Ravens

by George Dawes Green

  Tara poured the Madeira while Nell showed Shaw her toys: the singing buck, the trophy fish, the sunflower who dipped coquettishly toward the windowlight and sang, “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”

  Shaw laughed. “At last! Technology produces something useful! Where’d you get these, Nell?”

  “Well, the buck I got at Wal-Mart’s. I went to Dollar but they don’t have ’em yet. You play poker, young man?”

  “Sure.”

  “You play pot-limit seven stud? Or just that TV crap?”

  He grinned. “I guess I play pot-limit seven stud.”

  She said, “We don’t cotton to Tedious Hold’em around here. Where you go all-in on a pair of nines and cross your fingers and pray? There’s more skill in Bingo. But if you’re up for poker let’s get to it.”

  Tara downed her Madeira right away, while she was still standing by the sink. Then she refilled her glass and set her face. Remember how much you love her. Think of nothing else.

  She brought the glasses to the table. Shaw toasted Nell’s cats. Nell told him all their names, and he toasted them again. Then he looked at Tara, and Tara told her first lie: “Shaw’s an old friend of Daddy’s.”

  “What, dear?” Nell was hauling the coin sacks off their shelf in the china closet, lugging them to the table.

  “I said Shaw’s an old friend of Dad’s. He was just passing through and he called Dad, and the two of them went in on the jackpot tickets together.”

  Nell poured out a mound of coins, and started counting it. She told Shaw, “We like the feel of money. Chips are for sissies. Sell you twenty dollars’ worth, that good?”

  “Grandmother,” said Tara, “you’re not listening.”

  “I’m not?” She kept counting. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “I’m saying Shaw paid for half of our jackpot tickets. The day we won.”

  “Oh. Well then, how come he doesn’t get half the jackpot?”

  “He does. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Are you listening?”

  Finally Nell looked up. “You’re saying what?”

  Do not lower your eyes. “Shaw gets half of everything.”

  Nell’s gaze narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “Because Dad didn’t tell us. He was afraid Mom’d be mad.”

  “I bet she’s mad. I bet she’s screaming her head off.”

  “Well. She is. But fair is fair.”

  If it’s to save her life, it’s not really a lie.

  “Well,” said Nell, “if your mom ain’t mad, I am. You’re telling me we’re only half-gazillionaires?” She turned to Shaw. “You get the rest?”

  He said, “I’m sorry.”

  “You little punk. I already had that half-gazillion spent. I was gonna buy Brunswick — turn the whole town into my private putt-putt course. You like putt-putt golf? Wait, you gotta see my polar bear.”

  The bear was on top of her refrigerator. When Nell switched it on, it swung a golf club and sang, “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.” Shaw chuckled. Nell exploded with laughter. Then she shuffled the cards and dealt out a hand.

  “I’m winning it back right now,” she announced. “All of it. Every penny you stole from us. How much was that again?”

  Shaw coughed and murmured, “Um. Pre-tax? Something like. A hundred fifty-nine million?”

  “Well, get ready to lose it.”

  She bluffed right out of the gate. Tara had an ace showing and another ace in the hole, so she stayed with Nell’s bets for two more rounds, and even drew a third ace. But when Nell threw forty dollars into the pot, Tara figured her for a straight, and folded. Nell raked in. Shooting Tara a sharp critical look. Tara knew she was in trouble. She was playing too timidly. Was she playing so timidly that Nell would guess something was wrong?

  Shaw said, “You ladies mind if I play a little bit here?”

  Said Nell, “Not at all. I’m waiting for you. Every last penny.” She slapped the deck down. “Your deal.”

  As he dealt, he started talking. He called the hands as they developed. “Jack, possible straight. Eights a pair. Oh, look, I got three diamonds showing. My flush is in plain view. Well, I might as well bet it big and hope you’ll think I’m bluffing.”

