Nick's Trip

  “It’s under control,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Thanks for the advice, Doc, and thanks for the information. You’ve been a big help.”

  TEN

  THURSDAY’S POST WAS light on news but heavy with inserts. I read it that morning as I sat on my convertible couch, a mug of coffee resting on the couch’s arm. My cat sat next to me, her thin body barely touching mine, licking her paws with deliberate, efficient zeal. Occasionally I reached over and scratched around the scarred socket that had once housed her right eye.

  The headline of the Metro section screamed that the homicide numbers had exceeded the previous year’s, with three weeks to spare before New Year’s Day. Arsons and gay bashings were on the increase as well. Several related articles described the “faces behind the victims” of the street crimes that were now spreading “west of Rock Creek Park,” a D.C. code phrase for whites. This from a newspaper that routinely buried the violent deaths of its black readership in the back of the section.

  After my second cup of coffee I laid Dream Syndicate’s Medicine Show on the turntable, cranked up the volume, and cleared the rocker out from the center of my bedroom. I jumped rope for the duration of the album’s first side; for the B-side I did abs and several sets of push-ups. Then I showered, shaved, dressed, and had another cup of java and a cigarette. The cat slid out the door with me as I left the apartment. I tapped her head slightly before she scampered away into the depths of the backyard.

  The platform of the Takoma Metro was empty at midmorning. I caught a Red Line car and grabbed an early copy of City Paper that had been left beneath my seat. By the time I had finished the weekly’s arts reviews, I was ready to transfer to the Orange Line at Metro Center. Six stops east I exited at Eastern Market and headed down Eighth to the Spot.

  Darnell was standing by the door, waiting as I arrived, his hands deep in the pockets of his brown car coat. Next to Darnell was the tiny man-child Ramon, smiling his gold-toothed smile. Ramon had on a pair of Acme boots and wore a cheap cowboy hat with a red feather in the brim. Though there weren’t many Western types left in D.C. (the garb was still mildly popular with Latins), there had been a short craze of it in the gay community centered around the 1980 release of Urban Cowboy. At that time it was nearly impossible to walk around the P Street area without witnessing a sea of cowboy hats. My friend Johnny McGinnes, never accused of being too sensitive, had dubbed the headwear “homo helmets.”

  “Gentlemen,” I said as I pulled the keys from my pockets and put the correct one to the lock.

  “Same shit,” Darnell said. “Different day.”

  THE LUNCH HOUR WAS over, and pensive drinking had begun. A fiddle screeched, and Dwight Yoakam sang, “It won’t hurt when I fall from this barstool….” Happy stared straight ahead, his hand gripping a rocks glass filled with Mattingly and Moore. At the sports corner of the bar, Buddy and Bubba were splitting a pitcher, while a pompadoured guy from Bladensburg named Richard blew smoke in Buddy’s tight-jawed face and loudly insisted, “I’ll bet you a goddamned C-note, goddamn it, that Tampa Bay did too make it to the fuckin’ play-offs!” Melvin Jeffers’s eyes were closed as he sat alone at the other end of the bar, mouthing the words along with Dwight Yoakam. I sipped a ginger ale and chewed ice from the glass.

  Dan Boyle entered the Spot at three o’clock, had a seat at the bar, and exhaled slowly. His eyes, like a bashful old hound dog’s, slid up the call rack to the Jackie D. I put a mug of draught in front of him and poured two fingers of the mash into a shot glass, placing the glass on a damp Bushmill’s coaster. Boyle shut his eyes and drained the shot, then chased it with some beer.

  “How’s it goin, Boyle?”

  “Bad Day at Black Rock.”

  “Ernest Borgnine,” I said. “And Lee Marvin.”

  “I’m not kidding, man. Been over at Edgewood Terrace all day, in Northeast. Twelve-year-old kid got blown away over a pair of Nikes. Shotgun load to the chest. You could drive a truck through the fuckin’ hole. And the look on the kid’s face by the time we got to him—twelve years old. I seen a lot of death, man. I seen too much death.” Boyle rubbed his face with one large hand while I free-poured another shot. This one he sipped.

