Alex, twirling a spatula in her hand.
“I’m gone for the day, Darlene.”
“That’s a first.”
“Get used to it.”
He neared Rafael, using the overhead spray nozzle to power-wash a pot.
“You leave, boss?” said Rafael.
“Yeah. How was your date with that girl?”
Rafael smiled and winked.
“Good boy,” said Alex. He exited through the back door.
Raymond Monroe sat beside Kendall Robertson in her office, the two of them holding hands, talking quietly in the late afternoon. Kendall had drawn the blinds. She had been crying a little but was finished now and held a balled-up tissue in her free hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t apologize. Everyone around here deserves a good cry now and again. Not just the patients.”
“They’re stronger than I am, most times.”
“What did it today?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was with Private Collins again, the one they call Dagwood?”
“The young man thinking about the voluntary amputation.”
“He’s not on the fence anymore. I put in his request yesterday. I was just checking in on him, to see how he was doing with it.”
“And?”
“He’s fine. It was me who got angry, walking out of his room. And then that anger turned into emotion.” Kendall tossed the tissue into the wastebasket by her desk. “I was over on Wisconsin Avenue the other day, in Maryland, walking by a theater. It was the movie with the girl got the machine gun implanted in place of her amputated leg. And you just know young people were gonna be in that theater, watching it, clapping and laughing behind that bullshit. While young men and women are dying, losing arms and legs, and for what? So those well-off kids can put gasoline in the cars that their mommies and daddies bought them? So they can buy their two- hundred-dollar jeans?”
“They were told to do that,” said Monroe. “Take your tax cut and go shopping.”
“They’re supposed to forget that there’s a war. No coffins, no dead. I wasn’t around and neither were you, but didn’t this whole country contribute and sacrifice during World War Two?”
“My father used to talk about that all the time.”
“Used to be ‘Ask what you can do for your country.’ Now it’s ‘Let’s watch Dancing with the Stars. Let’s go to the mall.’ ”
“So if you give up,” said Raymond, “is that gonna make things better for these soldiers?”
“Please. I’m not going any where.”
“You do have fire, Kendall.”
“I need to burn off some of this negative energy.” Her finger traced a circle in his palm. “You coming over tonight? Marcus would like to see you, too.”
“You know I want to. But I got some issues with my brother that I need to keep an eye on. And I want to make sure my mother’s all right.”
“Man who’s fifty years old -”
“I’m forty-nine.”
“Still staying with his mother. I’d say it’s time for that man to reevaluate.”
“I get your point. But see, you of all people… You been talking about taking responsibility, how we all gotta pitch in. When someone sacrifices, the ones who didn’t, well, they need to show support.”
“I know, Ray. You got that thing that you’re carrying. But look, I’m not asking you for vows or a ring. I’m just tired of looking at your overnight bag on my floor. You could have your own dresser, for starters.”
“True.”
“And Marcus needs a man around full-time.”
“You think I fit the bill?”
“Stop playin. Marcus loves you, Ray.”
“I feel the same way. Far as he goes, I was thinking about taking him to a Wizards game. They’re about to make a home stand. Seats gonna be nosebleed, but hey.”
“He gets near that Verizon Center, he’s gonna smile.”
“You could come, too.”
“It’ll take more than a ten-dollar seat and a hot dog to buy me off.”
Monroe squeezed her hand. “Just give me a little time.”
Twenty-one
The President of the historical society had an office in a civic building near antique-and-tea-shop row. The building was in a section of town filled with Victorians on lushly landscaped grounds. Within sight of the civic building sat a six-bedroom house once owned by a man named Nicholson. Thirty-five years earlier, Raymond Monroe, a kid from the all-black neighborhood nearby, had thrown a rock through one of the bedroom windows after being shortchanged by Mr. Nicholson on a lawn-cutting job. The policeman who came to the Monroe house had given him what was known as a Field Investigation and a stern warning, telling the boy’s father, Ernest Monroe, that his son was a “hothead” who would only be given one more chance.
Alex Pappas knew none of this as he sat in the small office of Harry McCoy, the society’s self-appointed archivist. McCoy was a large man with tattooed forearms and a gut; his wire-rimmed glasses lessened, somewhat, his stevedore appearance. He had enthusiastically welcomed Alex into his office, relishing the chance to talk local history. There were framed photographs of businesses, streets, homes, and residents, going back to the turn of the previous century, hung throughout the office. All of the people in the photographs were white. None of the photos, Alex assumed, depicted life in Heathrow Heights.
“You’re talking about Nunzio’s,” said McCoy after Alex had described the market with the wooden porch.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“It’s closed now, of course. Houses were built where it once stood. The man who was running it retired and sold the property, but he would have gone out of business eventually. He couldn’t compete with the Safeway up the road.”
“Do you have his name?”
McCoy had pulled a file and was inspecting its contents on his desk. “That’s what I’m looking for. Here it is.” He glanced over the tops of his glasses. “Salvatore Antonelli. His father, the man who founded the market, was named Nunzio.”
“Is Salvatore alive?”
“I don’t know, but it’s easy enough to find out. I believe they were locals. Unless he passed or moved away, that’s a name that should be in the phone book. You’re welcome to have a look.”
Alex scanned the white pages and wrote down some information on a pad.
“If you need more,” said McCoy, “there’s a man who lives in Heathrow Heights who’s kind of their historical caretaker.”
“I don’t see any pictures in here of that neighborhood.”
“Well, the residents prefer to keep those things in Heathrow. They have an old schoolhouse that turned into a rec center after Brown versus Board of Education. Their photographs are on display there.”
“Do you have that man’s name?”
“Yes. I’ll give you his number, too. He doesn’t mind talking to people about his community. He’s proud of it, as he should be. Nice fellow, this Draper.”
Alex stood as McCoy handed him Rodney Draper’s contact information, retrieved from the Rolodex on his desk.
