Richmond Noir (18 page)
Jayden’s world came crashing down. The kid marched onto the stage wearing a light blue suit and top hat that almost swallowed his eyes. He took a bow, and started playing.
Janie rose from her seat. “Come on, baby,” she said softly. “Let’s get outta here.” He followed her in disbelief.
Before they got to the door, Quincy jumped in front of them, sweat dripping from his forehead. He started talking fast.
“Look, man, it’s nothin’ personal. It’s just that the kid is marketable and he got looks and he dances real good. That, and he’s ready. Don’t be mad. It’s just business.”
Hot anger rose from the depths of Jayden’s soul. It took everything he had not to swing his fist. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic bag. He threw it at Quincy, then walked away.
The two wandered down 2nd Street, silent. Graffiti covered most buildings, others were boarded up. The few businesses that remained opened were deserted, the owners sitting alone, watching people pass by. Janie walked close to the buildings while Jayden dragged his feet on the far edge of the sidewalk, unmoved by the world. Relentless weeds grew in the cracks of ragged streets. Jayden focused on the smooth emerald of each blade basking in the moonlight. The rain had stopped falling.
Janie finally broke the silence. “Look, I look too damn fine not to do somethin’ tonight. I at least want a drink. You wanna get a drink with me, baby?” Jayden shrugged.
They found a scarcely populated lounge, indiscriminate save the red neon
OPEN
sign on the window. They walked straight to the bar.
“Two rum and Cokes,” Janie said, leaning against the counter. “And make one a double.” Scuffed wood paneling covered the lounge floor. Posters of Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk decorated the walls.
Jayden watched a man in a sharp black suit flip chairs onto empty tables; watched him grab a broom and start sweeping. On stage, a grand piano shone in soft blue light.
“Y’all close soon?” he asked the bartender.
“Closin’ now,” the bartender said back. “Last call.”
The man in the suit looked at his watch, then dropped the broom. He took slow, exhausted strides to the stage and grabbed the microphone. He jumped when it screeched. Once the noise stopped, he began: “We got time for one more performance. So if anybody out there wanna do a poem or sing a song or play somethin’ up here, then you’re welcome to it.” He jumped from the stage and went back to sweeping.
“Get up there, Jay!” Janie exclaimed. “You know you wanna!” He hesitated. “Go on,” she persisted.
Slowly, absentmindedly, he made his way onto the stage. He looked through the blue haze out into the audience. He saw his lady. She smiled. Slowly, he sat.
“What ya playin’?” a lady in the audience called out. Slight laughter hummed throughout the room.
Jayden pulled the microphone close. He paused, contemplating. “This is untitled,” he said finally.
He pressed down. Notes at first, then, to his surprise, they turned into something more. He moved between major and minor chords—modulated between his joys and his pains; his past and an uncertain future. First major and he tasted his mama’s lemonade—remembered makeshift water parks on hot summer days and his first kiss. Then minor and he relived cold winter nights with no heat and no love. He saw the look on his daddy’s face, those glassy eyes, and feelings took over. His fingers moved, pumping life into music. They told his story; his life in song.
He asked no questions, simply let go and was. He played an unknown melody, forgotten once he touched the keys. Memories he’d never experienced danced through his fingers, scenarios that had never crossed his mind, but two things were constant, his love and his lady, moving together throughout time.
Then the final chord. He struck it hard and didn’t move. He was afraid to move. The sound resonated throughout the room, blending with the pitter-patter of the rain against the aluminum roof. An eternity before he lifted his hands from the keys. After that, silence. Smoke stood in its place, refusing to rise, and people stared, not breathing. He squinted through the haze and saw his lady. She wiped away tears.
M
eredith Lewis, housewife, mother of three, sat watching her second hour of television on a cloudless morning in Virginia. Dressed in a pink robe with matching slippers, she wept furiously. One of those advertisements, from Oxfam or Greenpeace or
some organization like that
, ran and ran and implored her to help the starving denizens of some small nation in Africa whose name Meredith didn’t even dare try to pronounce.
