by Scott Lasser
“Marlon,” he explained.
“You don’t have to be that boy’s savior.”
“Gotta try.”
“Dirk, he’s up to no good. You say it yourself.”
“He wants to set himself right. I made a promise. I’ve got to help.”
She walked down the front steps and over to his car, so she could speak softly. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s going to move in for a while.” He wanted to tell her about the dinner tonight but decided not to. For Shelly he had to keep Marlon down to small doses. He said he was meeting Natalie, but Shelly wasn’t through on the subject of Marlon.
“When you made that promise to Everett, he didn’t mean this. Everett never would have asked this much.”
“Everett asked only for what he needed. Look, baby, it’s not much. A meal here and there, a phone call.”
“A place to stay.”
“He’s a good guest. Quiet.”
“Comes and goes at all hours. Never says goodbye.”
“He’s growing up,” Dirk told her. “He’ll get better. So please, let me keep my word.”
• • •
HE PICKED UP Natalie at 6:15, and together they headed back south down the long corridors of Detroit freeway.
“How’s it feel, playing judge?” he asked.
“I like it.”
“Of course you’ll be on my side.”
“I’ll be fair,” she said.
“That’s Marlon’s idea about you.”
“He’s a good judge of character, then,” she said.
Perhaps he was. Or perhaps he was learning. Marlon was twenty-five now. Street smart, no doubt. Dirk had worked these streets for more than twenty years, knew much of what the kid knew, which was a lot of crumbling, crime-soaked cement, vacant buildings, broken glass, depthless desperation and desire. The weak and the strong. Lucky and unlucky. A sane man of a certain age—maybe it was twenty-five—would get out.
“So you understand,” he told Natalie. “Marlon is trying to get out of the life, and this needs to happen. It’s a fine line, laying down the rules and not scaring him back to the streets.”
“Why does he want to live with you?”
“Lost his father young. I think he might be getting old enough to realize he could use some guidance. Also, something out there is scaring him.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know it’s scaring him?”
“I’ve got an ear for it,” he told her. “And I’ve been listening for a long, long time.”
II
EARLY THAT MORNING Marlon parked his car by Greektown, but the day had taken him far afield and so now he had E-Call drop him at the Ren Cen. He didn’t want E-Call to know he was meeting Dirk, whom E-Call called “Mr. FBI.” Marlon said he had a dentist appointment, was going to see about some gold caps. Marlon knew it would never occur to E-Call that you don’t go to the dentist after six at night, or that the Ren Cen wasn’t the kind of place people got their teeth fixed.
“What’s it like in there?” E-Call asked Marlon. Marlon just wanted to get out of the Mazda, which E-Call was proud of though it was really just a crappy car they’d taken off a junkie. It was shined to a black gleam, but it was still a Mazda.
“Ain’t nothing,” Marlon said.
“Damn,” E-Call said. “I wouldn’t go up there, all that glass.”
Marlon shrugged. E-Call was scared of heights, didn’t even like driving across the Ambassador Bridge.
Marlon decided to take the People Mover, just like old times. Lately he’d been feeling nostalgic, thinking almost every day about his father. In a way, Marlon was similar to E-Call, T-Bone, Ray-Ray—he didn’t have a father. Unlike them, he knew where his father was. And he had Dirk. None of them had a Dirk. No one else, anywhere, had a Dirk.
At seven, summer nights were still bright, hazy with the humidity, Canada almost fuzzy across the water. Up here on the People Mover, a man could feel powerful. Marlon wondered what Dirk would think if he knew $43,000 was stashed between the floor joists in his guest bedroom. It had taken almost two years to skim the money, a twenty here, a Grant there. He’d converted all the bills to hundreds and hidden them in the floor. It was amazing when you saw it there, all in one place: forty-three grand hardly took up any space at all.
