Tishomingo Blues (2002)

  Dennis watched Kirkbride staring at the photo.

  "Are you suing me?"

  "No sir."

  "Then what do you want?"

  "I wondered did you know about it."

  The man seemed to hold back before shaking his head and saying no.

  "The original was a postcard I had blown up to that size," Robert said. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought it. I don't mean to show you any disrespect by it."

  "Well," Kirkbride said, "even though I'm not convinced the man on the bridge is my granddadhe's now deceased-I can understand how you see this and why you came. If it was an ancestor of mine who was . . .

  "Lynched," Robert said.

  "Had met his end this way, I would want to know who might be responsible."

  "I'm putting it behind me now," Robert said, "and I am sorry I bothered you. But you know something ...?

  He paused and Dennis had no idea what he'd say next.

  "When you wanted us to join up, and you said you might have something special for me? What did you have in mind, like carry water?"

  "Oh my no," Kirkbride said, laying the photo on his desk where there were long, thin scars cut into the surface.

  Dennis noticed them, like a rake had been drawn across the surface front to back and varnished over.

  "Nothing menial," Kirkbride said, still protesting.

  "I wondered," Robert said, " 'cause I recall General Forrest had black guys in his escort. You read about that?"

  Now Kirkbride was nodding. "I believe I have, yeah."

  "Called 'em colored fellas," Robert said. "Told a bunch of his slaves, `You boys come to the war with me. We win, I'll set you free. We lose, you're free anyway.' You recall that, Mr. Kirkbride?"

  The man was nodding again, eyes looking off half-closed at the General Forrest print on the wall. "Yeah, I know he had a few slaves in his escort."

  "You recall what General Forrest said after the war?"

  "Lemme think," Kirkbride said.

  "General Forrest said, `These boys stayed with me, and better Confederates did not live.' See, I could go gray," Robert said, "as an African Confederate, or I could go blue. I seem to recall there was two regiments of the U. S. Colored Infantry, the Fifty-fifth and the Fifty-ninth under a Colonel Bouton, at Brice's Cross Roads-the one you're doing the reenactment about. I believe they held a position above Tishomingo Creek, yeah, and later on covered the Union retreat up the Guntown Road. You understand what I'm saying?"

  "Yes, indeed," Kirkbride said, "it was a rout."

  "Nathan 'skeer'd' the Yankees all the way to Memphis, didn't he? That's why I don't want to dress Federal for this one, even though the U. S. Colored Infantry did okay. No, I'm going South this time, wear the gray, only I don't know what as."

  Dennis stepped in saying, "Walter, dye your beard. Sir, you are General Forrest-I mean it. Hire Robert, he knows all about the Civil War and gets to be in Forrest's Escort, with the colored fellas."

  "As a scout," Robert said.

  "He's your scout," Dennis said to Walter. "But you really oughta dye your beard."

  They walked through the front room with its displays and stacks of literature, a map of the Village and color photos of the models on the walls, a Confederate battle flag. Robert said, "I believe he'll do it."

  Dennis wasn't sure. "He said he would, but the man sounds afraid of his wife."

  Outside, going to the car, Robert said, "The man's a fool."

  "He believed you," Dennis said.

  "It's what I'm saying, the man's a fool." Getting in the car Robert said, "Even if it's true what I told him."

  They were out of Southern Living Village, on the highway, before Dennis said, "What do you mean, if it was true?"

  "You heard the story-did you believe it?"

  "No."

  "But that don't mean it isn't true, does it?" "Wait a minute. Was that your great-grandfather hanging from the bridge?"

  Robert said, "Was that his grampa? Was that the HatchieRiver? Was a man lynched in TippahCounty in 1915? Was there a bluesman name Broom Taylor?"

  "Was there?"

  "Take your pick."

  They passed Tunica over there off the highway, heading toward the hotels.

  "You came here," Dennis said, "knowing about the reenactment."

  "Yes, I did."

  "Planning to take part in it. And studied up on the Civil War."

  "I already had. I did look up Brice's Cross Roads."

  "Learned enough to sound like an expert."

  "The key to being a good salesman."