The situation there seemed tenuous. She couldn’t tell whether the government was a victim of imposed circumstances, whether they were especially corrupt or just poor. The camera panned across another woeful scene, and more buffalo tears welled as Meredith realized how fragile everything was. The most permanent of fixtures was nothing more than a well-built tent, houses shoddily constructed of canvas, threadbare schools with throwaway books, scantily dressed children in scantily fed bodies, and dust everywhere. Everything was so thin she knew that one brave gust of wind could push this tiny civilization into the sea.
But there was hope. Development could come into existence and be sustained, but it wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to take money. It was also going to take fundamental changes in politics, collective amnesia about colonialism, and faith. But the money was what they needed now. Some busty celebrity came in from camera left and made the final plea. Her chest heaved from grief. The situation was as follows: no food—ribs bravely protruding through skin, thirsty flies who, finding no safe ponds, feast on eyes instead—vague, beige bags of rice flown in from the good guys, seven cents could feed seven children, no clean water here, the heat: unbearable, the wind off the vast sands: bitter, the great rivers: gone dry. Simply put: this was not fair. Meredith Lewis, help us, help us help these children. Cry for the horror of this world, for its depravity, for its interminable thirst for entropy. Help us now.
She thought to light a cigarette, didn’t, and chewed her lips instead. She shuffled to the bathroom for a fistful of tissues. Like the rest of the house, this room was modestly appointed, with a lavender ribbon pattern running from baseboard to ceiling. A bowl of potpourri rested by the sink, a medley of dried purple flowers. She took a fluffy towel, also purple, and used it to cover her face. And suddenly the sweetness of the room, its scent, its color—each piece a cute counterpart to another—it all seemed unbearable: a morbid lightness amongst so much horror.
Staring into the mirror, with its gilded frame, she was utterly confused by her appearance. A housewife all cried out in the suburbs. With no mascara, the tears did little to disturb her face. But they made her eyes raw and red and searching. Were her tears for Africa? Or were they for that feeling, deep in her belly, a sad expectancy that any day now she would find lipstick on her husband’s collar, or that he would rush through the door and make straight for the shower, with no explanation save a liar’s grin?
She had not looked at herself for a very long time. She viewed her face shyly at first, then with immodest intent. Mer-edith had medium-length brown hair, which was burnished by the naked light. Her green eyes were as flat and clean as a newly clipped lawn. Her cheekbones were substantive, but not pronounced, which made her appearance delicate and accommodating. She had once been beautiful.
She rarely flattered her appearance with the many products she spotted in other women’s cabinets. Meredith’s morning routine consisted of the same old foundation and blush she’d first bought the night before prom. She had always clung to simplicity like some familiar womb. But she could feel things unwinding, felt some loosening that precedes a clamor.
She’d spent time in Lyon looking at churches when she was a student, and had once even skinny-dipped in Interlaken on a dare. But adventure was a short-lived pursuit; she loved the cozy streets of the West End and the circumstances of home best. She had never wanted to be anything other than a mother, and since she had birthed her boys she thought of nothing else. She sighed, said her name, and turned her head from the mirror.
To her left was a window. Pear trees were heavy, threatening to bear fruit. Local university boys walked by all dressed in khaki, their hair wet, books shoved tightly in their cases. There was no breeze; not a single branch stirred.
Stepping into the living room, she realized that half an hour had passed.
Could I have spent that much time in dumb contemplation?
Or was it like all other days when tasks ate her time like corrosives? The commercial was still running on the television. The number on the bottom had been there so long she feared it would burn its impression into the screen: a
1
, an
800
, and a reminder of suffering in some part of the world she would never, ever want to visit.
Meredith gave Harry’s sixteen-digit credit card number with expiration date, was promised future mailings and a picture for her refrigerator of a darling black girl, and in exchange received relief, temporary relief from
all this shit
.
