by Bret Lott
Then the lead one down there pulled right up into the Whaley driveway, and suddenly blue lights flashed on from the top of the vehicle, and the vehicle behind him turned his on, and now the headlights that’d been coming up the street from behind us, the ones that’d lit me up enough for Tabitha to read my lips, came even with us, and now blue lights blazed on right there on the other side of the Range Rover as the vehicle moved past, and I saw it was a black-and-white. A police cruiser.
Another behind him, and another, and another, all with blue lights flashing.
More vehicles pulled into the driveway of the Whaley place, that string of headlights and blue lights still coming down the street, now parking out there, and not just cruisers but black trucks and a couple black vans and now a big black thing pulling to a stop only a little ways past the house on that side. What looked like a UPS truck, and now these vehicles were all being emptied of people, all of them dressed in black windbreakers and black pants, a swarm of them in this moment, doors left open on vehicles as they hurried up the drive and around the sides of the house, and I could see too that they all had their guns drawn, sidearms out and pointed low in front of them, held with both hands, arms rigid.
All of this from where I stood at the curb out front of the Range Rover, all of it in only a few seconds, the whole neighborhood, the world, shredded up again just like last night out front of the Dupont house, when the red strobe on the EMS had made the whole world quiver.
Now the light was blue, everything blasted and broken with it, and even though I could see all these vehicles and all these people, all this frantic scatter and odd order as now more vehicles arrived, wedging themselves two across in the street—even inside all this I couldn’t quite get what was going on, couldn’t quite grab hold of this moment except to know that something terribly wrong must have been going on inside the Whaley place, that somebody had done something very bad, and I knew right then it had to be Unc and Prendergast, that something had gone down in there. Something had happened. Of course it had.
“Son of a bitch,” Five said beside me, and I turned, saw Tabitha next to me and looking at the house, her eyes and mouth open wide, beside her Five, hands still on his hips, he and Tabitha both blasted over in that pulsing blue.
“Never thought this would actually happen,” Five said, and I could see him slowly shaking his head.
I ran.
Unc was in there. And he was in trouble, and I was the one supposed to help him. Me.
He was my father.
I ran.
“Whoa,” I heard behind me—Five calling out—but I was already across the yard and driveway of the first house between us, now running across the lawn of the second, and I heard behind me someone running too, and here right now was the Whaley place only a few yards in front of me, the driveway jammed with cruisers. I could see up there the door beside the garage door open, light coming out from inside, and now I heard shouts from in there, men shouting, and I had to get in there and help Unc, even if he had his walking stick and even if he were the least helpless person I’d ever known, blind or no, and then I was at the first cruiser that’d pulled in, and just like that and out of nowhere, a man stood in front of me, caught me and wrapped his arms around my waist, nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I felt him lift me off the ground at the same time I heard him grunt out for the force of the work this was, “Nobody goes in. Police barricade. Nobody goes—”
“Huger,” I heard called from behind me, and those steps running behind me caught up, and I felt a hand at my shoulder as I twisted in the arms of the policeman holding me in his bear hug. “Huger, no,” I heard, a winded voice but familiar, and I glanced away from that open door and those shouting men, more of them right now moving inside, and saw it was Five, of course it was Five, breathing hard and shaking his head.
“Huger, dude, no. Come on,” he said, and nodded over his shoulder as he gasped in a breath, nodded again. “Come on.”
“But Unc’s—”
“Just come on,” he said, his hand still on my shoulder but pulling at me now, and now I could feel the policeman set me back on the ground, ease off on the tight grasp he had around me.
“Police barricade,” he said again, his face too close to my ear, “no one past this point.”
“He won’t be a problem, Officer,” Five said, still winded. “His uncle’s in there is all. We weren’t involved with anything in there.”
“What’s happening?” I said, and felt now my own breaths hard in and out of me. “What’s going on?”
Still the policeman held me, and I could see past him that things had changed now, that no more men were swarming in the door, and heard too that the shouts were over. A policeman stepped out of the doorway then, a black silhouette with his gun holstered, and called out, “Officer Lamb? You okay?”
“Situation under control, Sergeant,” the officer holding me called out sharp, too loud in my ear, and though I thought maybe I could break out of this guy’s hold if he believed I was going to back off, I thought better of it.
Because there was nothing I could do.
I let out a deep breath, gave up, and the officer let go, took a step back from me. He looked about my age, his hair buzzed nearly to the scalp, and had on the same black windbreaker and pants as everyone else involved.
“We’re not going to have any problems, are we?” he said, and took in a couple breaths of his own. “This is a police barricade. If you try to get past here, you’ll be arrested.”
“Thank you, Officer,” Five said from behind me, and I could feel his hand still on my shoulder. “Thank you.”
“What’s happening?” I said again, and felt again the tug at my shoulder.
“Move along,” the officer said, and nodded.
“Sorry, Officer,” Five said, and pulled even harder at my shoulder, so hard I stumbled a step backward, and had no choice but to turn away from the policeman, and the house, and Unc inside.
“Dude, what is your problem?” Five whispered to me, and I felt myself put my hands on my hips, take in a deep breath. My ribs hurt, I knew that, and I still hadn’t gotten my breath back.
