by Scott Lasser
“Yo yourself,” she said back. He smiled. God, she thought, he’s really young. He walked out into the night.
Dirk waited a moment, then walked to the front window and looked out. Natalie followed. “Just checking on the car,” Dirk said. They went back to the counter to get the bill. He was a hell of a man, her brother. Every time she was with him, she saw it. Whatever came his way, he just handled it.
“What did you say to him?” she asked.
“I told him that I believed in him, that I had always believed in him, that I would always believe in him, and that I was just waiting for him to prove me right.”
“And what did he say back?” she asked.
“He promised it won’t be long now.”
IV
HE WALKED OUT into the night air thinking what he’d do for Shelly. Marlon staying for good would require a grand gesture—a trip to the islands in January, say. It was money he didn’t really have—“Touching principal,” Arthur would have called it, and it was Arthur’s principal—but he’d spend it. That was also something he’d learned: that when you had to pay, it was better to pay early.
It was a warm night, weather he loved. He loved all weather, even the frigid winter air of a December night, but there was something truly special about the night air in summer, warm and humid but not too hot. He walked twice around the car, looking for damage. He found none. Satisfied, he helped Natalie with her door and got in himself, turned the engine over as he turned down the volume on the stereo. He was amazed to find that Marlon had left the stereo off. It wasn’t how Dirk had left it, but it was a good sign. The kid was taking responsibility, thinking about people other than himself.
Natalie didn’t want to go home. “Not yet,” she said. “Show me Detroit, your Detroit.”
“At night?”
“It’s the time we’ve got.”
He knew better, but he also knew the city. He’d avoid the truly horrendous spots. First he took her to the old Booker home. The house was still there, but he was surprised to find it had been abandoned, the windows knocked out, the grass in front nothing but weeds and brambles, the roof half gone, with gaping holes open to the night sky. A corpse of a building.
“That’s where I grew up,” he said. “With Marlon’s father. But everything’s gone in this city. Even if you still live here, you can’t go back and see where you came from. This was a neighborhood once.” There wasn’t a light on the street, or movement of any kind. Dirk opened his window, and the sound of crickets flowed in. He’d last been here two years ago, and someone had been in the house.
“It’s sad,” she said.
“It is what it is.”
“Carolyn says I should move out to California.”
“You should go. But I don’t know that I could take myself seriously in California.”
“You ever been?”
“Afraid to go,” he told her, and he was. Most of his working life he’d pretended to be something he was not. He was fifty-two years old now and was through with that. He knew who he was, and places like California worried him. What if he got there and found he wasn’t that person?
“What are we listening to, exactly?” she asked.
“The Four Tops. They’re also part of my Detroit.”
They drove back south to Wayne State. He’d gotten a football scholarship to Western Michigan, but instead he’d decided to rough it out at Wayne because it was a better school and he didn’t want to play football for the privilege of his education. There was something abusive about the idea.
“Most guys would have been flattered,” Natalie said.
“You’re working for the university,” he said.
“You’re playing football.”
“I was in a hurry.”
“To work for the FBI?”
“To be my own man.” That was all. He had relied on others for so long—his whole life—and he wanted to be beholden only to himself. He’d worked in the library shelving books. Libraries were full of almost nothing but books back then, and he liked the job because he liked books. There was pleasure in handling them, their texture, that odd musty smell when he opened a book that hadn’t been touched in years. When he married Shelly and she wanted their library to be without dust jackets, he’d felt right at home.
“There was a bar there,” he said on Cass, pointing to a dark storefront. “Probably our main hangout.”
“Who’s we?”
“Some of my friends—you know, the overserious, never-going-to-smile black students. I was president of that society. Fighting segregation in the streets, practicing it in the cafés.”
“You wouldn’t let whites sit with you?”
“None tried,” he said.
“I would have.”
“Maybe, sister. But you’re family.”
“I would have liked to hear you explain that to your black never-going-to-smile friends.”
“They’d have been okay with it, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Look,” he said, “I’ve got a white family, and I’ve got a black family, so I can tell you this: black people are pretty much like white people, except for one thing—black people got to deal with white people. And that changes you.”
They moved south, all the way to the river. “The Ren Cen was going up then,” he said. “That was supposed to be the renaissance.”
Something caught his attention when he turned off Gratiot. Headlights, changing lanes when he changed, as if he were being followed. He drove testing them, and sure enough, there was someone back there, fucking with him. First he thought it was some racist nut pissed that a black man had a Mercedes with a white woman in it, but the windows were tinted, and at night especially it was impossible to see inside. Had to be somebody who knew him. Some guy from the Bureau, like Turner, who never could get it through his head that Dirk had left of his own volition, that he really didn’t want to be back on the job. There were those—more than a few—who thought he’d fucked up big-time, something they didn’t know about, and he was allowed to resign, hush-hush, because he was black. There was a time in his life when that would have driven him half-crazy, but he was older now, and half over it.
He tried to lose the tail without committing any major traffic violations—he had enough tickets—but they stayed with him. Only Turner was that much of an asshole. He’d think this was funny. It had to be him.
