whined like a newborn.
“We need some gas,” Buddy Lee said. Ike saw a gas station with two pumps up ahead on the right. He pulled in and rolled up to the pump just as the engine died.
“The gas hand says you have a quarter tank left,” Ike said.
“What can I tell ya? Shit don’t work like it used to. That goes for the truck and the owner,” Buddy Lee said. He got out and stretched his arms to the sky. His back snapped, crackled, and popped like a bowl of Rice Krispies.
“I’ll get the gas if you pump it. I need a beer,” Buddy Lee said.
“Hey, get me one, too,” Ike said. Buddy Lee raised his eyebrow. “Been a long day.”
Buddy Lee limped across the parking lot and entered the store. He grabbed a Busch tallboy can for himself and got Ike a Budweiser. He sat the beer on the counter.
“Let me get, uh, twenty-five o
n pump seven,” Buddy Lee said. The clerk, an older white woman with a mop of unruly gray hair, bagged his beer and rang up the gas.
“$29.48,” she said. Buddy Lee figured she must have been smoking since she was a fetus. He handed her two twenties.
“You from around here?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Been here thirteen years. Moved down from DC with my ex-husband. He was a horseman. Worked on the farm where Secretariat was born,” she said.
“No shit?” Buddy Lee said.
“Yeah, he was better with horses than he was with marriage,” the clerk said.
“Say, you don’t know a girl name of Tangerine Fredrickson do you?” Buddy Lee asked. The clerk curled her lips like she had bitten into an apple and seen half a worm.
“You a friend?” she said.
“Nah, it’s kind of a funny story. I found her purse with her license and stuff in it, but I’m not from around here and for the life me I can’t find this address. You know whereabouts she lives? Maybe give me a landmark or something? Her ID says Adam’s Road but my GPS acting like it got Tourette’s,” Buddy Lee said with a smile. The clerk didn’t smile back.
“Lunette Fredrickson lives out near the water tower on Adam’s Road. The sign got shot down last year and the county ain’t replaced it yet.”
“Lunette, huh? She related to Tangerine, I guess?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Yeah,” the clerk said. The sour expression on her face deepened.
“Okay, well, thank you,” Buddy Lee said. He took his change and headed for the door. He snuck a glance at the clerk on his way out.
You better hope the wind don’t change or your face is gonna stay like that, Buddy Lee thought. He walked out to the truck. Cars and trucks zipped by on the two-lane highway that ran past the gas station. Ike was already pumping the gas. Buddy Lee got in and put Ike’s beer in the drink holder before cracking open his own.
“Thanks,” Ike said. He grabbed the beer and killed most of it in one gulp.
“I think we should be looking for a road next to the water tower. Adam’s Road,” Buddy Lee said.
“How you know that?” Ike asked.
“I had a talk with the clerk inside. She gave some info on a Lunette Fredrickson, who is related to Tangerine.”
“Now what? We go down Adam’s Road and stop at every house and ask them if they know Tangerine?” Ike asked.
“You got a better idea?” Buddy Lee said. Ike shrugged.
“You the one that knocks. This is MAGA country,” Ike said.
In the end it only took two houses. At the first house no one answered. At the second one, a trailer with a wooden ramp, a young white guy with a Confederate-flag tattoo on his chest directed them to the last house on Adam’s Road. They drove past a sign that alerted them they were approaching the end of state maintenance. On the left side of the road was a mailbox at the beginning of a long dirt lane. The name FREDRICKSON was written on the mailbox in small stick-on letters.
“This is it, I guess,” Ike said. Buddy Lee bit at his thumbnail.
“You know, you was right.”
“About what?” Ike said.
“I don’t think those people would have talked to you the way they did to me,” Buddy Lee said. The Confederate-flag tattoo unfurled in his mind.
“I guess you woke now,” Ike said. Buddy Lee saw him smirk out the corner of his eye. He turned down the lane and navigated the potholes that dotted the road like they were driving over a slice of Swiss cheese. Buddy Lee peered out the window as they passed the magnolia trees that lined the driveway. The craggy road ended in a barren front yard and a ramshackle two-story house with a decaying porch that wrapped around most of the first floor. An expansive meadow overgrown with kudzu and honeysuckle that seemed to go on for acres made up the backyard. A four-door sedan with four different-colored doors sat near the bottom step of the porch. Ike pulled up next to the sedan on the passenger side near the far right side of the porch and killed the engine.
“Here we are,” Ike said.
“How you wanna play this?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Play it straight. Tell her what’s up. Ask who was the guy and if he knew about Isiah and Derek,” Ike said.
“How hard are we leaning on her?” Buddy Lee asked.
“She’s a woman. I’m not leaning on her at all. You ain’t, either,” Ike said.
“Okay, but if she stonewalls us, I got some girl cousins we can call,” Buddy Lee said. He grabbed the gun and tucked it in his waistband near the small of his back.
“I don’t think we gonna need that,” Ike said.
“Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” Buddy Lee said.
They climbed out of the truck and made their way to the front door of the house. They both stopped after a couple of steps.
