Ravens

by George Dawes Green

  “Scared of what?”

  “All that money.”

  “Oh. Maybe I should be?”

  “Well everybody says how it ruins your life, getting rich all of a sudden.”

  “Are you scared, Nell?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, then I guess I’m not either.”

  “Uh-huh. We must be in denial.”

  “I guess so,” said Tara, laughing.

  Said Nell, “I think it’s great to be Queen Marie of Romania! Let’s drink to denial. Let’s drink to Romania. Let’s buy Romania. Holy crap!”

  Romeo awoke in the motel room. Shaw was still at the little desk, his back bathed in sweat, leaning in toward the screen. Romeo could see he was looking at pictures of some girl. It wasn’t porn though. The girl wasn’t even naked — but he was looking at her like she was.

  Romeo got up and stumbled into the bathroom.

  Said Shaw, without turning, “You up?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Romeo was still stuffed with his dreams. He elected to sit while peeing.

  Shaw said, “It scares me how much you sleep.”

  On the frosted shower glass was the biggest cockroach Romeo had ever seen. It didn’t even try to run. It just crouched there, twirling its mustaches.

  Romeo came back into the room and said, “It’s a furnace in here. You mind if I turn on the air-conditioning?”

  “Too much racket. Wait till I’m done.”

  “Done with what?”

  “Changing our lives.”

  Romeo put on his jeans and sneakers. He went out to the Tercel and opened the trunk and dug in his duffel for a T-shirt. He put it on there in the parking lot, in the stunning heat. There was some kind of death smell hanging in the air. He hoped they would soon get the hell out of there.

  He went looking for the soda machine, which he found under a concrete stairwell. He was shoving in quarters when a girl showed up, looking for ice. She had a big bony brow, and a T-shirt with Jesus on the cross. She gave him a quick smile and filled her bucket. He was surprised to find he wasn’t afraid of her.

  He said, “Hey, you smell that?”

  She sniffed. “Uh-huh. It’s what they call Confederate jasmine.”

  “No, I mean the other smell. It’s like, I don’t know, like something rotting?”

  “Oh.” She sniffed again. “Maybe the pulp mill?”

  “I thought there was like a mass grave or something.”

  She said, “I don’t really smell it. I guess I’ve been here too long.”

  “How long you been here?”

  “Four months.”

  “What’s that say under your cross?”

  “The Church of Jesus Triumphant.”

  “That’s your church? You go there?”

  “It’s not like a church you go to. It’s a missionary church. From Missouri. I’m a missionary.”

  “You should mission to me.”

  “You mean, witness to you?”

  “Yeah, but good luck.”

  She didn’t try, though. They talked, but not about Jesus. They talked about the heat. Romeo said how could it be so hot when it was still May? The girl said it got hot early down here. Romeo asked her if it got this hot in Missouri. She said sometimes, and then she told him how boring Missouri was. He told her how boring Piqua, Ohio, was. She told him Brunswick was boring too, but not so boring because there were beaches nearby, although she didn’t go to them much.

  She was leaning up against the ice machine and chewing a piece of ice, which he thought sexy. Her name was Tess. She invited him up to her room to meet her roommate.

  He took her up on it. He met her roommate Megan and the three of them hung out and watched a Gilmore Girls rerun.

  The girls had a boxful of leaflets telling how the world was on its last legs. He took one and tried to read it, but it was instantly, stingingly depressing, and he was afraid it might get them started. So he put it in his pocket, to read later. Then he said, “I guess you girls don’t drink, do you?”

  Said Tess, “We can when we’re not witnessing.”

  “Well, let’s witness me some other time then,” said Romeo, and the girls laughed. He asked them if they had boyfriends. They looked at each other and laughed some more.

  Megan said, “Tess had a boyfriend. But he was a total asshole.”

  Tess asked him, “You know Arroyo?”

  He shrugged. “You mean like from around here? I don’t know anybody.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Megan said, “You know what he does? He does body suspensions. He’s got that old auto-paint shop up on 17, and there’s like this crane thing behind it, where he puts hooks in you and hangs you up in the air.”

