by Thomas Pluck
Welcome to Nutley, the green sign said. But not to him.
The Hammerhead’s big block champed at the bit. Jay goosed the pedal, all his teenage prison dreams alive. The beast spoke to him, humming through his fingers on the steering wheel.
You and me, we’re gonna start some shit.
The streets were torn up with construction. Andre used to joke that New Jersey only had two seasons: winter and road work. Nutley’s main drag was sliced stem to stern in the heart of town as utility trucks performed surgery on the main intersection.
Memories teased the back of Jay’s mind as he cruised through town. The street where Matt got his dreaded nickname. The junk lot where Joey Bello’s picador games of torment began. The park where it had all ended in blood.
The death shroud lifted as he crossed the border and climbed the hills of Montclair. The dividing lines were a jigsaw, but each town had its own character. Montclair had been considered bohemian with its antique shops, punk record store, and restaurants that served more than burgers, Chinese, or pizza. The quirky edges had been polished off and the gentrifying denizens eyed his loud ride with curious disdain.
Ramona’s address brought him to a Tudor mansion on a ridge overlooking Manhattan. It looked half as big as Rahway prison and nearly as imposing. Behind it sat a six-door garage of newer vintage and a stable at the end of the driveway. A horse paddock stretched from the carriage house to the edge of the property, and a young girl in English riding gear trotted a roan pony along the fence posts.
Jay parked beneath a weeping willow and followed the steps, slabs of Liscannor slate, to the entrance. A gate of wrought iron ivy barred the thick oak door. He knuckled the doorbell. It tolled deep within.
He breathed his four fours and brushed stray crumbs from his jeans.
“May I ask who’s calling?” A woman’s thick Irish brogue issued from nowhere.
Jay looked for a camera and found none. “A friend of Ms. Crane’s.”
“Your name please.”
“Tell her it’s Jay. I came to pay my respects and nothing more.”
Jay gave her two minutes and counted off the seconds. At a hundred and eight the lock thunked and the door eased open.
A slender woman with an auburn ponytail and a brick of a chin held the door and glared at him through the wrought iron bars. Not Ramona.
“Sir, you’ll have to leave.” The voice from the intercom.
“She won’t tell me herself?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am,” Jay said. “What’s your name? I’m Jay.”
“Erin,” she said.
“Erin. Would you tell Ramona something for me, please? Tell her I was a sorry son of a bitch for what I did to her, and I’m even sorrier now, for coming here and disturbing her.”
Her eyes flicked to her left, behind the door. “I will.”
“Thank you,” Jay said. He held a bouquet of purple hyacinths and gold daffodils. The florist had said they were for asking for forgiveness. “Reckon she don’t want these, then. I’ll just leave them here. Maybe the horse can eat them. Wouldn’t want to walk downwind if it did. Probably give him gas something fierce.”
Erin bit her lip. “I’ll relay your message, sir. Please go.”
“All right. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I’m going now,” Jay said. “Tell Ms. Crane I’m sorry I shooed my blackbird away. I was a damn fool.”
He turned to walk toward the car, just like he’d turned his back on her in prison so he could serve his time alone. Each time she had left the visitor’s room it felt like reliving his first night behind bars. He couldn’t take it and he couldn’t tell her.
“Jay.”
Ramona’s voice rang through him. Jay turned and studied the slate flagstones. They were patterned with rivulets, fossilized worm tracks from eons ago.
“Do you want to talk or not?”
He walked back slow, studied her like an apparition. She stood pressed to the gate, pinned him with her cracked cobalt stare. The breeze rippled her blue sundress and the bars framed her raven bob-cut. The years had smoothed her like a river stone, brought out flecks and patterns of detail. He had expected surprise, but she’d known he was out and steeled herself for this moment. It showed in the tendons of her throat, the set of her jaw.
“I’m glad you’re free,” Ramona said. “But there’s nothing for you here.”
“I didn’t come looking for anything,” Jay said. “I was raised to apologize when I’ve done someone wrong.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said. “No penance required.”
