by Bill Morris
Two days later, her voodoo worked again. Denny McLain got a chance to redeem himself back in St. Louis, and this one was no contest. The Tigers breezed, 13-1, setting up a decisive seventh game.
Willie spent that night at Octavia’s and woke up in the middle of the night to find her pacing in the living room, chain-smoking, gnawing her fingernails. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and her Tigers’ cap. He wasn’t sure if she was pacing because of their looming separation or because of the enormity of the next day’s game. He believed it was the Tigers keeping her up. He hoped it was.
Mickey Lolich, pitching on just two days’ rest, faced Bob Gibson in the deciding seventh game. This time Willie would root without a qualm for the white man to beat the black man. Remembering that raucous seventh game of the ’64 Series, Willie was amazed how completely his loyalty had shifted in four short years. Back then Bob Gibson’s race had meant everything; now it meant nothing. Was this a sign, after all he’d been through, that some small thing had actually changed for the better?
Again Octavia was speechless through the first six innings, which were scoreless. Even Erkie was silenced by the pitchers’ superb performances and the mounting tension. With every pitch, the screws got tighter. Willie didn’t know it was possible for the Chit Chat to be so quiet.
Then it happened. With two outs in the seventh, Norm Cash and Willie Horton singled. Jim Northrup sent Gibson’s next pitch to deep center field. Curt Flood took one step in, seeming to misjudge the ball in the bright sunshine, then he turned and sprinted for the wall. He couldn’t catch up with the ball. Two runs scored and the Tigers were on their way to an improbable 4-1 victory that completed their impossible comeback.
The Detroit Tigers were World Champions.
Octavia turned her Tigers cap around backward and gave Willie a ten-minute kiss in the jostling bedlam of the Chit Chat. Then she started dancing with Erkie. Outside, Willie could hear horns honking, firecrackers popping. It was a vast improvement over last summer’s soundtrack of sirens and gunfire. The whole city was lifting off.
Izzy Gould declared that drinks were on the house for the rest of the night, but Willie needed to hit the road for New York. When the post-game interviews ended, Willie and Octavia left the Chit Chat and headed for Tuxedo Street in his Deuce and a Quarter. Everything he owned was in the car’s trunk.
People were pouring out of barrooms and houses and apartment buildings, yelling, drinking, dancing in the streets. The blare of car horns was like the cry of a delirious animal. The Deuce and a Quarter passed through the spray of fire hydrants and several showers of confetti. Octavia held her hands above the windshield, let the breeze dance through her fingers the way she’d done on the day they drove back from Algonac. Watching her, Willie glimpsed the enormity of what he was about to walk away from.
When the Temptations’ new hit, “Cloud Nine,” came on, Willie turned up the volume. Finally Motown had gone beyond boy-meets-girl, had released a record that dealt with something from the real world, the urge to get high and check out of those dark times: “CLOUD NINE . . . you can be what you wanna be . . . CLOUD NINE . . . you ain’t got no responsibility . . . CLOUD NINE . . . and every, every, every man is free . . . you’re a million miles from reality . . . reality . . . reality . . .”
“You like that song?” Octavia asked when it was over.
“Love it. Bout time somebody at Motown woke up.”
“Said that right.”
He pulled up in front of her building and cut the engine. Music was blasting from every window—rock ’n’ roll, soul, blues, R&B, Motown, country—a strangely melodious din. He realized he’d parked in this very spot the first time he and Octavia kissed. He leaned over and took off her Tigers’ cap and kissed her.
“You wanna come in?” she said. “One last time, old times sake, all that good stuff?” He could see she was trying to smile at least as hard as she was trying not to cry.
“I better get going, baby. Got a long drive ahead of me. Gonna try to make Niagara Falls tonight. Gotta be in New York by four tomorrow afternoon.”
She made no move to get out of the car. “I was just rememberin that night you got back from the po-lice station. You remember? The way you ate me up?”
“Course I remember. You liked it?”
“No, I loved it. I remember thinkin I finally met a brother knows how to love a woman right. Guess I was wrong. Again.”
“Octavia. . . .”
“I’m sorry, Willie. We both know you doin the right thing. This been fun and all, but you and me got too many differences. You need your wings and I need my nest. I promised myself, that night at my crib when you broke the news, I promised I wasn’t even gonna try to convince you to stay in D-troit.”
There wasn’t a woman—there wasn’t a person—on the planet who could convince him to stay in Detroit. He didn’t tell her this, though, because he didn’t know if it would soften her pain or sharpen it, and he didn’t want to do anything to hurt this woman. She is who she is, Willie thought, a sweet sexy woman with a good heart who isn’t the one for me. And I am who I am, a man with a story to tell who needs to get far away from this town and never look back.
Octavia brushed confetti from his hair, forced herself to smile. “Hey, Willie, our D-troit Tigers done won the World Series.”
“They damn sure did. I’m still not sure I believe it.”
