by Chris Wiltz
They sat close together on the red plush sofa and he talked to her, his voice low and urgent with the effort of keeping it down. He told her about the fire at the apartment house, and even though she had liked the idea of moving there before, she showed no emotion now. He told her she could take Lucilla and go stay with his mother for a while, but she didn't agree or disagree. He told her he couldn't depend on Dexter not to give him away, but she didn't panic and tell him he had to hide the way she once had, grabbing his arm, her eyes dark circles of fear.
“There's no tellin what gon happen now,” Burgess said. “The best thing prob'ly is for me to go ‘way for a while.” He waited for some indication from her that this was the right thing for him to do, but there was none. He went on, telling her he didn't know where yet, but when he got there she and Lucilla could come too. “Maybe,” he said, “we jus give up on this town, start someplace new altogether, the four of us.” He put his hand over her womb.
Janine heard him out with a sinking heart. They weren't the exact words, but they were close enough. It was as she had imagined all those times before: it was what had happened to her mother, coming true for her too. There would be the phone calls and the road stories, and then one day there would be nothing and she would never know what had happened to him, and she would be living out her mother's life all over again and putting the seeds for it to happen again and again in her own child and Sherree's child too. The idea of being alone could make her feel sick, but the idea of passing this sickness on was unbearable.
Janine put her eyes on Burgess, steady and determined. “I got two children to think about now, Burgess,” she said, “and I can't be thinkin ‘bout where you are and if you really gon send for us. I can't be waitin like that. Waitin poisons a woman, sure as if you fed it to her ‘fore you left.”
He tried to persuade her and she tried to let herself be persuaded. She tried to imagine a life someplace else; she tried to imagine another city, Detroit, Chicago, New York. But she couldn't imagine another city: she could make herself see the ladies in their fringed dresses drinking pink drinks out of little straws, but she couldn't imagine herself being one of them. All she could imagine was being alone.
She watched him walk through the door and she thought her insides were going to just sink out of her body and try to go with him. She told herself she was going to have to get used to being lonely, no Burgess, no Sherree, only these children she was going to have to be there for, and she promised herself right then that they were never going to think that being alone made you weak. She was going to reach deep down inside her and find that power she knew she had, but first she was going to have herself a good cry, one last good cry, and she was going to think of it as washing all the weakness out of her so that she would never have to reach so deep for that power again. It would just float to the top on her tears.
There must be a limit to how many shocks a man could take in a day. Janine had let him down; he couldn't believe she wouldn't go with him. He thought all women wanted to get out of the Convent, any way they could. But she was saying it was her home and she was going to stay, even after he said they could all leave together, he wouldn't make her wait. She told him, “Burgess, I don't want to end up someplace alone, someplace I don't know, where I don't know no one at all. Not with two little kids.”
She doesn't have much faith, he was thinking as he walked to Thea's house. Walking those blocks in the brisk air, he still had Janine's voice running around in his head: “I'm not gon make it harder than it already is, draggin two kids God only knows where; I'm not gon spend my life runnin.”
And at the very thought of running, his back crawled and he quickened his pace, his resolve to run strengthened more by what was ahead of him, the unknown, a future abruptly cut short, than by anything that might be behind him.
Thea opened the door and Burgess realized his hands were sweating inside his jacket pockets. He didn't know what to expect—dislike, disappointment, disgust, distrust. He was holding his breath. He only knew what he most dreaded to see on her face after he saw it wasn't there: fear. He let himself breathe; she was not afraid of him.
She held the door for him and he walked into the large foyer. This house had become so familiar to him that he had begun to enter it without really seeing it anymore, the way you would enter your own house, knowing so well what it looked like that you no longer noticed it. The way his mother must have been entering it for years and years now.