“Thank you, Blackbird. It’ll ease my guilt, but not my regrets.”
“Don’t call me that.” She wrinkled her perk of a nose. “We’re not kids anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Ramona.”
“I’m sorry, too. I’d say we could be friends, but I’d be lying. We have nothing to talk about.”
“I heard you became a lawyer,” Jay said. “I’d like to discuss a certain case.”
She stretched her lips in a thin grimace. “I no longer practice criminal law.”
“How about civil, then?” Jay said, and held the bars, leaning close. “Conspiracy to obstruct justice. Willful withholding of evidence. Violation of civil rights.”
“I specialize in business and environmental law. Who would you be suing?”
“That friend of ours who took the witness stand to drive in the nails. Perjury. There’s no statute of limitations on that if I recall.”
“I’d have to recuse myself from your case I’m afraid.”
“Because of our prior history?”
“No, Jay. This is ridiculous.” She sighed and shook her head. “Am I your first stop on the tour? I’m married, you know. Nobody told you.”
“Tony told me,” Jay said. “I can come back when your husband’s home, if you’ll be more comfortable.”
She twirled her hair around a finger and chewed on it. “Anthony always was a fucking coward.”
“Tony tried,” Jay said. “He didn’t have the heart for it.”
“And he still holds a torch,” she said. “He threw away a fortune in a fit of childish pique. Out of jealousy. Did he tell you that part? I guess not. Now he plays with cars like a little boy. So, have you seen Matthew yet?”
Jay narrowed his eyes. “That backstabbing piece of shit better run if he sees me first.”
“He’s the one you blame for all your troubles?”
“I did what I did,” Jay said. “Never denied it. But when it came time to tell why I done it, everyone clammed up. Y’all left me flat, and that stung. But only Matty turned on me.”
“Try to see it from his side. It would have destroyed his father.”
“Maybe his old man deserved it,” Jay said. “Tricking me into a confession with a load of bullshit about a high-priced lawyer.”
“Do you love your parents?”
“You know damn well I do,” Jay said, and gripped the bars.
“You have no idea who they are. Ask them why you they brought you here. Why they abandoned you and everything they owned during your trial.”
“Leo Zee threatened them,” Jay said. “I went along to save them.”
“Maybe you should have saved yourself,” Ramona said. “I tried, and look what you did to me.”
Jay rolled his eyes skyward. A gray cloud shaped like a fist punched out the afternoon sun. “You want to know why I stopped coming on visiting day?”
“Not really, no. For you, I switched to law, and interned in the public defender’s office. We might’ve cut your sentence. But you threw me away.”
“I was protecting you.”
“I can take care of myself, Jay. Take a look around. You never thought you deserved to be with me,” she said, twisting a knot of her hair. “And you found a way to convince yourself.”
“That’s not it at all,” Jay said. But she was right. He’d said it enough. You deserve better.
She bit th
e twirl of hair she’d twisted around her knuckle, shook her head in a rueful grin. “Then what was it? You know, I don’t care. This was a lifetime ago, it was a road not taken. And there’s no way to take it now. I’m sorry Tony didn’t tell you. You love your parents? Well, Matthew loved his too, and you tore his family apart. You want to know what they really are, you can ask him when he comes home.”
Jay white-knuckled the bars as a cold shot of vodka hit his belly.
“But I’d prefer you leave before he gets here,” she said.
Jay looked at her bare feet, nails painted blue. “Are you happy?”
“Don’t insult me.”
Erin returned and tapped Ramona on the hand. She whispered, “Saoirse’s done with her riding lesson,” and hurried away.
“It may not look like it, but I’m working today,” Ramona said, smoothing her dress. “And I’m happily married. I would’ve fought for you, and waited. I was young and stupid then.”
Jay swallowed and stared at the worm tracks fossilized in the slate at his feet. “Matty offered me twenty-five grand to walk away. Now I know why.”
Ramona clenched her teeth, then shook it off. “That asshole.”
