Brambleman (38 page)

Charlie shrugged. “He lived with it for nine
years. That’s all I know.”

“You’re a very lonely man, aren’t you?”

Charlie didn’t see what that had to do with
anything. “I have a job to do.”

“And you’re going to do it no matter what
your wife’s people think.”

“I have no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Well, then, it’s my choice to believe I have
to do it.”

“How close are you to finishing the
book?”

“I’ve collected almost everything I need,” he
said, stretching out his arms to indicate the size of his task—or
the fish he planned to catch. “I’ve got to get comments from some
people. I’ve identified members of the lynching party and I want to
talk to their children. There is something you can do to help.”

“What’s that?”

He drew a deep breath and said, “I need a DNA
sample from you. Probably just hair.”

She regarded him suspiciously. “Why do you
need that?”

“There’s no gentle way to say this, so I’m
just going to put it out there. There’s evidence to suggest that
Isaac Cutchins—”

She gave him a look that told him to shut up.
But he was God’s Own Fool and therefore had to say what he had to
say.

“—is your father.”

“No. You
did not
just say that.”

“When I went to see Pap—Cutchins, he denied
killing Riggins, but I caught him in a lie about whether or not he
even knew the man. More importantly, I got a DNA sample from
him–”

Minerva gave him a look of disbelief. “And he
went along with this?”

“Not exactly. He spit it at me.”

“
He spit it at you
?” She looked like
she’d just swallowed poison. Her eyes were wide. Her nostrils
flared. Then she exploded, yelling, “Where do you get off coming
here trying to tell me I’m not
me
based on an old white
man’s
spit
?” She appeared ready to do what Pappy had
done.

“No, I—”

She popped out of her rocking chair and
wagged a finger at Charlie. “John Riggins is my father. I am the
daughter of the man I believe in. I would be less of a person if it
was any other way. There’s science, and then there’s foolishness.
I’m not a fool, I can look at the photographs and see what I see.
But what that man did—if that’s what he did—doesn’t make him my
father.” She took a breath and continued. “No. John Riggins is my
father. That’s the way I grew up. That’s what I’ve believed all my
life. I made something of myself just like my father did and his
father before him. I’m not going to let you come in and change
that. I am who I am, a combination of what God made me, what I do
with my life, and who I choose to be. You can tell me that I’ve got
… those genes in me, but that’s not my soul. I know who I am. No
sir, you are not coming here and convincing me at my age that I’m
somebody else.”

Charlie didn’t want to argue. He threw up his
hands.

“Don’t look at me that way,” she snapped.
“God gives us our souls, Mr. Sherman. I have the soul of the
daughter of John Riggins. If you write anything about me, make sure
you get that down. My father was a brave man and he died for it.
That’s what I always knew. This other, there’s none of him in me.
John Riggins is my father. Says so on my birth certificate.” She
fretted with the front of her dress. “No. I won’t help you on this.
Write what you will. I’m done with you.” She scowled and gave him a
dismissive wave of her hand.

Charlie stared at her, resentment smoldering
in his eyes. He wasn’t so much hurt by the rejection as he was
pissed. Damn right he’d tell it his way. Why did she think she
could deny the truth? The truth—that’s what this was about. She
needed him more than he needed her. Actually, he didn’t need her at
all. Would be nice to be on good terms with her, but it wasn’t
necessary, not now. He had a job to do. The idea that she owned the
story and could make the truth a lie—that was just ridiculous.

Sensing his antagonism, she took a step away,
then turned back toward him. “I want that land back. Maybe not even
for myself, but that’s not your business. I’m not helping prove
John Riggins is not my father. Do you understand?”

He stared down at the steps. “I understand
how you see things and I understand the big picture.”

“I’ll thank you to go now. And don’t come
back.”

He swallowed his shock at the banishment and
said, “I’m sorry if you’re offended, but maybe you shouldn’t be so
upset.”

“Apologize for what you’ve done wrong, not
how people take it. Now get gone!”

Charlie held up his hands. He was done with
her, too. However, he did want to giver her a piece of advice.
“Fine, I’ll go. But you should get an attorney and put a lien on
that property.”

She stood with her arms on her hips, waiting
for him to leave.

He stepped down onto the sidewalk. She
stormed inside, slamming the door behind her. On his way to the
van, he saw Takira approaching, talking with her friend. He waited
for her, and when she was a few feet away, said, “Takira, can you
do me a favor, please?”

