Gods Go Begging (42 page)

He leaned forward as if to whisper, though the strength of his voice remained the same. It was a hollow gesture of secrecy.

“Now, I’m sure you know this here prison is full of innocent men. To hear them fools tell it, they was all screwed by the system, by their lawyers. But in my case, the jury went and did the right thing. You see, I’m the only guilty man in this place, because I’m the only honest man. I went out on purpose, looking for the enemy.

“Well, it didn’t take long to find him. I just went to all the places that chillun and young‘uns go to. Sure as flies find shit, I found him at Mae’s Gravy Boat, this little café over on the south side of Selma. They got fried fish and okra in there. Mighty tasty, too. Mostly colored folk goes there. It’s a hangout. There he was in there all gussied up in a wrinkled, three-button suit and a flannel tie. He had a raggedy wig hat on his scalp that looked like a dozen black tarantulas had landed smack dab on his head.

“And he was just soaked from head to toe with all that stinky aftershave that he be wearin‘. That old fool always did smell like a whore-house. Who on earth ever heard of a real man wearin’ makeup? I swear to God, he put foundation powder on his skin ’cause his face looked like a dry lake bed, like a road map of Nevada. It was Old Spice that he wore. I remember now. I hate that shit. I could always catch whiffs of it on Miss Sabine’s dresses.”

Sadness flashed across his wide face as he inhaled the recollection of a soft white chemise, the memory of a petticoat.

“Well, there he was, ugly as a stump—ugly as a frog, flirtin’ with all the pretty young waitresses and them high school girls that comes in all the time for a pork sandwich or a slice of pecan pie and a Cherry Coke. He’s carryin’ on, waving a fat wad of money in front of them and tellin’ them how they brings out the devil in him. Well, I walks into the Gravy Boat and called out his name.

“I remember that my man Jackie Wilson was playing on the jukebox. It was ‘Lonely Teardrops.’ Jackie died too soon, you know. Well, anyway, I called out the old man’s name, and when he turned around I flipped off the safety and I pumped six rounds right into that sick smilin’ face of his. It’s a semi-automatic rifle, you see. But first, I waited one full second so that he could see what was bein’ done to him and just who it was that was doin’ it.

“Shit, one minute he’s smilin’ like Judas Iscariot, and the next minute his face looked like one of them waffle things that white folks eat, all covered with jam, strawberry or maybe even raspberry. I’ve never had a waffle, but I like pancakes. Anyway, one of the cops said on the witness stand that they found his false teeth in the parking lot thirty yards from the café. They’d been blown clean out the window. His hairpiece landed in the chili warmer.”

Anvil Harp placed both hands on the small shelf in front of him, then rose up slowly from the stool. Eddy began to ask a question, when Anvil raised his hand sternly to silence him. Now Anvil’s face was devoid of the trustee’s elation. Now his dark lips quivered with emotion as he spoke, his yellowed teeth flashing in and out of view, and his eyes opened impossibly wide.

“Listen to me.” He began poking himself in the chest with the index finger of his right hand. “I been knowin’ Princess Sabine since the first time she ever looked in the mirror and liked what she seen. I’m the one she sent over to the grocery store to get them Kotex sanitary napkins. I been knowin’ Princess Sabine since the first day that she ever washed her feet and slapped on them high heels. It was me … I was there closing my eyes when she tried on her first brassiere.

“I been seein’ every man that ever looked at her. I bad-mouthed ‘em and cursed ’em all. I was out there in the audience for every goddamn one of them beauty contests. You see, Mr. Eddy, I been lovin’ her all of my growed life and—shit—I ain’t never touched her … not once. Oh, I touched—held her hand and such—but not in that special way. You understand….”

Anvil winked while Eddy winced.

“Now, mind you, I ain’t one of them sissy-queers-shit, we got a million of‘em in here. A meaner bunch of bitches and pillow fluffers you ain’t never seen. I sure ain’t one of that bunch. I’m all man. I wanted her. I ain’t never made love to her or even touch her breast, and the good Lord know that I dreamed about it every night. I damn near wore out my right hand and my dick daydreamin’ about Miss Sabine. I loved her even after she became … unnatural.”

He was silent for a long moment, the discomfort filling his face.

“She … got this taste for young boys.”

