William wiped his nose with the back of a finger as if a memory impulse. He said, “Man, those was horrible times, and I want ’em back sometimes, so bad. That’s what that shit do to you.”
His genuine grief cut through Vincent’s impatience with the man. “So it wasn’t a user’s quantity they caught you with,” he said softly.
“Good ole Andy,” William murmured. “He thought of hisself as some kind of businessman dealer, but all he did was sell enough to earn him a set of mag wheels for his classic Trans Am, buy drinks for everyone in the bar and date the ladies. Rest of his earnings went straight up his nose.”
“You were dealing with him,” Vincent said, prodding the story along.
“Not really. Sometimes I’d pass along packages to his friends as favors ’cuz he was giving me my shit for free. That’s what happened the night I got caught.” William rubbed a hand across his face. “There was a party somewhere. I was drunk, I was high, don’t even know all the shit I took. At some point I remember Andy calling me over and handing me a plastic packet. You know, those resealable pouches you put leftovers in? Only this one had blow. When the cops stopped me for weaving, there it was, right there on the passenger seat. Tell the truth, I’d forgotten it was there. Ain’t that something?”
The way he talked, it sounded more like a stupid stunt gone wrong than felony-weight possession, which is what it obviously turned out to be.
“What about now?” Vincent asked, anxious to get back to present day. “What got you in trouble this time?”
William leaned an elbow on the cooler lid and stretched out so he lay almost supine. “Well, me and Andy got together, of course.” Like it had been inevitable.
“Andy didn’t go to prison when you did?”
“One thing I ain’t is a snitch.”
Which would explain the hard time.
“I wasn’t too surprised Candy left,” said William, the floodgates of conversation seemingly having opened. “She stuck by me in prison, even married me in there. Our wedding night was actually a wedding hour in a cell with guards snickering on the other side. Every girl’s dream, huh? But the one thing she did say was, ‘you hang around with my brother again, I’m outta here.’” William looked around the cleaned-out apartment. “Wasn’t bluffing, was she?”
Still more background, still not getting them much closer to recent events. “So, the other night,” said Vincent.
“We went drinking, what else? I was the one calling him, so I can’t blame him for making contact. Thing is, I really do like the bastard. I never had a brother and neither did he.”
“But you didn’t get in trouble for drinking, did you,” Vincent prodded.
“No. It was when some goddamn Arab at a convenience store on Clark Avenue refused to sell us any more beer. That’s when the trouble began. You ever hear of a Arab who won’t sell you beer just ’cuz you’re hammered? Me neither. But this Arab tells us he’s gonna call the cops. So Andy gets this idea, since Mohammed there wants the cops so bad, why don’t we get them for him?”
“Which is where the false police report comes in,” said Vincent, drop-dead tired.
William stared at the night out his naked front window. “We called 911 and said someone was holding up the place and that we was hiding in the back room.”
“What did you hope to accomplish?” Vincent tried unsuccessfully to mask his annoyance. It was late, it was raining and his wife needed him back at home. He almost chuckled at this last thought, but held it in.
“Didn’t mean nothing by it,” William mumbled, still glaring at the night drizzle. His eyes refocused on Vincent like he’d just remembered again that he wasn’t alone. “Better get home. It’s late.”
“You’re not going to leave me hanging.”
William shrugged. “Only thing left to tell is, we got caught. We hung around till the cops came, was cheering them on and shit from the parking lot. Somehow they figured it out.”
Vincent bet it hadn’t been like cracking 9/11. He closed his eyes as he tried to reel off the probable violations. There was the police report and alcohol for starters, and he bet good old Andy was an ex-con himself. William had checked off just about every parole violation his unimaginative mind could come up with over the period of a few hours. He was going back in, all right. Figuring he’d better get all of the bad news out of the way, he said, “What’s the job situation?”
William shook his head. “Missed today—or yesterday, I guess—and the day before that.”
“Did you call?”
“And say what?”
Vincent let out a sigh and asked the only question that remained worth asking. “Why?”
This time it looked for sure like he wasn’t going to get an answer. William’s face tightened into a mask that made Vincent stand up and open the front door.
“I did it ’cuz I don’t wanna go back to your church.”
Vincent closed the door softly, but not before getting sliced by a cold blast of rain. He returned to his place against the wall under the window and slid back to a sitting position. “Tell me,” he said.
Vincent cleared his throat, shifted so he could itch his ass and said, “You want anything?”
There’d be nothing in the kitchen to want. Vincent knew he was stalling. “Tell me,” he said again.
William studied the minister’s eyes as he squatted on top of the cooler. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You’re not as scared as me, but that’s ’cuz you don’t know as much as me.”
“I don’t know anything,” Vincent said sharply. “That’s why I’m listening.”
William made a fist and scrutinized his knuckles. “I know enough to want to lose Candy and go back to prison. Least there, that shit can’t get me no more.” He moved his fist up under his nose and sniffed loudly, demonstrating his point.
Part of it made sense. The temptation to go back to drugs was powerfully strong and the poor loser felt he’d have less access to the stuff behind bars—probably wishful thinking on his part. But that’s why he’d been so reckless the other night, all but begging to be caught. But what did that have to do with the church?