They knew, though. Maybe not who had the money or how it was disappearing, but someone above E-Call knew something. E-Call said so. Elvis wasn’t happy. Of course, Elvis was never happy, except about his name, which he’d chosen himself. He thought it funny, a black man named Elvis. “No one in this crew better be skimming,” E-Call said. “They find out it’s one a us—hell, they even think it’s one a us—we all dead.”
It was getting to be a risk to stick around, and Marlon figured it was a good time to step out. They wouldn’t find him. Palmer Woods was way out of the territory, and Marlon would go north into the white areas for work. He’d lie low till he didn’t have to look over his shoulder. Once he was sure no one was looking for him, he’d head west. Start over, just like Dirk was always telling him to do.
And no doubt it was what his father would want. He wished he could talk to the man now. He wanted to know what he’d say. In the past, the answer was obvious: get an education and a job at a desk. “It’s the way of the world, son,” his father once said. “Sweat your ass off in some plant, you make a little. Sit at a nice desk, eat your lunch with silverware, you make a lot. You just need the diploma. It’s the key to the kingdom.” But now there were hardly any desk jobs left; it was a different world in Detroit. Out west, though, there was supposed to be opportunity. And schooling was cheap. So maybe the answer was the same, just not in Detroit.
Getting on the People Mover at the Ren Cen meant he got to do almost the full loop before he got to Greektown, not a bad deal for fifty cents, a loop that ran by Joe Louis and Cobo, up almost to the new stadiums, and then down to Greektown. Marlon was the only person he knew who’d ever been on the People Mover. It was something tourists did, like people from Warren or Southfield, white or black. They were around him now, and he noticed they kept their distance, gave him all the space he needed. I ain’t packin’, he wanted to say, but even then he doubted they’d take the chance.
The restaurant had statues and fountains and waiters who lit cheese on fire and yelled “Opa!” Greece, he thought, must be one fucked-up place, but they ate well, better than cheeseburgers, and Marlon liked cheeseburgers. Marlon looked around: white folk mostly, and no Dirk or his sister. This was good, that he was first. It was advice he’d once heard Dre tell E-Call: you got a meet, you get there first. That way you could see what was coming at you.
Next thing Marlon knew, Dirk was hugging him, that whole big body and that cologne Dirk wore covering him like a blanket. One thing about Dirk: he was a big dude, six-three, an old man now, like fifty or something, but still tough-looking. Mr. FBI, the undercover brother. The white sister, Natalie, just stuck out her hand. “Nice to see you again, Marlon,” she said.
She was older but still a good-looking woman, and people kept looking over at the table, at this blond girl with the two black guys. It didn’t bother Marlon much; he was used to getting stared at in the nice parts of town. He waited it out while the conversation went through stories of Dirk growing up with Marlon’s father and the crazy things they did when they were young, which weren’t really all that crazy, since what scared them most was getting caught by Marlon’s grandfather and that just wasn’t scary. At one point Marlon went to the john so he could check his text messages—the phone had been vibrating in his pocket—and he found three from E-Call. Jackson had been shot at, maybe some turf war crap, but maybe just the kind of random thing that happened now and again. Nonetheless, Elvis had everyone on high alert. Marlon called E-Call. He didn’t want E-Call coming to look for him.
“What’s that mean?” Marlon asked. “High alert.”
/> “Means watch your back.”
“I ain’t working tonight, remember?”
“You think these motherfuckers care you’re working?”
“How’s Jackson?”
“He fine,” E-Call said. “How them caps?”
“Don’t have ’em yet. Gotta go.” Marlon hung up. Marlon had known E-Call as long as he could remember, back when they were in maybe the second grade, drawing cars they’d make when they got older. Soon Marlon would move out of his life. Not seeing his friend would make the world a different place, which was sad but had to be.
Back at the table they got down to it. What Dirk wanted was simple. Marlon had to have a full-time job, pay three hundred bucks rent (“So you know it’s worth something to live there,” Dirk said), and not stay out past midnight.
“What am I, fourteen?” Marlon said. “Midnight?”
“It’s when all the trouble starts,” said Dirk.