  “He puts hooks in you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “In your flesh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “People let him do that?”

  Megan shrugged. “Don’t ask me why.”

  But then Tess spoke up, with a flicker of pride: “I let him do it.”

  “Really?” said Romeo. “What was it like?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” said Tess. She had a faraway look.

  Romeo asked, “Did it make you feel close to God?”

  “No, it made me feel like I was God. When He was on the Cross. And then after it was over? Oh. Like so good. Like nothing sucks.”

  “Yeah, but then he dumped you,” Megan reminded her. “Because he’s a total asshole.”

  Romeo liked listening to them. He’d never met missionaries before. He invited them down to his room for Jack-and-Cokes, and on the way, he walked behind them, trying to decide which girl was prettier, so he could offer that one to Shaw. But there was no prettier one. Tess had the disturbing forehead and Megan was squat like a traffic cone, and they were equally unappealing, unless you were in a generous mood. Shaw was in a weird mood. He was still flying around on the web when they got to the room, still working on that mysterious project. He seemed unhinged. He nodded when Romeo made introductions but didn’t speak and didn’t shake hands, and the look he cast Romeo was on the order of What’s with the bitches?

  This hurt Romeo because he had brought these girls as gifts. “They’re missionaries,” he said. “From Missouri.”

  Shaw said, “Missionaries to what?”

  Tess said, “We go door to door.”

  “Here?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Shaw stared at them. “You’re on a mission to Brunswick, Georgia?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re evangelizing the Bible Belt?”

  He smiled and the girls smiled too. Whenever Shaw got one of his insights into the true heart of things, his lips would curl up on one side and he could be charming and off-kilter and really funny if he didn’t go overboard.

  Romeo fixed drinks for everyone. Liberal measures of Jack. It was turning into a party; he was excited. But then Shaw turned away without a word and went back to his laptop, clickety-click. It got kind of awkward, just listening to that, so after a minute Romeo and the girls decided go back upstairs.

  However, as they were all leaving, Shaw said, “Wait. Romeo, hang around a second. I want to ask you something.”

  Romeo told the girls to go on ahead.

  It was clear that something was coming. He had a feeling. The best course would be to say no right away, even before Shaw launched. Not even wait to hear Shaw’s proposal. Just clear out, go get trashed with the girls. But he didn’t do that. He sat on one of the motel beds while Shaw sat on the other, facing him, and when Shaw said, “OK, listen, I need you,” Romeo nodded meekly.

  “For what?”

  “Something I couldn’t trust anyone else in the world with. I mean you and me, we’re the only ones alive who can do this. Because we’ve got this trust between us. But it’s going to be scary as hell and at any moment we could get ourselves killed and if you’re not up for it you just say so right away and I’ll understand. OK? You go back home and do tech
support. But I’m going to do this. And if you want to do this with me, I mean if you want to live, well I mean, we will change the world.”

  Romeo said, “What do you need?” Because he was terrified, it came out as a croak — but he said it.

  “I don’t mean just change our lives,” said Shaw. “I mean change the whole fucking world.”

  “What do you need, Shaw?”

  “I need you to play kind of a role. Like what you’d call angel of vengeance. You ready for that?”

  Tara found the whole thing amusing. The way Dad had to work so hard to maintain his air of righteous outrage. The way Jase had to pretend he was really chastened: tucking into infancy, burrowing his head between Mom’s shoulder and the couch. “Caleb swore he wouldn’t tell. I made him swear, Dad.”

  Said Dad, “But you promised us, Jase. You gave us your word you’d keep your trap shut. Remember? You weren’t gonna tell anyone about the jackpot. Anyone.”

  “So I’m sorry.”

  Serene in his brattiness because he knew he was in the clear. He wouldn’t be punished tonight. Dad’s lecture came out sounding formal and half-hearted. “Well now I’m sure it’s all over town. I hope you learned something. This is a tough world, and it’s going to get a lot tougher. Get this into your head now — trust your family and your faith and nothing else. You hear me?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “You better pray no reporter gets hold of this.”

