The Night Gardener (9 page)

“There’s somethin else,” said Diego.

“I’m listening.”

“There was a fight the other day after school. You know my friend Toby?”

“From football?”

“Yeah.”

Ramone remembered Toby from the team. He was a tough kid but not a bad one. He lived with his father, a cab-driver, in the apartments near the school. His mother, Ramone had heard, was a drug addict who was no longer in his life.

“Toby got into it with this boy,” said Diego. “He’d been talkin mess to Toby in the halls and he challenged Toby to a fight. They met down by the creek. Toby said,
Bap!
” Diego slammed his right fist into his left palm. “He stole him with a jab and a right punch. One-two, and the other boy went down.”

“Were you there?” said Ramone, perhaps with too much excitement in his voice.

“Yeah. I was walkin home that day with a couple of friends and came up on it. You know I was gonna watch.…”

“So?”

“The other boy’s parents called the school. Now they’re havin what they call an investigation. Finding out who was there and who saw what. The parents want to press charges on Toby. They’re talking about assault.”

“I thought this kid challenged Toby to the fight.”

“He did, but now he sayin he was only kidding around. He sayin he never did want to fight.”

“Why is the school involved? It was off their property, wasn’t it?”

“They were both walking home from school, still carrying their books and stuff. So it makes it the school’s business.”

“Okay.”

“They’re gonna want me to tell how Toby hit this boy first.”

“Somebody had to throw the first punch,” said Ramone, speaking as a man and not a father. “Was it a fair fight?”

“The other boy was bigger than Toby. One of those skateboarder kids. And he was the one made the challenge. He just couldn’t back up his words.”

“And it was just the two of them. Nobody ganged up on this other boy, right?”

“It was just them.”

“I don’t see a problem.”

“What I’m sayin is, I’m not about to snitch out my friend.”

Ramone didn’t want him to. But it wouldn’t be right for him to come out and say so, because he had to play a role. So he said nothing.

“We straight?” said Diego.

“Get ready for dinner,” said Ramone with a small, strategic nod.

As Diego put on a clean T-shirt, Ramone took in his room. Pictures of rappers cut out from the
Source
and
Vibe,
and a nice photo of a dropped, restored ’63 Impala, tacked to a corkboard; a poster from Mack Lewis’s gym in Baltimore, a collage of local fighters along with Tyson and Ali, with the saying “Good fighters come to the threshold of pain and cross it fully to achieve greatness” printed on the lower border. On the floor, homemade CDs burned on the house computer, a CD tower, a portable stereo, copies of
Don Diva
and a gun magazine, jeans and T-shirts, both dirty and clean, Authentic jerseys from various teams, a pair of Timbs, and two pairs of Nikes. On his desk, rarely used for studying, an unread copy of
White Fang;
an unread copy of
True Grit,
which Ramone thought his son would like but that he had never cracked; sneaker cleaning solution; photos of girls, black and Hispanic, in tight jeans and tank tops, taken at the mall and presented to Diego as gifts; a pair of dice; a butane lighter with a marijuana leaf inlaid on its face; and his loose-leaf notebook, with the name Dago written, graffiti-style, on its cover. A cap decorated with his nickname and the numbers “09,” his alleged graduation year from high school, hung on a nail he had driven into the wall.

Even with the variation in styles, the advances in technology, and the changes in culture, Diego’s room looked much like Ramone’s room had looked in 1977. In fact, Diego was very much like his father, in so many ways.

“What’re we having?” said Diego.

“Your mother’s making a sauce.”

“Her sauce or Grandmom’s?”

“Go on, boy,” said Ramone. “Get washed up.”

H
OLIDAY WASN’T DRUNK.
It was more like he was tired. He had sweated out most of the alcohol with Rita on top of the sheets. His vision was good, driving down the toll road and then the inner loop of the Beltway from Virginia into Maryland. He felt a little foggy, but he was fine.

He listened to the classic rock station on the satellite radio as he drove. He was not much of a music guy, but he knew his ’70s rock. His older brother, whom he’d once idolized, had played his records in the house when they were growing up, and this was the only period of music Holiday still paid attention to or knew. A live track from Humble Pie, Steve Marriott shouting, “Awl royt!” in a slurred cockney accent before the band broke into a heavy blues-rock riff, was playing now.

Holiday didn’t see his brother anymore, except when Christmas came around, and that was just so he could visit his nephews, let them know their uncle Doc was still in the world. But the nephews were getting up to college age now, and Holiday suspected the once-a-year visits would be soon coming to an end. His brother was in mortgage banking, lived out in Germantown, drove a Nissan Pathfinder whose only path was the 270 corridor, and had a wife that Holiday wouldn’t fuck with the lights out. His brother was far away from the long-haired, cool teenager he had once been, spinning Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy, and Clapton in their parents’ basement between bong hits blown out the cracked casement windows. His brother now checked his stocks on the hour and studied
Consumer Reports
before every purchase. Holiday wanted to scream in his face, but it wouldn’t have brought his brother back to life.

