Memphis Noir

by Laureen Cantwell

  One day, Bill took us to Houston’s off Poplar. It was my father’s favorite family restaurant. He announced that he and Helen were filing for divorce and that he would be moving into a condo downtown. I have to admit, it was a surprise. I may not have been happy with my mother, but nothing ever indicated he wasn’t.

  “So I will be moving in with you, Dad?”

  My father was expressionless, as Helen raised her left eyebrow. “You’ll be staying with me, of course,” she said. “The condo is too small for you and your father.”

  Now, my mother could have won the mother-of-the-year award during the first week my father was out of the house. She had Betty and Stacy leave early every day. She drove me to school and had Bill take a break for a few days. I even saw my mother smile, and it looked like a genuine smile—not the one she placed on her face that seemed filled with contempt for the divorce, but one she spread wide with her cocoa-colored cheekbones up to her round brown eyes, just to show she could. But after a week, something changed.

  I had just finished my AP US History homework, and it was around six p.m. By this time, dinner was normally ready, but I found my mother sitting at the long glass table out on the patio with a glass of sweet tea. She had been out there all day, and she still hadn’t moved and her tea was untouched.

  I gently opened the patio door.

  “Hey, are we going to make anything for dinner?”

  She didn’t speak. She didn’t turn her head. She just stared at her finger that was getting used to being bare.

  “Mother,” I said. It felt unnatural calling her that, but I felt she needed to hear it.

  “Not now, honey.”

  I was surprised to hear my mother say that. Her words came out so desperately. I didn’t understand how divorce would affect her, but she had been trying to appear strong—not for me, but for herself. My mother needed time. That was all. So I walked back inside and ordered pizza with Stacy.

  “She’s just grieving,” Betty would say the next day, as if she knew something about grief. Maybe she did, but I always pictured her as a lonely soul. Never having anyone to grieve over.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  I let my mom take a few days off from being a mother, and she spent most of that time on the patio. The following week, I figured it was time. I went out to ask her a homework question.

  “Not now, honey,” she said.

  She got up and walked back inside the house. Had I done this to her? Was I such a burden? I sat in her chair on the patio. I wanted to know how it felt to sit there for hours. I felt nothing but distance from people, from society. Maybe that’s what she needed—to sit out there and escape—but she couldn’t escape forever.

  Helen would sit anywhere now: in the kitchen, in the living room, and in her favorite spot, the patio. As long as that spot was not near me, she seemed fine. But I would still speak to her.

  “I need you to sign this form for my school trip to Italy.”

  “Not now, honey.”

  “I’m sleeping over at Ashley’s tonight. We’re going to a concert at FedExForum. What should I wear?”

  “Not now, honey.”

  “Oh hey, Helen. I’m heading out to go snort some coke with a few friends.”

  “Not now, honey.”

  I don’t know why I hadn’t given up on her yet. It wasn’t hard to do when I was a child, so I didn’t know what made it difficult now. Regardless, I needed that form signed for my class trip. When I walked into the living room, Helen was sitting on the panda-print armchair my father purchased years ago. God knows why.

  “Helen, I need you to sign this. Just two words.”

  She continued to read her magazine.

  “Helen, I told you this weeks ago.”

  “Not now, honey.” She said it in the same melodramatic tone every time. So I did what any seventeen-year-old girl would do: I ripped that idiotic magazine out of her hands. She didn’t flinch. She just placed her tiny hands in her lap and looked down. I’m not even certain she heard me rip the magazine apart.

  “Nothing?”

  She didn’t move.

  I pulled my blue lighter from my pocket and lit the shreds of magazine. It burned quickly, so I dropped it on the white rug and watched the fur burn with it. Helen would not even acknowledge my existence. It was like I was a ghost. And why? My dad?

  “Dad’s not going to come back. Not with you like this,” I said.

  Helen got up. I thought, Wow, I finally got something out of her. I wouldn’t have cared if it was a slap in the face. But no. Instead, she walked past me, almost stepping onto the burning rug, not really looking at anything. It was almost as if she was the ghost.

