by Rob Thomas
“What do you suggest I do with it?”
“Unleash its fury. Vengeance is yours,” says Lloyd, more melodramatically than usual. Then he sticks the disk in my book bag. As I stand to leave, he adds, “Destroy all you want. I’ll make more.”
SHAWN
3:58 P.M. Courtyard
You know, sometimes, in my darkest moments, I wonder what I would do if I blew out a knee or had my arms ripped off in a car wreck and I couldn’t play ball. I know what I would be good at—cruise director. Just like Julie on The Love Boat. Making everybody happy. Figuring out who gets to sit at the captain’s table. Getting the old folks goin’ in some shuffleboard tournament. Organizing the end-of-the-cruise ball. I got a knack for this shit.
Take now, for instance.
I got the idea an hour ago. Already I got us a location. A friend of mine knows the guy who owns the Knights of Columbus hall. I got a DJ. No trick to that—I just told Anthony Hill and Jason Cohen (aka Zebra Posse) that they could rap their asses off if they took care of the rest of the jams. DeWayne Haynes, who used to be a hell of a halfback here, is our campus cop. I got him to work security tomorrow night on the condition that I put in a good word for him with LaTisha. I must be spendin’ too much time with Keene, ’cuz I told him “no sweat.” Getting the word out, now that’s my specialty. Not necessarily ’cuz I talk to everyone. More because I know who to talk to if I really gotta make sure everybody’s gonna hear about something.
Presently I’m talking to the last person on my list of key big-mouths, Derlinda Seals. She’ll fill in all the Mission of God Baptists. I don’t mention the political angle to her at all. I mean, it seems like they’re all willing to let themselves be put into “God’s merciful hands.” They’re not so tight-assed once you get some Boone’s Farm into ’em. Bell rings and I remember one last duty. I am, after all, still technically a slave. I try to remember where Notorious B.I.G. told me his next class was. Not necessary, though, ’cuz I can spot his Congo clothes from a mile off.
“Sorry I’m late, boss,” I say to him when I catch up. I make sure it comes out friendly.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” he says.
“Deal’s a deal,” I say. He doesn’t say anything to that. He looks like he’s far away somewhere in that mixed-up head of his. “Hey, Keene, look, my man, maybe I been wrong ’bout some o’ the things I’ve done today. I just cared more about not getting shown up after that stuff you wrote in the paper than I did about doin’ what’s right. Slave Day is kinda wack.”
Keene looks at me like he’s confused. If I woulda known this worked so well, I woulda tried it earlier and not waited till school was about over.
“Maybe I got carried away a bit too,” he says.
“Well, all right, then,” I say. I offer up a palm for a high handshake, and the Reverend takes it almost immediately.
“As long as we’ve got things worked out,” I say, “let me tell you about a party I got happenin’ tomorrow night. We’re takin’ your idea of a boycott, but we’re boycottin’ the game instead. No one darker than you is allowed in the stadium tomorrow. Anyone shows, they answer to me. You heard about the football players, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure it was true.”
“It’s true, all right. But we’re gonna show everyone we’re behind ’em. I’m supposed to be there for some student council thing, but hell with that. Lee High is gonna learn what’s up, tomorrow night.”
“Cool,” says Keene, just like it’s 1980-something.
“Yeah, very cool. Anyway, I want to make sure you’re comin’ to the party. I mean, in a way, you got this whole thing started.”
“Sure, yeah, I’ll be there.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear. Hey, it’d be tight if you brought a date, too.”
Keene smiles so big, you’d think he was me.
TIFFANY
4:12 P.M. Delvoe Ford
Daddy sounded utterly spooky on the phone. Possibly drunk. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him. He never slurs, but sometimes he’ll repeat himself or just go off on some tangent. He did a bunch of that just now.
“Come down to the dealership. I need to get your signature on some forms.”
“Can’t we do that at home?” I asked.
“Goddamn it! For once will you not argue with me? We need them notarized, and we need it done today, plus we need to get them notarized.”
“Should we get them notarized?” I asked.
