The Moves Make the Man (20 page)

She was screaming so loud I clapped my hands over my ears at first but forced them down so I could grab her, blinking there while her things snapped around me and not knowing what to go for. I made a snatch at her left arm but I did not go rough enough for she jerked it away and I chased it, falling across her just as she cut loose with a BIIIIIXXXX against my ear and I fell back with my hands up to my head. This was a mistake. Her left knee whipped back and caught me in the ribs, knocking my breath out, and I dropped my hands to my stomach, only one second before her left arm whipped back from where I chased it and the elbow smacked me full force right between the eyes. That was all for Jerome.

It knocked me back off the bed flat against the wall and I cracked my head hard backwards. For a second everything fizzed and went silent and white, then I got my sight back in time to see three worried dudes running over in green pajamas though not the black dude, and two of them had big leather belts and the other had a shot needle. My hearing did not come back all the way though, for the last thing I heard was BIIIIIXXXX but fading like I was speeding away quite fast. I felt myself sliding down the wall and thought I would never hit bottom, and on the way down everything just went white on me.

There is nothing more for certain about Bix. Nobody saw him again. His stepfather called the police as soon as Bix's mother was quieted down which took a while, and they told him to check the train and bus, and we went, but first they had to give me a couple head x-rays because of my bumps but I said it was okay and we went, just a big ache and very sore between the eyes. At the train station we found a lady who sold a ticket to a kid for the train that just left for Washington DC. She didn't see the kid get on the train but she said he sounded something like Bix only not dressed up, but Bix would have been smart enough to throw away his red tie if he wanted to switch from one outfit to unnoticeable plain clothes.

I did not believe he had run away that far, but only because he had left his glove. After all that work and all that thing meant to him I couldn't see it. But I was wrong. He did run away. Maybe he did not plan on needing it, maybe he was truly going to start something fresh, and there would be no gloves in his new life.

We went to the bus station but nobody had seen a kid and
no bus had left in the last hour or so, and nothing else was leaving that night except for going southeast and then on down to Savannah. This bus would stop in Wilmington, and we decided I would go on it. Bix's stepfather wanted to leave right away to chase the DC train and maybe beat it to Washington and see if Bix got off and catch him. He asked me if Bix ever said anything about wanting to go to Washington. I said I didn't know. The stepfather looked at me like maybe I was hiding something. If I had known anything, I probably would have hid it, for though I had not had time to think about everything and evaluate all the angles, it seemed if Bix wanted to get away maybe he was right to, and somehow it did not feel bad and desperate and dangerous like it would with some kids. It was strange and sad, but frankly Bix running was so much less strange and sad than all of the other things I had seen in the past couple of hours and week that it was more like relief. It might even have been a good thing, who knows? Maybe the only place for Bix was away. I hated losing him right then but even so I felt these things. However, his stepfather did not, he was going nuts trying to figure out how to get Bix back and he did not think any of the angles I did. I suppose he had his side. It is pretty bad to lose a kid like that especially when so many things have just happened and you want to explain them and you think if only the kid could hear you explain them he would not run.

Then there was Bix's mother, and I know the stepfather was torn up over what this would do to her. I did not even want to think about where this thing had put her back to, or what she would have to face if she ever did get well. But the stepfather had to think about it, and I guess he was pretty scared.

Whatever all the reasons were, we had a pretty bad fight there at the bus station. He said I should hide and see if Bix came for the south bus which stopped in Wilmington and maybe he wanted to sneak back to the house or something. I said I would wait for the bus but not hide, and he said Would I call the cops to get Bix and keep him? and I said I would not do such a thing, never. If I saw Bix I would talk to him but that was it.

