Bloodroot

by Bill Loehfelm

  “Good lookin’ out,” Danny shouted, waving at the cops. “Stupid pigs.” He turned to me, chuckling. “Jesus, Kev, how bad has this neighborhood gotten? What was that about, anyway, that cop saying he knows you?”

  “Do you always have to antagonize them?” I asked, dropping my cigarette butt out the window. It had burned my knuckles. I stuck them in my mouth. “Those cops work the neighborhood. I live in it. We see each other around.”

  “What else?” Danny asked. “You’re afraid to drop a done cigarette out the window in front of them. You’re white as a ghost, like you’re a fucking criminal or something.”

  I just stared at him.

  “All right,” he finally said. “Poor choice of words.”

  “That drug shit up on the corner,” I said. “The cops like to ask me questions. They think because I’m white and I sit outside that I like to take notes on the neighborhood or something.”

  “That’s fucking prejudiced, is what that is.” Danny studied me across the car. “And what do you tell them?”

  “What do you think? I got nothing against the police and I don’t like those gangbangers out there, either, but I have to live on this block.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Who do you think comes sniffing around right after the cops do?”

  Danny turned in his seat, straining to see the corner over his shoulder. He reached for his door handle like he might get out, then decided against it. He turned back to me frowning, his mind working overtime. “So what’s the verdict on Whitestone’s office?”

  “When do you want to go?” I asked.

  “Well, I need to get in twice,” he said.

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  “The first time, he can be there,” Danny said. “I just need to get the lay of the land, any security cameras, alarms, shit like that. I’ll need a look at his computer. The second time’ll need to be at night when no one else is around.”

  “And how’re we supposed to get into his office in the middle of the night?”

  “Leave that to me,” Danny said. “You think I can’t pick a lock?”

  I turned to him. I had an idea of my own. “Okay, I’ll do this with you. But I have a condition.”

  Danny swore in mock exasperation. “Again with the demands. What? I gotta buy Kelsey a new TV now? Fine. Done.”

  “I can get you in tomorrow,” I said. “But after I’m done with work, you gotta go see the folks with me. That’s the deal.”

  Danny puffed out his cheeks, turning away to stare through the windshield. “Tomorrow. I don’t know. I’ll need to have some gear ready for the first visit. Might take a couple days.”

  “Bullshit. You just said it was simple shit you had on hand.”

  Danny glanced at me then looked away again.

  “Quid pro quo, Agent Starling,” I said.

  “You watch too many fucking movies,” Danny said.

  “No doubt,” I said. “This is what it’s like to have no life.”

  The slick, defiant Danny who moments ago had shone on the cops evaporated into the night air. He pretended to debate my demand in his head but the tight skin drawn across the side of his face, the jackrabbit beat of his pulse in his throat, they told me he was scared; he was deeply terrified, in fact.

  “Me and you, we’ll go together?” Danny said.

  “Of course.”

  “Dad’s cool with this?” he asked.

  “He will be,” I said, “for Mom’s sake.”

  “Get out of the fucking car,” Danny said.

  I did, walking around to Danny’s side of the car. I crouched down to his level, my arms folded atop the door.

  “Sorry to be rude but I gotta get home and get started on tomorrow,” Danny said.

  “For Whitestone or for Mom and Dad?” I asked.

  “Both.” He nodded to himself. “I’ll do what’s right.”

  I stood and patted the roof of the car. “I know you will. Meet me at the campus Starbucks at one.”

  “Will do,” Danny said, looking up at me, his blue eyes soft and young. He smiled. “When do I get to meet Kelsey? You know, as your brother?”

  “When I say so,” I said. “When all this shit is done.”

  Danny started the car and I backed away to my stoop. He made half a U-turn then stopped in the middle of the street and called me back to the car. I walked over and leaned in his window.