  "What're you selling?"

  "Myself, man, myself."

  "You never mentioned the reenactment before."

  "You never asked was I interested."

  "What's a farb?"

  "Man that isn't hardcore about it. Wears a T-shirt under his polyester uniform, his own shoes, won't cook or eat sowbelly, has candy bars in his knapsack. His haversack if he's Confederate."

  "How do you know all that?"

  "I read."

  "The picture of the lynching-"

  "Man, what is it you want me to tell you?"

  "You only used it to set Kirkbride up."

  "That don't mean it ain't real."

  Dennis paused, but then went ahead. "Already knowing you wanted to get into the reenactment with him."

  "You helped me, didn't you? Telling the man he had to dye his beard? You jumped right in."

  Dennis paused again. He said, "I guess you're not through with him."

  Robert said, "Listen, Dennis?" and turned his head to look at him. "I have to meet some people, so I won't be at your show tonight. I'd like to, but I can't. Okay?"

  Some people.

  "Sure, I understand."

  "You want, I could meet you later on. You can tell me how it went."

  Dennis said, "Come by Vernice's for a toddy. Did I tell you she likes to talk? You might learn something can help you."

  There was a silence, both of them gazing straight ahead at the highway. Now Robert turned his head again to look at Dennis.

  "Trying to figure out what I'm up to, huh?"

  "It isn't any of my business."

  "But you dying to know."

  Chapter 8

  CHARLIE HOKE SAID, "I have to go to Memphis to pick this guy up? I'm not a goddamn limo driver."

  They were in Billy Darwin's outer office. His assistant, Carla, handed Charlie a square of cardboard with MR. MULARONI lettered on it in black Magic Marker. She said, "Hold this up as they come off the flight from Detroit, GermanoMularoni and his wife."

  "Who is he, anyway?"

  "Money," Carla said. "Big-time."

  Charlie had Carla down as the neatest, niftiestlooking dark-haired woman he had ever seen, not even thirty years old.

  "You letter this yourself?"

  Carla raised her smart brown eyes to look over the top of her glasses at him. She said, "Be careful, Charlie."

  At the gate a heavyset guy in his fifties, his face behind a dark, neatly trimmed beard and sunglasses, made eye contact and nodded, once, and Charlie said, "Mr. Mularoni, I'm Charlie Hoke, lemme take that for you," reaching for the black carry-on bag. Mr. Mularoni jerked his thumb over his shoulder and kept walking. So Charlie said to the attractive woman in sunglasses behind him, "Lemme help you there," and was handed a bag that must've had bricks in it. He told Mrs. Mularoni, walking along with her now, he wasn't the limo driver, actually he was the TishomingoLodge's celebrity host. The good-looking maybe thirty-fiveyear-old woman, dark hair, long legs, as slim as a model in a linen coat that reached almost to the floor, said, "That's nice."

  She lit a cigarette in the terminal, waiting for their luggage, and no one told her to put it out.

  Charlie got them and their luggage, four full-size bags, into the black stretch and rode up front with the driver, Carlyle, Charlie half-turned in his seat so he could look at the couple way in the back.

  "So, you're from the MotorCity, huh?"

  T
hey were looking out the tinted windows on opposite sides through their sunglasses at the south end of Memphis.

  "You have casinos up there I understand."

  The wife looked up this time, no expression to speak of on her face. She didn't say anything back.

  "If you happened to attend that World Series up there in '84 you might've seen me pitch. I was with the Detroit Tigers at the time, finishing up my eighteen years in organized baseball."

  This time Mr. Mularoni looked up. He said, "Charlie, leave us the fuck alone, okay?"

  Charlie turned to Carlyle the driver and said, "I think he remembers me. In that Series with the Padres I pitched two and a third innings of the fifth game. Went in and struck out the side. Hit a batter on a nothing-and-two count, so you know it wasn't intentional. .."

  Late afternoon, Dennis was in his bedroom taking a nap, lying on the chenille spread in a pair of shorts, no shirt. Vernice came in in her black pongee bathrobe and her white legs, the dive-caller script in her hands. She said, "Oh, were you sleeping?" Then a change of tone, looking for sympathy with, "I can't learn all this by tonight. I've never been like onstage before." Then getting a pouty look, this big girl. "I don't think I can do it."