Anvil Harp closed his eyes as he spoke the final syllables of the sentence.

“They run her out of Alabama on account of it. They finally caught her with a twelve-year-old boy and stripped her of all of her beauty titles. That twelve-year-old was my youngest brother. She shoulda chose me. It shoulda been me instead.” He sobbed without tears. “I was just too old. But it weren’t her fault, Mr. Eddy. It weren’t her fault. She didn’t have no choice in it. After what happened, well, I went and enlisted for Korea. Ain’t there some kind of sayin’ about love and war?”

“All’s fair,” said Eddy.

Anvil’s right thumb was poking at his own chest. His voice dropped down until it was barely audible.

“I asked her to marry me a thousand times, but she always said no. Mr. Eddy, there been only one growed man in that woman’s life, only one growed man has ever touched Princess Sabine Harp in that there special way, and I shot him dead in Mae’s Gravy Boat café. I would do it again today. She was born married to him.”

Anvil used the sleeve of his trustee shirt to wipe away the mist that had formed in his red eyes. The starch and the stiffness of the fabric only irritated them further.

“Was Princess Sabine sleeping with her son, Little Reggie?” asked Eddy.

The investigator had flown two thousand miles to ask that question. Angrily, Anvil pushed a button on the wall to the right and yelled to a guard seated above the interview booths. Clearly, the question had stung him.

“Billy Junior, we’re through in here. No disrespect to you, Mr. Eddy, but there’s only so much I can stand at one time.”

He pulled out a small piece of paper, folded it, and pushed it through a slot in the security screen that separated the visitors from the prisoners.

“Give it to Miss Sabine, please. Tell her I love her as best I can. I still love her. Tell her I’m sorry for killing her father. Tell Little Reggie that I’m sorry for killing his father.” His saddened eyes were fixed on Eddy’s eyes. “I’m sorry for them, not for me.”

Eddy unfolded the sheet of paper, then realized that he had not obtained permission to do so. When he looked up, Anvil Harp had disappeared from the interview booth and was already going through a second door. Quietly he read the seven words written there.

“Eleven years, two months, and seventeen days.” Eddy then called out, “Little Reggie is dead,” in a condolence-filled voice.

“Thank God,” said Anvil Harp, as the door closed behind him.

Jesse penetrated the perimeter at the northwest corner, stepping around stacks of bottles and cans and between a half dozen stolen shopping carts filled with plastic and smelly piles of junk. His presence had been announced by a dozen skinny dogs of various breeds that barked and circled him as he walked. Dust rose up around him like the smoke from a flare.

There was no menace in these dogs. They had become as hungry and reclusive as their masters. Their masters’ malaise had been conferred upon them in long, cold nights of shared food and shared bedding. These dogs had glimpsed Hue and Quang Tri.

Passing through the outer defenses, he checked the terrain. There were small tentlike constructions along the perimeter of the encampment. They were made out of boxes and rags. Behind them a deep slit trench had been dug. Four poles marked its corners, and a sheet had been wrapped around the poles to form a semiprivate outdoor toilet. A cloud of flies hovered above the trench.

Behind the toilet was a pathetically small shelter fashioned from pallets and dirty blankets. Jesse bent down to look inside. It was clear that only one person slept here. The lawyer had noticed that the rest of the dwellings were multiple, communal spaces. There was a plate of cold, half-eaten food on the dirt floor. On the other side of the tiny room was a strange sight: a pair of tennis shoes had been placed side by side, the laces tied together. Someone had carefully placed a small black-and-white photograph beneath the tongue of one of the shoes.

In the other shoe were five nine-millimeter bullets. Jesse picked up the photo and saw that it was a picture of Princess Sabine posing in the nude. Her body was draped seductively over the arm of the sofa in her apartment. The small shadow of the photographer could be seen on the wall behind her. No professional had taken this picture. Jesse replaced the photo and then, out of respect for the dead, backed slowly out of the hooch. It was then that he noticed that a small crucifix had been dropped into the other shoe. Even someone like Little Reggie deserved a standdown.

Near the center of the compound he spotted what he knew must be the communal kitchen, the mess hall. None of the other structures were large enough to accommodate a fire or cooking utensils, and this was the only structure that was not made of cardboard. It was a large metal half-cylinder that had been inverted to form a small Quonset. At each end were poncho liners that kept out both the bone-chilling fog and the prying eyes of the police.

