“Yeah, since when,” Willie repeated, and drew himself up to his four-feet-one-inch height and stretched long lanky arms above his tousled head. There was no fighting the combined forces of his father and Mrs. Lawrence. She was the most determined woman he had ever known. It was seven o’clock on Monday morning, June fifteenth. At least this way he had the whole day to enjoy so maybe they were right about that early-to-bed-early-to-rise garbage. Maybe.
It was the smell of bacon frying that finally pulled him, against all good sense, to the kitchen and into the company of the two people who made up his family.
The small wooden table in the dining alcove off the country-sized kitchen was covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth. Dishes of food made a rough circle in the center of the table. When Jack entered the sunny room, he always found perfect order. Betty Lawrence presided over this order. Her dark skin gleamed like polished mahogany. The silver in her black wiry hair gave her the air of a matriarch.
“It’s getting cold and don’t blame me,” she said peevishly. “I work and slave, slave and work, and what do I get?” She never waited for an answer. “I get late-bodies, lazy bones, and grumbling children. And what will the department think of a young cop coming in to work with egg on his face because he lazed around when I told him it time to be gone?"
"Now, now, Mrs. Lawrence. I'm not going to be late."
“Well, where’s the boy?” She poured two glasses of orange juice and set them squarely above the silverware.
“I’m right here, Mrs. Lawrence.” Willie sauntered to the table and took his place without looking at the black woman.
“Did you wash your face? Did you comb your hair? I can see for myself you didn’t bother to tuck in your shirttail.” She moved to the counter to pour Jack’s coffee. “I don’t know what’s gonna come of the boy,” she said to the canister set.
“I did too wash my face.” Willie did not want to get into anything complicated. One out of three was not so bad. And what could he do about that cowlick that stuck up from the back of his head, bop it with a baseball bat?
Mrs. Lawrence ladled out heaping spoonfuls of grits into Jack’s plate. He raised a palm to stop her, but she ignored the gesture. Feeding the troops was her business.
“I seen where that Mexican boy got shot,” she commented. She began to ladle smaller portions of the grits onto Willie’s plate. “It seems a crying shame to me, but who am I? I ain’t no policeman. I’m only a working woman, and what I say don’t count.”
Jack’s appetite vanished. “I was there, Mrs. Lawrence. It couldn’t be helped, believe me.”
Willie’s head shot up in excitement. “You were there, Dad? Honest? You never been in a shooting before, huh? Did you shoot him? Did he try to hurt you?”
Jack wearily rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand. He wished he had not mentioned his part in the mess. “Willie, you’re going to have to get it out of your head that all police are trigger-happy cowboys. No, I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Well, who did? Did you see ‘em, Dad?” Willie's interest was bright and that bothered Jack.
“Willie, listen to me,” Jack glanced at his housekeeper and she turned her back to busy herself at the sink. “I’m not playing cops and robbers. It’s not the way you see it on television. When people die, sometimes it’s a terrible thing, and in this case it couldn’t be helped. The boy was on drugs.” Jack carefully emphasized the last word. “He didn’t know what he was doing. We tried to talk to him, calm him down, but he tried to stab my partner and…and…it just happened. It couldn’t be helped, but we aren’t proud of it.
"You understand, Willie? None of us wants to hurt anyone. That young boy’s life is lost now, and the men who had to kill him have to live with that fact. It's not easy. It's hard, real hard.”
The excitement went out of Willie’s eyes and his face changed into a sad, serious expression. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“It’s okay, Willie. I just don’t want you to think a policeman is some kind of god. We make mistakes and we suffer. We try to do our best to protect society and ourselves at the same time. Sometimes it’s not just or fair, it’s dirty and sad.”
“Well, then.” Mrs. Lawrence bustled around the table and began to remove the margarine tub and empty orange juice glasses. “I’m telling you they’re going to razz cop DeShane if he don’t get himself moving. Time’s wasting and the morning’s waning. And ain’t that the truth,” she added as she went into the kitchen.
