Last of the Dixie Heroes

by Peter Abrahams

  Roy went to the front door. Nothing was growing in any of the planters; a Chinese menu lay in one of them. Roy knocked, waited, knocked again. No one came. He thought of Rhett inside, lying on his bed, hand between his knees, face to the wall. He tried the door. Locked.

  Roy walked around the house. The dirt pile in the backyard was even higher than the last time. Roy glanced into the pit, expecting to see sawed-off pipes or twisted cables. There was nothing down there but a football.

  He mounted the deck, put his face close to the sliding glass door, looked in. He saw a big tile-floored room, empty except for a sunken hot tub, bubbling away; and superimposed, his own reflected eyes ringed in shadow. Would he have tried this door too, if it hadn’t been open a crack?

  Roy widened the crack and went inside. Something red lay at the bottom of the hot tub but Roy couldn’t identify it until he’d found the switch and turned off the jets. The surface of the water hissed and went still. A bikini top took shape, the kind with very thin straps. There was a name for those straps but it didn’t come to him. Roy followed the damp tracks that led from the hot tub across the tile floor, around a corner, down a hall, up the winding stairs. They’d dried out by the time he came to the third door in the upstairs hall.

  The door was closed. This, Roy remembered, was the room with the big-screen TV, the desktop computer, and the king-size bed. The next room was Rhett’s. Roy stood outside the third door. He knew it was the wrong door. His business was down the hall. He might even have kept going, had he not heard a sound inside, an indistinct sound, low and muffled, but resembling, at least to Roy’s ear, the sound someone makes when they’ve tasted something good. Roy’s hand went to the doorknob; one of those old-fashioned glass knobs-he could feel every facet. Then the door was open, silently open.

  The big-screen TV, the desktop computer, the king-size bed: a naked man Roy had never seen sat on the edge. Marcia, wearing red bikini bottoms, was kneeling on the floor between his legs. It was like a scene from a pornographic movie except one of the performers was the mother of his son. The next moment it wasn’t like a movie at all, not even like life. Life broke up. The laws of physics seemed to fail. Parts of the visual world vanished; other parts-Marcia’s eyes seeing him, especially-appeared with a clarity he’d never experienced. Marcia’s eyes seeing him, the naked man fumbling the sheets over his fleshy thighs, her new lips: all that much too sharply clear, like some photo lab trick, and then Roy was in the room, raw things surging through him, air supply problem gone, powered up with oxygen.

  He took Marcia’s arm-he was so hot her skin felt like ice-pulled her up.

  “Hey,” said the man with the sheet wrapped around him, or “What the hell,” or something like that, or maybe he just thought it, and then he was flat on the bed, bouncing off the wall, actually, thumping it with his head, sagging back down, his fancy haircut all messed up.

  “Grant,” Marcia said, trying to go to him, but Roy wouldn’t let her.

  “With Rhett in the house,” he said.

  “He’s not in the house.”

  But Roy didn’t hear. “With Rhett in the house.” Roy led her out of the room. Not led: it wasn’t gentle like that. Out in the hall, he closed the door, let the whole house feel its closing, down to the foundation.

  “He’s not in the house.”

  Roy heard it that time, in the silence that followed the closing of the door, the whole house trembling.

  “You sent Barry out with him?”

  “Stop it, Roy.”

  “You sent Barry out with him so you could, so you could…” The words, blow job and others, stuck in his throat.

  “Barry’s in Houston,” Marcia said, trying to tug free. “Rhett’s at school.”

  “Lie to my face?” Roy said, his hand suddenly so strong it could squeeze right through her arm. “He’s suspended.”

  “They let him back.”

  “What do you mean-they let him back?”

  “I asked them.”

  “You asked them?”

  “Let go of me.”

  He wouldn’t let go.

  “Don’t spoil it, Roy.”

  “Don’t spoil what?”

  “How I think of you.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  Marcia shook her head. “If you hadn’t canceled dinner the other night…”

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

  “That’s when Grant called.”

