The Reluctant Prophet

by Nancy Rue

  “You want some experience? Ride with me.”

  Only because it didn’t sound like a line did I ask, “Where would we go?”

  “Back streets—some nice curves. You looked pretty steady, but you aren’t ready for a group ride.”

  “So, what do I—”

  “Follow me, and just look at every situation out there in traffic as a possible ambush situation. You’ll be fine.”

  He turned and took long-legged strides toward a black and chrome Road King. For no reason I could fathom, I trotted after him.

  “On your bike, Classic,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I knew that,” I called to him. And added “chauvinist” under my breath.

  I scurried to my bike, appalled that I was actually doing this, and wrestled her out of the parking space. No wonder everybody else backed in. When I pulled up behind the Road King, the guy nodded, ponytail trailing from his helmet, and glided out of the lot. I considered taking a left when he signaled a right onto Pelicer, but I really, really didn’t like left turns. And there was something about the way he leaned so easily and flowed so smoothly into the traffic that almost gave me no choice but to follow him. Nobody else was leading me right now.

  God didn’t seem to realize I was referring to him.

  My guide sailed onto Old Moultrie, which seemed to me an odd route for a nice bike ride. Aside from the old oaks that hung their Spanish moss heads romantically amid the strip malls and gas stations, it wasn’t particularly scenic. I was supposed to be paying attention to my driving—that had to be the reason for this choice.

  I stayed a car length back and changed lanes every time he did—and realized something two stoplights down when he pulled up in the lane beside me.

  “What’s your name?” I yelled.

  “Chief,” he called back.

  “I’m Allison.”

  “I know.”

  Sheesh. Evidently being a HOG was like living in a small town. Did they have dossiers on every piglet?

  I fell in behind him again, and he immediately signaled a left turn into a parking lot. It happened so fast I didn’t see the gaping pothole in the asphalt until it was staring me in the face and I was staring back. I jerked to get around and missed it, but when I hit the brake, I slid crazily on a patch of gravel. There was no reason that I didn’t dump it, except maybe the grace of God.

  It was about time he showed up. I was floundering.

  “You okay?” Chief was already off his bike, hanging his helmet on the handlebar.

  “Oh yeah. I’ve done worse.”

  “A little word of advice?”

  “Sure,” I said, fumbling for my kickstand. “Why not?”

  “Don’t look at what you don’t want to run over. You had a little target fixation going on there. Other than that, you’re doing okay.”

  “Did I miss the part where I signed you on as my personal trainer?”

  “No,” he said. “Hank was busy today, so she told me to watch out for you.”

  “Remind me to thank her,” I mumbled. I tilted my head back to pull off my helmet, and my gaze snagged on the sign on the block building we’d pulled up to. Resurrection Convalescent Center, it read.

  “I did miss the part where you said we were going to a nursing home,” I said.

  “I come here every Sunday—give some of the old guys rides.”

  “On your Harley?” I said.

  “I take a couple of the ladies when I bring my sidecar.”

  He peeled off his gloves and denim jacket, revealing fit biceps that didn’t match the gray hair on his forearms.

  “You’re serious,” I said.

  “Some riders do Toys for Tots. I do Toys for …”

  “Old dots,” I said.

  “Something like that.”

  He started toward the front door. I was still in my helmet.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m not ready to be carrying anybody yet.”

  “You won’t be,” he said without looking back as he continued to the entrance. “I just need to check on someone.”

  I didn’t have time to hook my helmet over the handlebars, so I tucked it under my arm and once again trailed after him with no idea why. He held the door open for me, and as I slid past him, he said, “This won’t take long.”

  Quite frankly, I didn’t want it to take any time at all. I’d managed to avoid convalescent homes all my life. My Grandfather Chamberlain had suffered a dignified massive heart attack at his carved mahogany desk and died right there like the proud man he was. My parents had died too young and too suddenly to need one. And I’d sworn Sylvia would never spend a day in such a place. The very name was a misnomer to me, since I’d never heard of anybody convalescing and going home once they’d been admitted.

  But as we stepped into the lobby and were greeted by potted ficus trees and piped-in Frank Sinatra, it was obvious this one didn’t match any of the horror stories I’d heard. There were no confused and raving old people strapped to wheelchairs in the lobby or, as Lonnie had told me about his great-grandmother, pawing at visitors in the hall, begging them to rescue them. The faint scent of urine covered by Pine-Sol and baby powder wasn’t even that disconcerting.

  I tried to keep up with Chief as he strode down a tiled hallway lined with paint-by-number oils of pastoral scenes. I made a vow that when I was set aside to convalesce, I’d have a nice, racy Picasso to look at.

  We were about to enter a room across from the nurses’ station when a caramel-colored woman in scrubs with a deep worry line between her eyebrows hurried out from behind the desk, tennis shoes squealing on the white linoleum. Chief leaned his head down to her, his own face suddenly all concern. So he did have more than one expression.

  “What’s up, Willie?” he said.

  “Your boy’s not so good,” she said.

  “Define ‘not so good.’”

  “We can’t get his sugar reg-a-lated. He just about went into a coma last night.”

