Yeah, just like probationary status, Darnell thought. Follow procedure, right. He watched his knuckles bring him the bitter water. But this is a one-time errand, cause all I need is the five hundred to get the Spider runnin. Jeans. It ain’t cane sugar. He raised his eyes and nodded.
TRAILS
A MINOR PROCEDURE. THE YOUNG man’s blond hair gleamed greenish under the murky fluorescent light. “Can I help you?”
“There’s a car waiting for me; the reservation was already made,” Darnell said. “Marcus Smith.” He took out the wallet Leon had handed him.
The man showed no change in expression. “Let me see what we have,” he said, tapping the computer keys. “Lotta cars gone for the holiday. Credit card?”
Darnell laid the American Express card on the counter, his heart pounding blood to his ears. Just like a fire, remember the sequence. Head away from the flames. Everything taken care of. Leon said the consultant got boys everywhere—at the DMV, here at the airport, all over. He don’t call em boys. Associates. Like Vernon. Why Leon have to send Vernon, too? He always talkin smack in the street—he probably gon yang all the way up to Tahoe.
The blond guy slid papers across the counter. “Lincoln Town Car waiting for you on the lot,” he said, watching Darnell’s face.
“Uh, that’s a big car,” Darnell said. Shit—a Lincoln? I’ll be hella conspicuous.
“Memorial Day’s comin up,” the guy said. “But you got a problem?”
Darnell shook his head. “No, man, not if that’s what you got.” He signed the name carefully, like it looked on the back of the card.
Virgin gray carpet lined the trunk. Trunk bigger than my damn apartment, Darnell thought, his hands dangling empty. And no suitcase. He closed it, hearing the car pull the metal down all the way with a soft, hollow buzz. He slid onto the huge leather seat, and the car breathed wild cherry scent, so strong his nostrils felt coated with the chemical cleaner. The engine trembled, and he drove carefully around the narrow airport roads toward the exit.
I can’t believe this brotha gotta come with me, he thought. Leon tellin me to look college. He rubbed the corduroy ridges on his thigh. Vernon got that big Raiders jacket and a gangsta light in his eyes. Vernon had stopped at the curb near the rental-car counters, saying, “I ain’t parkin in no damn airport. What if a damn plane crashes right now? Come get me at the exit.” He drove off in a Honda Accord Darnell had never seen.
Peering into the morning-gray dark, he saw the square-coated figure past the parking booths. But another shadow stood next to him. Shit! Darnell thought. This is why I ain’t into Leon, cause people be lyin all the time. Who the hell is this?
A white guy plopped hard into the front. He had short red hair, freckles big as cornflakes floating in milk, and a shiny satin jacket with tigers and names embroidered on the back, like military guys wore.
Vernon got in the back, lifting his chin and grinning at Darnell, but he didn’t say anything. The white guy smiled wide at Darnell and said, “Thought I was never gonna get a ride to San Berdino! Everybody on my flight was goin to LA. And I seen your friend here. Glad you’re goin my way.” He stuck out his hand and said, “Brad Riddle, man,”
“Darnell,” Darnell said, watching the cars behind him, and then, “Marcus Smith.” He heard Vernon snort in the back. “I go by Marcus.”
“Hey, movie stars in California all got three names, right? So this is lovely Ontario, huh?” the guy went on fast. “I’m originally from Michigan. Went to Germany and the Gulf in the Navy, flew a lot out here. I love some parts of California, you know what I mean? The women. The beaches.”
Darnell looked in the rearview at Vernon, who just smiled, sending hollow gashes down his cheeks. Man, is Vernon plannin to yoke this guy up? He ain’t carryin nothin—just like us. He took a breath, nodded out the window at the rows of eucalyptus windbreak ghostly along the freeway. “No beaches out here,” he said to Brad. “So why you need a ride, in California?”
“I live in Seattle now. You ever been there?” He stretched his face over his shoulder to include Vernon. “No? I work for this big Chevy dealer, and I’m goin out to San Berdino to pick up this van. Loaded—stretch wheel base, air-conditioner and heater, Kenwood stereo, the works.”