  “So?” But he started to remember, remember how he’d canceled the steak dinner after hearing the message from the hospital, how Marcia had got a beep as they were saying good-bye.

  “It might not have happened, Roy. But it did.”

  “What did?”

  “We went to New York.”

  It came together in his mind. “He’s your doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who gave you the new lips?”

  She nodded.

  “And now he’s putting them to use.”

  With her free hand, she hit him in the face, a raking blow. He didn’t stop her. She started to cry, very ugly, with cawing sounds and snotty nose. “I have a right,” she said.

  “What right?”

  “To be happy.”

  Roy didn’t say, We can be happy, or I can make you happy. That belief was dying, dying, dead. He let go. She covered her breasts. The name came to him: spaghetti straps. “What were you doing with me, then?” he said.

  “That’s what I don’t want you to spoil.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What happened between us at the end, it made it like that movie where they always have Paris. We’ll always have that other night, and that day at the gym.”

  “You think that makes sense?”

  “Grant’s fellowship is up next week. I’m going back with him to New York. I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

  “You keep saying that. Go.”

  “I’m taking Rhett.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I am. I’ve already called my lawyer.”

  “I’ll call mine.”

  “It won’t do you any good. I have custody, and they look at what’s best for the child. Rhett’s going to be living in a four-story brownstone in Park Slope, with all the advantages. A good steady job like yours is not the same as a doctor’s salary in the eyes of the court.”

  The bedroom door opened at that moment and Grant appeared in a shirt and boxer shorts. Overweight, like Barry, but much shorter, with monogrammed initials on his chest and a Porsche in the driveway. Roy thought, good steady job, and pushed him back in the room. Thump. And closed the door. Bang.

  Roy looked down at Marcia, covering her breasts. A bruise was already rising to the surface of her upper arm. She was shaking. He was too. He turned and walked away.

  Roy went home. Where else? He could go to a diner, a bar, the gym: all dismal. He went home, dismal too. He paced in one room, then another. He sat down. He remembered the night Marcia had slept with him, the night that began their brief affair, as she’d called it, and how Grant, Dr. Nordman, had phoned her cell. How fast he’d worked, or she, or the two of them together: she hadn’t even known his first name that night. Roy got up, paced some more. Pacing was better than sitting.

  Roy tried to think. He thought: I can bear losing my job. I can bear losing Marcia. But Rhett? No. Not because if he didn’t have Rhett the past eleven years would add up to nothing, although that was true: but just because he had to be with him, his son.

  He called Curtis.

  “Hi, Roy. How are you do-”

  “I want that New York job.”

  “There were no guarantees, Roy. The opportunity to apply is what’s being offered.”

  “Good enough.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’m going to fly up today.”

  “Fly where?”

  “New York. To meet them.”

  “Meet who?”

&n
bsp; “Whoever’s doing the interview, for Christ sake.”

  “I don’t even know if the job’s still available.”

  “Find out.” Roy was dimly aware that he’d said that much too loud.

  Curtis spoke more softly, balancing it out. “I’ll call you back,” he said.

  The phone rang within five minutes.

  “They like the sound of you,” Curtis said.

  “Thanks, Curtis.”

  “You don’t have to fly up. They can do a video interview.”

  “When?”

  “Next Tuesday, one thirty.” He heard Curtis take a deep breath. “Or today, at four forty-five. But that’s pretty short notice, and everyone will understand if-”

  “I’ll be there.” Roy checked his watch. Three fifty-two.

  “Sure you wouldn’t prefer Tuesday, Roy? Maybe take a little time to collect your-”

  “I’m on my way,” Roy said.

  Roy parked in the visitors lot, checked in at the security desk in the lobby, received authorization from Curtis. He rode the elevator to the seventeenth floor, alone all the way. Curtis met him at the top.

  “That’s how you’re dressing for the interview?” Curtis said.