  “What does his doc say?”

  Willie’s voice pitched upward with her eyebrows. “It’s Sunday. He ain’t comin’ in on a Sunday, you know that.”

  “What’s his number?” Chief pawed a cell phone out of his back pocket. “I’ll call the—”

  “Chief.” Willie put her hand on his arm. “I told you this was comin’.”

  They were apparently talking about some relative of his, and it felt inappropriate for me to be privy to this obviously aching moment. I didn’t even know “Chief’s” real name.

  “I’m going to go ahead and go,” I whispered, already taking a step backward.

  Willie looked at me as if I’d just materialized, and her gaze fell on the helmet I still had under my arm.

  “Old Ed won’t be doin’ any ridin’ today,” she said softly.

  “No, I wasn’t planning—”

  “Can we see him?” Chief said.

  “’Course you can. Y’all go on in—he’ll love that.”

  I started to stammer that this really ought to be a private moment, but Chief was already holding the door open for me, big shoulders caving toward his chest. It didn’t look like this was a thing he could do alone, and Willie was on her way down the hall. I crept past him into the room.

  There was barely a lump in the covers, and at first I thought the bed was empty. Chief crossed directly to the window and opened the blinds, shafting sunlight on a dark, wizened face that was sunken into the pillow. An almost sickeningly sweet smell rose from him, and the hands that rested on top of the sheets were bloated as water balloons. For a man as sick as he looked, there were surprisingly few tubes running in and out of his body. When Sylvia was in the hospital for the last time, before I took her home to be cared for by hospice and me, she’d resembled a hydra.

 
The man’s eyes stuttered open and lit up like tiny birthday candles when Chief sat on the edge of the bed. I leaned against the wall and watched as they groped for each other’s hands.

  “How’s it goin’, Ed?” Chief said.

  “It’s not, Chief,” the man said.

  His voice was weak, but it didn’t sound as old as I’d expected. His head was only slightly dusted in gray, though I knew a lot of African-Americans naturally kept their dark hair into their eighties.

  “Yeah, you’re not up for a ride today, Buddy,” Chief said. “But next week—”

  “I don’t think so. I think my ridin’ days is over.”

  Ed patted Chief’s hand, an effort that set him wheezing. Chief looked around wildly for something—anything—but the coughing subsided and the old guy stroked Chief’s hand again, as if Chief were the one in need of comforting. I’d known Ed for five minutes and I wanted to take him home.

  Sylvia had always needed an ice chip when her throat dried out like that. I fished one from Ed’s plastic pitcher with a spoon and handed it to Chief.

  “This’ll help,” I said.

  He took it without hesitation and offered it to Ed, who accepted it gratefully on his tongue. It was like watching somebody take communion.

  “I bet you need your feet raised,” I said. If they looked anything like his hands, they needed to be elevated. I found the button on the bed and held it down until the furrows in Ed’s forehead smoothed.

  “Who this angel?” Ed said.

  “This is Allison,” Chief said.

  “One of your biker friends?”

  “Yes.”

  Ed attempted a smile in my direction. “She reminds me of Geneveve—before she got on the drugs.” His lower lip trembled and he turned fitfully to Chief. “I think she’s usin’ again. She ain’t been in to see me in weeks.”

  He raised a hand and let it drop, and I suspected it had probably been more than weeks since the elusive Geneveve had darkened the doors of the Resurrection Nursing Home.

  “Maybe she came when you were sleeping,” Chief said.

  Ed shook his head. “I’d know she was here. I can tell without even openin’ my eyes.” He closed them now, just as moisture was beginning to form. “She workin’ the street, Chief. I know it.”

  His voice broke, and Chief took the old man’s face in both of his hands. He said nothing until Ed drifted off. It appeared there was nothing to say.

  Chief nodded me toward the door, and I followed him out and down the hall in silence. By the time we got outside, his face had worked itself back in control.

  “Can I ask who Geneveve is?” I said.

  “His daughter.”

  “Is she—”

  “She’s a hooker,” he said. “Down on West King Street.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to spit. Instead, he shook his head and started toward the bikes.

  “You still wanna go for a ride?” he said.

  “No.”

  He stopped and turned. I was still standing under the Resurrection overhang.

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I have something else I have to do.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “Just be careful out there.”

  “I’m going to have to be where I’m going,” I murmured as I watched him take off on the Road King. The Nudge was so strong and so clear, I couldn’t talk or think or snort it away this time.

  Find her, Allison, it said. Find Geneveve.

  CHAPTER SIX

  My first thought was to head for West King right then, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen anyone down there when I passed through, much less a prostitute working the street. The reasonable thing to do was to go home and wait for nightfall.

  Okay, so maybe reasonable was too strong a word.

  It was only about three p.m. when I returned to Palm Row, which, with Daylight Savings Time still in effect, gave me about four and a half hours to obsess. I went from the red chair to the kitchen counter where I’d always liked to sit and swing my legs while Sylvia cooked, to the window seat in her old room where I’d listened to her talk about “Our Lord,” as she always called him. I avoided either of the porches. I wasn’t up for Miz Vernell or Owen’s input on my new acquisition.

