Gideon - 05 - Blind Judgement (15 page)

Mr. Guay, or whoever he is, takes my hand, but says, “No business with them. No time to talk. Very busy.”

Up close I can see the lines in the other man’s face. Close to being contemporaries, if not approximately the same age, surely he and Willie had much in common. Business, their wives, children, whites, blacks.

The way each was treated in the South.

“This is about who killed Mr. Ting.”

The old man murmurs again, “Very busy,” and turns his back on me to fuss with his stock of cigarettes, which already seem adequately arranged.

I have no talent for this business of figuring out who-done-it, but I am becoming curious about how these people coped all these years and the lies they had to tell themselves to survive.

I drive back to Blackwell County, wondering which generation of Chinese-Americans has felt the most comfortable in east Arkansas.

Perhaps Willie’s generation. They didn’t have any choices and learned to be content by relying on each other. That couldn’t be enough for Tommy and Connie, nor would it be expected to be enough.

Who did want their father killed? I have no idea. I look out the window at the cold, muddy fields. A new planting season is just around the corner.

“You don’t seem to be enjoying this,” Amy calls from the other side of the net.

“We don’t have to play anymore.”

“I’m fine,” I say, forcing a grimace to become a smile as I stoop to pick up the ball that comes rolling back toward me. I have just hit my

backhand into the same spot on the net for the third time in a row. In tennis, as in other aspects of my life, I have a way of perfecting my mistakes.

“I’m just getting sick of being so consistent.”

We meet at the bench where I sit down and grab my opponent’s water bottle. I can’t use the weather as an excuse: the temperature is a balmy 68 degrees, and the sun has stayed behind a mostly cloudy sky.

Though it is only the first day of March, it looks like an early spring.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were this good?” I complain.

“I could have prepared my ego for this little setback.” Regardless of how liberated I tell myself I’ve become in the last twenty years, it is no fun being beaten by a woman. Amy, during warmups, casually informed me she is a legitimate 4.5 player under the United States Tennis Association rating system. Though in theory I can hit the ball harder and can cover the court more easily, my genetic head-start has proved to be as useless as a long-range Arkansas weather forecast. Now, in the second set (I won two games in the first) Amy zips around the court and is whacking the ball past me like some wind-up Steffi Grafdoll.

Amy, who has barely worked up a sweat, straightens the strings on her racket.

“You just need to practice. And to bend your knees on your backhand.

You look like you’re trying to putt a golf ball.” She stands and

imitates my swing.

Embarrassed by how ridiculous I must look, I nod and hand her the water bottle, noticing how supple her legs are under her blue tennis skirt. I wonder if she knows how sexy she looks. If she is wearing one of those bras that mash her breasts down, I can’t tell it. Her white top swells out so nicely that it had the local pro in the clubhouse fumbling for her change for thirty seconds.

Unlike almost every other woman I’ve ever played against, Amy can volley at the net. When I saw how well she hit from the baseline, I began hitting short and making her come in. No dice. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Overheads, backhand volleys, even drop shots, her game is as complete as mine is limited. I can get some pace on a forehand if I have time to set up, but Amy won’t let me do it.

When I overplay the left side of the court, she runs me to death. If she controlled the rest of our relationship the way she does on the tennis court, all I’d need is Jessie’s dog collar.

“At my age,” I crack, “they refuse to bend more than a couple of times a day.”

She sips at the water and sternly shakes her head.

“You could get in shape easy. There’re several guys out here a lot older than you who can play all day.”

Older than me? They must be playing in wheelchairs.

Properly motivated, I stand up and head out to the north end of the court. I could get in shape.

But it wouldn’t be easy.

“Let’s get this beating going,” I yell enthusiastically.

“Time’s a-wasting!”

As if in self-defense, early in the set, she drills the ball squarely into my chest the one time I am so foolish as to approach the net. At least she didn’t blind me.

“Sorry,” she says, her voice concerned.

“I wasn’t aiming at you.”

Unhappily, I think, I’m not aiming at you either.

But it is the innocent who sometimes get hit.