And thinking that made him remember something he'd said to his mother long ago. They were arguing, he couldn't remember about what exactly, but it would have been about where he'd been or who he'd been with or what he'd been doing, before she found out the answers to all those questions. She had told him, “You better watch out what kind of life you live, watch out how you end up.” And he'd said to her, with all the haughtiness and condescension an angry and arrogant sixteen-year-old can spew without thought and without regard, “Look how you ended up, what kind of life you live. I don’ know how you do what you do, go work in that white bitch's house every day.” And for a moment he could feel the anger, he remembered it so well.
But today as he entered the house, he looked at it differently, without that exact sense of familiarity, more of a first-time look but without any rush to take it all in at once as he'd tried to do when he was a boy coming here for the first time, amazed at how big it was, amazed by all the things in it, amazed because he'd had no idea before of anything like it. He looked at it today slowly and deliberately, no rush, no amazement, yet with a certain bewilderment that he had come to take it so for granted, that he, like his mother, had come to work here, but under different circumstances, better circumstances, for it had not felt like a comedown in life to him; it had felt full of possibilities. He looked now with an eye to what he had accomplished, a professional eye. It was a last-time look, a long look that searched for more than what could be seen within these walls. And he began to see that what his mother had said had nothing to do with where you ended up physically, but with possibilities, and in this last look he saw all the possibilities fade.
Thea was waiting for him, standing there patiently while he took it all in. He was going to have to tell her he was leaving, but he didn't think he could do it right now, right here.
He asked her where Bobby was. The question seemed to distress her. She pushed her hand through hair she hadn't bothered to comb, messing it up more. There were dark circles under her eyes. She said, “There was a fire at the apartment house.”
“I know. I went by there this morning.”
“Oh.” She hesitated before she said, “The other tenants got out, but someone was in the apartment.”
“Who?” Burgess demanded, not knowing what he expected but steeling himself for yet another shock.
“Bobby thinks it's some homeless man who'd used the place before.”
Burgess relaxed.
“I think Bobby's over there now,” Thea added, and took a step toward the door as if to let him out.
“I come to talk to you,” he told her.
“Oh,” she said again, surprised, then, “Let's go in the back,” and he was relieved because he'd thought at first she wanted him to go.
She led him through the foyer, past the living room, past Mr. Robert working in the library. Mr. Robert looked up, but Burgess only nodded to him; he would have to speak with him later. She led him through the hallway, and as they went past the kitchen the sound of the vacuum cleaner got louder. He glimpsed his mother tugging the machine, her back to them. Thea hesitated just past the door as if she thought he would want to step in and say hello. But he went on ahead, out the back door to the porch.
He stopped there for a moment. Before him materialized the two of them, children, squatting down to throw the baseball cards against the wall. Thea was funny, the way she sat, one foot under her, the other knee bent, her arms hugging her leg, her chin resting on her knee. She would rock back and forth, and the more excited she got, th
e harder she rocked. She rocked a lot when he threw a card too hard and knocked it away from the wall. When he looked at her, she would try not to smile.
Innocent games. Forbidden games. He felt a hot spot of rage in his chest. There was no time for old anger now.
He opened the screen door, touching Thea's back between her shoulder blades so she would precede him. Roux came bounding out of nowhere, jumping on her, jumping on him, not heeding in the least her command to get down. He hung back to watch her try to control the dog, just about her height when it stood up on its hind legs. Her harsh commands did nothing to settle it down. She pushed it away so she could walk, and when she got over to the gazebo, she sat and petted the animal, talking softly until it was content to sit on the floor next to her.
Burgess sat across from her, leaning toward her, his forearms on his thighs, his hands clasped.
She knew nothing of Sherree's death, had heard nothing of any kind of killing in the Convent: she'd been up most of the night at the apartment house. So he told her about the cops going into Sherree's with their search warrant, looking for guns or drugs, any excuse, but really looking for Dexter, mistaking Dexter for him, but not even getting Dexter, getting Sherree instead.
“They didn’ find nothin,” he said, “ ‘cept Sherree's little girl under the bed.” She stared at him, her eyes sunk deep inside circles of fatigue. “Even if you heard ‘bout it, they's so many killins in the project, you might not of thought nothin ‘bout it.”
