Black Water Rising

that were sim­ ple, black and white. He liked to talk big about the coming revo­ lution, about the church negro who was all show and no action, who was doing nothing for the cause . . . a word spoken one too many times, worked into one too many speeches, until it had lost all meaning for Jay, until it was just a word, a shortcut, a litmus test for picking sides.

Well, he’s not on anyone’s side anymore. Except his own.

There are other American dreams, he reasons.

One is money, of course. A different kind of freedom and seemingly within his reach. If he works hard, wears a suit, plays by the new rules.

His dreams are simple now. Home, his wife, his baby.

He watches Bernadine, moving to the music, wiping sweat from her brow, pasting stray black hairs against her bronze skin. Jay stands perfectly still, lost in the sway of his wife’s hips. Right, then left, then right again. He smiles and leans over the cooler for a second beer, feeling the boat moving beneath his feet.

An hour or so later, the cake cut and the food nearly gone, Jay and Bernie are alone on the deck, trading the hot, humid air inside the cabin for the hot, humid air outside. At least on the deck, there’s the hope of a breeze as the boat travels west on the water. Bernie leans her forearms against the hand railing, sticking her face into the moist night air. Jay pops the top of his Coors. His fourth, or maybe his fifth. He lost count somewhere near Turning Basin, the only spot between downtown and the Port of Houston where a boat can turn around on the narrow bayou. They are heading back to Allen’s Landing now, but are still a few miles from downtown. From the rear of the boat, Jay can see the lights of the high-rise buildings up ahead, the head­ quarters of Cole Oil Industries standing tall above the rest. To the rear of the boat is a view of the port and the Ship Channel, lined with oil refineries on either side. From here, the refineries are mere clusters of blinking lights and puffs of smoke, white against the swollen charcoal sky, rising on the dewy horizon like cities on a distant planet.

Between the refineries and downtown Houston, there’s not much to look at but water and trees as the boat floats through a stretch of nearly pitch-black darkness. Jay stands next to his wife on the deck, following shadows with his eyes, tracing the silhouette of moss hanging from the aged water oaks that line the banks of the water. He finishes his beer, dropping the can onto the deck.

They are about to head back inside when they hear the first scream, what sounds at first like a cat’s cry, shrill and desper­ ate. It’s coming from the north side of the bayou, high above them, from somewhere in the thick of trees and weeds lining the bank. At first Jay thinks of an animal caught in the brush. But then . . . he hears it again. He looks at his wife. She too is star­ ing through the trees. The old man in the baseball cap suddenly emerges from the captain’s cabin, a narrow slip of a room at the head of the boat, housing the gears and controls. “What the hell was that?” he asks, looking at Jay and Bernie.

Jay shakes his head even though he already knows. Some­ where deep down, he knows. It wasn’t an animal he heard. It was a woman.

The old man ducks into the main cabin. A few seconds later, Jay hears the music stop . . . then silence, nothing except the soft whisper of water lapping against the sides of the boat as they creep slowly along the surface of the bayou.

The old man emerges from the main cabin. “Y’all heard something?”

“Over there,” Bernie says, pointing to the brush along the embankment.

Jay strains to make out any buildings behind the trees, try­ ing to place where they are. He makes quick calculations, judg­ ing their distance from downtown with his eyes, trying to gauge how long they’ve been drifting westward. But in the darkness and with his drunken sense of time, he can only guess. They are somewhere near Lockwood Drive, near Fifth Ward, that much he can tell. He can see part of the Freedman’s National Bank clock from here, rising high behind the trees. It’s late, he real­ izes, just shy of midnight.

He’s had a couple of cases come out of Fifth Ward. Property disputes and petty theft. But also fistfights and holdups and one

14 At t i c a L o c k

kid who knifed another one just for playing his music too loud. Jay knows they are floating through the back side of the one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city.

Bernie turns to her husband. “Something’s wrong out there, Jay.”

Behind them, there’s another scream, a howl really, a plea.

A woman’s voice, shaped into two very distinct words: Help me.

Jay feels a slight flutter across his chest, a tiny hiccup of dread.

Bernie’s voice drops to a whisper. “What in the devil is going on out there?”

The old man disappears into the captain’s cabin.

A few seconds later, he emerges carrying a flashlight. Bernie and Jay clear the narrow deck, giving him room to pass as he starts for the rear of the boat. He shines the weak light into the brush on the north side of the bayou, calling out into the dark­ ness, to a face none of them can see. “You okay out there?”

There’s no response. The old man waves his light through the trees. They’re traveling at an even clip, creeping slowly, but surely, farther away from her. The old man calls out again. “Hey . . . you okay out there?”

A gunshot cracks through the air.

Jay’s heart stops, everything going still. He has a fleeting, panicked thought that . . . this is it. He actually looks down to see if he’s been hit, an old habit set off by firecrackers and bad muf­ flers, a holdover from his other life.

There’s a second shot then. It echoes and rolls across the air like thunder.

The old man lets out a low, raspy moan. “God in heaven.”

Bernie mutters a prayer under her breath.

Jay grabs for his wife’s hand, pulling her toward the door to the main cabin, away from the open deck. Bernie yanks her hand free of his, the movement strong and decisive, the force of it caus­ ing her feet to slide a little on the slick surface of the deck. She steadies herself on the railing, turning to face the old man in the baseball cap. “Sir, I think you’d better turn this thing around.”

The old man in the baseball cap stares at Bernie, sure she’s not serious. “I can’t,” he says to her and Jay. “The bayou’s too narrow. ’Sides the basin, ain’t no place to turn her around ’til we get back to Allen’s Landing.”

“Then stop the boat,” Bernie says.