  "You read it, Vernice. Just the places that're marked."

  She said, "I don't know..." and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  Dennis said, "Let's see," drew up his knees and swung around to get next to her. He opened the script. "See, only where it's marked. The script is really for a team, three or four divers. It's the only way you can do the comic stuff. One guy, there's too much time between dives. You know? I need you to fill in. Otherwise I don't know. Get a band?"

  Vernice said she wished she could help him and crossed her legs Jesus, coming out of that black material. Hell ... he put his hand on her purewhite thigh, plump but not too, turned his face to hers waiting for him and said, "Do you sing?"

  Vernice said, "No, but I moan a lot when I make love."

  It got the pongee bathrobe open to all of her flesh and that was it. They went about making love in the usual way, quick, but that was all right, they were both in a hurry to have it. She moaned a lot and then screamed.

  Vernice said, catching her breath, "There. You get all that lust out of the way and the next one, that's the fun."

  She left the bedroom and came back with a pack of cigarettes, her lighter and an ashtray, telling Dennis as she got in bed, "I'm an old-fashioned girl at heart with old-fashioned ways. You want one?" And said, "That's right, you don't smoke. No small vices. What's on your shoulder?" Looking at his tattoo.

  "A seahorse."

  "It's cute, looks like a little dragon." She smoked and said, "You like it here?"

  "You mean staying here?"

  "In Tunica."

  "It's up to Billy Darwin."

  "You can always get a casino job."

  "I'm a diver, Vernice."

  "You sure are, honey. You ever been married?"

  "Once, a long time ago."

  "Didn't care for it?"

  "We were too young."

  "You're not one of those fellas says `What do I need to get married for, my neighbor's got a wife,' are you? One of those backdoor fellas thinks he's slick?"

  "I wonder about Charlie," Dennis said. "You two have been together a while."

  "I don't owe Charlienothing," Vernice said, stubbing out her cigarette. She turned to him.

  "Hon, you think you might be ready?"

  Dennis said they could give it a try.

  Charlie came home-they were in the kitchensaying he had to go all the way to Memphis International to pick up these two never said a goddamn word in the limo the whole trip. Germano something, Mularoni-think of macaroni, the way to remember it-and his wife. Looks like a movie star only she's real skinny.

  Vernice, at the table in her terry-cloth robe cinched around her, said, "I 'magine you checked her rack."

  "They were there, but not much to 'em that I could tell. She had a coat on."

  Vernice said, "In this weather?"

  "To be stylish, not to keep her warm, it was real flimsy. She wore these tiny sunglasses and was real tan, or else she was PR or Cuban, I couldn't tell."

  "She look like she's trying to pass?"

  "She's made it if she is. You know, playing ball I saw all kinds of PRs and Dominicans, Cubans, and some you can't tell, you'd swear were white. Didn't even have that nappy hair."

  "What was hers like?"

  "I guess brown, with these light streaks in it. Come down over her shoulders and she'd toss it aside. The guy, Germano, looked like a manager who'd been in the game a while, stocky, losing his hair. Had on like a golf outfit, a jacket with the cuffs turned up."

  "Why would you notice that?" "Checking out his pinky ring." "What kind of stone?"

  "Purplish. He was fooling with it waiting for the luggage. She was smoking."

  "High rollers," Vernice said.

  "From Detroit," Charlie said.

  And Dennis, at the counter making drinks, thought of Robert. He said, "They have casinos up there," and thought of Robert saying you had to have a reason to come to Mississippi.

  As Charlie was saying he didn't get a lot of conversation out of them. "She checked them in and signed the card while he went over to look in the casino. Her name's Anne, but that don't mean nothing. She said at the desk she said she wanted a suite facing east-listen to this-so she could see the diving show."

  Dennis looked around. "She said that?"

  "To the desk clerk, making sure she got the right view."

  "How would she know about it?"

  Charlie said, "You're the world champion, aren't you? Went off the cliffs of Acapulco ... and broke your goddamn nose?"