  Betty came in. She was beginning to get tired of my mother’s not nows as well. “Here, I’ll sign it,” Betty said with a sharp tone.

  “She may have never been a mother to you in the past, but now would be the appropriate time to start.” She patted the rug with a rag she had used to clean the kitchen windows.

  Weeks passed, and there was no change in Helen. I didn’t know what it meant or what to do, but I couldn’t live in that house anymore. Knowing she was there disturbed me. I told my father, and he decided it was time to get a house of our own. We moved into a home off Brierview. Betty and Stacy didn’t mind. Nothing bothered Bill.

  “We’re moving in two weeks,” I said to Helen one day. “Dad told me he’s going to put this house up for sale. You will need to leave.”

  She remained silent, drinking her tea in the kitchen. I couldn’t wait until she left. She was finally going to step outside the house, whether she was ready or not.

  * * *

  “Thank God we’re not in that place anymore,” Stacy said. “I don’t have to watch your mother sit quietly for hours. So unsettling.”

  I didn’t want to think of Helen either, until my father told me that the new owners were ready to move in and needed my mother out. For some reason, he thought I could help.

  “Your mother admires you. You might give her some . . . inspiration.”

  I didn’t know how I could inspire her or if my father even believed his own words, but I went back to the house. I looked at Helen. Her head seemed smaller, and her hair was thinner with barely any curls left as she sat in the corner of the living room floor. Chairs did not suit her anymore. The new owners were there too, and they were furious, yelling at her and waiting for me to work some sort of magic to get my mother out of their house.

  “Helen. You have to leave.” I tried being gentle. I didn’t know what was wrong, but it seemed far more than my father abandoning her.

  Her little head slowly tilted up, still staring at nothing. I noticed the wrinkles around her eyes, but her eyes looked so hopeless. I didn’t know someone could appear so old and so young at the same time.

  “Mom. Is that what you want to hear? I can call you that if you like.” I got no response.

  “If she doesn’t leave soon, I’m going to call the police.” The wife was frustrated, but I could see genuine compassion on the husband’s face. At this point, I just needed to see Helen make a new facial expression. I didn’t want her in this catatonic state.

  “It’s time to go. You can stay with us for a few days.” I grabbed her arm, but it quickly slipped through my grip. It felt like a soft gesture, but I knew it took all of her strength to pull away from my grasp.

  “I’m sorry, but the police will be here soon,” the husband told me.

  I turned to Helen to see if she understood; she didn’t flinch. “Please don’t do this.”

  “Not now, honey.” Her voice was raspy like she hadn’t had anything to drink in days.

  The police came, and I watched them be kind to Helen and ask her to leave as the wife yelled to throw her in jail. I watched the husband rub his wife’s shoulders to calm her, but she immediately jerked away. I watched the police cuff Helen’s hands. It wasn’t until she got up that I noticed how thin she was. I thought if they had touched her with even the slightest bit
more force, she would have shattered. She finally left the house as I had hoped, but not like this.

  Helen was placed in a hospital a week later. My father and I were able to see her after her first few days. She was in the cafeteria along with a nurse. Her mouth was so dry that crust had formed around her lips.

  “She needs to eat. Why haven’t you been feeding her?” my father asked. We could see the outline of every bone in her body.

  “She has been refusing for the past two days. We were going to ask your consent to hook her up to a feeding tube later this evening,” the nurse responded calmly, as if he was blind to the lack of fat on her body.

  “Can you not see? Start her on the feeding tube now!” I was beginning to get angry. The nurse stared at me, then at my father to see his response. He tucked his chin down, stressing his eyebrows.

  “Do it.”

  “Okay.”

  “No . . . no.” Helen’s voice was emotionless. She fought as a male nurse came to escort her out of the cafeteria. But as soon as they reached the door, Helen gasped. Her body no longer struggled. Her eyes glazed over, and my heart sank. The nurses immediately took her away, while my father ran to her screaming and I stood there unable to breathe.

