he was smart and tough and made somethin’ outta himself. But my mama always said that you could put trash in a silver ashcan but it’s still just trash.”
I’d known men like Oliphant. Men so proud of their strength and their accomplishments that they forget even the greatest fighter can be stabbed in the back.
“So you think Gator or Tilly knows who stole the money?” I asked.
“Not himself. He wasn’t in there that night, ’cause it was Tuesday. On Tuesdays he drops Eddie off at Little League practice and then goes off. Nobody sees him again till Wednesday.”
“So what does that mean for Ross?”
“Ross don’t know none of it. He don’t know that most nights Tilly and Gator up in there with stolen cars. How’s he gonna be so smart to pick the one night you can be sure nobody’s there?”
It was a good question.
“YOU DIDN’T GET IT? What the fuck is wrong wit’ you, Easy?” Mouse asked.
It wasn’t really Mouse but just a specter in my mind. Lately, whenever I was disturbed or distressed, I’d start telling the story to the air and from somewhere in my mind I’d imagine my dead friend’s opinions.
“No,” I said in the empty car. “No. I haven’t set things straight with Bonnie yet.”
“Lemme get this straight, Ease. She had her hand down in your pants, had a hold’a yo’ dick, and you still pushed her off?”
“Yeah,” I said on a heavy sigh.
And there was no reply. It was new ground for Mouse and me. What could he say? There was no experience he’d ever had with a friend who would have said such a thing.
I PULLED UP INTO THE DRIVEWAY at about eleven. The lights were on. Bonnie was sitting in the reclining chair reading and waiting for me. Her recreational reading was mostly in French. I’d always felt that it was a barrier between us, like her French-speaking African prince.
She put the book down when I came in.
For a while after I found out about her holiday she tried to act normal. She’d smile at me when I came through the door and kiss me the way she always had. But after a few weeks of me being cold and turning away she stopped pretending.
“Easy.”
That’s all she said, just one word, and I wanted to put my fist through the wall.
“Hey, baby,” I said instead. “What you readin’?”
That threw her off guard. She was about to say something else but those words never came out.
“A book,” she said. “Nothing. It’s about a young girl in love with a man who doesn’t even know that she’s alive.”
I pulled a wooden chair up next to the recliner and sat down.
“Just because somebody loves someone else that don’t mean she got to love him back,” I said. I was hoping for better words to come out; words like she’d been reading in that novel.
Bonnie wanted to say something but all she could do was reach out and touch my cheek.
“I was mad at you,” I said. “I wanted to take my love away from you ’cause I thought that’s what you did to me. And maybe it is. Maybe you love somebody who don’t know it. But all I know is that you’re here with me, inside me. And so I wanna say that you can go off now or tomorrow or next month. You can go have that life you read about and I will let you go. And…” I was talking from a place inside me that I didn’t even know was there; saying words that had been worked out in a part of my mind that I was unaware of. “…and you can leave knowin’ that I love you. It doesn’t matter that you love him or don’t love me. It doesn’t matter what you did or wanted to do. I’m not mad at you anymore. And the good feeling from my lovin’ you is stronger than the pain of seein’ you do what you got to do.”
As soon as those words were out I felt like a fool. My ears got hot and I expected Bonnie to laugh in my face. But she didn’t laugh. Her hand fell down against my chest and pressed. Whether it was a caress or pushing me away, I didn’t know.
“You wanna come to bed, baby?” she whispered.
“Not tonight,” I said. “I got things to think about.”
“What Mr. Lynx wanted you to help him with?”
“Yeah. Tryin’ to help his cousin stay outta jail.”
“Okay. But will you come back to bed when this is over?”
“If you still want me.”
Bonnie’s eyebrows furrowed and her hand moved away. She kissed me on the cheek and left without saying another word.
I laid back on the sofa and for the first time since before Mouse had been shot I fell instantly to sleep. It was a place beyond images, way past normal, everyday rest. It was the kind of sleep that you fall into after surviving a high fever or grave illness. It was the healing sleep of infants and wild animals. My dreams, if there were any, were shapeless and feral notions far beyond any small problems of humankind.
When I awoke early the next morning it took a few minutes for me to remember who I was and where. It was a new world and a new life opening up for me. And I was ready to challenge the world.
BUT FIRST I had to go to work.