“You’re gonna drive a van all the way back to Seattle?” Darnell asked. The freeway headed east, and the dawn was just a pale breath at the edge of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Brad stretched his arms. “Yeah, well, this customer wants a real specific model, with all these extras, and he’s got the cash for it right now. So my boss called around, and he couldn’t find it anywhere. But this guy I knew from the Navy, he’s a dealer in San Berdino, so I said let me come on down and pick up this model. See, I’m not makin much on this deal, with the plane fare. But I’m new on the lot, and even if I just make a grand on this sale, this guy’s the kind that’s gonna come back and buy somethin else down the line. And he’ll send his relatives to me, and his friends. In the long run, it’ll be worth the trouble.”
Gotta be a salesman, cause he love to talk, Darnell thought. Brad said, “You guys are savin me cab money, I really appreciate it.” He nodded, looking at Darnell’s clothes. “You’re goin to Palm Springs, right?” he said, slanting his voice back to Vernon. “College break?”
“Yeah,” Vernon said, grinning wider, and Darnell thought, Vernon’s gonna jack this dude, he just playin with him. The nervous cool trickled down his neck.
“Yeah,” Brad said. “Man, the military’s better, in my opinion. I learned a lotta shit I never woulda learned in college. I was on a aircraft carrier for two years, man, you wouldn’t believe the shit I learned.” He reached his arms to the roof again. “This Lincoln’s a great car. What kinda car do you usually drive?”
Darnell blinked hard, flexed his hand by his leg. “El Camino.”
“Good, keep buyin American,” Brad said, nodding. “See, our minivans are doin great, cause people know they want to buy American.” He bent over his bag, and Vernon leaned forward fast to see his hands. “Wait till you see the new sports model,” Brad mumbled, pulling out a magazine.
“San Bernardino,” Darnell said, looking out at the dim buildings.
“I’m goin to the Chevy dealer on—here,” Brad said, showing Darnell a business card, and suddenly Darnell was tired of the talking, of wondering what Vernon was planning. He drove a few more exits, his face heavy as wood, and got off on the wide commercial strip lined with auto dealers. He stopped at the silvery-lit sidewalk, keeping his eyes half closed, and Vernon’s hand came over the seat between them. Brad shook the hand, saying, “Hey, bro, you really saved me some time and money.” He wrapped his dry fingers quickly around Darnell’s hand and laid two business cards on the seat. “Come on up to Seattle, and I’ll get you a deal on a car. Anytime.”
“Later,” Vernon said, still grinning, and Darnell watched the dragons on Brad’s back.
“What the hell was that shit?” he said while Vernon got into the front seat, his jacket rustling.
“Dude came up to me when I was parkin the car.” Vernon didn’t look back at Brad. “You know how you can look at his mouth and tell he talks a lot? I like to hear white boys like that, they always make that spit by their mouth. Like bubbles. I knew he was gon talk. You ain’t never got nothin to say.”
Darnell held his jaw tight. “We ain’t goin to Palm Springs,” he said, wanting to get out of the city. On the ramp, the Lincoln’s power lifted his stomach like an elevator, rushing his chest forward, rising.
“Who give a shit?” Vernon said. He closed his eyes. “Just pick up the jeans.”
Darnell drove against the heavy traffic coming out of the east to commute to LA. No one was headed to Banning. He saw the chamise thick, the ceanothus blooming pale-blue high up on the slopes of the pass. This was the other side of the ridge from his old route, to the station. He breathed evenly, scanning the arroyos, dry and sandy. No water this spring, but the season ain’t started yet.
> Another fire last week—a column of smoke had risen thin and dark on Saturday, a day he didn’t have to walk around all afternoon to pretend he still had a job. The smoke blended into the air already gray-thick with smog, and Darnell could tell from the black roil it was the riverbottom again, where the homeless men were still cooking.
He’d squatted in the hot shade on the balcony, where Charolette insisted on playing, winding threads in and out of the wrought iron, and he knew Brenda’s eyes were hard on his back. But when the pillowy smoke thickened, he didn’t tell her the car needed gas or he could run to Thrifty for ice cream. No, Brenda, I ain’t gon chase the smoke.
Just before Banning, he saw the field where they’d cleared the tumbleweeds. It was already plowed, the furrows powder-dry, the ditch thick with ashes.
“Wake up, brotha,” he whispered to Vernon.
At a boxlike stucco duplex just off the freeway, a man was watching for them from the open front door. His face was moon-pale and round, his eyes and mouth thin crescents of dark. He pushed forward a large box, sealed with tape, the mailing labels torn off in rough smears; Vernon didn’t get out of the car. “Put the box in the back,” he said, barely glancing at the man. “The money been took care of.”
