Axeman's Jazz

by Tracy Daugherty

  “Like black leadership.”

  He laughs. “Exactly. I have a couple of old buddies—warriors from the civil rights days, you know, afros, ‘Free Angela’ buttons, the whole bit—their fire got hot again when Farrakhan organized the Million Man March. They begged me to go with them. I tried to tell them, I said, ‘Ben’s Chili Bowl, the Florida Avenue Grill—how many other black-owned businesses in D.C. can you name? There’s not nearly enough places to feed and bed all these guys, so you’re going to head up there, without women, to crow about yourself as men—and all the while you’ll line the white men’s pockets? Where’s the sense in that?’”

  “So Farrakhan—”

  “He’s just a failed old Calypso singer who still craves the spotlight.”

  “And Governor Bush?”

  “Hey, he lets the dogs run free in the business world, and that’s all right by me. I’ll support him if he decides he wants the White House.” He orders us both more wine.

  “What’s your story, Mr. Bowen? How’d you come up, and where? I mean, since you know so much about me …”

  “Rufus. Please. Right here. Texas Southern, U of H.”

  “Let me guess. You benefited from Affirmative Action, but now you oppose it on principle.”

  “I admit the contradiction. In certain individual cases, like mine, probably yours, the program did some good. But yes, on balance I think it’s harmed us, stolen our motivation, made us dependent on social handouts—”

  “Easy to say now from your high perch.”

  “Listen, every day I sit in meetings where my opinion is the last one solicited—and I run the damn company! As far as I’m concerned, there’s no perch high enough—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, I’m—”

  “My father owned a car repair shop over in Freedmen’s Town, and all my life I couldn’t wait to get out of there. When guys my age moved into the middle class we were turning traitor.’ Now some of my friends sit around their gated yards and complain about the ‘other Negroes’—people like your uncle and your cousin, like Reggie. That’s not me, see. I still have loyalties to the old neighborhood. But I don’t apologize for wanting to lead a more comfortable life. Or for wanting to improve the old stomping grounds.”

  “For being economically conservative’?” He laughs. Of course he’s right, I think. This is what being with a man is supposed to be like, nice surroundings, pleasant wine, intelligent conversation. “It was a good thing you did for Reggie, arranging for that computer.”

  “I was happy to help him out. He’s doing great work.”

  “But I’ve got to ask you—” I sit forward. “Can I be really candid with you?”

  “Please.”

  “Natalie. Me. I mean—”

  “What?”

  “If I didn’t know better—”

  “Ah,” he says. “You mean, am I just a predator in disguise?”

  “Well, no. No, I’m—”

  “Seizing whatever I fancy and nailing up my signs?”

  “I’m sorry I implied that.”

  “Natalie’s having a tough adjustment, with the child-care and all, but I’ve given her a wonderful opportunity.”

  “I realize that.”

  “One-two-three: Reggie introduced me to her; she was in need; I saw we could help each other. Purely pragmatic. And she’s going to be fine. I really believe that. Let me turn the tables on you, Telisha. Are you playacting some silly ‘Roots’ deal, or are you serious about becoming part of the life here again?”

  I lock on his big brown eyes.

  “All right,” he says, settling more loosely in his chair. “Have we faced our demons enough here today?”

  “If—,” I say, raising a finger. “If you really want me to come work for you, I have to say, PR’s not my thing. The tax shelters, real estate—future plans?”

  “Sure, we’re always looking to diversify our investments.”

  “That’s what I can help you with. Land-use planning.”

  He scoots his chair next to mine. “And when you don’t agree with the board’s decisions, Telisha—if, say, we go condos instead of historic preservation—you’re cool with that?”

  “No. But I’m an adult. And a professional. And believe me, as a city planner, I’m used to losing. As you say, Dallas is a mess.”

  “I’m glad we could talk.” He touches my shoulder lightly. “I’ll get the wine. And how about dinner Thursday? I’d like to hear more. You know, how you’d define the job.”

  The man knows how to smile. And how to wear his shirts. “Thursday’s good,” I say.

