Last of the Dixie Heroes

by Peter Abrahams

  “Where are you from, Barry?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Because where I come from we wouldn’t be talking about her like that.”

  “Yeah?” said Barry. “Where would a place like that be, exactly?” He went to the fridge, took out another carton.

  “I’ll just have a word with Rhett,” Roy said.

  “Be my guest.”

  Roy went upstairs. Rhett was playing a video game in his bedroom, back to the door, tuft of hair sticking up on his head.

  “Why’nt you come on home with me for now?” Roy said. “Till your ma gets back.”

  “I’m all set,” Rhett said, not turning.

  “What are you going to eat for supper? There’s nothing in the fridge.”

  “There’s Chinese.”

  “It’s old.”

  “I’m not hungry.” Rhett hunched closer to the screen.

  Roy watched him play the game. “Got to keep up with your studies even when you’re not there,” he said. “Can’t fall behind.”

  No answer. On the screen, a pumped-up warrior ran down a dark tunnel.

  Roy drove home. He checked the messages, none, and the mail, bills, then went downstairs and worked on the shelves until they were done. He carried them up to Rhett’s old room-Rhett’s room, period-set them up, tried a few books here and there. He remembered Rhett’s Pop Warner trophy-every kid got one-and his Pop Warner highlight tape, found them in the closet, put them on the top shelf. The setting sun, reflecting off someone’s windshield on the street, glowed on the cheaply plated trophy figure, a hard-charging boy with a football tucked under one arm. Roy stood there until the light faded; probably only a moment or two.

  Roy switched on the kitchen lights, sat down with a Coke, a pencil, a blank sheet of paper. He wrote three headings: House Projects, Budget (w/new salary), Managerial Skills. Under House Projects he wrote bathroom. Marcia had always hated the bathroom. Maybe start by ripping out the linoleum, laying those tiles that looked like marble, then hanging a bigger mirror, framed by little makeup lightbulbs, and The buzzer. Marcia didn’t like that either, Roy remembered as he went to answer it. She wanted chimes. He opened the front door.

  Gordo. Gordo in muddy uniform, eyes blurry, propped up by a boy-no, it was Lee, not in uniform, wearing a denim jacket and jeans, which was probably why Roy didn’t recognize him right away. Gordo swayed back on the stoop and Lee, so much smaller, almost lost him. Roy grabbed Gordo’s arm. Gordo tilted forward, his eyes making an exaggerated attempt to bring Roy into focus.

  “Hi, good buddy,” he said.

  Roy pulled him inside. “You all right?” he said.

  “I hear the rolling thunder.”

  Roy got him in the living room, laid him on the couch.

  “Puke city,” Gordo said.

  Roy sat him up.

  “Roy has a secret life,” Gordo said. He turned green.

  “I’ll get some water,” Lee said, going into the kitchen.

  “What’s my secret life?” Roy said.

  “Listenin’ to gospel. Don’t you worry none. I’ll take it to my grave.” Gordo’s arm shot out abruptly, jerked Roy down beside him on the couch. “Tell you something confidential, good buddy.” Roy smelled alcohol in several states, from raw to almost completely digested. “He’s not gay.”

  “Who?” Roy asked.

  A mistake, asking a question, because Gordo put his lips to Roy’s ear to answer. His breath was hot, his lips wet. “Lee. Thought he was gay, but he’s not. You think he was gay?”

  “No,” Roy said; but he remembered the feeling of Lee’s hand on his back as they posed by the cannon.

  “Could have taken advantage of me out there, couldn’t he of?” Gordo said. “If he’d of been-”

  Lee returned with a glass of water.

  “Not thirsty,” Gordo said.

  “Drink,” Lee said.

  Gordo stopped shaking his head. “Is that an order, Corporal?”

  “Yes.”

  Gordo drank, but the green tinge on his cheeks and upper lip didn’t go away.

  “Where’s my canteen?” he said. He felt along his belt, patting frantically with both hands. “Lost my canteen.” He started to cry.