When Darnell looked back at the duplex from the street, he saw tiny faces bobbing around the man’s legs, and a woman came from the yard in a long, wrap-around skirt. He said, “I read in the paper that Hmong families got lots of kids.”
“Just like niggas,” Vernon said, his eyes half closed again.
Darnell got back on the freeway. “Why you always say ‘niggas’?” he asked, trying to keep the anger from his voice. “Why you can’t say ‘brothas’? Or ‘Africans,’ like Brother Lobo?”
“Cause it ain’t no difference. Unless you a nigga wit a attitude.” Vernon’s voice was hard. “Rio Seco niggas. Not me.” He lifted his chin toward a gas station and minimart at the next exit. “Stop over there and get your shit.”
Leon had said, “Banning your second home, right? The man say get a map for the rest. That’s why you goin.” Darnell pulled into the station, and Vernon said, “Get me a Choco-dile. Brotha.”
The sun was up fat and hot already. Seven o’clock, rush-hour traffic, Darnell thought, looking at the map on the front seat. He’d stopped at the turnoff just before the exit to the station. He looked up the mountain at the winding highway. How bout if I make a quick run up there and tell Fricke hey? Yeah—he and Vernon can talk about travelin. “You want to go through LA?” he asked Vernon, looking at the three possible routes on the map. Interstate 5, through LA, cops everywhere. More towns on Route 99. No-man’s land on 395, through the high desert.
“You don’t know shit about LA,” Vernon said. “You wouldn’t know how to get to my hood.”
“Where you from?”
“Fifty-first and Denker,” Vernon said, turning his head slowly to look at Darnell. “Fuck LA, too. I ain’t there no more.”
“We could go through the high desert and cut back in at Bakersfield,” Darnell said.
“Who give a shit?” Vernon said. “Just go.”
Darnell drove in silence, watching the brown mountains rise up before them. Look like fungus killin off some chaparral on the south side over there, he thought. Like this brotha want to hear that. I got a driver job now. Just two dudes on a shift—but at least Donnie talked. I can’t say nothin to Vernon. I’m just a chauffeur. Until a cop see me. What if they got them drug-sniffin dogs, and they can smell somethin in the jeans? Damn. He took a bite of the doughnut, drank from the milk carton. Looking at the back from habit, he saw Adohr Farms—Chino. Still trippin on that. The candy bar from Hershey, Pennsylvania. Who cares where? Chino—milk and prisons. Where Louis is now—for doin what you doin. The Lincoln’s powerful, smooth thrust didn’t shiver, up over the Cajon Pass. The way Pops came down from Oklahoma. Don’t think about that, either.
He looked at the desert below, twisted ridges of brown with deep chasms cutting through, expanses of dirt and rock with lighter road strips crisscrossing. The Helitorch, throwin down lines like that for the deer, he thought, trying to calm himself. Fricke up there talkin about how thick the chaparral was, how the animals live better after a fire cause they can get that new grass shootin up from the ashes. Trails—not this year, home boy. He couldn’t help it—his eyes filmed blurry, and he slammed the stem scar against the window to make his knuckles sting.
Vernon jumped. He must have fallen asleep, because his shoulder had started to lean against Darnell’s arm. He jerked his head, closed his mouth, and Darnell saw the wet shine of drool at the corner of his mouth. Darnell swallowed hard, thought, This dude sleepin closer to me than Brenda. Breathin my air.
“Big-ass car put me out like a baby,” Vernon mumbled, rubbing his lips with his wrist. He stared at Darnell. “Don’t fuck up, okay?” He clenched his jacket closed with one fist and his head came at Darnell when he slid himself over the seat into the back. “I’ma sleep like a baby, man.”
Vernon must don’t have a baby if he talkin about sleepin like one. Darnell stared at the mountains all around, their flanks studded with sparse brush. Babies thrash around. He’d lain awake most of the night, worrying that he’d sleep past the time, preparing what to say to Brenda if she heard him dressing. But she didn’t even hear the mockingbird, the torrent of sounds that poured through the cracked-open bedroom window. Charolette had struggled to stand and slap the wall beneath the window. “Irdy,” she said.
He remembered Louis saying that mockingbirds fought by singing, guarding their territory with sound. “What the hell you guardin over here, homey?” Darnell whispered.