  I watched as she allowed herself to die. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t; no matter how many times I tried, my body wouldn’t allow it.

  We had a funeral for Helen a few days later. We searched for family members to come, but couldn’t find any. I didn’t understand how my father had married her without knowing anything about her, but whenever I asked, he ignored me.

  It was only my father, Betty, Stacy, Bill, and me at the funeral, while a priest spoke fondly of her, saying she had a beautiful soul and a smile as bright as the sun—but he didn’t know her. How could he speak of her when she had never stepped foot inside his church? He mentioned how her spirit would be missed. But how could I miss something I never knew?

  Battle

  by STEPHEN CLEMENTS

  Hollywood

  Amos leaned his elbows on the rusted sign in the median of North Parkway. He steadied himself, so he could twist the cap off the malt liquor he picked up from the corner store. Selling his mama’s things and smoking a rock gave him cotton mouth.

  He took no note of the irony that he was coming off his high while leaning on a decrepit Memphis City Beautiful sign. Indeed, Memphis was once beautiful, one of the cleanest cities in America. That was a long time ago.

  Turning the cap one last time to break the seal, Amos looked over his shoulder when the howl of police sirens roared to life. Two vehicles flew by, lights flashing, and kept going. Whatever got their attention was somebody else’s problem. Amos pressed the bottle to his lips and got back to the business of forgetting himself.

  * * *

  Amos Johnson grew up watching drug addicts wander the streets of his neighborhood, and he chuckled at the crazy stuff they would say while trying to con him out of a quarter. His mama told him to never give them a damn cent, because all they were going to do was waste it on more drugs. Years ago, one of his friends cajoled two bums into fighting over a five-dollar bill, and Amos had laughed. He did not remember that last week when he beat up another hobo for a dollar.

  His father died when Amos was young, but mama said he was an upstanding Christian man. Mrs. Gladys worked hard to provide and keep Amos away from the wrong crowd, running the streets all night, joining up with gangs. For the most part it worked, and he stayed away from the worst parts of trouble young men get into, except for one epic night when Amos snuck a peek at the wonders of Perfect 10, tasted some Fuzzy Navel, and smoked his first hit of weed.

  In school, his motto was Cs get degrees, but he liked to read and write stories, which got him teased for “acting like whitey.” He was a short brother, which meant he got made fun of and beat up a lot. He was awkward, which meant he had no luck with the ladies.

  But his life changed in senior year, when the Marine recruiter with a funny mustache set Amos’s imagination ablaze with the tales of sex and danger he could have, just like in the books he read, if only he signed up at the MEPS station downtown. He was so excited, Amos begged his mama to let him go. Mrs. Gladys thought it would do him good to serve his country and get out of the ghetto that had already devoured many of his classmates, so off he went, intent on marching to battle under the red, white, and blue.

  * * *

  “Hey, Battle. How you living?” asked Bachs as he slapped a handshake onto Amos, who was standing near the squad car. Officer Bachs was a blond giant of a man who dwarfed Amos in every respect: height, stature, and respectability.

  “You know, same day, different shit,” said Amos, his voice cracking. Coherent speech was not a common trait of crackheads, and Amos was no exception, but around Bachs he made an effort. Amos never could say why his demeanor changed when his “battle buddy” from Iraq showed up; maybe it was that Bachs had known Amos when he was a real person, before he became this chewed-up image of a man. Bachs still served as an infantryman in the reserves and saw some action in the war, but with the rough upbringing he’d had, war hadn’t phased him.

  Amos had found only trouble waiting for him in the military. He served as a human resources clerk, but in the military, HR duty meant it was safer for everybody else to stick him behind a desk, where the only thing Amos could screw up was paperwork. Being a desk jockey did not make him feel like one of the few and the proud.