  “Canteen’s in the car,” Lee said. “All your gear’s in your car, right outside.”

  “Think I care about that goddamn car?” He turned to Roy. “Know my plan for that piece of shit?”

  “No,” Roy said.

  Gordo wiped away tears with the back of his sleeve, muddying his face. “Think of China,” he said.

  “China?”

  “Boom,” said Gordo.

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you don’t know, who does? Big bang, good buddy.”

  “He wants to blow up his car?” Lee said.

  Gordo put his lips to Roy’s ear again. “Ammonium nitrate in the trunk, in the back, under the hood, everywhere. Sublevel five. Boom.” The words buzzed through Roy’s auditory tubes and into his brain.

  He got up, moved away. “Better sleep it off, Gordo.”

  “I might lie down,” said Gordo, lying down, “but you can forget about the sleeping part. Think I trust anybody now and forevermore?” His eyes closed. “Boom,” he said, and then went silent.

  Roy and Lee gazed down at him. He twitched once or twice. The corners of his lips curved down. Can you look unhappy, anxious, troubled with your eyes closed, and drunk? Gordo did.

  “Hope you’re not angry,” Lee said.

  “About what?”

  “Bringing him here. He didn’t want to go home. He wanted to be here.”

  “What about Brenda?”

  “I called her.”

  “And?”

  Lee glanced at Roy. Roy couldn’t tell how old he was. From the face alone, the skin poreless, the features small and precise, Roy would have guessed about nineteen or twenty. But the eyes were at least ten years older than that, and so was the way he talked, the way he carried himself.

  “She’s upset. Didn’t really want him home-”

  “Until he sobered up.” Roy finished the sentence for him. Not something he usually did, if ever, but he’d known what Lee was going to say and it had just popped out.

  Their eyes met. “Which could be some time,” Lee said.

  Gordo twitched suddenly, as though he knew they were discussing him and didn’t like it. They both gazed down at him.

  “Lucky you were there,” Roy said.

  “Where?”

  “At that camp of yours.”

  “I wasn’t. Satchmo boards close by.”

  Satchmo? Roy didn’t get it at first. Then images from the dream of the smudged-faced horseman came streaming back to him, as clear as when he’d dreamed them.

  “They’ve got stables out there?” Roy said.

  Lee nodded. “I saw Gordo’s car in the lot on my way up.”

  Gordo groaned.

  “So you need a drive back?” Roy said.

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Going to saddle up instead?”

  Lee smiled. “Would if I could.”

  They got in Gordo’s Altima, just like Roy’s but newer and smelling of booze. Lee drove, Roy sat in the passenger seat. He heard empty beer cans rattling in the back as they turned onto Virginia, headed for the highway.

  “Hope we don’t get stopped,” he said.

  “I never do.”

  But Roy didn’t know why. Once they were up on the connector, Lee drove fast, weaving in and out of the passing lane, hitting eighty-five, ninety, more. The funny thing was it didn’t feel like going fast. It felt just right, smooth, effortless, safe. Lee’s hands-not big, but strong looking and finely shaped-held the wheel in proper ten-to-two position, relaxed; his eyes gazed straight ahead in that steady way of his, without concern. Roy even wondered if he was thinking of something else. They blew past a Corvette, hit ninety-five.

  “You’ve done some driving,” Roy said. />
  “A little.”

  “I meant the competitive kind.”

  Lee nodded, or made a slight motion that might have been a nod. “The guys are pretty jacked about you,” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What with this connection. It’s like you’re history, walking and talking.”

  “Because I have the same name as this great-great whatever he was?”

  “That,” said Lee, “and the fact that he was in the regiment, and”-Lee shot him a quick glance; Roy’s foot stomped a brake that wasn’t there-“you look the part.”

  Roy remembered what Gordo had said, but also remembered the touch of Lee’s hand again, felt a little uncomfortable. Lee’s eyes were back on the road.

  “What did you think of the bio?” he said.

  “Bio?”

  “I thought Jesse put together a bio.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” Roy said, not even sure where it was.

