“If you were in these photos with a woman other than your wife, I guess based on your presentation today, it would be a problem for you. It would not be a problem for me. I answer to Allah, as each man and woman should. No woman controls my actions. I control my actions and my choices and only I am responsible for the consequences of each of my decisions,” I said calmly.
“This is the first July Fourth in more than a decade where my whole family has not been together in the same place at the same time. In fact, my wife and your mother and family, all of the women, are up here at the Vineyard together. My sons, I had to hold them back, break a huge tradition, a family gathering that we have always looked forward to. I don’t know what you are accustomed to because you and me are really strangers thus far. But I won’t allow you to cause me any losses without collecting the debt,” he said, sipping.
“Debt?” I repeated. “I understand numbers. Speak to me in numbers. That way, I can follow the conversation,” I told him.
“You might be a good businessman like you say that you are. You might even be swift with numbers. But remember, son, you are too young to be wise. Wisdom comes very slowly through years of effort, of making mistakes, of feeling the pain, sometimes even the torture, of the reality of life. In business, wisdom comes after making some great decisions and then some foolish decisions and paying the price of your losses. Men who have gone bankrupt one time oftentimes become the wisest businessmen.” He was holding his shotgun, leaning on it like it was a walking stick, while sitting not in the chair or on the couch or recliner, but on the countertop. I took it as him wanting to stay posed in a higher position than me, and reinforcing his pose with his weapon. I didn’t have my nine. But I was confident that my skilled hands and feet were more than sufficient to handle this older man, to disarm him. It would only be self-defense. I had no plan to attack or injure him in any way. My second wife is in his family, loves him and his wife and sons a great deal, and I respect and adore her deeply.
“Even your arrogance is part of your youth. It’s something you’ll shed as life beats you up a little, drags you around, knocks you out a few times. If you were older and wiser, you would know that your arrogance is going to be a major setback, a pitfall, a ditch you dug for yourself,” he said. “But you’re not.”
“The debt?” I repeated. “You seem to believe that I owe you something. I believe in settling all my debts fairly.” I told him my truth.
“Some things are priceless,” he said oddly. “Some debts you can never repay. Some debts can only be settled with your life.”
“You want to kill me?” I asked him straight up.
“You would be worth more dead than alive,” he said. All his smiles and fake chuckles turned solemn, serious, and dark. He was frowning now. The lines around his mouth seemed to suggest a permanent frown, that his face had done more frowning than smiling in his lifetime. It was something seeing a man with a family, four sons, and a few homes and properties and cars and a yacht appearing to be so grim, rather than grateful to the Most High.
No matter how many words he spoke, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what his gripe was about. I couldn’t decipher the ways of many of these Christian men. I couldn’t even do the math of the debt he mentioned, or the reasoning of how he decided I was worth more dead than alive.
“So where does that leave us?” I asked him, thinking about my women, the hour and a half remaining before the light of the sky fell black and blue, and my hunger from the rigor of the battle of today’s championship game.
“Have you ever known a person hanging on to life by a thread, waiting on a kidney, a liver, a heart?” he asked out of nowhere.
“No, I haven’t.”
“What do you think would be more valuable, my yacht or your kidney?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
“You’re right. You don’t know. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying here. You don’t know anything. You’re too young to know anything. I could sell both of your kidneys, your heart, liver, eyes, and even your bone marrow. I could sell strips of that pretty black skin you have to a patient that understands the pain of fire because he or she has third-degree burns and needs skin grafting. I could sell your bones to a medical school that just happens to want bones to display for their anatomy course. I could sell every drop of your blood, and even your fingers and toenails, your tongue and intestines. Are you starting to understand why you are worth more dead than alive? If I snatched your heart out right now, and ordered a medical boat to come by and pick it up for delivery to the nearest hospital and to the next applicant on a long line of organ transplant patients, how much do you think I’d earn?” He smiled an evil smile.