  He threw in five dollars, and Nell folded and Tara did too, and he laughed and tried to bully the next hand as well. Nell caught him that time, and burned him. But he didn’t back off. As the hands went by, he kept coming. Tara could see what he was up to. He was covering for her. While she regained her balance, he was distracting Nell, drawing her away from the truth — the way a bird draws predators from the nest. He kept guffawing and gesturing and holding forth: “Doesn’t anybody notice I have two cowboys showing? I got a posse over here! You don’t hear the thundering hooves?”

  He lost twenty on that hand.

  Nell dealt the next one. He complained, “Gimme some cards, will you? Deal me something for once that isn’t crap? Pardon my French.”

  Nell, on her third Madeira by now, said: “You take what you get! You get the three of spades!”

  The two of them barking, baiting each other, laughing. Tara tried her best to laugh with them — which got a little easier as the Madeira flowed. She started to relax a little.

  Then Shaw leaned toward her, pretending to look at her cards, and she snapped, “You cheater!” — and this came out sounding playful.

  She noticed that Nell was eyeing her and Shaw. Checking out the chemistry.

  As though there might be some kind of romance brewing.

  And Tara realized she had found the perfect mask. If she were sweet on Shaw it would explain everything. Her nerves, her stilted laughter, the mousiness of her game. Everything could be chalked up to a new and sticky-sweet infatuation. So on the very next hand, when Shaw was about to bet, Tara tapped his wrist and warned: “Go easy on yourself, cowboy,” and made it look like an excuse to touch him — and Nell caught this. And grinned.

  A few hands later, Nell went off to the back porch to feed the cats, and Shaw said softly, “Tara. You’re astonishing. You’re perfect. You’re going to save them all.”

  His little slant smile.

  A sentiment flared up inside her then, which had the shape of a pillar. If it wasn’t pride, she didn’t know what it was. In an instant it was gone, vaporized by self-revulsion. But it had been there.

  Nell came back in and sat and said, “Deal! Let’s go!”

  And now Tara raised the stakes. She bet thirty dollars on a hand that looked like a bust. Shaw cried, “You got nothun!” and raised her back, but with a kind of manic confidence Tara brought her face close to his and said, “I have an army of scorpions.” And reraised — a hundred dollars.

  Shaw folded. Nell hollered with delight. Shaw proposed a toast to Tara’s cojones, and they all drank deep.

  Romeo was parked up Egmont Street from Nell’s house. His seat was tilted back so he could barely see over the dashboard, but still he had a clear view into the kitchen. The three of them so festive in there. Playing cards and drinking and throwing back their heads and laughing wildly. Meanwhile, in the Tercel, he sat there silently baking. For two hours, not moving except to brush flies away, to wipe the sweat off his face. At last the alarm in his phone went off. Time to check in. He pressed the number 7. He saw Shaw excuse himself from the kitchen table and come out onto Nell’s little portico and lift the phone to his ear.

  “You’re being watched,” said Romeo. And he could see, even from this far, how much this annoyed Shaw.

  Shaw scanned the street till he spotted the Tercel. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous when you’re this close to me! Why aren’t you patrolling?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “The smell of this city is making me sick.”

  “What smell?”

  “They say it’s the pulp mill. But to me it’s like everyone’s dead. I think all these ranch houses and condos are filled wit
h dead people. If they’re not dead, how come the streets are so empty? How come Brunswick stinks so much?”

  “Smells OK to me,” said Shaw.

  “Maybe you’re just too drunk to smell it.”

  “I’m not drunk at all.”

  “Oh shit,” said Romeo. “I been watching you get drunk. What, are you trying to seduce them? That’s what it looks like. All that drinking and joking and flirting.”

  “I’m trying to put them at ease.”

  “OK. Good plan. You be the charmer; I’ll be the ghoul.”

  Romeo didn’t know where that had come from. Lack of sleep probably. But Shaw cast him a long troubled stare. Forty yards between them, but still it felt Shaw was searching right into his eyes. Finally Shaw said softly, “Listen, Romeo, I know how hard this is. What you’re doing is a lonely thing and I’m amazed how well you’re doing it. But just, you got to know, I’m with you. You know? I’m with you every second. All we got to do is get to the end of this deal; then we put our money into the bank and retire and all the rest is play, OK? You know what I want to do? I want to go to Trinidad like we were planning on, and when we get there, we’ll open a hospital for the poor. OK? Or an orphanage or something. I mean it. Just spread the fucking love wherever we go. And drink cuba libres and have a big swimming pool and bang all the pretty nurses and have a constant blast but one thing I promise you is I’ll never forget your courage here this week. You know?”