  We meet at the River Café, and before I know it we’ve emptied a bottle of pinot gris. He hasn’t officially offered me a job, and I have no clue whether he’s really interested in my ideas. I tell him I’d like a chance, with the help of a corporate benefactor, perhaps, to explore the marshlands near Kwako’s place, see if the city’s running sewer lines out there, and if not, if it might. I’d like to study the possibility of mild grading and leveling, to facilitate sheet-drainage.

  “What’s in it for E-Future?”

  We kick around investment alternatives: housing projects, shopping parks.

  He worries that we’re getting too far afield from the company’s Internet core. Abruptly, he switches subjects, lightens the mood. He tells me about an avant-garde play he saw once in Dallas. He lusted for the white actress. “She was droning on and on in a deliberate monotone, but I didn’t care. ‘God, she’s beautiful,’ I thought, ‘I could watch her all night.’ But, in fact, after twenty grating minutes, I thought, ‘God, how long will it take her to die?’”

  I fear I’ve lost my shot at the job—before I’ve even decided if I want it—but from time to time he circles back to my suggestions. I’m convinced, finally, that he is taking me seriously and is simply trying to balance business with amiability.

  After the plates are cleared, and we’re sipping amaretto, he says, “So. Is it a stretch for you to trust a black conservative?”

  “Still being candid? I don’t have a lot of experience with people like you.”

  “You really want to live in Freedmen’s Town?”

  “I don’t know. It’s where I grew up. After my mama died … I just … I needed to see it again.”

  “Doesn’t Ariyeh work at the school there, where all those kids went missing? The janitor or some crazy—”

  “Yes.” The drink tickles my throat, a pleasing burn. “They’re saying he once tried to talk the city into opening separate schools for black boys. Ariyeh told me this. He felt they were straying, all of them, a whole generation—they needed tough love, hard work. A boot camp kind of deal was the only way to save them. When his proposals were rejected, something in him snapped—”

  “Ah, the famous snap.”

  “—and he went around like the Axeman, ‘eradicating’—his word—the community’s ‘evil.’” Surprised at myself, I pull a Kleenex from my purse. Dab my eyes.

  “Telisha?”

  “I’m sorry. Those missing kids just …”

  He takes my hand.

  “Shut me up.” I try to laugh.

  “No, it’s all right.”

  “How could he hate his own people so much … despise those poor kids … I don’t want to believe my mother felt even a smidgen of that kind of hatred—of Houston, of me, but maybe, on some level, she did …”

  “How does it go? ‘Love is a struggle … no, love is a battle, love is a war, love is a growing up. No one in the world knows love more than the American Negro.’”

  I blow my nose. “James Baldwin,” I say.

  “One of my favorites.”

  “Truly.” I push my empty glass away. “No experience with a man like you. A CEO quoting James Baldwin?”

  “Would you like to come work for me?”

  “Am I really needed?”

  “You’re really needed.”

  “Too far afield? On the fringes of your mission
?”

  “As I say, I trust my intuition. I know I can use your skills.”

  I feel my face flush. Another benefir of the tumble with Rue: I actually feel attractive now. And someone has noticed.

  “I’ll get you home now,” Rufus says and picks up the tab.

  Outside Some Other Time, with the parked car purring, he leans over to kiss my cheek. I touch his earring, the half-moon slope of his ear. “Business and pleasure,” I say. “I don’t think—”

  He moves away. “You’re right.”

  “Not yet, anyway. Okay?”

  He smiles.

  “I have a lot to think about. But thank you.”

  “Two weeks? Can you let me know by then?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Good.”

  “Rufus?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you married?”

  A long belly laugh. “No.”

  “Just checking all the parameters.”

  “As a solid professional should. It’s been a pleasure, Telisha. See you soon, I hope.”

  “Good night.”

  Once he’s gone, I stand for a while listening to crickets, watching the moon rise; its milky light, through low, ropy willow limbs, casts braided patterns on the sidewalks. On the stairs, inside, I’m startled by a young soldier. No. He’s no ghost. Just a kid dropping dexies, wearing a faded old army shirt—the kind you can get in a secondhand store.