  His eyes were locked on the corner. A black semiautomatic pistol sat in his lap. He picked it up and handed it to me. I figured he wanted to get the gun out of the car so I took it, dropping it into the inside pocket of my jacket. It fell heavy and awkward against my ribs, like the hammer had a few nights ago. I thought of our recent encounter with the police. “Where the fuck was that hiding?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Danny said. “Take it. In case the wrong people come knocking.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said, reaching into my jacket. With both hands, I shoved the gun into his chest.

  I took a step back from the car, raising my hands in the air. Thoughts of nosy neighbors watching us pass a weapon back and forth made me nervous. Someone could come walking up the block for the bus stop at any time. What if those cops passed by again just to be dicks? What if the dealers saw us?

  “Would you put your fucking hands down?” Danny said. “It looks like I’m fucking mugging you. Calm down.” He waved me back to the car with the gun. “C’mere, for chrissakes.”

  I stepped back to the car and leaned my weight on the door.

  “I promise you,” Danny said, “no one has ever been shot with this gun. It’s brand-new. Never even been used in a crime. Unlike every human being walking the earth, it’s totally clean.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “I’ve never used a gun before.”

  “Not a problem.” Raising the gun, Danny turned it so I could see it better in the streetlights. “Nine-millimeter. Real powerful. One shot should get the job done for you, God forbid. It’s fully loaded with one in the chamber. Point it anywhere near the target and you’re good. Hammer goes back like so. This is the safety.” He thumbed the switch back and forth several times. “On, off, on, off. Got it?”

  He handed the nine back to me but this time I wouldn’t take it.

  “These dealers or whatever,” I said, “they don’t care about me. I do a hell of a job acting intimidated. They’re like the trash or the potholes around here, an occasional pain in the ass but no real danger. It’s no big thing. I don’t need a gun.”

  “Take it,” Danny said. “For me. I’ll feel better.”

  He rested the gun on my shoulder, looking into my eyes. I wished I’d seen where he’d left the safety set. I took the pistol back and put it in my jacket. It was the only way to end the conversation.

  “Just keep it in the house for a couple of days,” Danny said. “If it still makes you nervous, I’ll take it back.” He smiled. “You don’t like the gun, we’ll go get you a fucking dog.” He exhaled hard, fogging his windshield. He rubbed the cloud away with his sleeve, peering again at the corner. “You and me? We’re gonna get you the fuck outta here. This neighborhood is infested with fucking criminals.”

  Danny shifted the car into drive and rolled away up the street, giving the corner boys a long stare as he turned the corner.

  I went upstairs, the gun bouncing against my ribs with every step. I’d left my apartment dark again. I started to wonder if I flat-out didn’t like it better that way.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, I sat out on the balcony watching the corner boys, my hands folded over the gun in my lap. I felt foolish carrying it around the apartment but didn’t know what else to do with it, afraid it might somehow go off unless I kept close watch. And I kind of liked holding it.

  Down on the corner, every few minutes a car slunk up to the curb, idling until a figure stepped out of the shadows. The figure leaned in long enough for the exchange, then rose up flashing whatever hand signs completed the deal. Once in a while a real hard-core fiend came staggerin
g down the street, clutching a bum arm or a dead leg and flashing a gap-toothed grin like he was walking into his office Monday morning and heading for the coffeepot. The dealers took care not to get too close. The smell, I figured.

  The junkies were all the same, men and women alike. The drunk back end of some zombie parade. They all had the same stagger, the same smile, the same hands. Crooked fingers of one hand holding out crumpled bills they couldn’t surrender fast enough, twitchy fingers of the other hand curling around the invisible vials they longed to hold. It was like they’d rolled off some junkie assembly line: Cocaine Barbie and Heroin Ken, complete with Super Jonesing Junkie Grip. Everything from the Dream House hocked in an alley years ago.

  The scene was nothing unprecedented; it happened every night. The only new part of the situation was my interest in it. What limb had gone numb for Danny? Did he smile that desperate, lying smile? How many people had backed away from his stink?

  I couldn’t let him go back. Ever.