“OK.”

He wrote a note on his legal pad:
Demetrious, I have a lucrative proposition for you
. He
signed it and included his cell number. He tore off the sheet and
handed it to the girl. “Have D call me. There’s some money in it
for him, but don’t tell Minerva. She’ll kill the deal.”

* * *

Charlie figured the varmints wouldn’t look
for him in Scarlett O’Hara country, so he shifted operations south
to Clayton County. As the wind blew the last reluctant leaves off
the oak tree above him, Charlie sat on a picnic bench in Jesters
Creek Park with his much-abused clipboard next to the laptop. It
was chilly; he wore fingerless cotton gloves as he keyed in the
changes he’d made on a hard copy of Chapter Fourteen. His cellphone
buzzed—an exceedingly rare occurrence. He glanced at it skeptically
before answering. “Hello?”

“Yo. Sher-Man.”

It was the call he’d been waiting for.
“Demetrious, where you been?”

“In ’n out. Heah ’n theah. Heard you wanted
to deal.”

“Yeah, I do. I want somethin’ you got.”

“I ain’t believin’ this,” he said. “Man want
to
part-ee
.”

“No, no. Not that. I want to do a DNA test on
you.”

“I already told the bitch.”

“This isn’t about Takira. It’s about the book
I’m writing. I need a sample. Your blood is required.” While saliva
would do, he thought Demetrious should bleed for the cause.
A
prick for a prick
.

“My blood.” Demetrious made it sound like the
stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “You a vampire?”

“I need to prove something.”

“What?”

“I need to see if you’re related by blood to
someone.”

“Who? Gee-Ma’s daddy? I heard ’bout that.
Whew.”

This was too easy, Charlie thought.
It
doesn’t even require lying
. “In a word, yes. It could be worth
a lot of money down the road.
Way
down the road. As for
right now, I can give you … a hundred dollars.” Charlie winced,
doubly embarrassed at practicing checkbook journalism
and
hoping he could do so on the cheap.

“Humph.”

“You can’t tell your grandma. She’ll cut you
off if she knows you’re doing this.”

“Like she did you.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Bet it worth a lot more’n a hundred dollars
to you.”

“Well, that’s the offer.”

A beat passed. “A thousand.”

Charlie laughed in disbelief. “I don’t have a
thousand!”

“Well, I ain’t got no extra blood then. We
through.”

“Wait. Wait. I’ll give you three hundred.
Final offer.” Demetrious didn’t say no, so Charlie added, “Meet me
tomorrow. Noon. Edgewood-Candler Park station. If you’re not there,
deal’s off.”

“I might be there.”

“Show up on time, playah,” Charlie said, but
he was talking to himself. Demetrious had already hung up.

* * *

Demetrious sauntered out of the
Edgewood-Candler Park MARTA station a half-hour late. His smaller
companion gazed intently at the old, beat-up van parked in a
Kiss-Ride spot. Charlie reached over and opened the passenger door.
“Hop in, Demetrious.”

“P-Dog needs to go, too.”

Charlie gazed impassively past D’s companion,
who gave him a malevolent glare. This was not part of the deal.
Furthermore, P-Dog was bad news. “No, he doesn’t. I don’t have room
for him. Don’t have a place for him to sit.”

“He can ride in back.”

“No he can’t.”

Demetrious peered inside the van, then looked
to his friend and shrugged. He gave Charlie a sour look. “You got
the money?”

Charlie noticed what looked like the hammer
of a black automatic pistol sticking out of the friend’s back
pocket. “I’ll get the money after you’ve done your part. Get in,
Demetrious. Just you.”

Demetrious weighed his options. “I ain’t
goin’ without homey.”

His friend stood behind him, glowering and
acting twitchy. A bus stopped fifty feet away. The driver, a round
black woman, opened the doors and stared at them. A flock of crows
descended from the west, landing tumultuously in a bare-limbed oak
nearby.

“Fine,” Charlie said. “Sorry for the
inconvenience.” He started to pull away.

Demetrious banged the side of the van.
Charlie stopped and the teenager opened the door. “P-Dog say he
cool. He wait here for me.”

“What’s the ‘P’ stand for?”

“Punkass,” Demetrious said, laughing. P-Dog
gave them the finger.

