“I guess I missed that part of the Bible.”
He squinted suspiciously. “What are you, Methodist?”
“Yes,” I said. It seemed a lot safer than saying I was, denominationally speaking, nothing.
“You need to get in the Baptist way of churching, son. Ours welcomes newcomers. You take this place, and maybe some Sunday you can come with me n my wife.”
“Maybe so,” I agreed, reminding myself to be in a coma that Sunday. Possibly dead.
Mr. Johnson, meanwhile, had returned to his original scripture.
“You see, Noah got drunk this one time on the Ark, and he was a-layin on his bed, naked as a jaybird. Two of his sons wouldn’t look at him, they just turned the other way and put a blanket over him. I don’t know, it might’ve been a sheet. But Ham—he was the coon of the family—looked on his father in his nakedness, and God cursed him and all his race to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. So there it is. That’s what’s behind it. Genesis, chapter nine. You go on and look it up, Mr. Amberson.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, telling myself that I had to gosomeplace,I couldn’t afford to stay at the Adolphus indefinitely. Telling myself I could live with a little racism, that I wouldn’t melt. Telling myself it was the temper of the times, and it was probably the same just about everywhere. Only I didn’t quite believe it. “I’ll think it over and let you know in a day or two, Mr. Johnson.”
“You don’t want to wait too long, son. This place will go fast. You have a blessed day, now.”
11
The blessed day was another scorcher, and apartment-hunting was thirsty work. After leaving Ray Mack Johnson’s learned company, I felt in need of a beer. I decided to get one on Greenville Avenue. If Mr. Johnson discouraged the neighborhood, I thought I ought to check it out.
He was correct on two counts: the street was integrated (more or less), and it was rough. It was also lively. I parked and strolled, savoring the carny atmosphere. I passed almost two dozen bars, a few second-run movie houses (COME IN IT’S “KOOL” INSIDE, read the banners flapping from the marquees in a hot, oil-smelling Texas wind), and a striptease joint where a streetside barker yelled “Girls, girls, girls, best burley-q in the whole damn world! Best burley-q you’ve everseen! These ladiesshave,if you know what I mean!” I also passed three or four check-cashing-and-quickie-loanstorefronts. Standing bold as brass in front of one—Faith Financial, Where Trust Is Our Watchword—was a chalkboard with THE DAILY LINE printed at the top and FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY at the bottom. Men in straw hats and suspenders (a look only dedicated punters can pull off) were standing around it, discussing the posted odds. Some had racing forms; some had theMorning Newssports section.
For amusement only,I thought.Yeah, right.For a moment I thought of my beachfront shack burning in the night, the flames pulled high into the starry black by the wind off the Gulf. Amusement had its drawbacks, especially when it came to betting.
Music and the smell of beer wafted out of open doorways. I heard Jerry Lee Lewis singing “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” from one juke and Ferlin Husky emoting “Wings of a Dove” from the one next door. I was propositioned by four hookers and a sidewalk vendor who was selling hubcaps, rhinestone-glittery straight razors, and Lone Star State flags embossed with the words DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS. Try translating that one into Latin.
That troubling sense of déjà vu was very strong, that feeling that things were wrong here just as they had been wrong before. Which was crazy—I’d never been on Greenville Avenue in my life—but it was also undeniable, a thing of the heart rather than the head. All at once I decided I didn’t want a beer. And I didn’t want to rent Mr. Johnson’s converted garage, either, no matter how good the air-conditioning was.
I had just passed a watering hole called the Desert Rose, where the Rock-Ola was blasting Muddy Waters. As I turned to start back to where my car was parked, a man came flying out the door. He stumbled and went sprawling on the sidewalk. There was a burst of laughter from the bar’s dark interior. A woman yelled, “And don’t come back, you dickless wonder!” This produced more (and heartier) laughter.
The ejected patron was bleeding from the nose—which was bent severely to one side—and also from a scrape that ran down the left side of his face from temple to jawline. His eyes were hugeand shocked. His untucked shirt flapped almost to his knees as he grabbed a lamppost and pulled himself to his feet. Once on them, he glared around at everything, seeing nothing.
I took a step or two toward him, but before I could get there, one of the women who’d asked me if I’d like a date came swaying up on stiletto heels. Only she wasn’t a woman, not really. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, with large dark eyes and smooth coffee-colored skin. She was smiling, but not in a mean way, and when the man with the bloody face staggered, she took his arm. “Easy, sweetheart,” she said. “You need to settle down before you—”
He raked up the hanging tails of his shirt. The pearl-handled grip of a pistol—much smaller than the one I’d bought at Machen’s Sporting Goods, really not much more than a toy—lay against the pale fat hanging over the beltless waistband of his gabardine slacks. His fly was half-unzipped and I could see boxer shorts with red racing cars on them. I remember that. He pulled the gun, pressed the muzzle against the streetwalker’s midriff, and pulled the trigger. There was a stupid little pop, the sound of a ladyfinger firecracker going off in a tin can, no more than that. The woman screamed and sat down on the sidewalk with her hands laced over her belly.
“Youshotme!” She sounded more outraged than hurt, but blood had begun to spill through her fingers. “Youshotme, you pissant bugger, why did youshootme?”
He took no notice, only yanked open the door of the Desert Rose. I was still standing where I’d been when he shot the pretty young hooker, partly because I was frozen by shock, but mostly because all of this happened in a matter of seconds. Longer than it would take Oswald to kill the President of the United States, maybe, but not much.
“Is this what you want, Linda?” he shouted. “If this is what you want, I’ll give you what you want!”
He put the muzzle of the gun into his ear and pulled the trigger.
12
I folded my handkerchief and pressed it gently over the hole in the young girl’s red dress. I don’t know how badly she was hurt, but she was lively enough to produce a steady stream of colorful phrases she had probably not learned from her mother (on the other hand, who knows). And when one man in the gathering crowd moved a little too close to suit her, she snarled: “Quit lookin up my dress, you nosy bastard. For that you pay.”
“This pore ole sumbitch here is dead as can be,” someone remarked. He was kneeling beside the man who had been thrown out of the Desert Rose. A woman began to shriek.
Approaching sirens: they were shrieking, too. I noticed one of the other ladies who had approached me during my stroll down Greenville Avenue, a redhead in capri pants. I beckoned to her. She touched her chest in awho, me?gesture, and I nodded. Yes, you. “Hold this handkerchief on the wound,” I told her. “Try to stop the bleeding. I’ve got to go.”
She gave me a wise little smile. “Don’t want to hang around for the cops?”
“Not really. I don’t know any of these people. I was just passing by.”
The redhead knelt by the bleeding, cursing girl on the sidewalk, and pressed down on the sodden handkerchief. “Honey,” she said, “aren’t we all.”