  Stuck with duct tape to my door, a torn piece of notebook paper, “Rue” scrawled in runny blue ink. That’s all. I suppose I’m to understand he’s mad at me for not sitting and pining for him. I crumple the paper, stuff it into my pocket.

  Blouse, pants, hose—I take them off and lay them all on the bed, wash my face and arms and chest. A baby cries down the hall, then drops into a hurt-dog whimper. Three or four others take up the call. I weave to the window, a little drunk, watch nothing move in the moonlight.

  A knock at the door. Jesus. Rue? “Who is it?” I throw on some clothes.

  “The night manager, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you.”

  I slip back the chain. A skinny kid, identical to the afternoon Star Trek freak. “You just got a phone message.” He hands me a Post-it note:

  Ariyeh.

  Bitter—Med Center—Emergency

  My face goes numb. So. It’s finally happened. “I see.” A drop of saliva slides from my lip to my chin; I’m too slow to catch it. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. You have a good evening, now.” As he ambles down the hall, he snaps his fingers to a tune in his head.

  I turn back inside. The room is just as I left it, which somehow surprises me. Dirty, almost empty; except for my suitcase and a few scattered clothes, no sign that anyone sleeps here. I wipe my mouth, grab my keys, and head for the hospital.

  18

  THE DOCTOR smells the wine on my breath. He frowns, turns away. Ariyeh watches me closely. Behind a closed pink curtain we sit in a lemon-colored cubicle just off the emergency room. Bitter’s propped on a gurney, on blocky blue pillows. His shirt is open, tossed to the sides like discarded wrapping paper. Rubber pads, the size of clam shells, cover his chest. Wires connect them to an EKG machine. The doctor, who resembles a chubby Humphrey Bogart, has fed Bitter a couple of nitroglycerin pills. The chest pains have eased, Uncle says, but now he complains of a headache.

  “You say he refused an angiogram once before?” the doctor asks Ariyeh, writing on a fat yellow notepad.

  She nods.

  “Well, this time we’re doing one. I want to admit him to the hospital tonight and schedule the test for tomorrow, just as soon as we can.”

  “Did he have a heart attack?”

  “Only a mild one, if that. These mimic his earlier EKG results. But the recurring pains … an angio’s the only way we’ll know what’s going on.”

  While Ariyeh phones Reggie to tell him she’ll be staying with her father tonight, I sit by the gurney holding Bitter’s hand. “What happened?” I ask.

  “I always told you my grave’s waiting for me, there in a leafy corner of the Magnolia Blossom.”

  “What happened, Uncle?”

  “Creepy ol’ Crespi grinning in the shadows—”

  “Uncle!”

  “Got so bad this time I nearly threw up. Called Ariyeh on your gadget.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Don’t let ‘em stick no wires up inside me.”

  “Uncle, they need to see what the trouble is.”

  “Inside should stay inside. Good Lord packed it that way.”

  “And what happens when it gets fouled up? These people can help you.”

  “Had a friend once in N’Awlins, he went to a back alley boneshop for his heart pain. Doctor fed him a baked potato with some red sprinkles on it. Turns out, them sprinkles was ground-up juju, and next thing my man knows, scorpions is pinching his guts from the inside, spitting their poison into his veins.”

  “Uncle, the state of Texas doesn’t recognize voodoo as standard medical procedure. And you don’t have any enemies, right?”

  He closes his eyes. “What I’m really feared of?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m feared none of it works, Seam. Not the hoodoo, not the fancy machines.”

  I pat his shoulder.

  “I tried so hard to kill Grady’s demon. Put fish bile in his whiskey once, shook it all up …”

  “You’ve got a good heart, Uncle.” I kiss his cheek. “That’s what’s going to work here.”

  “Reggie says hi,” Ariyeh says.

  Bitter snorts.

  “Looks like you had quite a night.”

  “Big city living,” I tell her. “You know.”

  She narrows her eyes but doesn’t say any more.

  The orderlies move Bitter to a small room on an upper floor. Another patient shares the space, an old white man who has apparently damaged his liver with drink. He’s watching Mussolini give a speech at high volume on the History Channel.