The rest of her day spread before her. She had watched her boys go to the bus long ago, and recalled their three heads in single file as they walked: capped, small, anxious. Harry had left this morning quietly. He tiptoed in the mornings, his thin black socks barely touching the hardwood floors. Lights flickered on and off in quick succession as he made his way from room to room. And the way he left the bed was an elaborate, silent ceremony, sliding off in an awkward balancing act so that he wouldn’t wake Meredith and her desire.
The house was empty and ready for more of her tears. She decided to leave it. She went to her closet and decided to not wear much. She donned a white sleeveless crochet dress that finished just above her knees. She wore white shoes with modest heels. Around her neck hung a cheap Spiga necklace that had the pin and sprawl appearance of a bolo tie. She got into the station wagon and, as if seeing it for the first time, thought it old-fashioned. She drove north to Monument Avenue without thinking, jerking the stick, switching gears, the mindless radio playing songs she already knew, or thought she did. And soon, without any recollection of her journey, she was at Hash and Mash.
Hash and Mash occupied a low-slung building walled with windows and topped by beaten-up brown shingles. The day’s specials were painted on the glass, inventive and banal interpretations of the diner’s muse: the potato. Meredith walked in and heard the loud crackle of a sizzling grill, smelled the sharp hint of fried onions. Will, the manager, had droopy eyes, which looked at her, then directed their gaze to his right, where an empty booth sat. He never moved, just walked patrons to their seat with those eyes, which always seemed on the verge of bored tears. A waitress came and took her order, never looking up from her pad.
Pennants and posters of athletes lined the walls. All the short order cooks wore paper chef hats and grease-stained white polos. The local radio played music but was occasionally interrupted by news bulletins, Harry’s news bulletins. He had been reading the news for seventeen years now, his voice the city’s voice; he had delivered Richmond new presidents, used car sales, and the impending doom of market indicators. It was the voice that sent them to sleep, and got them up at an hour when everyone was dreaming except for maids and truck drivers. Here was Harry, on the radio, only a voice, a faceless bogeyman, as he was at home.
She could hear that voice and imagine him at his desk, a packet of Pall Malls beside him, reading the wires, breathing down a ribbon microphone, all the better to catch his timbre, which was querulous, slightly frightened at what the AP might send him next. Privy to too much war, too many fires, too many car crashes in the night. All of it had made him tired, just as something was making Meredith tired, making her fear that she wanted something more.
Harry never came to Hash and Mash. It was local, and cheap, and he said he thought it was the sort of place where you might run into someone you’d always hoped you’d never run into again. For Meredith, this made it sweet.
Her hash browns arrived like a mountain of steaming flesh. She wished she was wearing sleeves, so that she might roll them up in order to properly enjoy this meal. She devoured it, nothing but streaks of ketchup left on the plate. She left a five-dollar tip, left Will in his dependable stupor, and drove to Short Pump. To paradise.
For Meredith, the American mall—with its anchor stores and boutiques, its cacophony of sing-along music, its sheer level of harmlessness—had always been a world unto itself. For Meredith, this was the ultimate escape. She bought lots of things. First Bouvier glasses too big for her face. Then a dress covered in sequins that made her look like she was coated in the eyes of sea monsters. And finally she went to the counter for a makeover. She wanted to make over her face—make it new again, wipe out that carrot-shaped birthmark beneath her chin, the slight wrinkle that had erupted on her brow, and the permanence of worry that she never asked to be there. And after the formulas and approving looks from the makeup girl, she believed it was gone. She critically gazed into the mirror, and unlike this morning she was utterly pleased. With her face fixed and her donation made, she felt downright cheery: about Africa, about herself, about everything.
She returned to the car and did what she never did: she ventured to the Tavern, a place she hadn’t visited in three careful years. This was a rare treat, but with the way the morning had gone, with this rare and acute sensation all over her like a happy rash, she pulled the wagon out and headed down Broad Street toward a once familiar bar and its reliable disrepair.