  “Did you get my message about black powder shooting?”

  “I haven’t had much time lately.”

  “Work.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor Gordo.”

  Twenty, the perimeter, Bankhead: record time. As they crossed the river, Roy had an idea. “What about Earl?”

  “What about him?” said Lee, suddenly decelerating. A few seconds later they cruised lawfully past a patrol car hidden by trees at the side of the road. Roy checked to see whether Gordo had installed a radar detector; he had not.

  “I hear he’s got a lot of things going. Maybe there’d be a job for Gordo.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Lee said. “Or business in general.” He sped up without a glance back in the mirror. Traffic was lighter now, the night darker. The needle touched one hundred. “There was heavy skirmishing right around here,” Lee said.

  “You’re talking about the Civil War?”

  Lee smiled; a quick flash lit by the dashboard gauges. “Is that a surprise?” he said. One of his hands left the wheel, made a broad arc. “Sherman razed all of this, down to the ground.”

  Roy looked out, saw the suburbs.

  “Too bad he can’t come back and do it again,” Lee said, “now when it might do some good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just take a look,” Lee said. “Couldn’t be a better demonstration of what we lost.”

  “You really think of it as we?”

  Lee turned up the road to the camp, slowed down. “The very fact you can ask that shows how total the conquest was.”

  “How so?”

  “They’ve occupied your mind.”

  Roy laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You make it sound like one of those alien possession movies.”

  “That’s a good way of putting it.”

  They pulled into the parking lot. The headlights swept over the empty pavement, shone on the lone vehicle, a motorcycle leaning on its stand near the beginning of the path. Lee stopped beside it.

  “When I say occupied your mind, I’m not talking about your soul. That’s a different issue.”

  “Are you a college professor, something like that?” Roy said.

  “No.”

  “What do you do?”

  “This,” Lee said. “The regiment.”

  “I didn’t know it was a paying job.”

  “It’s not.” Lee turned to him, shifting easily, even gracefully, on the seat. “This mind and soul dichotomy-I’ve done some thinking about it, in reference to Gordo.”

  “Yeah?” Roy hadn’t dwelled much on either aspect of Gordo, not in any analytical way.

  “It’s the cause of all the problems he’s having. He can’t succeed at that place of yours-what’s it called?”

  “Globax.”

  “There we go,” said Lee. “A Yankee thing. They’ve imposed their way of life on us, even fooled us into believing it’s our way of life too. That’s the mental part. But we can never do it properly, never really compete, never be happy. That’s the soul part.”

  “The soul part?”

  “Unconquered, unoccupied, waiting.”

  “So we’re like the Bosnians?” said Roy, not buying it. Why would he? Seventy-two seven, before bonuses! If that wasn’t competing, what was?

  Lee didn’t laugh at his little joke, didn’t smile. “It’s much worse than that. They’re just Bosnians. Look who we were.”

  “Slave owners,” Roy said.

  Lee went still for a second or two. Then he reached out, touched the back of Roy’s hand, lightly, briefly, almost not at all. “You have to get that out of your mind,” he said. Then he got out of the car, mounted the bike, roared away, leaning low around the corner.

  No helmet.

  Roy opened the door to his house, smelled something sizzling. He went into the living room. Gordo was where he’d left him, but not alone. A big, long-haired man was bent over him, going through his pockets. Adrenaline shot through Roy’s body. Maybe the big man felt it too. He wheeled around: Sonny Junior.

  Big smile. “Hi, Roy.” He held up Gordo’s wallet. “Just IDing this dude in case he’s some kind of perp.”

  “He’s not a perp, Sonny. How did you get in?”

  “Happened to have a key that fit. Lucky thing, what with the way this guy’s responding. What’s with him?”

  “He’s a Confederate reenactor.”

  “Got the blind drunk part down pretty good,” Sonny Junior said, dropping the wallet on Gordo’s chest. He came forward, gave Roy one of his arm-wrestling handshakes, pulled him into an embrace. “Cousin,” he said. “Son of a bitch.”