“Just get your ass down here.”
I spotted Brian … Brendan … whatever … in the parking lot after I hung up the phone. He looked like he was trying to scam a ride home from somebody. At first I was hoping I was done with him for the day, but he might come in handy as an excuse to get away from Daddy and his pal Jim Beam. I still had a few hours left on my hundred dollars, so I told him he was coming with me.
I parked the Probe in the washing stall and told my slave I would be giving it the white glove test after I got through unstressing the parental unit. He looked chafed. Sure hope I’ll be able to sleep tonight.
As I walk up to the door of Daddy’s office, I notice that the miniblinds are drawn. That’s not like him. I knock—which isn’t like me.
“Who is it? Is that you?” he says.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I say as I open the door and enter. I notice the whiskey bottle open on his desk next to the family portrait we took last Christmas when both my brothers were home from New Jersey. Remember in Lady and the Tramp how, when the two stars had puppies, all the boys ended up terriers, like Tramp, and all the girls ended up cocker spaniels, like Lady? That’s sort of how our family worked. The boys have Daddy’s same billboard-size forehead, sandy hair, and green eyes. They’re a bit on the short side, with these Tasmanian Devils’ bodies that look like they’ve been through a trash compactor. Regrettably, I don’t think either of my siblings got Daddy’s brains or ambition. In twenty years they’re going to be co-managers of the dealership with one eye each on Daddy’s will. But just look at the old man. If his liver holds up, he may outlive them both just so he can cheat them out of an inheritance.
“Glad you made it.” He pulls a file out of his drawer and removes a stack of forms he has paper-clipped together. The man is organized. I’ve seen him locate a twenty-year-old warranty with enough alcohol in him to power a squadron of F-14 Tomcats. “Here you go,” he says, plopping the papers down in front of me. “Sign.”
I start reading the first one. It’s the title to the Probe. From what I can tell, he’s signing it over to me.
“Stop reading. Start signing,” barks Martin.
“Who was it that told me to never sign something without reading it?” I point a finger at my brain, knit my brows, purse my lips like I’m trying to remember.
“You’re eighteen now. I’m just signing over everything that should be yours.”
I thumb through the remaining papers. I notice he’s also giving me my brother’s car. Daddy can’t still be mad about that hazing incident, can he? “Boy, I can’t wait to tell Phillip that I own his Bronco,” I say.
“Just sign the papers, Tiffany. Let me do the thinking for the family,” Daddy says. He pours himself another whiskey and wind.
The next form gives me access to my trust fund, the one Mammy and Pap set up for me. But I wasn’t supposed to be able to get anything out of it until I was twenty-one. Now I’m positive something’s up.
“You’re not still mad about last night, are you? Are you kicking me out? Picking up a few extra bucks renting my room?”
“Sign!” he yells.
But I’ve got too many of his genes. I set the pen down, lean back in my chair, and play the game. I know I’m playing against the guy who practically wrote the book. After all, Daddy invented the “This is our floor manager’s last day here. He’s practically giving cars away” scam. He perfected the “How low did you want those payments?” ploy. Car salesmen from across the state make pilgrimages to Delvoe Ford
to learn firsthand how to milk an extra seven hundred dollars out of a customer for “rustproofing and undercoating.” But this time I’ve got the absolute best weapon on my side, and it’s not that he’s been drinking. That just gets Daddy feisty. No, it’s that he’s desperate, and it shows. “Desperation,” the old man always says, “makes suckers of us all.”
“What are you doing?” says Daddy when he realizes I’ve set down the pen.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s up.”
I notice that it’s time to regloss my nails. I sigh.
“I don’t have time for this, Tiffany.”
“Really?” I say. “Why not?”
I set the little knocker balls on Daddy’s desk in motion. I yawn. Daddy pushes two fingers into each temple. He’s caving.
“Look,” Daddy says, “we may be running into some financial difficulty. It’s important for these items not to appear as assets. Now, will you just sign these papers?”