With his sister long gone and both his parents dead, Holiday was alone. The one thing he had had to get up for, the one thing that had made his eyes snap open in the morning and driven him from the bed, had been taken away. He had been a cop, and then he wasn’t. Now he wore a stupid hat, made conversation with people who did not interest him at all, and jockeyed luggage in and out of the trunk of a car.

All because of a fellow cop who wouldn’t cut him any slack. A rule follower, like Holiday’s brother. Another guy with a stick up his ass.

He didn’t feel like going back to his place just yet. He exited the Beltway at Georgia Avenue and took it south into D.C. He still had time to catch one, maybe two, at Leo’s before they brought up the lights.

THE RAMONE FAMILY ATE
dinner at a table with ladder-back chairs situated in the open area between the kitchen and the rec room. They tried to eat dinner together every night, though this meant many late meals, due to Ramone’s erratic schedule. Both Regina and Ramone had come from families who had done so, and they felt it was important. The Italian in Ramone believed that sharing good food was a spiritual thing that transcended ritual.

“Good sauce, Mom,” said Diego.

“Thank you.”

“Tastes a little burnt, though,” said Diego, his eyes lighting on Ramone’s.

“Your mom put a flame thrower to the garlic and onions,” said Ramone.

“Stop it,” said Regina.

“We’re playin, honey,” said Ramone. “It’s real good.”

Alana had her face down near her bowl, trying to suck up a forkful of spaghetti. She was an intense eater who thought and talked about food often. Ramone liked to see a grown woman enjoy a meal, and he loved it in his little girl.

“Want me to cut that up for you, Junior?” said Diego.

“Uh-uh,” said Alana.

“Make it easier to eat.”

“Nope.”

“You eatin it like a pig do,” said Diego.

“Does,” said Regina.

“Leave her alone,” said Ramone.

“I’m just tryin to help.”

“Worry about yourself,” said Ramone. “With those sauce stains on your shirt.”

“Dag,” said Diego, noticing the splatter marks on his wife-beater.

The talk turned to Diego’s homework and his repeated claim that he’d done it at study hall. Then the Laveranues Coles trade and Ramone’s assertion that Santana Moss was a sideline receiver only, as he tended to drop passes in the middle of the field when he heard footsteps. Diego, who had a jersey with Moss’s name on the back of it, circa the Jets, disagreed.

“Who’s Ashley?” said Regina to Diego, apropos of nothing.

“Just a girl at school,” said Diego.

“I saw her name on the caller ID,” said Regina.

“That a crime?” said Diego.

“Course not,” said Regina. “Is she nice?”

“What’s she look like?” said Ramone, and Diego chuckled.

“Mom, she’s a girl I know at school. I don’t have no one special, okay?”

“Anyone,” said Regina.

“But you are saying,” said Ramone, “you’re saying you do like girls.”

“Go ahead, Dad.”

“I was beginning to wonder.”

“It’s private,” said Diego.

“ ’Cause you never talk about girls.”

“Dad.”

“It’s okay to be like that,” said Ramone.

“Dad, I’m not gay.”

“I’d still love you if you were.
Like
that, I mean.”

“Gus,” said Regina.

They talked about the Nationals. Diego said baseball was a “white sport,” and Ramone told him to look at all the black and Hispanic players in the major leagues. But Diego could not be moved. He told Ramone to check out the faces in the stands at RFK. Ramone agreed that most of them were white but finished by saying that he didn’t see Diego’s point.

“Dad closed a case today,” said Regina.

“What’s a case?” said Alana.

“He locked up a bad guy,” said Diego.

“This guy wasn’t all bad,” said Ramone. “He
did
something bad. He made a bad mistake.”

After dinner, Regina read to Alana, and Alana, who was coming along in sounding out her words, read back to her. Ramone and Diego watched one of the last regular-season Nationals games on TV. At the end of the seventh, Diego gave his father a pound and went to his room. Alana kissed Ramone and went to her room with Regina, who read to her some more and put her to bed. Ramone cracked a bottle of Beck’s and watched the rest of the game.

Regina was washing her face in the master bathroom when Ramone came up and undressed for bed. He noticed her outfit, one of Diego’s football team T-shirts and worn pajama bottoms, and read the message: no sex tonight. But he was a man, as dim and hopeful as any other. He wasn’t going to let some dowdy old outfit stop him completely. He’d give it a try.

He closed their door and slid between the sheets. She joined him and gave him a chaste kiss on the side of his mouth. He got up on his elbow and tried another kiss, just to feel her out.

“Good night,” she said.

“So soon?”

“I’m tired.”

“I’ll make you tired.”

Ramone put his hand inside her pajama bottoms and stroked the inside of her thigh.

“Alana’s gonna be in here any minute,” said Regina. “She wasn’t even asleep when I left her room.”

Ramone kissed her. Her lips opened and she moved a little closer to him in the bed.

“She’s gonna walk in on us,” said Regina.

“We’ll be quiet.”

“You know that ain’t true.”

“C’mon, girl.”

“How about I just yank you off?”

“I can do that myself.”