“That’s what he is. He used me, Ramona. People aren’t real to him, they’re like little players in the game he’s always playing.”
Ramona smirked. “You haven’t figured out why you’re free, have you?”
The corners of Jay’s eyes wrinkled.
Ramona broke a half smile, shook her head. “You think Martins & Shaw did all that work pro bono? You’re not innocent. No DNA exoneration, no death penalty to appeal. You’re an anniversary present.”
Jay squinted his eyes, a confused child.
“I knew Martins from my public defender days. But he’s not cheap. When my funds ran low, I had no choice. I went to Matthew. And he let me have you.”
Jay ground his molars like two icebergs calving.
“Not that I want you,” she said. “But I wanted you free, once the Miller decision made it possible. I’ve lost cases, but yours I never got to try. Martins is good, but I did a lot of the work for him.”
“I didn’t let you try because you wanted me to rat on my own parents. What did you expect?”
“For you to trust me. Like I said, Jay. I knew I could win your case, and I did. That’s all. The condition was, you go to Louisiana. Now I can’t tell you where to go. But I’m sure you’ve figured out that you’re about as welcome as a cock in a convent back in Nutley.”
Jay huffed through his nostrils. Couldn’t help it. She was a different woman now, but was still the girl he’d once trusted with everything he hid from the world.
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “You’ve got half your life ahead of you. It took too long for me to learn it, but you taught me an important lesson. If I listened to mother and had forgotten you, I’d have gone to Cornell and stayed with architecture. I’d be designing cities instead of convincing dead-broke towns to give us tax credits for another ugly office park that’ll we’ll raze in ten years. It’s like you’re fresh out of high school. Don’t waste it, Jay. Run while you can.”
She pushed the oak slab closed on silent hinges and fluttered her fingers through the shrinking gap. “Fly away, little blue jay.”
The bolt snapped home, loud as the gates slamming shut on the prison tier.
Jay left the flowers at the oak door. In the car, he kneaded the wheel like a leather-wrapped throat.
In the rearview, the young girl dismounted her pony onto a set of wooden steps, and jumped into Ramona’s arms. Jay rested his forehead on the wheel, ran Okie’s words through his head.
“There’s plenty things worse than killing somebody,” Okie said over a cigarette, his smile gone devil. “Find what they love and take it away. They’ll wish you killed ’em, every night of their sorry-ass life.”
Chapter 7
Summers at the pool drowned out the chaos of his past. Cruising through the cool clear water, young Jay lost himself in the spider webs prismed on the bottom by the sun. The diving girl in the blue swimsuit captivated him in a queasy-belly way he didn’t understand. She sprung off the six-footer and breast-stroked to the end, as if performing for hidden Olympic judges. Tony and the twins didn’t know her name, only that she was the daughter of a big boss at International Avionics.
“She’s got grade-A tits,” Billy said. “Gonna miss ’em tomorrow, when our dad gets his medal. He blew that carjacker away.” He made finger pistols and two-gunned an imaginary target.
“You told us five times already,” Jay said.
“Squeeze her boobs, I dare you.” Billy lunged at Jay and attempted a double purple-nurple. The two of them tussled and splashed until Jay wrenched Billy’s tit and he cried mercy.
“Why don’t you go ask what her name is?” Brendan said.
“I will,” Jay said.
Tony said, “You’re gonna get our moms fired.”
“Just call her bluebird,” Billy laughed.
She reminded Jay more of a red-winged blackbird, the way her white shoulders reddened in the sun. He hurried to meet her as she climbed out of the water.
“I know, your name’s Jay.” She smirked and cut away. He filed in behind her. She was taller than him and the boys and bore her awkward frame with pride. He followed her to the twenty-foot board.
She turned at the ladder and looked him up and down, from his flint-chip eyes to the road map of veins on his muscled little arms. “I changed my mind,” she said with a wry grin. “Your turn, creep.”
Jay looked up at the diving platform. It looked as high as the Avionics tower. He gripped the ladder and planted his foot on the second rung.