“What sort of financial difficulty?” I say. For safety’s sake I go ahead and sign the trust fund over to myself. But I stop there. Now it’s Daddy’s turn to sigh. I’ve won. He takes one long sip of his drink and tells me the story. Five months ago, he says, a longtime friend, a former wildcatter who’d undergone a postbankruptcy conversion to the high-technology faith, approached Daddy with an offer to get a computer chip company off the ground. A half million dollars guaranteed to turn into two million within half a year. The trouble was, Daddy was suffering from poor cash flow, so he sort of “borrowed” the money from the dealership without telling his Yankee partner. Daddy does the books, so hiding the money for six months didn’t seem like it would be a big problem. And it wasn’t—until two weeks ago. That’s when Ford made an unbelievable offer on a hundred Mustangs to Mr. Milligan. When Daddy rejected the offer, his partner grew suspicious. Yesterday he called for an audit. That happens tomorrow, which is why he wants me to sign all these documents today.
“You handle the books. Can’t you make it look like the money is out there somewhere?” I ask, suddenly worried about where I’ll be sleeping. “Hey, can you sign the lake house over to me?”
“I think that would look a little suspicious,” says Daddy. “And no, I can’t figure out anywhere to hide the money. All the invoices have been entered into the computer—the computer that’s locked in that Yankee sumbitch’s office.”
Daddy takes another sip. I reach out, and he hands the glass to me. I take my own sip as Daddy continues.
“The thing is, I almost pulled it off. Another sixteen days, and I would have seen my first dividend check, more than enough to pay back the business.”
“What we need is a fire to wipe out the building,” I say.
“No, what we need is one of those computer experts, a hacker who could get in and destroy all the files.”
“That’s it?” I say.
“Why?” says Daddy. “You know one?”
“Know one?” I say. “I own one.”
MR. TWILLEY
4:45 P.M. Theater
I sit in the tenth row of the auditorium during Thomas’s play rehearsal, and aside from being sent to purchase sodas for the entire cast, I’m left alone. I’m surprised by the quality of Thomas’s acting. All the frenetic energy that makes him a difficult student to teach becomes a positive onstage. He finds humor in lines where none seemingly exists, though he does have a tendency to swallow entire scenes even when other characters should be the center of attention. Several times Linda directs him to “Leave space, Tommy. Leave space.” I wonder if she’s ever looked into any small college theater programs that might accept a student with a transcript as spotty as Mr. Parks’s.
“Mr. Twilley?” The voice comes from behind me. I turn to find Leonardo Tristan walking down the aisle.
“Yes?”
“Well, there you are. Got a minute?”
I nod and Mr. Tristan takes a seat two down from me.
“Marcus, I wanted to talk to you about Tamika Jackson. You know she’s the only black female we’ve got in NHS?” he asks.
“Someone was telling me that this afternoon,” I say. “So?”
“So I wanted to talk to you about this alleged cheating incident.”
“It’s more than alleged. It happened. I left my room for a moment during a quiz, and when I came back in, she had a boy leaning over her shoulder with her quiz completely uncovered. I don’t think she’d deny that.”
“Well she does deny cheating or helping the other boy cheat.”
“That’s hardly surprising.”
“Look, Marcus, if you turn in a report on Tamika, I’ll have to kick her out of NHS. And it looks bad enough that we only have one black girl in the group as it is …”
“But that’s not my problem,” I say.
“Well, it could be,” Tristan says, “because the rumor going around school is that you’re busting her because she’s black, or more specifically, that you don’t believe her because she’s black.”
BRENDAN
6:56 P.M. Delvoe estate
I’m in Tiffany Delvoe’s den playing pool, and I’m not sucking so bad. Pool, after all, is no more than a combination of geometry and physics. If all I had to do was figure out where to hit the ball I’d be Deerfield Slim. It’s the actual hitting that’s the problem. Still, I’m making more than I’m missing. I’ve won my second game, and Tiffany seems strangely present in both body and spirit. She keeps saying things like, “Good shot, Brendan” and “Wow, you’re good.”