“It's outrageous,” she said. “People will be outraged.” Her voice wasn't tired; it was sharp in the dry windless air. All around the gazebo it was quiet and still, as if the very trees, all the foliage and the life it held, had been paralyzed by the sun shooting its rays through the cloudless perfect sky.
“Which people?” he asked.
“All people,” she said impatiently, then thought, this is no time to talk around things. She said, “White people too.”
“I be surprised if even black people be outraged very long.”
“Why wouldn't they be?”
“They outraged so much, they get tired bein outraged.”
“You mean they're tired of being outraged at white people.”
“I mean they tired bein outraged at the way they got to live, with the dopers breakin in they houses, the killins goin on outside they houses, and they ain nothin they can do ‘bout none of it. They ain safe, they kids ain safe . . . yeah, and at white people too.”
She put her hand on top of the dog's head, scratching it distractedly. When she stopped, Roux whimpered and tried getting her attention by nuzzling her leg. Finally the dog lay down on the gazebo floor with a sigh. Thea started to speak but stopped. Burgess could see she was having trouble saying something to him and he was pretty sure he knew what, but he wasn't going to help her. When she spoke, it came out in a rush. “Aren't you responsible, at least for some of that, maybe a lot of that?”
He smiled. “I'm the good guy,” he said. “I sell the dope so I can fix up the houses and run the other pushers out the project.”
“But that's what I mean.” She was angry. “You sell drugs to the same people you say you're trying to help. That makes no sense.”
He remained calm. “I don’ sell dope to them people. I been keepin the dope out the Convent—tryin to, leastways. You want to hear the way it is: they ain no one could do that but the richest dope dealer ‘round.”
She opened her eyes wide. “That makes even less sense,” she said and added, “I think.”
“Ain no way none of it could make sense to someone like you. Ain no way to explain it ‘cept that just the way it be.”
“Someone like me? Let me see if I get it: you sell dope to get rid of dope. Is that it?” She was baiting him. He refused to take it, but he could feel his own anger building.
When she spoke again, she didn't sound quite so hostile. “What did you mean when you told your mother you wanted to see if you could get away with it?” His brows came together. Thea prodded him: “She asked you why you were worried about doing good.”
He was thinking he owed her no explanation, but he also knew he wanted her to understand. He leaned closer toward her, spreading his hands, then clasping them again. He said, “I mean I got away all these years doin bad and I never thought I'd get away with it. I thought if I didn't get caught it was ‘cause I was dead. I was all ready to die too. I always said I'd as soon die as let them bastards get me.” His heart was pounding hard, ferociously hard. “Now it's like I lived too long. Now I'm afraid to die. So I been thinkin it's time I better leave.” He stopped, but he could see that her anger had dissipated as he talked, so he went on. “Trouble is, I don’ really want to leave. Don’ want to get caught, don’ want to die, don’ want to leave.”
“Quit selling drugs,” she said, her voice husky. “Then they can't catch you.”
“Don’ mean they can't kill you; don’ mean they ain other people out there besides cops won’ kill you. Don’ mean jus ‘cause you say you don’ want to die no more you safe.”
She frowned. “You always make me feel so naïve, Burgess, like I don't understand anything that goes on beyond this house.”
“That ‘cause we talkin ‘bout another kind of reality altogether. Ain no way you can understand black reality, ain possible. You white; you safe.”
