Ravens

by George Dawes Green

  He said, “I’m sure some folks out there don’t think there’s such a thing as good and evil? But let me tell you guys, I’ve seen ’em both, and I know which is which. This man here. This man, this Mitch Boatwright? This man is good.”

  Shaw waited for the silence to close in around him. Then he brought his lips a half-inch closer to the microphone, and dropped his voice, and said, “So. Ever since that day, I’ve kept hoping to find this man again, this man who saved my life, so I could thank him. And finally I figured out how. You know how I found him?”

  He waited a beat. “I Googled him.”

  The crowd loved that.

  “I gave him a call and told him I was coming through Brunswick. And could I see him? And he said, sure. And we went out and had barbecue, and I told him, it don’t matter that I’m not a rich man, because now I know what my calling is. Don’t matter I’m not so-called successful, because I know about real success.

  “And then, when he was driving me back to my car, we went past this, well like a gas station? And he was going in to buy some lottery tickets, and I said, Heck, would you get some for me? I guess I was feeling pretty good, pretty blessed, ’cause I gave him twenty dollars, which is more than I ever spent on the lottery in my life. And then, well, then you know the rest. But that’s how I come to be up here.”

  Someone started clapping. Others took it up and the applause grew into a great wind of adulation which Shaw could feel blowing against his brow and running through his hair. His lungs filled up. He felt the deep scarlet pounding of his blood.

  Creave opened the floor for questions.

  Romeo’s eyes were on Mitch. Mitch was standing on the stage just behind Shaw, and he looked all wound-up like he was about to come unsprung. He had that big fat lower lip which was just perched out there, and sweat dripped off his chin. And watch his eyes, thought Romeo. Those bulgy eyes, like eggs hard-boiling, how they’re fixing on Shaw with such resentment. Bad, broken thinking going on in that brain.

  A reporter was saying, “This question is for Mr. McBride. Mr. McBride —”

  “Call me Shaw.”

  “Shaw, do you think all this money might change you for the worse?”

  “Well. I guess that’s, that’s what brought this country down, isn’t it? That’s why we had the Wall Street collapse. Because of greed. And it could happen to me, yeah. I hope it won’t.”

  Another reporter: “What are you going to buy, Shaw?”

  Shaw stroked his chin a bit, as though this was the first he’d thought about the question. The audience knew it was being teased. Some soft chuckling, while Shaw held fire, held fire… and then: “Well, I’m not going to buy anything. I’m going to give it all away.”

  The whole room drew in its breath at once.

  Had he really just said that? Had he really just committed to giving away a hundred and fifty-nine million dollars?

  Then his features lightened. “Actually that’s not quite true. I plan to keep back a little bit for myself. Enough to get me a bass boat.”

  More laughter, though now the quality of the laughter had changed. Now there were notes of amazement mixed in, and crazed ebullience. The audience was over the moon.

  But Romeo kept his eyes on Mitch, and Mitch’s expression was growing darker and darker.

  Mitch was saying silently to himself, I’ll kill the piece of shit.

  The piece of shit. The way he’s twisting the name of the Lord to his own ends, and spreading his lies all over the world, and he thinks I’ll just stand here and let him get away with this? He thinks I’m such a lamb that I’ll let him drag the name of the Lord through the muck of his evil lies? He’ll soon find out I’m not a lamb. When I take his gun from him, when I deposit a bullet from his own damn gun into his own damn eye, he won’t think I’m a lamb then, will he? He’ll change his damn mind then, won’t he?

  Mitch searched the faces of the audience. One by one he located the members of his family. All here. Mom, right up front. Cousin Harry. And there’s Rocket; and Patsy’s brother Shelby with Miriam and their kids. And Alfred. And Will. And all of Jane’s kids. Everyone. All safe. Even my friend Enoch, and Vince from Lions of Judah: my people are here and accounted for. And Romeo is out patrolling the streets — so the only thing I have to worry about is Shaw’s gun. If I lunge, and come into him hard enough, I’ll knock him clear off the stage and into the front rows of the audience. Then I’ll leap after him. Right into the storm, into the screaming and the chairs flying, and he’ll be confused by the fall, so I’ll just grab the gun from his holster and put it to his skull and shoot him, and the bastard won’t seem like Mother Teresa then, will he? But here you go, watch this, here’s a special delivery to hell, asshole.