But that didn’t matter at all, and I looked back over my shoulder at what seemed now a kind of calm settling in just that quickly. Officers stood on the street out front of the house every ten feet or so to guard the place, a cluster of them huddled at the door of the garage talking to each other. And all this blue everywhere flushing over the whole of it.
“Just leave it alone, Huger,” Five said, and I looked at him, saw his eyes were on mine as we moved across his next-door neighbor’s yard toward the Range Rover. “Let’s just go on back to your car, wait it out.” He still had his hand on my shoulder, and for a second—a very small one, one I didn’t actually want to acknowledge I understood—I could see he was concerned about me, or at least seemed to be.
His head was tilted forward a little, his eyes open wide, looking at me. “Dude,” he said, “it’s a bust. Unlawful games and betting. Magistrate-level offense. That’s all.” He paused, shook his head, eyes still on me, and I felt the breaths coming deeper into me now. “You okay?”
We were on the next-door neighbor’s driveway now, and I looked away from him, still with my hands on my hips. I nodded once, took in another breath. Then I stopped, half turned from him, and leaned over, put my hands on my knees. To take in another good breath, sure. But also to get out from under his hand on my shoulder.
Five didn’t know what Unc had in the book bag he’d brought in. He didn’t know what kind of charge that might bring in, once these Mount Pleasant cops figured out what they had.
Or maybe, I thought, Unc had already passed the goggles off to Prendergast by now. Maybe that son of a bitch would be the one to end up charged with possessing a piece of government property he shouldn’t have.
But how stupid was that idea. Prendergast was an officer in the U.S. Navy. He had all the permission in the world to have possession of the goggles.
No. If there was going to be trouble about the goggles, it would come down on Unc.
I looked at the Whaley place again. I couldn’t believe the number of vehicles that’d been brought out for this, all filling in every possible space on the street and up into their driveway.
I still stood with my hands on my knees, looked down, breathed, and now here on the driveway beside me moved in a pair of shoes and pants—the same white Keds Tabitha always wore, and jeans—and I felt her hand on my back, felt her patting me. I glanced up at her, saw her eyes were to everything happening before us, her head shaking just the smallest way, as though she wasn’t even surprised. Her as blue and pulsing as everything else out here.
“My dad’s been worried for the last nine years this was going to happen,” Five said, and I looked past Tabitha to him. His arms were crossed again, his feet spread on the driveway. “That’s why he got the dudes he did to play with him. He’s got city council members in there, and a Summerville police lieutenant, and all kinds of other big dogs. He’s even got a Navy captain or something like that in there.” He gave another small laugh, but this one quieter, and I looked down again at the driveway. “He figured that would make it safe,” he went on, “if he had enough bigwigs playing.” He shot out a breath, shook his head, and now I stood up, felt Tabitha’s hand on my back rest there for just a second longer before she took it away.
She didn’t look at me, and now I wondered why she was so calm about all this. Why she’d only now strolled over, looked like she’d known the whole thing would happen.
“Shit,” Five whispered. “What are the chances? Come home for a long weekend and to see Tabitha while she’s out here. Then this.” He shook his head.
I touched Tabitha’s arm then, and she looked at me. I nodded toward Five, and she turned to him, enough blue light out here, I figured, for her to see what he had to say.
“He told me a million times what to do if I was around when it happened. And if I wasn’t inside with him. Otherwise, I’d just get hauled off with the rest of them.” He shook his head again. “Stay out the way. Period. Then just post bail, if they don’t let him out on his own recognizance.” He paused, said, “He’s got a wad of cash he showed me once in his bedroom. I’m supposed to follow the paddy wagon on down to Mount P jail, use that wad to bail out anybody gets busted. A kind of courtesy from the management.”
He stopped. He shook his head more slowly. “I can’t believe I’m even saying this. I can’t believe this is really happening,” he said. “Nine fucking years and it’s never happened where—”
“Do you live here?” someone called from behind us, and both Five and I turned, then Tabitha.
A woman was walking fast toward us across the yard, and I could see in the blue lights she was dressed up, had on a jacket and skirt, a blouse that seemed to erupt at her neck. A little ways behind her was another person, a man, weaving between two cars at the curb.
He had a video camera on his shoulder.
“I cannot believe this!” Five said, and turned away, moved up the driveway toward the street. Away from her.
Tabitha looked at Five, then at the reporter, and turned, followed after him.
A reporter, and a camera.
She stepped out onto the driveway, said, “Monica Slater, Channel Four News,” then asked again, “Do you live here?” and nodded at the house we stood in front of. Whaley’s next-door neighbor. “Because we need to set up our camera here, if that’s all right.”
Here was the cameraman beside her now. The camera on one shoulder, he slipped off the other a strap attached to a long black metal something, and already the tripod was unfolding, sliding and clicking into place, and now the camera was on top of it, the man twisting here and there beneath it.
The camera light came on then, flooded us in a bright pool that nearly cleared out the blue, and I had no choice but to think of that white Toyoter up on a flatbed tow truck, sharp in the lights from a news camera out at Wambaw Creek.