  Roy looked down at himself. He was still wearing the chinos he’d had on in the morning, but the collared shirt with buttons and the tie with the blue diamonds, his best one, was gone. He was wearing a faded and frayed T-shirt with Georgia Football on the front, a T-shirt he hadn’t worn in years, had forgotten he owned. When had he put that on?

  “Come into the bathroom,” Curtis said.

  Roy followed Curtis into a bathroom with a marble floor and marble sinks. Curtis took off his suit jacket, his tie with the blue diamonds, identical to Roy’s, his silk shirt, finer than any shirt Roy had ever worn, with French cuffs and gold cuff links. “Here,” Curtis said.

  Roy put on Curtis’s shirt. He could smell deodorant, and under that, the smell of Curtis. Did Curtis notice him smelling it? Maybe. The shirt was too tight across his shoulders and chest, and because of that he had trouble tying the tie. Curtis did it for him: a tie just like his, had to be a good omen. He’d never worn cuff links before; Curtis did that too. Roy put on the suit jacket, made of the softest material he’d ever felt, but as tight as the shirt, or tighter.

  Curtis stepped back, looked him over. “That’s more like it,” he said. “Except for your face.”

  “My face?”

  Curtis pointed to Roy’s cheek. “What happened there?”

  Roy checked the mirror, saw three parallel scratches on the side of his face, like red war paint. “Nothing,” he said, going to the sink, dabbing with a damp paper towel.

  Curtis, standing behind him in suit pants and a sleeveless undershirt, watching in the mirror, said, “Why don’t we postpone this till Tuesday?”

  Roy shook his head.

  Curtis sat him down at one end of the long table in the conference room. A technician placed a microphone in front of him, said, “One, two, three, New York, can you hear me?”

  “Yup,” came the reply from speakers Roy couldn’t see. An image flickered on a screen suspended from the ceiling: a conference table like this one, but darker and shinier. A camera hung from the screen; it swung around until the lens pointed at Roy. The red light blinked on.

  “Video, New York?” said the technician.

  “Gotcha,” said the voice.

  “Need me here?” the technician asked Curtis.

  “Call you when it’s over,” Curtis said. The technician left the room. Curtis moved to the far end of the table, sat down. The camera on the other end tightened on the New York table, focused on a yellow legal pad, a red pen, a green soda can from a maker Roy had never heard of.

  A man came into the shot, sat behind the legal pad. He had a shiny bald head, a bushy mustache, purple bags under his eyes. He looked right at Roy.

  “Name’s Ferrucci,” he said. “Assistant VP, tech personnel. We’ve got five minutes for this, tops. You’re Roy Hill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Speak up a little.”

  Roy wasn’t used to the TV talking to him personally. He loosened the knot on his tie, undid the top button of the too-tight shirt. “Yes, I’m Roy Hill.”

  Ferrucci gazed at him. “We got an opening here you might be the man for. It’s on the shipping floor in Jersey City, East Asia section, which sounds pretty close to what you’ve been doing already. Familiar with the V-trak program?”

  “We’re just starting to use it.”

  “Any problems?”

  “None so far.”

  Ferrucci checked the legal pad. “Played football for Georgia Tech?”

  “Georgia.”

  “Who was the coach?”

  Roy told him.

  “They say he was a real asshole.”

  “He treated me all right,” Roy said.

  Ferrucci nodded. “Willing to relocate, Roy?”

  “Yes. Jersey City-is that anywhere near Park Slope?”

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

  “It’s supposed to be a residential neighborhood.”

  “Not one you’ll be able to afford. Pay on this job’s the same as yours, plus two point five cost-of-living adjustment. Still interested?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your boss says you can do the job. Gonna need more than that. Gonna need hitting the ground running.”

  “I promise,” Roy said. He glanced down the table. Curtis gave him a thumbs-up.