“If you fall wrong, you’ll break your neck,” she sang.
“When the ambulance comes? Tell me your name before they take me away.”
She rolled her dark blue eyes. It drove the weakness from Jay’s legs as he pumped all the way to the top.
The wind tickled between his legs as he teetered on the end of the board. Down below, Mama Angeline stood and took off her shades. Brendan pointed, Tony gaped. The twin towers of the World Trade Center gleamed in the distance. Behind him, the lone Avionics tower winked red. The lifeguard hollered that he was too short and should come down. Jay held his nose and walked the plank.
The water hit him like an open hand.
He’d learned to swim in the bayou. Dark water. Sunken roots snagging his feet, and who knows what else down there, slippery and sharp. He’d learned to hold his breath, to calm down and hold his bubbles in.
The sting all over his body cooled in the water as he sank to the bottom, hoarding his air in the ear-popping silence. Blackbird cut through the diamond-speckled waves, cheeks puffed, blue eyes wide.
The concern on her face drove the pins and needles away. Jay pushed off the bottom to show her he was all right. He reached for her hand.
The big tanned lifeguard snagged him and heaved him out like a catfish. Then he banned Jay to the kiddie pool for a week.
“Girls don’t like show-offs, Jay,” Mama said at the dinner table. “Well, that’s not true. I reckon maybe we do, but show-offs wind up wrapping their car around a telephone pole. And the quiet fella who takes wood shop gets the girl.”
Papa Andre chuckled and ruffled Jay’s hair.
Saturdays, Mama Angeline and her work friends—Tony’s mother, their supervisor Big Teresa, and her husband Harold—brought casseroles of jambalaya, sausage and peppers, and slow-cooked ribs and ate them in the shade by the company pool.
A gray horseshoe of hair was all Harold had left on his head, and a pink starfield of razor nicks marked his puffy brown neck. Jay liked Harold because his fingernails looked like the backs of shiny almond beetles and he often talked of his time in the war.
Teresa enveloped Jay in her pillow-soft arm. “That girl you never stop looking at is Mister Crane’s daughter,” she said. “Name’s Ramona Beth. Go on over and bring her a Coke.”
Angeline said, “Son, you better cool off with a swim first.”
The women snickered, and Jay’s ears burned. He jumped in the pool for a few laps. He didn’t want the diving girl to call him a creep. Mama Angeline had told off many a man who’d whistled at her on the street, or roared alongside and honked as they rode in the Jeep. Jay remembered one who’d blocked them in at the grocery store, and sat on the hood of his Malibu with a curled-lip smile. “Lemme buy your boy a comic book, and take you for a ride.”
Mama smiled and aimed the Colt Diamondback she kept under the seat. They left the man gaping, a stain spreading from the bulge in his leisure slacks. “Man who can’t control himself’s not much of a man,” she’d said.
When the women wandered into the clubhouse, Harold waved Jay over. “Go get us a couple Cokes.” Jay got them from the cooler.
“You like that girl, don’t you?”
“I guess so,” Jay said. “I want to talk to her, but she’s always mad at me.”
Harold cracked open the Coke bottles on the side of the table, took a slug and smacked his lips.
“That’s a woman’s way,” Harold said. “Girl like that you better get early, ’cause soon there’ll be a line. When I was younger, I was a ladies’ man. Started in the army.”
Harold smiled at the sun through the trees. “Them French gals were something. After we got done liberating them, we had a time. This one gal, a little thing, thin and delicate like china. She was always peeking at me from upstairs in the madam’s house, but she wouldn’t take my money. You know why?”
Jay shook his head.
“A white soldier wanted her all to himself. He told her us black men had tails.”
Jay screwed his eyebrows. He’d seen black children swim naked back home, and they didn’t have tails.
“Yep, like a monkey. Now where would I hide a tail? My back pocket? I was young and headstrong. So I let her think what she wanted, and stopped calling on her. But before we shipped home, I went back for one last taste of hay for the donkey, and you know what? She asked for me. She had to see for herself.”