“They’re only here for the perp walk,” Five called out, and I looked off to the end of the driveway at him standing there with Tabitha. The two of them pulsing in that blue.
“We need to know if it’s all right to set up here on your driveway.” She stood just far enough into that pool of light so that I could see she had too much makeup on, her lips a red gash. She gave a quick smile at me, fiddled with the microphone in her hand, turned to shake out the cord trailing away from her. She glanced up at me as she messed with it, said, “You live here, right?”
I looked back at the Whaley place, there in its strange calm, then at Tabitha and Five, down at the end of the drive.
I turned back to her. “Yeah, I live here,” I said. I put my hands on my hips, said, “Get off my property. Now.”
She flinched at the words, looked up from the cord, her mouth in a stunned O. She blinked, shook her head. “But this is for TV,” she said, and blinked twice more, quick shook her head again. “I don’t understand,” she said, and looked back at the cameraman, at me again.
The camera light went out then, and I heard a sharp click, saw the camera sliding off the tripod and back onto the cameraman’s shoulder.
“He does,” I said, and nodded at the cameraman, that blue pulse on us all again.
We sat in the Range Rover, the dome light on so that Tabitha could read lips. She sat in the passenger seat, Five in the back but leaning forward between us. Out my window were two cruisers parked side by side, filling the street, in front and behind them more. All jammed here, and all with their blue lights on.
The reporter and cameraman had only moved off the driveway and set up between cars right in front of the Whaley yard, where policemen still stood guard. Two more channels had showed up—2 and 5—and wedged themselves between other cars out there.
We’d been walking back to the Range Rover when those two reporters and their cameramen came jogging toward us on the grass and right on past us, no words out of them. We’d stopped then, watched them set up, those pools of light crashing down once the cameras were on. Three reporters, two women and one man, all dressed nice and bright, standing and talking into the cameras. While nothing much seemed to be happening at the house behind them.
Five’d said, “Let’s go.” I’d looked at him beside me, seen in the blue lights he was looking across the street, but with his chin down, hands in his pockets. I’d turned, tried to see what he did.
Neighbors were out of their houses now: a couple stood on the front porch of the house across from the Whaleys’, someone stood out on the driveway of the house next to that, a clutch of people—a family, maybe—on the steps up to the front porch of another house three doors down.
“Yep,” I’d said, and we three had turned, gone to the Range Rover, climbed in.
“I still can’t believe this,” Five said from between us now, Tabitha half turned in her seat so she could see him. “I just can’t believe this.”
Tabitha pulled from one of the pockets of the jacket she had on—it was a nice one, a light tweed blazer, the blouse under it white and simple—a small pad of paper and pen, set the pad on her leg and wrote. Same as when she and I were first together, and I hadn’t yet gotten the whole signing thing.
She tore off the piece of paper, handed it to Five, and though it wasn’t meant for me, I could see as she passed it the plain and square and perfect printing she’d always had.
Five looked at it, nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and let out a sigh.
“What?” I said.
Tabitha looked at me, lifted a hand, her pinkie finger pointed out, and started to sweep it down, but Five quick looked up at me, said, “It’s personal.” Even in the dim light of the cab I could see his black eyebrows together, him incredulous, as though I’d asked to kiss his mom.
I looked at Tabitha, still with her pinkie in the air. She’d cut her eyes to him, looked back at me, shrugged. She put her hand down.
I looked out the windshield: still nothing
up there but a lit-up orange house bathed in a flashing blue I’d grown beyond tired of. From here inside I could see the halo of lights of the cameras, too, but not the reporters, or the garage door. Only policemen standing along the property.
“So, Five,” I said, “where’s your mom? Is she in there too?” and wondered for a second what that would look like, to see your mom arrested.
“Huh,” he let out. “No.” He paused. “She’s in Boca Raton. With a loser named Dante she hooked up with on a Celebrity cruise my parents took for their tenth anniversary.”
I was quiet a moment, said, “Sorry.”
“If she knew this was going down, Dad about to get arrested, she’d be dancing on a table,” he said, then, quieter, “They got divorced when I was six. Haven’t seen her in eight years.”
I looked at him, his head and shoulders there between Tabitha’s seat and mine, his eyes straight ahead.
I said, “Sorry, Five.”
He shrugged.
Tabitha gave a wave at me, and both Five and I looked at her.
He doesn’t like Five, she signed. He wants me to call him War.
She spelled out the last word, and I said, “Why?”
“Stop that,” Five said, and let out another sigh. “We talked about this,” he said.
Tabitha looked at him, at me again. He doesn’t sign.
“Now come on,” he said, and leaned back hard in his seat, shook the vehicle the smallest bit.
I turned, looked back at him. He had his arms crossed, and faced the passenger window. I said, “You want to be called War? Are you serious?”
He looked at me. “Short for Warchester,” he said, and uncrossed his arms, set his palms on the seat either side of him. He gave a small smile. “Beats the hell out of being called Five my whole life. Nobody calls Dad Four.” He paused, and now he leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, looked out the windshield again for anything going on. “Just call me War,” he said. “Seems pretty logical.”
I sat back in my seat, looked at Tabitha.
Let’s call him Cinco, I spelled.