“I’ll try to use my racket the next time,” I say, glancing up at the group of bystanders who are watching from the top of the hill by the clubhouse.

They seem to be enjoying the match.

“I thought I’d get more bounce off my breastbone, but it’s got too much padding.”

Twenty minutes later the slaughter finally ends. I have won one game this set, a measure of pity that Amy couldn’t resist. My teeth clenched in a pleasant smile, I hold out my hand as I come to the net at the end. When my old girlfriend Rainey used to thrash me at Ping-Pong, at least it was behind closed doors. I tell myself public humiliation is good for the soul. Amy grins and pats my shoulder like you see the winners do on TV at Wimbledon.

“Nice workout.”

“For me,” I grumble. My shirt, underwear, and shorts are drenched with sweat.

“Next time we won’t play on court one,” I say, looking at our fans, all men.

“Would you and Jessie like to come over to dinner tonight?” she asks, shoving her racket into her bag.

Maybe that’s been my problem: I don’t have a fancy nylon bag.

“Sure,” I say, rubbing my chest.

“You and Jessie can finish what’s left of me.”

“Did I hurt you?” she asks innocently as we walk off the court.

“Just my pride,” I grumble, rumbling with the latch at the gate.

“You shouldn’t have given me that one game. I’m not a child about to

burst into tears because I lost.”

“Oh, you’re not?” Amy laughs, nudging me with her shoulder.

“The way your lip was stuck out at the end I wasn’t sure.”

Ha. Ha. Ha.

“You’re so damn consistent.” “Just like Tommy Ting,” Amy says, guiding me around the fence as if I were blind as well as old.

“You make it all sound so fascinating. Maybe I can drive over to Bear Creek with you one of these days. I’d like to meet some of those people.

The old ladies could tell me what you were like as a little boy. You were probably a crybaby then, too.”

Great. She could meet Angela. That would be a delightful conversation.

“Just very sensitive,” I say.

“If you’re spoiled rotten, the least little thing upsets you.”

She laughs, not knowing how pampered I was the first fourteen years of my life. Th quintessential Southern male child. Waited on hand and foot. It’s a wonder I learned how to change my clothes. Is the reality of the adult male too much to deal with? Until my father started going crazy when I was eleven, I had my mother’s full attention.

According to Marty, she might as well not have existed. As a child I’d

come down the stairs into the kitchen and Mother would be waiting like my personal servant to cook my breakfast.

The sports pages of The Commercial Appeal out of Memphis would be beside my plate, and she would pour me a cup of hot tea and watch me sweeten it with three teaspoons of sugar. Then she would vacuum my room and make my bed.

No wonder I’m a crybaby. What male wouldn’t be in perpetual mourning for that kind of worship?

I persuade Amy to cook over at my house, which doesn’t take a lot of effort, now that I finally have heat. I suspect that she would prefer for Jessie to shit on my rug instead other own. We stop off at Harvest Foods and I pay for some angel-hair pasta and stuff for salad. In the store we must seem as married as any other couple, but last night during dinner and afterward I couldn’t get Angela out of my mind and was too quiet. Despite two kids, a husband, and thirty years in the Arkansas Delta, Angela’s basic personality hasn’t changed.

Circumstances and time have made her more conservative, but I put myself in the same category. I pretended I was preoccupied by the memories the trip had stirred up. My pretending didn’t prevent me from making love to Amy last night and again this morning.

After dinner Jessie lies on the couch with her head in Amy’s lap. Like her master, she knows a soft touch when she finds one. I click on 60

Minutes. Mike Wallace looks older every week.

According to Amy, her mother saw him on a trip to New York and complained that, in person, he was a wisp of a man, a virtual scarecrow. More power to him. I have begun to like old people on TV.

Hugh Downs. Bring ‘em all back.

Amy reaches over to the table and takes the remote and turns off the TV.

“What’s wrong?”

she asks.

“You’ve hardly said two words to me since you’ve come back from Bear Creek.”

I would very much like to avoid this conversation, but I don’t see any way around it. The trouble is, I don’t know what I want or even what I want to say. I can rationalize all I want about the reasons why this May-December business won’t work, but until I met Angela again it was working.