“Hop in.” Demetrious climbed in and tuned the
radio to a rap station; Charlie tolerated it as long as he
could—ten seconds. “That stuff’s offensive,” he said, hitting
WCLK’s preset. Jazz. Better.

“What, you don’t like niggas?” Demetrious
laughed at him.

“I don’t think Gee-Ma wants to hear you talk
that way. And buckle up. I want the blood sample in the lab, not
all over the windshield.”

“Gee-Ma been tryin’ all her life not to be a
nigga.” Demetrious looked around. “This is embarrassin’, driving
around in this piece a shit van. Smells bad, too. He pivoted his
head and looked in back, furrowing his brows, giving Charlie a
piercing gaze. “You
sleep
in here? You homeless
motherfucker.” He broke out laughing long and loud.

“I got some things going on,” Charlie said.
“Money’s coming in. Don’t you worry about me.”

“I ain’t worried about you. ’Cept the part
about payin’ me.”

A half hour later, the sixteen-year-old
manchild was sitting in a plastic chair with a needle in his arm.
Fortunately for Charlie (and he hadn’t thought about this), the kid
had a fake ID saying he was eighteen. The same lab technician who
had served Charlie previously said results should be in by the
following Monday, but Charlie already knew Demetrious and Pappy had
to be kin, because they were both such assholes.

Afterward, Charlie drove to a bank and got a
cash advance on his credit card. When he handed Demetrious an
envelope with $300 in it, the teenager took it without a word of
acknowledgment.

As Charlie drove to the MARTA station,
Demetrious asked, “You think we can get the land back?”

Charlie was thrown off guard by the attempt
at civil conversation. He took a moment before saying, “I don’t
know. Your grandmother has an excellent claim.”

“That means we need a lawyer and go through
the courts and shit, right?”

“Yes. But don’t tell her about what we did
today. If you do, I’ll tell her I gave you enough money to pay her
back for the Georgia Power bill.”

“Our little secret,” Demetrious said, patting
his pocket. “This mean I’m gonna be in the book.”

“Oh yeah, you’ll be famous.”

“Famous,” he snorted. “Hell, I’ll be
notorious.”

“Notorious DNA,” Charlie said.

“I like that, man.” He held out his knuckles,
and Charlie punched them.

Charlie stuck to his simple plan: charge all
purchases, even coffee, and keep moving. As dusk came earlier and
nights grew colder, he divided his time between three libraries,
two YMCAs, and four coffeehouses that provided free refills and
electricity. Shut off from his family and having no comforts of
home, he had nothing to do but write. He had to finish quickly,
since he was running out of money and the time that it bought. To
make matters worse, his mental state was deteriorating due to lack
of sleep and malnutrition, along with fears of lightning strikes,
Trouble’s static cling, and assassination. He dreamed of shotgun
blasts and woke to their echoes.

Having burrowed to the lowest level of a
Sandy Springs parking garage, Charlie woke in darkness on the day
before Thanksgiving. He fumbled for his watch, cursed when he saw
the time, slipped on work boots, and catapulted himself into the
driver’s seat. He raced out an open exit gate, passing the glaring
attendant who trudged up the sidewalk to start the day shift.
Scratch off another place from the list of places he could
stay.

After downing three sample cups of coffee at
the nearest Kroger, Charlie went to the Dunwoody YMCA. He changed
into grungy workout clothes and pedaled thirty minutes on a
stationary bike, then lifted weights. He showered, brushed his
teeth, shaved, and put on his last set of clean clothes.

He was the first patron of the day at the
Dunwoody library. The matronly blonde who unlocked the door smiled
approvingly as he walked in. He picked a table in the rear corner
of the main reading room and plugged in his laptop, writing for two
hours about Aunt Shirley/Arlene—“Shirlene” as he now called
her—before quitting for lunch. He ate a bagel with peanut butter,
then drove to Decatur. Desperately hoping for a check from
Fortress, he opened his box to find junk mail—
how did these
people find him
?—and a note to ask at the counter for a
package. He handed it to the slacker clerk, who disappeared into
the back and returned with an oversized brown envelope: galleys for
Flight
. A handwritten note from Tracy, whoever she was, told
him: “Correct and return within 10 days WITH INDEX, otherwise cost
of indexing will be charged to you. HAVE FUN!”