  “You got a kid about twelve, don’t you, Boyle?”

  “A girl,” he said. “It never gets any better, to see a kid get it, no matter who it is.”

  “Even when it’s just a spade, right?”

  Boyle had some more whiskey and some beer behind that, then focused his pale eyes on mine. “Don’t be so fuckin’ selfrighteous, hombre.” He was right, and I let him give it to me. I looked down at the bar until his voice softened. “Anything happening on the Henry deal?”

  “Something will shake out.”

  “You let me know when it does,” he said.

  “Bet on it, Boyle. I will.”

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER ONLY Happy remained at the bar. A Chesterfield burned down in his right hand as he slept. For a while I watched it burn, then lost interest. Shirley Horn was smoothly pouring from the house speakers. Drinking music. I began to eyeball the Grand-Dad on the call rack and was contemplating a short one when the phone rang. I stubbed out my own smoke and picked up the receiver.

  “The Spot.”

  “Nicky, that you?”

  “Billy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s hard to make you out, man.”

  “I’m on the car phone, on Two-ninety-five.”

  “What’s up?”

  “What’s up with you? Anything on April?”

  “Nothing,” I admitted, then waited for his reaction. Hearing only static, I continued. “I was thinking of heading down to southern Maryland on Saturday. Talk to her family, see if she’s been through.”

  “Want some company?”

  “I’m a big boy.”

  “Sure you are,” he said. “A big city boy—you’ll be a fish on dry dock in that part of the country.” Billy paused. “Me and April spent a lot of time together down there, Nick. And I’ve got a key to the trailer on her property. We can stay there tonight.”

  I thought about that. “I’ve got to make arrangements to have Mai take my shifts tomorrow. And I’ve got to go home, to feed the cat.”

  “Fuck the cat,” Billy said with annoyance. “Listen, I’ll pick you up in an hour, hear? I’ve got another sales call, then I’ll swing by. We can go by my house first—there’s something I want you to hear.”

  “I need warm clothes.”

  “You can wear some of mine.”

  “The ones with guys playing polo on them?”

  “Turn ’em inside out, wise guy.”

  “All right, Billy. See you then,” I said just before the click.

  I glanced over at Happy to make sure there was still some paper left on his smoke. I dialed the number of my landlord and let it ring several times. No answer. Then I dialed Jackie’s work number and made it through an army of secretaries before I got her on the line.

  “What’s going on, Nick?”

  “Just checking in,” I said. “Trying to picture you right now. What do you, got your wing tips up on the desk, leaning back in your chair?”

  “Yeah, it’s just a white-collar picnic around here. Come on, Nicky, I’m really busy. What’s up?”

  “I got a clean bill of health, Jackie. So I just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten our date Sunday night.”

  “Somehow I didn’t think you would,” she said.

  “What time?”

  “Make it seven,” she said.

  “Okay. And Jackie—wear something provocative.” I heard her groan. “Anything you want me to wear?” I added cheerfully.

  “Not particularly,” she said. “But there is something I don’t want you to wear.”

  “What would that be?”

  “That silly little grin,” she said, “that you’re wearing on your face right now.”

  “Right,” I said. “
Seven it is.”

  I hung up the receiver, walked over to Happy, dislodged the butt from his callused hand, and crushed it in the ashtray. It woke him up, or at least a half of him. One of his eyes opened and he looked into mine and mumbled something brusquely, something I couldn’t make out.

  “What?” I said.

  “Gimme a fuckin’ manhattan,” he said. “That’s what.”

  * * *

  BILLY GOODRICH WAS THE picture of Young Turk affluence, D.C. style. In the driver’s seat of his white Maxima, with his somber, subtly plaided Britches suit, suspenders, thinly striped shirt with spread collar, maroon-and-gold retro tie, and forty-dollar haircut, he oozed mindless ambition. Billy threw a glance in the direction of the passenger seat, where I was tapping the side of my index finger against the window.

  “April called,” he said, “and left a message on my machine.”

  “When?”

  “Today. I called home for my messages and there it was.”