  Bitter remains attached to the heart monitor. The nurses want to keep him flat, so it’s hard for him to pee. He has to lie on his side and use a plastic bottle. His roommate rises and pisses every ten minutes or so, only partially shutting the bathroom door. We hear every drop. A horse drilling a grassy field. When he comes back to bed, he turns the fascists up.

  Just past dawn, a big orderly who looks like Frederick Douglass wheels Uncle down a chilly hall to the angio room. Bitter’s half-asleep, a blessing. He mutters but doesn’t fight. Buhler, the cardiac specialist, a gruff, no-nonsense German Texan who smells of bagels and coffee, lets Ariyeh and me stay in the room. Swiftly, as casually as you’d scan a morning paper, he runs a tube through an artery in Uncle’s groin, worming it all the way into his chest. On a nearby monitor we see the grid in Bitter’s heart. It’s like a city planner’s map. Arteries branching this way and that. Buhler points to a pinched spot—a feeder road next to the larger byways. “See there? About eighty percent blockage in the left main. There’s some obstruction in a smaller one, too. He’s lucky you brought him in when you did.”

  As the orderly sails Bitter back to his room, Buhler stops us in the hallway. “Usually, a case like this, I’ll stick shunts in those arteries, open them up while I’m in there doing the angiogram, but the location was tricky. Normally, a man his age—” He rubs his neck. “I recommend against surgery and try to treat the problem with medication. I worry about an elderly man’s stamina, fear the possibility of stroke. But his blockage is well-advanced, and he seems fairly sturdy.”

  “I don’t want him maintained” Ariyeh says. “I want him fixed. He’s always had a lot of energy. It would pain him to be impaired, and if there’s a chance you could solve the problem outright—”

  Buhler adds, “Sometimes, too, in older patients, we see memory loss after they’ve been on a heart-lung machine. You should be aware of that risk, all right?”

  “All right …”

  “Inadequate oxygen, fat like little eggshells�
�”

  “Best-case scenario?” Ariyeh interrupts.

  “Best-case, he’s completely back to normal, feeling younger than he has in years.”

  “Then that’s the case we’re going to go with.”

  She has a good cry after lunch, in the hospital cafeteria. Amid the clatter of plastic trays and Frito bags, she leans her forehead on my shoulder. “What did it get him? What?”

  “Tell me, honey.”

  “All his politeness. His goddam obeisance. Yessir this, yessir that. Don’t want no trouble. Nosir, not me, sir. Now look. Shit, T, he’s going to die. And what did he ever ask from life?”

  “He’s not going to die.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Precisely.”

  “He just sat there on that rotting old porch and took it. Day after day.”

  I shove aside my cottage cheese. “My mama …” But my throat catches, and I have to swallow to go on. “She didn’t just sit. She went out and tried to snatch whatever she thought she deserved … and I don’t think she died happy, Ariyeh. I really don’t. I don’t think, finally, she felt any more satisfied than Bitter does. Maybe even less so.”

  “So none of it matters? Nothing we do?”

  “I’m not saying that. I don’t know what I’m saying. Just that maybe—”

  “Don’t. Really. Thanks for trying, but—”

  “I know. I know. I’m just … I’m someone who’s asked a lot of life, right? Scrambled all over, and now, maybe because I’m tired, I feel I’m just me, you know? Just me. Like … what the hell was that all about? But not in a bad way.”

  “You’re not making much sense.”

  “No. I guess not. I’m sorry. Let’s go see how he’s doing, okay?”

  Hitler screams at a crowd. “Jesus,” Ariyeh says. She turns to Bitter’s roommate. “Do you think you could turn that down?”

  The old man, toothless, grins. “Feller’s a kick in the pants, ain’t he?” He stabs the remote.

  Ariyeh asks, “How are you, Daddy?”

  “Scorpions ain’t biting yet.”

  “Huh?”

  He looks at me. His heart monitor beeps. It’s like a toy truck running in circles. “I mean I’m fine. I want to go home.”