Clementine Moody—his name was perfect. I reminded myself of his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard School of Business, and that Chiasa had said that he had been a hospital administrator a long time ago. Now he was involved in some private venture that no one spoke about specifically.
“Is that what you do? You said before that you work as a high-priced consultant. Do you decide who is worth more dead than alive, and then kill them and snatch out their heart and other organs and sell them?”
“I’m no murderer. I have high ethics. So only a fraction of your answer is correct. And if you had lived a longer life than your young years, you’d know that there is no need to murder. The worst human vermin of the world are so good at self-destruction that a wise guy and businessman such as myself need only wait ’em out. I’ve encountered thousands of guys like yourself, who don’t know and never understood the value of life.”
“Thousands of men just like me?” I asked him.
“Oh no, the only thing they have in common with you is their ignorance of the value of life. The rest of the circus you have going on is a thousand percent rare and unique. But I can tell you for sure, same as I told my wife and my brother-in-law, you will be around for a long time. The only way to get you away from Chiasa is to kill you. I can see that. But since we’re not in the killing business, we simply need to contain you and your recklessness,” he sipped.
“It’s a relief that you are not in the killing business. Point me to the bathroom, please,” I said. He had talked too long. The Amtrak ride had been long, and the rocking of the boat on the waves. I was in need of a hot shower, some scented soaps, a thick fresh towel, and either of my wives.
“Down those stairs. Turn left. Let’s see if you can follow instructions,” he said oddly.
Down the few steps, as I made the left, I saw the door on the right move. It was already mostly closed, but someone had pushed it to shut it completely. In front of the bathroom, I smelled the scent of a woman. I went in, handled myself, washed up, and came out. I closed the bathroom door behind me and paused there in the small space for a few seconds. The door in front of me opened slightly. It was not Marcus waiting on a truce. It was a doe-eyed voluptuous woman with thick lips looking out.
Clementine Moody appeared at the top of the few steps with his shotgun.
“I told you not to come out,” he said to the woman.
“I didn’t,” she lied.
“Come up here and prepare us some hors d’oeuvres now that you’re out,” he told her. “You come up first,” he said to me. I understood. He didn’t want me walking behind her ass, looking up her dress. Since he had already described me as a stranger, I knew he didn’t know that I wouldn’t. It wasn’t my style.
“Aren’t you gonna introduce us?” she asked him stupidly.
“Her name is ‘Secret.’ Now I know one of your secrets, and you know one of mine,” he said. I just looked at him. Didn’t bother to correct him about how Bangs was not my secret, not my woman, definitely not one of my wives, and I never went in her. “You interrupted my family holiday barbeque. Now you are interrupting my date,” he said to me wrongly. “Now let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of this thing so I can power this boat up, drop you off, and get on with my plans.” He looked at her back, as she wa
s putting together some sandwiches and chips and fruit. I had already turned my back to her so that he wouldn’t get any more strange ideas than the ones he already had brewing.
“Even the superpowers need allies,” he said strangely. “And the thing about allies is they don’t have to love each other. They just need to have at least one mutual interest.”
“Okay,” I said, not agreeing but trying to draw out whatever he was getting at.
“Here’s another secret, a big one, a bomb! It’s in our mutual interest that you not ever repeat it,” he said.
“So why tell me?” I asked.
“Because I have to stop you from killing even one of my sons. Literally killing, or messing up his life because he kills you,” he said. Now I felt better. He was talking about Marcus, and all this other crap he was speaking was nothing.
“Here comes the bomb,” he said solemnly. “Honey, pass me the notepad,” he said to his woman. The notepad was embossed with the capital letters HWM. He wrote down only one thing: “Marcus.” Then he leaned in and said quietly, “He’s not my son.” Then his woman brought the sandwiches over and set them on the table. By the time she reached us, he flipped his note over facedown.
“Honey, take this back. He’s one of them Muzlems. He don’t eat Virginia ham.”