  The people I taught about at work: Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, and Hamilton, all the names everyone knows and all the ones lost to history, technically they were all criminals. Every one of them, from the signers of the Declaration to the grunts with rags for shoes, was hangable for treason. They knew the noose was waiting should they back down. So they did what they had to do, simple as that. And because they won, instead of getting the gallows, they went free, went on to new lives in a new nation.

  Danny and I weren’t looking to start a revolution, but if I had to become a temporary criminal so my brother could be a permanent ex-junkie, could live free from heroin and not die, I would find a way to survive the aftermath.

  I turned away from the corner and stared into the Manhattan skyline, my damp fingers sliding over the cooling metal of the gun. What did I care about people getting high? So what if they bought the drugs on my corner. If it wasn’t mine; it’d be another. Danny had found plenty. Had I the right to wish this dirty business on other blocks, other neighborhoods? There were plenty worse of both. My corner was pretty tame by comparison.

  Who knew the answer? The whole deal had a chicken-or-the-egg quality to it that smarter, braver, and better-paid men than me and the cops in the patrol car had tried to puzzle through. The dealers would sell anywhere, everywhere, and anything they could as long as the customers kept buying. And the customers lived loyal to the product until death and beyond. If one guy in the whole country was left selling, they’d sniff him out and line up from New York to the Mississippi.

  I was on my way to bed when Maxie started barking. That hysterical bark that had one lone inspiration. The chains of his gate rattled and I heard the snickers of teenagers. I looked down at the gun in my hand. There were some things, however, that perhaps no longer needed to be tolerated.

  Standing just inside the balcony doors, I raised the gun and squinted down the barrel, sighting on the back of the nearest boy’s thigh. The other one kicked the gate again. Maxie went berserk. I lowered the gun. It was damn dark in that driveway and I had never fired a gun in my life. Danny’s instructions had been for close range.

  I closed the door to my apartment building quietly behind me. My bare feet made no sound on the stoop or the steps. Like I’d seen in the movies, I carried the gun stiff-armed at my side, behind my right thigh. My heart raced and I felt as though I was sitting on my balcony, looking down on someone else who looked like me. What the hell was I doing? Darting across the street, gun in hand, in the middle of the night. Over a blind old dog that wasn’t even mine. Doing something.

  I stepped up onto the curb and into a cloud of marijuana smoke. I held my breath.

  One boy crouched at the gate, crab walking from side to side in front of the small opening between the gate and the fence. Maxie’s black nose and tan muzzle darted again and again into the space, long white teeth flashing. He threw himself at the fence then at the gate then at the fence again, his barking loud and close enough to hurt my ears. I focused on the second boy, the closer one. The laughing cheerleader.

  I eased up behind him, slipping off the safety as I raised the gun. I pressed that black muzzle hard into the back of his head. It couldn’t be this easy.

  “Shut the fuck up and don’t move,” I said.

  The boy stilled and raised his hands out to his sides. The other was too involved in torturing that poor dog to notice.

  “Tell your buddy to do the same thing.”

  “You said shut up.”

  I kicked him hard in the back of the knee. It buckled and he stumbled backward, his skull leaning hard into the gun. My big toe screamed in pain and I really hoped I didn’t have to kick him again.

  “Do it,” I said.

  “Dawg, shut up and stand still.”

  Dawg turned around. “What the fuck?”

  It took a minute to compute. When he understood the situation, he took a moment to think about it, factoring my white face into the equation. I cocked the hammer back, like Danny had shown me, to aid Dawg along in his thinking. It helped. Now he had to factor in his friend pissing his pants. Dawg raised his hands in the air.

  “I could give a fuck what you do on that corner,” I said, “but anyone ever bothers this dog again and you won’t see it coming next time.” I had no idea what I was saying but it felt good coming out. I’d made my point. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Dawg backed away across the lawn, his hands in the air. I tapped the gun against his friend’s head. “Move out, motherfucker.”

  The friend started walking, his piss-stained legs wide apart.

  “I’ll remember your face, motherfucker,” Dawg said.

  “Good,” I answered, hoping to God that he wouldn’t. “You better.”