  “I guess.”

  “I told you I needed you, and you were there. And everything that’s happened since comes from your courage. I’m not ever going to forget that. OK?”

  “Sure. I mean you don’t have to say this.”

  “You OK then?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We just have to make it to the end of this.”

  After Shaw went inside, Romeo did another counterclockwise turn around the city. Rt. 17 to Clio’s. Up to Belle Point, where Shelby and Miriam lived with their kids. Then west on Chapel Crossing to Altama Avenue, to Poinsettia Circle, Vanessa and Henry’s.

  I told you I needed you and you were there.

  In fifth grade, in Ohio, Romeo had heard about these kids who had gone under the Vandemark Bridge and with a Swiss Army knife had carved the letter D on their chests and rubbed gunpowder into the bloody wounds so the mark would never fade. No one knew what the D stood for. Romeo wasn’t acquainted with any of these kids. He just knew he wanted to join that club.

  All through the school year, he obsessed over it. Having that mark. Having blood brothers who would die for him, as he would happily die for them. Then one day he was on Hardy Street, walking home from school, and he saw the club’s leader, alone, coming toward him. Romeo summoned up the courage to stop him. “Shaw?”

  The guy squinted at him. “Yeah?” He had no idea who Romeo was. “What?”

  This took place in front of Wendy’s (at that time there had still been a Wendy’s at the corner of Hardy and Pine). It was in October, and the wind was kicking up yellow and maroon leaves.

  Say it, Romeo thought. But he couldn’t. “Nothing.”

  Shaw started to walk away.

  “Wait. I want to join. Can I join your club?”

  Shaw turned. “What club? Who are you?”

  “Your club. I’d be a good member.”

  “There’s no club,” said Shaw. “And if there was a club why would we want you?”

  Romeo didn’t have an answer. Nothing was in his head but the prayer that he wouldn’t start crying while Shaw McBride was glaring at him.

  Shaw walked away.

  But a week or so later Romeo was walking up Adams Street after school and Shaw was waiting for him.

  “So suppose there was a club. What would you be willing to do to get in?”

  “Anything.”

  “Anything? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Romeo.

  “That’s like, fucked,” said Shaw, and again he walked away.

  The next day, when Romeo came up Adams Street, Shaw and some other guys were there in a kind of huddle. They called Romeo over to them. He was scared but he went. They said, “Come with us.”

  They took him down below the Vandemark Bridge, for his initiation.

  The initiation was this: you had to take a dump on a piece of cardboard and then rub it on your face like warpaint. Then go to the river and jump in, and stay under for thirty seconds. Then you’d be in the club.

  Romeo did those things. He rubbed his own shit all over his face, and jumped in the icy water and stayed under for half a minute and came up choking. The boys were gone. His clothes had been cast into the water. He swam out for them, rescued them from the current, and dragged them ashore. He wrung them out and put them on. He was freezing and hyperventilating. But he knew the boys were hiding nearby, spying on him, and he kept himself from bawling as he climbed up to the bridge.

  Next day in school was the first time that nobody called him ‘Wherefore art Thou’. Instead everyone called him Shitface. Everyone except Shaw — Shaw didn’t call him Shitface. Shaw didn’t recognize his existence in any way.

  Romeo spent the next few months thinking up ways to kill himself. But he never did cry in public, and never complained and never ratted anyone out, and endured his new name and the interminable passing of time until one day in December Mom came to Romeo’s room and said, “A friend is here for you.” And there was Shaw.

  Mom made a fuss over him, offering cookies and lemonade and all, and Romeo was mortified. But finally she went away, and Shaw told him, “Hey, I’m sorry I was such an asshole back under the bridge. All that shit we did — it wasn’t my idea.”

  Romeo shrugged. “It’s OK.”