  “Dad?”

  “What.”

  “If we buy a mansion on the beach? Can I get a Jet Ski?”

  Tara had to smile. Poor Dad, compelled to wind himself up again: “ARE YOU HEARING A WORD I’M SAYING?”

  Naturally Jase started snuffling again — but Mom smoothed his head and murmured, “Oh, of course you can have a Jet Ski.”

  “What are you telling him?”

  “For God’s sake, Mitch. We’re gonna be trillionaires. It won’t kill him to have a Jet Ski.”

  Tara laughed. “Then can I get a Jet Ski? Can I get a Jet Ski made of pure gold?”

  “Just stop it,” said Dad.

  Jase said, “I don’t care if mine’s made of gold or not. I just want a fast one.”

  Tara said, “Yeah, I also want fast. But I mostly want gold. And amphibious. I think it’s only fair —”

  Jase took the bait. “If she gets an amphibious Jet Ski, I should get —”

  “NOBODY’S GETTING A JET SKI!” Dad thundered.

  Then he shook his head slowly and sighed. “Or, I don’t know. What the heck. Let’s all get Jet Skis.”

  It was an astonishing thing for Tara, to see her whole family laughing at once. She couldn’t remember the last time this had happened. More of this jackpot magic — more of these waves of bliss and wide-open freedom.

  Mom went into the kitchen to make herself a little drink, and Dad started telling them about this financial guy he’d met today — some big muckety from Sea Island, and also some big lawyer from Atlanta; and the jackpot ticket was in the safety deposit box so that was taken care of; and tomorrow he’d arrange with some security firm about bodyguards because they’d probably need them, at least for the first few weeks —

  The doorbell rang.

  Dad said, “Oh Lord. Already? If that’s a reporter. I swear, Jase, if that’s a reporter already —”

  Tara answered the door. A young man: late twenties, kind of pallid, ungainly, and his corduroy jacket didn’t fit him well. But he had a nice smile. And he knew her name. “Hello, Tara.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Bill Rooney,” he said. He flashed his ID. “Georgia Lottery Commission. Your folks around?”

  Dad was already at her shoulder. “What can I do for you?”

  “My name’s Bill Rooney.” The ID said, William B. Rooney. Agent. Georgia State Lottery Commission. “May I come in for a moment?”

  Dad was nervous. “I thought we were supposed to come to you. Anyway how do you — why would you think we’re the winners —”

  Rooney laughed. “None of my business, Mr. Boatwright. I’m just here to share a little advice in case you should win something. OK? Could we talk a moment?”

  Dad was still wary. “You mind if I call my lawyer first?”

  “Well, that would make it an official visit. Which would limit what I could tell you. All I want is to run your family through a few hypotheticals. Take less than ten minutes.”

  Mom said from her sofa, “Oh, Let him in, Mitch. Don’t be rude.”

  Finally Dad shrugged. “All right.”

  He stepped aside and the visitor came in. Mom was bustling about, straightening the room. “Mrs. Boatwright? My name is Bill Rooney and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “What can I get you?” Mom asked. “Scotch, gin and tonic? What do you like?”

  “I’m good, thank you. I’d just like to talk with you all.”

  “All of us?”

  Rooney nodded. To Jase he said, “Hi fella. You should hear this too.”

  They all sat. Rooney took Dad’s big easy chair. He unlatched his briefcase and drew from it what looked like a case file. His every move seemed studied, deliberate.

  “Well, I guess what I want to tell you,” he said, “boils down to this. Be ready. Because, because everything in your lives is about to change. And this change could be a source of great joy or it could be terribly destructive.”

  Softspoken but fervent. Not like any bureaucrat Tara had ever seen. Terribly destructive? Was he stoned? Well, why not? If he was smart, and he seemed to be, this job had to suck ass, and maybe getting baked was the only way to deal with it. The thought made her smile. Rooney saw this, and gave her a little smile back.

  And he reminded her a little — though maybe just at the corners of the jaw — of JCD Jr.