Jack and Willie finished their eggs, grits, bacon, and toast in silence. Mrs. Lawrence would never admit it, but she was battling her own demons on injustice, prejudice, teenage death, and world chaos as she scrubbed the skillets and pans until they sparkled. These people need me, she told herself. They need my schedules and my strength, yes they do. They’re nothing but babies, both of them, and the big one don’t even know it, no sir.
Jack rose from the table and adjusted his holster. He gave Willie a warm smile and pressed down the obstinate cowlick as he rubbed his son’s head. “Do what you’re told,” he said, donning the visored cap that all policemen despised.
“Don’t worry, he’ll do what’s told him,” Mrs. Lawrence called after him. Impulsively she winked at the boy.
“Bye, Dad.”
“See you later, jock.”
As the front door closed, Willie tried to make a quiet exit from the table.
“Whoa, boy. Pick up the mess first. You know the rules. You can’t fool Mrs. Lawrence.”
“Aw, geez. I feel like a girl when I gotta clean the table.”
“Didn’t your daddy tell you about what is and what ain’t fair?” She stood over him, her hands on her hips.
“Well, what ain’t fair is leaving me to the messes when you’re perfectly capable of helping. And what is fair is doing some work, picking up after your ownself.”
Willie knew there was no way out of it, so he started stacking the plates and forks.
“Now ain’t that better? That’s a whole sight better than lazing around. He’s a good boy,” she told the saltshakers.
CHAPTER 6
SAMUEL BARTHOLOMEW watched Jack DeShane’s departure for work more out of habit than anything else. His life had narrowed to such inconsequential pastimes. It was depressing, but not likely to change anytime soon.
At seven-forty while Sam stood patiently in front of a second-floor lace-curtained window, Jack DeShane opened his front door and crossed the old-fashioned porch. On the bottom step he eyed the street from one end to the other before going down the brick walk to his 1974 lemon-cream Monte Carlo.
Sam liked the way Jack walked. It was the satisfied walk of a man in tune with his world. The young cop had not yet been muddled and confused by his police work. He still saw the world broken up into two categories; good and evil. Sam saw in Jack the reflection of his own past.
Th Monte Carlo roared off down the street toward the precinct station. Sam stared after it for a long time, then went to the bed stand where a fresh pot of coffee brewed in a percolator. Coffee in his room was Maggie’s idea. She had supplied him with all the utensils and a can of Maxwell House. She had even found her late husband’s favorite mug, the one with the lifelike tits sticking out on one side, and presented it to Sam with a peculiar smile. Sam was not fond of the mug--who needed chunky pink tits on a coffee cup in the morning? But he would never hurt Maggie’s feelings. Besides, she was exciting in bed and what sixty-year-old retired, disillusioned, lonely cop could argue with that?
The coffee was strong and its smell filled the room. After pouring a cup he slid open a drawer of the bed stand and pulled out a quart of Old Kentucky bourbon. He added a splash to the cup and returned the bottle to the drawer. He sat on the side of the bed in his boxer shorts and rubbed his knotted graying chest hair as he sipped.
Maggie would kill him if she knew he had taken to drinking in the morning. But the dull ache of despair knew nothing of time. Bourbon dulled despair’s pangs for a while and brought he
avy sleep. Then it crawled into the hours between lunch and dinner, chains rattling, sneering at him with contempt, and Sam drank more bourbon until despair retreated once again. But lately even the bourbon did not work. Despair woke when he woke and stretched when he stretched and pissed when he pissed.
Before Sam knew Jack DeShane despair had certain limits. It did not own Sam’s soul. But destiny moved the young cop into the house across the street and pushed him into Sam’s life. Despair began to tell tales of old age and weakening desire, sodden drunkenness, and a replay of his own gradual, forty-year decay in the guise of the rookie cop.
Of course Sam knew he could always run. There were alternatives. He had a small savings and an early retirement pension. He could move out of Maggie’s pleasant house and go home to the Georgia hills. He could go to Atlantic City and doze on park benches with other old rummies and play the slot machines with his laundry money. He could move to Key West and luxuriate in aqua waters, catch tarpon, drink in the same bars Hemingway frequented.