  I spread my hands. “Well?”

  Billy said, “You’ll hear it. We’re almost there.”

  We had turned off 29 onto 214, a winding, gently rising road between the towns of Scaggsville and Highland. Only twenty minutes north of the District line over the Patuxent and into Howard County, the area was a mix of farmland broken by the creeping beginnings of development. Livestock dotted the landscape patched with last week’s snowstorm as the sun burned down in the west. I lowered the passenger visor and sat back.

  About a mile past a small shopping center that housed a pizza parlor and video rental store, Billy hung a right onto a gravelly two-lane road. He eased into a circular driveway and cut the engine. The sun had dropped now, leaving his house, a long rambler of brick and stone, in shadow.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “I stole it,” Billy said. “Come on.”

  We walked to his door, behind which we heard three deep barks and then some impatient crying from what sounded to be a large breed of dog. Billy turned the locks and a brown-eyed shepherd-Lab mix with a yellow coat appeared, her tail wagging slowly. She licked Billy’s glove and smelled mine, and we entered the house.

  I followed Billy through a marbled foyer and past a living room elegantly but rather self-consciously appointed in Louis Quatorze furniture. The dog walked clumsily beside me, bumping my leg and looking up at me as she did it. We reached a kitchen done in white custom cabinetry with white appliances and a white Corian countertop ending in the shape of a modified mushroom cap.

  “Take your coat off and have a seat,” Billy said. “Want a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  Billy pulled on the weighted door of the built-in refrigerator and withdrew a bottle of Sam Adams. He removed the cap with an opener and handed me the bottle. I had a pull of the cool, sweet lager and then another.

  Billy said, “Listen.” He went to a small oak table with scrolled feet, on which rested an answering machine, telephone, large notepad, and a Ball jar of pencils and pens. He pushed the bar on the answering machine.

  A female voice began to speak on the tape. It was a calm voice, the words spoken plainly and without anxiety, with the upward inflection at the end of each sentence that is the vocal trademark of the mid-Atlantic South.

  “Hello, Bill…. It’s me, baby. You got my note I guess…. I guess the note kinda said it all. But I wanted to tell you, ’cause I figure you’d want to know… I figured you’d want to know that I’m all right, Bill. I went to see Tommy one last time and then I left, and now I’m… away. But I wanted you to know that I’m okay. Take care of Maybelle, baby, that’s all I’m going to ask…. I’m not scared, Bill…. Take care.”

  Billy stopped the tape and hit the rewind. I stared at him as I listened to the whir of the machine.

  “That her?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “She sound all right?”

  “She sounded real calm, buddy. Real calm.”

  “Who’s Maybelle?”

  Billy chin-nodded the Lab and said, “Her dog.”

  “And Tommy?”

  “An old friend. An old boyfriend, I should say. In southern Maryland.”

  “Then we’re headed in the right direction.”

  “I’d say so,” he said unemotionally.

  “You gonna play this for the cops?”

  “Should I?”

  “Don’t erase it,” I said. “But I don’t think you need to bring them in again, not yet.”

  Billy nodded. “Relax while I get some things together. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  When he was gone I walked to the kitchen’s bay window and looked out into the dusk that was rapidly turning to darkness. Maybelle stayed with me and smelled the leg of my jeans. “That’s my cat you’re smelling, girl.” I scratched behind her ears and rubbed the bridge of her snout. She licked my hand furiously, cementing our friendship.

  Walking to the phone, I dialed my landlord. Still no answer. I finished my beer and tossed the bottle into a wastebasket that I found under the white porcelain sink. I drew another Sam Adams from the Sub-Zero and moved a chair to the bay window, where I drank it facing out into the night. Maybelle lay at my feet, breathing slowly.

  Fifteen minutes later Billy emerged from the shadows of the hall and dropped a duffel bag at my feet. “Road trip,” he said, smiling. “Like the old days, Greek.”

  “Right.” I found a black cotton turtleneck and navy shakerknit sweater in the bag and put them on. Billy handed me a blue Hollofil jacket. I zipped that up over the sweater and transferred my smokes from my overcoat to the jacket pocket. I patted the pocket. “What about Maybelle?”