“That place,” William said, “it’s a blast of hate that knows ’xactly what I want. I felt it the first time I walked in. It’s worse than the atmosphere of any prison or jail I ever been in. I said, ‘Oh Lord, this thing knows about blow, and it can see my need.’”
They stared at each other for several seconds. Finally, Vincent said, “You realize that doesn’t make a lot of sense. What you need is a drug treatment program and I’ll do my best to get you into one.”
Vincent knew he was overpromising. There were no drug treatment centers for people in William Tatum’s socioeconomic group. Not here. Not outside prison walls.
William picked up an empty beer can, let the last remaining drops dribble onto his open palm and licked them like a cat. He said, “I couldn’t believe it, that first time you invited me and Candy to that church. It was like, ‘Whoa,’ I was almost knocked out by it. I look around and see all these people laughing and chattering away…even Candy. And it hit me—no one else feels this shit. The vibe coming from the place.”
“What does that mean?” Vincent tightened his jaw. It was all he could do to keep from shaking answers out of the riddle-talking ex-con.
“It was like a pickpocket. You know, most folks don’t feel a thing, and you find out later you been robbed. But some folks, they feel the tug. That’s how it was. I felt the tug.”
More baffled than ever, Vincent said, “It was a…a presence? A feeling?”
In the shadow-filled silence, Vincent listened to the rain trickling through a downspout.
William stood. “Thanks for the bailout and the ride, Rev. I’m grateful to you, not like I sound. Just the fear talking.”
He looked frightened. Vincent hoped William wasn’t seeing a similar expression on his own face. He practically ran to his car, but blamed the rain. He locked his doors—on a
ccount of the neighborhood, he told himself—turned on the wipers and blasted warm air onto his vaporized windshield. He had no idea what the man had been trying to tell him and no time to think about it.
He was wondering, as he pulled away from the curb, how long he’d been gone from home and whether his side of the bed would feel warm once he got back to it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Patty actually jumped a little when the phone on her desk rang. She looked out of her glassed-in cubicle to see if any of her tellers were making eye contact, but all three were way too busy for that.
Friday afternoons were what reminded Patty that there were still plenty of people who didn’t have direct deposit or the ability or desire to use an ATM. Older people, mostly, but they were all in line at her bank.
As the branch manager and chief loan officer, she didn’t have to deal with them directly unless things got so crazy that she felt the need to take a place behind the counter. It wasn’t that bad. Not yet.
Before her phone rang, she’d placed a call of her own.
“How’s it going?” she’d asked her boss. Keeping it casual, her voice looser than her mood. In the background, Patty could hear music and the excited chatter of young kids. That was a good sign, at least.
“The boys love Tim,” Maggie said. “I’m so glad you recommended him for the party. He instinctively knows what eight-year-olds want to listen to while partying.”
Patty closed her eyes in relief. Tim had sulked big-time after she’d gotten him the job and given him little choice about taking it.
“Christ, I don’t do kids’ birthday parties, are you kidding me?” he’d said.
“Too bad,” she’d replied. “It’s good money and could lead to more work.”
His eyes had widened at that. “More birthday parties? Oh God, why don’t I just get myself a clown’s nose, big shoes and a trick horn.”
“I myself would have never suspected the “Hokey Pokey” would do the trick,” Maggie told her, “but that’s what he’s got going right now and I can hear them all laughing down there. Jeff just walked by, rolling his eyes, so my dear husband doesn’t understand the phenomenon known as Tim Brentwood any better than I do.”
Patty’s laugh was more a matter of tension relief than humor. She pictured her boss and Jeff, the yuppie couple—he a successful lawyer, she a district manager with twenty-two branches under her wing—both able to take time off work to hire a DJ and give their son a birthday party in the huge rec room of their sprawling McMansion in one of the city’s newer suburbs. The contrast to her own life was inescapable, yet Maggie was only four or five years older than Patty.
She assured her boss that everything was under control at her branch.
“I know it is, Patty. You’re one of my best people.”
The compliment brought a lump to Patty’s throat. It had been so long since anyone had complimented her. She thanked her boss and told her to get back to her kid’s party. After hanging up, she’d sat there and thought about the kind words that had so effortlessly been sailed her way.
She was good at her job. And appreciated for it. Here, at least, if not at home, where Tim seemed to see only the stress she brought home with her.
It was at that point that the phone rang. Making her jump slightly. The truth was, she barely knew the extension herself. Her business card contained the main number, which a teller usually picked up. The teller would usually call out, “Patty, I’m transferring a call,” before doing so. As for private calls, they usually came in on her cell phone. Patty’s desk extension was most commonly used for outgoing calls, not incoming.
She looked out at her busy tellers to see if anyone indicated with eye contact that they’d transferred a call. Nothing.
She laid her hand on the phone receiver as it trilled a fourth time, the sound sending vibrations up her arm. Why was she hesitating like that? It just started to go off a fifth time when she yanked up the receiver, surprised to see that her hand shook. She brought it to her face and said, “Hello?”
She touched the phone only very lightly to her ear for reasons she didn’t understand.