“What are you doing?” Natalie asked.
“Some guy I know is trying to mess with me. I’m just trying to do a little messing back.”
“Who?” She turned, looked out the back window.
“Guy I know, I’m pretty sure. Knows the car. FBI type wanting to have fun.”
He squealed the tires around a turn.
“This is fun?” Natalie asked.
“For men,” he replied.
The song changed to “Standing in the Shadows of Love.”
He was flying now, not ever sure what cross street he was on, but up ahead he could see Cass. He slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the street, thinking that Turner would decide that was enough and go right by him, but the Charger—that’s what it was—pulled right up behind him.
The Charger was one of those cars the brothers used when they wanted to buy American. There were all sorts of weird ideas in this city. Why they’d give it to a white guy like Turner was a mystery. Anyone would make him. Dirk looked in the rearview mirror but couldn’t see in the car. There was a .38 under Natalie’s seat.
“Move your legs to the right,” he told her, and then he reached under and pulled it out, leaving it on the floor by her feet, just in case. He turned down the music. If the maniac back there wasn’t Turner but happened to be a cop and he asked Dirk to get out of the car, Dirk didn’t want the gun in plain sight. Still, he wanted it close.
“This guy’s your friend?” Natalie asked.
At that moment he was sitting back up from placing the gun at her feet and then he realized he never sho
uld have taken his hand off it. There were men standing at both windows, pointing guns in the car. There wasn’t time to go back for the gun. He reached for the gearshift, and time slowed almost to a stop. It took forever for his hand to move the shift, and then the first bullet came through and hit him in the left shoulder, a burning tear, and Natalie screamed, he was turned that way and he had a thought, the first time he’d ever had it, that Natalie actually looked a little like his mother back when he was a little boy and how he had had two mothers, one white and one black, but also really no mother at all, and how he wished it could have gone a different way.
2007
I
David turned onto his street and suddenly it was spring. It appeared just that fast. The buds on the trees were expanding to catch the expanding light, and today, a few days after tax day, it was going to hit sixty-six, a new high for the year. Or so they had promised on WCSX. Now they were playing an old Amboy Dukes tune. David had his window down, and someone, he noticed, had just cut grass. Was there a better mnemonic device than smell? Better yet, the smell of grass? One whiff and he found himself trying to bring back every spring of his life, and they all seemed to come from his youth: standing in the outfield with Brady Johnson during batting practice, chasing his dog Lucky as Lucky chased a squirrel, walking with Natalie, his hand in her back pocket, as they left the school after a sudden heavy rain, night crawlers twisting on the cement sidewalk.
He thought his move back to Detroit was the best decision he’d ever made. The world seemed to be opening up for him just as those buds were opening on the trees. He parked his car in the driveway and took two steps toward his front door when he heard his name called. Before he turned, he tried to imagine who it was. Last week someone had yelled “cracker” at him, which was how he learned the term was still in use.
This time it was Russell Wilson, the retired judge, his neighbor. David had eaten dinner with the Wilsons twice at their home, each time apologizing that he couldn’t reciprocate because he simply couldn’t cook. He was still trying to find a way to repay them for their kindness.
“Marlon here?” Russell asked. He was wearing a tracksuit with a stripe down the side, as though it might be 1977.
“He’s working.”
“What’s he do?”
“Tends bar out in Farmington.”
“You’ve got to be careful with that boy,” Russell said.
“I’m careful by nature,” David said.
“I don’t think you are. And neither is Marlon. He’s always run wild. I know Dirk tried to look after him, but it never seemed to do much good. And if Dirk couldn’t do it, well . . . Look, tell me this: why’d you take him on?”
“He asked for help,” David said.
“You help everyone who asks, just like that?”
“I thought I could make a difference.”
“I thought I could, too,” Russell said. “Mostly, though, I put hoodlums like that kid away. You think you can change some little part of the world, but really? One man is just one man, and it happens rarely.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“ ’Cause I like you. You’re quiet and responsible, even if underneath you’re crazy as they come. You remind me of myself at a younger age. What are you, about forty?”
“Forty-six.”
“Trouble follows Marlon. Remember that.”
“Seriously, Russell, what could happen? He’s going to what, steal my wallet? There’s nothing of real value in the house. The car’s insured.”
“I sat on the bench for thirty-one years. You would not believe what people get up to. You never know what will happen. You truly have no idea. All I know is that when bad things happen to someone, it’s usually because he ran into the wrong guy.”
“Marlon is not going to want to stay with me much longer.”
“You just be careful,” Russell said.
David followed Russell’s eyes across the street, where two kids were starting up a game of catch. He guessed they were part of the same crew he’d seen playing football on Thanksgiving. It made David smile. He had always liked how the sports changed with the seasons.
“You like baseball?” David asked.
“Sure.”
“That’s it, then. Instead of dinner, let me take you and Susan to a game at Tiger Stadium.”
“Susan won’t want to go, but I’d love it. There’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“They play at Comerica now.”
