“No,” I lie.
She shakes her head. “I told you you didn’t know him. If you did, you’d know the exact darkness I’m talking about. That’s how I knew Jamari wasn’t gonna walk out of our backyard alive when he came here to talk to Pup. I knew when Pup’s eyes turned that nasty coal-black color I’d never hear Jamari’s voice again.”
“Wha…what? What do you mean you wouldn’t hear it again?”
Her eyebrows curl into themselves. “How the fuck I’mma hear a dead man’s voice?”
“Dead? No…Rich said he talked to Jamari and…and Jamari left. He left you alone and went back to be with his family in Dallas.”
Her head flies back and her eyes widen as if something crawled inside her and took over her body. “Jamari took his last breath in that backyard. So it must be his ghost you talking about up in Dallas.”
My throat constricts, squeezing Rich’s words and holding them so tight that the only thing that comes out is a quiet choke.
She takes a step closer to me, and I take one back. “So that’s how Pup puts you to sleep at night, huh? With fairytales and lies?”
“I…” I shake my head, looking down. “He told me he would never do that. He told me he would never ki…”
The rest of the word drifts off.
I can’t say it again.
I’m back to square one.
She scoffs. “I told you he made up some pretend man for you to fall for, but your naive ass just won’t fuckin listen.”
All the words that fell out of Rich’s mouth replay in my mind—all the ones that felt too good even when he was describing something bad. Somewhere in that clusterfuck in my stomach, there’s empathy floating around for Arnez…and maybe Jamari, but it can’t poke its head out because panic is too busy pulling it back in.
“You think I’m lying?” she asks.
My mouth falls open.
“Go ask Faye. Go ask your uncle. Why you think he won’t even put boxing gloves on Pup or let him spar with anybody at Worthing? Everybody around here knows what Pup did to Jamari. Everybody. It’s the loudest secret around here. You wanna know who the real wolf in sheep’s clothing is? It’s him. It’syourman.”
She points past me. “Go ask him about it. Ask him why it’s so fuckin hard for him to just walk away from this life if he wantsto be with you so bad. Ask him why Faye been running up and down 288 to the Barnes’ ranch. Ask him!”
“288?” I frown. “She said she had a client in Manvel.”
“Ain’t no damn Manvel client! She’s a liar, just like he is! She sits her lying ass up under my daddy every week. Why you think she offered to clean this house? Huh? Look around! Ain’t nothing here to clean! Pup’s a neat freak! It’s just her alibi for Kenny while she runs around doing shit for Daddy and Rich knows it!”
All the dots connect in my head with every revelation she spews—all the strange things I noticed when I first came home aren’t so strange anymore.
She chuckles. “Oh, you didn’t know those two can be thick as thieves? It’s always been like that with Pup and Faye.”
Her words bolt out in a painful shrill, as if she’s been holding on to them for a little too long. They pierce that air of mystery around Rich that just keeps coming back no matter how many times I think I’ve popped it for good. This time it shrivels into a pathetic heap and falls between me and Arnez with Rich’s truth leaking out of it.
Now I have the answers to the questions he always avoided, but deep down, I think I already knew them.
He’s a boy from the Bottoms just like Zaire and the rest were—a bayou boy.
A fighter.
A dog that used to be a runt.
A man who never had anybody who belonged to him before I came along.
And now Arnez says he’s a murderer just like Tony was.
“I want you to ask him why we owe Melo Barnes money every week,” she says.