Her mouth, her whole face tightened. Her eyes, no longer tired and sunken, blazed at him. “When I'm in this house alone, I'm not safe; I'm terrified.” Her voice was thick with barely controlled anger. “When Bobby leaves my house in the middle of the night, he's not safe; he's attacked. My parents weren't safe in their grocery store; they're dead.” The dog, lying at her feet, had lifted its head. She spoke again, her voice rising more. “Who's to say that the two black men who killed them didn't take their money to buy drugs?” She stood up. The dog stood too. When Burgess stood, it barked.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “It weren't right for me to say that.” Her mouth trembled. She sat down again as if her legs had suddenly gone too weak for her to stand anymore. The dog backed off and Burgess sat down too. Thea closed her eyes, rubbing at her eyelids with her fingers so she wouldn't cry. He put his hand out and touched her knee, lightly, so maybe she didn't feel it through the jeans she was wearing. “I guess,” he said and touched her so he knew she could feel, so she would look at him. She opened her eyes, wiping under each of them, then putting her hands, balled into fists, down close to where his fingers were. “I guess I don’ have no idea ‘bout your reality neither.” She nodded, accepting his apology.
He moved back, taking his hand off her. He wished she would say something, but he thought maybe she didn't trust herself yet to speak and not cry. “Funny, ain it,” he said, “you bein scared in this house and it bein the only place I'm not.”
She smiled a shaky smile, and then it crumbled and she cried, silently, no sobbing. He wanted to move next to her, to comfort her somehow, but the dog blocked his way. He sat forward and put his hand out again. This time he took one of hers and held it. She just let him hold it at first, then she tightened her fingers around his.
Inside the house Delzora turned off the vacuum cleaner. She unplugged it and wound the cord and moved a chair back into place. She straightened a corner of the rug that had been flipped back by the suction. She turned to plump up the cushions on the sofa and through the window she saw the two of them sitting outside in the gazebo. She watched as Thea turned Burgess’ arm over and pushed back his sleeve, looking at the scar on his arm where he'd caught himself on the top of a chain link fence, running to get away from somebody, she had no doubt, though he'd never told her.
It was funny how those two had always liked each other, even as little kids. Delzora had seen how sad Thea was when she realized Burgess wouldn't be back to play anymore on Saturdays. She never brought any playmates with her; she'd seemed alone and isolated even then, before her parents got killed. Delzora had assumed the parents shipped her off to the aunt to get her out of t
he way, and that she came alone because Althea wouldn't have wanted kids playing in her house full of fine breakables. But that was no reason to send Burgess away. He and the girl never played in the house, always out on the porch, or out in the part of the yard that was all overgrown like a small forest. Maybe that was the problem: Althea didn't want them underfoot but she didn't want them out of sight either. Just think how that straitlaced old lady's imagination could have run wild.
Delzora heard Bobby come in calling out for Thea. He sounded impatient, agitated. He came to the door. “Where's Thea?” The strain he'd been under was all over his face.
“They outside,” Delzora told him. He glanced through the window then hurried out.
Delzora looked out at the gazebo again, a crowded scene with the three of them and the dog there. She watched them commiserate, huddled together over the dog, who kept trying to lick their faces as they kept pushing her down. She watched a few moments longer before she plumped the sofa cushions and went into the kitchen to finish up lunch.
Bobby went out to the gazebo with a feeling that he was at the cracking point. He needed to talk to Thea, to tell her about this latest affront, one more bad thing that had happened, to say he didn't know if he could take anymore, and knowing too that he shouldn't say that—because once you did, you usually got tested.
Maybe it was a Catholic thing, this wanting to unload, to confess—that's what it really was, he wanted to confess because he felt guilty. He didn't know why he should feel guilty; these things were happening to him, yet he could feel the burden of guilt sitting heavily within his chest, crushing, unmovable. The apartment house had burned down with a man inside, and he felt responsible. He'd gone home to get the insurance papers and discovered that sometime during the past week, while his mother had been in the hospital and he'd stayed at Thea's, the house had been broken into, everything dumped out in the middle of the floors for the thieves to sift through, leaving him with an ungodly mess from which to discover what was missing. His mother's jewelry was gone and so was the gun Lyle had given him. He had caught himself thinking that neither Lyle nor Millie ever needed to know, his friend now joining his mother as one who must be deceived. But he had lost heart completely when he realized his father's hunting gun, the Model 12, the old reliable Winchester, was also gone. That's when the guilt had come down with its weight like eternity: somehow he'd let his father down again.