“I believe it. D-troit City gonna rock tonight.”
“Guess it’ll have to rock without me.” He could see it now—Edgar Hudson and Chick Murphy, Sambo and the Surf—both of them drunk as lords, dancing an impromptu interracial polka right there on the plush carpets of the Oakland Hills men’s grill. Willie supposed such a dance would have to be considered progress in this sick country right now.
“You drive safe,” Octavia said. She gave him another kiss, a quick one, a goodbye kiss. Then she screwed her Tigers cap back on. It looked sexy on her. Everything looked sexy on her. She got out of the car and said, “Good luck in New York.”
“Thanks, baby.”
“And write me a letter soon as you get to D.C.”
“I promise.”
As always, he watched her walk to her front door, the astonishing back and forth, watched her turn and blow him a kiss. Then she was gone.
But he didn’t leave for New York. When he got to Woodward he took a left instead of a right and headed north, away from downtown. He took a left at McNichols, another left at Normandy Street. There were half a dozen HUMPHREY-MUSKIE posters stabbed into the lawn in front of the big Tudor house halfway down the block. The lawn had just been mowed, and Bob Brewer was washing the bronze Deuce parked on the driveway. There was a HUMPHREY-MUSKIE sticker on its back bumper. Bob shut off the hose and dried his hands with a towel as Willie came across the lawn.
“You got time to do mine when you’re finished?” Willie said.
“Cost you five dollars.”
They laughed and shook hands. Willie fished in his pocket and handed a set of keys to his uncle.
“What’s this?” Bob said.
“Keys to my apartment. Sorry about the short notice, but everything I own’s packed in the trunk. I’m moving to D.C. to live with Walter, stopping in New York on the way. Looks like I’ve got a book deal.”
The surprise on Bob Brewer’s face gave way to a smile that was bright but hard to read—relief, pride, maybe both. He took Willie in his arms. “That’s great news, Cuz. Can’t say I’m surprised—I always knew you had it in you.” He released his nephew. He was still beaming and Willie could see that he, too, was fighting not to cry. “So,” Bob said, “guess this mean’s you’re clear with the po-lice?”
“Yeah, they brought me in for questioning, then let me go—cause I didn’t do anything.”
“How bout your brother?”
“They got nothin on him either. Sides, he’s back in Saigon starting a restaurant, or somesuch foolish shit. Looks like we’re both home free.”
There was no
mistaking the relief on Bob’s face now. “Thank God. You got no idea how worried your momma and I were about you boys.”
“Mary home?”
“No, she’s out leafleting.” He motioned toward the posters on the lawn. Dedicated Democrats, Willie thought, true believers in the big lie.
“Well, tell Aunt Mary goodbye for me.”
“Will do.”
“And thanks for everything, Uncle Bob. You been a prince—except for that damn rent.”
Bob laughed and they hugged one more time. The last Willie saw of his uncle was in the Buick’s rearview mirror. Bob was rubbing his Deuce with a sudsy orange sponge. Willie couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought he saw a smile on the man’s face.
When Willie drove onto the Ambassador Bridge, the sun was setting off to his right. To his left he could see the empty stadium and, beyond it, downtown, all of it backlit by the fading sun. The river was molten copper. It looked like a postcard of a place he was already forgetting.
Ontario was as flat as a plate. He left the top down, rolled the windows up and cranked the heater on high as the night came down. There were stars, millions of stars, hard and white and pulsing. He stepped harder on the gas—go ahead and see what she’ll do—and the Deuce and a Quarter carried him at a gallop away from Detroit and into the cold velvet night.
THE END
Acknowledgments
This book was so long in the making that it’s hard to remember everyone who helped bring it into the world, let alone thank them properly. But I’ll try. Marianne gave me judicious readings, cold-eyed advice, and, above all, repeated reminders that giving up is not an option. Alice Martell is the agent all writers dream of—passionate, dogged, and classy. Jessica Case is that rarest of editors, able to dissect a manuscript line by line without losing sight of the big picture. Copyeditor Deb Anderson and proofreader Phil Gaskill are my heroes, dedicated to doing the thankless, invisible work that every writer needs. People will try to tell you that nobody in America edits books anymore. Don’t believe them. It has been a joy to see how much everyone at Pegasus cares about the books they make.
Thanks, too, to my family and the friends who stuck with me through some lean times, including David Newton, Pete Khoury, Loren D. Estleman, Adrienne Short, Danny Fox, Michael Gentile, and my beloved German girls, Katrin and Lotti. I hope the next one doesn’t take this long.
ALSO BY BILL MORRIS
Motor City
All Souls’ Day
MOTOR CITY BURNING
Pegasus Books LLC
80 Broad Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10004
Copyright © 2014 by Bill Morris
First Pegasus Books cloth edition July 2014
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
ISBN 978-1-60598-573-2
ISBN 978-1-60598-602-9 (e-book)
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