  But as much as I tried to pick up on Sylvia’s lingering wisdom, it was my father who kept preempting my thoughts. I had no trouble imagining what he would say, on the million-to-one chance that I would have told him. He would at this very moment be trying to shut me down. Give him another hour with me saying I was doing it anyway and he’d have his lawyer working on my commitment papers. I could almost see his eyes drilling a hole into me while we waited for the guys with the straightjacket. Do you recall what I said the last time I saw you, Allison? I said the only thing Chamberlain you have in you is the DNA. Well, I’m retracting that now. The only way to account for this is that your mother brought the wrong kid home from the hospital. I have somebody else’s mess on my hands.

  I tried to shut him out by digging into my stash of Oreos, but after I licked a few middles, I abandoned the effort. Oreos were for guilt, and I had no guilt about my father. What I had right now was an unexplained dull ache, right in the middle of my chest.

  Sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, I stared at my outline in the dark wood floor that I still kept shiny in Sylvia’s honor. I was blurry to myself—so out of focus I couldn’t determine what about this whole thing was making me hurt. I didn’t even know Ed Whatever-His-Name-Was, or his wayward daughter, and yet it was as if I did, as if I were them in some way that wasn’t any clearer to me than my face on the floor.

  Only the Nudge was clear. So when Miz Vernell’s porch light turned on automatically and I could no longer see the tops of the palms, I put on my gear again and drove the Classic out of the garage. Owen’s light went on—manually, I knew. He’d have a list of questions for me tomorrow. Tonight I didn’t have any answers.

  It was disturbing how little time it took to get from my house to West King. It was only eight blocks; I marked them as I went. Somehow I’d always thought I lived a world away.

  Once I got there, I certainly felt like a foreigner, cruising as slowly as I dared without falling over, looking for something I wasn’t sure I’d recognize when I found it. What I’d heard turned out to be true. There was life here—of sorts—after sundown.

  I counted four bars on my first pass along the three-block stretch. None of them appeared to have air-conditioning because their doors were propped open and figures lounged in the doorways, bottles in hand, sweat gleaming in the light of the bare bulbs screwed in above their heads. Although I could hear raspy female laughter mingled with the battering music from within, by the time I was almost to I-95, I hadn’t seen any women on the sidewalks.

  What was I expecting? Pretty women stopping cars? Where did prostitutes advertise their—how did they pick up a trick? Find a john?

  I rolled my eyes inside my helmet. I didn’t even know the language. How was I supposed to talk to this woman if I did find her? Maybe I would have been better off dressing up like a potential male client. Except I didn’t know how it worked from that side of it either.

  As I made my second pass, this time heading east, I realized that not all of the action was in the bars. People were gathered in dark clumps on the corners and in the doorway of a closed diner. I’d thought West King was scary in the daytime with its vacuous eyes spying on me, but it had a distinctly more sinister feel at night when those eyes were out in the open, coldly sizing up the Classic and me.

  Strangely, though, I didn’t feel as vulnerable as I had in the carriage. There was a sort of implied respect for the Harley in the way they watched—and didn’t hurl beer bottles or epithets. At least that I could hear, anyway.

  But by the time I’d nearly reached
Malaga Street and the “good” side of King, I was losing hope of locating a lady of the night. If I cruised those three blocks too many more times, I was bound to stir up suspicion. Either that or somebody would stop me and try to make a drug deal. They had to assume I was either selling or buying. What else would somebody on a $20,000 motorcycle be doing down here?

  I was just about to make a left down one of the side streets when I did see a woman. I pulled hopefully over to the curb, but she was walking with purpose and carrying a piled-high laundry basket. She took the outside stairs up the side of the auto repair building—C.A.R.S. it was called, as indicated by the plastic letters gone crooked on the marquee.

  I didn’t imagine a hooker would be doing her laundry during prime time. But—wow—did that mean somebody actually lived here? I was completely mystified that anyone would call this place home.

  As I watched a screen door slap closed behind her, I wondered if she’d ever thought the same thing.

  I decided to take that side street after all and checked over my shoulder before pulling back out onto the road—not that I was exactly looking at rush hour. That was when I saw a pair of women across from me, leaning against the vacant storefront next to the tattoo parlor. I’d never actually seen a prostitute—that I was aware of—but when I spotted them now, there was no mistaking it.

  It wasn’t their clothes, necessarily. Half the young women I saw around town wore what India referred to as “hooker wear.” And these two weren’t wearing any less clothing than anybody on Crescent Beach, including the middle-aged men in Speedos. It was the way they were wearing them. Tops cut desperately to their navels. Sleeves dragged savagely over bare, bony shoulders. Pants so punishingly tight they were obviously cutting off all flow of life. There was definitely none making it to their faces.

  The questions I’d practiced at home wouldn’t even come up on my radar as I drove the Harley across the street and shut off the engine at the curb in front of them. They watched stonily as I lifted my visor and smiled.

  “Hello, ladies,” I said.

  Aw, man, did that sound sarcastic?