  And I will do it. I’ll do it now.

  You think I’m a lamb?

  Your time for thinking that is about up.

  Romeo was praying: Shaw, turn around. Right behind you, the fucker’s gone psycho; turn around and look at him! Turn around!

  But Shaw was running on and on about the bass boat he was going to buy, how he wanted it to have a four-stroke Verado engine, a Humminbird Fishfinder, etc. He was oblivious to everything but the sound of his own voice and the love coming back at him from the crowd. Completely ignoring Mitch. Mitch’s popeyed glare reminded Romeo of the animal in the wheel well. That man wants revenge. He wants his dignity back. He’s desperate for some bloodletting here, and he knows his family’s safe, and he’ll make his move any second. He’ll rush Shaw and knock him down and take his gun from him and kill him. And then I’ll have to kill Mitch, and the porks will have to kill me, and everything will be pointless and blacked-out and waves of shit forever.

  A reporter asked: “Mr. Boatwright?”

  It took Mitch a moment to realize the question was for him.

  “Mr. Boatwright, you saved this boy’s soul, and now he says he’s going to give away all this money — do you, would you call this a miracle?”

  Slowly Mitch approached the mike. And muttered into it, “A miracle?”

  Then he fell silent. Scarily silent, like he couldn’t even speak, he was so full of venom.

  And then right there in front of everyone, he turned and glowered at Shaw. Shaw’s grin evaporated. A hush fell over the audience. It was like a shadow, a huge cold shadow descending over this hall. And Romeo knew he had to do something, anything, and right now.

  He found himself stepping forward:

  “CAN I ASK SOMETHING? I GOT A QUESTION!”

  Mitch was taken aback.

  Romeo shouted: “I GOT A QUESTION FOR TARA! TARA, DON’T YOU THINK YOUR DADDY’S ANGRY? AT HAVING TO SHARE THIS MONEY?”

  Tara turned to him. And recognized him.

  The Lottery guy was scolding from the corner of the stage, “Sir, there’s a line here! There are questioners ahead of you —”

  But there was nothing in Romeo’s thoughts except the message he was sending to Tara: I’m here.

  He boomed out: “YOUR DADDY’S GOTTA BE PISSED! HERE’S ALL THIS MONEY, AND THIS STRANGER’S GONNA THROW IT AWAY, AND IF IT WERE ME I WOULDN’T LET ANYBODY SHARE MY MONEY!”

  None of it came out with any coherence, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was: I’m here. I’m ten steps from your grandmother. Stop him now.

  And he saw her starting to get it. She shot a look at her father, and she got it. There was a long moment when it felt as though the world was tottering, and then Tara put her arm over her father’s shoulder and drew him toward the mike and said, “No sir, my father’s not angry at all! He’s just, well, we’re all kind of stunned, you know? But we’re happy to share this prize and it is a miracle and I’m just so proud of my daddy!”

  She embraced him. There was a smattering of applause, as she spoke a few private words into his ear. Romeo thought: she’s telling him who I am.

  Mitch looked down at him.

  Romeo gave him a little wave. And pointed at Nell.

  Mitch saw this. The fight drained out of h
im. Right before Romeo’s eyes, he seemed to slump — but Tara still had her arm around him and she held him up, even as she extended her other arm to Shaw. Then the three of them were arm in arm in a row, and Tara was beaming and weeping, and the applause really got going and flashbulbs lit up all over the room. Patsy and Jase came over and the whole family was standing there with Shaw right in the middle. The audience got to its feet, and everyone was clapping and whooping, and there’s no question, thought Romeo: this is a miracle, we’re still alive and it’s a genuine fucking miracle.