  Before his unit based in Camp Pendleton deployed to Iraq, he met a girl named Tanisha, who happened to be from the projects next to where Amos grew up. She’d moved to the military base with her husband, but they’d divorced because he was violent. Amos wasn’t violent; Tanisha said he was sweet. She said he just needed an older woman to take care of him, and Amos agreed.

  Amos remembered his platoon leader giving his men a lecture one Friday, something about being careful with the women around the base who looked at Marines as a paycheck-in-waiting. Those words bounced off Amos, and just a week before deployment he got the good news Tanisha was pregnant with his baby. He was excited to be having a son (Tanisha said she could tell the sex, just as she did with her first two), to have a woman who loved him, and he planned to save up his combat pay for a wedding worthy of his future wife. While Tanisha insisted on getting married before he deployed (so they could get extra money from the military), Amos paid her no mind, because he wanted to do the wedding right: his mama would be there, it would take place in a pretty church, and there would even be a chocolate fountain at the reception.

  Just two months into his eight-month tour, Amos took a break from the stifling heat and made a trip to the USO tent. He couldn’t wait to check his in-box: he hoped the next e-mail from his fiancée was something sweet or sexy. He logged on and saw a new message from her and instantly clicked it.

  There was a picture attached! Amos watched it slowly download. Care packages in the mail were awesome, but the thing that kept service members motivated were pictures of hot, appreciative women from back home. The picture loaded little by little, and he soon saw Tanisha’s eyes flashing all sexy-like. Aw yeah.

  Then he noticed the two dicks pointed at her mouth. Cudda bn u, read the caption.

  From a furious string of e-mails and phone calls to folks on his company’s rear detachment, Amos heard that his fiancée had been screwing every guy she could find. Their joint bank account (where all his checks went) was cleared out. There were pictures of her grinding on dudes all over MySpace.

  The only woman he had ever loved (and had sex with) had left him, and he could not do a thing about it. He was in the middle of the desert: there was no quick drive for a Baby, come back plea. There was no making her look him in the eye to say she didn’t love him. He didn’t want to kill himself, but he wouldn’t be mad if an incoming mortar got lucky.

  Even though alcohol was forbidden for deployed Marines, Amos found it, at least until his platoon sergeant found him. When he got back to the States, he earned a DUI, l
ost his rank, then popped hot on a drug test. Amos used to chuckle when he processed the paperwork to kick out a Marine who showed positive for marijuana, but he didn’t laugh when he saw his own packet. Most guys who tested positive made excuses, but not Amos. When he popped hot, he didn’t try to hide it.

  His commander, his sergeants, his mama, and his friends dumped on him. Bachs was the only one who stuck by him.

  “You hungry? I brought some sandwiches,” Bachs said, handing over two plastic bags.

  Amos took the sandwiches. “Thanks, Battle. Mama kicked me out again.”

  Bachs’s eyebrows rose. “I thought she kicked you out a long time ago.”

  Amos shrugged as his bony fingers worked through one of the sandwich bags. “Well, I had left some stuff there and went back, but she told me to get to steppin’. Now I ain’t got nothin’ to sell. Nothin’ to sell, nothin’ to eat.”

  “You want me to drop you by the Union Mission?”

  Amos shook his head. “Naw, man. They don’t like me down there. Keep tellin’ me to get right with Jesus and stuff. I ain’t got time for that.”

  Bachs nodded. He wished his friend would take a step in any direction except the wrong one, but Amos never listened. After a moment, Bachs pulled out a small slip of cash and palmed it over. “Now, you’re not going to spend this all on bur-uh, right? Remember, food is a good thing. Water too,” Bachs said, trying to pass off chastising Amos as a joke.

  Almost violently snatching the crumpled dollar bills out of Bachs’s hand, Amos stopped himself from being outright rude. He never treated Bachs like this, and he wasn’t about to start. “Thanks, man. You take care now.”

  Before Amos could leave, Bachs asked, “Hey, Battle, got a question for you. You heard anything about a girl gone missing?”