"Uh …" Benny said, not quite certain that he had heard what he thought he had heard. "What's that?"
Albert nodded, his eyes growing almost painfully wide. They all recognized the expression: he was starting to get excited. "Uh, you know … make the ending of your first story—'Deep Space Nine'—a dream."
Julius opened his mouth as if about to bray laughter, but then closed it again. "But who's doing the dreaming?" he finally asked, confused.
Kay was watching them, and her anger had dissipated. The lovely dark eyes were sparkling now: Albert's excitement appeared to be infectious. "Someone without much hope," she said. "A shoeshine boy or a convict."
It, whatever the hell it was, the rest of them were catching it like wildfire. Darlene was the next one to chime in. "Whoever it is, they're dreaming of a better tomorrow."
Herbert shook his head, as if already seeing a thousand things wrong with the idea. "Making it a dream guts the whole story."
"I think it makes it more poignant," Julius said.
Herbert wasn't buying—yet. But his sales resistance was definitely weakening. "But what about your other Sisko stories. You can't make them all a dream."
Kay shook her head. She had a clear vision now, and just wouldn't be denied. "Let him get the first one published," she said. "He can worry about the others later."
Hands crossed behind his back, Herbert stalked back and forth across the office, and finally leaned against the wall, watching them. He chewed his lower lip nervously.
"What do you think, Benny?" Julius asked.
"What do I think? I think it's a genius idea …" and yet the growing excitement was tempered by another voice screaming no, no, that he was selling his idea out, that he was a traitor to his muse. But finally practicality won out. "I think that it's better than chalk on the sidewalk," he said.
"A hell of a lot better, and once you've gotten the first one past, and there isn't a riot or anything like that, it will be much easier to sell the next one, I can almost guarantee it."
Benny could feel his courage flooding back into him, and the feeling of excitement growing. This could work. It really could!
Before he could talk himself out of it, Benny turned and stalked into Pabst's office. He opened the door, and stood there as Pabst continued to study stacks of paper. The office was always cluttered: Fan mail, bills, sales figures, all of them passed Pabst's desk, and for just a moment Benny's empathy for the man increased. Pabst wasn't the enemy—he was just another working stiff trying to get through the day. And just maybe, they could get through the day together.
Benny cleared his throat, and Pabst looked up, annoyed. "Now what?" he asked.
"I've got a plan," Benny said, and commenced the sales spiel of his life.
Jimmy would have been proud.
CHAPTER
29
THE STREET OUTSIDE was a bustling confusion, the people filling it heading in a hundred different directions and a thousand separate destinies. Sometimes Benny felt lost by the crush, sometimes he just wanted to collar each of them as they walked by and scream: I'm here! I'm somebody! See me!
But today, as he left the Trill building, he didn't need them to notice him. They were going to do something far, far better.
They were going to buy his stories.
He was flying, dancing. Someone had sewn wings to his feet, and he was floating on air. Today, he felt like he was the one who the Yankees should put up to bat, not Willie. The way he felt, he would knock that little white ball clean out of the park.
He walked, strode, strutted, almost ran to the train station. It was all that he could do to keep from breaking into song. This was his town, his city, and on a day like today, he could do anything in the world.
It was a great day.
By the time that Benny got back to Harlem, he could no longer restrain himself. Other passengers on the train must have thought him mad, the way he kept bursting into laughter, talking to himself, eyes locked on some point beyond their focus. This was victory, sweet and simple, and he was intoxicated with it.
He ran down the street, and almost collided with Jimmy, who reacted as if Benny had just caught him stealing a purse. Benny didn't really notice the guilty reaction, and grabbed Jimmy's thin shoulders, shaking with glee. "Hey Jimmy!" he said. "I've got great news. We're headed for the stars!"
Jimmy squinted at him for a minute, but seemed in too much of a hurry to ask what the devil he was jabbering on about. "Yeah, yeah," he said, trying to wriggle out of Benny's grip. "Whatever you say."
Benny was vibrating with joy. "Come on," he bubbled. "I'll buy you a lunch—tell you all about it."
For a moment, Jimmy seemed about to consider it, but then shrugged. "Naw, man," he said. "Later, maybe. I got to take care of some business. I'll see you around."
Jimmy took off. Walking at first, but with a stiff-backed self-consciousness. He stopped, turned around, and glanced back over his shoulder. When he realized that Benny was still watching him, he took off running, faster and faster, his skinny young legs pumping in a blur.
There was so much about Jimmy that reminded Benny of himself. So much that called to him. It wasn't surprising that he wanted to help the boy. . . . but that thought was followed almost instantly by another: something about Jimmy's behavior set the alarm bells jangling.
He considered following his young friend, but abandoned the notion. With every moment, the alarm grew more and more distant, until it was a puny thing, much smaller than the happiness swelling within him. He would talk to Jimmy another time. Later. Now, he wanted to share his good news, and he needed to do it with just the right person, right now.
Willie Hawkins leaned across the counter, his thick forearms crossed, muscles bunched and bulging as he spoke in his rapid-fire way, trumpeting his achievements to Cassie as if he could never, ever get enough of his own voice. And perhaps he couldn't, at that.
