The Train of Small Mercies (26 page)

“That's right,” Lionel said, his hand still on the door.

“You work in a hotel or something?” the girl asked.

Lionel laughed. “No. I work on a train.”

“Oh, a train. That's nice. Where you coming from?”

“New York,” Lionel said.

“Okay,” the girl said. “We've been to New York. We
love
New York. They know how to treat girls right up there. Here they're a bunch of
dogs
.”

The other girl moaned in agreement.

“We were supposed to meet our dates here half an hour ago, but they stood us up. Or something. Had us standing out here as if we don't have anything better to do.”

“I'm sorry,” Lionel said. The other girl, who was wearing a red halter over a miniskirt and vinyl boots, eased over next to him. She studied Lionel's uniform, smiling as a piece of chewing gum swam across her teeth.

“Saturday night, too,” she said. “That ain't right.”

“That's too bad,” Lionel said.

“Well, we're out now,” the girl in blue jeans said. “And it's early. Forget them sorry fools.”

“What's your name?” the other girl asked.

“Lionel.”

“My
brother's
name is Lionel,” she said.

“He don't look like
him
,” the girl in blue jeans said, then laughed.

The girl in red was unsure if she could also laugh, then decided she could.

“
You
should take us out instead,” the girl in blue jeans said. “We like you better than those two bums anyway.”

“But you need a change of clothes,” the other one said. “You got a change of clothes in that bag, baby? You don't want to go in looking like you're going to be serving drinks.” She let out a throaty laugh.

The bottoms of his feet burned, and his back felt like he had had a tire iron strapped to it. His head was spinning from all that he wanted to talk over with Adanya and also from the endless miles of grief he had seen: the sobbing mothers clutching flowers in one hand and their toddlers' hands in the other; the softball team whose coach had just ordered her players to take off their hats; men on crutches who still hadn't fully comprehended what had happened back in Than Khe and Quang Ngai and Chu Lai.

Just then he saw two men approaching—clad in jeans and bright, silky shirts halfway buttoned, one with a purple comb in the side of his Afro. The other man flicked his friend's shoulder at the sight of the two women and smiled. “I told you, man,” he said.

Lionel took this as a good sign.

O
nly the weekend editor was still in the office; Roy's story was the last to be typeset, and now Roy was waiting to know what he thought. The weekend editor's nickname, Roy had learned, was Mr. Sigh, because every time anyone gave him copy, the first thing he did, after reading the article and sitting down with the reporter, was to let out a long, deep sigh.

Roy tugged at the knot in his tie and thought about putting his feet up on his desk before deciding against it. He had never spent so many hours reporting a story, and he had never written one so long. He filed it at seventy newspaper inches, although Mr. Sigh had no intention of running it that long. Roy had spent the drive over organizing the piece in his mind, and when he sat down to his Selectric typewriter, he spent the next thirty minutes on the first two paragraphs.

Claire would have appreciated the irony of the whole situation, he thought. Too much time—and too much disappointment—had passed for them to have a sincere laugh over anything, and the fact that it had all happened because Jamie had lost a leg cast a pall over the whole episode, even if he could have told her. She wouldn't have approved of the way Jamie had tried to belittle Roy, but there were always two sides of Claire. That was how she could date Jamie and be just as close to Roy, as different as they were. That was the essence of Claire. It was like Mrs. West had said—she charmed everyone, and you never quite got over her.

But who was Claire's confidante now? Roy wondered. There was probably a slew of sorority sisters with whom she shared her most intimate thoughts and love-life details, and no doubt her fiancé would have been every bit as intolerant of Roy had he and Claire stayed close.

Mr. Sigh came out of his office, his face already set in a show of professional suffering. Roy straightened himself in his chair and waited as the man stood over him, ready to exhale his verdict, ready to teach the young man all the things about crafting a story he still did not know.

T
he women's voices grew raised and angry.

“Well, we don't wait that long for anyone,” the one in blue jeans said, “and now we
have
our date, thank you very much.” She looked over to Lionel as if she had known him for a lifetime and took his arm.

“Who is this brother? The motherfucking Good Humor man?” one of the men said. His eyes were wide-set, his purple blouse rippling in the breeze. The other man stepped over and tugged lightly on Lionel's jacket sleeve, then dropped it and cackled.

The other man was bigger than his friend, his neck as thick as a bucket. “This ain't a date. This is the boy that's going to
drive
you
home
after your date.”

Lionel knew he had played a part—a minuscule part—in something honorable and historic, and now, just as quickly, here was more of the kind of mindlessness that was making a simple walk in the city these days its own dodgy venture. “This uniform says I've been working on a train, the train carrying Robert Kennedy's dead body from New York,” Lionel said, his voice rising with each word. “You fellas know anything about that? Senator running for president, brother of President Kennedy. Was trying to help the black man more than anyone in this country right now.”

The two men let their grins dissolve.

The woman in red stepped to the other side of Lionel. “You didn't tell us
that
,” she said. “Damn.”

“You fools should show some respect,” her friend said. “He's got an important job, and what you got?” She began to pull Lionel away when the bigger man took hold of her arm.

“Hold up, hold up there,” he said, and tried to soften his expression. “Hold up just a minute there now. We just had a little business that ran late, and that's done, and we made plans with you ladies, and that's why we come out all this way. And here we all are. So let's just put aside this
anger
and get on with the evening. Can we do that? Nate, tip the conductor here for holding our place, and then let's go and have a good time.”

At that moment Lionel knew the night was on a course that he would regret for a long time, that he might remember all his days. It wasn't too late to drop the girls' arms right then and walk in the other direction, but he wasn't raised like that. And as someone who spent his days dreaming up endless ways superheroes dealt with all vestiges of the criminal element, there was a small part of him that wanted to experience how the volatile situation might play out. Plus, there was some question of the ladies' safety. Even if they did relent and go along with these two, would the evening end peacefully for them?