There was a spark between Amy and me that was real. I care deeply about Amy, and I know she loves me. Somehow though, ever since I went to eastern Arkansas it is as if I am being drawn away from her, and I seem helpless to be able to do anything about it. Certainly, it is not that I know with utter certainty I have’re met the love of my life.

Though I can’t put my finger on the reason, I do not feel entirely comfortable with Angela.

What I do know is that it is terribly unfair to Amy to pretend everything is normal between us.

“I should tell you I met my old girlfriend over there,” I begin miserably.

I am sitting in my recliner since Jessie is occupying my usual space on the couch.

Amy doesn’t even raise her eyes as she strokes Jessie’s head.

“Goodness, that was quick. I knew something like that was going on.

How long?”

She doesn’t understand.

“No!” I yelp.

“I haven’t talked to her in thirty years.”

Amy looks up and gives me a brittle smile.

“But she’s divorced and wanted to talk about old times, huh?”

I rub the arm of the chair.

“Her husband recently died. She’s got two boys in college and now she’s about to lose her farm. Things are pretty tough.”

Amy strokes Jessie’s muzzle with the knuckles of her right hand.

“How long has he been dead?

Two days?”

I laugh, despite myself.

“Since November.”

“What a nice consolation present you were,” Amy says brightly, looking up at me.

“Do you think you’ll fit in over there now? It’s been a long time. But I guess with your mocha-colored wife dead it’s safe for you to go back home.”

Damn! Amy’s fingernails have grown an inch in an instant. She knows more about me than I do myself. Trying not to let this conversation get out of hand, I busy myself by picking up a dog hair from the arm of the chair. It is becoming obvious that Jessie uses the furniture more than I do.

“It’s not like what you think. She’s very confused and bitter. I don’t understand her,” I confess.

“Oh, I bet you’re trying real hard,” Amy says, her voice strained with anger.

“And to think I was feeling sorry for you—all alone in a tiny motel

room. I’m glad I didn’t drive over and surprise myself. What’s it like after three decades? Is it like riding a bicycle? You remember a mole here, a scar there, what she liked, what you liked?”

Though I deserve this beating, I’m not ready to end my relationship with Amy.

“I think you’re going a little overboard,” I say, not able to admit how attracted I am to Angela.

“We’ve had a couple of meals together.”

“Breakfast in bed?” my girlfriend asks, gently moving Jessie’s muzzle off her lap and standing up.

“Did you tell her about me?” she says, beginning to cry.

“Your little young-enough to-be your-daughter fuck? I can hear you, Gideon.

She’s just a kid, but I can’t drive her off with a stick. What’s her name? I’d like to know her name.”

Amy is little short of hysterical. She knows I haven’t denied a word.

“Angela. For God’s sake, she’s almost fifty years old,” I stammer irrationally.

“You don’t understand.”

“Angela! How divine for you! She’s probably hornier than a March hare.”

Madder, I think she means, but this isn’t the time to correct her.

Jessie has gotten down from the couch and stands beside Amy. I slap my leg for her to come to me.

“Here, girl.” In response, she pushes her muzzle against Amy’s hand.

“Look, I’m going to take Jessie to live with me until this summer when Sarah comes home,” Amy announces.

“You’re obviously going to be too busy to take care of her. I’ll give her back then, I promise. She and I can commiserate together.”

“Don’t act like this!” I plead.

“I don’t even know her.”

“You will.”

I rub my face as if to shake myself awake from a nightmare. Will I ever know Angela? Not like I know Amy.

“Don’t leave!” I plead, as Amy reaches for Jessie’s leash on the floor beside her.

“You’re not supposed to have pets in your apartment.”

I should say that I love her, but I’m not sure I do.

“They don’t care,” Amy says, probably realizing I missed my cue deliberately.

“Other people have pets. The couple on the first floor do.”

This is ridiculous. She doesn’t need a dog.

Still, it would be a help. I will be traveling so much to Bear Creek I really won’t have time to take care of an animal. My pragmatism at this moment appalls me. I get to my feet.