Inside the main entrance, she pushed through the set of saloon-style louvre doors, practically made of plywood, weighing nothing. They made a clatter, which meant her entrance was noted by the patrons. Her white dress was the only unsullied thing there, as everything else was worn but handsomely dirty. The bar was full, but there were no groups, no polite chit-chat, only the friendly haggling over life’s minutiae that preoccupies barflies at midday. She found her second booth of the day and sat down.
The music on was known to her; she could not be sure but it sounded like Elvis, the voice muffled by the crowd’s screams, while little girls at home bemoaned the fact that he was only filmed from the hips up. She had two glasses of Pinot Gris and smiled as the wine opened in her mouth like a flower. She sat in the quiet corner and tried her best to think of nothing. When she departed, the bartender stood up and doffed his hat.
She got into her car, turned the ignition, and prepared to head home. The front of the wagon peeked out of the road like a turtle’s head and was smashed, mercilessly and with great violence, by a roadster. The last thing Meredith Lewis ever saw was an old Mustang speeding toward her. She did not see three-by-five shots of her little boys—John, David, and Robert—in her mind’s eye, nor did she see the wrinkled and cavalier face of Harry; she saw red, coming at her all too heavily and too soon and she was dead.
The driver of that red roadster was Marco Dogliotti, on his way to Atlanta to deliver three suitcases to two sweaty men who wore open collars. He had a belly full of vodka, what looked like paper cuts all over his face, and a wrecked auto—but he was alive.
It was just after dusk south of New York City and Marco had the swagger of a man with a country. America, it was like a song on his tongue, each new detail embellishing this embarrassment of riches. Here he was, behind the wheel of a convertible, registered to his many-syllabled name, tumbling down a highway so fast the windows shook, hatless, with his brown, thinning ponytail tousled by the wind.
Route 78 was a four-lane highway. Traffic lights interrupted its flow only every few miles. On each side was the detritus of a country with too much land: gas stations, junk shops, car washes. Otherwise just concrete trying to squash grass—so nothing to visit but a lot to see. The monotonous scenery thrilled him because this was
American
soil, and American boredom was a new sort of boredom—bigger, more of it to study, somehow pretty in its unnaturalness.
Mother of God, how far am I from Naples?
Only two months and he was already forgetting its sooty port and oranges. Its gawking visitors, pickpockets secreted in the very cracks of walls, unruly traffic, and girls’ skirts that never lifted an inch above the knee. Its rituals, its thievery, its charm. Here in the U.S.A. everything was too new, hung too loosely. One moment it all seemed too transparent and simple to read. Other times he saw only tops of icebergs, understood only parts of meanings—things slipped away in translation. He would think
e
but say
or
, bow his head in thanks as locals eyed him queerly. He could not yet trust his tongue.
In his car he drank heavily from a thermos. His sunglasses had white frames and had come free with his last tank of gas. He straightened his ridiculous posture and grinned for no other reason than it was morning. This hour was often accompanied by a giddiness that would die just before lunch, that could somehow never be sustained. Today, though, he would find out what this giddiness ate, and would feed it luxuriously: pollute it with rich foods, regardless of the cost. Today he would genuinely try to be happy. For he wanted, very badly, to be a smiling American, and make this place’s incorrigible sweetness a daily habit.
He mouthed the names of gas stations, fiddled with his dial, ignored the speed limit, and waited, as he always waited, for something significant to happen to him, for a simple change of luck. Engrossed, he didn’t see the red light until it was flush upon him.
His foot flattened and the car groaned to a stop. After the shriek of the brakes died down, he heard that rapid and aggressive sort of chatter that reminded him of talk radio. To his left was a bearded man in a big white make. The man rolled down his window and screwed his face. He said something so angrily that spit flew from his mouth and speckled Marco’s closed window.