Jesse pulled a poncho liner aside. He noticed that it was an olive-drab army-issue liner that was being used as a door. It was of Vietnam vintage, much lighter than Korean War issue. The lawyer stepped cautiously into the dark hooch. In the center of the dirt floor a fire was burning. At the top of the hooch was a jagged hole that allowed some of the smoke and fumes to escape. Jesse could see that the metal had been recently cut. At the far end were a dolly and some oxyacetylene tanks. Someone had brought in a cutting torch and done the job right.

The scents of marijuana, human sweat, and canned food mixed with the smoke and heat to form a cloud that hung in the still air inside. There were empty ration cans everywhere. As Jesse moved, the rancid smell of unchanged clothing and unwashed hair forced him to change direction. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it over his nose and mouth. It smelled exactly like the underground bunkers back in Dong Ha.

He located a plastic milk carton and sat down to wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness that filled all but the center of the room. After a few minutes he removed the kerchief from his nose. His olfactory system had reached some sort of equilibrium. In time he saw that there were three other men in the hooch with him. Two were huddled quietly at the far end, sucking on a hand-rolled marijuana cigarette, while the third sat alone at the very edge of the firelight.

One man was black, while the other two were white. All three wore clothing that had not been washed in months, if not years. The jacket of choice was a “one each” U.S. Army field jacket in olive drab. All were slick with grease and perspiration.

“You don’t belong in here,” said the voice near the fire. It was a firm but gentle voice. “You should be leaving.” Two other voices grunted their agreement.

Ignoring the admonition, Jesse moved toward the fire. The face of the man seated there was lit by a shaft of light that poured through the vent hole above. His matted hair had once been light brown and curly. His skin beneath the filth and sunburn was smooth, even youthful. It was the man’s eyes that caught Jesse’s attention. They were filled with distance and dread. He had seen many such eyes in Vietnam. Life, perhaps death, had betrayed this man.

“I need to speak to you. I know that you spend your days up on the hill—somehow you have managed to gain safe passage through the guns and the gangs. I don’t know how I know, but I’m sure that you know something about all of the killings up here. You know what happened to all of those boys. I think you know what happened at the Amazon Luncheonette.”

“You should be leaving,” repeated the voice, this time with menace.

“So that’s how it is,” said Jesse disdainfully, while inspecting the area around himself. Using the toe of one shoe, he casually prodded a paper bag from Klein’s deli.

“You can take money right out of my pocket; you can eat my food every day, but you won’t let me rest my tired feet in this splendid palace of yours.”

After a moment of silence the softened voice responded, “You can stay. Though I understand the true motive for your generosity, I still want to thank you for the food.”

“Don’t mean nothing,” answered Jesse. “Don’t mean nothing.”

The two men in the distance suddenly stopped moving, the glow of the cigarette hung immobile in the blackness. One of them slowly exhaled his precious lungful of smoke. The two men with the dying joint turned to stare into the intruder’s face. A stranger had uttered the grunt’s mantra. The man by the fire raised his head to look directly at the lawyer, to study his face.

“Who are you? Do I know you?”

“Supongamos, ”
said Jesse, while facing away from the man. “Supposing Oscar Wilde was wrong and men did not kill the things they love, amigo, what would America, west of the Mississippi, be like today? If Wilde had been allowed to love whomever he wished, what would sustain the seventy wars that are being fought somewhere in the world at this very moment?

“Or suppose this one especially: Suppose the Nicene Council. back in the fourth century, had not deleted women and their writings from the New Testament and from the church. Suppose the female apostles had been allowed to live on in the Bible. Do you suppose there would have been a Vietnam War?”

The man near the fire began to weep.

Calvin shifted nervously in his seat as the prosecutor pored over a page in his voluminous notebook. The defendant looked at his lawyer, who was making the secret sign to calm down. Calvin inhaled deeply then remembered to sit up and place one hand on each knee. His body language had occasionally been extremely defensive.

After running his finger down the page, the prosecutor stood up, then placed himself between the defendant and his lawyer. He knew that the two were communicating somehow, and he intended to block Calvin’s view.