city the next morning, figuring the one-eyed bellhop sure noticed he could be none other than “Machine Gun” Kelly, and him driving along Highway 90 into Mississippi, following that road through Waveland and into Bay Saint Louis, where he went to the Star movie house and watched a Barbara Stanwyck picture in the colored balcony. Again getting sad, because Barbara sure had a lot of Kit Kelly in her, wandering out of the black night like a crazy dream and staring out at the Bay under oaks older than time, moss in the cool breeze, getting good and buzzed till his heart stopped hurting. He drove on through Gulfport to Biloxi, a town that he knew just as well as he knew Memphis. He headed to the first pharmacy he saw to buy a bottle of peroxide and a shower cap, a toothbrush and some talcum powder, and five True Detective magazines, before checking into the Avon, that fine old hotel right off the Gulf.
For three days, he rubbed his body with baby oil and poured the peroxide into his hair, wearing purple-tinted sunglasses and drinking gin mixed with pitchers of lemonade that the negros sold to the tourists. No one talked to him, and everything seemed fine as moonshine, as he’d sit in a deck chair, dozing to the sound of the surf, letting his cramped car legs unknot, and waking only as the shadows ran long across the combed beach and the sun got ready to disappear to wherever it went at night. In the evenings, he’d order up steaks and hamburgers to his room, some more gin, and would drink all his sorrows away while reading “How the Sensational Boettcher Kidnapping Was Solved, the Baffling Mystery of the Dead Dancer, the Minister-the Love Lyrics-and the Murdered Woman,” and then coming across an advertisement in the back pages that promised to help you “Read Law at Home and Earn up to $15,000 Annually,” and George said that sure let the snakes loose in his head, thinking, hell, he was earning fifty thousand a year just for knocking over a few banks, and they had to get good and greedy and start in the kidnapping racket, letting the hounds loose on their trail. (This was usually when George would go into that long speech about how he had a different path in Memphis with his first wife-sweet Geneva-and what a good man his father-in-law had been, much better than his own father, that worthless, mean son of a bitch, and that if Mr. Ramsey hadn’t been snuffed out like that, a high beam falling from his own construction site and splitting open his head like a watermelon, old George Barnes-that being George’s real name-would be an upstanding member of Memphis society to this day.)
“And that’s how you came to Memphis, George?”
George shook his head, and said, “Gosh dang it. My own fault, we couldn’t find each other at the Avon.”
He had to pack and move over to the Hotel Avelez, on account of the bellhop studying his profile when he’d stumble down to the front desk to get some fresh towels. He said he’d burned through his Urschel stash in New Orleans and had to dip into those American Express checks he’d boosted in Tupelo.
“You didn’t, George.”
“Sure did.”
“And you didn’t think anyone would notice?”
“Didn’t have a choice.”
“Did you find that woman, that blond lifeguard?”
“Kit, hush up and pay attention to the tale at hand.”
“Coppers found you?”
The Hotel Avelez swimming pool shimmered like a glass gridiron the morning he’d decided to eat some break fast under the oaks and charge it to Mr. J. L. Baker, that being the name he decided sounded best with his tanned skin and yellowing hair. He said he’d grown a little thickheaded, and cocky with his new looks, and decided to drive into the downtown and pick up some shirts and pants he’d left to be laundered. George said he’d also been contemplating wearing a straw boater but sure wished Kit could’ve been with him because he wasn’t sure a dandy little hat like that looked good on a big fella. He said he’d just stepped foot out of his car, looking at some straw hats displayed in a department-store window, when he heard the voice of a corner newsboy yelling with all his might, “ ‘MACHINE GUN’ KELLY IN TOWN!”
George said he nearly shit his drawers.
“What did you do?”
“Left it all.”
“Your luggage?”
“Even my.45 and my True Detective magazines. Wore the same pair of underwear for three days.”
“And that was Memphis?”
“That was Memphis.”
George walked to the bus station and bought a ticket. He said his heart didn’t stop racing until he crossed the Tennessee state line, and then he worried about coppers waiting for him when he stepped foot off that bus. But he said the sight of the old river sure did his heart some good, as did getting out on Union and walking into the Peabody Hotel, where he used to deliver hip flasks and bottles of bootleg bourbon in a raincoat with a dozen pockets. He felt like no time at all had passed and then realized that it had been nearly ten years since he lighted out for Oklahoma, finding more opportunity in Tulsa, and knowing Geneva and his two sons could get on with their lives without the shame of a daddy who sold whiskey.
“You never told me you had sons, George.”
“You never asked for a resume. Geneva’s remarried. They have a new daddy.”
George broke his last dollar into dimes and called on the one fella who he knew he could trust in Memphis, ole Lang. His brother-in-law, Langford Ramsey. He hadn’t seen Lang since Lang was just a skinny teenager starting out at Central. But George still telephoned him every anniversary of his daddy’s death, George usually drunk and telling Lang for the hundredth time how much he respected his father, even taking Ramsey as his middle name out of respect.
“George R. Kelly.”
“That’s right.”
Lang had two listings in the phone book, one his residence on Mignon and the other his law office. George found out that Lang had been the youngest man ever to pass the Tennessee bar, and had just married and had a son, with another child on the way. George had hugged him out of pride at the Memphis train station, and they shook hands over and over, Lang walking with him back over to the Peabody to have a big enough break fast for an army. George had two plates, since he hadn’t eaten since Biloxi, and washed it down with a pot of coffee.
“Did he know?”
“Never even suspected it. I’m just ole George Barnes in Memphis.”
“Big man on Central High School campus.”
“Why do you always have to say it like that, Kit? You don’t know a damn thing about Memphis.”
At the end of break fast, there was an awkward moment where Lang said he had to be getting back to his practice but it sure was great seeing George again. And that’s when George had to tell him he was in a spot of trouble and sure could use a loan. Lang said don’t mention it, taking care of the check and passing him a twenty-dollar bill. “I’m good for it,” George said. “I know,” Lang said.
I could use a place to sleep.
I know a fella who owes me a favor.
George slept for ten days on the ragged red velvet couch of a garage attendant Lang had represented in a property dispute over a family goat farm. Tich was a cripple with a clubfoot that dragged behind him when he walked, thudding through the guts of the house, while George would be trying to sleep, as the morning light shone into the house down off Speedway. For some reason, George couldn’t close his eyes at night and would just stay up drinking and listening to the radio, Tich having a decent RCA, where he found NBC and the adventures of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. George said it was all he could do to wait till that broadcast would come on, and he could shut his eyes, maybe a little drunk, and go to far-out lands, planets, and stars, all way away from this crummy earth.
“Did you miss me?”
“Hell, yes. Why do you think I came back?”
“For the money.”
“The money, hell. I could’ve dug up all of it, and your grandmother wouldn’t have known.”
“She’d woulda known.”
“I came back ’cause I love you, baby.”