  “ ’Cause you were like a good soldier about it.”

  Romeo tried not to show any emotion.

  Then Shaw said, “I need your help. Will you help me?”

  There had been some kind of palace coup in the club. Shaw had been deposed. Romeo said he’d help in any way he could, and he accompanied Shaw to Hollow Park and they hid in the forsythia bushes waiting for the ringleader of the mutineers to come by. Shaw was perfectly still and patient. He didn’t move for hours. Romeo was freezing. Once he tried to whisper something, but Shaw just raised his hand. They waited. Finally when it was nearly dark, the ringleader came by, and Shaw made a sign to Romeo and leaped out and started fighting the guy. Calling, “Romeo, help me!” But Romeo was scared, and he couldn’t move.

  But then the guy got Shaw into a headlock and Shaw howled with pain — and something changed in Romeo then. He just lit into the kid, his fists whirling: he was ferocious; he was a cyclone. It felt like he had left his body: that he was watching himself from afar. And then Shaw was holding the guy so Romeo could keep hitting him and kicking him, and the guy was bleeding and begging for mercy but Romeo wouldn’t stop till Shaw dragged him off.

  “Jesus!” said Shaw. “What’re you, fuckin insane?”

  But Shaw was laughing as he said this. He told the poor kid, “OK, kneel and beg my forgiveness or my guy will kill you right here.”

  The kid did what he was told. That was the end of the coup. Shaw got his power back. The gang came under his sway again.

  And Romeo was granted full membership in the club. This time the rites were for real. In the presence of all the members—including the poor bruised-up mutineer —Romeo incised a D into his own chest. The club’s secret name was The Devourers, Shaw told him, reminding him that he’d be killed if he ever revealed that fact. After the cutting, Romeo’s chest streamed with blood, and he had to rub gunpowder into the wound, which burned like a branding iron. The pain was annihilating, but still — this was far and away the best hour of his life.

  Patsy was overwhelmed.

  Her daughter was still out with that fiend. The Real Housewives of Orange County was on TV, a lot of squawking she couldn’t follow. Her husband was at the little fake ‘empire’ desk in the corner, studying Scripture, studying so hard that drops of sweat wer
e falling from his brow onto the Holy Book. Meanwhile Jase kept up that blaze of vengeance on his Micro, shriek after shriek, and when Patsy couldn’t bear any of this for another moment she got up and went back to the bedroom and shut the door, and climbed into bed with her laptop.

  For a while she tried to play internet Tetris. But she couldn’t follow that either.

  Outside it was getting dark, quick. Thunderstorm coming. Where was Tara? Why weren’t they back yet? My little girl.

  With that demon, my little girl!

  If she could just find some way to get her mind off all this.

  She went to Google. Into the oblong box she typed:

  mansions

  She thought a moment. Then she added

  malibu

  It was wrong to be doing this, she knew. Here they all were in peril of their lives — not just she and Mitch and the kids, but her brother Shelby too, and her mother-in-law, and others: who knew which of her family and friends that monster had singled out? And Tara was out with one of them right that minute! What was the matter with her, that at a time like this she could be thinking of California real estate?

  But these were lovely cottages. And this browsing was only to help her endure the terror. Letting her think about the good times to come. When all of this would be over. With property values in the toilet there were bound to be genuine bargains out there. She could swoop in like a bird of prey and snatch a jewel.

  She skated lightly through the listings.

  What she found though, was dismaying. Everything was so unbelievably expensive.

  For example, here was a nice 5-bedroom with a 2-cargarage and “beach access just steps away.” Modern, high ceilings, lots of glass. But the list was $18,000,000.00.

  Eighteen million?

  Wasn’t the market supposed to have tanked? How could they be asking eighteen million and it’s not even on the water? Eighteen million and she had to hike to the damn beach? Along some tourist path? Trudging with Mitch and his purple flipflops, and Whoopi and Barbara and Sting looking down on her and laughing, ha ha, look at those stinkbugs crawling in the sand!

  No chance, Patsy thought. I won’t be Whoopi’s clown. Washed-up C-lister who’s never funny anymore, giving me crap?