  “My neighbors can walk her tomorrow.”

  “Let’s bring her.”

  “She’ll be a pain in the ass.”

  “She’s April’s. Let’s bring her.”

  The mutt’s tail was already wagging. Billy shrugged and the dog woofed and trotted to the front door of the house. We followed and Billy locked the door behind him. Out in the driveway we walked to the car, where Maybelle waited patiently for Billy to release the front seat of the Maxima. Maybelle leaped into the backseat as I entered the passenger side.

  “Thirsty?” Billy asked as he ignitioned the car.

  “I could stand it.”

  “We’ll stop in the old neighborhood on the way out,” he said, a trace of boyish mischief peeking through his smile. “For a short one.”

  Billy tapped on the brights as we pulled out onto the gravelly road. In the vanity mirror of the visor I saw Maybelle staring out into the blackness. Her breath formed crystal gray spiders on the tinted glass.

  ELEVEN

  AT 29 WE stopped at a deli for a six of Bud cans and drank two of those on our way into Silver Spring. Billy talked about the soft real estate market the whole way in, shaking his head solemnly between swigs of beer. He was wearing jeans and oilskin Timberland boots and a logoed, royal blue jacket over a heavy wool shirt. We kept the radio off, the low, steady hum of the engine the only sound around our silences.

  Billy parked in Wheaton and cut the engine in front of Captain Wright’s, near the intersection of Georgia and University. Captain Wright’s had stood stubbornly at that corner through twenty years of modernization, and though it was in the geographical domain of the now-closed Northwood High, it had always been the hangout for students and “alumni” of Blair. Blair boys liked to think that their Territorial Wrights (as they called them) had evolved from the fact that the place was just too tough for Northwood boys, but in truth many of the bars in that part of the county, from Silver Spring to Aspen Hill, were roughly alike. It was a headbanger’s bar, with the stale, vinegary smell of cheap liquor oiled into every wooden crack. A suburban boy on his way to a rotten liver could maybe get laid here, and if not, he could always skin his knuckles. The sign outside read CAPTAIN WRIGHT’S, but every teenager who gunned his glass-pack Firebird or muscle car Malibu up Georgia and University in the seventies had called this place, with some misplaced deg
ree of affection, “Captain Fights.”

  I patted Maybelle on the head and cracked a window for her before we headed into Wright’s. Over the door a plastic marquee announced that the Jailbaiter Boyz (from Frederick, no doubt, in that all the boogie/glam-metal outfits from that part of the state substituted their s’s with z’s) were the headliners that evening. We pushed on a thick door and left fresh air behind for stale as we entered.

  The Jailbaiter Boyz, pale and strangers to exercise, were in midset, pounding out their deafening rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama.” A confederate flag hung over the empty dance floor, surrounded by unaligned four-tops filled with flanneled and T-shirted young men drinking long-necked Buds and Lights. Few heads were moving to the music. We caught the perfunctory hard stares from the most insecure members of each group as we passed and made our way through the maze of tables to the dart room.

  In the dart room several groups were in play. Some of the male players had their sleeves rolled up past their biceps and all had Marlboro hardpacks in their breast pockets. I recognized one woman as a high school acquaintance, her features heavy now and swollen from drink. She had been part of a group of wild ones who rode around in a lavender Gremlin on weekends, a car that Blair’s males had collectively dubbed the Meatwagon. I had made out with her one night in someone’s dark basement while Billy had had his way with one of her friends in the side room. I nodded to her, but she didn’t know me, and I walked on.

  In the back room Billy and I stepped up and leaned on the bar. A wiry ex-wrestler from Blair named Jimmy Flynn was tending, where he had been since graduation. Flynn had always managed to make weight and go to the mat in the one-twenty-nine class; there wasn’t much more of him now. He nodded and said, “I see you two jokers are still hanging out together.”

  Billy said, “And you’re still pushing beer.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give us two Buds, then.”

  “I’ll have a bourbon with mine, Jimmy,” I said.

  “What’ll it be?”