“Comerica, then. I’ll get tickets.”
• • •
INSIDE HE CHANGED out of his suit and sat in his reading chair with a legal pad. It had been four and a half weeks since he’d written to Cory. He dated the top of the page, gave it a tap with his pen, and then wrote, “Dear Cory.” He tried to clear his mind of Stuart LeBlanc and his estate plan, of his father’s latest request (a trip together to Chicago), of Russell Wilson’s warnings. He wrote:
It’s April and the trees are sprouting leaves now, the grass is green, life is starting over. I’d like to take you to a Tigers game. We could sit and eat hot dogs and root for the Tigers. Not the Rockies, I know, but the Tigers have history, players we now know will never be forgotten. Ty Cobb. Hank Greenburg. Even Mark Fidrych. Grampa once took me to see him pitch. The place was packed, people cheering every pitch, as though it were a World Series game. And the Tigers won.
Marlon’s been here a little over three months. We don’t see each other much. He works till two in the morning. I’m asleep when he gets home, he’s asleep when I go to work. On the weekends we drink coffee in the kitchen. His is mostly milk and sugar. Not how I would take it, but when you get older you tend to like things less sweet.
In less than a month you’ll have a little brother. I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a newborn in the house. When you were born I used to wake almost every hour and go to your crib, lean my head by yours, just to make sure you were still breathing. I guess I’m admitting I didn’t know how to be a father. But, then again, what man does?
It’s springtime. If you were here now, we’d be looking at colleges. This would be exactly the time that all the possibilities would be opening.
I miss you more than I can say.
Love,
Dad
He folded the page into the size of a letter and slid it into his spot between the books. It was the fourth letter. Now he had more than Dirk had saved from his mother. He pulled the old letters out and decided he shouldn’t keep them, he should really give them back to Tina. Carolyn was coming over tonight, and that’s when he’d pass them along.
II
SHE FOUGHT WITH Kevin: he didn’t want to wear a coat. “Do you know how warm it’s going to be today, Mom? Sixty-six!”
Four months in Michigan and the kid thought sixty-six was warm.
“Well, it’s thirty-six right now. Wear your coat.” She handed it to him. He took it in his left hand, hoisted his backpack over his right shoulder, and headed out the door. She couldn’t see his eyes, but he was no doubt rolling them. Clouds of breath rose above his head.
“Put it on,” she called.
“I’m gonna miss the bus.” And he was gone.
She walked back to the kitchen table, though “walk” was really a euphemism. She wasn’t walking anymore. It was more of a fat-man waddle, legs apart, spine tilted back to help carry the medicine ball that now protruded from her stomach. “End of April,” the doctor promised with the kind of certainty that made her think he was wrong. The older she got, the less she trusted experts.
She could smell Kevin’s cereal bowl, the sugary milk there. She lifted it and drank straight from the bowl. She’d been doing this daily, one of the odd habits she’d picked up, like never answering the phone till the third ring. Her mother didn’t have caller ID, and waiting somehow made it easier not to know who was on the other end of the line. Something about her pregnancy made her crave control. Control was an illusion, she knew,
but it was a necessary illusion, and so she created it for herself just the way some people did with God. Same impulse, she guessed.
But still she prayed. She wasn’t very good at it, but there were things she wanted: Kevin’s happiness; a healthy baby; true love. It’s a short list, she said to God. She realized how much he’d already provided—health and the physical comforts, her current pregnancy notwithstanding. Kevin’s happiness seemed within reach. He’d adjusted well, had half a dozen close friends, found the horrible Michigan winter the greatest novelty of his life. One morning last month he’d sat at the breakfast table and said, “You know what, Mom? There are different kinds of snow. Sometimes it’s slushy, sometimes you can pack it, and sometimes it’s sugary. It’s amazing.” Her son, she realized now, knew what she knew. They were that much closer in this small way.
She was old to have a baby, but the doctor had done every test there was and assured her everything was normal. Normal, she thought, was supposed to be a comfort. It was how we bargained with ourselves. Well, she would know in a little over a month. At least know something.
As for love, well, she questioned if she’d ever really known it, beyond what she felt for Kevin, which was deep and always urgent but not, she thought, what women felt for their men. What she felt for Kevin was superior in every way, on a higher plane. But she was thinking lower now. Sometimes she wondered if passion was even possible. Maybe it was a passing, ephemeral thing, a flash glimpsed now and again. And yet Natalie had led a passionate life. Carolyn was sure of it. Even when her affairs ended badly—and they always did—it wasn’t for lack of passion. Natalie was ready, always willing to take a chance. That appetite for risk—it was a gift.
She had felt passion many times with David. Still, there were always things in the way. She’d been married when she met him, and now, eight months into her pregnancy, she felt frightened to feel so much for one person. When they weren’t together she wished they were, and there were times beside him when she felt she loved him as she had never loved a man. There were little things that moved her: the way he looked at her, straight on, without blinking, or the way he helped her from her chair, or the way he teased her, always keeping her a little off balance. It was all too much at once. She would have his baby and see where she was.