"—bottom of the seventh," he was saying, "I came up again. And on an oh-two fast ball—BAM!" He mimed the strike, his hawk eyes narrowed as if following a tortured baseball far up into the heavens. "Into the bleachers. Had to be at least four hundred feet."
Cassie kept wiping the counter, but paused to acknowledge the majesty of Willie's achievement with a nod of her head. "I know all about it, Willie," she said. "I read the newspaper."
"Yeah," Willie said. "But you gotta admit—they don't tell it as well as I do."
She had to laugh at that, and her giggles reached their peak as Benny entered. Benny just stood in the doorway, staring at them, and waiting there with an expression on his face that Cassie found almost impossible to define. Something infinitely self-satisfied, bubbling with pride, something …
Willie was oblivious to it. He turned. "Hey, man," Willie said. "Hear the game last night? I went two for four."
Benny nodded happily. "That's great, Willie," he said sincerely. "But I went four for four."
He placed his hands on the counter, vaulting it as lightly as a sixteen-year-old track star. He landed with barely a sound. Cassie stared at him as if he had gone crazy. He hugged her soundly, whooping.
"They're publishing one of my Sisko stories!"
She was stunned, beginning to smile, but stayed silent. By the way that he had said it she could tell that there was more good news to come.
And there was. "And at three cents a word!"
She hugged him back enthusiastically. "Good for you, baby."
"Tonight," he announced, "we're celebrating. Dinner, dancing—the works."
He looked at her and saw the woman that he loved, and the girl he had known most of his life. How long had she waited to see him so happy? To hear him say the words that would change her life? Perhaps tonight would be the night. Yes. That felt right. Tonight would be the night everything changed.
"I'll wear my red dress," she said finally.
"You're damned right you will."
When he kissed her, there was no thought of a gawking Willie, or the staring
customers. No thought but her softness and sweetness.
And the stars within him, waiting to be born.
That night he didn't forget, nor did he oversleep, nor work, nor was he called away for an emergency. A sudden mood swing didn't prevent their outing, and Harlem didn't erupt into sudden riots to stop them from having the promised evening on the town.
Instead, there was dinner at Maxie's, with steak and homemade bread, and afterwards there were drinks at the New Crest, and dancing so sweet and intoxicating that Benny thought that he would lose his mind.
In every glance, every touch, Cassie was speaking to him without words. You're the man I love, she was saying. I've loved you longer than you know. Just stay with me a little while longer and we'll find each other. It can happen for us, and the old ghosts can rest where they belong.
They emerged after what seemed like the longest, most delicious night of his life into a night in which the sky had been swept clean by a light rainfall. The stars in it shone down brightly, their approval a full and joyous thing. And all was right in the world.
Cassie was beautiful in her dress. It clung to her curves as though it had been spun upon her body by a magic loom. Benny's hand rested proprietarily upon her waist. It felt warm and comfortable there. As if it belonged there. As if they belonged together. Finally, he realized, he was beginning to lower some of the barriers that had made him keep her at a distance.
You don't marry a woman like Cassie unless you can offer her stability. She's a worker, and if she committed to you, and your career failed, she would work to keep you afloat, work until her beauty was gone, until the passion was gone, until all that remained was her commitment to a promise she should never have made. You couldn't do that to her. But now, now that everything is happening . . .
Maybe this is the time.
Benny took her into his arms, and whirled her once around the sidewalk. She giggled, and let him spin her, moving to the music drifting from the door of a nearby club. A couple passing on the other side of the street watched them dubiously, but for the moment, he could ignore them, ignore everything, except the sensation of being completely, utterly alive.
For a few moments he was able to forget everything, forget the pain and the long years, and all of the dreams he had always feared might never come true.
The flow of the fantasy was marred only by a sudden flare of pain in her face, and she broke away from him and hobbled over to a streetlight. Even through the evident pain, she still laughed.
"My poor feet," she said, massaging them. "Baby, you better marry me soon. I'm not getting any younger."
He turned, spinning, and took her in his arms. Then he stopped and gazed deeply into her eyes. "But you are getting more and more beautiful," he said, and she sighed, leaning her head against his chest.
She tilted her lips up to meet his, and he felt the hours and days and years lifting away, floating away and away as if none of them mattered at all, and beneath them was a contentment like nothing that he had ever known.
"Cassie," he murmured. "I love—"
"Brother Benny—" a voice said behind them, and she opened her eyes and looked around to see the tall and imposing figure of the man that they called only the Preacher.
He walked toward them on legs that seemed somewhat rickety, but with something burning in his eyes that was like a fire from heaven. He looked like a black Gabriel, come to ring the sinful time of man to a close. Cassie shied away from him, but Benny smiled and greeted him. "Preacher," he said. "I was hoping I'd see you again."
"Were you, Brother Benny?"
"Yes," he paused, ever the natural storyteller. "I did it," he said. "My story's going to be published."
The Preacher threw his head back and his arms wide and intoned, "'The light of the Lord is in his path.'" There was something that a normal person might have called a smile on the Preacher's face, but when he looked back at them, it had vanished. "Brother Benny," he said, and his voice dropped down to a low growl. "This is only the beginning of your journey—not the ending. And the path of the Prophets sometimes leads into darkness and pain."