  “Mr. Boatwright,” he said, “may I ask you something? What are your plans? I mean suppose you did win the jackpot. Would you give up your business?”

  “No sir. Not at all. I’d like to expand my business.”

  Rooney kept smiling. “Yeah? Well. I know you think you would. But you won’t. I’m sorry. I’m not calling you a liar; I’m just telling you, one night pretty soon you’re going to party too much, and the next morning you’ll think, what the hell, might as well sleep in a little. Just this once. And next day you will go back to work, but you won’t be able to concentrate. Because you’ll be thinking, well maybe, since I’ve already got all the money in the world, maybe keeping up a marginal copier business in East Jesus, Georgia, is absolutely pointless.”

  Dad gathered himself to protest: “Actually, I’m not sure, that it’s, um, appropriate for you to —”

  Rooney raised a hand to silence him. “Sooner or later you’ll tank it and get yourself an estate in Hawaii. Then you can all get some sun, which’ll be great except you’ll get too much and you’ll start looking like iguanas. And you’ll try to make friends but who can you trust, right? So you won’t know anybody and you’ll stay home and watch TV and you’ll be lonely as hell and bored out of your goddamn skulls —”

  “Sir!” said Dad. “Watch your language —”

  “And gorge yourself on disappointment, and bitterness, and welcome to the wonderful world of winning the jackpot. And what I’m here to tell you, all of you, is there’s only one way to save yourselves from that living death. And that’s to use these riches you’ve been given for something good. You follow me? Bring kindness into the world. Show love. Alleviate suffering. And to hell with the house in Hawaii. To hell with the fancy toys and the —”

  “Now hold on!” said Dad. His voice finally with some heft. “I won’t have this foul language in my house!”

  Rooney didn’t even look at him. He said, “Calm down, Mitch. I’ll tell you a story. About this guy I know. This guy, he’s doing tech support? Little old ladies, their bridge programs won’t load, he talks them through it. ‘Go to All Programs, click on that.’ ‘Go to Add or Remove Programs, click on that.’ Kind of a dumb job, a
grueling job, but in all those years, it never breaks the guy. He never stops dreaming. Because he knows there are powers he can tap into. Whenever he looks at the world, he thinks, this can be a world full of beauty, this can be a rapturous world. He thinks, somehow I will find the power to bring rapture and beauty into this world.

  “So one day he’s on vacation. Going south — for the first time in his life. He’s on I-95, he’s maybe a little jacked up on dexies. He stops at a convenience store. He goes in and discovers that in this very store a jackpot ticket has just been sold. The ticket. And he’s thinking: now here I am, I have this great dream. I have all this love; I want to bring kindness and truth and virtue to the world. But I’ve never had the tools before, and here a tool is set down before me —”

  Dad suddenly rose up. His hands clenched. “Get out of my house.”

  “What, now?”

  “I’m calling the police. Get out.”

  “Mitch, I’m talking about our future —”

  Dad drew his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open.

  But Rooney dipped his hand into his briefcase and brought out a gun.

  And said, “Put the phone down.”

  Mom cried out.

  Rooney placed the muzzle of the gun against her temple. “PUT THE FUCKING PHONE DOWN!”

  Dad let the phone slip through his fingers. It clattered on the floor.

  Jase was crying, “MOM! MOM!” But Rooney grabbed him with one hand and pulled him close and said, “One more word and I’ll kill your mommy, little boy. Right in front of you. So shut up.”

  Jase heaved with sobs but managed to stop screaming. Rooney pushed him away again, and Tara took him into her arms.

  “OK,” said Rooney. “Do I have everyone’s attention?”

  Looking from face to face.

  Then he lowered the pistol. Took a breath and slowly exhaled.

  “OK then. Everything in the open. My real name is Shaw McBride. What I want is half your winnings. When I get that, I go. If you cooperate and don’t fuss, then I’ll leave and you’ll be safe, and happy, and still rich beyond your wildest dreams.” He was looking right at Tara. As though it were she and not her parents who made the decisions in this household. He said, “You understand me?”