  It was evening now. Robert came in. Anne closed the door and turned to him, Robert smiling, Robert saying, "Hey, shit, huh?" They slipped their arms around each other, Robert's inside her kimono feeling her bones, Anne's under his silk sweater sliding over bare skin. They began to kiss knowing the fit and the feel, the fooling around with tongues, but cool about it, never getting too near the top. Saving it. Robert said, "You are the best kissin' I've had since I was eleven years old."

  Looking into her sleepy brown bedroom eyes. Shit.

  "Was it a girl?"

  "It was nobody. Eleven's when I felt the need to start kissin'. It wasn't till I was in Young Boys, twelve going on twenty-one, I had any pussy. You in Young Boys you have pussy in your face all the time, big-girl pussy. You ain't had none by the time you thirteen, you homasexual."

  "You think you talk street it turns me on." "Doesn't it?"

  She said, "Come on," and took him by the arm into the sitting room-Robert checking out the bottle of white in the ice bucket, two bottles of red and the basket of popcorn on the table where the lamp was on low-taking him toward the sofa in her kimono, this girl who could stride down a runway to the disco beat and turn you on.

  "Did you see Jerry?"

  "He's playing dice. Winning." "He always wins."

  "Wuz wrong with that?" Robert smiling again. "You ever see that interview with Miles-the man goes, `Then we come to the lowest point in your career, when you were pimping,' and Miles says in his voice, 'Wuz wrong with that?' "

  The door to the balcony was open. Robert steered Anne toward it saying, "Let's see what's happening," looked out at the night, the ladder a gray shape against the sky, the grounds around the tank dark, and said, "Nothing." Somebody was down there, maybe Dennis, but Robert couldn't make him out for sure.

  Anne's hand was under his sweater again moving over his back. "Was he winning big?"

  "Not enough that he'd stop."

  "You think we have time?"

  Across the lawn spotlights came on and Robert said, "There it is," the ladder and tank lit up top to bottom now. He saw Dennis in his red trunks and almost said his name and pointed to him. Instead, he said, "We got time."

  Anne said, "It doesn't look so high."

  " 'Cause we're as h
igh as it is. Get down on the ground and look up, it's high."

  She said, "What if Jerry walks in?"

  "Put the chain on the door."

  "Then he'd know for sure."

  "You're in there taking a nap. I'm out on the balcony watching the show. He won't say nothing, he trusts me."

  She kept staring at him with those eyes, liking the idea.

  "We ever been caught? He trusts me," Robert said, 'cause he needs me to make things happen."

  He kissed her on the cheek and said, "Go on get in the bed."

  She slipped her hand from under his sweater and gave his butt a pat as she walked away, Robert looking out at the tank again.

  He saw lights come on in the pitching cage, Chickasaw Charlie standing there with a young woman-the TV woman, 'cause now a dude with a video camera had come out of the cage and another one carrying a couple of black cases, yeah, the TV woman's soundman. Now all four of them were heading toward the tank.

  Robert looked at his watch. Five of nine, the show in twenty minutes. He walked out on the balcony to stand at the rail and looked down to see a good crowd on the patio having drinks and people straggling out on the lawn and coming out of the trees from the parking lot, some of them carrying their lawn chairs. Chickasaw Charlie was talking to Dennis now in his red trunks, the TV woman and her technicians waiting close by to interview him.

  Anne's voice reached him from the bedroom. "Hey-are we gonna do it or not?"

  Annabanana's Indian love call. It was funny how his mind was always on something else when she called and he always called back, "I'm halfway there, baby."

  Chapter 9

  DENNIS SAID, "I'M STUCK WITH YOU calling the dives again? Tell me you're kidding."

  Charlie shook his head. "She's too nervous, afraid she'll screw up. You don't know Vernice like I do," Charlie said. "She has to do things her own way, how she's always done it. You give her something different, she gets confused." Charlie stepped to one side then saying, "Dennis, say hello to DianeCorrigan-Cochrane, the anchor lady at Channel Five, the Eyes and Ears of the North Delta. Diane, meet the world champion high diver, Dennis Lenahan."