  “What’s that on your face?” Ferrucci said, squinting at him on the screen.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell you what we’ll do, then,” Ferrucci said. “If you can get up here by the-” He stopped, looked off camera, listened to something Roy couldn’t make out. Someone handed him a sheet of paper. Ferrucci read it, the top of his shiny head glaring from the screen. When he looked up, he had a new expression on his face. The air began leaking from the room; Roy’s lungs felt it right away.

  “Know K. C. Chen?” Ferrucci said.

  “The subagent in Shanghai?” Roy said. Without taking his eyes off Ferrucci’s image, he was aware of Curtis’s forehead wrinkling. He reached for his throat to loosen the tie, unfasten the button, found he’d already done that.

  “Correct,” said Ferrucci.

  “I’ve worked with her.”

  “She a straight shooter?”

  “I’ve never had any problems with her,” Roy said.

  “It’s not mutual,” said Ferrucci.

  “I’m sorry?” Roy said. His hand was in his pocket, wrapped around the inhaler.

  “She says you hung her out to dry”-his eyes went to the paper in his hand, then locked on Roy-“with three freight cars of ammonium nitrate. Three open goddamn cars, running loose through the rice paddies.”

  “But-” Roy couldn’t get a breath. He fumbled with the blue diamond tie, struggled with it, tore it off. “But-” No air, no air at all. Roy jerked himself out of the jacket, ripped open the shirt, still couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe, but could somehow smell his smell and Curtis’s smell mixed together in the silk of the shirt. “Just a minute, I’ll ex-” Then he had the inhaler to his mouth, sprayed it down his throat, took a deep breath. He was still taking it when Ferrucci spoke to someone off camera and the screen went black.

  “Wait,” Roy said. He picked up the microphone, rose so the camera had a better view of him, leaned his face right into it. “I can explain, Mr. Ferrucci. It’s just a misunderstanding, nothing came of it, there was no harm-”

  Curtis snatched the microphone from his hand. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

  Roy looked at Curtis, up at the black screen, back at Curtis. Was it over? It had to be some technical difficulty, maybe an electrical Curtis grabbed a handful of Roy’s shirt-his own shirt-pulled him close. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

  Because you’re just a dumb nigger.

  But maybe there was a God: Roy didn’t
say it out loud.

  He left without another word, bumping something, table, chair, on the way. A gold cuff link fell to the floor with a bright clinking sound.

  Roy sat in his kitchen, frozen to a chair. Night fell but he didn’t turn on any lights. He opened the bottle of Chardonnay, the only booze in the house. He drank some, didn’t like it, drank more. What he wanted was Old Grand-Dad, and he’d never even tasted it. When the bottle was empty, he got up and went through his dark house and into his dark bedroom. He took off his Georgia Football T-shirt, his socks, shoes, chinos, boxers, lay on his bed, passed out. His mind went blank.

  Roy thought he heard crying in the night. He sat up. That would be Rhett, down the hall. Poor kid. Roy got up. The moment his foot touched the cold floor, he remembered everything: Rhett, Marcia, job-gone.

  Roy stood there, naked and still, for a long time. He became aware of a shadow in the corner of the room, a squat shape he couldn’t identify, didn’t remember being there. He went over, laid his hand on it. The old leather-bound trunk. He gazed down at it, and as he did, thought he heard crying again. Impossible: but crying, and close by. Roy opened the trunk. Everything went silent. He got on his knees, dug through the layers of thick wax paper, found the uniform, held it; heavy in his hands.

  Roy put on the uniform. A complicated uniform, with things he wasn’t used to, like a button fly, suspenders: but he had no trouble with it, none at all, even in the darkness. The uniform fit him like a glove. His finger found the little hole in the jacket right away, poked through, felt his own beating heart.

  FIFTEEN

  Roy heard the phone ring, heard the click of the answering machine picking up. It didn’t all come back to him, no coming back necessary. It was all there now, securely fixed inside, ready to be a part of him the instant he awoke. Securely fixed inside, but maybe not totally understood, because he could still think: Curtis, Marcia, Ferrucci, Cesar-someone calling to make things right!