  “How’s my father?”

  “Right. We should eat pretty quick. I saw you were having steak tonight so I threw them on the stove. Case you were hungry when you got home, you know?” Sonny Junior went into the kitchen, Roy following. Sonny Junior had the three steaks frying in a pan, the Creole sauce bubbling around them. He drew a knife from his pocket, cut a piece off one of the steaks, speared it, popped it in his mouth.

  “Mmm,” he said. “Where’d you get this sauce?”

  “Why should we eat pretty quick?” Roy said.

  Sonny Junior took down two plates-he seemed to know his way around already-put a steak on each, cut the third one in two, slid the slightly bigger portion on Roy’s plate. He sat down at one end of the table, Marcia’s place, actually. “Dig in,” he said.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Sonny.”

  “This is so fuckin’ good.” Sonny Junior chewed on a big mouthful, talked around it. “Yeah, your question. It’s about Uncle Roy. He’s not doing too well.”

  “He’s had a relapse?”

  “A relapse, yeah. I didn’t want you to think it was my fault, which was why I came down personally.”

  “Why would it be your fault?”

  “Against my better judgment I brought him that ol’ bottle from up over the sink. The one he wanted. Turned out he had some kind of reaction.”

  “How bad?”

  “The worst kind. My heartfelt condolences, cuz.”

  TWELVE

  ”Sorry for your troubles,” said Curtis from his car phone that night. Roy recognized voices in the background: Carol and Jerry. “Do what you have to.”

  “But what about the forty-eight hours?” Roy said.

  “What forty-eight hours?”

  “Till the announcement. About my…” Roy didn’t want to say it.

  “Since when have you been such a worrier, Roy?” Curtis said. “You can take this one to the bank. See you the day after tomorrow?”

  “Seven sharp.”

  “We’ll announce it then. Picked out that chair yet?”

  The gravediggers were black, very dark-skinned, like pure Africans. They leaned against the bulldozer, waiting for the preacher to finish. The preacher was a very white, almost pigmentless man, old and emaciated, with wispy hair and a wispy voice. He spoke against a strong breeze, and only a f
ew prayerful scraps reached the mourners facing him on the other side of the hole: Roy, Sonny Junior, and Rhett in the middle.

  When it was over, they each threw in a shovelful of earth because that was what the preacher seemed to be motioning them to do. Roy remembered how his mother’s coffin had looked, down in a hole like this, and the agony of that day. He didn’t feel much of anything now. The preacher came around to their side, stepping carefully past the dirt pile at one end of the grave. The bulldozer bumped up the path, blade descending.

  “This the grandson?” said the preacher, looking down at Rhett.

  Rhett showed no reaction.

  “Nice to meet you, boy,” said the preacher, offering his hand.

  “Shake hands,” said Roy.

  Rhett shook hands.

  “Fine-looking boy,” said the preacher. “How’d you come by the fat lip?”

  Rhett looked blank.

  “I was asking myself the same question,” said Sonny Junior.

  Rhett’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Football,” he said.

  “Good game,” said the preacher.

  “Good autumn game,” said Sonny Junior, stressing autumn.

  The bulldozer operator revved the engine. The preacher glanced at it with annoyance. “Used to be a good game,” he said. “Wonder if you folks have a moment. Like to show you something interesting, while you’re up here.”

  They followed him across the cemetery, away from the chapel, toward wooded hills rising on the other side. A flock of crows swept down on them, shot into the trees, vanished. The gravestones grew smaller, simpler, more worn. Names repeated themselves: Searle, McTeague, Nevins, Teeter, Hill. The preacher came to the edge of the trees, kept going. Gravestones pushed up here and there through dead leaves and fallen branches; with just their rounded white tops showing, they might have been giant mushrooms. The preacher stopped before one of them, set near the base of a tall tree that blocked the sun.

  With a groan, the preacher got down on one knee, cleared away brush, exposing about half of the stone’s face. It had sunk a little into the ground, or the ground had risen up. The preacher dug at the earth with his hand.