  Tara drove on the way back. They pulled away from the crowd at the inn’s parking lot, and went down G Street. Deathly silence. Nobody spoke. When Shaw sent a text message, the clicking of the phone keys was perfectly audible.

  She turned onto Norwich Street. The storefront churches, the ghost-town façades. After a minute Shaw got a text reply — and instructed her, “Turn here.”

  She pulled into an abandoned minimall. Florist, beauty salon, dance academy: all forsaken. The only store that still survived was an H&R Block, but since this was Saturday even that was shut.

  “Go around back,” said Shaw.

  Behind the stores, under a live-oak tree, was a huddle of dumpsters.

  “Kill the engine.”

  She did. He opened the door and got out, and walked away, leaving them to roast in the heat.

  No one said anything.

  Flock of grackles presiding in the live-oak tree. Now and then one of them would drop down into a dumpster, peck around, fly up again.

  When she saw Romeo she got so scared she thought she might black out. Tears came pouring out of her eyes. No one in the car could see this though, so long as she didn’t turn.

  Romeo was standing with Shaw by the back door to the old beauty salon. They were having a discussion, except it was only Shaw doing the talking. He was gesticulating, impassioned; his face was flushed. Too far to hear anything though. All Tara could hear was the spitting of the grackles in the oak tree.

  Romeo stood there as Shaw told him, “You were right. I was a fool. I keep having faith in people, and then they fuck me over. Every time. These assholes. They don’t even value their own family — how can you work with them? I’m through. I don’t care what you do to them. I tried to protect them. But that’s what people are like. It’s kind of a pure, animal selfishness. If you hadn’t been out in that audience, they’d be dead! The whole family! Fuck them. You have no idea how much I hate them. They’ve turned my life into a nightmare. They want to fuck us? Fuck them right back.”

  In this hell of noontime heat, with such a weight of malice pressing in the air, it was a struggle for Romeo to say anything. But he finally managed: “I could try to talk to them.”

  “Talk to them? We have to punish them.”

  “Let me try to talk to them.”

  “Oh, do what you fucking like,” said Shaw, and he turned away.

  Romeo fetched his broken saber from the trunk of the Tercel. Then he was headed for the Boatwrights’ van, but Shaw stopped him. “Romeo.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Make them believe you this time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Make them believe you’ve got nothing to lose. Make them think you’re completely psycho.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Believe it yourself. Then they’ll believe you.”

  Romeo went to the Liberty, and opened the side door. So hot in there you could hardly breathe, and the family was all drenched in sweat and fear, and were as quiet as churchmice. Tara sat behind the wheel. Mitch in the middle seat, Patsy and the brat all the way in back.

  They had their eyes on the blade he carried.

  Romeo said, “Mitch.”

  “Sir.”

  “What were you thinking up there, Mitch?”

  “Sir?”

  “You wanted to jump him, was that your plan?”

  “No sir.”

  “Stop lying.”

  Mitch hung his head. “I don’t, I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

  Said Romeo, “You know why your mother is still alive? Because of Tara. Because of what she told you, up on that stage. What did she say to you?”

  “She told me you were out there.”

  “Yes. That’s why your mother’s still alive. But you almost got to see her brains go whomping around the room. How would that have been?”

  A strange wailing started up, disembodied and faraway. At first it sounded like a siren — it took Romeo a moment to realize it was coming from the kid. The sound just leaking from him.

  Said Romeo. “You have to shut up.”

  But the kid kept wailing. Finally Romeo grabbed him by the collar and lifted him from his seat and held him there, pushing the broken tip of the saber against his Adam’s apple. That got him quiet.

  Romeo said, “You people, you gotta stop fucking around. You need to understand this. You don’t ever know where I’ll be. Wherever you think I am, I’m somewhere else. I got a dozen of your people on my list, and when Shaw sends an alarm, I’ll start killing. Or if I ever call Shaw and he doesn’t answer, I’ll start killing. I really will. I’ll do whatever needs to be done. My buddy is out of his fucking head, I know. But I’ve got his back. OK? Believe me?”