A young woman had stepped out onto the porch. Midnight-black hair fell down to the small of her back. Her skin was nearly the color of burnished bronze. Under any other circumstances Buddy Lee would have found her ravishing. Her big brown doe eyes peeked out at them under flowing lashes.
The shotgun she was pointing at them cast a shadow that dimmed her loveliness.
“Yeah, she’s a defenseless damsel in goddamn distress,” Buddy Lee said.
THIRTY-TWO
“Hey easy now, sis, we just wanna talk,” Buddy Lee said.
“Whatever you selling we ain’t buying. Whatever you wanna talk about we ain’t listening,” the woman said.
“Are you Tangerine?” Ike asked. She swung the barrel of the shotgun in his direction. Ike noticed she had the stock cradled in the crook of her arm and was holding the pump with the opposite hand. But her finger wasn’t in the trigger guard. Ike studied her. The tremble of her full lips. The wild rapid movement of her eyes. They darted side to side like weasels trapped in a cage. She was scared. She was nervous. She was gorgeous. She was a lot of things, but a killer wasn’t one of them. He knew what a killer looked like. He saw one in the mirror every day.
“Who I am doesn’t matter, papi. Now you and discount Sam Elliott get back in your truck and get out of here,” Tangerine said.
“That’s the second time I’ve been compared to that ol’ boy in a less-than-flattering way. I think my feelings starting to get hurt,” Buddy Lee said.
“Oh gee, I’m sorry. Maybe you should leave and seek therapy,” Tangerine said.
“Isiah was kind to you. Derek wanted to help you. Isiah was my son. Derek was his. They died because of what you told them. Our sons are dead because of you. The least you can do is talk to us,” Ike said.
Tangerine flinched. Ike thought she was batting her eyelashes at him until he saw the dark lines of mascara start to trickle down her cheeks. Ike was sick to death of tears. His own, Mya’s. Isiah was the star in their universe. When he had died that star had collapsed in on itself creating a black hole. That black hole swallowed every ounce of joy they had ever felt. All because this girl on the porch had a secret lover who was willing to kill to stay a secret. She hadn’t pulled the trigger but she was damn sure involved. Let her weep until she cried blood.
“I didn’t mean for any of that to happen,” Tangerine said. The streaks on her face gave her a Lone Ranger mask.
“Then put down the seed-sower and talk to us, girl,” Buddy Lee said. Tangerine bit her bottom lip. Ike watched the barrel of the shotgun lower in minute increments. The wind stirred, engulfing them in the scent of magnolias.
“Come on inside,” Tangerine said.
“I’ll feel better when that scattergun ain’t in her hands,” Buddy Lee whispered.
“If she was gonna shoot us she would have done it already,” Ike said.
“Oh well, that’s good,” Buddy Lee said.
They stepped up on the porch and entered the house. The scent of whiskey permeated the foyer and the front room. A saggy sofa sat in the middle of the front room. Grainy images flickered across an ancient floor-model television that sat near the couch at an angle. A dining table st
uck halfway out of a kitchen and into the living room. Tangerine placed the shotgun on the table.
“Terry, who is that?”
A tall white woman came from the back of the house. She was wearing a floral print housedress and flip-flops. Her doughy face was partially hidden by lank blond curls that spilled to her chin.
“Tangerine, Ma. My name is Tangerine, and it’s nobody. Go lay down,” Tangerine said. Ma acknowledged Ike but her eyes lingered on Buddy Lee.
“No, no, we have guests. Invite your friends in. I’ll make some drinks,” Ma said.
“You must be Lunette. I like the way you think,” Buddy Lee said. He gave her a wink. Lunette giggled.
“Ma, they ain’t gonna be here that long,” Tangerine said.
“Well, they can at least stay for one drink,” Lunette said. With the matter settled, she turned and headed back into the rear of the house. Buddy Lee heard her moving around in the kitchen. He could see that the hallway had a cut-through that led to the kitchen.
“Sit,” Tangerine said. Ike and Buddy Lee went into the front room. In addition to the sofa there was a recliner and an ottoman. Ike and Buddy Lee sat on the sofa and Tangerine sat in the chair. Ike took in the rest of the room. There was a woodstove in the far corner. Framed pictures were scattered over the weathered walls at haphazard intervals. Ike saw a younger version of Lunette and a diminutive brown-skinned man in some of them. In others there was an older Lunette, with a few more miles on her face and a bright-eyed little boy with a mixture of her and the brown-skinned brother’s features. As the people in the photos aged, the distance between them increased. The brown-skinned brother was conspicuous by his absence in most of the later pictures.
“I told Isiah I had changed my mind. I didn’t want to do the interview anymore. So how do you know what happened to them has anything to do with me?” Tangerine said.
“Because the people at my boy’s job heard him say the fella you was fucking was a two-faced son of a bitch. Then him and his husband end up dead with their brains all over the sidewalk,” Buddy Lee said. Tangerine flinched at the vitriol in Buddy Lee’s words.