Benny stiffened at this, as though the Prophets had struck him physically. A quick stab of fear stole some of the pleasure from the night.
"Benny," Cassie said. "What's he talking about?" When Benny couldn't, or wouldn't answer, she turned to the Preacher. "Who are you, really? How can you say things like this, spoil our evening?"
Her gaze might have withered an oak, but the Preacher was unfazed. "I speak with the voice of the Prophets," he said.
The Preacher reached out and grabbed Benny's ear before Benny could flinch away. There was a sharp stab of pain. "Hey!" he said, but before he could react further, the Preacher took his hand away and stared at it.
By the light of the streetlight, Benny could see the blood smeared on the Preacher's hand.
Benny touched his ear fearfully, but when he brought his hand back before his face, there was no blood on it at all. It must have been an illusion. A trick.
"And in their words," the Preacher said, "hope and despair walk arm in arm." He held Benny's gaze with his own, as if he had emerged from his madness just long enough to relay a message from some other world. Without another word, leaving them on that ominous note, the Preacher walked away. Benny and Cassie watched him go wordlessly.
"Did you understand any of that?" Cassie said.
Before Benny could answer, something split the night air, a sound as sharp and hard as the sound of a New Year's firecracker. Benny jerked as if struck. After a pause, there were three more shots, one after another.
She paused, and glanced at him. "Is that gunfire?"
"Sounds like it," he said slowly.
A few people ran past them, in the direction of the gunshots. The Preacher had reached the end of the block, closer to the sounds of violence. His face, caught in the oblique light of the street lamp, seemed wreathed in fire. "The time has come, Brother Benny," he called out. "Go and 'be of good courage.'"
Cassie tried to tug him in the opposite direction, but Benny was already moving.
"Baby," she said. "No. Not that way. Let's go home. Please."
"I can't," Benny said. He was like a sleepwalker now, like a man caught in a dream he cannot control. "I have to find out." He followed the stream of people who were heading toward the sounds. They were normal people, people who might have entered Eva's Kitchen seeking a burger or a cup of java. Now, they were hungry for something else. Now, they needed to see what the violence was, as if witnessing it directed toward another might postpone the inevitable, ultimate violence of their own fates.
Benny looked stricken. He didn't want to do this, didn't want to see what lay at the end of the street, but couldn't help himself, was pulled along as if by a tide. And he pulled Cassie along with him, the warmth and comfort of the meal so recently shared forgotten and all replaced by the fear that he was about to see something that would change the night. Change everything. Change his own essence. Forever.
Two police cars were parked at right angles to the sidewalk. There was a swarm of uniformed officers keeping the crowd at bay, and Benny felt the breath in his throat bubbling and burning as if he was trying to breathe through a throat full of molten lava.
In the middle of the street, he saw two officers that he knew. He had seen these men before. They had stopped him outside the Incredible Tales offices. They had stepped on his picture. They had done what they could to steal his dignity from him. And now they guarded the still and silent body of a boy. They angled themselves as if trying to keep him from getting a good view, and his heart roared in his chest.
"Stay back—" one of the officers said.
But Benny circled, stooping, hypnotized, seeking to get a closer look, already knowing what he would find, what he would have to find.
He recognized the face, still now in death. Recognized the hands that he had held in infancy, the face that had laughed so often. He knew the true color and texture of the flu
id leaking from beneath him, black as tar in the streetlight, flowing stickily into the gutter.
He knew that it was insane, but somehow the thought came to him that if he could just avoid seeing what he knew there was to see, just not admit what he had to admit, not speak the name even now coming to his tongue, that somehow the awful reality would not be, could be undone. The moment he spoke the word, by some arcane magical principles the violent actions of these blind and brutal men would suddenly take on a deeper, truer reality, and that would be the end of hope.
"Jimmy," he murmured, his heart breaking.
Benny moved toward the body, but officer Ryan blocked his approach, shoving him away.
"Get the hell back," Ryan said. He tried to block Benny's approach with his own body, using that barrel chest as if it was a mobile shield.
Benny felt a red haze rising up to steal reason from him. "What happened?" Benny asked.
"What's it to you?" Ryan challenged. Benny wasn't certain, but thought he smelled liquor on the man's breath.
Benny tried to keep Jimmy's limp form in sight. He wasn't just looking at a boy's corpse. He was looking at the living boy he had been yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. All of the Jimmies that Benny had ever known, reduced to this one inanimate lump here, on the street.
And he watched another string of Jimmies, the Jimmy that might have been, stretched out in another endless chorus line. There were a myriad of them. There was a doctor Jimmy, and a carpenter Jimmy. There were simple men who toiled at work gladly, returning at night to the arms of good women who loved them and healed the hurt of hearts that often labored in darkness.
There were bad Jimmies, too, Jimmies that had never learned the meaning of honest work, Jimmies that stole what they could not, or would not earn. Yes, those Jimmies were there as well.
And he knew them all, and loved them all, and watched those future Jimmies winking out, fading out …
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