The truth, however, could not be circumvented; no one needed Sam Bartholomew in Georgia, in Atlantic City, in Key West. He would only be another shipwrecked piece of debris. At least in Houston where he had worked for forty years to clean up the scum from the streets he had Maggie Richler with her blue-tinted hair and voluptuous, amazingly preserved body. She needed him. It was a startling revelation. Sam did not know why exactly, but Maggie needed him. And now the rookie needed him too. If he turned his back on either of those needs, it would not matter where he ran. Despair would tag along. It was only when he was with either one of those people that despair backed off and hid in the corners.
He heard Maggie’s tread on the stairs. In three painful gulps he downed the doctored coffee before she reached his door. She always knocked before entering, which struck Sam as funny since most nights he slept in her bed, but he paid for room and board by the month and Maggie never let him forget it. Not until he was willing to join his life with hers under the law and a marriage certificate hung on the wall.
“Sam? Can I come in, honey?”
Maggie Richler claimed to be fifty-one, but Sam figured she lied. She was probably his age: sixty, the magic, tragic six-oh. It did not matter. Sam would have loved her if she were a hundred and two, but how do you convince a woman of that?
She stood in the doorway looking at him in his shabby shorts, potbelly stretching out his waistband, fly half open and revealing thick pubic hair, his bald pate showing delicate skull bones. She smiled and Sam thought someone had switched on a light in the room.
“I have to be going,” she announced.
“A court reporter’s job is never ending,” he said, patting the bed beside him for her to sit.
“What are you going to do today?” She asked the same question every day. She sat beside him and caressed his thigh. Within seconds she had a thatch of wiry curls in her palm and pulled at them gently, teasingly.
“I don’t know what I’ll do today,” Sam answered honestly. Enforced idleness was harder to manage than a full working day, and he had not yet found the trick. The old black despair covered his shoulders, and for a minute he thought of the three revolvers in his closet.
“I’ll come home and fix you lunch. How’s that?” She let go of his thigh and tickled his neck before kissing him on the earlobe.
“You bet,” he whispered, taking her right breast into one of his hands.
Maggie pretended to swoon and slapped at his clutching hand before rising from the bed.
“Drink your coffee,” she admonished, her heels already tapping across the bare floor. “There’s food in the fridge, remember.”
“You know I don’t eat breakfast.” Sam picked up his empty cup and touched the tits with his fingertip. The only thing on his mind was a shot of bourbon.
“I know you don’t take care of yourself, Sam Bartholomew. I’ll be back at noon to do it myself.” The door closed softly. Sam stood at the window and watched her leave. An ardent observer, he chronicled the departures and arrivals in his neighborhood. As he watched Maggie’s green Plymouth leave the curb, his eyes caught some movement at the DeShane place. Willie flew across the porch, as if freed from a dungeon, and sailed down the walk to the street. He peered up and down the block. It was too early for play. Other children were still asleep. Willie shrugged and swaggered off toward the corner, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
Sam sighed as his hand reached for the drawer. What wouldn’t he give to be young again. To be ten years old and free and happy, the world wide open with endless opportunities.
As he poured the bourbon and mixed in the coffee, Sam knew he was lying to himself. He did not want it all over again. He wished it was almost over. He wished he were eighty instead of sixty and that there were no more races to run.
Despair settled over him with a comfortable familiarity. Sam raised the cup. By noon the bourbon would be gone.
Chapter 7
Nick had been up for two hours when Daley made his first appearance in the kitchen. He groped for the coffeepot, his eyes hardly able to focus in the early morning light streaming in the window.
"You're going to be late for class," Nick said. He took another bite of the Butterfinger candy bar he was having for breakfast. He tried to keep his voice light and casual to hide his mood, which had moved inexorably toward depression. He knew he sounded like a pushy older brother or, even worse, like a nagging mother, but he could not help it.