“Look in the steamer trunk under the TV. I think you’ll be surprised.”
Patty knew the voice. Throaty, female.
“Why do you keep calling me?” Her own voice sounded flat and resigned.
“Because I know what’s right for you, sweetheart. And you do too. The relationship’s over and you know it.”
Yes, maybe it was, but who was this bitch to tell her that?
“It’s none of your business,” she said, but plaintively, not in the authoritative tone she’d taken in her mind.
“He’s my business. Let’s not do this the hard way, hon. Just look in the steamer trunk, then do what you have to do.”
“Leave us alone,” Patty whispered. She dipped her head to try to hide the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, but she was in a goddamn fishbowl.
“Leave now,” urged the voice.
The line went dead.
Patty picked up a pen, the receiver still lightly touching her ear. She scribbled a tic-tac-toe board on her desk pad and hoped that anyone who looked through her glass cubicle walls would assume she was busy. She let her eyes wander to the digital readout in the corner of her computer screen and tried to think of a viable excuse for leaving work at just after three on a payday Friday afternoon.
Not a single one came to mind, but she knew she was going to leave anyway.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
With its dark, varnished wood bar and the mirror behind it reflecting off of rows of colored bottles, he could almost smell the liquor flowing, the cigarette smoke and perfume and see himself working a crowded neighborhood hangout on a Friday night. There was even the requisite asshole stumbling for a bathroom with both hands clutched to his mouth. Only, the barroom prattle was all wrong.
“You throw up on the rug, Dustin, my mom’s gonna kill you.”
Sighing, Tim let the comforting saloon illusion shatter. He was in a tricked-out basement rec room with a dozen eight-year-olds that made him crave deejaying in a biker bar where meth and crack got dealt in the bathrooms.
Get over it, Brentwood, he told himself. He jacked up the Jonas Brothers to drown out the sounds of regurgitated soda and cake coming up from beyond the bathroom door behind him. At least Dustin had missed the rug.
Tim didn’t understand these little people. Didn’t comprehend their music or their social interactions. They’d thrown action figures at him when he’d started playing “Biscuits in the Oven” from Raffi, a disk he’d bought earlier that day. For that matter, they seemed to be working up to another state of outrage at the Jonas Brothers, God knew why.
“Barney sucks!” they’d chanted at an earlier cut. Shouts and foot stomping had followed. “Barney sucks!” rode the room like a football stadium wave. If he’d gotten a reaction like that at the Beer Belly, he’d have slipped out the back while he still had the chance.
“Where’s the Off button?” one of the little bastards had inquired of his sound system midway through Mr. Rogers’ ‘Bedtime’.
“That’s gay!” another screamed as the scene got uglier. All parental figures had wisely fled the premises long before.
But then he’d put on some Jay Z and brought the house down. After that, he’d spun everything with a beat and an attitude, and prayed the kid’s parents wouldn’t sort out the lyrics. Lady Gaga seemed to be a favorite.
Tim felt like some medieval jester juggling knives and swallowing fire to impress the young prince and his tiny squires and escape His Majesty’s chopping block. Well, he’d just about had enough.
More Aerosmith!
More Soulja Boy!
More Lady Gaga!
The booze in those beautifully twinkling bottles was behind locked glass cabinet doors, but Tim found the beer stash after the kids did, in the dorm-size refrigerator behind the bar. After shooing away little Spencer, Carter, Justin or Jeremy, he palmed a bot
tle and took a quick restroom break. He stowed the empty in a wastebasket and flipped a second bottle cap under the protection of his sound system.
When that one was drained, he found the “Chicken Dance” and played it as a goof. But the joke was on him—the rugrats loved it. Go figure. They formed a sloppy circle and began clicking their fingers as they’d apparently been taught at family weddings.
After this, he got multiple requests for “Hokey Pokey”—and thought, what the hell?—and watched the party vermin stick out arms, legs and hips.
Tim hooted. While it was always the low point of any wedding reception he’d ever worked, the novelty song lent itself well to the raucous parody the young masters made of it. They ground their skinny hips and bumped each other violently when the time came to spin, shake or twirl.
“You put your whole body in, you put your whole body out…”
Tim bent back to the little fridge, extracted another beer bottle and took a healthy swig while still squatting out of view, all but forgotten.
“You lay yourself flat, you pick yourself up, you lay yourself flat and you flop-flop all about…”
Oh, really? Tim couldn’t remember that verse. It was on cassette, though, obviously a very old version of the moronic classic. He was pretty sure he’d played the song countless times, though, and would have known if he’d seen anyone in the audience doing this.
They were on the floor, flopping around like crazy. Obviously having a ball, looking like fish in a net—so who cares, right?
“You stand on your head, you twist and you fall, you stand on your head and you jerk it all about.”
“Ow,” someone cried. “That’s hard.”
Yes, and it looked painful too, Tim thought, wincing as the boys stood precariously on their heads and put all of their weight on their necks. A young master yelped.
“Careful,” Tim muttered as several more boys cried out. Little bodies toppled onto each other, but they all got back to it.
“Let’s not do this anymore,” someone whined.
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