Regina and Ramone chuckled softly, and she kissed him more deeply. He began to pull her bottoms off, her back arched to let him, when they heard a knock on their bedroom door.

“Damn,” said Ramone.

“That’s your daughter,” said Regina.

“That’s not my daughter,” said Ramone. “That’s a seven-year-old chastity belt.”

Five minutes later, Alana was snoring between them in their bed, her small brown fingers splayed on Ramone’s chest. It was true that he was a little disappointed. But he was happy, too.

LEO’S HAD A BIT
of a crowd, and the music from the juke was turned up loud. Holiday got a couple of head nods as he crossed the floor toward an empty stool back near the kitchen doors. He was known here, so there wasn’t that stare thing that went with a white guy walking into an all-black neighborhood bar. It had gotten around the Leo’s regulars that he had been a cop who’d been forced out under a cloud. It wasn’t entirely true, since Holiday had resigned rather than face the official inquiry, but he let them think what they wanted. Dirty cop did hold a certain mystique. But he hadn’t been dirty. He had never been on the take, nor had he worked both sides of the game, like some of those cops who’d come onto the force during that sloppy hiring binge in the late ’80s. Hell, he had just been helping out a girl he knew. All right, she was a whore. But still.

“Vodka rocks,” said Holiday to Charles, the night tender. Leo was gone or in the back counting out the day.

“Any flavor, Doc?”

“Rail’s good.” This deep into it, the shelf juice was a waste.

Charles served Holiday his drink. The juke was playing a cover of “Jet Airliner,” done in a truly smoking soul-rock fashion. The two gentlemen to the right of Holiday were arguing about the song.

“I know this is Paul Pena,” said the first man. “He did it first. I’m askin you, who was the white boy who took it and made it into a big hit?”

“Johnny Winters or sumshit like him,” said the second man. “I don’t know.”

“It was one of them Almond Brothers,” said the first man.

“Say it was the Osmand Brothers?”

“
Almond,
and five says it’s true.”

“Steve Miller Band,” said Holiday.

“Say what?” said the first man, turning to Holiday.

“This song’s a killer, man.”

“Damn sure is. But can you tell my boy who made it a hit?”

“No clue,” said Holiday. Pride had made him blurt out the answer, but now that he had, he didn’t want to get further involved.

Holiday beat the last-call lights with one more drink. He fired it down and walked from the bar unsatisfied. Thinking about his old life and how he’d left it had blackened his thoughts.

HE DROVE EAST. HE
lived in a garden apartment out by Prince George’s Plaza, off East-West Highway, and the way to get there from Leo’s was south to Missouri and then over to Riggs Road. But he got confused down near Kansas Avenue, trying to cut time on the back streets, and going along Blair he realized he needed to turn back. He made a left onto Oglethorpe Street, thinking he could take it through to Riggs.

He knew as soon as he got onto Oglethorpe that he’d fucked up. He remembered too late from his cop days that this stretch of Oglethorpe dead-ended at the Metro and B&O railroad tracks. He recognized the Washington Animal Rescue League on his left and the printing company below it down by the tracks. And on the right, one of those community gardens, which were fairly common around D.C. This one covered several acres of land.

His cell, mounted in a kind of holster set below the dash, went off. It was Jerome Belton, calling to tell him about his night. Holiday pulled over to the right shoulder of the road, on sand and gravel, and cut the engine. Belton told him a story about a wannabe player he had taken to the Tyson-McBride fight at the MCI Center a few months back, and something about the man’s phony gators, which had been flaking off in the backseat of the car.

It was a funny if too familiar story. Holiday had a laugh with Belton and ended the call. Then, on the quiet dead-end street, parked beside the community garden, Holiday leaned his head back and rested his eyes. He wasn’t drunk. He was tired.

A light swept across his face, waking him. He opened his eyes. He made out an MPD blue-and-white topped by an inactive light bar, approaching his car from the turnaround at the railroad tracks. The patrolman behind the wheel had a passenger, a perp or a suspect, in the backseat of the car. He wondered where his breath mints were as the Crown Victoria slowly came his way. Holiday did not look directly into the car, though one darting glance registered white police. In silhouette and shadow, Holiday saw the backseat passenger, thin of shoulder and neck. His instinct said adult female or teenager. In his side vision he saw a number on the lower portion of the car’s front quarter panel. The police officer passed without stopping, obviously seeing Holiday parked there but not bothering to check him out. The image of the numbers left Holiday’s mind, and he thought, “Let it grow,” and as this thought came to him he chuckled without apparent reason and drifted back to sleep.

When he woke sometime later, his head was still fogged. He looked out into the garden, which held the black shapes of hastily constructed arbors, staked plants, and low rows of vegetables. A person of indeterminate age, medium height, walked across the landscape. Number One Male, thought Holiday, studying the walk with squinted eyes. Holiday blinked slowly. His vision blurred, and he went back to sleep.

He woke again, confused, but this time only for a short period of time, as the passing hours had granted him sobriety. The sky had lightened a shade, and swallows dipped and sailed through the sky above the gardens and sang out, announcing the morning yet to come. He checked his watch: 4:43 a.m.