“Oh, sorry.” She rushed over, leaned to pick up the plate and her cantaloupe-sized breasts were hanging dangerously close to my face. I lowered my gaze.
“Just bring him a fruit plate and some of those cheese and crackers,” he said.
“I’m good,” I told him, despite being mad hungry.
“What’s your reason for telling me he’s not yours?” I asked. “It doesn’t add up.”
“Oh, it adds up alright. Here comes the second bomb.” He turned his note to face him and wrote, HE IS THE GENERAL’S SON. “The same man whose daughter you married,” he said. “Now you’ve stolen away his daughter and crippled his son. Do you think you need an ally now?” he asked, and my mind was racing.
“If he’s not your son, what’s your interest in it?” I asked him.
“Listen here, you cold-blooded motherfucker,” he said quietly through clenched teeth. “He is not my son, but Xavier is. Xavier loves Marcus even more than his other two blood brothers. I raised them all as brothers under one roof. Three of them are mine and my wife’s sons. Marcus is the General’s son. Your wife has no idea that Marcus is her real brother. I’m telling you so that you will understand that Marcus is not trying to sleep with your wife. Therefore, there was no need to bust his kneecap.” He looked at me sternly, as though he thought I’d be shocked that he knew I was the one who crippled Marcus.
“The debt goes way beyond the medical bills, which are astronomical and include surgery, medical supplies, rehabilitation, and therapy. Or even the fact that you have probably permanently altered his career in the military, and as a fighter, and a boxer. The debt is that you are breaking up a respectable family that has been living together happily and peacefully. My wife needs to maintain her relationship with your wife. Not just because that’s what her brother wants her to do, but because it’s what she wants as well. Anybody who causes my wife any grief has made a headache for me. I do everything a man could possibly do to keep her happy and everything cool.”
Vineyard, I had looked that word up when I was researching whether or not I would allow my Umma and sister and first wife to accompany my second wife up here. I had also ordered from Marty Bookbinder, a map of the island and a travel book that discussed it. Sitting in the exclusivity of a Grand Banks yacht, I felt like I was in the vineyard, covered with vines. Vines trail and creep and climb and wind themselves around a person, place, or thing. They clasp themselves on and hold tight, all connected. Vines are an entanglement.
“Sounds like you think Marcus is an innocent victim. Seems like you’d be wise enough to know better. I’m not going to say what Marcus did. I’ll let him tell you himself. And since you are a wise elder and a businessman, you must know, and you must’ve raised him to know, that if men gamble, there are big and small risks involved and that you may suffer greatly. So there is no debt between you and me, Dr. Moody. You want peace for your wife. I want peace for my wife. As long as none of your sons don’t offend me or my women, I’ll be good to them like a brother. My religion is not a routine or a circus. My objective is family. And the young lady in the photo is not one of my wives. Any woman who is my woman is my wife. If she is not my wife, I don’t go in her,” I said to him man to man.
“Imagine if I told you that the woman here on my yacht,” he said, nodding towards the curvaceous woman in the blue silk dress, “was not my woman.” She turned around and smiled. “And that I never touched her or ‘went in her,’ as you say.” Then he smiled at me.
“Darling, take your plate and wait for me downstairs. I won’t be too long.” He got rid of her. She shot him a look of boredom right before she left. I understood. I was even more bored with him than she was, I’m sure.
“See, that’s the thing about wisdom. If you were older, you’d realize that the good, smart girl is the one you marry. The good-time girls are the ones you have a good time with for a few hours or days or weeks, or whenever it benefits you. Keep them hidden. Don’t tell ’em or teach them nothing. Not even your home address or telephone number. Your wife is smart. You don’t need the good-time girls to be smart. They just need to be ready to give you what you want, a good time.” He dragged out those last three words, like a drawl. “How you want it, and to do whatever you say. If you try and marry all of the women you lust, you’ll give yourself a horrible migraine or a catastrophic heart attack. Shake off that arrogance. One wife is more than enough, and if you didn’t go into this pretty young thang who’s standing right next to you smiling in the photo, then you wouldn’t be a man, now would you?”