Daley nodded as he sat down at the table. He took a swallow of coffee, debating whether or not to spit the scalding liquid back into the cup. He grimaced and swallowed.
"If you wouldn't stay out so late…" Nick began, then suddenly shifted gears. "Where did you go last night?"
"Leave me alone, Nick." Daley said it without rancor. He just didn't want to talk this morning. He tried the coffee again, more cautiously,
"When will you get back today?"
"Nick, just lay off, will you? I have three classes, a full load today, and afterward I may go furniture browsing. I don't know when I'll be back."
“Furniture, my ass. That stuff’s nothing but old spindly junk. I don’t see why anyone buys it.”
“You don’t appreciate antiques, that’s all. It’s not my fault if your taste runs to chrome and plastic."
He pulled the toaster into the center of the counter and popped four slices of wheat bread into the slots.
"I don’t know how you can eat that stuff." Nick frowned at the loaf of wheat bread.
"Goddamnit, Nick! If you're not mothering me you're judging me, and if you're not judging me you're needling me. Why can't you leave me the hell alone?"
Nick chewed his candy, his gaze resting on the far kitchen door. He pretended not to hear the outburst.
Daley jerked open the refrigerator door and took out a tub of unsalted butter. "If you'd get off your duff and find a job, you wouldn’t have time to criticize me," he said. "We're been home almost six months and you're like a rock. You don't go out of the house. You sit around eating junk food and acting like the world has come to an end. You watch me like a goddamn eagle. When are you going to get off this?”
“I knew you didn’t want me to live with you.”
“That’s not the point, Nick.”
“You want to bring girls back here so you can fuck around and you don’t do it because of me.”
Daley slammed the buttered toast hard against the counter top. “No! No, you see how you are? You’re so self-pitying you turn everything around and put it in personal terms. I don’t care about bringing a girl here, not yet, I…”
Nick was pointing the yellow candy wrapper at his brother. “You want to, admit it.”
“I give up. I’m talking to a fucking rock, I swear to God.” Daley stared at the toast and shrugged his shoulders. “I have to get my books. I’m late.”
"That's what I told you." Nick was triumphant.
Daley gave an exasperated sigh and hurried up the stairs.
> Nick crumpled the candy wrapper and dropped it to the table. He walked into the living room, slumped into a wooden rocking chair Daley had salvaged from a flea market, and stared gloomily through a leaded-glass window that faced the street. When Daley rushed down the stairs and out the door without saying good-bye the old two-story brick town house settled around Nick like a shroud floating into place.
Nick knew Daley was right. He should get out and find work. A job would do him good. It would take him away from the dark brooding house and keep him from going truly mad again.
Daley had slipped easily back into civilian life. He enrolled at the University of Houston on a part-time basis. In the small alcove upstairs he set up a woodworking bench and shelves for tools. He spent his free time refinishing antique furniture he found at auction or estate sales. He resold his handiwork for three times what he paid, and he was rapidly gaining a reputation as an expert in restoration. Though Nick disliked the uncomfortable, forbidding look of the pieces, he thought it was smart of his brother to take up such a lucrative hobby.
When Nick thought about Daley, he felt a small, hard lump form in his chest. He was both proud and envious of him. Daley knew what he wanted and could achieve it. Where Nick had only vague longings, Daley knew precisely what direction to follow. He would get an education, he said, and the degree would be a crutch to lean on if the antique business went bust. Nick, on other hand, felt no desire to add diplomas to his other non-accomplishments. He had argued with Daley, “There are ten million people going to college. How many over-educated gas jockeys you figure we need in his country?” Nick shut his eyes and rubbed his lids roughly, He could not help it. He just did not want much of anything.
He would find a job because he had to, but it would not matter what kind of job it was. He had heard a nearby burglar alarm company was hiring and he could try for an installer's job. That would be easy. He would get a van supplied to him and his time would be his own. He would not have any boss hanging over his shoulder. He would go out and get the job, then he would have something to celebrate with Daley.
WIREMAN Page 5