  It might have been more effective had it not been so obvious he was beating back tears. When he said “Believe me,” his voice cracked a bit. He roughly shoved Jase away from him, and walked off.

  Shaw was waiting for him. “How are we?”

  Romeo walked past him and got in the Tercel and drove off.

  Burris came home from his shift and heated a can of Progresso chicken minestrone soup, which tasted, he thought, like oiled sawdust. He turned on some baseball game. UGA vs. LSU. He cared for neither team — nor their mascots nor their cheerleaders nor their fans in warpaint: he only wanted the noise. The quiet in this house was a rebuke to him. It was an extension of the long silence of his wife Barbara, which had been a commentary on his faithlessness. Not that he’d ever cheated on her, not physically — but she’d known from the beginning about his feelings for Nell Boatwright, and in return she’d given him years of muteness. And he’d come back at her with his own silence, and for forty years they’d strung out this wordless debate, and now there were two grown kids and seven grandkids, all scattered, and Barbara was gone but her silence still thundered, and Burris left the TV on to drown it out.

  The UGA pitcher faked a throw to first. Maybe a balk. The crowd felt certain it had been a balk. Burris ate his soup. A replay was shown. In the opinion of the color commentator, it had not been a balk. Today Nell had said to Burris, I love you, darlin’. She had waggled her fingers while sitting in that big Caddy like she was Hollywood royalty, and she’d said, for the world to hear: I love you, darlin’.

  He chewed his toast. He pursed his lips, and unpursed them. He tried to figure things out. He wondered if, in the last forty years, he had ever gone more than four minutes without thinking of Nell Boatwright.

  Could he do it now? Now that it was nails-in-the-coffin hopeless, could he finally let her go?

  Balk or no balk, mused the color analyst, you can be sure of one thing: this moment will be talked about for years to come. This is a key moment — not just a key moment in this particular game, but really a key moment in the history of the UGA-LSU rivalry…

  I love you, darlin’.

  Could that have been true? If only for an instant? You could have a renewal of affection for someone you were once fond of, couldn’t you? Sudden resurgence of feeling, as though a part of your heart that you’d completely shut down was open for business again?

  Once, back in high school, Nell had told him, “You’re amazin’, Burris.” It was only on account of his prowess at throwing a wooden ring over the neck of a milk bottle, but she really had meant it. It hadn’t been just flirting or flattery. In that one moment she really had been falling in love with him.

  Or such was his belief, his best guess, after forty years of ponder
ing the thing.

  He heard a burst of rough music. It made him jump.

  Where had it come from? Not the TV. Not the phone or the microwave. So what the hell had it been?

  It sounded again.

  Then he realized: the front doorbell. It rang so seldom now, he’d forgotten what it sounded like.

  He went through the parlor and opened the door. A girl was standing there. Twenty or so, blonde, slender and shapely but plain-featured. She said, “Officer Jones? You remember me?”

  “Of course,” he lied.

  “My name’s Cheryl. Faith Renewal?”

  He did remember. The girl from church. “It’s that time again?”

  “Sir?”

  “The Heart Drive?”

  “Oh, no sir.” Her tone was grave. “I just need to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “I called at the station but they said you’d gone home. Am I bothering you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I gotta talk to you because you’re the only police officer I know.”

  He felt awkward about inviting her in. Bring a young girl into your house you’ll get tongues wagging. But then what did he care if tongues wagged or not? Mercy. He stepped aside and she entered. The living room was straight and clean — since he never used it — and he offered her the lime-green couch with the matching pillows, while he took one of the frilly armchairs. The last time he had sat in this armchair was the day of Barbara’s funeral.

  “Well, how can I help you, Cheryl?”

  “You remember where I work?”

  “You used to work at the I-95 Chummy’s. You still there?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Seemed like she’d been there a really long time. Couldn’t she find anything more worthwhile to do?