I bank the cue ball off two rails and tap in a four ball that had been previously left teetering on the rim of the corner pocket. Tiffany claps and says, “This calls for a celebration. You want a Coke?” I say sure, even though I was aiming for the seven. Tiffany slips behind the bar and ducks down. When she reappears she has two glasses. She hands me one of them. It’s after I’ve been chugging a second that I notice that there’s more than Coke in the glass.
“Slow down a bit,” Tiffany warns. “Captain Morgan can sneak up on you if you’re not careful.”
The phone rings. Tiffany answers it, and I try to pretend I’m not listening. I chalk the tip of my stick and pour some baby powder on my left knuckles. Tiffany says, “Hi, Troy” in that I’m-so-bored-I-could-murder-you-for-sport voice that I’m starting to get used to. She holds the phone away from her head and rolls her eyes.
“Hey, Troy. Look. I’ve got a friend …” (friend?) “… over here, and he’s got me down to my Calvins in a game of strip eight-ball. Later.”
I’ve got no idea whether Troy is able to get in another word before Tiffany hangs up, but the mention of strip pool has given me a minor woody. I pretend I’m interested in something out on historic Belvin Street as I finish my Coke and make adjustments. Tiffany picks up my glass and pours me another. This time, Captain Morgan has a bit more presence in my drink.
“Best four out of seven?” Tiffany says.
“Sure,” I say, disappointed that my voice sounds briefly like it did in seventh grade.
MR. TWILLEY
7:29 P.M. Whataburger
Thomas didn’t have the time to return home before going to work. He unrolled a Whataburger uniform that he dug out from behind the seat in his pickup. The garment appeared to have gone several shifts without a laundering. He changed inside his truck cab in the student parking lot and tried to convince me not to come to work with him.
“You’ve got better things to do than hang out at Whataburger for the next four hours,” he said.
I replied that a deal was a deal, and that I wanted to see Slave Day through to its conclusion. The truth, of course, was that I had nothing better to do. Besides, sipping coffee and grading papers at Whataburger would be as easy as doing so in my empty house.
And while I’ve been sipping, Mr. Parks has been gulping. In the hour and a half I’ve been here, I’ve counted four cups of coffee that he’s finished. That can’t be good for a teenager. I’ve tried to do my part here tonight. During the dinner rush I
bussed a few tables. I can’t stand to see a dirty table, and minimum-wage employees always seem blind to them. A few students from the high school have come in, but none of them have spoken to me. I’ve seen them whisper and point as if I’m an exhibit at a zoo. After the rush is over, Thomas brings a huge bag of french fries out to the table. He rips the bag open and squirts half a bottle of ketchup on the paper.
“Thanks for the help,” he says, offering me a share of the fries with a hand gesture. I take a few out of politeness.
“You put on quite a show back there,” I say. Thomas has been juggling condiment bottles in the same manner that bartenders at fancy Dallas bars handle liquor bottles. He was also merciless with the customers who ordered via the drive-through intercom. Tommy would demand forty dollars for a small soda, or, if the customers were girls, he would put a “Mac” in front of every item he read back (“You wanted two MacWhataburgers, two MacWhatafries, two MacCokes and one MacDaddy?”). With some carloads he adopted the persona of a snooty French waiter (“Bonjour, mes amis, ees zer sumsing I can have zee chef prepare pour vous?”). If he tired of dealing with a slow customer, he simply hissed static noises into the microphone.
“Helps pass time,” he says.
“How late are you open? Do you have to stay until closing time?”
“We’re open twenty-four hours, but I’ll get out of here by three.”
Now I understand the coffee and why he never studied for my quizzes. I don’t understand, however, why his parents would allow him to work such long hours. He’s a clever boy. I’m sure in the right situation he could be successful academically. I watch Thomas as he arranges a score of fries into cylindrical formation and shoves them into his mouth. He pushes the rest across the table toward me. “The deep fryer calls,” he says as he stands. Then he adds in feigned gravity, “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in—Abraham Lincoln. I learned that in your class.”