“What if I’m working?”
“That’s different.”
Marlon fumed. Then he thought, Well, if I say I’m working, then I’m good. “Fine,” he allowed.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Natalie said.
“Funny how everyone is always thinking they know what that is.”
“I got a good idea,” she said.
• • •
AFTER DINNER THEY walked to Dirk’s car, which he’d parked on the street. It was a sweet Mercedes, damn near new, just like he always had, this one with a white Olde English D on its back window.
“That for Dirk or Detroit?” Marlon asked.
“Must be Detroit,” Dirk said. “This here is what they call a pre-owned vehicle. The last customer put that D on.”
“How ’bout I take it for a spin?” Marlon asked. He said it like he was joking, but he hoped to get a yes. He just wanted that feeling, cruising neighborhoods in a fine car. He’d stay west, he decided, away from the trouble areas, streets where no one would take a shot at him. “Fifteen minutes,” he said to Dirk.
Dirk looked at Natalie.
“Buy me dessert?” she said.
Dirk handed Marlon the key, which wasn’t a key at all, just the thing you needed to get the engine to start. First thing, then, was to get the CD off and find a radio station; you couldn’t be cruising Detroit to that Motown Dirk liked as though it were still 1966. And then he was off, didn’t leave any rubber in case Dirk was still watching. He drove south to the river, then a little west and up to a couple blocks he knew where there were a few bars and maybe a few girls who might want a ride. He ran the AC but kept the window down and the reading light on so he could be seen, and damn if the first person who called to him wasn’t Elvis. Told him to stop.
Elvis was scary because he never, ever showed anything that might be construed as human emotion. Never laughed or chuckled or even smiled. Worse, as E-Call said, you never saw him mad. “That’s scary,” E-Call said. “You never see a dude when he’s mad, how you gonna know when you got a situation?”
Marlon felt he had one now.
“What is this?” Elvis said, dry as sawdust.
“What?” He was pulled to the curb on the wrong side of the street, facing into traffic. Elvis had this one scary beast with him, a guy Marlon knew but had never spoken to. This was Dre. Marlon never dealt directly with either one. E-Call did that and it frightened him, and that was good enough reason for Marlon to stay away.
“This is how you’re on high alert?”
“I thought here, on the West Side—”
“And you’re driving a 500 Series now? Where’d you get that bank?”
“Sixty grand easy,” said Dre.
“It ain’t mine.”
“Detroit nigger shouldn’t be driving no foreign car,” Dre said.
“It ain’t yours. You stole it, you’re saying,” said Elvis.
“It’s my uncle’s.” As soon as the words were out, Marlon knew they were a mistake. Saying he stole it was the right answer. The truth was dangerous.
“You,” Elvis said, “got a rich uncle.”
Dre smiled. Behind Elvis and Dre, people walked up the sidewalk but didn’t look over, which wasn’t normal. People knew Elvis, and no one wanted to witness anything.
Marlon tried to explain. As proof he put on the CD player, and some raspy guy started singing about a girl named Bernadette.
“See,” Marlon said. “It’s my uncle’s. I wouldn’t be listening to that ancient-school shit.”
“You making fun of Levi Stubbs?”
“Who?”
“Where’d you get the money for this car?” Elvis wanted to know.
“It ain’t my car,” Marlon pleaded.
“I can find you.”
“It ain’t my car.”
Elvis just stared, and Marlon felt like he might piss himself. He looked straight ahead and whispered to the dash, “It ain’t my car.” It wasn’t right. There was nothing wrong with borrowing a car. If shit went down now, over this . . .
Then, ahead, he saw a cop car turn onto the street. The car came right at him, then flashed its lights. A loudspeaker said, “Move it. Get on the right side of the road.”
Marlon pulled out without looking back. At first he couldn’t breathe, and then he was gasping. He headed straight back to Greektown. He turned up the AC and tried to flutter his shirt. His hand was shaking. It took a moment to get a grip on his shirt. It was sticking to him, wet as if he’d been caught in a downpour.