I remained silent. My strategy was that if I did so, he would be content and he’d power up the boat and head to the island. He was eating his ham sandwich, cutting it into sections of four and dabbing his mouth with a napkin each time he finished a portion.
“Tomorrow, I’d like you to show up at the clubhouse for a men-only breakfast family meeting. My sons will drive up for it. We’ll smash the beef, work it out, and all appear later in the afternoon to the barbeque, united.”
“Marcus also?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s been weeks, but his knee is still in bad shape. He’ll need to use the whole backseat of my son’s truck just to make it up here. Xavier is already up here. He came up in the first-class car of the same train you arrived in today. This is his camera. He snapped these shots. Just happened to see you. Gave me a call and interrupted my plans for the day. But, he’s my son so I had to show up. He’s very angry. He loves Chiasa a lot and he thinks you are making a fool out of her.”
“Is that right?” was all I said.
“He really doesn’t want to lose Chiasa. You already injured Marcus, his hero. But Xavier is my son. I can control him.”
“What do you expect to happen at this breakfast?” I asked him.
“My boys will listen to me, no matter what. I took the camera from Xavier and the photos. He won’t have them to show them to your wife. He’s young and doesn’t understand that kind of thing. Marcus is enraged, but he’s injured. He can’t do anything right now. My older sons are established. They have their opinions, but they won’t want to get involved in any of this. They know Marcus is a hothead.” He paused.
“I need you to get in line. Lose that killer energy. Let go of some of that arrogance. Give me your word not to use violence ever again within the family, and definitely not in a family setting. You might not like it, but like I said, allies need only one mutual interest to appear standing side by side. And you and I, and my sons and Marcus, all have one: your wife.”
Measuring Clementine Moody’s words, I was quiet. I didn’t want to head-butt with him. Definitely didn’t want to be drawn into a continuous debate, either. Weighing it
out, I knew I held the ace card. My second wife had already told me that she would walk away from all of them, although she didn’t prefer to do so. Therefore, me working it out with the men in her family was something I could do as a consideration for her, and for no other reason.
I thought Uncle Clem, despite being paid, PhD’d-up, and “successful in his business,” was a joke and an illusion. As he steered his yacht to Martha’s Vineyard, I thought closely about how in my first encounter with him, his wife, Aunt Tasha, spoke passionately about church and Christianity. She spoke about how shocking and uncomfortable it made them each feel that Chiasa is now a Muslim. She said that she and her husband and entire family attend church and talked about how important the Christmas Eve worship was for them. Yet, Clementine Moody seemed to have very low regard for faith. That was burning me up.
Standing behind the captain’s chair where he was seated, I asked him, “Is your Christian faith a routine?” He took his time. I hoped that meant he was giving it some honest thought.
“Religion is for women. For men who have families and who love their wives, we go to church to appease them. Our role in the church is the same as our role in the world—to handle the business.”
Looking out over the new dark waters, I thought to myself, No matter how long I remain in America, I’m a foreigner. Men who don’t worship the Maker of all souls, men who go to church only to shut their wives up, strange. Men who claim Christianity, but who are uncomfortable with the boundaries and limitations of Christianity, then disregard all of the rules about how a Christian should live life, strange. Married Christian men who say they love, honor, provide, and protect their one wife, but only if they have the option to disrespect, fuck, hide, and abort their seeds in the women who they desire to go into while being married, low and strange. Men who reach high positions in this country, and who enjoy the respect of hundreds, thousands, and even sometimes millions of people as they run amuck. And what about my second wife’s father, the General? Why would he give his son up to another man to raise and claim? Why would he hide his seed and only claim his daughter? Strange, strange, strange was all I could come up with.
A Moment of Silence: Midnight III Page 49