Well, the dude blew up at me, and started accusing me of things, and pretty soon he had worked up all kinds of jive, like Bix running was half my fault and like I influenced him the night before with the help of my momma to run away, and pretty soon he was telling me I had planned the whole thing with Bix and was there just for decoy and I was supposed to have kept him occupied while Bix got away and that was why I faked being knocked out and had head x-rays and all such trash as that. He got screaming at me, and I got screaming at him, and he like to hit me and I would have jabbed him too, but by that time several big black dudes had heard us and came out of the baggage room and stood tall and got a little tough with the stepfather and he got madder and nobler and put everything down to me, and he said one last thing to me, he told me Don't think I don't understand you, boy, and don't think you did Bix any good at all with all of your black-cat basketball and your black-cat fakes: See where faking got him?

The black dudes did not take kindly to this talk and they grabbed at the man but he jerked away and walked back to his car and left me for the bus. I did not have the money but one of the black men got me on free.

I was pretty cool that night on the way back but when I got to town and called Momma and Maurice borrowed a car
and picked me up I got upset. I broke down pretty bad, and it was worse because I had a headache and worst of all I was starting to wonder myself what I had given Bix and where it was likely to get him? and all of it so confusing to me. For once, Maurice was not the child head doctor. He was just my brother and he pulled no jive, just drove me out and parked near Catalpa Park and we just sat there while I blew it out, him listening and saying things once in a while, all of them gentle and direct and not meaning very much but making me get calm. I got home and was too beat to tell Momma much but I guess Mo did, for the next day she and I talked a little but really we just did not bring things up very far, because I did not want to and told her I would think about things and just get back to normal. I STILL haven't talked.

I had headaches, and so I got more x-rays and they found a crack in my head somewhere and I missed the whole rest of the school year except for the last two weeks, nearly one month of classes, but I did work at home and slept a lot and still got all A's except in Phys Ed. I got no grade in Home Ec but they gave me credit. I deserved it, ask Henri and Mo.

Then it was summer and no sign of Bix and I decided to write this book. Now it is fall and you have the story.

But I have something, too. It came in the mail the day before yesterday. Only I saw it, nobody else, and nobody ever will. It is a postcard. It came addressed to me in printed letters. On the front is a color photograph of the Capitol building in Washington DC. On the back the message spot is blank. There is only my address.

There are some people on the steps of the Capitol. I looked at them through a magnifying glass but could not find him and I doubt that is why he would have sent it anyway, but
I just wanted to check. I could probably not find him in Washington any easier. Nobody could, not with the tricks he was starting to pull. He could find his way in that city and lose his way for everyone else, and he could make sure of his secrets every step. That is what this card says, plain as if it was written in ink right there where it says MESSAGE HERE.

Maybe you are wondering why I am not all touched and tender at how he thought of me in the middle of all his trouble, how he cared to let me know about him, took the risk somebody might turn the card over to his stepfather and so on. Why aren't I all soft and mellow and full of good teary jive? Well, you think about it. Then you think about the way he whupped his stepfather, about the pie he brought to my family, about the moves he laid on everyone in that loony ward, from Hazel to his momma. Now you see? This postcard—sure, it might be the tender Bix reaching out to let me know; but it also might just be the next in a long line of great fakes, baby, and from now on with that dude you got to watch your step and cannot go feeling anything too fast.

I got my own fakes to worry about now. I have not played ball since Bix ran away. Are my moves gone? I doubt it. But I will find out tonight. My head is healed up and the nights are getting cooler and everybody is still full of baseball and summer jive, so they won't notice old Jerome slip out in the dark with his lantern and slide across the marsh and vanish into the forest. Then it will be just Jerome and Spin Light and we will see what we can see and there will be nobody else, not for a long time indeed.

But even though I will be out there by myself I know one fact from now on, one thing I have picked up from this whole
story of Bix and me and seeing how things you start and stop so neatly by yourself do not always end on the spot. The fact is—if you are faking, somebody is taking. This is true for me, juking through the woods with my ball, and for Bix, cutting through the streets of DC with his life. If nobody else is there to take the fake, then for good or bad a part of your own self will follow it.

There are no moves you truly make alone.

Cover art © 2003 by Chris Rogers