He’d left a note. “Nacho picked me up for a big job. Be back real late.” He stood near the window, panicked. He’d forgotten change to call her from the road. And the warbling only stopped when Vernon pulled up. Louis used to tell them to listen when the mockingbirds looped their singing through the air, and Darnell remembered what Leon would say, while they all crouched near the riverbottom or the gullies of Treetown. “You can yang and woof all you want with niggas, but you gotta thrown down eventually. When you from the Wild Wild Westside.”
Over Tehachapi on 58. Through Bakersfield and up 99. Louis went to school up here somewhere. He was always talkin about the cotton and the birds. Vernon sleepin more like a dude with a hangover. Lotta towns between here and Sacramento. Turn off to Tahoe. Hundreds of tiny towns that don’t sound California—that’s what Fricke used to say. Darnell glanced at the map, at the tiny veins of gray roads that crisscrossed huge areas between red arteries of freeway. His eyes went distant on the asphalt for a minute. Lucky there’s no arteries or veins in the area where he bit you, the doctor said to the back of his head. Darnell’s cheek was pasted to the thin paper on the table. I’ve seen some guys get bit in the groin, near the femoral, and I saw one guy with serious bleeding near his inner arm.
He felt his scars tighten when he lifted up on the accelerator, looked in the rearview for highway patrol. Sweat slid his fingerbends down the wheel, his stomach lit with fireworks. The Lincoln had been doing seventy-five and he didn’t even feel it. No shaking like when Roscoe’s old truck got going too fast, no jerking, nothing, just a big boat floating down the river of freeway, smooth like surrounded by water. No—this is an artery, and we floatin in blood. Hellafine car. Turning on the radio, he said softly, “You in a serious hooptie, fuckin up your life in style.”
The automatic scanner found stations, sound floating from good speakers. But Vernon didn’t stir, his head cradled in the neck of his jacket. Darnell heard the country music on every station. “All my exes live in Texas…” Darnell smiled, forgetting the fireworks in his stomach, thinking of his father and Roscoe and Mr. King working a big job, bringing a radio to play country all day. Mr. King loved this song. Snooter would argue with him, and Mr. King would say, “I can hear what these guys sayin! This is music, boy!”
At night, his father and Roscoe listened to blues in the back
room. “Big Joe Turner! Eddie Cleanhead Vinson!” his father would shout. “Singers!”
“We got Big Daddy Kane! Redhead Kingpin!” Snooter would holler right back. “They can sing, too, but y’all can’t understand cause your ears too old.”
The song ended and a woman’s husky voice wound around a new set of guitars. Brenda was probably singing to Charolette right now in the car, happy he’d gotten a day job. Her voice would travel up sweet in her throat, coming from far down in her chest—under the tiny nipples, the apricot collarbone where he’d left purple circles before the baby. Her throat—the first time she’d made sounds when he moved inside her, so long ago, in the car—had tightened him up inside like nothing else but hillside flames. Brothers used to sing “Do the Tighten Up” when he was little. When she let those low, long sounds bubble up from her throat, and he bent down to catch them with his tongue, his skin was filmed by a thousand tiny threads pulling slow.
Now, if he talked her into coming home at lunchtime so the baby wouldn’t be in the apartment at all, she was silent in the bed, breathing high and hard at the back of her teeth. And they couldn’t fall asleep with skin sealed together.
Darnell felt the long space beside him on the seat, the brush of air under his arm when he held the wheel. No Charolette crammed in tight—her fingers on him, cookie and juice melted into that baby coating he smelled on her palms.
He looked at the map again. He had to stop for gas soon. Names jumped out at him. Manteca. Somebody named a town after the Spanish word for lard? Copperopolis. Strawberry. He shook his head. No, I ain’t gettin no sex from a strawberry. Folsom. Where Leon’s cousin Terrell was doing his time.
South Lake Tahoe. The guy would meet them after they called. He stared at the highway, surrounded by green fields. Jeans. Poppies. This is just a job, not an adventure, like the commercial says for the Navy. Brad Riddle, huh? Yeah, I could join the military, but then I’d be long gone from Brenda and Charolette. Like if I tried to get on a hotshot crew, fight fires all over the country. Shit—don’t even think about it. Just get remuneration for the delivery, like the consultant said. “I can’t wait for the R words,” he said. Go home, get the Spider fixed, and start lookin again. Start the procedure all over.
Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights Page 21