  I stayed in the driveway far too long, plenty long enough for someone to come racing around the corner and blow my head off. But I had to watch them walk away. I had to savor their defeat; I couldn’t help it. I felt like Motherfucker of the Year. Don’t tread on me, indeed. Or on my neighbor’s dog.

  I almost shot myself in the foot when the porch light came on. Old Lady Hanson leaned out her door.

  “Next time, just shoot them and give me the gun,” she said. “You think the cops are gonna look twice at an older-than-dirt white lady with two dead drug dealers on her front lawn? Get some sense, young man.”

  FIFTEEN

  THE NEXT DAY, WALKING INTO THE OFFICE AFTER MY ELEVEN o’clock class, I found Danny perched on the corner of Kelsey’s desk. I froze, my hand on the open door, stunned into paralysis. Kelsey wiggled her fingers at me in a flirty wave, but quickly turned away. The murder in my heart must’ve been broadcast across my face. If Danny saw it, he didn’t react.

  “Should I leave?” I asked. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Kelsey stood. “Excuse me?”

  Danny raised his hand. “It’s me Kevin’s mad at.” He laid his hand over his heart. “I’m early.”

  I finally unstuck myself from the doorway, flinging my bag onto my desk from across the room. I followed it there and dropped hard into my chair. Kelsey sat back down. Danny didn’t move.

  “We’re going to see Whitestone,” Danny said.

  “Together?” Kelsey asked.

  “You wanna answer that, Danny?” I asked. “Since you seem to know everything.”

  I knew I shouldn’t act so pissed off; there’d be no explaining my tantrum to Kelsey later. But I couldn’t help myself, after all the shit he’d given me about bringing her into this—there he was sitting on her desk. The balls on this guy. Then again, I should’ve expected different?

  “This is your office,” Danny said. “I’ll defer to your authority here.”

  I leaned forward in my chair, elbows on my knees, contemplating just how much damage to do. Questions flashed across Kelsey’s face. Why wasn’t I thrilled to see my brother, the way I talked about him? Shouldn’t they meet if she and I were going to be together? Kelsey looked like my mother had the other night when I told her about Danny�
��s return. Everyone who spent five minutes in a room with us seemed to end up looking like that. Confused and frustrated.

  Danny, on the other hand, stayed perfectly composed, eyebrows high on his head, looking for all the world as though he had no idea what the fuss was about, like a bemused and slightly bored owl. I burst out laughing. The fact that our situation was anything but funny only made me laugh harder. I covered my face with my hands until I could gain control of myself. I never could stay mad at my brother. Catching my breath, I slouched in my chair.

  Now that I was relaxed the lies flowed forth without a second thought.

  “The prison that let Danny out on work release?” I said. “It doesn’t have an undergrad program that really turns him on. So he’s thinking of enrolling here.”

  Except for the prison part, it was pretty much the same lie I’d prepared for Whitestone.

  Kelsey looked up at Danny. He kept his eyes on mine.

  “It’s true,” he said. “Who wants to major in soap-dropping?”

  “With a minor in license plate making,” I added.

  “You guys are retarded,” Kelsey said. “Like short-bus, helmet-wearing retarded.”

  “Seriously though,” I said, “Danny is thinking about getting his degree.”

  “The history of psychology,” Danny said. “Asylums and hospitals and things like that. Kevin said Whitestone will help me get started.” He cracked his knuckles. “And maybe help get me admitted. My previous academic record is spotty, to say the least.” He smiled. “As a younger man I was big into chemistry.”

  Kelsey stared at me, more questions simmering on her lips. I knew what they were. Since when did Kevin Curran, one hundred and fifty pounds of departmental deadweight, have any sway with Whitestone? And if he really had it, where did he get it? From Danny’s checkbook? Who was I really trying to fool? Whitestone, Danny, or her? But Kelsey had mercy. She didn’t say a word. She bent over and pulled a brown bag from her knapsack.

  “Sorry, fellas,” she said, standing, “I didn’t bring enough for three.”