hoarse “your place” was all I got.
I did ask questions.
Who? Nothing.
What with? Nothing from Nikki. But the nurse had told me she’d said something about a two-by-four the guy had picked up by the BFI bin back of ‘Bucks.
Why? Any idea? The slightest shake of her head, and another wince.
Why the hell did you keep working? I asked her, and got “It’s what I do.”
Then: Who were you talking to on the phone in the break room?
Her face said: Don’t you know?
Dumbly, I didn’t.
I knew better than to protest the destination. Safe enough—my room held two queen beds. I laid her out in the spare, gave her three of the pills she was only to have one of, and that was that.
Save for the little kiss on her forehead and the pained little smile that came in its wake.
12.
19 July, 10:08 p.m.
Raines Road, South Memphis
Saskatoon, on a hot day, cools at night. Memphis, on a hot day, doesn’t. And South Memphis, somehow, stays even hotter. Sometimes, during the night, you can hear gunfire.
The neon sign out on Raines said grocery. No name. The neon sign by the door said open, but the look of the place said closed. Till the kid, eleven or twelve, came out, hopped on his banana-seat bike and pedaled across the gravel lot into the dark with what looked like a clutch of red licorice sticks in his shirt pocket and a brown bag with a couple of quart Colt 45s. You’d see these little groceries everywhere in South Memphis, even where the regular streets gave way to long stretches of what looked like countryside, hiding shotgun houses here and there amid the brush. Rattletrap little oases, if you will. Beer. Cigarettes. Lottery. Food stamps…ok.
A stunned streetlamp hung high, alone, on a telephone pole. In the trees looming about, insects scratched, hummed, sang, in bass, tenor, soprano, the higher voices at random, the lower in layers of rhythm, rise and fall, counting the seconds and counting, I suspected, the age of the earth. We humans, here, I’d come to realize since embracing the South, were merely tenants. I was standing here alone, listening to the landlords. Across the broken concrete where I’d parked, hundreds, thousands of small, identical beetles—it was that time of year again—hastened on errands too urgent for them to give me any notice. I crushed no small number of them underfoot, but it made no difference. A light in the store’s barred window flashed. Miller time.
Oddly, given the heat, I shivered.
Cars came. Cars went. Car doors slammed. Pairs of men, often as not. Some laughing. Some silent. Some who looked my way. One who started to walk over. Then thought better of it.
Then MacDonald.
“Could we not meet in a more respectable place, Mac? The Starbucks at Winchester and Hack’s Cross is open till eleven, you know.”
“This on the low-down, brother.” He sounded more hood than Germantown, tonight. He’d been to see
her
. Oh, hell, I wasn’t even supposed to know.
MacDonald walked over. “Gimme one a those.” He didn’t even smoke. Not really. But I’d seen this before. It usually
meant
something. I held out the pack, BiC. He did the dew. Coughed.
“Smoke up now,” he said. “I don’t want you smokin’ on the job.”
“Oh, the railroad yard is no-smoking?” I said dumbly.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Got my ID?”
“I got everything you need.”
I gave him
that
look.
“Got your shit together, Jack?”
“You mean my binocular shit, my night-vision shit, my middle-of-the-night lunch-in-a-bag shit?” I asked.
“All that shit,” he said.
“So you gonna take me to the gate, give me the ID, introduce me to whomever will be—”
“Something like that.” Which, in MacDonald-speak, means: Nothing like that.
I was to leave Mitzi at the grocery, though MacDonald had me pull her around back, by the open rear door. “I know the guy,” he said. “Owes me a favour. Your car be all right.”
My stuff loaded into Mac’s car, we drove past what I’d always
I did ask questions.
Who? Nothing.
What with? Nothing from Nikki. But the nurse had told me she’d said something about a two-by-four the guy had picked up by the BFI bin back of ‘Bucks.
Why? Any idea? The slightest shake of her head, and another wince.
Why the hell did you keep working? I asked her, and got “It’s what I do.”
Then: Who were you talking to on the phone in the break room?
Her face said: Don’t you know?
Dumbly, I didn’t.
I knew better than to protest the destination. Safe enough—my room held two queen beds. I laid her out in the spare, gave her three of the pills she was only to have one of, and that was that.
Save for the little kiss on her forehead and the pained little smile that came in its wake.
12.
19 July, 10:08 p.m.
Raines Road, South Memphis
Saskatoon, on a hot day, cools at night. Memphis, on a hot day, doesn’t. And South Memphis, somehow, stays even hotter. Sometimes, during the night, you can hear gunfire.
The neon sign out on Raines said grocery. No name. The neon sign by the door said open, but the look of the place said closed. Till the kid, eleven or twelve, came out, hopped on his banana-seat bike and pedaled across the gravel lot into the dark with what looked like a clutch of red licorice sticks in his shirt pocket and a brown bag with a couple of quart Colt 45s. You’d see these little groceries everywhere in South Memphis, even where the regular streets gave way to long stretches of what looked like countryside, hiding shotgun houses here and there amid the brush. Rattletrap little oases, if you will. Beer. Cigarettes. Lottery. Food stamps…ok.
A stunned streetlamp hung high, alone, on a telephone pole. In the trees looming about, insects scratched, hummed, sang, in bass, tenor, soprano, the higher voices at random, the lower in layers of rhythm, rise and fall, counting the seconds and counting, I suspected, the age of the earth. We humans, here, I’d come to realize since embracing the South, were merely tenants. I was standing here alone, listening to the landlords. Across the broken concrete where I’d parked, hundreds, thousands of small, identical beetles—it was that time of year again—hastened on errands too urgent for them to give me any notice. I crushed no small number of them underfoot, but it made no difference. A light in the store’s barred window flashed. Miller time.
Oddly, given the heat, I shivered.
Cars came. Cars went. Car doors slammed. Pairs of men, often as not. Some laughing. Some silent. Some who looked my way. One who started to walk over. Then thought better of it.
Then MacDonald.
“Could we not meet in a more respectable place, Mac? The Starbucks at Winchester and Hack’s Cross is open till eleven, you know.”
“This on the low-down, brother.” He sounded more hood than Germantown, tonight. He’d been to see
her
. Oh, hell, I wasn’t even supposed to know.
MacDonald walked over. “Gimme one a those.” He didn’t even smoke. Not really. But I’d seen this before. It usually
meant
something. I held out the pack, BiC. He did the dew. Coughed.
“Smoke up now,” he said. “I don’t want you smokin’ on the job.”
“Oh, the railroad yard is no-smoking?” I said dumbly.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Got my ID?”
“I got everything you need.”
I gave him
that
look.
“Got your shit together, Jack?”
“You mean my binocular shit, my night-vision shit, my middle-of-the-night lunch-in-a-bag shit?” I asked.
“All that shit,” he said.
“So you gonna take me to the gate, give me the ID, introduce me to whomever will be—”
“Something like that.” Which, in MacDonald-speak, means: Nothing like that.
I was to leave Mitzi at the grocery, though MacDonald had me pull her around back, by the open rear door. “I know the guy,” he said. “Owes me a favour. Your car be all right.”
My stuff loaded into Mac’s car, we drove past what I’d always
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