Lionel looked to the women for any cues, but all four seemed to be waiting for what Lionel would say or do next.

“Fellas, look, I'm not even
trying
to take these ladies out, all right?” Lionel began. “What I really want to do is call my
own
girl and then head over to Southeast for the night. So no one is trying to take your dates. But it's pretty clear they don't want to go with you. So let's all leave it at that, and then let's all go our own ways here. Let's just keep it dignified.” Lionel exhaled.

“Damn, I thought Dr. King got shot and died in
Memphis
a couple months back, but nah, here he is, preaching good as ever,” the thinner man said. “Nate, we brothers rioted for nothing, 'cause Martin Luther right
here
.”

Lionel watched the bigger man, since he figured he would be the first one to act. Did he have a switchblade in his pants pocket? If so, maybe Lionel could use his suitcase to block it, and he could land a punch before striking out at the smaller man.

“This is a waste of our damn time,” the woman in blue jeans said to the two men. “Arnelle and I are walking this way, away from all y'all. You want to fight? That don't make a bit of difference to me. Just don't take up my Saturday night!”

She began walking, pausing for a second for Arnelle to catch up. Arnelle made a kissy face to Lionel before ambling off. Lionel was as shocked as he was relieved. Wasn't it obvious that he was trying to defend them? The girls were halfway down the block now, the slap of their heels against the pavement too faint to hear. Lionel picked up his suitcase and shrugged his shoulders, which he meant as a way to say to the two men, simply, “Women!” But he hadn't been able to turn around before the smaller man said, “Brother man, we're not finished here. Where the hell you think you're going like that? What you got—a shoe-shine kit in that bag? You ain't done with work yet.”

The larger man nodded thoughtfully, as if his colleague had made an inarguable point. They had already forgotten all about the girls. “He ain't even offered to fluff up our pillows or nothing,” he said, and he thought that would draw a bigger response from his friend than it did. But his friend liked to believe that he was the more clever of the two.

Lionel took in everything around them. There was not a steady stream of cars passing by, but whatever was going to happen would take longer than thirty seconds, and enough drivers would surely see the commotion. Whether any drivers would stop and try to do something about it was another matter.

“Reach in that bag of yours and get your kit out, boy,” the smaller man said. “We don't have all night.”

Lionel nodded once, and he gave off a contemplative expression meant to suggest he was considering which tools would be best suited for the job. It was clear that he would have to hit first—and quickly—if he had any chance of getting away. He bent down, his finger on the zipper of his bag, and glanced up. The men exchanged satisfied glances, though they were also a little amazed that a shoe shine was exactly what they were about to get. Lionel was closer to the big man, and he decided that he'd attack him in the midsection first, since the man was so exposed for the moment. If he could cause him to double over, he'd have a few seconds to try to put the smaller man on his back, and then all he could do was run—in his slick-soled shoes, on his tender and rubbed-raw feet.

Just as he was about to spring upward, the smaller man pulled his left boot back and kicked at Lionel's head, but Lionel was able to throw his body back, and instead of the toe of the boot landing straight across Lionel's face, the boot tip glanced off Lionel's neck. The bigger man leaned in as Lionel staggered to his feet and caught him by the collar and threw an uppercut to his gut. As Lionel crumpled forward, he could see that the few people walking past had stopped to look on—not in repulsion, exactly, since they had clearly seen worse, but more out of a sense of obligation. The smaller man took a couple of steps toward Lionel and tried again to kick his head, but Lionel stifled the blow by catching his boot. Then he twisted it, causing the man to tumble sideways. Lionel caught too late in his peripheral the dark blur that was the bigger man's fist, and when it landed just under his eye, Lionel was determined not to let it knock him to the ground. The force of the punch put so loud a high-pitched ringing in Lionel's ears that it was hard to believe he was the only one who could hear it. Lionel wavered but managed to steady himself and put his fists up, more for show than anything. The smaller man had gotten up and was coming for him, and his friend all but stepped aside to oblige him. Lionel drew back his fist as if he were going to charge the man, and then he turned and knocked the bigger man square in the mouth. The smaller man registered surprise that Lionel could land a punch, and in his pause, Lionel then took the bigger man by the shirt collar and let fly his left elbow across the man's head. Watching this, the smaller man seemed to remember that he had something in his back pocket that would be useful. But Lionel wasn't going to give him the chance and dove into him, grabbing him around the waist and knocking him down so that Lionel landed directly on top of him.

It was then that Lionel thought of his Black Justice character and how he would have handled the two thugs. Black Justice would have approved of his having attacked the bigger man first, and Black Justice would have admired the quick way Lionel responded to the man reaching for something in his back pocket. No one was used to more dirty tricks or uneven fights than Black Justice, and that required hyper-speed decision-making and reflexes. That was part of what Black Justice was known for. But just as Black Justice could never count on help from others, so this was true for Lionel. There were maybe ten people who stood watching the fight now, only one of them female, and as a spectacle the fight had more or less earned its credentials, but it had done nothing to encourage the breaking up of a lopsided match.

Lionel was on the smaller man. He thought a solid punch to the head might retire him, but the bigger man, who had shaken off the shock of Lionel's two blows, was another matter entirely. Lionel's punch had been, miraculously, swift and efficient, and he could thank the two years during high school when he worked out regularly at Bald Eagle Gym, a few blocks from his house, after failing to make the football team, for that. Yet the larger man, with blood pooling out of his nose, was still in a state of disbelief that a man thirty pounds lighter than he—in a starched gray
uniform
, no less—had caused such injury. His eyes were blinking in wonder, like a little boy whose punishment far exceeded what he had imagined.