III
THEY SAT AT the wooden bar, eating baklava and drinking coffee, Dirk’s left arm resting on the counter. His skin was a rich café au lait color. Natalie stared at the hair on that arm, curly and black.
“Why’d you start shaving your head?” she asked him.
He patted the stubble. “It isn’t shaved.”
“Close.”
“Yeah, well, I’m close to bald. Doesn’t look too bad, does it?”
“No,” she said, and she meant it. He was a handsome man, with or without hair.
“Shelly says she likes it like this.”
“You two still . . .”
“Yeah,” he said. “We still . . . Whatever ‘still’ is. Couldn’t imagine my life without her. But she’s talking about moving.”
“Where to?”
“Texas.” Natalie knew Michelle was down there, no doubt hoping her parents would keep their distance. Natalie remembered being in her twenties. She should have moved away, like Carolyn did. That was the smart move.
“So go,” she said.
“To Texas? I’d be out of my mind. I already live in a palace. I told Shelly, we can visit as much as she wants. Shelly, she doesn’t like the snow. Me, I like it.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one, I know it. Two, I like change, the seasons. Leaves, then colors, then no leaves, then snow, then leaves again. A man can feel the world spinning.”
“Like he’s running in place?”
He smiled at her. “Could have used you when I was growing up, sister.”
“Me?” she said.
“Someone to tell me I’m full of it,” he said. She was fairly sure he meant this as a compliment. He often joked with her, and she rarely could decide whether it was with her or at her expense. It was his way. Growing up, she’d always wanted an older brother, and had had no idea she actually had one.
Dirk looked out the window. “Where’s that boy at?”
“Marlon?”
“Anyone else got my car?”
“Trying to impress some girl.”
“A girl that rides with you ’cause of your car will take other rides, too.”
“You ever taught that to Marlon?” she asked.
He turned to her. “I’ve tried to teach him everything I know. Promised his father. It’s not easy. I push too hard, I never see him. I let him do what he wants, he runs wild. I can’t win with him.”
“You’ve done all right,” she told him.
“Why do you say that?”
�
��He’s here tonight. So you’ve made a difference.”
“I used to tell myself if I saved one kid, just one, then it was enough. Just one.”
“Don’t shrug like that,” she told him. “It’s true.”
“No,” he said. “We tell ourselves lies because we need the justification. The purpose. But I know different now. It’s not enough. Not anymore.”
• • •
SHE THOUGHT HE was wrong. Change one life and you’ve justified your own. She couldn’t think of a single person whose life she’d made better. Henry, her father’s old partner, for whom she still worked, said he couldn’t live without her, but she was sure he could go out and find someone to run his office. There wasn’t a man who couldn’t live without her. And there were no children. Who out there really depended on her, now or ever? So maybe that was where the meaning was.
Marlon walked in the door looking like hell. He’d nearly sweated through his T-shirt, and his brow was wet and clammy. The look of him brought Dirk out of his chair.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, fine. Car’s out front. Got a spot right on the street.”
“What happened?” Natalie asked.
Marlon looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “What you mean?”
“You’re all sweaty.”
“It’s hot out.”
“That car has air conditioning,” Dirk said. “I left it on, in fact.”
“I drive with the windows open. Like the fresh air.” He put the key in Dirk’s palm. “So, we’re done.”
“You’re making the move,” Dirk said.
“Tomorrow,” Marlon said. “The afternoon, like.”
Dirk smiled and then did something Natalie didn’t expect. He reached forward so quickly she thought he was grabbing Marlon, as if to keep him from getting away, as if he were trying to control the young man. The way you’d control a criminal. Instead he just hugged Marlon, sweaty as he was. It was a sight. Dirk was three or four inches taller and much thicker. He whispered something in Marlon’s ear, and Marlon nodded. She thought Marlon might be shaking, that he might even cry, but he didn’t. When Dirk released him, Marlon turned to her.
“Yo,” he said.
